#I'm not trying to be elitist or anything

[quinloki]

Playing an OLD OLD game (my favoritest game ever) for a little distraction.

And hey, in this game - that I doubt anyone who follows me has ever even heard of because gods alive it was a niche hit back in 1992 ffs - you can rename the hero and the heroine.

So >.>

Possible AU idea to be had too. Not that I NEED another WIP - or even a full on AU either XD

[alllgator-blood]

I’m not sure if you knew this already, but there’s a Cotl metal album now! So far, the Lamb’s and Leshy’s songs have been released! :D

I'M SO HYPED TBH I thankfully heard about this the night they announced it. The first thing I did was text my metalhead dad who played unholy alliance with me, and he was like "👍🏽 🤘🏽" which is basically the highest praise tbh

I was *HOPING* each character would get a different genre of song, but I think realistically they're gonna do that modern radio metal genre for all of them? I saw one of the animals as leaders dudes was on the project and was mentally punching drywall thinking about how cool it'd be to get a long ass shamura prog metal song.....FUCk. I'm like a mastodon/deftones/kgatlw diehard so while this album isn't what I'd normally listen to, I'm like inhumanly excited to hear the full thing in a few days. Here is what I think the bishops' favorite metal genres would be (sham's is prog, narinder's is nu metal, heket's is sludge/stoner, and leshy's is black metal. kallamar hates distortion guitar)

leshy is specifically watching this video btw

[thegoodcultist]

I'm thinking about how people act towards artists selling their work and cheap mass production really has warped a lot of peoples views on craftmans ship, huh? It takes a lot of effort to make things, even if the end product is seen as medicore, it's still worth the cost. Afterall art is a luxary. Lot's of luxaries are now made commonplace and seen as expected. Just because someones handcrafted art is a little rough doesn't make it unwanted or of low value. Just because you can get something that 'does the job' from a supermarkets home section doesn't mean that the artist selling their handcrafted work that took them time, heart and tons energy for god forbid over £100 is overconfident greedy.

[emptyjunior]

Can I say how much I love how Ouran High School handles the rich boy/poor girl in love trope. 

Like I absolutely believe it’s discussions about classism and elitism to this Day still hold up! 

I will admit there is so much weird stuff in ouran😭, but we see the Handsome ‘Unlimited Money’ Male Lead a LOT in anime and I feel ouran gets a lot of points of the characterisation SO right, that a lot of other shows just don’t! 

Ouran does the whole love story/harem/all the boys want brown hair girl that we project on, trope. Like they do that, but they show that at the foundation, the root of all of it, those rich boys are JEALOUS. They aren’t approaching Haruhi with the need to protect and own her, at their core the rich are envious of her! Even though they have everything, they want what she has! 

Like we see in the real world with how the rich cosplay as poor! And say "ohhhh I'm so broke please venmo me for lunch" and wear their ripped jeans and strained sweaters and take pictures at the met gala with a box of McDonalds fries in their hand. 

The classist comments made towards Haruhi ARE comedic relief, but the joke isn’t on characters like Haruhi, the joke is on THEM. 

They are the ones who can’t do anything! They are the ones who are stilted and emotionally closed off! They are the ones who can’t make an instant coffee or go to a mall without help! 

THAT is why Haruhi is the center of this harem, why she is the one they’re chasing. They are jealous of her insight and world experience from living independently, from living a REAL life. That is her enviable trait. Haruhi GETS people! And they don’t. Their wealth has isolated them and now there is a barrier between these characters and the rest of the world and they have no idea how to navigate it. 

And this is the foundation of 90% of the problems/conflict in the show! 

The holiday ep when Hikaru has feelings because Haruhi reconnects with Nice Guy Arai? Hikaru says he doesn’t like this guy for all these reasons and most of them are like ‘he’s just some nobody from nothing who only knows Haruhi cause they went to some stupid public school together’. Like okay? Haruhi has all of those ‘bad traits’ as well but you still seem to like her?  

Because it’s not about that, it’s never about that, it’s not even about the love rival/romance angle (at least not completely).  

Hikaru is scared and embarrassed! He already was when they got there, when these rich boys crashed Haruhi’s summer to find out she is an employee here and she is working with her own two hands. This is not a break for her! And then he’s so worried when Haruhi and Arai find each other because what they have is so untouchable to him. Same background, same class, they can meet each other’s needs! And know the other's needs! And this is a chasm that Hikaru has no idea how to cross so he starts lashing out. 

And that episode concludes with Hikaru being told about Haruhi’s fear of thunderstorms, finally actually listening and empathizing with what that means, and then going to her and giving her the stuff she needs to deal with that problem (blanket, headphones, support, protection etc.). 

He has to LEARN that none of those poor people inherently know all this secret knowledge! They just care and ask each other stuff! You can ask Haruhi what she's afraid of and then help her with that! It was always this simple! Just because you’re not the same class as her and knowing her isn’t as easy as it is with people the same as you, doesn’t mean you’ll never know! Learn! Listen! Keep trying! 

Ouran shows their rich characters being hurt by their wealth. Their elitists mindset does NOT benefit them and they’re only narratively rewarded when they break out of it, THAT’S why the arcs are so good. 

(And also while we’re here, I LOVE when they do eps that show Tamaki’s character is actually a parallel of Haruhi’s. Tamaki grew up as an illegitimate child, hidden away in France with his mother. He knows what it is to not be at the top of the food chain, and he learns the skills to keep living! Tamaki is a survivor in a world run by a man who was ashamed of him and did not want him. That can destroy a child, but Tamaki doesn’t let it. He learns how to work people and he learns that belief in yourself is the most powerful asset someone can have. And this is the life experience he imparts onto Kyoya and this SAVES Kyoya, who was barreling towards a black pit of despair and chasing his father’s shadow. The ‘poor’ characters of this show have power that the rich people desperately desire, and in the end they learn that it’s not something you take it’s something you build for yourself.) 

[enlitment]

I don't want to sound like an apologist for anything but I feel like it should be acknowledged that the question of morality in different periods of history is complex and not easy to answer.

If you do say things like 'marrying an underaged person was totally okay back in the 1700s so what they did was totally fine actually' it definitely does ring alarm bells (as it should!)

That is not the exactly the same thing as saying 'considering the historical context of the era this person lived in, their behaviour would have likely not been considered too far out of the ordinary'. And I believe you can probably replace this with people's views of slavery or domestic violence and get to a pretty similar thing.

Is it dark and depressing? Sure. It's also, to the best of my knowledge, often fairly accurate.

I mean, I would have to do an actual research on this particular question to make any more definite statements. But just look at Ancient Greece's societal norms concerning relationships. That is definitely a challenge any historian needs to grapple with, but saying that every other man living at that time was a monster just isn't very useful, and doesn't feel like great academic work either.

Sometimes you would need to take a step back and try to look at these issues with more of a dispassionate curiosity to try and understand them. (As with Ancient Greece - what role did these relationships serve? How did they influence Greek culture? The structure of Greek society? etc.) That doesn't mean you renounce your own sense of right and wrong.

I feel like the best approach would be to acknowledge your modern perspective and clearly mark it in the text (something like 'by our modern standards, this would of course be seen as...' or even focus on writing articles from the perspective of the affected/opressed). But then also write about the way such behaviour would have been viewed in the time it took place. This does not, in my opinion, excuse the behaviour - it just helps to put it in the necessary context.

The bonus of this approach is that it allows the historian to highlight when someone's behaviour is genuinely considered morally reprehensible even by the standards of the time (something like 'even in a misogynistic society, his treatment of women was marked as particularly reprehensible' -> well better than that but it's also midnight, I'm tired and I'm sure you get my point).

There is also the possibility that some behaviour that is considered totally okay today will be seen as completely reprehensible by someone reporting on it hundreds of years from now. Something to keep in mind as a historian.

TL;DR definitely don't want to excuse any problematic behaviour but I think we should treat the question of moral norms in history as the complex and difficult issue it is, rather than jumping to conclusions

(also saying that someone's opinion is automatically unworthy because they haven't taken history classes at a university level just feels kind of elitist. Sure, an understanding of historiography and a critical approach are incredibly important, but it is not impossible to get at least the basic idea just from your own reading. And in any case, it is better to explain it rather than to dismiss the person's opinion altogether.)

[captain-grammar]

it's heartbreaking listening to ben talk about how much he identifies with outsiders, people who are different, people who are othered and don't fit in with who other people think they should be.

it's heartbreaking to hear him talk about how badly his childhood fucked him up. how he has abandonment and trust issues. how he went to therapy because how he was treated as a kid fucked him up so badly, he literally cannot remember huge chunks of his past because his brain, trying to preserve some sense of self, shut down and blocked it out.

but it's empowering and heartening to hear him take institutions like private schools and the armed forces and their ilk to task. to call out the classism and the snobbery and the grown men who bullied and belittled him. they are archaic. they are ridiculous. they are abusive. they are staffed by elitists who train and groom impressionable kids to become the next generation of out-of-touch elitist to keep that "good old boys" club going. molding kids into government drones, yes-men or politicians to keep anyone who wasn't born with a silver spoon in their mouth down.

it's empowering to hear him talk as someone who was forced inside the ivory tower, hated everything it stood for, and is ready to raze it to the ground.

he wasn't made for that. you watch anything he's written and you know he has compassion and feels deeply and has some fucking humanity about him. giving a voice to stories that we never got to hear. i'm glad he walked away from what it seems like every adult in his life was trying to push him into. i'm glad he gets to be himself.

[astrronomemes]

THE SECRET HISTORY: STARTERS

a collection of quotes, phrases, and sayings from the 1992 novel The Secret History by Donna Tartt. change & alter as needed.

"I suppose, at one time in my life, I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell."

"If there's one thing I'm good at, it's lying on my feet. It's a sort of gift I have."

"I am nothing in my soul if not obsessive."

"He can't be all that elitist if he accepted me."

"Well, if he doesn't know, I'm not going to tell him."

"No person, no matter how beloved, can ever truly understand us."

"Bloody, terrible things are sometimes the most beautiful."

"Let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones... then spit us out, reborn."

"I mean to say, [name] is a handsome fellow and a sterling character, but I wouldn't want to marry him, would I?"

"You had better watch out. I've heard some weird shit about those people."

"You're always saying that, [name], but I just don't think it's true."

"[Name], put me down. I'm bleeding all over you."

"You shouldn't push your friends away like that. The best friends you'll ever have are the ones you're making right now."

"I told you, I don't have any friends here."

"I think it's good to change the place where one sleeps from time to time. It gives one more interesting dreams."

"I mean, he's not what you think. Or what [name] thinks, or anybody else. For a while there, he had me fooled but good."

"The appeal to stop being yourself, even for a little while, is very great."

"You're being so nice about this. I feel awfully embarrassed by the whole thing."

"Well, you may or may not know this, but [name] is a little jealous of you."

"Jesus, [name], you know everything. You make me sick."

"They say the same about arsenic, but I wouldn't like to try it."

"Anything I do will be dangerous, you know."

"What do you and [name] need a secret code for?"

"A person can do an awful lot of talking in twelve hours."

"If we keep it as casual as possible, no one will give us a second glance. People don't pay attention to ninety percent of what they see."

"Really, there's nothing to worry about. It seems risky, but if you look at it logically, it couldn't be safer."

"Who do you think [name] would be more apt to believe?"

"Forgive me for being blunt, but if you think you have any influence over [name], you're sadly mistaken. He's not particularly fond of you, and if I may speak plainly, he never has been."

"There were some things you had to know, I suppose, but I feel I've done you a disservice by involving you this far."

"What is unthinkable is undoable."

"Anyway, you want to come to this party?"

"You idiot. Did you know your shirt is on inside out?"

"I had a dream tonight. You were in it."

"I need more than coffee."

"I'm embarrassed that people will think we went to see such bad movies."

"He knows we're lying. He just doesn't know what we're lying about."

"I prefer to think of it as a redistribution of matter."

"These guys will chop you up and put you in a garbage bag for twenty bucks."

"You know, we've done a terrible thing."

"You know, I'm really not attracted to you."

"Anything is grand if it's done on a large enough scale."

"You look as if you were in a barroom brawl."

"People get upset, all of a sudden they want to listen to old hippie garbage they would never listen to if they were in their right mind. When my cat died, I had to go out and borrow all these Simon & Garfunkel records."

"By the way, I've been meaning to ask, what did you do to your eye?"

"Murder is pollution. The murderer defiles everyone he comes into contact with. And the only way to purify blood is through blood."

"You amaze me. You think nothing exists if you can't see it."

"He loved you, too. He would have wanted you to know that. You know that, don't you, dear?"

"Do you think I should go to the hospital?"

"I didn't take anything. You know very well I didn't."

"I would've told them anything if I thought they'd send me home."

"I mean, I've been drinking a bit more than I should. I'm the first to admit that."

"I never brought your name up, man. I hardly fucking know you. But they got it from somewhere. And it wasn't from me."

"Look at [name]. Don't you just love him? If he called me up and asked me to marry him, I would do it in, like, one second."

"Is death really so terrible a thing? It seems terrible to you, because you are young, but who is to say he is not better off now than you are? Or — if death is a journey to another place — that you will not see him again?"

"I'm not taking sides. I just think whatever you're doing, you picked a bad time to do it."

"[Name], it's none of my business, but I hope for God's sake you know what you're doing."

"What the hell is wrong with you? Why do you have to make things so hard for everybody?!"

"You don't feel a great deal of emotion for other people, do you?"

"My life, for the most part, has been very stale and colorless. Dead, I mean. The world has always been an empty place to me."

"I know I said earlier that he was perfect, but he wasn't perfect. Far from it — he could be silly and vain and remote and often cruel, and still, we loved him, in spite of, because."

"Flesh and blood are frail and weak, and there comes a time when we have to transcend our teachers."

"I loved him more than my own father. I loved him more than anyone in the world."

"I don't care what happens to him. I don't care if he dies. I wish he was dead."

"[Name] can't hurt you. You're perfectly safe out here."

"Kidnap is not the word that I would use."

"So, you've come to kill me?"

"If you want to shoot me, [name], go ahead and do it. It'll be the stupidest thing you ever did in your life."

"The stupidest thing I ever did in my life was listening to you."

"I managed to get out of taking my French exams next week, due to the very excellent excuse of having a gunshot wound to the stomach."

"Forgive me, for all the things I did, but mostly for the ones I did not."

"You know, everybody is saying that you're dead."

"Are you happy here?"

[shadowtraveled]

would love to know your thoughts on rinsha dunmeshi. or on rin and kabru :-)

OH!! i love rin honestly lightning damage and unaffiliated spellcasters will get me every time.

i would have loved to see more of her, but i do really enjoy kui's style of storytelling where she gives us the information about a character that will tell us exactly what she wants us to know. it reminds me of the way someone described suzanne collins' writing as surgically precise—she has more information about characters and the world, but she included what would get her story across most effectively. kui gives off a similar impression, and i think rin is a good example of that.

sorry readmore because that was getting long already.

rin's backstory is really interesting to me because it helps us to extrapolate so much more about the world and the other characters in it.

for what it's worth, i don't think it's terribly likely that her parents were practicing ancient magic. they were immigrants of a visibly different ethnicity, though, and they were magic users, which othered them doubly in the northern continent, and that otherness cost them their lives. this is sort of a running theme in dungeon meshi overall ofc, but i think a lot of discussion surrounding dungeon meshi discrimination focuses on the elves. which is fair, since they seem to be the most significant world power and they're weird race elitists as elves in fantasy frequently are, but the story does not want us to forget that discrimination is complex and so is otherness. tallmen may not be respected by long-lived races, but in communities where they do have power, they're still perfectly capable of leveraging it against others. they seem to have a particular bias against magic, but really anything people deem weird or creepy is enough to land you in trouble: laios faced constant rejection and, in some cases, severe harassment just for being autistic; kabru's eye color was enough to push his mother to the fringes of society and get her accused of witchcraft, suggesting that "weird or creepy" is regularly conflated with "magic" in tallman societies; and falin's affinity for magic led to her isolation and ostracism as her mother frantically tried to suppress it. rin's parents, meanwhile, were outright executed. the nature of these reactions to anything unfamiliar or non-standard are definitely meant to convey something about tallman societies in the world, but i think rin and kabru's situations specifically lend some explanation as to why falin is so forgiving of her parents. they didn't really know what to do with her, and some of the things they did to her were harmful, but she seems to see them as trying their best to protect her, perhaps because she knows the emergence of her magic could have put her in immediate physical danger but didn't.

with that being said, i'm surprised rin doesn't have more of an aversion to tallmen, but maybe kabru made enough of an impression on her that she developed some hope for them.

her dislike of elves, meanwhile, is entirely understandable—her interactions with them seem to be framed as emblematic of how they treat short-lived races in a way we don't really see with the others. milsiril objectifies short-lived races but does seem to... kind of care, otta fetishizes them but seems to... kind of care, mithrun's squad only get to be patronizing for a bit before it becomes apparent they bit off way more than they could chew, and mithrun isn't invested in these designations anymore. but the elves that found rin treated her like evidence, then like a toy, and then they got bored and ignored her, and then she was evidence again, and then she got adopted out to elves who kept her like they would a pet. miserable fucking experience, and a very thorough and efficient way of expressing just how little the elves are socialized to consider the humanity of the other races.

as for her relationship with kabru... i'm glad they had each other around. it's impossible to be surprised that she latched onto him in her circumstances, and i think it's sweet that she was the one he stuck with (despite the implication that milsiril was raising other children alongside him that he ostensibly would have spent more time with).

i also love how apparent their closeness is! rin gravitates to kabru, and if i'm remembering right, most of the time she speaks it's to him. that immediately established to me that she is uniquely comfortable with him, and interestingly it goes both ways! it's less apparent with kabru, because he's a lot more social than she is, but vitally, he lets the mask slip with her. she's the only character he goes out of his way to tease, and sometimes he takes it a little bit into "alright that was kind of mean" territory, which sucks of him but is kind of the point. kabru's interactions with rin are the earliest ones where we see him fuck up or be a little bit of an asshole, and that's almost certainly because she is a person he feels comfortable enough with to not try to game every conversation. kabru being a little bit of a bitch is the first time we see him not trying to be charismatic. and she gives it RIGHT BACK lmfao it really conveys the feeling that these two are kind of "safe people" for each other, even if they're bantering a little meanly. very charming, top-tier childhood friend dynamic, no notes.

editing to add:

^ YEAH THIS IS IT thank you @gerrykeay i think this really captures the spirit of her revulsion with regard to things like magic school (and its graduates), etc... she seems to think of magic school as this sort of lofty opportunity only people with a certain level of social standing are able to access (which seems to hold a level of truth) and reject it on the basis that something like that is fundamentally incompatible with who she is as a person, and that's probably the same reason she remains unaffiliated despite knowing practicing magic without organization ties is potentially dangerous for her. these systems rejected and failed her family and her, so she rejects them in kind.... god i'm so obsessed with the way practically every character has a main character backstory and motivations this really is like a ttrpg lol

[thefloatingstone]

Not to be like "haha I'm better than you guys!!!" or elitist or anything because that very sincerely is NOT the point of this post.... but I never really understood people extremely love for Harry Potter.

I read them as they were coming out. Most of the time they came out soon enough that I was the same age as Harry. I liked them. They were cool. Goblet of Fire was my favourite and I was always happy to see what story the next book would bring but that's all it was. Interest to see the next story whenever it came out. Like a sitcom you enjoy but you didn't set your tv to record for you in case you missed it.

And then the word "Chosen one" was uttered and, just like that, I fucking lost all interest. Honestly there was "Chosen one" talk in the 4th book and already I was like

Honestly I think I liked Goblet of Fire the most because there was no friggen Quidditch. And there was less focus on the SCHOOL part of Harry Potter and more this weird Video game Quest setup which just appealed to me more.

In retrospect, I think that might be a big part of why I enjoyed it but never LOVED it like other people.

Like

"Oh boy my absolute biggest most favourite fantasy! THE BRITISH EDUCATION SYSTEM!!!!"

The fact that the books take place in a school seemed like a default to me because, well, most teenage focused cartoons and shows I watched had the main characters at school. Because they're teenagers. But the school wasn't why I enjoyed the books. The school was just a location. No I didn't want to go to Hogwarts. No I didn't want to get attached to a specific school house (although I feel it worth mentioning that when I was 13 I did the online house quiz thing on the official site and it said I was Hufflepuff so make of that what you will).

I really disliked whatever the one was that came after Goblet of Fire. So much so that it completely killed any and all enjoyment I had in the series. Which, considering I was only mildly entertained by them wasn't a massive loss or anything.

I know I read whichever book it was where Dumbledore died but I very genuinely cannot remember one single thing that happens in that book whatsoever. I read half of the Deathly Hallows after coming back from College and gave up because I wasn't enjoying any of it and I never picked the book up again.

I saw the first movie in theaters when I was 13 and I did not like it. It was visually very very dark and gloomy and just... extremely uninteresting to me. Idk how to explain it. The first book just felt so much more vibrant than what I was watching on screen.

I know I saw the 2nd movie although I have no memory of where or why. And I... THINK I saw the third one??? I think??? I'm actually not sure. But that's about where I just stopped and completely lost interest.

Because it wasn't very good.

They just weren't very good books.

They weren't TERRIBLE or anything like that but they were just so.... blah. The earlier ones 13 year old me enjoyed the one time I read each of them but I don't think 13 year old me had the best taste considering I also disliked the Princess Bride at this age.

But I was reading other books because I was a kid with ADHD in high school who desperately needed something stimulating to stop myself from going insane. And frankly, there were just far better books out there. Books I actually re-read. Books I borrowed from friends which ere just... so much better and more interesting.

So I just don't understand this insane appeal so many people have for it, even if they have severed that connection due to Jowling Kowling Rowling's bufoonery and showing herself to be a withered old crone with a shrivled heart and mind every time she opens her mouth.

I grew up with these books the same way as a lot of people. I was the exact age to go through the series' highest popularity and I just did not click with them despite reading them.

So seeing so many people my age or a little younger try and do their best to re-analyse and de-tangle what the books actually are and that... maybe.... just maybe.... they might not have been very good?? Maybe?? is very weird to me because I'm just like.

"Yeah they're overrated as hell and not that interesting."

It's a very weird thing to live through because it's like looking into a bizarro version of the world you remember living through... but not like THAT. I remember the Pokemon craze and yes, it was like that. I remember when anime started to become big and yes, it was like that. I remember DBZ airing and yes, it was like that.

But this insanity around Harry Potter while it was releasing?

Yeah I don't remember it being like that at all.

They were just mediocre books I read because I needed something to occupy my attention and eventually they got worse and worse and I just stopped reading them. That's all.

[qqueenofhades]

as a starting history major i wanna ask how do you read/evaluate academic history papers/books? i'm trying to avoid just blindly agreeing with whatever the author is writing because it seems correct. how can you tell what is good scholarship and what is more shaky?

This is a great question for you as a freshman history major to ask (many of my toiling colleagues and I can attest that we wish more of you would!) and shows that you're already taking initiative and investment in your studies and want to be the best prepared you can. So truly -- thank you! Us on the faculty/staff/administrative end of academia can feel as if we are pouring into an empty bucket at times, and it's always gratifying to hear otherwise. We really appreciate it.

As a college freshman and/or underclassman (or so I'm assuming) your first job is learning how to collect basic information from the things you read, collate and cite them accurately, and make them converse intelligently with each other in an entry-level piece of academic writing (such as an essay responding to an assigned prompt). So before you have to worry about understanding complex nuance and granular-level fact-checking, the first step is just getting comfortable with academic forms, styles, and conventions. There's an occasional anti-intellectual strand of thinking that pops up on Tumblr, basically insisting that everyone everywhere should be able to understand everything in fifth-grade words and if not then it's Elitist Gatekeeping, but this is a symptom of TikTok brainrot where people's brains have been literally rewired to only process spoon-fed chunks of incredibly simplistic (and uh, often wrong) information, and literally can't parse anything longer, even if it's written in accessible language. Yes, many academics are not necessarily great writers, but you also have to let go of the mindset that you can speed-read once and understand everything. You will need to slow down, take your time, and make a note of concepts that are confusing or that you want to double-check, words you need to look up, and things that make you say "hmm I should look into that more," whether because you're interested or they seem questionable. I always read academic texts or papers (I prefer hard copy, because I am Fucking Old) with a pen in hand, because if I don't, I often feel like I didn't read it at all.

Basically, this is an interactive process between you and the text, and requires you to develop a different kind of reading mentality than just buzzing through a novel or fanfic for pleasure. You have to expect that it will take time and that if you regularly skive off the readings, you won't be prepared for class, your professors will be annoyed, and you won't be able to write good essays, because you haven't engaged with the material. In your case, it sounds like that will be less of a problem, because you are eager to know how to do it right, but I can tell you from my experience that nothing frustrates us more than students who just won't do the reading (and you know, use ChatGPT to write their essays) because then what are you even DOING here? What do you want to get out of this? Why are you wasting your precious tuition money like this? Yes, you probably have to fill a requirement, but STILL. It's disrespectful to your teacher, who has invested a lot of effort in being here to help you with this and doesn't want you to just quit because it looks hard, and your peers, and to you. So anyway, /Captain Holt voice/ apparently that's a trigger for me. Basically, if you learn nothing else from this ask: please do the reading. Even if it's only to admit you need more help or want to talk about this concept in class or otherwise take advantage of all the structures that are in fact there to help you understand it! Thankee.

Likewise, because you're an underclassman, you have an advantage in that your teacher will select the class readings for you ahead of time. That means you will be receiving things that a professional has already checked, decided are useful and trustworthy, and you don't have to do independent research and vetting yourself (that will come if you decide for some godforsaken reason to pursue graduate and/or doctoral study). So you don't need to spend tons of extra time and effort deciding if the sources given to you in class are reliable on a basic and functional level; your professor has already done the work for you to make sure that they are. Your job is now to read those sources, keep a record of what they say (hence the aforementioned pen or other way to make quick notes) and figure out how to put them together in an essay. For example, if Author A cites Factor A as, say, the main cause of the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and Author B insists that Factor B was in fact more critical, what is your best approach to reconciling that information? You would search in the rest of those texts to see what else they say in support of their position, and you would probably end up with a qualified statement to the effect of, "While Author A argues A, Author B thinks B, representing the lack of consensus and the difficulty in attributing one single cause to an event as complicated as the fall of Rome." (And then because you're smart, you would go on to mention Byzantium and the Eastern Roman Empire and show that you are aware of the further context.) All of which is true! Historians do that all the time! You don't need to select THE RIGHT ANSWER and vigorously discredit all other theories, ever, and we tend to look suspiciously on people who do (cough cough Philippa Langley).

In other words, we are certainly not expecting you as a freshman, and even as a more advanced student, to be able to pick out ONE ANSWER from the material. We just want to see evidence that you have in fact read it, are able to evaluate and place theories side by side and possibly make a judgment as to which one you find more compelling, and also to properly cite where you got that information. We've seen a lot recently about plagiarism and that being the pretext on which Harvard president Claudine Gay was forced to resign (which is a whole other can of worms, but never mind). A lot of professors think that saying "Don't Do Plagiarism" is enough, but then don't explain what it is and the different forms it can take. It's not just a matter of copying verbatim chunks of someone else's work (or you know, ALL OF IT, like certain recently discredited YouTube scumbags) and acting like it's your own. If you are relying substantially on someone else's work, whether in their wording, arguments, conclusions, structure, or anything else, even if you've changed some of the words (yep, still plagiarism!), that needs to be cited appropriately according to the relevant style guide. Direct quotes from anyone need to go in quotation marks or indented blocks and have the author cited immediately afterward. History usually uses Chicago, MLA, or MHRA, and you can find cheat sheets for how to do that online. It's a pretty simple and straightforward style, and your professor will be extra impressed.

If you're expected to do an independent project or a senior research thesis, as some undergraduate history students do, then it will come when you have already had three years of experience in reading, evaluating, and writing historical scholarship, you will probably have a faculty member assigned to you for one-on-one mentoring and personalized feedback sessions, and they will be able to provide suggestions and support for useful sources. So even then, you still don't have to do it entirely on your own. They'll probably also be MORE than happy to debate with you which ones are good and which ones are suspect, because it's all a part of developing your ability to flex that muscle for yourself. (And as noted, faculty members Will Have Strong Opinions.) That likewise doesn't mean you just have to copy whatever they say (at least if you have a good teacher who wants you to think for yourself and not just be a mini-clone of their pet theories), but it means that by the time you reach that stage, you will have been prepared enough to feel confident in taking more steps on your own. I think not enough people realize that studying history (or anything, really) isn't just throwing you out there and being like "tough luck sucker, do it all yourself."

That's why academia is so collaborative, why plenty of historians with doctorates and tenure will still have to say "I don't know, let me get back to you" when someone asks them a question at a conference, and you don't have to fear that if you don't have The One Right Answer, you will be immediately exposed as a fraud and thrown out. History as a discipline is also moving away from the 19th-century German approach that attempted to systematize it as a singular social science with One Right Answer, and to focus more on multiple perspectives and incomplete answers. That's why the goal is not necessarily to know everything (which alas, is impossible), but to make better sense of what we can know and search for ways in which the existing record is flawed and needs to be revised, expanded, or reworked with new perspectives (which have existed all this time, but haven't been privileged by the white male western academy for the obvious reasons). And that work is fun and important! I don't want you to be scared of getting to that point, because someone will be there to support you the whole way and by the time you do, it will make sense to you in a way it probably doesn't right now, just because it's a new skill and like any new skill, it takes a long time to learn and to be able to apply confidently, consistently, and at a high level. And plenty of us who do it as a career still often have to say "I don't know, let me ask Dr. So-and-so who specializes in this," so yeah. It's a process of becoming comfortable with both learning how to answer what we can, and to ask others for help with that, and it never really ends. Which is the fun part. There's so much more to do.

Good luck!

[xueyuverse]

I have this interpretation that the title "Scrap God" is said by the gods in the same way that MDZS cultivators call Wei Wuxian the "Founder of Demonic Cultivation, Wei Ying".

Both Xie Lian and Wei Wuxian don't care about these titles, they use them, and for Xie Lian, it actually references his current profession. He is a scrap collector and therefore it makes sense for him to be recognized as such.

However, for the gods this is a laughing stock. Then it would be as if the bullies at a school wrote on his locker "Dog Xie Lian, Scrap God and Plague God".

This thing about Xie Lian's title isn't that strong in TGCF, I even believe it's something more implicit since, well, everything is a reason to make Xie Lian a laughing stock, and it wasn't created on purpose like the title "Plague God" was, and that's why there's no problem with that title, it's only the gods that are elitist. It's a question of how they use the title rather than the title itself.

And for me, there is a difference between divine title and divinity. Pei Ming is known as the god of love, people pray to him for that too, but... That's not why he ascended. His domain is martial art and that's why he ascended. The same happened to Feng Xin, whose domain is martial art, but people still see him as a fertility god and pray to him for that. And so it is with Xie Lian, his domain is martial art, he just didn't have a territory to protect in the third ascension like the other gods do (Pei Ming is the god of the north, for example) and he already ascended with a title thanks to his secular profession.

That's all my interpretation of the novel, I read it and that's how I felt, so I'm not even going to look for any part of the novel because I don't want to say that I'm right or anything like that, it's just how I felt that the novel spoke to me.

Titles in these universes are important, they make people see you for who they know your title says you are. If you get a Plague God title, people will see you like that.

And both MDZS and TGCF talk about building your own third path, at least trying to make a difference instead of accepting what you are given. Titles are part of the package of what they give you that you must accept by force and are things that shape your life (socially speaking).

Some things are out of your control, be it the titles you receive (whatever it is) or the defeat or even the victory you face, but these things are not you. They are your state, but it's you that matters and you is not defined by them.

[webslingingslasher]

Ur writing? I’m sorry to say but it’s ELITIST TIER😍

Whenever ur free, do you think you could write Nerd!Peter Parker vs sundress season? Lmao since it’s summer, I just know he’d be struggling asf XD

Like it’s not his fault that you look so good that it’s making him hard just watching you walk. All the stupidly pretty dresses you’ve been wearing just fit you so well and then when you hug him, you feel so soft and smell so good. It’s gotten so bad that sometimes when you speak to him, he doesn’t exactly register the sounds and syllables coming out of your mouth because he’s too busy looking at your shoulders and hips…swears that your shape alone will kill him :(

Spoiler: He cracks by the end of the week😭the ©HornyGrip wins.

peter suddenly understands what that 'awhooga' means when he watched cartoons as a kid, because he feels his eyes turned into beating hearts looking at you, his tongue sticking out and drooling.

for the first time since he's been alive he's very thankful for the summer season, eighty degree weather didn't mean anything when he saw you in a sundress. every woman looks better in a sundress, he's always held that opinion, but you were the most attractive woman he's ever seen in his entire life.

shoulders and chest on display, spaghetti straps contrasted your skin. tight around your torso but flowing down from your waist, he felt like he was both parched and drowned looking at you.

hips swaying as you walked, fabric flowing behind you.

he was so god damn glad he made the date, he almost cancelled due to spider-man but chose to stick it out and if he had missed out on this he'd never forgive himself.

sliding into the seat across form him, his eyes couldn't leave your collarbones, on display only for him.

"new dress?"

you brush your hands down your front, "yeah, do you like it?"

"love it." way too quick.

your upper lip raises, "you sure? i feel like it pulls away from my figure."

"no, no. compliments it, babe. i feel like i'm gonna die looking at you."

laughing, "thank you, handsome." his cheeks flush, "would it be offensive to wolf whistle at you right now?"

you push your hand down, like you're trying to silence him.

"easy, tiger. play your cards right and you'll get to see what's under the dress for dessert."

he's never eaten quicker in his life.

[sir-yeehaw-paws]

i keep thinking about ocelot takarazuka i dont really see the influence like he just looks like a middle age guy with masc features manner and fashion so what do you think the artist actually meant? there's nothing feminine about ocelot like how does the "is that a man or woman" thing play in here cause i don't see it. He's not like raiden or raikov. He's just a guy 🧍‍♂️so how does the all female theatre thing apply

Hello Anon! Full, immediate disclosure, this answer is messy and disjointed. I probably don't even answer the question your asking end of the day, but I'll try my best.

I believe this is the post you're wondering about?

As I said in this earlier post I'm not a Japanese speaker, so I have to go on interpretation, and what has been offered by the translations available. I can't help but think there is going to be some sort of nuance missing as a result, but I'll do my best.

To start, I think you and I might have a slightly different view on masculine and feminine-to me the two concepts are pretty interchangeable, but I do understand where you're (probably, I don't know you personally after all) are coming from and that, no, Ocelot doesn't have many traditional 'feminine' characteristics.

You'll note that in the original post, Shinkawa refers to getting inspiration from the idea of 'women in their 40's (the age Ocelot almost is in MGSV)' and 'long, flashing eyelashes'. (My interpretation here is that by this, he means in the way long eyelashes that are considered sexy have an eye-catching flow to them. Sort of like how we can say 'fluttering lashes'. Intended to draw a person's gaze in, and command their presence).

Doing some cursory research tells me that the Takarazuka Revue (because Takarazuka is also a city in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan.) is an all-female musical troupe located within that same city. Started in 1913, by Ichizō Kobayashi.

(I also got distracted by this version that is a performance of Casino Royale, so there's that)

Anyway, ahem.

"Kobayashi believed that it was the ideal spot to open an attraction of some kind that would boost train ticket sales and draw more business to Takarazuka. Since Western song and dance shows were becoming more popular and Kobayashi considered the kabuki theater to be old and elitist."

Throughout the article, there is also this;

"Takarazuka has had a profound influence on the history of anime and manga, especially shōjo manga.[27][28] Osamu Tezuka, a highly influential manga creator, grew up in the town of Takarazuka. His mother knew many of the Takarazuka actresses, and as a child he knew them and watched many of their performances"

I can assume that the performances have a lot of influence on media, and it's not uncommon for MGS to take inspiration. There could be an entire article on the things MGS takes inspiration from, even outside the most obvious like Escape from New York, character model bases, etc.

Cycling back to the original point, (there is also a video that exact post comes from, but I don't have the link on hand, on YouTube *no translations). I think that it's entirely possible Shinkawa took 'loose' inspiration, or a little more. I can see why and how he might've based Ocelot's look on the idea. (Loose shirt, tight pants, scarf open neck). But there is also the element of which Takarazuka is a performance, more than anything.

It's acting. Playing. Something Ocelot does all the time. Half of his time on screen, he's putting on some kind of performance. While this is something he does the least in MGSV, that never fully changes 100%. (And after all, he's also hypnotized for most of the plot). So there's a counter argument to be had that this is one of his greatest performances pre-MGS4. But that's a different post.

Ocelot presents/is masculine. But, he has longer eyelashes, his clothes are a little more 'free' than the standard military garb when he's allowed to choose his own outfit. (Again this is specifically MGSV Ocelot, though there's something to be said about his chosen attire being such a sharp 3 piece later on).

At the end of the day, maybe a way you can look at it is to say that, Shinkawa looked to Takarazuka when designing MGSV Ocelot to give him a sort of 'flow' to his looks. He was attracted to the idea of taking elements from Takarazuka, because Ocelot is a performer, and he sees some possibility for feminine additions in his looks *or* might've thought it more 'fitting' than Kabuki.

But again, I don't know if we see fully masculine and feminine the same way, (and maybe Shinkawa personally associates long eyelashes with sexy women; or women made up to look like men but with longer lashes) I can't know for sure myself. I think you would need a native or very good Japanese speaker to interpret it fully.

If I was to offer you a personal opinion-I can see it. I can see where there's a draw that one might have with the look, and where Shinkawa might've gotten said inspiration. But I am not entirely certain how to put that into words either? My perspective isn't going to be 1-to-1 of yours either.

Maybe someone else can interpret all this better than me, I definitely feel as if I've not done this justice at all. Because at the end of the day, I don't see a hard divide in masculine and feminine in Ocelot, but I think that you, Anon, see him as 100% masculine. But again, I can't speak for you and I am not sure.

[starwarsmum]

Maribat Mix & Match Monster Mash day 3, Oh Bite Me and Wings!

Dick Grayson hated attending galas. Parties, sure, but galas? Where tons of stuffy, elitist snobs looked down on him because he was a circus kid? Yeah, give him patrol any day.

He stood in the hallway outside his room, fiddling with the cape of his costume and playing with the artificial fangs and their adhesive. He had decided to go as a vampire, almost as an inside joke given Bruce’s other moniker.

“Master Dick, I hope that you are going to behave this evening,” Alfred said, preparing for a quiet evening whilst they were at the gala. Dick looked away guiltily, not wanting to promise anything he knew he wasn't going to stick to. After a few moments, Alfred sighed but said nothing more on it.

“So, what do you think of my costume? I wanted to get one that was more Dracula, but they didn't have any in my size,” Dick complained, pouting up at his kind-of grandfather. Alfred told him it looked ‘dashing’ and Dick grinned, pleased. Now that he was seventeen, he was much more invested in looking good to the boys and girls his own age. 

“Ah, good, you're ready to go.” Bruce appeared, wearing a pair of blue overalls and a red shirt. Dick didn't think he even knew who Mario was, but apparently that wasn't going to stop the man. “Come on, my old friend from school has insisted that we be only marginally late.”

“And when do we get to ditch?” Dick asked, thinking about all the different things that would be happening on the streets that night. He grinned at Bruce when he scowled and followed him out to the car a few minutes later.

Arriving at the party, Dick took his earliest chance to split off from Bruce. He didn't want the older man cramping his style when he talked to the people closer to his own age. He strolled around eagerly, but quickly lost his enthusiasm as he spotted very few teenagers. 

“No problem,” he replied, his voice becoming low and unhurried. He hadn't met this girl at one of these parties before so he wanted to make a good first impression. She raised an eyebrow at him, her stutter disappearing as he flashed a flirtatious look at her. “I don't think I've seen you at one of these parties before.”

His shoulders were just beginning to slouch when someone crashed into him. She exclaimed and he automatically put his hands out to steady her. They brushed against something soft and feathery and he took a moment to look over her outfit.

Unlike what he expected, she was wearing a black glittery dress and combat boots. The wings on her back were pure black and felt so real that he had a hard time not running his hands up her back to see where they melded with her skin. When they were both stable, she looked up at him with a stuttered apology and he was looking into a pair of gorgeous blue eyes, framed by black hair. 

“Wow, what next? Do I come here often?” The girl was clearly unimpressed and Dick felt himself flush a little, although his charming grin remained intact. “You need to work on your pickup lines, mister, because I've heard all of them before.”

“All of them?” Dick asked with an eyebrow raised. She gave him a dead eyed stare and he winced. “Right, okay, sure. I can get creative. Would you mind giving me a pinch? Because I have to be dreaming since you're so cute.”

“I'm not sure a pinch would cut it,” the girl said, leaning against the table next to them. Dick tried not to grin too much, but she clearly wasn't too bothered by him trying. “Tell me, do you just try lines on anyone who comes to these things?”

“Why, jealous?” He leaned towards her, noting that her face held mostly amusement with a tinge of exasperation. Whoever tried so many pick up lines on her before must have been a friend, he decided. “You don't need to be, I promise I'm only looking at you right now. So, are your parents bakers? Because you're a cutie pie.”

The girl was clearly struggling not to laugh which gave Dick a warm feeling that spread through his entire body. She lost the battle and a giggle escaped past her lips.

“Okay, look, that's not because it's a good line,” she said once she'd gotten the giggles under control. “I'm only laughing because my parents are bakers and there was no possible way for you to know it.”

“Hey, I'll take it,” Dick said, shrugging even as he grinned widely at her. She shot him a mock glare but still didn't tell him to leave. They stood in silence for a few moments before the girl pushed away from the table.

“I'm Marinette, by the way. And I promised my uncle that I'd do the haunted house, so as interesting as this has been, I'm going to go. Have a fun party,” she said. She started to step away and Dick felt an overwhelming disappointment and darted in front of her instinctively.

“I mean, I haven't done that either, if you'd be okay with company? It looks kind of scary and-”

“Oh, let me guess, you want to be available in case I need someone to cling to?” Marinette snapped back, any trace of amusement gone and a disapproving scowl on her face.

“Oh, hell no, I need someone to make sure I get through without turning into a big mess,” Dick said immediately and her eyebrows shot up in surprise. “And lucky me, you just said you were going in! Take pity on this scaredy cat and go with me?”

“Fine, but only because I have a soft spot for cats,” she said with a smile that told him there was a story behind that. Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Dick grinned at her and followed along behind as she made her way across the room to the haunted house.

“You're not going to hold my hand?” He asked, giving her sad puppy er, kitten eyes. She rolled her eyes but held her hand out to him. It felt like a victory and he intertwined their fingers, feeling giddy when she didn't pull away immediately.

Walking through the haunted house was fun, Dick jumping almost as often as Marinette. They laughed every time one of them was spooked by an animatronic. The owner of the home clearly liked crocodiles because there were sinister and realistic looking fakes throughout.

When they finally reached the last room, it was dark and the soundtrack was ominously silent with the occasional sound of something large swishing, like a reptilian tail. Dick was on high alert as they looked for the exit and spotted another animatronic blocking what he assumed must be it. 

“Wow, that looks so life-like! And the soundtrack is so well done, it almost sounds like the thing is breathing,” Dick said excitedly. When it stopped moving, he assumed it must be motion activated and stepped closer to it. 

He frowned when it didn't move, wondering if it was broken. Marinette didn't step any closer, inspecting something else and he turned back to say something to her as he reached out for it.

When something clamped over his arm, he screamed and tried to jerk it away. There was suddenly a lot of activity around him, Marinette leaping to his side and saying something in a stern voice. He looked down and could just make out the shape of the clearly not animatronic crocodile that was latched onto him.

Dick would love to say that he was calm, cool and impressed Marinette with his chill demeanour, but he would be lying. He was pretty sure he was in hysterics when someone in fairly impressive zombie makeup burst into the room from the exit that was behind the crocodile.

“Fang, mate, let the kid go!” The man sounded almost amused as he took in the situation. He turned back to his companion and Dick would have groaned in mortification that Bruce was witnessing such a total meltdown if he wasn't, well, having a meltdown.

“I have tried to make him let go, Uncle J, but I think he's having too much fun,” Marinette said, looking concerned. “I think I'm going to need to move him physically, can you make sure my friend here doesn't move too much?”

Dick gave another shout as Marinette stuck her fingers into the corners of the crocodile's mouth. But instead of losing said fingers, she continued to scold the creature until it reluctantly released him. The moment its mouth was wide enough, Bruce and the zombie yanked him out of the way.

“Fang, that was a mean thing to do,” Marinette said, sitting with the crocodile's head in her lap, patting it. “I'm sorry, he's very playful and when you screamed he thought you were playing along. He's harmless, really, I don't think he even ripped your costume. But, erm, perhaps we should get you a drink and a chair.”

Several minutes later, Dick was breathing normally and blushing bright red as Bruce and the zombie laughed about how successful the haunted house was. Marinette gave him a sympathetic look and patted his hand consolingly.

“I'm sorry he frightened you, Fang is very mischievous,” she said lightly. Now that he was out of the dark room and there wasn't a crocodile hanging off his arm, Dick felt like an idiot. He was in a presumably affluent man's home, he wasn't going to open himself up to a lawsuit by having something dangerous in his haunted house.

“I told you I needed someone to walk me through,” he said, but his tone wasn't quite flirtatious enough to be light hearted. But, miracle of miracles, it made her laugh even though she groaned at the same time.

“Do you ever give up?” She asked, swatting him on the arm closest to her. He shook his head and grinned, tentatively hopeful that he hadn't completely blown it. “You are unbelievable, vampire boy.”

“All good, mate?” The zombie said, looking between the pair with an eyebrow raised. Dick started when he looked up at the man and realised that he recognised him. He spluttered something incoherent, pointing at Jagged Stone and then turning with a wounded face to Bruce.

“How could you not tell me that we were going to a Jagged Stone party?” He screeched, rightfully betrayed. The betrayal cut deeper when Bruce had the audacity to laugh at him. “No, really, how did you even get invited to this?”

“You don't remember me saying that this was a party at one of my old school friend's house?” Bruce said, amused. Jagged cackled and Dick blushed again, feeling slightly mutinous.

“No, I remember you saying that we had a gala invite! You are officially the worst person I have ever met. I can't believe I had to have my arm almost bitten off before you introduced me to my rock hero.”

“I had to call it a gala on the invite or half of the people here wouldn't have shown up,” Jagged said, still smirking. “Besides, Fang would never! He's too rock n roll to hurt a kid without a reason, he's just…excitable.”

“And I would have introduced you when we arrived, but you vanished shockingly quickly,” Bruce added, still grinning. “But, just so you can't say I didn't do it; Jagged, this is my ward Dick Grayson. Dick, this is my old classmate and childhood friend Jagged Stone.”

“...your name is Dick?” Marinette said, sounding confused. He startled, staring at her blankly for a moment and running through their entire evening and conversations, wondering how on earth he had managed to forget to introduce himself.

“It's short for Richard?” He said at last, his blush returning full force. Bruce was shaking his head exasperatedly but took pity on the boy and suggested to Jagged that they go and refresh their drinks. Once they were gone, Dick turned back to her miserably. “I'm so sorry, I can't believe I didn't introduce myself.”

“It's fine,” Marinette said, grinning at him. “I didn't realise you were serious about the scaredy cat thing, I thought it was just a line.”

“Ah, well, full disclosure, it was meant to be,” he said, cringing slightly but trying to smile back at her with his usual charm. “But thanks for protecting me anyway.”

As she gave an adorable giggle, Dick felt his embarrassment melt away. And when the night ended, he left with her number.

[confused-pyramid]

Better Not to Give

pairing: draco malfoy x fem!reader

summary: It's your sixth year at Hogwarts and Draco has been acting different. The more he pushes you away, the more you try to hold on, but at what cost?

word count: 4.7k

warnings: SMUT (p in v, fingering), slight hair pulling, marking, Draco is a death eater, angst, drinking

a/n: I wrote this hoping it would be a one-shot, but now I'm potentially seeing a part two during/after the war...

He looks terrible when you glance up at him from across the Great Hall. Harry is buttering his toast next to you and you furtively lift your head to get a better look at Draco by the Slytherin table.

He's picking at his food and you wish you could say this is a new development, but he hasn't been himself all year. Your brows knit with worry as he drops his fork and dips his head down, as though the weight of it has tired him out. You never thought you'd be saying this, but you have found yourself missing his arrogance and elitist snipes ever since the turn in his demeanor.

Before your family denounced their ancestral connections to the ideology of blood purity, you had been a part of the Sacred 28, and that meant being a welcome dinner guest at the Malfoys' throughout your childhood. You and Draco hadn't always gotten along, but it never grew into anything more than silly insults or fruitless rivalries.

Draco stands up from his table suddenly, and your feet push into the ground, almost by instinct. Before you have a chance to follow his movements, he rushes out of the hall, his head dipping down as his robe swishes in his wake.

"Hey, you alright?" Hermione asks as your foot taps the floor impatiently.

"Yeah," you answer, your eyes still trained on where he disappeared out the doors. "I'll be right back."

You take your time walking past the tables, but when you're out of sight of your friends, you hasten your pace, practically running until you spot him at the end of the hallway.

"Draco," you call out after him, but he either doesn't hear you or he chooses not to slow his footsteps.

When you reach him, you grab his shoulder, trying to stop his movements, but he flinches under your touch, pulling back quickly.

"I'm sorry," you whisper, your breaths coming out in small pants. "I just wanted to see if everything was okay."

Draco reaches up to grab the back of his neck.

Okay? he thinks to himself with something that sounds almost like a laugh. Nothing will ever be okay again.

But he doesn't say that.

"I'm fine," he says shortly, his eyes glancing around like he's afraid you're being watched. By who?

You don't know how to respond to something that is so obviously a lie, but you press on anyway. "You haven't been yourself since the summer."

He makes a small noise and it takes you a moment to realize it's supposed to be a scoff. "Maybe this is who I actually am."

This time it's you who wants to scoff, because if there's anything you can be certain of, it's that you know Draco Malfoy, through and through. You knew him when he was still the little boy trying to beat his own personal speed on his tiny broom and when he helped you steal a doll from a toy shop because your mother wouldn't buy it for you. But you also knew him when he got a slap to the face for talking back to his father and when he cried himself to sleep for a week because he disappointed his family at his first quidditch match.

Even when his family turned you away, you knew he hadn't. You knew that although you were supposed to be on opposite sides of an impending war, at least a part of him still cared about you. You also knew that you cared about him too.

"Am I really supposed to believe that?"

He just shrugs and it makes you want to scream. "I don't really care what you believe anymore."

He doesn't spare you a second glance before turning around and stalking away.

~~~

The winter chill hits its peak and you start to see less and less of Draco. Your friends don't understand your interest in his wellbeing but they also don't know the history you share. You would trust them with your life, but this was Draco's life and that was something else entirely.

The last snow of the year hits on a weekend trip to Hogsmeade, and you join Harry, Ron, and Hermione as they make their way down the small cobblestone road.

"I need a new broom," Ron complains, gazing wistfully into every shop you pass. "I also need a new wand."

Harry pats him on the back, shooting him an amused look and you can't help the laugh that bubbles up inside of you.

When you finally reach Three Broomsticks, Ron's complaints finally become achievable.

"A warm butterbeer sounds brilliant right now," he remarks, his eyes lighting up.

"That can be easily arranged," Hermione smiles, linking her arm through his as she pulls him into the shop.

Having never been a fan of butterbeer, you hang back, letting them all ahead of you. "You three go ahead. I'll grab a drink and come meet you here."

White flakes dance across your vision as you traipse down the street, your gloved hands burrowing deeper into your pockets as the cold stings your skin.

You're considering where to sit down when you see a telltale flash of blond through the windows of the Hog's Head. Draco's pale hair is stark against the black of his robes and a shiver runs through you as you watch him lean over his steaming mug.

The rush of warmth you expect when you push open the doors doesn't arrive, but it's still more temperate than the icy chill outside, so you cast off your gloves and take a seat beside him.

"I'll get a glass of mead," you tell the owner as you lean back in your rickety wooden chair.

Draco doesn't seem surprised when you turn to face him, but his eyes flash with a mix of amusement and anticipation. "I should've known you'd be a mead person. You were the only kid I knew who didn't like pumpkin juice."

You flash him a guarded smile and his eyes catch on the maroon flush that colors your cheeks. He had seen you through the window before you walked in, and when you opened the doors, he told himself it was a bad idea, especially with everything going on in his life, but he couldn't help but stay. He could never help himself when you were involved.

"I'm honestly not sure why I ordered one," you tell him, your eyes turning sad. "Maybe it's still on my mind after Ron was poisoned with a bottle of mead last week."

Draco shrinks back slightly, but you catch the movement before he can shake it off. He wasn't trying to hurt Ron when he sent Slughorn that bottle, but he also couldn't deny that Weasley wasn't someone he would've mourned.

But you would've cared. And in another life, that would have been enough to make him care too.

He's surprised when you reach forward to grab his hand, and he can tell that it wasn't something you had planned to do. You blush again, and he wishes that he could pull your body against his and shield you from the cold and whatever else is coming across the horizon, but that isn't something he gets to do anymore. Not since he made his choice.

"Do you remember when we were kids?" you ask suddenly, jerking him back to reality. "How we would sneak into my parents' shed and steal their brooms to practice while they were sleeping."

That's not what you really want to ask him, but a few childhood memories couldn't cause the damage you were afraid of causing if you dug any deeper.

You had such a crush on him when you first came to Hogwarts. The arrogant little boy who always got what he wanted. Everyone cast him away as a lost cause, but they didn't know what was underneath...what made him the way he was. The memories were at the edge of your subconscious and you could feel how close they were to teetering off into the void, especially with who he had become in the last year.

Draco, on the other hand, can remember everything from that time. He remembers the little girl who was too smart for her own good and how you always knew what he was thinking about, even before the thought entered his mind. He remembers your bushy pigtails and the way you always made your bed in the morning, just because it was something your mother taught you to do. He wonders if you still do.

"I suppose," he finally replies, seeing your fingers go slack against his palm. He can feel the disappointment emanating from you, but a little disappointment would never hurt as much as what was coming. What he was bringing in.

Your fingers slip down his hand and he relishes your touch, even though your skin is still icy from the snow, but when your hand reaches his sleeve, he jerks back.

You flinch too, more out of surprise than anything else, but he pulls his hands away and under the table too fast for you to notice anything awry. "Draco, what's wrong?"

"We aren't children anymore," he snarls, and it's like you can see the walls being built before your very eyes. The fortress that you always believed you had to keys to shuts right in front of you and his eyes glaze over without an ounce of recollection. "Whatever you think we are, you're wrong."

He stands up, his robes enveloping him like a dark cloud, and before you have a chance to respond, the door is swinging shut behind him.

~~~

When you open the door to Three Broomsticks, the atmosphere is much warmer than the Hog's Head. Laughter echoes around the pub and you feel a smile pull at your lips even after Draco's abrupt departure.

"Over here!" Ron's voice calls from behind the small staircase, and you follow it to find the trio with three butterbeers sitting in front of them.

"Anyway, as I was saying," Harry continues, motioning for you to take the seat next to him. "The Katie Bell incident and your poisoning have to be connected."

He had been on this train of suspicion for a while, but with each new event, he was getting more and more reckless with his theories.

"Harry, I'm not so sure-" Hermione starts, but he cuts her off, lifting his hand from the table as he gesticulates intensely.

"Both the cursed necklace and the poisoned mead were gifts from an unknown source," he emphasizes, looking at each of you intently, "and I think that source is Malfoy."

Your eyes snap to his and you quickly look down at the table before you give anything away. You remember how Draco flinched at the mention of Ron's ordeal, and you want to shake the thought away, but you can't.

It feels like a betrayal to ever consider this notion, but the change in his mood this year did strike you as foreboding.

Maybe Harry was right. Maybe the person you grew up with and cared for and loved wasn't who you thought he was.

~~~

You don't see Draco for a few days after your disastrous Hogsmeade encounter, but it's not for lack of looking. Any suspicions you have about his wrongdoings this year are unfounded, and you aren't about to pin something on him without proof. Besides, you know him and you know he lashes out when he's in pain, and if this world had taught you anything, it was that someone pushing you away meant you just had to hold onto them tighter.

That time comes the following evening when you see Draco rushing into an abandoned bathroom on the second floor, his hair a mess and his shirt sticking to his skin.

Your friends have made it clear that they thought your interest in him was another symptom of your desire to fix everything, and with Harry hot on his trail with one theory or another, you were finding it hard to be around them all the time.

Draco is pressed up against the sink when you push the door open, his small sobs echoing around the room. Despair floods you with ice and you rush forward, desperate to do something.

His skin looks paler than you have ever seen it, and when your hand comes forward to glide up his back, his skin feels clammy and cold.

"Please," you whisper, wishing he would share something with you. Anything. "Please let me help you. Whatever your family is doing to you can't go on forever."

You know that even if Harry was right and Draco really was twisted up in something dark, the source always went back to one place: his family. You grew up with a family that protected you, so if nothing else, you at least knew what love wasn't supposed to look like.

Nevertheless, it's the wrong thing to say, and he freezes, his breath slowing down instantly. He doesn't question your intentions, because if there's one thing he knows about you, it's that you're good, but Snape's words from earlier are still painted across his eyelids.

"I made the unbreakable vow."

He had been chosen for this. The Dark Lord had chosen him, but even after he proved himself time and time again, they didn't believe he could do it.

"I don't want your help," he says, but instead of a sneer, it comes out more like a gasp. "Don't you understand? There's no out for me."

He can see you struggling to understand, but he can't afford to be more than vague. His family is relying on him. They are counting on him to do what his father couldn't, and he won't let them down. Not like they had.

So maybe he isn't a killer, but maybe he isn't what you think either.

You can feel the anguish in his words, and your throat thickens with tears threatening to escape. "There has to be something I can do."

"There isn't." He cuts you off forcefully, and you see the finality shining in his eyes as he turns to face the mirror again, his hands gripping the edge of the sink.

The mark on his wrist stings harshly in his skin and he looks down as you stalk out of the bathroom. It's supposed to feel right and he knows he's been chosen for something so much greater than himself, but he also can't help but feel like he didn't get to choose.

You are much too good for him, and he can already feel himself corroding you with each whisper of his breath and glance of his fingers.

You grew up together and even when your families' ideas tried to tear you both apart, something had made him hold on. If he's fully honest with himself, he'll call it what it is.

He loves you.

But he can't admit it. He can't, because that would mean admitting that he's not sure. That the doctrine his father spent 16 years pounding into his skull didn't take, and above all, that the mark carved into his wrist was a mistake.

He splashes water on his face, but his skin still burns like he's been branded.

~~~

"You're quiet today," Harry observes at breakfast a few weeks later. "What's going on with you?"

You shake your head, taking a small bite of your toast. "Nothing. I'm just getting a bit behind in school."

"I can help, if you'd like," Hermione offers, squeezing your arm.

"I've got it covered," you smile at her, leaning against her shoulder, "but thank you."

Her bouncy waves tickle your cheek and you can't help but think about all the times Draco insulted and threatened your friends. How was it fair to keep giving him second and third and fourth chances when he never even gave them one?

Something pulls at the corner of your vision and you look up to see him walking into the Great Hall, a flighty look in his eyes. Harry follows your line of sight and makes an irritated noise. "He has some nerve showing his face here. I overheard him talking to Snape the other day and I think he's up to something. Something bad."

You feared just as much, but you weren't about to give Harry any more ammunition.

Your eyes glide across his features, glancing over his disheveled hair and wide eyes. He still looks beautiful, even in this state, but you force yourself to look away. Whatever feelings you had - or have - for him don't matter anymore.

Breakfast ends quietly and you spend the day catching up on some essays you've been assigned before the end of term. The air outside had started to warm again, and even though the night brings a slight chill, the snow was fully gone and the plants were starting to revive themselves.

When your eyes start to hurt from staring at parchment all day, you make your way to the Astronomy tower for some fresh air, and are pleased to find it empty. Everyone was likely cramming in some last-minute studying or sleeping before exams arrived.

Night falls quickly and soon the stars start to peek out across the clear sky. You try to identify the constellations, but you were never very good at that kind of thing.

"Orion," a voice mutters from behind you, and you spin around to see Draco, partially shrouded by the surrounding darkness. His dark suit blends into the night sky and you only get a good look at him once he approaches you, his arms resting on the railing beside yours.

"Thanks," you breathe, turning back to the view before you. You haven't gotten over your last interaction - at least that's what you've told yourself - and you don't want to make this easy for him. He may not owe the world anything right now, but he owes you the respect of an apology.

"I'm sorry about before," he says shortly and you almost laugh. You wish you could pin his ability to practically read your mind on your time together when you were young, but this was something else entirely. Something real and lasting and above all, futile.

You nod, finally chancing a look at him. There's no breeze tonight, so his hair stays flat, and you lift your hand to push a stray piece behind his ear.

Your fingers are warm against his skin and he does everything in his power to stay still, even as his body urges him to run for the hills. He doesn't deserve you, but you don't deserve his baggage either. He can't keep pushing you down in the hope that you will stay away from the chaos he brings with him wherever he goes.

"My mother taught me all of the constellations," he whispers suddenly, his grip on the railing tightening as he dives back into his memories. "She said our family was tied to the stars and that I had to know about our history if I was to learn from their mistakes."

You know bits and pieces of this story, but you can tell that he needs to say it, so you let him.

"I hated it," he says, and you can sense the tinge of sentimentality staining his words. "I didn't want to look up at the sky, because after everything my father did to me, I didn't ever want to feel small again."

"Draco," you whisper, struggling to find the right words to help him. To bring back the mischievous, naïve boy who didn't know what this kind of pain felt like. "Hurting people will never make you the bigger man."

His face contorts and you feel the sting of tears in your chest. "Don't you think I know that? I don't give a damn about anything anymore, I just want my family to get out of this bloody cycle. I just want to feel safe for once!"

His words slice you open and you grasp his shoulder, pulling him down into a hug that surprises the both of you. His body envelopes you, bringing you warmth, even as his touch sends a shiver down your spine.

You see the battle being fought inside his mind, you can almost hear the clang of weapons when he opens his mouth to speak. The boy whose father turned away when he was hurt and pushed him further when he tried to hold back.

You don't have any illusions about being able to save him from himself, but you also know that if you can make him feel safe for just a moment, it may be enough.

"I'm here with you," you whisper against his neck. "I'm always going to be with you."

He makes a sound that's somewhere between a gasp and a groan and suddenly his lips are on yours. He turns you around, away from the railing, and brings his hands up to your face, his fingers tangling in your hair. He can taste the unspoken words between your lips, and he wishes he lived in a world where you could say them, and he could accept, but he doesn't.

So instead he settles for this. For one night where he can pretend he isn't a Malfoy and that he doesn't have the responsibilities he has been given. One night where you look at him and see the boy you once loved, and not a problem that needs to be fixed.

You slide your hands up his back, gasping against his mouth as he tugs on your hair just hard enough for it to sting. You can feel his hands make their way down your spine, and when his fingers glide over each ridge, it's like he's trying to memorize every divot of your body.

Draco was not the kind of boy who did things without a purpose. He had a reason when he bought the Slytherin team new brooms, just as he did when he joined Umbridge's student army. Tonight was no different. You could feel the finality in each of his touches, as though he was trying to fit every experience and emotion into one moment.

He brings his hands down to the hem of your sweater, lifting it up and over your head in one motion. A small breeze floats across your skin, scattering goosebumps in its wake. When he returns his lips to your neck and laves over your pulse, the shiver that runs through you isn't from the cold.

Your fingers make quick work of the buttons on his shirt, but when you move to cast it away, he grabs your hands and brings them down with a slight shake of his head. He leaves open-mouthed kisses along your jaw, but when he bares his teeth, nipping at the junction where you neck meets your collarbone, your knees start to buckle.

Draco uses your momentum to lean you down on the ground, quickly tearing his jacket off and laying it under your head. Your body, laid out before him, is open for the taking, and he has to grit his teeth to keep his pants from tightening too fast. He makes quick work of your skirt, and when his cold fingers slide over your entrance, you shudder under him, before grasping his neck and bringing him down to kiss you again.

He enters you slowly, his lithe fingers taking their time as you gasp against his mouth. Your hips jump as he adds another finger, and the only sounds you hear are the deepening of your breaths and the twinkling of the wind chimes hung across the Astronomy tower.

Draco grips onto your waist, using his positioning to press you farther into the hard ground as you shudder beneath him. His fingers dig into your soft skin, relishing every sigh and touch you afford him. He knows he would take anything you would give him now, and he does.

When his thumb finds your clit, you are practically shaking, and a few more quick thrusts are all it takes to make you buck forward, your thighs tightening as moans spill from your lips.

He comes down for another searing kiss, swallowing your gasps as your aftershocks abate. You look so beautiful sprawled out in front of him, your eyes blissful and your mouth and neck splotched pink from his teeth.

"Draco," you whisper, sitting up and undoing the buttons of his pants. "I want this- I want you, please."

His skin is flushed and he looks ethereal with his shirt hanging over his shoulders. When his pants come off, he bends over you again, leaning you back slowly. His eyes don't leave yours as he enters you, taking his time until he bottoms out.

Your mouth parts with a silent cry and he pushes in again, unable to take his eyes off the divot between your eyebrows as pleasure overtakes you. You have always been beautiful and he closes his eyes for a moment, unable to believe he gets to have you like this.

He presses his lips to your throat, trying to put everything he can't say into the touch of your skin. I love you, I love you, I love you. 

His thrusts hasten and he drags his teeth down your neck, fulfilling his primal urge to mark you in some way that's so much more pure and raw than the mark defiling his skin.

Your gasps get louder before suddenly you're tumbling over the edge. It's not long before you're taking him with you, and he presses his palm into the ground beside you to keep his body from falling onto yours.

You feel incredible around him, and for a moment he almost forgets about the brand piercing his wrist, turning him into someone he's not.

When you both come down, you smile at him sweetly, reaching up to smooth down the side of his messy hair.

He has to resist the urge to bend down and steal another kiss when a bell rings loudly and fear punctures his brain, blurring his vision momentarily.

They're coming.

"You have to get out of here," he hisses, grabbing your sweater and pressing it into your hands. "Now, go, please."

"Draco, you're scaring me," you say, tugging your sweater and skirt on as he buttons his shirt, murmuring something you can't hear under his breath. "Please just tell me what's happening."

"I need you to leave!" he yells and his voice sounds like a shard of broken glass. Sharp, cutting.

You aren't moving fast enough and he has to get you out of here before they arrive. Before the plan went into motion.

His wrist starts to burn even more, and he winces, grabbing it in a futile attempt to hold them off. It's the wrong move, because you catch his motions immediately, seizing his hand and yanking his sleeve back.

The mark is like a sickness and you blanch, recoiling away from him with a disgust he never thought he would see from you.

"I can't- I, I can't believe-" you stammer, your hands coming up to cover your mouth as nausea rolls through you. "How could you?"

He closes his eyes, unable to stand the hatred brewing in your eyes, no matter how much he deserves it. "It's over for me. I made my choice."

Maybe your friends were right. Maybe you really were a sucker for lost causes. Because even with the black stain of the Death Eaters staring you in the face, a small part of you screams out from under the rubble of your destroyed future together, begging you to search for a reason. An explanation.

"You didn't have a choice, Draco," you whisper, hardly able to get the words out.

He doesn't know whether to be proud or heartbroken that you are still trying to look for some good in him, but with the other Death Eaters only moments away from showing up, he can't have you here with him.

"I had a choice," he sneers, throwing as much bitterness and malice into his words as he can muster. "I had a choice, and I chose them."

You open your mouth to speak, but he cuts you off, pulling his wand out of his back pocket. "Don't waste your breath. Nothing you say ever meant anything to me anyway."

Tears sting your eyes and you back away from him, feeling an unfamiliar hatred coursing through your veins. He turns away from you and you scramble to the staircase, tripping over the stairs as your eyes blur under the moonlight.

You are almost at the bottom when you hear the loud crack of an apparation, followed by a high-pitched cackle. When you turn back one last time, you see Draco raising his wand, and as Dumbledore comes into view, you push on, trying to get away from whatever is coming next.

The school feels eerily silent when you make it outside. The wind seems to have quieted down and the birds have stopped their chirping. It's only when Hermione calls out your name that you rush forward and see the aftermath of what must have happened after you left.

You look up instinctually, and when the railing of the Astronomy tower is empty, the tears flooding your eyes finally break free.

HP taglist: @regulusblackswhorecrux @licensedcheek

[romance-of-three-memes]

Everyone nowadays talk about Fire Emblem Three Houses like it's the defining entry of the series and a lot of people act like it's the best thing that's ever happen to it but honestly? If you're trying to get into Fire Emblem as a series it's one of the worst places to start. It deviates a lot from the gameplay of other entries and that's fine, even if I'm kind of sick of the super specialized school taking over video games after it got super popular in anime last decade.

I mean, I love Three Houses (yes, it does take a lot of inspiration from Romance of the Three Kingdoms and yes, the faction that's the most like Wu is my favorite, but I swear that's coincidence because I wasn't even thinking about that when I first played it). But it's a terrible place to start, especially since I've seen a lot of people only play Three Houses and show no interest in playing anything else in the series, which yes, is also fine, I hate weird video game elitists and the Fire Emblem fandom can be one of the worst I've ever seen in that regard, what I mean is that a lot of new fans seem to go 'neat that was fun, I'm satisfied :)' instead of 'yeah I want more of this!' when their only exposure is Three Houses.

Anyway I have three recommendations on where to start, it's a series with seventeen main entries and who knows how many spin-offs so that can be pretty intimidating to newcomers, but most of them are one-off settings, like each game introduces a new world and new characters so you don't have to worry about playing most of them in order. All three of the games I'm mentioning are one-offs.

It kind of depends on what you're looking for most. Do you want something you can easily access on a modern console and is a much better representation of the series' gameplay and difficulty than Three Houses or my other suggestions (there's a lot of variance in that)? Then honestly, Engage is the place to go. People love to shit talk Engage and they did it before the game even released because of Intsys' lackluster marketing, and it was released right after Three Houses, people were always going to be extremely harsh on its direct predecessor. Hell, I wasn't even sure about it and put it off for a month or so when it came out, but now that I've played it I love it a lot. Lol sometimes I think I like it better than Three Houses. Also your player avatar can marry everyone regardless of gender, something which is brand new in a series that's had marriage mechanics for a good while now. Back in MY DAY if we wanted that we had to install MODS or settle for a small handful of characters, if even that, Awakening didn't have any of that despite literally no one in that army being straight (no, not even Virion, who multiple people on this website have picked fights with me about).

Anyway if you want something that's nowadays a little harder to access but is still pretty modern, and if you want a fairly easy entry into the series in terms of gameplay difficulty, I suggest Awakening, which is my personal favorite in the whole series (even if in retrospect it's hilariously busted in terms of game mechanics and it's Cisheteronormativity on Steroids, but don't worry, we have very extensive mods for that and they're easier to install than ever!)

I haven't quite finished Sacred Stones yet but I also think it would be a good place to start if you want something pretty straight-forward and retro and you think you can handle getting emulators to work, because a lot of legit physical copies of older Fire Emblem games are insanely expensive. Like +$200 USD expensive. This game is also similar to other older titles in that it lacks a player avatar (which most modern titles have) as well as casual mode, which is an option you can choose where if a playable character falls in battle, they'll be usable in the next battle. They'll never die unless it's scripted in the game's plot. In 'classic mode', which is all you have in most older FE games, once a character's HP hits 0, they're gone for good. You can't use them anymore because they literally die. I mean... You CAN just 'save scum', that's what most of us do, but still. There's been so much elitist griping about casual mode vs classic mode over the years but it's died down a lot from at its peak when Awakening was the newest entry, Christ people would NOT stop bitching about Awakening having casual mode, or just about Awakening in general, despite the fact that it literally saved the series, helped make it one of Nintendo's 'bigger' IPs in the west, and is the only reason we have everything that came after that. So there you go.