#so the surroundings you're in are always gonna have them vary a lot anyway

[tuherrus]

doing my very normal activities of looking at some guy's eyeballs but maybe you'll find some use out of me trying to find relatively neutrally lit footage of his peepers

[satanfemme]

im really trying to find a place in my spirituality/religion/personal philosophy or whatever as an excatholique. idk. i get that it takes time and effort to find a new place in the world. but right now really i just wanna smoke a fat blunt with ol luci downstairs. any advice?

honestly? my advice is that if right now u wanna smoke a fat blunt with luci, you should literally go ahead and do that (u know, metaphorically speaking lol). try it out! see if it fits! it might, or it might not, or it might feel good now and then bad in a few weeks/months/years -- and if that happens you can just try something else out instead. nothing wrt ur personal spirituality needs to be inherent, permanent, or serious.

letting urself experiment with different beliefs/paths is hard when you're raised catholic, but ime it's the only way you're gonna find a comfortable niche! just keep it no-pressure, low-stakes. because it is. genuinely. I 100% promise. despite what the church sometimes teaches, an all loving g-d will always forgive you and welcome you back if you change your mind later or if you wanna go back at any point. and this is just my personal opinion: but most deities are like that in general too.

being a human is so hard and confusing if you get too focused on the big picture. so for now, focus on this moment. pursue however you feel in this exact moment. then stay mindful. and when the moment changes, you may notice the way you feel changes too, and then you should pursue that instead. this includes taking a break when you want to take a break, or analyzing your beliefs through a psychiatric lens if you ever notice a pattern of distress.

stay open, too. read and learn from as many varying sources as you can. different religions, sects, teachers, philosophers, etc. and be critical of those sources. ask yourself, "why do they believe this? why do they want others to believe this? who does this benefit? who might this hurt?", as well as "if I followed these teachings, who would I be? would I be the person I want to be? would I be someone else? how would I benefit? how would others benefit? could this hurt me in any way? could this hurt others in any way?" thirdly, pay attention to the other people involved in whatever you're looking at, and ask, "are these the kinds of people I want to surround myself with? are these the kinds of people I want my unaffiliated friends, s/o, or family to associate with? how do they treat people with different beliefs? how do they treat me? what do they have to gain or lose from me joining them? would they be ok if I left later on?"

and on a serious note: learn the BITE model. cults are real, and prey upon questioning people. scientology, mormonism, and jehovah's witnesses are all cults and dangerous. in the left hand path, joys of satan is a cult. the church of satan and satanic temple are not cults (afaik) but deeply flawed/harmful in fairly covert ways. individual churches/groups within an otherwise harmless religious sect can also be cults, so don't necessarily trust people based on the seemingly-safe labels they advertise. also, relatedly, please please go out of ur way to actively research antisemitism, dog whistles, and antisemitic appropriation. these prejudices are unavoidable no matter what path you look at (excluding judaism itself, I'm assuming), so you're inevitably going to encounter them again and again (and most likely already have). don't contribute to that harm.

anyways, that's a lot to process but I hope it helps. I understand how difficult this can be, myself being an excatholic occultist/devil worshiper (who still holds loose ties to catholicism anyway cause fr this shit isn't serious and it's fun to mix-n-match). and btw if ur ever really craving xtianity but don't wanna put up with the shittiness of most xtian churches, universal unitarianism is generally pretty ok and openly leftist (and not strictly xtian either, but that still kinda depends on the individual church imo).

wishing u the best of luck!

[acescreations]

Moody Manipulations - Patton

[Part 2 to the Connected Youtuber Ego Universe(CYEU) stories I'm doing on Amino.]

Characters: Logan Sanders, Patton Sanders, Virgil Sanders, Roman Sanders, Thomas Sanders, Elliott (Cartoon Therapy), Kai (Cartoon Therapy), Lauren (Cartoon Therapy), Missy Sanders [background character], Pranks Sanders [refrenced], Mitchell (Cartoon Therapy) [mentioned]

Warnings: Patton has a really bad day, cries, and hides his emotions, Patton also has a retail job I feel like I should mention that, Mitchell is implied to be a little b*tch, Patton gets verbally abused

Word Count: 1798

It really didn't take me long to figure out what my emotions do. Whenever I was happy, things went right in the world, and when I was sad things went wrong. At first I thought it was a coincidence, but the correlation was too obvious to be chance. After that, I always did my best to stay in a good mood. I'd do things I enjoy, and avoid people and things that upset me.

I have to admit, staying happy became a lot harder. It almost seemed like a job at this point, since it was my responsibility to be happy. I still tried my hardest despite this, and when I was happy, hearing about all the good things happening in the world put me in an even better mood. Though that did go both ways, and hearing about bad things happening made me more upset, so I eventually decided to not look at the news when I was already uspet.

This was all a pretty good strategy for keeping my mood up, but one day everything went wrong, and I had no idea how to stay happy then.

I was heading down to my job at the local retail store and I bumped into someone on the street. "Whoops! Sorry about that." They said nothing, and just kept walking. I was surprised I didn't see them sooner. They had a head full of messy green hair along with bright blue eyes. I didn't really think much of it, after all, it was a busy street, people run into each other all the time. Once I got to my job, I saw my best friend getting his stuff. It looked like he was leaving, but we were supposed to be on the same shift today. I walked up to him as he was putting his hat on. "What's going on Chase? Are you leaving?" He turned to me with a sigh. "Yeah, I just got fired. I have no idea how I'm gonna pay for my date with Stacy now."

"Oh, geez." I was pretty disappointed myself. I always looked forward to the days when we worked together. "Well, good luck on finding a new job, I guess." Chase nodded as he walked past me. "Yeah, I guess."

I sighed as he left. This job was going to get a lot harder without him here. But, I still had my job to do, so I put on my name tag and I clocked in.

After a while of uneventful work, a woman came in and slammed a box of party supplies onto the counter. "I need to return these," she demanded.

"Okay ma'am," I said, a little nervous, "do you have the receipt?"

"No, but I don't need this anymore. I never needed it, so give me a refund on it!"

"I'm sorry, but can't return anything without proof of purchase." I had never had one of these conversations before, and this lady was really intimidating.

"I'm not keeping stuff my husband bought as a prank! Of course you teenagers don't care about how much money all this costs, you probably get handed money just so you can spend it all on stupid parties, don't you?"

Of course, I didn't actually do any of that, but she didn't know that, and I wasn't allowed to tell her that. "I want to help you, but I can't give you a refund on anything without a receipt."

The woman let out a frustrated growl. "I don't have time for this." She stormed out of the store, leaving the box on the counter. I allowed myself a sad sigh as I picked up the box and moved it off the counter, putting on a brand new smile as the next person in the line brought up their stuff. "Good afternoon, did you find everything you were looking for?"

~ ~ ~

By the end of my shift, I was exhausted. I wanted to call someone for a ride home, but my phone had died, so I had to walk. To make matters worse, I saw a cat that had been hit by a car on the side of the road. By that point, I was barely holding back tears, although I kept telling myself to stay cheerful, which only made it harder. I decided that I'd have a few cookies to cheer myself up when I got home.

I walked through the door, and saw Logan and Thomas sitting on the couch, watching the news. Obviously, it was all bad news. Logan turned off the TV as they both turned to me. "Bad day?" I must have looked pretty upset, because I never told Thomas about what my emotions do, but something must have prompted him to ask that. I just shrugged. I didn't want to talk about it, because I felt like I'd break down in tears if I did. I walked past them wordlessly and went into my room to change out of my work clothes. When I walked back out, I was determined to improve my mood, so I put on a smile and went to get that cookie, but I opened the cookie jar to find that it was empty. "When did we finish the cookies?" I asked to anyone who was listening. Thomas spoke up from the living room. "I'm pretty sure Lauren finished them with Roman and Virgil." I wanted to be upset about this, but I was determined to stay positive.

It's okay Patton, you can just make some more. That should be fun, that should make you happy.

I began taking out ingredients, but it turned out we were out of a flour, sugar, and eggs. That was definitely a disappointment. I told myself I'd be able to get through it anyway.

After that, though, was when I completely lost composure. Elliott walked out of their room, their shoulders hanging as they sat down next to Thomas on the couch. Logan looked up from where he was reading on the other end of the couch. "Mitchell left another message today." I overheard them saying. My heart broke in sympathy for my parent, and I quickly walked out of the kitchen and into my room, barely even trying to hold back tears anymore.

As soon as I was alone in my room, I collapsed to the floor, letting out all the sobbing my day had been leading up to. I don't know how loud I was being, but after wiping tears from my eyes, I looked up and I was surrounded by my family, all with faces of varying levels of concern and sympathy. Once my crying slowed, Virgil, eho was sitting in front of me, said "Hey, what's wrong?" I lowered my head onto my knees. "Bad day," I muttered, overcome with guilt for how many people I must have gotten hurt today. "Patton," I heard Logan say at my right, "you can't keep getting upset at yourself for being upset." I shook my head. "No, you don't understand," I said.

"I'm pretty sure I do, and Patton," Logan continued, "you're going to have your ups and downs, and it'll be less... disastrous if you just let the bad days be just a little bad. The world can take a little bit of misfortune, believe me."

I looked up at him, confused. "Are you saying you-"

"Yes Patton, and for your information I regularly keep up on the news so I can tell how your feeling. And yes," Logan continued, "everyone else knows too."

"Oh." I looked around at everyone, unsure of how I never found out.

"So why don't you just tell us what's going on today?" Virgil asked, scooting over to sit next to me. I shrugged, not really sure when exactly my day started going terribly. "Well on the way to work I bumped into this guy, which I really didn't mind that much, but after that I found out my friend got fired," I then just started stating everything that happened that day. I didn't mean to, really, I just started talking and then I couldn't stop myself. Once I was finished, Roman gave me a thoughtful look. "What did the guy on the street look like?" I blinked at him, confused as to why he was questioning that. "Well, he had blue eyes, and really messy green hair."

"What was he wearing?"

"I dunno, this big wavy coat?"

"Roman," Logan sighed, "what does this have to do with anything?" Roman didn't answer, despite everyone beong equally confused. He just stood up, muttered something about "Marvin" and walked out. "I have a hunch about something, I'll be back, hopefully with good news." Thomas sighed and shook his head after Roman left the house. "That boy, honestly. Anyway, how about me and Elliott go get those ingredients you were needing? You can just stay here and relax."

"No!" I said, a little too frantically. "I-it's just," I mumbled, "you could get hurt."

"It's fine," Logan said. "Camden's got an eye on the TV, and things are improving. They should be able to get there and back safely." Camden was the name Logan gave his familiar. I slowly nodded, and Virgil stood up and grabbed my hand. "All right, now you come here and watch some TV." I stood up and followed him as he led me to the couch, Logan, Kai, and Lauren following behind while Thomas and Elliott got ready to go to the store. Me and Virgil sat next to each other on the couch, Logan sitting a small distance away while Kai and Lauren sat near us.

After a while of watching Steven Universe, Roman burst back through the door. "Patton, you will have to worry about this misfortune no longer!"

"O-okay. Um, what did you do?" I asked.

"Well that person you bumped into, I'm actually acquainted to him. He calls himself Marvin the Magnificent. He claims to be a magician, but for as long as I knew him he couldn't do any actual magic. Turns out he got magic powers through a deal with a demon or something, and he had to agree to curse you with misfortune." He sat down on my other side, so now I had one sibling at both of my sides. "I talked him into releasing the curse," he said, probably more casually than what the situation would call for.

"Okay, thanks then," I said, despite Roman already being immersed in the show. We continued watching until Thomas and Elliott returned with the baking supplies, then Virgil, Thomas, and Lauren joined me in baking cookies. Once I tasted one of the cookies from out of the oven, I figured that the day wouldn't be as bad as it had been.

[bollywood-and-phoenix-feather]

*sails in* soooo if you're still taking prompts *waggles eyebrows* Can I get cutesy Maurauders + Lily shenanigans? Idek what kind of shenanigans, but preferably pre-ship mutually pining wolfstar & pre-ship banter Jily. I was gonna ask for angst but then I realized that my poor heart Can't Take It.

no angst, she says

sorry this took me forever babe

read it on ao3 here

James and Sirius are, with their usual propensity for very bad timing, having a Standoff.

Peter knows this because James has actually finished his homework on Cheering Charms, despite his continued and vociferous objections when the assignment was announced in class. This, naturally, means that James will have an excuse to be best friends with Remus and ignore Sirius; ergo, Remus will be quite obviously too happy to be included to worry overmuch about Gryffindor Tower’s resident drama queen. In sum (and here’s what Peter’s good at; not charms, but people) - in sum, this means that Peter will be stuck entertaining Sirius Arsing Black while pretending that he wouldn’t rather be literally anywhere else.

That’s the thing about the four of them; they’re really only friends sometimes, and how many friends each of them has varies based on the day and its succession of probabilities; minimum none, maximum three, with Remus, to his astonishment, holding the candle for the highest calculated mean.

Remus must be the easiest to get along with; he’s quiet and unassuming and mostly just astonished to have friends. It works, of course, for James and Sirius, who probably get off on being adored, but not Peter. Peter is content to watch.

Does that make him strange?

He wonders this, as Sirius places another card on top of the already-precarious house of Exploding Snaps Cards. As a rule, the sharper Sirius’s fragile construction’s angles, the more brassed off he is, and today the cards are nearly vertical. Peter is aware, distantly, that he’s going to win, and that this will sour Sirius’s mood further. He wonders if he can Incendio his own stack without Sirius noticing.

He probably can. Sirius isn’t a watcher, like Peter, which brings him back to the point, as he nudges his wand inside his pocket and then darts back before the cards explode spectacularly in his face. Peter doesn’t, actually, think it’s strange. Really, he sometimes thinks he’s the most Gryffindor of them all; he’s good at losing himself and being brave for others - at looking at the bigger picture, at realizing that some things are more important than his own insecurities.

This also has the consequence of making him the most valuable Marauder. James and Sirius are too flashy to be of much pranking use; Remus not daring enough - so it falls to Peter to mastermind, to use the genius that surrounds him to bring pranks to life.

This is why James and Peter are friends. Sirius and Peter are friends because Peter takes slightly less bullshit from him than James does. Remus and Peter, however -

Remus and Peter are friends because of the boggart assignment.

Remus and Peter are friends because Peter knows about Remus and the full moon, and Remus knows about Peter’s Muggle dad, and they very particularly don’t talk about it and instead tell each other the locations of their private Honeydukes stashes.

(They are also friends because when Peter, watching as always, saw the way Remus stared at Sirius like he was the star he was named for, he just offered him an Acid Pop - one pain to distract from another.)

Peter realizes with a dawning self-awareness that Sirius may not, in fact, be the most dramatic of their lot. Then again, thirteen though they may be, they are simultaneously much older with experience and much younger with the giddy freedom Hogwarts provides - all except for James, who knows what it is to grow up happy, who actually looks forward to summer hols.

(In two years, Sirius will get absolutely sloshed on nicked Firewhisky and admit to Peter, slurred and soft, that no, I wouldn’t trust myself with one of them little buggers, the whole bloody world knows I’m too much like that - that - absolute tit of a Mum I’ve got, but really Peter, one day you ‘n James 'n Remus 'n especially James are going to raise a whole host of brats, and you bet I’m gonna be there to treat them right -

Peter will carefully omit the fact that Remus once told him something very similar, in the lofty tones he gets after the moon when he’s too tired to soften his speech - I’d never wish that kind of - that fucking wolf - on a kid, Peter, I couldn’t -

Good thing you’re bent as Wagnar the Wild’s cursed dick, then, Peter will say, just to make him laugh, even though it’s not, strictly, true. Remus will smile anyway.)

Pain and love and heartbreak, which are all the same thing; prank plans and maps that melt back into their parchment - Peter keeps these close to his chest, guarding them because they belong to his friends. He’s always been their Secret-Keeper, and Merlin knows they need one, these boys with brazenness hanging around their shoulders like tattered Quidditch cloaks, who wouldn’t know subtlety if it was printed on Snape’s gray underpants.

Right now, for example, the night of October 30th, that brazenness is in full force - right now, James and Sirius are having a Standoff, and Peter holds the secret behind this too.

He’d like to think that this one is a little more painless than the others, but where Snivellus is involved, that’s never true. Slimy Snape, however, isn’t the secret this time - it’s his friend with the blazing hair and attitude and the heavy, heavy chip on her shoulder.

(Peter thinks distantly that his friends should have better taste.)

“Now that Prince James has condescended to grace us with his presence - ”

“I was helping Evans with her detention, fuck off - ”

“ - and has perhaps remembered who his real friends are - ”

“Sirius, I swear on Merlin’s saggy fucking tits - ”

“Language,” says Remus, idly. “Are we going to start or not?” Peter meets his eye, rewards him with a sympathetic eyeroll for speaking up.

“We might have an hour ago if James hadn’t run off with some - ”

“Jealousy is unbecoming,” Remus starts -

“As if you’ve ever had to deal with being jealous - ” Sirius says, immediately. Peter winces, and Remus colors, shutting his mouth audibly.

Peter chooses this moment to clear his throat. “Three cheers for Sirius, who got the mass release charm working,” he says, raising his voice, because flattery always smooths things over. The teachers think he worships the other three, but that’s not quite true; he’s just more willing to concede. Less stubborn pride, a bit more sense. “Did we decide on Dungbombs or Smokebombs?” he asks, opening the floor.

With a - thank Merlin - minimum of whinging, the annual Halloween Prank Planner’s Meeting Number Four is set back on track.

James makes a lot of hand gestures. Sirius makes a lot more hand gestures, most of which are more crude. Remus pokes at places on a map of the castle with his wand, letting it spark each time he does. Sirius yells a little, James yells quite a lot, and Remus yells not at all.

Peter watches, and decides.

It’s always worked for them, and it will this time as well. Without too much broken glass, and less ripped curtains than last year, the plans are set.

The evening of the Halloween feast is crisp and clear; they watch the artificial sky closely for rain, but Fortune has conceded to favor their audacity. It’s the first year they’ve tried anything bigger than the Gryffindor common room, and Peter can see it on their faces, alive and dancing. Remus has placed the bombs, James and Sirius have activated the delayed release charms, and Peter has headed off Crib, the aging Squib janitor.

The stage is set, Peter thinks, and he settles in to watch.

It is, in his definitely-unbiased opinion, thoroughly magnificent. Thick, magenta-orange smoke billows from the mouth of each painstakingly-charmed gargoyle, smothing teachers and students alike in vibrant powder. When everyone is coughing, wands lit to see through the haze, Sirius lights the powder with a flick of his wand, unleashing a Halloween surprise on the unsuspecting student body.

Teachers watch their teeth lengthen and bloody in horror as their faces dip with unnatural pallor; the Hufflepuff table sprouts fur in Remus’s idea of a bad joke. The Slytherin table (obviously) grows scales; Snivellus gets to turn into an eel, wet and flopping around, causing most of the table to shriek in disgust. The Gryffindor and Ravenclaw students sprout feathers, the Gryffindors puffing up towards the ceiling like balloons while the Ravenclaws see their arms growing membranous bat wings.

In the middle are the Marauders, triumphant with faces and robes alight.

As quickly as it starts, it’s over; students and teachers sink gratefully back into their own bodies, with the exception of Snivellus. With a little more work, Peter thinks, they could extend the spell to hit during classes instead of at the feast.

Professor McGonagall is furious, and good old Dumbledore orders them to his office immediately, but Peter can see McGonagall’s mouth twitching furiously, the sparkle in Dumbledore’s blue eyes. They’re safe, for now.

Sirius is hollering with fierce joy - “Bloody well worked, didn’t it, well done Lupin - ”

“It was you, you got the charm working - ”

“ - don’t you lot go forgetting who placed all those fiddly smoke bombs,” James puts in, not willing to be left out.

Peter grins as he watches them argue, because these are his friends and today, they’re kings.

*

The trip to the headmaster’s goes much as expected. Dumbledore and McGonagall take each of them aside, asking if they might possibly know the instigator’s of tonight’s antics.

Peter shakes his head, lets his eyes go wide and innocent. “It was probably one of the fourth-years,” he says. “Saw Bones and her Hufflepuff friends looking shifty this morning.”

McGonagall’s nostrils flare. “Pettigrew,” she says, not unkindly. “It will be better for both you and your friends if you tell me the truth.”

Dumbledore’s gaze pierces him, and Peter swallows down a sudden, bright gulp of fear. They’ll all get detention anyway, and he doubts anyone would see him any differently if he told - after all, everyone already knows they did it, Sirius was yelling loud enough to wake the ghosts -

Someone bangs on the office door. “Minnie,” says James, impudent. “We didn’t do it, we swear! Can we go, now?”

His friends are outside, and he’s their Secret-Keeper. Peter smiles guilelessly at the two, and says, “I am telling the truth, Professors.”

*

Peter is right. They get detention anyway and Sirius complains bitterly and Remus just smiles in resignation and rolls up his sleeves and James throws an arm around Peter’s shoulder and tells him thanks for not telling, I know you were scared, and Peter wonders suddenly if he’s not the only one who watches.

*

(It’s still the best day of their lives. The Halloween Prank is cemented as tradition almost immediately; the full moon is conveniently avoiding the Halloween weekend, which means they can plot, succeed, and drink celebratory butterbeer the night of Sirius’s birthday in peace.

McGonagall’s punishment doesn’t start until the fourth of November - Sirius says it’s because Minnie secretly cares and doesn’t want to lock him up in detention on his birthday, but James thinks it’s Dumbledore’s idea of a last hurrah. Peter thinks they’re both right.

Later, when the other two are asleep, Sirius will confide to him, hushed and young, I hope it’s like this always.)