#just in general!

[prtfrmhrtbrn]

•okk… i was insanityposting about this to my friends on discord but i have only one marauders friend and she’s not in that server so instead! it goes here. this is: my thoughts about jily <3 (because i love them and they deserved better)

•ok. to START. as much as i do like the nuance of ‘james thought he liked lily because he thought he was meant to like a girl, so he went all-in in first year, and by the time he realised, it would’ve been weird for everyone if he stopped’ i also think it’s overdone and boring so i am tired of it

•(this is about to be a run-down of how i think jily’s relationship developed through all of hogwarts, btw. we are talking year by year. just so we know)

instead, i think this: james had a silly puppy crush on lily for their first year and followed her around ALL the time. he would sit with her in the library while she was studying just to spend time with her and she was largely just like… at least he isn’t one of the purebloods calling me slurs… that doesn’t mean i like him but at least he isn’t bothering me. meanwhile james is sat there so excited she hasn’t kicked him out like wow isn’t she pretty!! and she’s studying wow isn’t she committed… and she always knows all the answers in class isn’t she so clever!!

and then SECOND YEAR by this point james is 12 and he has an early hit of the classic character arc ‘emo’ which lots of people think didn’t happen to him but i think you’re lying to yourselves. so james thought lily was pretty in second year, but A. that crush was gone and B. he didn’t want her to think he was super lame, so he stopped following her around. he did that thing where you just sit in rooms that other people are in, far enough that it’s not obvious you’re there for them, but close enough that they’ll notice you. basically he wanted her to think that he was cool but had no idea how to go about it (and lily had… very little response to this, at the start of the year she was like ‘it’s kinda weird he isn’t here’ but got over it pretty quick)

third year! third year is where it starts <3 the sirius/marlene arc begins (which results in a FEW realisations for both members of that couple, to say the least, and they don’t last more than a few months) and since sirius is friends with james and lily is friends with marlene they end up talking! and that year they just… become friends. james starts off with a ‘sorry i’ve been really weird these past two years’ and lily is like ‘yeah well you were 12 i don’t think i blame you’ and that year they are. just friends. and it works

fourth year: i think it starts with lily. i think lily is bi & knows she likes girls and boys and is very comfortable with that, and i think she tells james, because they’re friends, and she wants to be honest with her friends, and he says ‘you can do that? cool!’ and she’s like ‘that’s it…?’ and he’s like ‘yeah? i’m so happy for you! that must be awesome’ and lily is like ‘huh. yeah. i guess it’s pretty cool?’ and then frank longbottom walks by and james gets so distracted and lily is like oh… well i won’t take the realisation away from him… and finds herself oddly endeared and then she’s like. what emotion did i just feel towards this boy. and it’s fleeting but she knows it was there and now whenever she sees him she can’t stop thinking about that aching tender fondness. meanwhile james in fourth year is living his best life he has no idea he has a crush on frank but he is just having a great time with the marauders and he’s making new friends left and right. also getting a lot of detentions but that just results in more time spent with his boys amen

which eventually leads into fifth year, where james is on the train, and bumps into frank, who’s like ‘sorry mate’ and james is like ‘yeah don’t worry’ and wonders where that fluttery feeling has gone? and then he’s like OH oh my god. and so where does he go first but lily, and he’s like ‘you know your girls and boys thing? me too! isn’t that so fun?’ and lily gives him this Smile that’s so fond it makes james’ stomach flip and his eyes go wide and she tells him ‘yeah, that is pretty cool’ and james is like Oh Fuck. because it is the exact feeling he had towards frank that made him realise. and so fifth year is lily being like Oh he’s so annoying but it’s so endearing it’s not even annoying it’s just silly which is makes it more annoying… and james being like First year me did NOT get it but he sooo had the right idea

fifth year part 2, post the prank: james is pretty fucked up. and lily has no idea what’s happening but she knows the marauders aren’t talking and she’s close with remus and james, and they start to hang out as a group of three because peter sided with sirius (which i firmly believe. he was as much involved in it as sirius, only james & obv remus had no idea) and eventually it turns into little one on one hangouts that are so casual that both of them think they’re just going to die and then suddenly OWLs are approaching, so lily is like ‘james, do you want to study with me?’ and james is like ‘honestly i would love to, but you’re going to have to go back to calling me potter if you don’t want me to kiss you’ and lily looks at him, and thinks it through, and then she says, ‘okay, james,’ and boom. james just… kisses her. in the library. and they work and it works and oh. yeah, okay. so this makes sense more than anything ever has before. cool. relationship: unlocked!

sixth year is cool. it goes well; it’s easy. the marauders sort-of make up after the prank, which eventually leads into fully making up after the prank, at which point james brings them all together to announce that he is dating lily!!!!!! and the reactions go like this: remus knew, peter is like ‘i thought that was a first-year thing? but whatever makes you happy’ and sirius is like ‘you WHAT tell me everything’. and so james tells them everything anyone has ever had to tell about their partner (except personal things ie sexuality, home life, intimacy) and then the next day he finds lily and is like btw ‘i’m sorry but… the marauders are back together and they know about you and i… i just got so excited and blurted it out’ and lily is a little bit like Ffs but she knows how james is so she does him in a bit but ultimately is like ‘okay, it’s fine’ (after double and triple checking he didn’t tell them anything personal, which he definitely did not) because she’d been meaning to tell her friends anyway, really. and so, i re-iterate: sixth year is cool!

seventh year is stressful, but possibly even better. head girl/head boy dating? what could be better than that? and they’re revising for NEWTs, which fucking sucks, and they’re also trying to lead and guide the student body as the roles declare, but they’re getting through it together, and when lily gets stressed, james takes over as many of her head girl duties as he can, and when james gets stressed, lily does the same for him. and one night he’s utterly exhausted, and she says ‘i’ll cover for you, james, just ask, i always will,’ and he looks at her, has his Oh. moment, and just breathes, ‘i’m in love with you’. and lily is like. Oh. and her Oh moment is someone else’s Oh moment, and she grabs his tie and pulls him down and then says, ‘i love you, too.’ and so, yeah. in seventh year, they date, and get stressed, and love each other, and help each other out.

and then they graduate, and the ground feels slippery and uncertain, but lily feels more confident when james is by her side and james feels safer when he’s holding lily’s hand. and he’s still 18, but he’s nearly 19, and he’s been going out with lily for 2 years, which has to be enough, and he asks her to marry him. and lily is 19, but she hasn’t been for long, and she’s been going out with james for 2 years, and she doesn’t know if it’ll help anything, but maybe it doesn’t need to. and she says yes.

and they get married, and it’s beautiful, and wonderful, but james doesn’t even care, because he’s at the altar with lily, and not even his friends applauding could ever fucking understand that, and lily feels the same; feels like the love between them will only ever happen once, and even if they lose it, at least they had it to begin with. and they get married and they love each other and they have a child, and his name is harry james, and they love him, too.

yeah… that’s kind of where i trail off. i just think so many people discredit jily as some little infatuation from james, or comphet, which is so real and true but also!! i think they did love each other. and also they were bi4bi

no matter where you take your jily, whether it’s an in-school breakup leading to starchaser and marylily or pandalily or something else, or whether it’s an outside-school breakup where they never get married, or whether they get divorced (in which case you need to listen to this night has opened my eyes by the smiths- the dream has gone, but the baby is real, as morrisey said), or go for canon-compliant (shivers), or they live happily ever after and love each other and grow old together!! i think saying they never loved each other is really silly. because i think they did. and that love doesn’t have to be romantic, although i’ve described a romantic relationship between them here, but i think jily has a really strong bond between them. and i just wanted to put it out there. stop overlooking them!! they can date or be besties or be queerplatonic or whatever they want!!

anyway. if anybody has any jily fics that are lovely i am asking so politely to send them to me. and also politely asking the person who named them sunflower to kiss me gently and tenderly on the mouth. thank you for reading <3

[unforth]

Y'all I know that when so-called AI generates ridiculous results it's hilarious and I find it as funny as the next guy but I NEED y'all to remember that every single time an AI answer is generated it uses 5x as much energy as a conventional websearch and burns through 10 ml of water. FOR EVERY ANSWER. Each big llm is equal to 300,000 kiligrams of carbon dioxide emissions.

LLMs are killing the environment, and when we generate answers for the lolz we're still contributing to it.

Stop using it. Stop using it for a.n.y.t.h.i.n.g. We need to kill it.

Sources:

[swan2swan]

Whoever conceived and animated this moment, I hope they're doing well and thriving. This is S-rank romance stuff here.

[apollos-boyfriend]

something they don’t tell you about being autistic is that every character you write WILL end up autistic/autistic-coded whether you like it or not

[memendoemori]

Good morning everybody

[frankierotwinkdeath]

Y’all want Taylor Swift to be gay so bad but you won’t even write femslash about her

[a-drama-addict]

not caring too much about a fandom’s favourite guy is the worst. you’ll think “oh i’ll look into the tag see if anything new and cool’s there” and it’s just that fucking guy again

[nouverx]

"I want to eat you" is their love language and you can't change my mind

[spitblaze]

I don't see people gas up gnc and butch transfems nearly enough, can we get a fuckin round of applause for gnc and butch transfems

[indigonite]

There’s a lot you can learn about it, trust me

[disc80s]

[mynnthia]

was talking with a friend about how some of dunmeshi fаndom misunderstands kabru's initial feelings towards laios.

to sum up kabru's situation via a self-contained modernized metaphor:

kabru is like a guy who lost his entire family in a highly traumatic car accident. years later he joins a discord server and takes note of laios, another server member who seems interesting, so they start chatting. then laios reveals his special interest and favorite movie of all time is David Cronenberg's Crash (1996), and invites kabru to go watch a demolition derby with him

[notgreengardens]

I kinda hate how the main take away in general seems to be "hahaha I love being a hater, kendrick is the king of being a hater hahaha" or "drake has a secret daughter" and not "there are mysogynist sex pests and pedophiles in the hip hop industry and kendrick used his clout to very publically call out one" like can we please not drop the pedophilia out of this conversation YET AGAIN like the jokes are funny and I also make some but I feel like this should be front and center of the conversation and men in positions of power always get away with this shit

[mist-the-wannabe-linguist]

Dunno how to put it properly into words but lately I find myself thinking more about that particular innocence of fairy tales, for lack of better word. Where a traveller in the middle of a field comes across an old woman with a scythe who is very clearly Death, but he treats her as any other auntie from the village. Or meeting a strange green-skinned man by the lake and sharing your loaf of bread with him when he asks because even though he's clearly not human, your mother's last words before you left home were to be kind to everyone. Where the old man in the forest rewards you for your help with nothing but a dove feather, and when you accept even such a seemingly useless reward with gratitude, on your way home you learn that it's turned to solid gold. Where supernatural beings never harm a person directly and every action against humans is a test of character, and every supernatural punishment is the result of a person bringing on their own demise through their own actions they could have avoided had they changed their ways. Where the hero wins for no other reason than that they were a good person. I don't have the braincells to describe this better right now but I wish modern fairy tales did this more instead of trying to be fantasy action movies.

[tearlessrain]

please help me- i used to be pretty smart but i’m having so much trouble grasping the concept of diegetic vs non-diegetic bdsm!

gfkjldghfd okay first of all I'm sorry for the confusion, if you're not finding anything on the phrase it's because I made it up and absolutely nobody but me ever uses it, but I haven't found a better way to express what I'm trying to say so I keep using it. but now you've given me an excuse to ramble on about some shit that is only relevant to me and my deeply inefficient way of talking and by god I'm going to take it.

SO. the way diegetic and non-diegetic are normally used is to talk about music and sound design in movies/tv shows. in case you aren't familiar with that concept, here's a rundown:

diegetic sound is sound that happens within the world of the movie/show and can be acknowledged by the characters, like a song playing on the stereo during a driving scene, or sung on stage in Phantom of the Opera. it's also most other sounds that happen in a movie, like the sounds of traffic in a city scene, or a thunderclap, or a marching band passing by. or one of the three stock horse sounds they use in every movie with a horse in it even though horses don't really vocalize much in real life, but that's beside the point, the horse is supposed to be actually making that noise within the movie's world and the characters can hear it whinnying.

non-diegetic sound is any sound that doesn't exist in the world of the movie/show and can't be perceived by the characters. this includes things like laugh tracks and most soundtrack music. when Duel of Fates plays in Star Wars during the lightsaber fight for dramatic effect, that's non-diegetic. it exists to the audience, but the characters don't know their fight is being backed by sick ass music and, sadly, can't hear it.

the lines can get blurry between the two, you've probably seen the film trope where the clearly non-diegetic music in the title sequence fades out to the same music, now diegetic and playing from the character's car stereo. and then there are things like Phantom of the Opera as mentioned above, where the soundtrack is also part of the plot, but Phantom of the Opera does also have segments of non-diegetic music: the Phantom probably does not have an entire orchestra and some guy with an electric guitar hiding down in his sewer just waiting for someone to break into song, but both of those show up in the songs they sing down there.

now, on to how I apply this to bdsm in fiction.

if I'm referring to diegetic bdsm what I mean is that the bdsm is acknowledged for what it is in-world. the characters themselves are roleplaying whatever scenarios their scenes involve and are operating with knowledge of real life rules/safety practices. if there's cnc depicted, it will be apparent at some point, usually right away, that both characters actually are fully consenting and it's all just a planned scene, and you'll often see on-screen negotiation and aftercare, and elements of the story may involve the kink community wherever the characters are. Love and Leashes is a great example of this, 50 Shades and Bonding are terrible examples of this, but they all feature characters that know they're doing bdsm and are intentional about it.

if I'm talking about non-diegetic bdsm, I'm referring to a story that portrays certain kinks without the direct acknowledgement that the characters are doing bdsm. this would be something like Captive Prince, or Phantom of the Opera again, or the vast majority of bodice ripper type stories where an innocent woman is kidnapped by a pirate king or something and totally doesn't want to be ravished but then it turns out he's so cool and sexy and good at ravishing that she decides she's into it and becomes his pirate consort or whatever it is that happens at the end of those books. the characters don't know they're playing out a cnc or D/s fantasy, and in-universe it's often straight up noncon or dubcon rather than cnc at all. the thing about entirely non-diegetic bdsm is that it's almost always Problematic™ in some way if you're not willing to meet the story where it's at, but as long as you're not judging it by the standards of diegetic bdsm, it's just providing the reader the same thing that a partner in a scene would: the illusion of whatever risk or taboo floats your boat, sometimes to extremes that can't be replicated in real life due to safety, practicality, physics, the law, vampires not being real, etc. it's consensual by default because it's already pretend; the characters are vehicles for the story and not actually people who can be hurt, and the reader chose to pick up the book and is aware that nothing in it is real, so it's all good.

this difference is where people tend to get hung up in the discourse, from what I've observed. which is why I started using this phrasing, because I think it's very crucial to be able to differentiate which one you're talking about if you try to have a conversation with someone about the portrayal of bdsm in media. it would also, frankly, be useful for tagging, because sometimes when you're in the mood for non-diegetic bodice ripper shit you'd call the police over in real life, it can get really annoying to read paragraphs of negotiation and check-ins that break the illusion of the scene and so on, and the opposite can be jarring too.

it's very possible to blur these together the same way Phantom of the Opera blurs its diegetic and non-diegetic music as well. this leaves you even more open to being misunderstood by people reading in bad faith, but it can also be really fun to play with. @not-poignant writes fantastic fanfic, novels, and original serials on ao3 that pull this off really well, if you're okay with some dark shit in your fiction I would highly recommend their work. some of it does get really fucking dark in places though, just like. be advised. read the tags and all that.

but yeah, spontaneous writer plug aside, that's what I mean.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Dog Meshi.