#i believe in growth and forgiveness

[fleursfairies]

personally, if a celebrity said something kinda homophobic once in 2007 im not gonna hate them forever

[plantsjustwannahavefun]

I am once again begging Ed stans to understand that it's possible to love Ed and believe he deserves love AND also admit that he mistreated and tormented the crew during the Kraken era. Not only is this possible, this is the position the show wants you to have. You think Izzy deserved everything he got? Fine, whatever, forget about him for a minute. There's a whole crew in there you're supposed to empathise with and feel sympathy for, too. The six of them that Ed actively tried to kill or left for dead, for starters. Pay attention to the crew's experiences and reactions. They're shown to be traumatised, grieving, clinging to disassociation (Frenchie) and nihilism (Archie) as coping mechanisms and suffering from PTSD flashbacks. And, since this type of fans constantly go on about how it's racist to think Ed did anything wrong... what about the fact that a lot of the crew are PoC too? What then?

If you've watched the first 3 episodes of S2 and there was only one person on that ship you felt sorry for, then you're not a fan of OFMD, you're just a fan of Ed in isolation. And if the only way you can love Ed is by denying that he ever did anything wrong, then you're completely missing the point of the show. OFMD never said that people only deserve to be loved if they're morally perfect and flawless. The show doesn't subscribe to the dichotomy of Good vs Bad. Good people can do bad things. They can hurt the ones they love. Even if they didn't mean to, even if they themselves were suffering at the time, it doesn't mean they don't need to take responsibility for their actions or avoid the consequences. Stede didn't mean to hurt Mary and his kids when he left, but he still did. He had legitimate reasons for leaving, he didn't just do it for the lolz, but it was still wrong and Mary was right to be angry at him. And Stede needed to face up to this - not just for their sake but his too. Even though it turned out their lives were better off without him, reconciling with Mary was still crucial for his character development.

It was the same for Ed, it just didn't get handled quite as well due to lack of screentime, but the idea was the same. When Ed realises he'd been cruel to Fang and apologises, he isn't sinking into self-hatred and despair. Quite the contrary, this is a moment of growth for him. Because the fact is, just because you as a human being are inherently worthy of love doesn't mean you can go around hurting everyone and expecting them to put up with you. That's just not how it works. You don't need to be perfect, but you do need to listen to people when they tell you that you hurt them and apologise genuinely and try to be better. The show is very sympathetic to Ed but it does NOT excuse his actions. The crew aren't portrayed as villains or antagonists for being scared and angry at Ed for what he did to them. Even Stede was on their side with this one. If even Stede is able to see things from the crew's POV and have sympathy for them, then you should too. Stede doesn't love Ed because he sees Ed as a pure uwu angel. He loves Ed... because he just does. He loves being around him. They really click together. They have so much in common. That doesn't mean he approves of literally everything Ed has ever done. It just means he loves Ed despite that.

[iamsigningmylifeaway]

most chemically balanced yasha enjoyer

[lifefactz]

Time to put yourself first.

[astrogirlythings]

Stay morally good, and God will always be by your side.✨

[year2007]

all I'm saying is the state would much rather benefit from splintering my already tiny family who live in this country, and isolating us from each other, over reconciliation. despite abuse and trauma suffered. i forgive my mom and sibling because i believe in their capacities to grow and change. and they have. we are stronger together, never apart.

[odetolovers]

it is absolutely wild the way i’ve allowed people to treat me

[teruthecreator]

1 AM and the servers asleep so i’m just gonna post my thoughts on here but i think it’s rlly so important and poignant how sho extends an olive branch to his father after everything that happened, when he absolutely would’ve been justified in spitting in toichiro’s face and walking out of his life forever (similarly to what toichiro did to him, metaphorically at least). and that decision that he makes is one that cements how mature and understanding sho is despite his antics and attitude.

like, he’s a kid, and he’s a kid that experienced massive amounts of abuse and trauma in his formative years. we will truly never know how he was raised whilst working in claw, but seeing how pretty much everyone else was manipulated, brainwashed, and tortured into reaching their full potential—the assumption can be made that it wasn’t easy. and sho’s father is Directly responsible for that, meaning he’s Directly responsible for any mistreatment or neglect sho faced even if it wasn’t done by him directly. and any kid at his age with all that baggage probably wouldn’t want to keep their dad around, after everything has finally been resolved. but sho doesn’t do that; he reminds toichiro that he’s still gotta hear an earful from his ex wife, and sho is ensuring that this won’t be the end. he is offering his father a kindness that that man never gave to him. and that’s like. Astounding for a kid his age

i think it’s really easy for people to place sho firmly in the trope of like silly, goofy kid with an insane side; but sho has one of the most level heads out of the esper teens. it’s kind of like he got a lot of that emotional turbulence out of the way beforehand, and now is just centering his focus on this one goal. of course, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t do stupid shit based on bad trains of thought (the whole concept of him trying to resist the narrative only to become more ingrained in it is like. right there. also the hero trope shit y’all have seen the essay posts i’m not reiterating). but sho is a lot more sure of what he’s doing and what he wants than ritsu, mob, or teru.

also it’s just like. the fact that he gives his father a second chance really drives home the message of the entire series. that people can make mistakes, but those mistakes do not have to define their whole existence if they’re willing to own up to them and change. sho is extending himself in much the same way mob extended himself to toichiro hours earlier, only this time there’s the weight of this probably not being the first time sho has given his father a second chance and yet he Still does it. and toichiro realizing that he could’ve squandered that chance during confession arc is SO GOOD like you see how sho is conflicted and hurt bc he’s essentially being let down once again, and so toichiro walks back. he won’t let his son’s trust be given in vain

the suzukis rival the kageyamas in terms of like. accurate familial representation. like if you eliminate all of the psychic terrorism bullshit, this is a broken family—further broken by a messy divorce—trying to navigate life post-everything. there is no expectation for sho to forgive his father (he doesn’t do that at any point and That Is Important), and there’s no expectation for him to do anything with his father At All. toichiro understands that he is deserving of no one’s kindness.

yet sho does it anyway. he does it because he wants to and because he cares. and that’s far more than toichiro could’ve ever asked for

[musclesandhammering]

Does Loki/Brad have a ship name? Asking for a friend 👀

[firendgold]

If you're still doing the choose violence ask game: 2 (👀), 9, 10, 22 ?

I got such a rush from finally answering the first ask that I'm doing this for as long as people send me questions. So here we go again!

2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

anon, I'm at work. I'm seeing this at work. :'D

Okay, serious face. Albus Dumbledore is probably my fave if I have to choose between him and Harry on this blog. I just have to figure out why he would never...

Bottom. Albus would never, I'm sorry. He won't. He can't. Like, maybe when he was having his whirlwind summer romance with Gellert, he bottomed every single time they fucked because he was so in love and this was his equal and his partner and so what if he was a little rough and distant sometimes in the bedroom, and always wanted to top and tug his hair and hiss out orders? This was The Man The Universe Had Crafted For Him, and he would absolutely bottom for him every time... and then the summer of 1899 ends. And Ariana dies. And Aberforth breaks Albus' nose. And Gellert fucks off to go be a fascist.

And Albus, alone and heartbroken, resolves to never trust someone that completely again, never love someone that same way, and never let anyone get into a position of power over him where they might be able to use his knowledge and talents for ill. That means physically, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically... carnally. So he has sex with plenty of other people, and even falls in love with a few of them, but he is in control at all times. He never bottoms again.

That's all I've got for that one.

9. worst part of canon

So the first answer that came to mind is posted here, but for fairness' sake I'll try to come up with another worst thing. (That's not related to ships, because I'm trying really hard not to be THAT violent on the violence ask game.)

I think... that if That Woman was going to introduce international schools, students and characters in the middle book of the series, she should have done more with them than having them vanish after Goblet of Fire, only to come back for either fake romantic tension and one line of exposition about the Hitler allegory Dark Lord of the Before-Times (Krum, Deathly Hallows) or to be married off to a Weasley for an aesop of It's Not About His Looks Now That They're Jacked Up (Fleur, Half-Blood Prince). I'm not saying Fleur and Viktor HAD to be best buddies forever with Harry, but it is weird that they have this unique bond that no other young students have had with each other in hundreds of years, they even lost one of their fellow champions, Dumbledore gives this very moving speech about remaining connected and not letting darkness and prejudice sever new ties, and then... nothing. No side adventures in France or wherever Durmstrang is, no communication from either side, nothing.

Feels like a huge letdown in hindsight.

10. worst part of fanon

Oh, no. That's not fair. There's just so many.

If I had to consolidate what I currently don't like about the HP fandom/fanon into a few lines, I think I would say that I hate the pureblood/Dark side apologism. I do believe in nuance in characters. I do believe redemption and/or walking different paths is an important theme in Harry Potter, and I think it's fascinating to explore that with any and every character you can think of, even characters I may not personally like. But I really, really hate the way the fandom has taken that and twisted it into this idea that we were sold a lie at the start: that the British magical government was fine the way it was, and so was the society around it; that Dark magic Isn't All That Bad, Really, and there are actually Good and non-prejudiced things about a few rich bitches passing down their knowledge and secrets and slurs for generations within the Family, and keeping the Family "Pure" is cool actually, and none of this has any relation to real life ideas about miscegenation and classism and racism and eugenics, what are you talking about?

It's just so worrying. As a minority, when I see people on tumblr/twitter/AO3 gleefully agreeing that we need to eat the rich and fix society and eradicate all the horrid -isms and -archys ruining all our lives, then watch them turn around and write a 200k epic where Dumbledore was the evil one for locking the Horcrux books away and championing marginalized members of society, Hermione is just uppity for wanting to make necessary changes to the darker parts of magical society that That Woman was literally pointing out for a reason, and Tom Riddle is only bad because he took the good segregationist pureblood ideas and added murder to them... and when that fic gets thousands of comments agreeing with them full stop with no examination of any of that... it makes me anxious, at a minimum. The same thing is happening now with Grindelwald now that he's actually a figure on the screen and not just some dude mentioned a few times in the book series: same apologism, same justification of atrocities, same good-guy-blame-games, same blorbofication even.

On the one hand... fiction doesn't always directly reflect or affect reality. On the other... this unironic pro-pureblood meta is a pervasive concept that has popped up in thousands of fics written by thousands of fanfic writers. It's happened for years, and it keeps happening, and I see very few fans speaking out against it or even acknowledging it as a problem. So that makes me ask myself, who actually is willing and able to examine the injustices of our society and build a better imaginary society through the lens of HP fanfiction, and who's okay with the prejudice in the HP world as long as it's coming from the faves they're attracted to?

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

Happily, this is a harder question to answer because I've been finding so many like minds in the past 5 years who go feral over the same 20 HP scenes as I do. ^^ But give me a sec, I'll think of something.

...

Okay. Got it.

In order to answer this question, I have to go back to the first time I, young teenager, avid reader, recent reader of the HP series once book 5 was out, realized that Harry and Dumbledore had a much deeper relationship than just headmaster and student. The thing that made me latch on to them and project like crazy, basically.

It's the scene in Goblet of Fire chapter 36 where Harry has been rescued from Fake Moody and he's in Dumbledore's office with Dumbledore and Sirius. Dumbledore asks Harry to relay everything that happened to him once he touched the Portkey in the maze—and immediately Sirius tries to protect Harry from having to relive it now, so soon after it's happened. And then this scene happens.

Dumbledore stopped talking. He sat down opposite Harry, behind his desk. He was looking at Harry, who avoided his eyes. Dumbledore was going to question him. He was going to make Harry relive everything. “I need to know what happened after you touched the Portkey in the maze, Harry,” said Dumbledore. “We can leave that till morning, can’t we, Dumbledore?” said Sirius harshly. He had put a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Let him have a sleep. Let him rest.” Harry felt a rush of gratitude toward Sirius, but Dumbledore took no notice of Sirius’s words. He leaned forward toward Harry. Very unwillingly, Harry raised his head and looked into those blue eyes. “If I thought I could help you,” Dumbledore said gently, “by putting you into an enchanted sleep and allowing you to postpone the moment when you would have to think about what has happened tonight, I would do it. But I know better. Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it. You have shown bravery beyond anything I could have expected of you. I ask you to demonstrate your courage one more time. I ask you to tell us what happened.” The phoenix let out one soft, quavering note. It shivered in the air, and Harry felt as though a drop of hot liquid had slipped down his throat into his stomach, warming him, and strengthening him. He took a deep breath and began to tell them. As he spoke, visions of everything that had passed that night seemed to rise before his eyes; he saw the sparkling surface of the potion that had revived Voldemort; he saw the Death Eaters Apparating between the graves around them; he saw Cedric’s body, lying on the ground beside the cup. Once or twice, Sirius made a noise as though about to say something, his hand still tight on Harry’s shoulder, but Dumbledore raised his hand to stop him, and Harry was glad of this, because it was easier to keep going now he had started. It was even a relief; he felt almost as though something poisonous were being extracted from him. It was costing him every bit of determination he had to keep talking, yet he sensed that once he had finished, he would feel better.

This is one of the best scenes in the entire book, the entire series. It completely refutes the fanon Dumbledore who is often cold, cruel, inflexible and unrelenting in his quest for whatever the author wants him to be inflexible and cruel about at the time. It shows that Dumbledore, the real Albus Dumbledore, is one of the few people who understands what Harry needs and is able to provide it to him, even when others who also care for Harry would rather protect him or shield him from what he needs.

Kid me was particularly taken by how gentle Dumbledore is with Harry here. It made me look back and see how in some ways this scene, this closeness, is the culmination of all the times they've met and spoken before.

(You can imagine how painful it was reading Order of the Phoenix right after this.)

But yeah, that's probably one of my favorite scenes that other people ignore or haven't talked about/drawn/written about much. Which is ironic, because the scene right after that where Harry talks about Voldemort taking his blood and Dumbledore's eyes do the triumphant "lol Voldemort just fucked up" gleam is probably one of THE most talked-about scenes in the fandom (even though to this fucking day in 2023 people still don't realize what the gleam meant, when even That Woman has clarified what it meant in INTERVIEWS).

...And for me, safely at the end of the questions, that's all she wrote.

[putonmyfavoriteshow]

I love a character study video 😍 And this one is just amazing (this fan editor never misses). Casey McDonald is honestly such a complex character and I always loved her arc throughout Life With Derek! She was one of my favorite characters and her identity crisis as a teenager felt really authentic as she tried to balance being an over-achiever and just wanting to be seen.

[metawriter]

Being saved goes like this; I have good days and bad. I have moments when I remember I'm still being healed. Days when I have to pray thanks because memories try to remind me of who I was. Days temptation brings me to tears because I'm never going back to the life of sin. The life in Christ is by no means easy. But each time I get to sit with the Lord and see his light shining in me, I worship because I have yet to see anything better or more real.

[angersreflectionofpain]

The hardest thing to say is “I’m sorry”

“I know I have hurt you and me”

“I want to make it right/better”

Read this again…

Then again…

Question… How does this FEEL for YOU?

To be continued….

[girlwithrituals]

101 ways to improve self esteem

1) Master a new skill.

2) List your accomplishments.

3) Do something creative.

4) Challenge your limiting beliefs.

5) Talk to a counselor.

6) Don't worry about what others think.

7) Read or watch something inspirational.

8) Stay true to your character.

9) Let go of negative people.

10) Set healthy boundaries with others.

11) Care about your appearance.

12) Welcome failure as part of growth.

13) Be a lifelong learner.

14) Face your fears.

15) Become a mentor.

16) Accept compliments.

17) Eliminate self-criticism.

18) Practice coping skills to manage stress and big emotions.

19) Notice negative thoughts and beliefs.

20) Challenge negative thinking.

21) Think about what you learned from negative experiences.

22) Practice gratitude.

23) Exercise.

24) Eat healthy and limit junk food.

25) Get good sleep.

26) Spend time with positive and supportive people.

27) Encourage yourself.

28) Write a list of your strengths.

29) Don't compare yourself to others.

30) Avoid perfectionism.

31) Do at least one positive, enjoyable activity every day.

32) Celebrate small victories.

33) Be helpful and considerate to others.

34) Be honest with yourself and others.

35) Accept your flaws.

36) Don't give up.

37) Practice self-care.

38) Go easy on yourself.

39) Practice being assertive.

40) Practice saying "No".

41) Practice relaxation techniques.

42) Take on challenges.

43) Volunteer to help others.

44) Forgive others and yourself.

45) Set goals and work toward them step by step.

46) Seek balance in all areas of your life.

47) Discover your passions and purpose

48) Groom yourself.

49) Dress nicely.

50) Be kind and generous to others.

51) Practice good posture.

52) Change a small habit.

53) Smile.

54) Don't procrastinate.

55) Don't take things personal.

56) Organize your personal space.

57) Challenge unkind thoughts about yourself.

58) Spend time outside.

59) Notice the good things.

60) Celebrate your successes

61) Write a list of things you like about yourself.

62) Don't take too much on.

63) Do something for yourself every day.

64) Develop daily habits.

65) Remind yourself it's okay if not everyone likes you.

66) Practice mindfulness.

67) Learn to tolerate discomfort.

68) Use problem-solving skills.

69) Take responsibility instead of blaming.

Tell Yourself Positive Affirmations Such As:

70) I am grateful for every day.

71) I am worthy of happiness and love.

72) I am in charge of my own happiness.

73) I love, respect, and believe in myself.

74) I deserve to be happy and successful.

75) I approve of myself, right here and now.

76) I am learning and changing for the better.

77) I accept 100% responsibility for my own life.

78) Every day in every way, I am getting better and better.

79) I can learn to accept the parts of myself that I don't like.

80) I am thankful for my challenges as they make me a stronger person.

81) Write down three positives about each day.

82) Make a collage with your talents, goals, and dreams.

83) Practice laughing.

84) Be proud of yourself.

85) Say mistakes are an opportunity to learn.

86) Show respect to yourself and others.

87) Resolve conflict peacefully.

88) Ask for help or support.

89) Complete a daily task list.

90) Have a growth mindset.

91) Be optimistic.

92) Treat yourself with kindness and compassion.

93) Focus on the things you have control over and can change.

94) Get started on tasks you have been putting off.

95) Practice good daily hygiene.

96) Focus on solutions not problems.

97) Talk about your feelings with someone you trust.

98) Drink plenty of water.

99) Start a new hobby or join a club/sport.

100) Do random acts of kindness.

101) Create a dreams list.

[lifefactz]

You gained so much more!

[astrogirlythings]

Be brave, have a transparent heart, maintain pure intentions and play fair.

& God will forever support you.