#but as more knowledge of how that works came out

[avisofapatite]

I never add directly to a post, but what I want to add would take too long to put in tags.

My immediate reaction reading this was assuming I would have done fabulously, but I decided since Bleak House is easy enough to find, I'd read the 7 paragraphs myself, try and grasp the meaning the best I could, and then return to read the study. I am not an English major, and I haven't performed academic work with literature since high school, so I wanted to see how I would fare. I have never actually read any of Dickens' work, and will admit to not successfully attempting any 19th century literature myself.

The passage did end up being more challenging than I had initially expected - it took a moment for me to adjust to some of the sentence structure Dickens used, and I found myself going over some of the passages a couple times to make sure I grasped everything. Most legal references I understood but some specifically 19thc British touchstones took some research (I understood the court setting, but needed to look up that the Chancery was specifically a property court, and was thrown off at first by Temple Bar thinking this referred to a legal bar before googling that name specifically). I had to find the definitions of about 3 words and came away feeling relatively confident in my comprehension.

Upon reading through the study, however, I was struck with a sudden understanding of how my trying best to read this text now had nothing in common to my approach doing the same in an academic setting. How I actually engaged with texts like this In School had me relating far more to the Approach of the readers having difficulty than I expected.

For instance, as I read the passage on my own, I jumped around a lot and went over passages multiple times, sometimes in fragments. The study required reading of the passage out loud from top to bottom, and I recall a specific moment in my schooling (in Grade 5) where I completely failed to comprehend a passage because of this format. However, I was never tested on my reading of texts in that manner after this age. Someone skilled in reading SHOULD be able to reliably comprehend things as they read them in the order it is presented to them - that in itself contains some part of the meaning! But I've only just realized I've never fostered that focus for challenging texts, relying on my ability to jump around the page, and that my schooling never stopped me from developing this habit.

The section of the study describing a strong reader made it clear to me I did not read that way in school, which has had lasting implications. While I would have preferred reading things properly, I often felt like I didn't have the time to properly read a text and would rely on my own being clever/online summary to fill in the gaps that I required. This feels like a problem coming from many sources - while I was certainly very busy with other work at that time, I also knew I could reliably receive a good grade despite not putting in the full effort, and perhaps this full effort would not have been so taxing if my reading skills had been more thoroughly exercised as I went through school.

I found myself reading the example of strong analysis realizing I failed to reach that particular depth of understanding, such being able to explicitly describe the idea of the crowd on the streets repeating the rhythms of a previous time, for instance, instead of just coming away with the image of the crowd jostling in the mud on that particular day. Worse of all, I realized on my own time, I would have been far more comfortable coming away from the text having put far less effort into its comprehension knowing that I wasn't about to be evaluated.

That specific notion of evaluation, and doing what is needed - and no more - to pass that evaluation I think is where the opportunity is lost for many. It certainly was for me, nevermind my personal tendency to spend more effort on cultivating the appearance of knowledge moreso than actual knowledge. I genuinely wonder whether I would have immediately fallen back on my mindset of trying to game the system with as much speed and little effort as humanly possible, assuming my inate skill would be enough to succeed, if I had been tested by the researchers in their setting instead of having done this little challenge on my own.

As someone in the 27-32 range that considers myself self-evidently literate, this did help me really examine my habits. But it was humbling to discover that if this system so successfully failed to train good habits into me Despite my ability to leap their hurdles, how impossible the challenge might be to those that at any point have had difficulty with reading and comprehension. The big question is how we can change the teaching of literacy to fix this. I'm going to be thinking about this for a while.

i appreciated this study: "They Can't Read Very Well: A Study of the Reading Comprehension Skills Of English Majors At Two Midwestern Universities"

essentially, a pair of professors set out to test their intuitive sense that students at the college level were struggling with complex text. they recruited 85 students, a mix of english majors and english education majors - so, theoretically, people focusing on literature, and people preparing to teach adolescents how to read literature - and had them read-while-summarizing the first seven paragraphs of dickens's bleak house (or as much as they made it through in the 20 minute session). they provided dictionaries and also said students could use their phones to look up whatever they wanted, including any unfamiliar words or references. they found that the majority of the students - 58%, or 49 out of the 85 students - functionally could not understand dickens at all, and only 5% - a mere 4 out of the 85 students - proved themselves proficient readers (leaving the remaining 38%, or 32 students, as what the study authors deemed "competent" students, most of whom could understand about half the literal meaning - pretty low bar for competence - although a few of whom, they note, did much better than the rest in this group if not quite well enough to be considered proficient).

what i really appreciated about this study was its qualitative descriptions of the challenges and reading behaviors of what the authors call "problematic readers" (that bottom 58%), which resonated strongly with my own experiences of students who struggle with reading. here's their blunt big picture overview of these 49 students:

The majority of these subjects could understand very little of Bleak House and did not have effective reading tactics. All had so much trouble comprehending concrete detail in consecutive clauses and phrases that they could not link the meaning of one sentence to the next. Although it was clear that these subjects did try to use various tactics while they read the passage, they were not able to use those tactics successfully. For example, 43 percent of the problematic readers tried to look up words they did not understand, but only five percent were able to look up the meaning of a word and place it back correctly into a sentence. The subjects frequently looked up a word they did not know, realized that they did not understand the sentence the word had come from, and skipped translating the sentence altogether.

the idea that they had so many trouble with every small piece of a text that they could not connect ideas on a sentence by sentence basis is very familiar to me from teaching and tutoring, as was the habit of thought seen in the example of the student who gloms on to the word "whiskers" in a sea of confusion and guesses incorrectly that a cat is present - struggling readers, in my experience, seem to use familiar nouns as stepping stones in a flood of overwhelm, hopping as best they can from one seemingly familiar image to the next. so was this observation, building off the example of a student who misses the fact that dickens is being figurative when he imagines a megalodon stalking the streets of london:

She first guesses that the dinosaur is just “bones” and then is stuck stating that the bones are “waddling, um, all up the hill” because she can see that Dickens has the dinosaur moving. Because she cannot logically tie the ideas together, she just leaves her interpretation as is and goes on to the next sentence. Like this subject, most of the problematic readers were not concerned if their literal translations of Bleak House were not coherent, so obvious logical errors never seemed to affect them. In fact, none of the readers in this category ever questioned their own interpretations of figures of speech, no matter how irrational the results. Worse, their inability to understand figurative language was constant, even though most of the subjects had spent at least two years in literature classes that discussed figures of speech. Some could correctly identify a figure of speech, and even explain its use in a sentence, but correct responses were inconsistent and haphazard. None of the problematic readers showed any evidence that they could read recursively or fix previous errors in comprehension. They would stick to their reading tactics even if they were unhappy with the results.

i have seen this repeatedly, too - actually i was particularly taken with how similar this is to the behavior of struggling readers at much younger ages - and would summarize the hypothesis i have forged over time as: struggling readers do not expect what they read to make sense. my hypothesis for why this is the case is that their reading deficits were not attended to or remediated adequately early enough, and so, in their formative years - the early to mid elementary grades - they spent a lot of time "reading" things that did not make sense to them - in fact they spent much more time doing this than they ever did reading things that did make sense to them - and so they did not internalize a meaningful subjective sense of what it feels like to actually read things.

like, i've said this before, but the year i taught third grade i had multiple students who told me they loved reading and then when i asked them about a book they were reading revealed that they had absolutely no idea what was going on - on a really basic literal level like "didn't know who said which lines of dialogue" and "couldn't identify which things or characters given pronouns referred to" - and were as best as i could tell sort of constructing their own story along the way using these little bits of things they thought they understood. that's what "reading" was, in their heads. and they were, in the curriculum/model that we used at the private school where i taught, receiving basically no support to clarify that that was not what reading was, nor any instruction that would actually help them with what they needed to do to improve (understand sentences) - and i realized over the course of that year that the master's program that had certified me in teaching elementary school had provided me with very little understanding of how to help these kids (with perhaps the sole exception of the class i took on communications disorders, not because these kids had communications disorders but because that was the only class where we ever talked, even briefly, about things like sentence structures that students may need instruction in and practice with to comprehend independently). when it comes to the literal, basic understanding of a text, the model of reading pedagogy i was taught has about 6 million little "tools" that all boil down to telling kids who functionally can't read to try harder to read. this is not productive, in my experience and opinion, for kids whose maximum effort persistently yields confusion. but things are so dysfunctional all the way up and down the ladder that you can be a senior in college majoring in english without anyone but a pair of professors with a strong work ethic noticing that you can't actually read.

couple other notes:

obviously it's a small study but i'm not sure i see a reason to believe these are particularly outlierish results (ACT scores - an imperfect metric but not a meritless one IMO for reading specifically, where the task mostly really is to read a set of texts written for the educated layperson and answer factual questions about them - were a little bit above the national average)

the study was published last year, but the research was conducted january to april 2015. so there's no pandemic influence, no AI issue - these are millennials who now would span roughly ages 28-32 (i guess it's possible one of the four first-year students was one of the very first members of gen z lol). if you're in your late 20s or early 30s, we are talking about people your age, and whatever the culprit is here, it was happening when you were in school.

i think some people might want to blame this on NCLB but i find this unconvincing for a variety of reasons. first of all, NCLB did not pass because everyone in 2001 agreed that education was super hunky-dory; in fact, the sold a story podcast outlines how an explicit goal of NCLB was to train teachers in systematic phonics instruction, because that was not the norm when NCLB was passed, and an unfortunate outcome was that phonics became politicized in ed world. second, anyone who understands anything about reading should need about ten minutes max to spend some time on standardized test prep and recognize that if your goal is truly to maximize scores... then the vast majority of your instructional time should be spent on improving actual reading skills because you actually can't meaningfully game these tests by "practicing main idea questions" (timothy shanahan addresses this briefly near the top of this post). so i find it very difficult to believe that any school that pivoted to multiple choice drill time in an attempt to boost reading scores was teaching reading effectively pre-NCLB, because no set of competent literacy professionals would think that would work even for the goal of raising test scores. third, NCLB mandated yearly testing in grades 3-8 but only one test year in high school; kansas set its reading and math test year in high school as tenth grade. so theoretically these kids all had two years of sweet sweet freedom from NCLB in which their teachers could have done whatever the fuck they wanted to teach these kids to actually read. the fact that they didn't suggests perhaps there were other problems afoot. fourth, and maybe most saliently for this particular study, the sample text was the first seven paragraphs of a novel - in other words, the exact kind of short incomplete text that NCLB allegedly demanded excessive time spent on. i'm not really sure what universe it makes sense in that students who can't read the first seven paragraphs of a novel would have become much better reader if everything else had been the same but they had been making completely wack associations based on nonsense guesses for all 300 pages instead. (if you read the study it's really clear that for problematic readers, things go off the rails immediately, in a way that a good program targeted at teaching mastery of text of 500 words or less would have done something about.)

all but 3 of the students reported A's and B's in their english classes and, again, 69% of them are juniors and seniors, so like... i mean idk kudos to these professors for being like "hold up can these kids actually read?" but clearly something is wack at the college level too [in 2015] if you can make your way through nearly an entire english major without being able to read the first seven paragraphs of a dickens novel. (once again i really do encourage you to look at the qualitative samples in the study, lest you think i am being uncharitable by summarizing understandable misunderstandings or areas of confusion that may resolve themselves with further exposure to the text as "can't read.") not to mention the fact that most students could not what they had learned in previous or current english classes and when asked to name british and american authors and/or works of the nineteenth century, roughly half the sample at each college could name at most one.

the authors of the study are struck by the fact that students who cannot parse the first 3 sentences of bleak house feel very confident about their ability to read the entire novel, and discover that this seeming disconnect is resolved by the fact that these students seem to conceptualize "reading" as "skimming and then reading sparknotes." i think it's really tempting to Kids These Days this phenomenon (although again these are people who in some cases have now been in the workforce for a decade) and categorize it as laziness or a lack of effort, but i think that there is, as i described above, a real and sincere confusion over what "reading" is in which this makes a certain logical sense because it's not like they have some store of actual reading experiences to compare it to. i also think it's pretty obvious looking at just how wildly severed from actual textual comprehension their readings are that these are not - or at least not entirely - students who could just work harder and master the entirety of bleak house all on their own. like i don't think you get from "charles dickens is describing a bunch of dinosaur bones actually walking the streets of london" to comfortably reading nineteenth century literature by just trying harder. i really just don't (and i say that acknowledging i personally have had students who like... were good readers if i was forcing them to work at it constantly... but i have also had students, including ones getting ready to enter college, who were clearly giving me everything they had and what they had was at the present moment insufficient). i think that speaks to a missing skillset that they don't know are missing, because they don't have any other experience of "reading" to compare it to.

just wanna highlight again that although they don't give the breakdown some of these students are not just english majors but english education majors a.k.a. the high school english teachers of tomorrow. some of them may be teaching high school english right now, in case anyone wishes to consider whether "maybe some high school english teachers can't read the first seven paragraphs of bleak house?" should be kept in mind when we discuss present-day educational ills.

[marauder-misprint]

Hi love! I came across your blog and fell in love with your writing! I was wondering if you would write a James x f!reader request where James is oblivious to his feelings so Sirius teams up with reader to “fake date” and make James ask her out. I always love jealous James and bonus if Sirius’s plot ends in Wolfstar getting together too LOL!!

Hi! Thank you for this request ❤︎ I swear, this would've been like half the length if my brain didn't require some kind of build-up lol. Not sure how I feel about the ending, but it is what it is. (My first attempt at writing Wolfstar so it's not great)

Hope you enjoy ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎

Protective/Jealousy

James Potter x fem!reader

7.2k words

cw: angst, fluff, pining, fake dating, no y/n

If anyone was keeping track, you were Lily’s friend first. You have been since first year. She was someone who didn’t mind making friends in different houses. She was just friendly like that and you loved her for it. It was so nice to be around her. 

You were with her when you first got formally introduced to the Marauders in your third year. You were studying with her in the library when they approached her, the group being led by James. You had noticed that one was rarely without the others. 

“Evans! What a coincidence that you’re here!” James said as they approached your table. “Would you mind if we study with you?” 

Lily rolled her eyes, ready to give a curt denial, but then Sirius noticed you.

“Before you answer that, you should introduce us to your friend!”

He gave you an obvious once over. Across the table, Lily gave you an apologetic look. She knew that you had yet to really interact with the boys, as if Sirius asking for your name wouldn’t have given that away. You said your name with a polite smile.

“And we do mind if you study at this table. We actually intend on getting work done,” Lily said before anyone could get another word. 

You were undecided if you would’ve minded, but if Lily didn’t want them at the table, you’d agree. 

“So, go away Potter and company,” she said when they didn’t leave right away. 

“You don’t know what you’re missing, my dear Lilypad,” James said before walking away, followed by the other three boys. 

Once they were a good distance away, you snorted a laugh. “Lilypad?”

“I think it’s an attempt at flirting? Which is rather disgusting from him.”

You didn’t quite agree with Lily that it was disgusting. James seemed nice enough from what you’d seen in classes and he wasn’t bad looking. But it was Lily’s opinion. She had the right to that. 

That wasn’t the last you interacted with the Marauders. It would have been strange if it had, being that you had four more years of school with them. But you actually became friends with them. Around a week after officially meeting them, you joined a dueling club. None of your friends wanted to join so you went alone and lo and behold, the four of them were there. You stood near them. 

“Hey, Lily’s friend, right?” James greeted you.

You nodded as Remus said your name, apparently a needed refresher for the rest of the group. Standing with them, however, didn’t mean that you had to duel any of them. It actually led to the opposite. The seventh year in charge of the club had created pairs himself, so you got partnered with a fifth year Hufflepuff. You had expected the pairs to keep to the years for skill level or various spell knowledge. But then the seventh year started introducing tactics and said that he knew it would be review for some people but it was good to review the basics. It ended up not being as bad as you thought. By the sounds of it, you’d be split into different pairs based on perceived skill at a later meeting.

Being in the club with the Marauders was the match that lit the fire of your friendship. They started saying hi to you in the corridors and remembering your name. They occasionally chatted with you after class. When Professor Sprout had students pair up with someone they hadn’t worked with yet that term, Remus picked you. And they talked to you more and more with each dueling club meeting. 

“Hey, what’re you doing after this?” James asked you as you watched Sirius and Remus duel.

“I don’t know. Homework, draw, paint, read?” 

“That’s boring. Come watch me and Sirius practice.”

You looked at James with a slightly confused look. 

“Practice?”

“Quidditch? We’re on the Gryffindor team.”

James had been on the team last year, so you had assumed that he would be on it again this year. You were fairly certain that Sirius hadn’t been on the team previously so that was new. 

“Oh, uh, maybe?”

You didn’t want to offend James, but watching a different house’s quidditch team practice sounded boring, even if you were friends with people on the team. 

Peter nudged your side. “Come watch. Me and Rem’ll be there.”

“Oh, okay then.” You gave James a sympathetic smile. “I would’ve felt weird sitting alone, you know?”

He laughed, nodding. With perfect timing, Remus and Sirius’ dueling time ended and you took your place across from Peter. Then after the meeting ended, you walked with the boys to the quidditch pitch. James and Sirius left you to head to the lockers and you followed Peter and Remus up into the stands. It was a bit colder in the air. You hadn’t brought a jacket with you to the dueling club. 

“You two always watch them practice?” you asked.

“Afternoon practices when the weather’s nice. I don’t fancy sitting out in the rain,” Remus said. 

“Or getting out of bed at the ass crack of dawn,” Peter added with a chuckle. 

It was weird actually sitting in the stands. Usually students stood for the entirety of quidditch matches. You leaned back as the team rose into the air and started warming up. You watched for a few minutes with silent curiosity. Quidditch matches were fun, but this was new. Remus was watching you with the same amount of curiosity. 

“So James asked you to come?” he asked.

You hummed. James and another one of the chasers were passing a quaffle back and forth while flying around the pitch. Sirius and the other beater were stationed on opposite sides of the pitch, hitting a bludger back and forth. 

“And you came?”

“Better than doing homework,” you said with a shrug.

“That it is,” Peter said. “That it is.”

You started going to all the practices that Remus and Peter went to. You occasionally sat with the boys during meal time and you would work on assignments together. Lily noticed you were spending more and more time with them. You told her about the dueling club. They were nice to you. Why wouldn’t you be friends with them?

You were actually becoming more than basic friends with them. It really didn’t take long until you were spending most of your time with them. Of the four boys, you were particularly drawn to James. There was something about the way he made you laugh and how easy it was to talk to him. You sat next to him during meals, when you worked on assignments and in a few classes. When you were simply relaxing, you always seemed to be at his side. He was your favorite. 

James liked being around you too. He liked your smile and the sound of your laugh. He liked how you were always down to go with him when he wanted to split off from the group, like when he would go on snack runs to the kitchen or wanted to spend more time in Spintwitches in Hogsmeade. But it wasn’t just that. You listened to what he said and understood what he didn’t say. Your presence somehow calmed him if he was nervous or jittery, and invigorated dull moments. 

Your friendship with James didn’t go unnoticed by the other three. Instead of looking for Remus and Peter, or even Sirius, after a quidditch win, James was looking for you. And you always ran to him first. He’d pull you into a hug and lift you off the ground. Then he’d keep an arm draped over your shoulder as you congratulated Sirius. And then when they snuck you into the tower for the party, you’d sit between James and one of the boys. When James brought butterbeers to the table in the Three Broomsticks, he always gave the first mug to you. When you joined the group late, you’d lean over James’ shoulder to announce your arrival. 

Before the end of third year, you and James were undoubtedly best friends. Over the next two years, you only got closer with the boys. Your spot in the group was cemented. 

And you kept being more drawn to James. It took you a while to realize what it was. You didn’t just like him. You really like him. As more than a friend. His arm loosely draped over your shoulder platonically was no longer enough. His brief hugs after quidditch wins weren’t long enough. You wanted him to kiss you, to hold you, to ask you out and call you his. But you can’t tell him any of that because you love your friendship with him and you can’t risk losing that. 

James would tell anyone who asked that you were his best friend and his favorite person. He didn’t acknowledge that you were the reason he stopped flirting with Lily, but he knew that if he could, he’d sit next to you in every class and have you sit next to him at the Gryffindor table for every meal and spend every afternoon in their common room. You’re his best friend. It was perfectly normal for him to devote all of his attention to when you were around. It was expected of him to offer you compliments and to carry your books from time to time. 

A few weeks into sixth year, you got a note from your professor to be out after curfew so you could work on your star charts in the Astronomy Tower. Your charts were missing a few smaller stars and you asserted to the professor that you needed 100% completion. So you sat alone in the tower with your telescope. You were focused. So focused that you didn’t hear Sirius come up the stairs, having found you with the help of the Marauders’ Map. 

“What’re you up to?” he asked.

You jumped, your telescope tumbling onto the floor next to you. “Sirius? Um, star charts. I’ve been struggling to complete them.” 

Why? Oh, you know, because you always work with James and lately you’ve been having more trouble than usual paying attention. You’re convinced he got a new cologne or something. Maybe a new shampoo that makes his hair look better under the moonlight? 

“You wouldn’t be struggling because of a certain glasses-wearing bloke with the world’s messiest hair and a tendency to spout quidditch facts when no one asks for them, would you?”

You turned bright red. You fiddled with your telescope so you didn’t have to look right at Sirius. 

“I… He can be distracting. With his jokes and stuff, you know, the quidditch facts and plays he’s devising.”

“Uh-huh. That’s what you’re distracted by.” You could hear the smirk in Sirius’ voice.

“Do me a favor?”

“What?”

“Shut up and sod off.”

Sirius laughed and sat down next to you. “You fancy Prongs.”

“Shut. Up. And. Sod. Off,” you said through gritted teeth. 

You knew you fancied James. You didn’t need Sirius teasing you about it. 

“You know,” Sirius said, sounding a little too casual, “he fancies you too.”

“He doesn’t.” 

“And you’d know that?” 

“Yeah,” you said indignantly. “I think I’d know if my best friend fancied me.”

“Sure, sure.” Sirius cleared his throat to prevent himself from laughing. “So it’s just coincidence that his star charts are worse than yours and his notes for Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts are nonexistent and he nearly blew up the Potions classroom when you leaned over him to grab a measuring cup?” 

“Sirius, we mess around. It’s what friends do. And I bumped him. That’s why the daisy root ended up in the potion.”

“If you say so…” 

“I do.” 

You put the telescope back up to your eye and looked at the stars. Sirius watched you for a minute. He was wondering how you could be so blind to how James gravitated toward you in a way that he didn’t for anyone else. He sighed.

“Do you want my help?” he asked.

“With the chart? Actually, yeah. I can’t see anything.”

Sirius chuckled. That wasn’t what he was asking, but he wasn’t going to correct you. Not now, at least. He took your star chart and started marking various missing stars. Then he’d try to point them out to you in the sky. 

Sirius wasn’t done trying to get you and James to see that you both liked each other. He decided to make it his mission. It was certainly better than dealing with his own feelings. He waited a few days before attempting to talk to James. 

You had just said goodnight to them, leaving James and Sirius to finish the walk back to Gryffindor Tower by themselves. 

“She looked nice today, don’t you think?” Sirius asked, watching you walk away. 

“Always looks nice,” James said without missing a beat. 

“Ever think about kissing her?” 

James’ eyes snapped to Sirius. “What?”

Sirius shrugged and turned to start walking. 

“She’s fit. Funny. Puts up with our bullshut. Kinda perfect if you think about it. I’d give it a go, wouldn’t you?”

“I… er, no. She’s one of my best friends, Padfoot. One of our best friends. Show her some respect,” James said.

“So you don’t… fancy her?”

James glared at Sirius. The answer was he did fancy you. A lot. But saying it out loud would make it real. Telling someone made it real. 

“No.”

Sirius knew James was lying to him and himself. 

“So you don’t mind if I ask her out?”

James’ jaw clenched. He hesitated before responding. He didn’t think Sirius would actually go through with it, and even if he did, you wouldn’ say yes. 

“Go for it.”

Sirius nodded and the rest of the walk back to the tower was silent. Both boys were thinking about you. James had thought you looked nice today; he noticed you put a little extra effort into your hair. The idea of Sirius going on a date with you made his stomach churn. But James knew you. You didn’t like Sirius like that. You’d say no if he asked. Sirius, on the other hand, was creating a plan in his head to get James to admit that he likes you. You at least owned up to it when he called you out. 

“Wait up!” Sirius said, hurriedly putting his stuff away after Ancient Runes. 

You paused and turned back toward Sirius. He gave you a wide smile once he was ready to go.

“Thanks. So, I wanted to talk to you about Prongs again.”

“This should be good,” you groan.

“I swear to Merlin he likes you. I know him and I see how he looks at you.”

“Padfoot, I know him too. That’s how I know I’m just his best friend.”

“Who hasn’t dated anyone.”

“Because I’m hopeless.”

“No. He hasn’t dated anyone either. Hasn’t kissed anyone. Stopped flirting with Evans,” Sirius listed off. “He likes you.”

“He doesn’t.”

“What if I can prove it to you?”

You laughed. “How?”

“Go on a date with me.”

“What?” you gasped. 

“Go on a date with me. Pretend to be my girlfriend. Watch him get jealous. It’ll be more than best friend protectiveness. It’ll be someone-else-is-dating-the-girl-I’m-in-love-with level jealousy.”

“You want me to pretend to date you?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re certain he likes me?”

“Yes.”

You pressed your lips together as you considered it. You didn’t know if you could believably fake-date Sirius, but it would make proving that you were right easier. 

“Alright,” you said.

“Alright?”

“Yeah. And when we prove you wrong, we’ll tell the others it was fake to someone jealous. Someone from Hufflepuff. And we’ll say it didn’t work, because it didn’t. They’ll buy that.”

“Or, when it proves me right, we’ll tell them it was fake so you and Prongs can run off into the sunset together or something cheesy.”

“Right, because that’s going to happen,” you said with an eye roll. 

“What’s going to happen?” Peter asked, walking up to you and Sirius. 

“Padfoot getting 100% on the next Runes exam,” you said quickly. “With the way he studies? Not a chance in hell.” 

“I don’t need to study, I got that natural intelligence.” 

James and Remus were already in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom when the three of you arrived. Like clockwork, you took your spot next to James and got out your notes. James leaned back in his chair, watching you. 

“You’re going to let me study those, right?” he asked with a smirk. 

You laughed and slid the parchment toward him. “Do you think they’ll be much help?”

James took one look at your notes before bursting out laughing. It was a collection of doodles and written conversations between you and James. When Sirius said that James’ didn’t have Defense notes, he didn’t consider that you also didn’t have any. Apparently, he forgot that everyone uses Remus’ notes. 

“I mean, this is very useful… just not for this class.”

“Maybe if someone was trying to figure out how much we pay attention?”

“They don’t need your notes to figure that out,” Remus said. 

You and James both turned around in your seats. 

“What you mean by that?” you asked.

“That you spend way too much time smiling and laughing. Ask anyone.”

You and James made eye contact and simultaneously rolled your eyes. That was the professor’s fault for letting you choose your own seats. You were going to sit next to your best friend. So, if you didn’t play attention, that was on them, not you. 

The rest of the morning went by as it normally would. You and James didn’t pay much attention to Defense Against the Dark Arts. You tried to not fall asleep on Lily’s shoulder during History of Magic, and then you walked with her to the Great Hall for lunch. You sat down between Remus and James and started filling your plate. Peter was complaining about the assignment he had gotten in Divination. None of you were sure why Peter took that class to begin with, nor why he decided to continue on with it for N.E.W.T.s. You reminded him of that. He responded by flicking a grape at you. 

“Damn, left my Herbology stuff in my dorm,” you said, looking into your bag after you finished eating. “Guess I’ll meet you guys in the greenhouses.”

You got up and headed out of the Great Hall. Sirius watched James watch you go. Then he got up and jogged up to you as you reached the doors. 

“Hey!”

“Do you need me to grab you parchment or something?” you asked, slowing your pace for him to catch up.

“No, but Wormtail cut us off earlier. I was thinking we launch into our plan this weekend. I’ll plan us a nice little date,” he said. 

You gave him a sideways glance. He looked like the epitome of relaxed and casual with his hands shoved in his pockets and shoulders back, topped with a lazy grin. 

“Okay. You’ll tell me more later then? After you’ve planned something?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’ll see you in Herbology,” you said, turning in the direction of your common room.

Sirius turned back around to return to the boys. 

“What was that about?” Peter asked when Sirius sat back down at the table.

“Asked her on a date.”

The three boys stared at Sirius with surprise etched into all of their faces. When they talked about girls, you never came up, save the conversation James and Sirius had last night. 

“You did what?” Remus managed to get out after a minute of tense silence. “What did she say?”

“I asked her out and she said yes,” Sirius said casually, reaching for his cup. 

“She said yes?” James repeated and Sirius nodded.

“I did not see that coming,” Peter said.

“Some good your Divination class is doing for you,” Sirius laughed. 

James didn’t know how to act for the rest of the lunch period. Sirius actually asked you out and you said yes? This had to be a bad dream or something, right? You never said anything about liking Sirius and you’d tell James something like that. He would’ve been the best wingman for you. Well, in theory he would’ve been. 

Remus and Peter were skeptical of the idea of you and Sirius going on a date. They more or less had an inkling about James’ feelings for you, and that was something they didn’t see from Sirius. And they had thought that if you were going to date any of them, it would be James. It just made sense. You and Sirius? They weren’t sure. 

You didn’t act any different in the afternoon. You still sat by James. No one brought up the date, but there was something in the air that told you Sirius told them. He must have. That was part of this whole fake dating thing – see if James gets jealous. From what you could tell, he wasn’t jealous.

No one mentioned the date for the rest of the week, until Friday when Sirius told you to meet him by the Black Lake around 11. When you arrived at the lake, he had set up a picnic. 

“Wow, a real life picnic,” you laughed as you walked up to Sirius. 

“It’s a classic first date move. Great for talking and getting used to being near someone.”

“I don’t think I need to get used to being near you. I’m with you and the boys all the time.” 

You sat down on the blanket and Sirius mirrored you. 

“You haven’t been near-near me without the boys. Being near someone in a romantic setting is different than hanging out with friends. You know, hand holding, arms around each other, kissing. That stuff.”

The smile you had dropped from your face. “Kissing?” 

“I’m not saying that we have to kiss, no.” You sighed a breath of relief. “James should be plenty jealous before we’d get to that. Don’t get me wrong, you’re plenty fit and I would, but-”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” you said. “I think I get what you mean. At least enough of it.”

“Yeah. So, did you notice any changes in James since I told him I asked you out?”

“Not really. Prongs, Moony, Wormtail, they all seemed a little off, but I don’t think it’s jealousy.” 

“Well, Prongs has been having a tough time looking at me. I don’t think he thought I was actually going to ask you.” 

“Going to ask me?”

“I tried to get him to admit out loud that he fancies you by asking if he’d mind if I asked you out. … Sandwich?”

“You asked him… What did he say?”

“‘Go for it.’” 

“I told he doesn’t like me like that. He bloody told you to ask me out.”

“If he doesn’t like you like that, why can’t he look at me?” 

“Because he thinks this is real and if it goes south, bye bye friendship?” 

“I live at his house, love.”

“Not bye bye Padfoot. Bye bye me.”

Sirius laughed. “You think that he’d stop being your friend? That’s cute.”

“Like you said, you live at his house. You’re brothers. I’d be the one to go.”

“Trust me, you’re not going anywhere. Now come on, I didn’t bring you out here to talk about losing James. We are here to eat!”

Back in their dorm, James was pacing. He had been pacing since he got back from lunch with Remus and Peter, both of whom were working on homework. 

“It’s weird, right?” James asked, running a hand through his hair. 

“What’s weird?” Remus asked back.

“That they’re on a date.” 

“Pads had a bit of a crush on her in third year. Maybe it never went away,” Peter said.

“But wouldn’t he have said something since then? Rather than just randomly saying ‘Oh, she’s fit’?” 

“When’d he say that?” Peter asked.

“Earlier this week.”

Remus sighed, putting his quill down. “Prongs, it’s Padfoot we’re talking about. He decides on things rather quickly, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t think things through.”

“He better have thought this through…” James grumbled.

He stopped pacing and leaned out the open window. He didn’t know if he should be angry or happy that the window didn’t give him a view of the lake. He didn’t want to see you on a date with Sirius, but he also wanted to make sure that he was treating you right, like how you deserved to be treated. 

At some point, Remus and Peter went down to the common room, leaving James alone in the dorm. He wasn’t feeling too sociable. He laid down on his bed, staring at the canopy above him. He didn’t move when Sirius came in. 

“Hey, Prongs. Why aren’t you downstairs?” he asked, throwing the blanket from the picnic on his bed. 

“Don’t feel like it.”

The room felt tense. Sirius knew why but he wasn’t going to address it until James did. James needed to come to terms with his feelings for you and making him suffer a little bit was a part of the process. 

“How… how was it?” James asked after what felt like half an hour – it had been maybe five minutes. 

“Good, really good. I think she was a bit surprised at how romantic I can be. But if there’s one thing Sirius Black is good at, it’s the art of wooing,” Sirius said with a smirk.

James scoffed. “The art of wooing?”

“Yeah. Giving girls the attention and romance they crave. And come on, it’s not like she’s had a ton of blokes vying for her. She deserves a little something-something.”

“So you’re taking her on pity dates?” James asked bitterly, sitting up to glare at Sirius.

“No, no!” he said, holding up his hands in defense. “I’m just saying that I’m showing her a good time. Something she hasn’t had before.” 

“A good time… Yeah, sure you are,” James muttered as he laid back down.

“You got a problem?” 

“Just don’t want you fucking up the friendgroup.”

“Hey, mate, you’re the one who told me to go for it. I did. The Marauders will be fine.”

James rolled his eyes and stood up, heading for the dorm’s door. 

“Where you going?”

“A walk,” James spat before slamming the door behind him.

Sirius chuckled to himself. James clearly wasn’t okay with Sirius having gone on a date with you. If this was him after one date, it wouldn’t be long until he admitted how he felt about you. 

James spent the rest of the day avoiding Sirius, and of course, that was a day you decided to eat dinner at your house’s table. He wanted to talk to you, make sure that you shared Sirius’ sentiment that it was a good date. However, you spent the next holed up in the library working on homework and James didn’t want to disturb you. He watched your name on the map for a while. Sirius found this quite amusing. 

And when Monday came, you were back with the Marauders like usual. Well, mostly. You sat next to Sirius at breakfast instead of James. It felt weird for you, but it was worse for James. Seeing you across the table wasn’t something he was used to. He told himself he was overreacting. He felt better when you walked next to him on the way to Potions.

“Hey,” he said. “I feel like I haven’t seen you since Friday.”

“Yeah, I was a bit behind on homework. Had to crank it out.”

“And your date with Sirius.” The words came out tinged with bitterness. He hadn’t meant for that. 

“Yeah,” you said, biting back a smile. “That too.”

“How was it?”

“Surprisingly nice.” It was an honest answer. “Talked, had lunch and just relaxed by the lake.”

“He treated you well?” 

You nodded. “Perfect gentleman.”

“Good, good. We accept nothing less.” James stopped walking and put a hand on your shoulder. “If he ever, and I mean ever, is less than a that, let me know and I’ll take care of it.”

“I’m a big girl, Prongs. I can take care of myself.” 

“I know. I just need you to know that I’m in your corner.”

“I know that.”

Despite his kind words, something sunk in your stomach. He wasn’t jealous. He was being protective like a brother would be. Like a best friend. You didn’t let it show on your face though; if you looked upset, James would assume it was because of Sirius. 

Besides sitting next to Sirius at meals instead of James, the next few days went by like usual. You slowly started forcing yourself to stand by Sirius instead of James, to appear to be drawn to him instead of James. It was a lot harder than you’d like to admit. Your second “date” with Sirius was a study date, just the two of you in the library. Remus watched James stare at the map for the entire time that Sirius was gone. 

The next day, you stabbed James in the heart. You walked into Defense Against the Dark Arts, laughing at something Sirius had just said, and then you sat down next to him. The spot next to James left an empty void. For the first time in a while, James attempted to take notes in that class. His eyes kept drifting to you. You and the parchment sitting between you and Sirius. James clenched his jaw and glared at his parchment. Why shouldn’t you sit next to your… your boyfriend in class? It made sense that you did. So then why did it feel like betrayal? 

He just missed his best friend. That’s what he kept telling himself as you spent more and more time with Sirius rather than him. Little moments that had been his were now given to Sirius. James hated how he noticed each smile you gave him. How your hands brushed. How Sirius would tuck your hair behind your ear to keep it out of your face. How you looked at each other now. 

How did James deal with all of that? He stopped talking to Sirius. Except for during quidditch, but even then, his responses were short and clipped. 

Sirius thought that James not speaking to him and avoiding him at times would be enough to prove to you that James was jealous. You disagreed. You said he was just in a mood, getting used to your faux-relationship. You pointed out that Remus was more withdrawn than usual too. In fact, it seemed like Peter was the only one unaffected by it. 

“I don’t think this is working, Sirius,” you told him as you laid in the Astronomy Tower with him. It was a star-gazing date. “How much longer do we do this for?” 

“I still can’t believe that you don’t see how jealous he is,” Sirius laughed.

“Because he’s not. You said it would be more than best friend protectiveness but that’s all it’s been.”

“There’s quidditch tomorrow. We’ll get him jealous, don’t you worry. I have a plan. You just have to keep doing what you’re doing and make sure you hug me first after we win, alright?”

“A hug is going to break him?” you asked incredulously. 

“I told you, I have a plan.”

“I swear to Merlin, if you kiss me-”

“I’m not going to kiss you. Not unless I get dared to or it’s spin the bottle or something. I… erm… I think I have my eye on someone else.”

You sat up and stared at Sirius with wide eyes. “Someone else?” 

Sirius didn’t say anything. He stayed lying down and staring up at the stars. 

“Sirius. You have your eye on someone else?”

“I think. I’m… I’m feeling things out mentally.”

You laughed and laid back down, laying closer to Sirius than you had been.

“Focusing on my problems rather than your own? How considerate, Black,” you said with a soft tone to your voice. 

“Yeah… I just hope I didn’t miss my chance…”

“Hey, like we’re going to do with James, you can tell her this was fake.”

‘Right. Her,’ Sirius thought.

Like many matches before, you stood between Remus and Peter, cheering for Gryffindor. You knew you should’ve been watching Sirius for most of the match, but you couldn’t. Your eyes kept drifting to James. They stayed there. You loved watching James play quidditch. It made him look so alive and you knew that’s how he felt. When the match ended with Gryffindor’s seeker catching the snitch, you joined the rest of Gryffindor in storming the pitch. Like Sirius told you to last night, you ran to him. He pulled you into a hug and spun you around, just like James usually did. 

It happened in slow motion for James. You, running onto the pitch with your beautiful smile spread across your face. You, running into Sirius’ open arms. You, laughing with your head thrown back as Sirius spun you around. You, remaining under his arm and barely sparing James a glance, let alone saying good job. 

It was a punch to the gut. James didn’t stay around to celebrate on the pitch. He headed back to the locker room, trying to decide if he wanted to throw Sirius off the bell tower or cry because you had always gone to him first. Then James saw Remus walking away from the pitch as well. Remus looked like he was going to puke. James changed his course. 

“Moons?” 

Remus looked up from his feet and offered James a weak smile. 

“Hey, what’s up?” James asked, now standing next to Remus. 

“It’s… it’s nothing.” Remus paused, looking over his shoulder at the crowd of rowdy Gryffindors. “Why aren’t you over there?”

“No… no reason.” 

“Right.” It came out choked and Remus mentally swore at himself. 

James pulled Remus behind the locker room.

“Sit and tell me what’s wrong,” James instructed, sitting down as well.

“It’s… fuck. It’s Padfoot.” 

James frowned. “Padfoot?”

Remus put his head in his hands and then shook his head. He took a shaky breath. 

“We… Padfoot and I… There was a moment. I thought… Thought that maybe… maybe he felt… fuck. I can’t,” Remus rambled out. 

“You and Padfoot?” James asked, voice gentle and non-judgmental. 

Remus nodded. He couldn’t say it out loud that he thought maybe Sirius liked him back. He didn’t need to. James understood what he meant. They sat in silence as the sound of the Gryffindor win slowly died out with students heading back to the castle. 

“You’ve had moments with her, haven’t you?” Remus asked.

James, who had been playing with the grass, stilled. 

“I… I don’t know. Have I?” 

Remus gave a dry chuckle. “That’s not something I can answer. It’s something you just know. You know when it happens.”

“I… I’m going to change. I’ll be quick… If you want to walk back together.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll wait.” 

James stood up, feeling awkward as he walked away. Had he had moments with you? He thought back to some of his favorite memories of you. Were those feelings more than friendship? More than a platonic love? The more he thought about it, the more he lingered on the memories of you under his arm and at his side, every time you smiled at him, every time he made you laugh, the time you cried over a bad grade and went to him for comfort – his stomach twisted. There had been moments. 

The walk back to the castle with Remus was quiet. Both boys wallowed in their feelings. Both were keenly aware that the other was deep in thought. It was jarring for them to walk into Gryffindor Tower, which was already loud with the beginnings of a party. And immediately, James and Remus saw you sitting next to Sirius on the couch. His arm was draped over your shoulder, fingers lazily dragging over your arm. 

“Right,” James said with a tight throat.

He went to grab a butterbeer and pretend to be in a good mood. They had just won a quidditch match for Merlin’s sake. He should be happy. He should be happy that his best friend was happy with his other best friend. And yet, he wanted nothing more than to drown himself in the shower before going to bed early. 

With all the noise in the room, your laughter rose above it all, like it was on a radio frequency just for James. He walked over with Remus to where you were sitting. All of their friends were there. He leaned against the wall to put some distance between you and him. But still, his eyes were drawn to you. 

When Sirius knew James was watching, he pulled you into his lap. You squealed and threw your arm around his neck to balance yourself. It was nauseating for James to witness. It was one thing for you to go on dates with Sirius, to be under his arm or have his arm around your waist. It was another to have Sirius spinning you around after a win. It was yet another for you to be sitting in his lap, laughing and running your fingers through his hair. James looked away, only to see Remus just as uncomfortable as he felt. 

Despite having just arrived, James walked away. He couldn’t bear to stand there and watch you with Sirius. Now that he knew… Maybe he had always known and just didn’t want to admit it. Now that James accepted that he wanted to be in Sirius’ position, he couldn’t watch Sirius have what he didn’t. James handed his barely drunk butterbeer to someone, he didn’t see nor care who it was, and left the common room.

You watched James leave, your smiling falling from your face. You looked to Peter and Remus. Neither one was moving to follow James out. You pushed yourself off of Sirius’ lap. You had noticed that James disappeared after you hugged Sirius on the pitch. And now he was disappearing after Sirius pulled you onto his lap. Maybe… maybe Sirius was right. 

“James?” you called after closing the portrait behind you. 

There was no response. You walked down the closest corridor. He had to be close. He stormed out, he didn’t run. You didn’t think James would run; it didn’t feel right. 

You saw him standing against the balustrade, a bit hunched over. 

“James,” you said softly, as if asking permission to approach. 

He visibly tensed at your voice and that made your heart ache. That wasn’t his normal reaction to your voice. You moved to lean against the balustrade next to him when he didn’t respond after a few seconds. 

“Are you okay?” Your voice was quiet and caring and all James could do for a moment was squeeze his eyes shut.

Then he said, “No.” 

You pressed your lips together. Your heart was pounding in your chest. Was he jealous?

“Can you tell me what’s wrong?” 

“I shouldn’t.”

You looked at James, but he wasn’t looking at you. He pushed his glasses up his nose before returning to his previous position. 

“Why not?” 

“It’s… not right. I messed up, that’s all.” 

“James,” you said firmly. 

Oh, how he loved the sound of you saying his name, even if it was like that. He looked at you and the expression on his face nearly broke your heart. 

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

James ran a hand through his hair before shaking his head. 

“It’s wrong for me to be upset,” he said, turning around and putting his hands on top of the railing to lean backwards against it. 

“Jaaaaaaaaames,” you dragged out his name, not looking away from him.

He sighed and looked up at the ceiling.

“I… Merlin, I’m so stupid…” He sighed again. “I told Sirius to go for it… I told him I was okay with him asking you out and… I’m not. I’m not okay with you dating him.” 

You didn’t say anything. You just let his words wash over you and sink in. 

“I guess I didn’t think he’d actually do it. I thought he was taking a piss. But I also didn’t think you’d say yes to him. You weren’t supposed to say yes.” His voice cracked and he took a shaky breath. “I didn’t realize how not okay I was until… until I saw you falling in love with him.”

You reached out to put your hand on his shoulder, but he shirked away from your touch. 

“I’m not falling in love Sirius,” you said as you let your hand remain hovering just over his shoulder. “I never was.”

James slowly brought his gaze down to meet yours.

“What?” he breathed. 

“We…” You awkwardly laughed, not sure how to precisely word it. “We were faking it.” 

James turned fully toward you and ran a hand through his hair again before crossing his arms across his chest. 

“Why? Why the bloody hell would you do that?” he asked with a hint of desperation to his voice. 

“To see if you would get jealous.”

“Why would you-”

“Merlin, James, I like you. A whole bloody lot. And being just your best friend was hard.”

“Oh.” James stared at you for a moment as dots connected in his brain. “So you’re not dating Sirius?” 

“No, I’m not. And I don’t want to. Ever.” 

“And you don’t want to kiss him?”

“No.” 

“So if I asked you to be my girlfriend-”

“I’d say yes.”

“And if I kissed you?”

“I’d kiss you back.”

“Good.” 

James took a half step closer to you, gently grabbed your face and pressed his lips to yours. It was everything you dreamed of. Your first kiss being James felt right. His lips moved against yours perfectly, and as promised, you kissed him back. Your arms wrapped themselves around James, pulling him closer to you. After a few seconds, he pulled back and rested his forehead against yours as you both tried to catch your breath.

“There’s nothing between you and Sirius?” James asked.

“Just plain ol’ friendship.”

“And us?”

“Way more than friendship.”

“Would you call me your boyfriend?”

“Only if you call me your girlfriend.”

“Okay, my girlfriend.”

You laughed and leaned in to press a quick to his lips. 

“Alright, let’s go tell Padfoot the jig’s up,” you said, grabbing James’ hand and pulling back to the common room. 

The moment Sirius saw you and James, he knew. He knew that one, he was right about James liking you and two, that you told James everything and things had worked. Now, it was his turn. He looked to where Remus was standing next to the fire with his arms crossed and a bored expression on his face. Sirius got up and stood in front of Remus.

“We were never dating. It was fake. I’m sorry,” he said before grabbing Remus’ face and kissing him like James had done to you moments before.

Your eyes went wide at the sight as James went ‘huh.’ The rest of the common room was even more shocked than you. 

“I did not see that coming,” you said to James.

“Moony told me after the match… Didn’t really know ‘bout Padfoot.” 

Tags: @navs-bhat, @faceache111

[moonlitrogue]

Full Moon x Pick A Card : What you need to hear 📝🌛

Some channeled messages that this full moon’s energy brings to the collective. All specific and general details are meant for a certain part of the collective. Take what resonates, leave what doesn’t and if you are drawn to more than one pile feel free to read them! Let me know if it resonates. 👒

pile 1

angel number : 555 | song : blooming today by sung ki kyung

hello, pile 1! i see you have had an exhausting cycle. some of you have been identifying with external conflicts and the sludge of other people’s projections with your own vibe. this group is either young, or sheltered. or you may have limited interactions with the world. holding and understanding pain, is not your purpose right now. if you have been tangled with other people’s shadows or confronting their unhealed behaviour, remember to take due care of yourself. i hear, “drop the anchor”.

you need a little more muscle and structure in you, to not be blown away by things you dislike or bring disturbance. we can’t avoid being agitated or moved by the currents of life, but you also need to find stillness so that, you are able to receive the wisdom that comes out of situations which are ‘threatening’. how will you find this stillness? 

deep, regulated, conscious breathing. the one thing you have been doing, since you came into this world, it is the one thing connecting us within. and regulating our functions from the chaos. 

some of you have artistic abilities and talent. you are called to explore any creative medium during this cycle. this stage of your life calls for introspection and exploration of your creative side. creating a sanctuary, a paradise for yourself is closer to your life’s purpose.

“curation”, im hearing that word a lot. curation of knowledge and resources. in this cycle, you will be provided with opportunities to expand and learn. you’re called to deepen your understanding of yourself. you need a ‘base’ to work on and have a footing in this world. don’t be afraid to be a beginner, a learner. the roots need to go deep to ensure your growth and survival, and to keep the flower above the ground blooming.

masterlist

pile 2

angel number : 1111 | song - antenna by hyukoh, 落日飛車, sunset rollercoaster

you feel restless pile 2. im channeling the placements for sun in taurus, moon in pisces, saturn in cancer/virgo and north node/8h scorpio. if it doesn’t resonate with your placements, that’s alright, it is only a general vibe i got. i was told, “your quest, your mission is on its way.” 

some of you are recovering from ill health. im hearing you need more of omega-3, so include some tuna, mackerel, flaxseeds, chia, walnuts and edamame beans in your diet, whatever your preferences may be. 

i feel a lot is going at the mind and body level - maybe, anxiety, you’re in need of fresh air and good ventilation, maybe even a clean-up of your surroundings. there could be a change of scenery, traveling, it could even be a short-term movement. 

why am i channeling so many things for you?

you could be at a crossroads. preparing to enter a transformational phase. for this reason, you are looking for answers and the universe wants to tell you : the answer is now, the answer is you.

you have worked on something for a long time. and you are getting close to its fruition. you may not have noticed how much you have grown during this journey. what a wonderful job! the universe is so proud of you! 

you have come a long way and with all the challenges you have overcome, you have also acquired all those skills. it feels like you have absorbed the know-how and have it in your inventory. 

keep being in the flow, soften your mind, keep reminding yourself that you have got this. your dream is closer than you know. this is a moment to rest and refine, that is all. 

masterlist

pile 3

angel number : 1221 | song : pined for you my whole life by matt maltese

there is wonderful news on the horizon for you pile 3. you guys have such a charming and dreamy energy. such romanticists. why do i feel some of you are being pursued or courted? there is a cloud of pining around you!

now the message coming through for you is that you gotta not be so slippery lol. why are you putting so much energy into daydreaming and pining when you have people for you, willing to lay themselves at your feet? you have the opportunity to live out your fantasies, so what are you waiting for?

ah, the comfort of your imagination is hard to leave? i get it, pile 3. believe it or not, you coy mfs make it hard for some people to live and breathe. it is not just the case of desire but the gift of being able to connect with you, genuinely.

and because you are so blessed with intelligence, you know who is good for you. you know who complements your energy, and this person is itching to spoil you. 

give yourself the permission to be seen. vulnerability is challenging and you are allowed to take baby steps. and you don’t even need to initiate, it seems. i hear “don’t complicate it, keep it simple, simple is so attractive”.

on a more general note, i hear how “blessed” you are and how “lucky”. you are mostly grateful and don’t take things for granted. so, it creates these ripples where things come to you “with ease”. maybe your own personal efforts could be dismissed, or the hurdles be discounted from your achievements. 

you may have to deal with expectations or people diminishing your success. that invalidation is really uncalled for. don’t use that excuse to undervalue what you do, okay? 

validation is only an added bonus, people are not always qualified or observant or compassionate. 

a lot of this pile’s wounds seem to be related to wanting to be recognized. we were never meant to be alone, afterall. you will always be the first witness to your journey.

i recommend journaling. there are a lot of ways to go about documenting your life and you can look for less effort-intensive ways. “one line” journals are also helpful. you can even record your own voice narrating a week or a month in your life. 

there is no need to be ashamed of your achievements, pile 3.  people will learn to recognize it in due time but in the meanwhile, keep going and celebrate with the ones who DO recognize and cherish you. 

masterlist

pile 4

angel number : 1010 | song - the flood by aurora

have you parted ways with someone who meant a lot to you? im sorry my dear, pile 4. i know how much they meant to you, and vice versa. you each carry so much of the other’s love and quirks. yeah, you guys seem inseparable. in fact, this break may be necessary for you to look at the world and take a breather from the expectations and influences of each other. to some of you, this break can even bring peace or a different perspective. i’m getting that this is a professional break. maybe one or both of you could be exploring opportunities, pursuing a career or work that has placed a lot of demands in a way that has led to this separation. 

im a little confused with the contrast because, i sense this loyalty and connection, but also sadness. for one group, it is possible you will both do your own thing for a while. this connection is one of a kind and i do see reunion of sorts on the cards. you both have so far had the front seat privilege of cheering each other, witnessing the highs and the lows. this period will be a reset. if you are seeking reassurance, i hear better days are coming. 

for another group, you will sort of realise this person was idolised and now you will be able to drop that idea. if they have triggered you, this will be an opportunity to reflect on it. the other person is also going through an important lesson, and i hear the word ‘illusion’. it is possible if you guys ever do make the decision of reuniting, you will drop any illusion, or be more honest and clear with your communication. 

this theme also extends to the rest of your own identity. you are thirsting to know what is ‘real’, and what is ‘true’. you want to slither between the gaps and know things on an intimate level. you want to savour this world in its raw form. how delightful. this could be the start of something new. a new pathway forming in your brain, the way you see and connect with the outer world. 

are your interactions merely reactive, or are they coming from a place of curiosity, wanting to understand better. are you in a glass wall, only seeing the other person from within a closed space, or can you see the light dancing in their eyes and the weight they place behind certain words? these are the questions, the energy of this full moon prompts you.

masterlist

dividers by @strangergraphics

[lunarbreaksblog]

Can I have headcanons for the TFA bots + Elite guard bots with a cybertronian reader (who came to life by an allspark fragment) who's very Bob Ross-esque I feel like if they got pissed off enough they would yell but it happens very rarely, they also either have an RPG Cannon or a sword and shield as a weapon.

I feel like they would see beauty and everything, nature especially, so they just paint it a lot. I also feel like they would sell their paintings for free, sell it to auctions and they also get commissions from people as well.

TFA! Bots + Elite Guards X Artist!Cybertronian!Reader

You had never known Cybertron or space, the beautiful ethereal vastness of space. It wanted to lead you to every galaxy, show you everything and share its knowledge with you.

But you were never born in the stars, you were born on a organic planet that seemed to welcome you however, it had moments where it resented you. With moments of harsh rain rusting your body and lighting nearly making you offline at times.

Yet, you found beauty in it, the way plants seem to grow, the way the air seemed to shimmer with heat on hot days and how the inhabitants of the planet. Humans, seemed memorised and busy with a life span shorter than yours.

You think you've been on this plant since 1890 or somewhere around there, when humans were just figuring out electricity.

A fallen star had clashed with a steam train and thus you were created.

You never knew Cybertron or any of it inhabitants but still you painted it somehow and created vast illustrations of space.

So, when it become the 21st century you were surprised with the arrival of the Autobots, they were highly suspicious and cautious of you however you were a curious oddity to them.

Optimus prime:

He had never seen a cybertronian as big and lanky as you. Never seen an autobot that big, only Decepticons. But, he was sure you weren't one.

You were too nice and helpful.

Also you painted, which Optimus highly doubts Decepticons would take the time to paint.

Bumblebee:

He's a bit cheeky with you, likes to annoy you to get a rise out of you but you generally couldn't hurt a fly so you just stood there and took it

Eventually Ratchet scolds bumblebee out about being mean to you and saying that you don't know everything and to leave you alone

Ratchet:

He is quite annoyed at you naive nature however, he likes that you come to him to learn more about your home planet that technically wasn't your home but was in a way.

Loves that you paint, you draw Cybertron so well even if you haven't seen it. You also draw earthy nature so beautifully.

Bulkhead:

Loves that you paint as well! He asks if he and you can have paint dates, as friends of course (Bulkhead might have a crush on you)

He loves learning earthian art techniques from you and he teaches you cybertronian techniques in return.

Let's just say you and Bulkhead can talk hours about artwork.

Prowl:

Similar with Bulkhead, you can also talk hours about artwork and now nature! You tell him about your journey through the Americas and how nature and humankind has reshaped the world you first knew.

He just listens to you silently as you ramble on about animals, plants and even rocks.

He enjoys it.

Jazz:

When the elite guards visits, Jazz is immediately taken back by your presence around prowl, he can immediately pick up that you've become prowls new favorite mystery.

Even though you've told everyone your story with a smile, he can still see the tiredness and heaviness of the world in your optics.

But you somehow manage to make it through

He and Prowl help you with your art donations and auctions to humans and even the occasional cybertronian when Jazz takes some of your work back to teh planet.

Sentinel prime:

Is absolutely repulsed by you.

He doesn't wanna go near you and your weird rust and your whole weird body. Likes your paintings tho, just won't admit it and when questioned he says that Cybertron isn't your home and you shouldn't pretend to be something youre not.

The glare everyone gives him makes him regret his words alot.

Ultra Magnus:

You are a little bit taller than him, much more lean and lanky than him as well. He thought you were an enemy at first but after Optimus had spoken to him about you. He just felt pity for you.

Another allspark fragment coming to life in the wrong environment. You even drew Cyberton even though it wasn't your actual home.

He won't admit it but youre life just makes him sad.

Never really talks to you, just nods and walks away.

[zynp-krdg]

Someone else already corrected that Ibn al-Haytham didn't invent camera obscura but he was the first to understand the principle behind it and explain it. They even shared a link. He IS known as the father of modern optics. Sorry I made that one mistake and it was too late to edit when I noticed it. I mentioned it in the comment I made, you could find the person who corrected me from that comment and reach the link. And about Al-Khwarizmi, he did demonstrate completing the square to solve quadratic equations. Even the wikipedia page for "completing the square" specifically points him out.

I did my best to try and summarize these as best as I could and picked figures I thought would be the most interesting to read for people. I had to skip some scholars that I wanted to talk about and many things the scholars I mentioned did, to keep it simple and short.

And yeah, every civilization has its start, its peak, and its end. The Golden Age of Islam is no exception to that. There were great Muslim scholars who came after the Golden Age too (in the Ottoman Empire and other places), but not as many, because a place like Baghdad never came after that. It was one of the most populous cities, and when the Mongol Empire invaded, they slaughtered more than a million people. Libraries were burned, they tortured scholars to death. They demolished the dams on the Tigris and the Euphrates that the Abbasids had built up over a period of five centuries, depressing agriculture and slowing population and economic recovery for many centuries. Like obviously they couldn't just recover and keep doing maths. I think the loss of those libraries and that knowledge is one of the saddest losses in history.

There was also Al-Andalus alongside Baghdad, another incredible (almost unrivaled, Al-Andalus is genuinely fascinating) civilization. (711-1492) And when you consider how Europe built its riches by exploiting and occupying other countries, you gain another perspective on how it might've been more luxurious and comfortable for them without having to work as hard, in the simplest words.

And yes, Muslim polymaths were inspired by not only India but also Greece, Persia, Egypt, they translated many of their works too. Muslim scholars properly credited their predecessors and built upon what was already discovered, unlike Europe, which advanced thanks to the knowledge they got from Muslim scholars, yet a big majority of people don't know now. Some people in a subreddit might know these things but in general education/academia, they are not talked about. Many people genuinely don't know and they can't know if no one teaches them, and this is a good opportunity to do so.

Thanks for the additional information, this was fun. I quite like this post because of the information everyone has been sharing.

was talking to my mom about how white people ignore the contributions of poc to academia and I found myself saying the words "I bet those idiots think Louis Pasteur was the first to discover germ theory"

which admittedly sounded pretentious as fuck but I'm just so angry that so few people know about the academic advancements during the golden age of Islam.

Islamic doctors were washing their hands and equipment when Europeans were still shoving dirty ass hands into bullet wounds. ancient Indians were describing tiny organisms worsening illness that could travel from person to person before Greece and Rome even started theorizing that some illnesses could be transmitted

also, not related to germ theory, but during the golden age of Islam, they developed an early version of surgery on the cornea. as in the fucking eye. and they were successful

and what have white people contributed exactly?

please go research the golden age of Islamic academia. so many of us wouldn't be alive today if not for their discoveries

people ask sometimes how I can be proud to be Muslim. this is just one of many reasons

some sources to get you started:

but keep in mind, it wasn't just science and medicine! we contributed to literature and philosophy and mathematics and political theory and more!

maybe show us some damn respect

[returnofeternity]

Rhianon post and I say give her the butch as a treat. Murder is hard work, it's very physically taxing and emotions rub high. Why not give her a butch who has a truck that's just big enough for a body? Maybe she's a gardener or carpenter and has traps and tools to help with the clean up? Anything to see her bloody girl smile.

butch who isn't even phased or scared when rhiannon comes home after her first kill. well, you were scared after helping her out of her coat and you saw her shirt covered in blood, you thought she was badly hurt. but she reassures you that she's fine, and shows you the knife.

"he pissed on me." she grumbles to you, scrunching her face cutely as you wipe at her chin speckled with blood. "and then he came at me. i watched his blood spurt from his neck after i stabbed him.... i think my panties are also soaked." you laugh, much to rhiannon's surprise, and her lips twitch into a smile that mirrors yours. "what did you do with the body?" your hands take hers, and you lead her up into the bathroom so you can wash her off. "is he still there? do i need to, like, pick him up and dispose of him? because i will." rhiannon's eyes flutter shut for a split second as you unbutton her bloody shirt. she hums and shakes her head, lazily pulling down her pants as you get her shirt off. "no. i pushed him into the river." "let me do it." you mumble, stuffing her shirt under your armpit and taking her pants off the rest of the way as she shakes her leg. "why don't you get in bed while i try to wash these off, yeah? i'll be there in a few." rhiannon rubs her face sleepily and nods, and she pulls you in for a short kiss before muttering, "thank you handsome, i owe you."

butch who starts putting a tarp over the bed of their truck so if rhiannon ever needs them asap, they can hide the body for her without leaving too much evidence.

you're only a little concerned when you arrive to where rhiannon said she'd be. she hasn't spoken a word in at least 2 mintues, and she didn't even greet you. she's just shaking and panting and smiling as you drag his body to your truck. but you also know how excited killing gets her, so she's just at a loss for words probably. "are you sure he's dead? i can hear him groaning." you question, looking up at rhiannon, who's nearly kicking the guy's head as she walks behind. "they do that sometimes." her voice is high, and there's something in it that sounds like she's almost trying to impress you with her knowledge. once you get to your truck, you easily lift him on your own and plop him harshly on the tarp, the impact making his stab wound gush out more blood. some of it ends up spraying you in the face and you groan in disgust. before you can wipe the blood off your cheek, rhiannon's hand grips your wrist, and when you look at her, she shakes her head. her eyes analyze your face, looking you up and down like she wants to eat you. she gulps hard before she yanks you close to her and begins kissing you, moaning heavily into your mouth as she tastes the guys blood.

[kimmiexoxo]

໒꒰ ꭷ ´ · ꭷ ꒱ა angst ◞ gn reader ◞ break-up mention

you always come back to him. after those calls, when you cry into the phone and beg him to take you away; when he can't refuse you because god knows what can happen to you when you're drunk. you were always like that when you were drunk: reckless and so, so straightforward, ready to say anything that came into your head.

and when he does find the strength to look in the bar and see you standing there like you've been waiting for him. it hurts in a way; seeing you so drunk and defenseless makes his insides clench and his arms go up in anticipation of a hug. because he knows you get overly tactile when you drink.

you smile when you see a familiar male figure, and the whole world disappears when you say his name with such tenderness and longing.

“hi,” he whispers softly into your shoulder somewhere as you practically hang onto him, ”have you had a lot to drink?” “just a little,” you smile, lifting your head and looking into his eyes, ”just to get in the mood. i didn't want to get drunk…”

he knows you've had more than a little, but your soft gaze and flushed cheeks are worth it, so he stayed silent. he knows he needs to take you home; needs to help you into the apartment, air out your bedroom, help you undress and get into bed…

“a little bit, huh?” he sighs, helping you out of the bar while you still smile contentedly and mumble something back, ”let's get you home.” “wanna go to your place,” you parry, pushing him away from you slightly to reach out; you almost fall and he catches you just in time. you just smile, whispering a soft 'thank you' and he wants to scream at how familiar it feels, “i missed the view from your bedroom window… it's so beautiful there.” “that's why i bought this apartment,” he gently places his hand on your waist, ”you always loved the view.”

“why did we break up?” you ask quietly, sitting in the hallway and looking down at the way he slowly removes your shoes from your feet, ”i wish we never broke up.” those words make him wince; he knew you would ask that question again. he knew you'd call him over and over again when you were drunk and he still hadn't blocked your number. he knew you would ask him why you broke up, and he realizes he doesn't know the reason at all. or rather he knows it's a combination of many things, from work stress to feelings that started to fade. and yet that knowledge doesn't make it any easier. he knows he still loves you to death. he just doesn't love you as much anymore. and he can't move on.

“you're drunk,” he forces himself to say, averting his gaze, ”let's talk about this tomorrow.”

he knows full well that you won't talk about it tomorrow. tomorrow you'll dress up and leave before he wakes up; you never stay with him too long and he doesn't know why. but he can't blame you.

so he lets you use him as your personal airbag that will always answer your call at three in the morning.

kazuha ◞ thoma ◞ ifa ◞ dick ◞ gepard ◞ dang heng ◞ dick ◞ xavier ◞ cloud & ur favs !!

[headfullof-ideas]

Okay, at some point I’m sure that it seems like I’m just coming up with my own versions of AU’s when someone else announces theirs and I immediately respond with ‘oh, I have one of those too!😃’ BUT I SWEAR I’M NOT! I was just left to my own devices for several years, with no way of getting online and interacting with the tiny fandom of The Deep, and so came up with all my own generic AU’s. And only remember I have the small, underdeveloped ones when someone else posts one of their own, because currently I’m only posting about the ones I’ve developed a lot of lore for and have an actual coherent story for.

On to why I wrote that whole fore note, httyd-nerd’s age-swap AU reminded me that I too have an Age Swap AU. Because that’s a pretty consistent AU that some fandoms have in some way, I feel like, so of course I made one of my own for funsies. However, unlike @httyd-nerd, I didn’t do mine with Ant and Alpheus. I did it with Ant and Fontaine.

The gist I had, and then further came up with on my way home from work which is when I had this very reminded thought, was Ant and Fontaine’s ages were swapped. Ant was still the Chosen One, though I hadn’t gotten quite far or dedicated enough into figuring out how he was. Maybe there wasn’t ever the rule of ‘youngest member of the family will be the Chosen One’ in this timeline (which means there’s probably something similar for the Ephymacron; ie anyone in the family can use it). Or maybe it was supposed to be the youngest, but when the Scepter was scoping out its options, it decided it didn’t really like either Fontaine or Alpheus, and then stumbled across Ant and went ‘👀tell me more’.

+

Ant: There ain’t no way my little sister is getting saddled with this responsibility, I’m taking it *doesn’t realize that’s not how it works*

The Guardians, thinking that Ant somehow stubborned his way into bending the rules of the Scepter: *to the Scepter* Why didn’t you pick Fontaine?

The Scepter: Didn’t want that one. Or the other one, that one sucks by the way, what were you thinking?

The Guardians: But…it’s supposed to be the youngest of the royal lines!

The Scepter: Screw that, I want this one. He’s funny

The Guardians: But-

The Scepter: My last one wasn’t the youngest either! You can’t make me pick the other two! This one’s mine!

+

Along this line, Alpheus thinks that Fontaine is supposed to be the Chosen One, and is creepy toward her the same way he was with Ant. And if the youngest rule doesn’t exist, he’s just spiteful toward both Nekton kids because Nereus likes them more so of course it’s all their fault. Regardless of which one, Ant just makes it his mission to keep Alpheus as far away from Fontaine as possible, because there’s NO way he’s leaving that creepy eighteen year old around his baby sister.

In the scenario where it’s assumed it’s the youngest, Alpheus tries to do his whole nemesis shpeel, but is interrupted by Ant kicking down the door of his moonpool and storming the submarine in the Swamp Knight. Every other interaction with Fontaine Alpheus has to try, he’s dragged away by his feet by her wildly overprotective older brother. It comes out that, somehow, Ant’s the Chosen One and Ant’s like ‘finally a better excuse to get this guy alone and kick his butt’. Alpheus sweats when he realizes it’s actually indeed Ant he has to deal with and not Fontaine, and nopes out of the Lemuria business from the fear alone of being left entirely alone with Ant.

And in the scenario where Alpheus has some decency and doesn’t act creepy with the little girl, it’s because he decided that she’s not nemesis material and definitely not the Chosen One (this would be in the scenario where the rule of youngest doesn’t exist, so the Guardians aren’t sure if it’s Ant or Fontaine). He has requirements for a nemesis, and this pesky little girl doesn’t meet any of them. So he focuses on Ant, who takes it if it means he stays away from the rest of his family, but there’s a running gag where Alpheus just gets SO annoyed with Fontaine because she buts in and just makes herself a problem anyways by kicking his ankles or pressing all the buttons on his chair and control panels and being a general nuisance, and he just wants her to stop.

Finn and Maddie would also be swapped here, because if Finn and Fontaine still had their baby romance plot it’d be creepy if Finn was still the same age (though the thought of ten year old Maddie beefing with a fifteen-sixteen year old Ant is hilarious, and very in character). This is where I’m not sure where the ages in this AU would lie, because Finn and Maddie have a different age gap than Ant and Fontaine, and I want them all to be somewhat around the same age as their respective pirate/Nekton. So it would probably be Ant and Maddie being 16-17 respectively at the start, with Ant being fifteen and then turning sixteen early on in the show while Maddie turns eighteen much later. And Fontaine and Finn would be 12-13, with Fontaine turning thirteen much later on when it’s her birthday. This also makes it slightly better regarding the Alpheus and Ant situation, though Alpheus is still Alpheus and we all know how he is.

Maddie would be the First Mate of the Dark Orca, and Finn’s the baby pirate who doesn’t really know if he actually wants to be a pirate, and has a little more leeway and freedom because Maddie’s the perfect pirate and Hammerhead doesn’t pay much attention to him. Maddie sometimes resents Finn a little bit, because she feels she had to take over as ‘Mom’ for him, especially as one of/the only woman on the whole sub, which means she’s also fighting tooth and nail against all the male crew members who don’t want a lady running things when Hammerhead retires. She still dotes on Finn and just thinks he hasn’t filled his pirate boots yet. All the older boys at the Floating Market deal with a huffy little brother standing in between them and Captain Hammerhead’s pretty daughter. Maddie being the older sibling takes care of Finn a lot, with a mix of genuine care and also internalized resentment at being the one to take care of Finn instead of their Dad. She throughout the series starts to develop some angst with Hammerhead about it, and eventually resolves to get Finn out of the Dark Orca if he doesn’t want to stay when she finally takes over.

Maddie once babysat for Fontaine as a favor for Ant, though Fontaine doesn’t quite realize it was her because they were both so much younger, and Maddie hadn’t started wearing makeup and jewelry and quality pirate boots at that time. It was around the time that Ant and Maddie were the same age as they are in canon, in which Fontaine and Finn weren’t old enough to be involved in any shenanigans. Ant and Maddie met each other before Finn and Fontaine because of this, and had their whole ‘i despise you and want nothing to do with you -> wanna hang out and talk about sea monsters’ arc before their little siblings got involved. They were best friends by the time Fontaine and Finn were old enough to start getting involved, and have all sorts of inside jokes. They got a little dismayed when they found out they have to start keeping an eye on their respective siblings during their families interactions, instead of just chilling in the vents and talking about the latest events in their lives and sea monsters. Kaiko and Will found out about Ant and Maddie a few years after they started to get along, and almost grounded Ant over it. Eventually, they acquiesced to not doing anything about it when Ant pointed out he didn’t have many other kids his age that lived a somewhat similar lifestyle to talk to. They turn a blind eye, a bit judge mental about Maddie’s lifestyle but aware that she and Ant seem to be genuine friends. Ant’s made a point to not make them aware of the fact that he’s been letting Maddie into the Aronnax to take home leftovers for her and Finn for years. Hammerhead is still wildly and blissfully unaware of it all.

Fontaine and Ant are like a ‘Overly cheerful and optimistic older brother and teenage angst filled little sister’ dynamic. Fontaine thinks Ant is childish for his age and SO embarrassing in public. She tells everyone she meets that she’s an only child. Ant thinks she needs to lighten up on the teenage angst and drama and tells everyone all about his adorable but angsty little sister. He’s also got about a hundred photos of her in his phone because her facial expressions are fun to turn into memes and mood boards, and not just because it drives her nuts every time he does it. Ant’s the older, loving, semi-responsible but genuinely caring brother, and Fontaine is at the age where her personality makes her a little bit of a jerk and an absolute pain and twerp to deal with (listen, at the age she’s at, with her personality and flaws? She’d be kind of a butt, let’s be real)

Jess and Ant’s relationship is also swapped here along with Jess’s age, but not in the same extremes that it is in canon. Jess has a bit of a crush on Ant, in that she thinks he’s really nice and super cool and not bad looking, BUT it’s just a puppy crush, and she’s aware he has a girlfriend and is self-aware enough to know that their age gap isn’t great. BUT. She makes it out as a bigger thing than it is because she KNOWS how much it drives Fontaine nuts when she sweet-talks Ant and acts weird around him, and she feeds off of chaos. Especially at her bff’s expense. Fontaine is dying over her best friend talking about how cute her older brother is because he’s NOT, he’s SO ANNOYING, STOPPIT JESS!! Ant wasn’t immediately aware of Jess having a puppy crush on him until Kari pointed it out, but he knows that she knows he has a girlfriend and he knows that it’s not a serious thing. And he knows she’s using it to her advantage to mess with his sister so he just laughs about it with Fontaine. (Jess also thinks Kari is super awesome and cute too, developing her own baby crush on Kari when she finally meets her in person too)

Ant angst, because it’s me and I have to! Ant is considerably older than Fontaine, and slightly parentified-eldest daughter syndromed. But! Not because Kaiko and Will did that to him, they’re good parents and this isn’t slander. It’s just that Ant is considerably older than Fontaine, and so capable of helping with more aroudn the Aronnax than she is, and so deals with a lot more of the actual running and maintenance of the ship than she does. He helps with more risky missions and he looks after Fontaine when Kaiko and/or Will are busy with their own work, because they DO have jobs, the Aronnax needs funding somehow. He’s got some Eldest Daughter Syndrome, and he’s internalized some parentification, but it’s not because of his parents, it’s because the lifestyle he grew up in caused it to happen.

Fontaine is oblivious to all of this because she’s an angsty lil’ bean living in her own world of teenage angst and drama. Because all of her friends live on land and go to the mall and school, and she’s stuck on a submarine doing admittedly cool things, but she’s stuck with her ‘over-bearing’ older brother and doesn’t get to do cool land things like everyone else her age. Nobody understands her! (Said with an angsty little undercut because she’s just So Dramatic like that) It isn’t until all the Lemuria stuff starts to happen, and Ant doesn’t want his baby sister to deal with all of that so he automatically just takes the responsibility himself to save her from it, because these Guardians are weird, and set off a little warning bell in his head. Fontaine thinks he just wants the glory of the Chosen One and is so full of himself, and the Guardians think Ant is so certain of his role and ready to fill it. When in actuality, he’s just trying to keep his little sister out of a potentially dangerous situation, and so throws himself into it instead because he’s her older brother, and that’s his job. Fontaine doesn’t realize how much Ant actually does around the Aronnax and how stressed he was before all of the Lemuria stuff happens, and it gets worse and she starts to notice how tired and stressed he is. Cue the guilty angst, with Fontaine trying to step up and take a little of the weight off his shoulders.

(Little sibling feeling helpless while watching older sibling try to take the weight of the world and refuse help angst, enter stage left)

I should also mention that Fontaine doesn’t think Kari’s Ant’s girlfriend. She knows of Kari. She’s hung out with Kari. She loves when Kari comes over. She thinks Kari’s the coolest person ever in fact. Which is exactly why she doesn’t think Ant and Kari are dating. Because there’s no way that Kari, the super awesome girl who dresses really cool and has a pet lizard which is a little weird but Kari makes it cool, would be into Fontaine’s dorky dumb older brother. She’s devastated when she finds out that Kari is indeed into Fontaine’s dork dumb older brother, and that it was him who got her the cool lizard to begin with. Ant and Kari didn’t know that Fontaine didn’t know. They fully thought she knew. They don’t do too much/any PDA around her (at least none she notices), and they don’t go around announcing that they’re girlfriend/boyfriend. They don’t hide it, but it’s not the first thing they announce to the room. And because they were friends before they started dating, Kari had been coming over for years. And they’re super comfortable with each other without having to kiss every seven minutes, and totally fine with just lazing on the couch in sweatpants binge watching a show and munching on a party size bag of chips.

They thought it was super obvious. Kaiko and Will know. They don’t go around hiding the fact either. Ant even brought it up at dinner when they first started going out. He brought Kari over for dinner as his official girlfriend one night. Fontaine however, is an angsty little tweenager who lives in her own world of angsty teenage drama, and just totally missed that Ant and Kari were dating. It’s one of the worst things she’s ever learned when she finally realizes the fact.

Thaaat’s the big majority of it I think. I only ever did a few drawings, and I might do updated ones now. Maybe a fic some years down the line. But i have now shared and eased my conscience of my own version of the Age Swap AU

[feelo-fick]

I WANT ENDLESS BLISS!!!

HALF-AWAKE, HALF-DEAD, HALF-LIFE CRISIS

ALL NATURAL POMEGRANATE PULP.

FERMENTED TO PERFECTION, SAVOUR YOUR SAVIOR.

Q: What's your favourite food? A: THE ALE THEY SERVE AT THE TAVERN!

other versions : )

[can-of-slorgs]

The other researchers are also here! (magical edition!)

[mothinked]

Ellie scuffed a boot against the asphalt as she walked and replied to Abby with more docility than she'd shown before. More passivity, less caution but tentative of their fragile armistice. Offering Abby her full attention. "I'd believe you, if you told me," she said softly, just loud enough for her companions to catch. It was mostly mono-syllabic communication up until this point for the two women while she talked at length to Lev. Answering his questions to the best of her ability, even if they were more of a personal nature.

She was willing to entertain him and patient in showing him things he was unfamiliar with. Teaching was important, to pass on your knowledge and experience was invaluable. It was something she learned after leaving the Boston QZ and settling in Jackson for the first time. She had Joel to thank for learning so much. But also Dina and JJ as well. Meanwhile Tommy was the uncle she never had... Her last connection to Joel. She loved him and Maria like family, and they were her family.

Lev was Abby's family, there was no mistaking that.

Ellie found him to be well-mannered and kind, much like her son. Endearingly inquisitive, too. He covered Abby's weaknesses, helped draw her strength when she faltered and helped to ground her mentally. He was brave and compassionate in equal measure and Ellie told him once, unbidden, that she thought he would make a great leader. That the world needed more men like him. The way he shyly dipped his head and smiled was enough to make her day. Ellie knew she wouldn't have lasted this long being alone with Abby and so she was grateful that he came along for the journey.

Ellie noticed a lot about these two. And she doubted he would have let Abby do this on her own regardless. Nah, not this kid with his unwavering determination and stares that could make even two very headstrong women like them listen and relent, however begrudgingly. Abby needed him, that much Ellie knew beyond the shadow of a doubt. Nothing was able to tear these two apart.

Perhaps to make her first real effort to have Abby open up to her or to fill the quiet, Ellie began enumerating some fucked up shit she had experienced. "Came across a group of cannibals when I was fifteen." It was said with a nonchalant shrug. She'd lived through much worse in the years since. "Then a couple of years back, there was this other group I came across. Near Colorado Springs... I think? This man and woman saw me come out of a building filled with spores—" Here, she chuckled humorlessly. "—no mask. They saw how I wasn't showing signs of infection so naturally, they were curious. Shocked. I went with them to their camp when they offered me food."

"Yeah, I knew it was stupid but I hadn't caught any animals in days. They started acting.... really fucking weird in the next day or two and before I could get out of there, the man... their leader, I suppose, gathers his people in some kind of cult circle and draws a knife on me." Ellie added imagery to the story by holding out her switchblade, her eyes going from Lev to Abby as she lowered her voice and adopted a gruffer tone. "He said, 'We want your blood'. Like he was asking for me to give him the last piece of jerky or something. So I let them see their own blood instead... but then the woman got the others to grab me. They sliced my hand open."

She could still see the line of faded scar tissue on the palm of her left hand. Barely there but a souvenir of this unsettling encounter nevertheless. Ellie's switchblade was tucked away into the back pocket of her jeans before she continued. "They thought drinking my blood would make them immune. I'm sure they would have tried to eat me or worse if I hadn't gotten away. And I couldn't let them follow me either."

The rest of the tale was fill-in-the-blanks. She was quiet for a moment, staring off at nothing in particular as they walked, pensive. "I don't know if it would have even worked. My blood could be different though." She made eye contact with Abby, green seizing blue—like the earth meeting the sky. "Guess we'll find out soon enough." This brokered agreement was why they put aside their history and in spite of said history, they were choosing to co-exist without the threat of violence against each other.

Could she say she still hated Abby with every fiber of her being? The answer was no, she didn't. The hate and the wrath that came with it was gone. Did Abby feel that it wasn't there anymore? If she were to ask, there would be no point in lying. Ellie wasn't willing to choke on her own blood before she'd swallow her pride... Not anymore. Not over this. Abby had her own reasons for being the one to talk Ellie into the whole thing. In truth, Ellie wasn't so sure she would have trusted the Fireflies had they brought others to find her.

She, too, had her reasons, ones that didn't involve helping make a cure. To right her wrongs... To understand the woman who changed everything. Things she couldn't entirely made sense of let alone admit out loud.

Did the Firefly leader pick Abby because of her history with Ellie or did she volunteer beforehand while suggesting they continue Jerry's legacy? Ellie stored that question away for later.

She still wanted to make her immunity mean something, even if that also meant she was betraying Joel's and Jesse's memory in having her peace with Abby. The Fireflies could take her blood, run their tests and ask their questions. But they couldn't have her life—this was something she could not give up while she still had the people who loved her.

"So, what's this thing I wouldn't believe?"

Such a dismissive reaction to the offer of leading them didn’t come as any surprise to Abby. Sure whatever was right. The idea still didn’t thrill her but it was either try to navigate blind or leave it to someone who knew the area better than the two of them. The choice seemed simple enough, even if neither of them were a fan of the idea. She manages to contain an eye roll which is impressive. Lev could at least be proud that she was trying to somewhat come off as reasonable at that moment in time. A quick look in his direction and a nod in return is the reassurance she needs that everything is going to be okay. With such a fucked up history, his was the only judgment she could trust at this point and as long as he continued to trust Ellie, Abby would be forced to do the same. Even if it went against every single instinct in her body. She would be ready at a moments notice though to spring into action if needed. The remnants of the violence Ellie was capable of were scattered about her skin, visible on sleeveless, suntanned arms. No reason had been given on this trip to keep her guard up but she certainly wouldn’t be letting it down around her.

The two of them watch as she hops up onto the roof of the car and their gaze falls into the direction she’s looking at. Mention of a horde makes her tense up, her jaw locking into place. It’s less than ideal, even with the alleged distance between them and infected. Abby had encountered her fair share of infected groups but in terms of numbers, nothing had quite outdone those that had chased her through the snowy Jackson mountains. A horde that nearly killed her if it hadn’t been for… No. She shakes the memory out of her head and forces herself to lock in on the task at hand. “I’ve seen shit you wouldn’t believe,” she states calmly and looks in the direction of the other woman. There’s no sarcasm in her statement. No smugness. Maybe the slightest hint of fear in the way it comes out. No matter how hard she tried, that fucking abomination in the basement of the hospital had not been forgotten. The fact that something like that could exist was one of the things that brought her genuine terror. Making it out of Seattle was an accomplishment but making it out of that place was a miracle unlike any other.

Her focused is back on the land and she takes the binoculars as they’re offered to her with no hesitation. Ellie is right. Definitely a horde and thankfully a solid distance away from them. Not enough for her liking. She scans the surrounding area more before taking one final look at the horde. The faster they can depart, the better. At least they seem to be on the same page with that sentiment. “C'mon,” Abby mumbles to Lev who also takes a look through the binoculars. “I don’t want to stay to find out what kind of shit might be out there.” He’d heard the story of the hospital before and knew better than to question it.

She doesn’t even notice the slower pace and finds herself walking ahead until Lev calls out her name and she glances over her shoulder at the both of them. Too many recollections from her past have her in a momentary fog and the snapback to reality is all it takes for her to lock back in and nod. “We can boil some water for reserve, cool off. I’ll get things going for the night if the two of you want to have a look around.”

[itspileofgoodthings]

also I had a breakthrough today that I had in fact overthought a Specific Problem to Death and that I had created a monster in my own mind and that’s why it felt like I was being eaten alive every time I tried to solve it.

[pixelprofligate]

alright then my good bitches buckle the fuck in for

Pokemon Games and Their Mechanics I Think Can and Should be Better

of course i have complaints about Pokemon im a Pokemon fan and we are impossible to please, but ill at least provide some additional information about my position before i jump into opinions here.

First, I have been playing Pokemon since RSE came out. I technically played Crystal first, but it was not my own copy and I never finished it because of that.

Second, I haven't bought any of the new generation games since XY. Any of the fully new games past this point I have very little to no hands on experience with, tho my secondhand knowledge is there and present.

Thirdly, my favorite games are Emerald and basically any that takes us to Kanto. Personally I find these regions to be the most engaging either to explore, to progress thru, or to experience the story in as they feel the most "Pokemon" to me.

All this I think matters to say because some of my opinions and views are definitely going to be biased and built on my personal experiences, and I just wanna make it somewhat clear what and where those biases might come from, at least in regards to Pokemon specifically.

So without and more wasted words:

Pokemon is Not Designed For a Competitive Scene

I think this one is pretty obvious to a lot of people but I think it still warrants being said. And if it isn't clear to you, look at the most recent games and how many things now exist to ultimately circumvent mechanics that exist purely for the casual experience and to play into what Pokemon is. Bottlecaps to max out IVs, Hyper/Super Training for EVs, Mints to swap natures, ability patches and capsules to determine which specific ability your Pokemon has. All these mechanics exist to make Pokemon feel unique from one another, to make them feel more like animals or creatures that could exist and have their own personalities, with nearly all of them having very limited to no way to control them in most of the games, and at least half of which were completely hidden from the players for awhile too. And they all have to be circumvented for competitive to exist, with them being so notoriously tedious to work around that players just cheat in their ideal team most of the time because it literally just saves them time for the same result. And this sucks, because Pokemon has a lot of complexity ans nuance that makes it an interesting game to have a competitive scene, it just could be so much...better. They could fully circumvent them by just giving you an ingame team builder and then having them be rental Pokemon for competitive and battle facility things, or (and in my opinion a far more interesting approach) is go full Pokemon Stadium and be rental only, prebuilt Pokemon that you assemble a team from. I know neither would ever happen, but despite comp being so much easier to approach now, so many of the things they have in place to make it approachable feel like bandaid fixes because these systems werent designed with that environment in mind. In fact, that's its own problem, being that

The Mechanics That Exist to Make Pokemon Feel Unique From One Another are Overdesigned and Poorly Implemented

Like, tell me as a kid you knew what natures meant without looking it up, or that you knew what an EV or IV were without being told by a friend or hearing about it online. Almost guarenteed not, because the games for the longest time made no effort ever to explain any of these things, and even when they tried to they often did it so vaguely that it means practically nothing. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if most people for a long time didn't realize that these things were actually even making their Pokemon different from someone elses of the same species, because the differences often ended up being pretty inconsequential for a kid during a normal playthru. So why are they there anymore beyond because they were a thing they fully implemented in Gen 3 and can no longer drop because they want Pokemon to always be transferable upward. Because its a neat little touch, sure, but also I think at least most of these mechanics could be dropped next game and they'd have next to no impact on most anyones playthru.

Unclear Evolution Mechanics

Hey guys why do you keep creating obtuse and weird evolution mechanics that with the information provided in game no one would reasonably find out? This bugs the hell out of me because it's been a thing sinse day 1 with trade evos. Nothing about Graveler, Machoke, etc would indicate "oh if I trade them they'll evolve" because literally nothing else in the game works like that, level ups and stone evos are very easy to understand because they're really clear. When this guy leveled up, he evolved. When I went to use this rock, one guys menu thing was different, so I picked him and he evolved. But trade evos require outside game things, specifically another copy and a way to trade. And this continues for forever. Trade while holding an item, increase this invisible stat enough, do this specific thing, hold your DS upside down, etc. Shit gets ridiculous and relies on players just knowing this stuff already and thats lame as hell and I hate it.

The Safari Zone was Bad and I'm Glad It's Gone

Hey you know what would be cool? What if we created a minigame that is all about catching Pokemon. But, and here's the twist, instead of using the mechanics players know we remove every way they've ever engaged with catching prior, throw on a brand new system that makes very little sense, is nearly unexplained, and also isn't particularly fun to engage with, and then put it in 4 different games. Oh it's bad and regularly had issues that made it annoying to engage with and unclear because we also kept changing the mechanics despite the name staying the same? Yeah no good its gone, sad it was replaced with nothing at all. Not like they literally implemented a superior minigame that filled the same roll in Gen 2 that fixed the actual issues with the core system itself and thus made it more interesting to take part in, while also providing rewards for partaking and doing well. Shame that never happened and then got brought back in the remakes later.

I could keep going but I'll just make a fangame and throw changes in there myself.

Also shinies are lame as hell.

so anyways who wants to hear me rant about the things i love for entirely too long who wants to get to know me

[cheswirls]

hhhhhhhhhhhh saboace royalty au. ace was crown prince but can’t use magic which is necessary to become king, so he renounces his title and becomes infamous for his eccentric tendencies to play up the illusion that he’s truly not meant for the throne and that his younger sibling has full rights to the title of heir.

sabo is born to a family serving in the royal court, has been a genius magician since he was a child, and is the perfect example of a young man fully educated to serve at the king’s side. which is why he’s allowed himself to be tied down into a loveless political engagement with the king’s heir, putting the whims of his family before his own and resigning himself to become the future ruler’s consort/spouse to legitimize his role as an advisory right-hand man.

but then the heir grows rebellious and denounces the engagement with sabo in public and ace swoops in to save the day (and sabo’s reputation), demanding his father give sabo to him instead. he steals sabo away and challenges his sibling’s right to the throne, intent on earning back the title not for himself, but so he can make sabo (who is heavily qualified to rule) the king - and since they’ll be wed, no one will be able to undermine sabo’s position as he will technically be part of the monarchy that governs the kingdom.

[abyssalpriest]

if i disappear after saying that ive been assassinated no jokes aside if i take that down its not bc i disagree with it, you can still pin it on me as a belief that i think that shit should be said and ill put my whole ass behind it, but saying shit like that has consequences lmfao. also theres a time and a place to bring that up

[taiey]

#just wanna add on as a derap regular#he doesn't end his stream for more than like 5 minutes no matter what he's doing#the only reason he ever stops is either because of a technical problem or for twitch to stop bitching LMFAO#so unless he scrolled through twitter while on a bathroom break there's gen no way#the chatters definitely helped him think about that conclusion like ooc-wise; he went through a few people saying why it can't be them#he focused on hannah but didnt reach a satisfying conclusion; then somone brought up zam and he decided to follow this thought through#and with that he remembered all the resources they've collected and that's how he came to that. the knowledge of the pink castle comes from#ooc - specifically when zam raided him after his own stream. i think. idk i was asleep im going off of derap's words :sob:#with the book he did go like 'you guys definitely know more about this then i do' so i really dont know man im a glazer unfortunately om

like he has twitter blocked with a sub goal to unblock it, he was going down the list of "what if there's a mole?" like poafa no hannah eh mapicc no when some people threw out "zam?" and then he started thinking that through with chat actively arguing uh "Zam and Woogie both just dont feel likely", "didnt zam recently kill him again with no regrets?", "but he killed him again", "does zam have a lot of hearts to give though??", "why would it be zam??, zam literally started the team with you so", like he was not pulling the vibe from chat, he stopped reading it when he got going

like he starts from the wild premise that bacon definitely has 10 hearts, and then pulls the concrete evidence that zam has way more netherite and trials keys than anyone else—and nautilus shells, which he was wrong about—then zeros in on zam not wanting bacon deathbanned, with the false memory that zam acted excited in front of woogie and mapicc and with zam the night before logging on—100% correct on 'when zam changes his shield it means something' and the yin-yang balance symbolism—

he's both genuinely observant and good at putting things together, and overconfident, misremembering interactions in ways that flatter him and jumping to conclusions without tracking that they're still just guesses—and if you let yourself get distracted by ~what if it's stream-sniping~ you lose all of that. it's a hypothesis and a meme that washes out every interesting detail into bland mush. it's an easy thought to think you've got him without actually analysing anything. i am really annoyed by people throwing it out everywhere.

going from "build that castle" to "zam told bacon what he was planning" (true!) to "this is proof that zam and bacon are secretly working together (the castle is helpful to bacon in some way)" is, yep, classic derap thought processes.

Can I just quickly appreciate Derapchu and his Lifesteal character? Because he just realised exactly what's happened between Zam and Bacon. He connected the dots so quickly, it's insane!

And yet he still trusts Zam. He still trusts his teammate, he believes that Zam is doing this for a good reason. Admittedly, he did check Zam's task from Bacon because of the inner turmoil he went through during this "Detective Derapchu" session, but he still doesn't plan on turning away from Zam (we were not shown the book by the way, that's for Zam to reveal). He plans on talking to Zam, and that sure is a conversation to listen to.

Apparently, the book consists for four words. Four words that were enough to fully confirm to Derap that Zam, indeed, helped Bacon with hearts. (Side note: Derap even clocked the whole thing with netherite and trial keys, as well as noticed Zam's changed shield, which he noted down as "When Zam changes his shield it always means something", and paid attention to the ying yang build.)

And he had this realisation while talking to Poafa, and the very real possibility of Zam double-crossing affected him heavily. After this conversation Derapchu actually felt at fault for Poafa feeling betrayed. "Is it my fault?", he asked once Poafa left, "Should i not have said that to poafa?" I just... oh, Derapchu, the character that you are. <3