#some of this is problems with myself which i do work on and i work on them hard. i don't want to be like that

[admirationandromantics]

Best Friend's Brother

This request is literally 10 days old, which, to some, might not seem as a long time. For me however, it is. I'm sorry, but as I've described, I'm just trying to balance writing and school right now, so I'll be writing a little less than before.

Word count: 1,6k (unedited)

could u write a best friend older brother trope josh x reader. luv you works btww xx -anon

I knock on the door, waiting for Beth to open up. We’d planned a movie night while her parents were gone, and Hannah was at Sam’s. Josh was still home, but she told me he wouldn’t be a bother, and would probably stay in his room the whole night. 

I have met him many times before, and would even call us friends. Though at the same time, I often wonder if he looks at me like another baby sister, despite only being one year apart. He often gives me a hard time, teasing me and joking around, but most times, I don’t mind. I usually also hope that he never means anything with his small occasional comments, because nothing will happen either way. My best friend’s brother? That would be a problem just waiting to happen. 

Josh and I have been drunk together, partied together and been on get togethers together, though I’m not familiar with everyone in their group yet. 

I stand outside, my patience running low in the cold weather, wishing I brought a scarf. I hear footsteps coming from inside. Finally. The door unlocks, and a broad, tan Josh in a thin rolled up sweater and some sweatpants stands there, arm against the doorframe. He gives a small smile, looking me over. 

“Well, look who decided to come while the parents are out” he coos, a small whistling sound coming out of his lips. 

“Well, hello Joshua, care to let me in?” 

He smiles, contemplating whether to make this difficult or not. I look around, sighing and waiting for an answer, thinking about shouting Beth’s name and telling her that her brother is being a prick. Luckily, he opens the door further, making space for me to walk inside. “Thank you” I say, trying to hide my smile a bit. I’ve been here many times before, so I immediately know where to hang my coat and leave everything else. Josh keeps standing there, watching me. 

“Beth is out, said something about getting snacks for your movie night” He explains, and I nod. The store is not far from here, so she will probably be back soon. 

“Well then, do you know which movie she’s got planned?”

“Of course I do, I’m the one who helps pick them out”

I give him a curious and sceptical look, not having heard this before. He keeps his gaze locked on my gaze, a small smirk playing on his lips. 

“Have you?” 

“Every time” 

My mouth opens a little. Beth is always talking about her great taste in movies, never having mentioned this before. 

“No, are you serious? Beth has never given you any credit”

“Little sisters… what do you expect?” 

I hum, not knowing how to respond to that. I walk inside, him following closely as I sit myself by the kitchen counter. 

“So, what movie have you chosen then?” I ask, looking up at him again. Instead of sitting, he just leans against the counter with one arm, body turned my way. I can’t help my gaze, looking over his revealed forearms. 

“Something a bit different than usual…” he smirks, eyes following my gaze down to his arms. I break free, leaning forward a bit. 

“Okay, what movie?” 

“A scary one” 

“No”

“Oh yes” 

I whine, leaning back again. I hate scary movies, I hate jumpscares and gore. Why can’t people just like normal, funny, cozy stuff? 

“Josh, are you serious?”

“And there we go, you’re starting to use my nickname” 

“Joshua! Are you serious?”

“Well, that lasted for long”

I sigh, rolling my eyes. This is not how I want to spend my night, and considering that the walk home will be dark and scary, this movie will definitely fuel my fears. 

“Hey, calm down, it’s a good movie, maybe you just haven’t seen a good scary movie yet, this one might change your mind about the whole genre” He smiles, a hand going to my arm. I can't help the small blush coming from the touch, his fingers warm and comforting. I don’t want to do this, but I really can’t object when Beth is the one getting everything ready, and I just need to show up and have a good time. Or pretend I’m having a good time. 

The door opens, and his hand is immediately removed as Beth comes in, a big bag in her hands. She doesn’t notice me at first. 

“Beth!” I exclaim, and she lifts her head, nose a little red from the cold outside. 

“Hey, oh sorry, I didn’t have time to go earlier today” 

“That’s completely fine, here, let me take it” I state, walking over and taking the bag from her hands as she starts undressing. 

“My brother didn’t bother you?” 

I look over at him, and he just gives a small laugh, shaking his head and putting his hands up defensively. 

“No, he was fine” 

“Good, now, let's go” She smiles, leading me away from him, into their living room. She finds a couple of bowls, letting me distribute the snack in them as she works on getting the movie going. 

“Okay, so I know you’re not a scary movie-person, but I know this one is really good, so please, keep an open mind” 

I laugh a little, thinking back on the fact that Josh is the one who actually picked this out. 

“I’ll keep an open mind then” 

“Great” 

The movie starts, and we both sit down, a blanket over us as the lights dim. At first, the movie seems fine, the occasional jump scare, which scares me much more than it does Beth. Still, I keep watching, body tense and uncomfortable, but I can’t take my eyes off it. We’re in the middle when someone gets violently cut up, and the camera doesn’t bother to show us anything else than the blood and flesh flying everywhere, the gore not stopping. I take a breath, pulling my eyes from the screen and standing up. 

“I just need to use the bathroom”

“Gonna puke?”

I laugh a little, the tension in my shoulders easing as she talks. 

“No, but if there’s no important information in this sequence, please feel free to skip it, I'll be quick” I say, already making my way to the yellow-lighted hallway. It's light, in contrast to the room I was just in, and that makes me ease up a little more. Gosh, if this was to keep going, I wouldn’t dare walking home tonight. 

Suddenly, I hear a click, and the light goes away, leaving me in the dark hallway. I stop, looking around, unsure about what just happened. Another breath escapes my lips, reminding me that I can’t keep holding my breath everytime something startling happens. The hallway looks empty both ways, so I continue further, crossing my fingers that the light in the bathroom at least works. 

Before I can react, a couple of strong arms grab me from behind, caging me. I’m about to yell out, but as if anticipating it, the hand goes over my mouth, muffling my screams. I’m slammed into the wall, not too hard, luckily, but I close my eyes before the impact arrives. As I open them again, a smiling Josh is standing in front of me, biting his lips to hold in his laugh. My heart is still beating fast, breaths coming in and out in a rapid manner. I grab his hand roughly, dragging it off my mouth. 

“Joshua Washington! Are you fucking insane??” 

He bursts out laughing, arms against the wall beside me, holding himself up as he leans over. I shake my head, mouth still a little open in shock, whilst he can’t stop laughing. 

“Maybe, but you should’ve seen your face!” He chuckles, one of his hands going to his stomach to compose himself. It’s probably hurting right now from all the laughter. 

“Joshua! What the hell is wrong with you!?” 

“Okay, okay, calm down, just a little prank on my part” He smiles, finally calming down. 

“I have been watching a fucking horror movie, and you pull this shit?”

He bites his lip again, tilting his head a bit to examine me. 

“Oh, come on now, you’re totally thinking it’s funny” 

“No, I’m not” 

“Or you’re into it or something…”

“Wait, what, no I’m not, what kind of sick-”

Before I can process what’s happening, his lips are on me. I feel his breath, his body close, soft lips moving ove mine. My heart is still beating rapidly, but oddly enough, it calms with the way he’s touching me. Tender and carefully, not like himself at all. His hand goes to my waist, body pressing mine into the wall, opening his mouth a little. I hear a little groan leaving his throat. He pulls away, faces close as his eyes go over me, looking up and down. I almost think he looks a little vulnerable, but his signature smirk finds its way to his lips again. 

“Well then, calmer now?” 

I look at him, confused, conflicted. I scoff, shaking my head a bit. 

“No, I think I need a little more help” I state, hand going to the back of his neck, pulling him into me again. Capturing his lips on mine, already opening my mouth. He does the same, one hand on my hips, pulling me into him. 

“Hey, finished in the bathroom soon? I’ve paused the movie, the gore is over!” Beth shouts from the living room. We both pull away from each other and look over to the living room, luckily not seeing her there. I look back at him, seeing his chest heaving, hot breaths coming from his mouth. He turns, looking into my eyes. 

“Guess we better finish calming you down later” He smiles, pushing himself off me and the wall, walking back to his room. 

Fuck, what have I gotten myself into?

[calaisreno]

Re-Read Recs: Victorian Edition

Thanks to @totallysilvergirl for pointing me to this post by @acethatlovesdinos asking for more Victorian Johnlock. Your timing is great; I was just compiling a list of Victorian setting fics for my next RRR post!

If you go searching specifically for Johnlock in a Victorian setting, part of the problem, as always, will be finding things. As admirable as the AO3 tagging system is, when you're searching for something specific, you still have to dig a bit.

Many people, myself included, assign all their Victorian stories to the fandom tag "Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle."

But some writers add "Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle" to all their stories, including those set in BBC or other adaptations, because they wish to attribute the characters' creator.

And some do not use the ACD tag at all because their stories, even those in a Victorian setting, are inspired by the BBC adaptation and imagined with those characters.

There are other tags: Victorian, Victorian Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Victorian Holmes/Watson, Victorian Johnlock.

(My own approach: readers may imagine whatever actors they prefer; I tag by the setting. Even so, I've tagged stories set in the 1920s and 1820s as ACD, even though these are outside of the Victorian Era.)

There is no one-click method to separate out all the stories, and only the stories, where Watson and Holmes are together in a Victorian setting. AO3 lets us use tags however we wish; it's a folksonomy, a collaborative system. For the number and variety of stories contained there, it is the most practical method.

You can search an individual author's works, filtering and sorting by kudos, hits, relationships, tags, and other things. You can search anyone's bookmarks in the same way. (I'm always surprised when people don't know this!)

If you search my works, for example, you will find 60 stories in the Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle fandom. A couple of those are tagged 'timetravel,' so if you don't want that, you can exclude that tag. If you don't want any stories with Mary Morstan married to John Watson, you can exclude John Watson/Mary Morstan under Relationships.

However you search, if you filter your search results by hits or kudos, you will find that stories in the ACD/Victorian Johnlock category have many fewer of these. AO3 went live only a year or so before BBC Sherlock began to air, and it was one of the top fandoms for many years. There are a huge number of stories in the BBC fandom.

But there are dedicated and talented authors who have been writing Holmes/Watson for a long time, and today I'd like to point you towards a few of them. Here are some of my favorite re-reads:

Memento Vivere - @mydogwatson - The life stories of Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes and John Watson. An alternate history.

My Gentle Sin Is This - janeofarc - It takes a near miss for Holmes to realize that he cannot imagine his life without Watson.

Missing Pages - @PlaidAdder - a group of interlinked short stories (most between 2000 and 7000 words) which tell the story of how Holmes and Watson really came to be separated at the Reichenbach Falls, and how they found each other again

Missing - @Random_Nexus - Holmes is missing. Watson is trying to figure out where he is and what happened.

Oubliette - gardnerhill - A series: a treatise on love and grief. Watson is kidnapped by a gang; Holmes must find him before it's too late.

Laphroaig in the Lumber Room - wordybirdy - Holmes & Watson discover a bottle of Laphroaig inside the lumber room at Baker Street. A drinking game of truth results in intimate confessions.

All of these authors have written many excellent Victorian Holmes/Watson fics. But there are many more you should look at if you want to read more of our boys in their original canon setting. I think I will have to write a Part 2 for this post!

Thanks for reblogging!

@totallysilvergirl @lisbeth-kk @helloliriels @keirgreeneyes

@redmondcollege @raina-at @7-percent @lhrinchelsea

@a-victorian-girl @ghostofnuggetspast @friday411

@meetinginsamarra @inevitably-johnlocked @copperplatebeech

[strangerthingsfanworkrecs]

Artist Highlight: Jo-Harrington

This week, we're highlighting @jo-harrington! All recs this week will be for her work. @jo-harrington writes for the Stranger Things Fandom, with a special focus on xOC, and xReader fics. She's also a great beta-editor and design all the graphics for her fics! We're highlighting Jo for her incredible world building and strong OCs.

You should check out her Store Manager Verse fics for some great fluff and top-tier retail angst Jo answered some questions about her creative process and her work under the cut

Why Stranger Things?

I’ve been an avid ST Fan since the beginning. My old Store Manager and I watched the first episode in the backroom of our store while folding t-shirts and rest was history. Fic-wise, a certain Metalhead Dungeon Master brought me out of a fanfiction posting hiatus and I haven’t looked back since.

What's your favorite ship (platonic or romantic) to create for?

Platonic is always going to be the Hellfire Club boys. I love writing their adventures. Their friendship is epic and deserves to be explored and celebrated. Romantic…EddiexOC or EddiexReader. I mean, I’ve been an xOC girl since my first fandom. xReader is new for me but it’s almost an extension of xOC. I always joke that I’m allowed ONE epic borbo obsession love of my life per decade and I’ll give them one canon pairing but the rest are OCs.

What's your typical writing process like?

I have an idea, I write it down, I get sick of working on a chapter, I don’t edit, I post. (Which is funny because when I beta, I am a lot more detailed. But for my own work I just need it out of my head.) It might not be the best. It could probably read better or have less typos or mistakes. But it’s always from the heart.

How do you come up with your OCs?

I sit there for a long time and figure out how I can put a part of myself into a story. Oops was I not supposed to say that? Sometimes you think of a character that you just can’t help but want to write. But even if they aren’t a manifestation of your physical self or your personality, they almost always end up being an extension of you in some ways, or something you aspire to be. You also need to add some attributes you hate into them, so that they’re not too perfect and you can throttle them around and make them suffer and not feel too bad/let it become a self hatred thing.

What has been your favorite project so far? Why?

Store Manager Verse. (EMxReader) Retail is who I am and who I’ve always been. I had a mall romance irl that went south. So it was a way to rewrite my past with my comfort character…and also give said comfort character a happy ending as well.

What has been your hardest project so far? Why?

As Above, So Below. (EMxOC) It is a passion project, it is a beast, every chapter takes an emotional toll on me and it takes a month—if not more—to recover. But it has been the single most fulfilling project that I’ve worked on in the 20 years I’ve been writing fanfiction. I've been working on it for about 2 years now. 3 more chapters til the end…I’m gonna be very sad when it’s over.

Have you ever had a creative block? How did you get over it?

My brain is just a beehive that I shake every now and again to get the bees angry. Honestly, the bigger block I get into is self-doubt. I have no problem finding the words, it’s the courage to put them to paper I struggle with at times.

Is there a big source of inspiration for you? Books? Art? Games?

Yes all of the above. But in all seriousness, life experience is the best inspiration. There’s only so much research you can do. Truly for me, the canon characters are the source of inspiration. Then I take from things I’ve done, things I’ve read, places I’ve been in order to take an idea to a fully formed plot.

Is there an upcoming project you're particularly excited about?

Eddie Munson Big Bang. I know you’re gonna hear that a lot. I love creating really ambitious AUs and I think this one is really testing my abilities as a writer. It's a crossover fic, in a way, but with a lot of original plot folded in. I hope I do both fandoms/universes justice.

Is there anything we didn't ask that you'd like to add?

I’m from the Midwest, so thank you for listening to all of my long-winded answers. Haha.

[guiltyofbitchcraft]

Hey, educators! If you're seeing this, please do not do this! The posters above are well meaning but I don't believe they're fully thinking this through.

For one, this is concept only works if you ignore disabled students. I'll use my own case as an example but I have EDS and a multitude of other issues that come with that, one of which being that after a few sentences it's really painful to hand write things! Not only that my handwriting drastically deteriorates the longer I push myself. It's not fun and one of my disability requirements I've had at each and every one of my schools since high school is that I get technology access for taking notes and doing written assignments. This is just one of a million reasons a student might need to type out their assignments. There's also a very good possibility you have students who have needs that make it easier for them to type out assignments but they aren't official recognized or diagnosed. Secondly, Blue Book written assignments cannot replace all written assignments. While they are really good for testing students ability to think quickly and organize their thoughts short term that does not replace the skills long term essay writing creates. If you want to encourage your students to become scholars and writers they'll need to learn to hone skills beyond a blue book exam. That's not even touching on how hand written essays make things like citations so much harder to teach and for your students to apply.

Also just because some professors are willing to struggle through terrible handwriting doesn't mean all are. There's some truly illegible handwriting out there and yes while more hand written assignments would help with that (although it'd be more useful to the students in earlier years rather than in later education) also consider the amount of extra work you're asking both the professor and the student to do? Hand writing takes a lot more time than typing, and students who have bad hand writing probably know it and know that the illegibility has a good chance at affecting their grade. (Also like very minor note but like please also don't forget about what a pain it is for left handed students to do blue book style exams. We know our hand smears the entire text but we can't do anything about it) I get it, AI is really becoming a problem but I don't think the solution is to make your students do more work when they're already not keeping up with the work load they have. You think they won't learn to cheat on written exams? People have before, it'll just be brought back. I'm sorry to tell you guys but there is no easy solution to this. The way towards a solution will take patience, trust, and a lot of work. It'll require a lot more realistic and genuine conversations about AI and trust with your students, it'll require going back to a system that allows students to fail in a safe environment rather than pushing them onto the next level when they're nowhere near ready. What isn't the solution is making education both inaccessible and more distrusting of the people it's supposed to help.

An ex-colleague of mine was complaining to me the other day about the ai problem in her students' papers, and I told her, "Just make your students hand-write them in class. Easy." She looked at me like I was insane and tried to explain how that would never work, but I just said,"That's how we did it for a thousand years. The invention of word processors doesn't erase all that."

To me it seems obvious. Readings are done out of class, handwritten essays are done within it. No more ai papers.

[greenerteacups]

I think "the problem of house elves" is really interesting in that it reveals an issue with what I suppose can be broadly categorised as "urban fantasy"?, that is to say fantasy in a modern real world setting, which nonetheless uses magical creature lore. Inevitably, as an author, you're going to purposely or inadvertently draw parallels to real world "stuff" that's ladened with baggage... and it can be really hard to make it work because readers will be raring to pick apart these kinds of analogies.

House elves are a great example of this, in that, there really are creatures called house elves (or brownies) in English folklore and they really do, in the stories, seem to enjoy doing housework and chores in exchange for things like food and shelter (and shouldn't be given clothes or they'll never come back).

However, by initially drawing a parallel to slavery with House Elf labour (a real-world very dark baggage laden issue) and then not having the time to really delve into the history and complexity of her wizard / house elf relations you end up with the narrative seeming a bit confused as to how we should feel about people having house elves as servants / slaves. On one hand, we only see "bad" families having elves, on the other, we're told Molly Weasley would like one, then we're shown that Hogwarts uses them and that they, mostly, want to work for wizards without pay or holiday. People that grew up in the wizarding world seem to view Hermione's concerns with the kind of bemusement I encountered as a vegetarian kid explaining why I didn't want to eat animals to most of the people around me. This says a lot about the way House Elves are viewed there.

House elves are not viewed as being akin to human and therefore do not fit neatly into human parallels. Dobby is presented as an anomaly because, unlike most houseelves, he does not dream of labour and being bound to a particular wizarding family. I think JKR tries to represent this through Hermione's ineffective activism, but it's clumsily done because Dobby's our first and most poignant introduction to House elves and he was being seriously abused without any protections in place. There's also the Black family situation which.... yeah.

I think a couple of paragraphs of explanation from, maybe, Dumbledore outlining, perhaps, the symbiotic magical relationship of wizards and elves, and how the Malfoys / Blacks were somehow unusual in their cruelty and disrespect to this relationship, would've done a lot to smooth at least some of this over.

The issue, I think the books very quietly imply, is actually more aligned, although not perfectly of course, in a real world sense, with animal abuse / humane treatment of animals than with human slavery, as house elves ( as folkloric creatures) crucially do want to do house work in their nature and their treatment by wizards is therefore what needs to be monitored through the introduction of protections (older Hermione will surely be championing these kinds of reforms). Not perfect of course as House Elves are sentient, talking creatures... but they're also not human beings and it does make some kind of sense that they wouldn't have the same values... it's just, slavery being OK sometimes, is really not the sort of message you want to imply through an inadvertent and imprecise parallel.

Just chiming into the house elf convo as I find this issue in fantasy writing endlessly fascinating and as an aspiring fantasy writer myself, quite frightening!

This is so well-put, I almost can't bring myself to add anything to it — really excellent and considered treatment of the ways that the elf relationship was probably intended to read differently than it did in the text. More attention to the elf/brownie legend would have gone a long way for me in fixing my unhappiness with S.P.E.W., because it would have given a canonical basis for thinking Hermione's actually just wrong about this relationship, and that she's somehow missing an important historical context. That's a great point.

Staging elves as an intermediary between humans and animals whose treatment mirrors animal rights conversations is a really smart way of talking about it, too, as it captures the moral dimension of Hermione's quest without making everyone else look abjectly terrible for not supporting it. Staging her as, say, the PETA of the Wizarding World, where everyone thinks she's campaigning to Give Copyright to Monkeys, etc., makes Ron especially seem much more reasonable. I'm going to think about your interpretation a lot in how I write house-elves in the future.

[what-even-is-thiss]

I have a writing ask for you: I find myself feeling very stubborn about conveying certain details sometimes even if they might not be very important and cannot be pointed out smoothly. Not all, but some.

How does one learn or come to accept letting go of these? Is there even such a thing? How do I not care when I do, really, no matter how petty or small? How can I communicate my vision the clearest as naturally and to as many people as possible?

Perhaps this is really specific from detail to detail, but I have too many examples in mind to pick together a coherent banquet. This ask is already getting rambly as is.

My current tactic really is to spread the mention of specific details to make it feel more natural like putting medecine in an animal’s food, but this doesn’t feel like a sufficient enough way to deal with it. What if my story is not long enough for it?

I can deal with people being wrong about something I didn’t write, because at the end of the day I do not 100% know every single intention, but the idea of a significant percentage of people being wrong about something *I* wrote personally, bothers me alot more. Even though this distant personally uninvolved audiance of a high caliber is not really a reality for me currently.

I mean hell, the length of this ask probably already tells you that I am struggling to convey a rather simple problem, and this is a trimmed down version. I feel as if I can never guess properly enough how most people will interpreet my words to a satisfactory degree so I need to clarify which gets lengthy.

The first thing you need to accept as a writer is that you have absolutely no control over how people interpret your work and even if you think you’ve made your meaning as clear as possible it still won’t 100% mean the same thing to your readers as it does to you.

The next thing is that you can turn basically anything into a quirk of your writing style.

Maybe you’re just the sort of writer that goes off on paragraphs long tangents about a bird off in the corner before returning to the plot. Or maybe you just need to write what you’re gonna write and cut out the bits you don’t need later.

I have the opposite problem where I often don’t write enough and end up having to add more back in later. We’ve all got our processes. And to a certain extent finding what your process is requires some trial and error. But if you obsess over how people are going to interpret you then you’ll never allow yourself the freedom you need to figure out your style.

[the-ellia-west]

Hey y'all, so this is a new type of post for me!

Life Update #1 - 01/20/25

════∘◦❁◦∘════

I haven't done a lot recently, I'm kind of in a more stagnant period after getting home from Camp, and knowing I have to go back to school

Thankfully, we have a snow day tomorrow, and I'll most likely have time to finish up on some of my schoolwork

I have a lot of things I want to do, but not the time or the motivation to reasonably consider doing them without a schedule

It's cold outside, and I can't seem to connect with anyone outside of my church, which is two cities away and means I go through the school day with glimpses of my sister and my own thoughts

I'm slowly beginning to figure myself and my true identity out now that I have begun to pray and read my bible more often

I'm more confident in what I want and I haven't been on the verge of panicking since before I went camping

My interactions with my family haven't bothered me since I left for Camp

I wrote more of my Sister's Birthday gift today, Thought about JoR a little bit, and just relaxed

I want to buy better clothes, go out somewhere with my friends, do work on my WIPs, go for daily runs despite the cold, finish my maps, finish the book I started reading, finish my schoolwork, do my laundry, clean, make a playlist for JoR, finish the moodboard, and maybe talk to someone new.

But I'm not quite sure where to start

I trust in God and I know he will lead me where I want to go, I trust my friends are honest with me, and for the first time in years I feel comfortable in my own skin

I looked in the mirror, and the skin problems didn't bother me, I didn't hate how I looked

I appreciate my skills for what they are and where I'm at, I like my body and my hair, I like my life and I'm happy with my interests

I still have a lot to do and a lot to learn, and a bunch of things to do, but I know I'm going to be okay

And that makes me happy

Thank you Jesus, I love you.

Bonus, tagging people in this one, tell me if you'd like to be tagged or not in future posts like this

@corinneglass @sunflowerrosy @seastarblue @homelessnerd @vesanal

@thebookishkiwi

[thoughtfulfangirling]

I'm reblogging this in large part because, with The Rebloggening I'm doing and my Gargoyles liveblog, my blog is going to overwhelmingly be kids media. So I wouldn't be surprised if it looks like that's all the media I consume.

The reality is that I'm largely not super invested in visual media most of the time, and when I go to it, it's usually as my unwinding activity. I like animation, and I like fandom. I read a lot of adult books (nothing wrong with smut but that's not what I mean when I say that), and that's where I thrive with challenging myself. Maybe it's a problem of the way I navigate the internet, but I do not find fandoms for books like I do for shows barring things like The Locked Tomb (love this for me) and Sarah J Maas's work (not so great for me personally).

I also spend a lot more time geeking out about adult media with my spouse than kid's shows, so I get more of my fix there. What we get to see on people's blogs are just a glimpse into one part of their life they feel like engaging with on the internet. People are often a lot more complex than that.

That all being said, I really do have to honor where some of these people come from when they say this stuff which is usually to ask people to please, sometimes challenge yourself. Discomfort is an important part of growing, which means we can't only ever do things that don't enthuse us.

And like I am right there with them. But I also get that when I do things I'm less enthused with, even when I follow through all the way, I often don't feel compelled to go to my blog and spend a bunch a posts on it.

I really have no patience for posts talking about "adults who only watch kids' cartoons," because, like...people accuse me of "only watching kids' cartoons," despite all evidence to the contrary. It doesn't matter how much I talk about other adult media I like, if I post too many things in a row about Steven Universe or The Dragon Prince or The Owl House, people come out of the goddamn woodwork to accuse me of "only watching kids' shows."

So I really can't take people seriously when they start talking about the supposed "problem" of "adults who only watch kids' shows." Are the "adults who only watch kids' cartoons" in the room with us right now, or are you basing your entire opinion of people solely on their fandom blog? Like, come on.

It makes me think of the couple years I spent volunteering in a school library. The librarian talked a lot about how it's hurtful to enforce "reading at grade-level" on every student with no nuance. Teachers would try to force their students to check out books "at proper grade-level," instead of letting students pick out whatever they wanted (even if it was "too easy"), and it resulted in a lot of students deciding books were boring, too hard, and only good for making them feel stupid. They started to hate reading entirely, because people constantly shut them down and told them they were stupid for not reading the right things. This was especially brutal on disabled students.

I personally apply the same philosophy to adults. You don't know what someone might struggle with, you don't know what someone's history is. You might think a piece of media is "too simple," but that's your experience and your opinion. People learn and grow and experience the world at different paces, and what seems to you like a "simplistic" piece of media may be the most complex, illuminating piece of media someone else has ever had the opportunity to experience. It doesn't make them "stupid" or "childish," and believing that it does is cruel and counterproductive. You cannot wield shame as a fucking cudgel if your goal is education, support, and helping people expand their horizons.

I don't think a culture of shame is helpful. I don't think a culture of "if you like 'childish' things, it means you're too stupid for anything else" is helpful. I don't think constantly making fun of children's media does anything other than demean people--and not just the people who enjoy it, but the people who make it, too.

[b-blushes]

i am actually going to research this independently however i am now finally acknowledging after several years that this perhaps A Thing and i need to make changes to my house so posting to begin with. people who need to sit down to do chores such as 'chopping vegetables', is there anything specific about your setup that helps you do this? The issue that i have with sitting at my kitchen table is that i have issues with all my joints and also my muscles, and also chronic pain aggravated by daily life things like 'sitting up' and 'using my limbs' which i can get around in some ways (e.g. teaching myself to write lefthanded so when my right hand/arm is too painful to use i can be somewhat ambidextrous), but i have the specific issue that when i sit down to chop things, the posture situation is such that it messes up all the joints and muscles in my arms, shoulders, and back and consequently ramps my pain up so disabling-ly high that it's no 'better' for me than 'standing at my worktop to chop things until that also makes me in a lot of pain/swollen ankles/chest pain/dizzy/nauseous etc'. so 'sit down to chop things' (<- kitchen chore that takes a long amount of time, standing for short periods is less of an issue) is great solution on the surface, but one i struggle to make work in a practical sense. i'm struggling to figure out what i need to aim for with my changes - i guess it's the relative height of my chair to table, so i'm able to use more 'body strength' like i would when chopping things standing up rather than 'wrist/hand/arm in isolation' when i'm sitting in a way that it's hard to move the 'power' through my body? does anyone have any experience with this, or resources which might help me figure this out with less costly trial and error? (I am mainly looking for advice from 'experts' please, whether this is disabled people or people with knowledge of occupational therapy or people with loved ones who have this specific problem - i can also some up with scattergun ideas and genuinely appreciate a desire to help but i don't think this is a case when it's super helpful <3)

[myfairkatiecat]

Okay, time for the actual reveal. @the-way-astray actually guessed my method here, so props to her. Problem is now you'll never know if I'm lying, which is so funny to me.

Anyway. Actual reveal under the cut.

In my defense, interacting with my other blog was easy bc we were always online at the same time.

Also in my defense, it's not my fault I have the same personality as myself.

IN MY DEFENSE, I DIDN'T EXPECT PEOPLE TO CALL ME OUT AS BEING MYSELF WHEN I WAS COSPLAYING BEING A FAN OF MY OWN FICS. DO YOU KNOW HOW CRINGY IT FEELS TO COSPLAY A FAN OF YOURSELF? VERY BAD

anyway to everyone who realized isa and I know what each other look like and got concerned that we were face revealing bc of internet safety? YEAH I'M NOT STUPID. I know what I look like because I'm me.

THE COGNATES THING WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A JOKE. IT WAS A PRIVATE JOKE BECAUSE HAHA TELEPATHY WE THINK THE SAME THINGS. IT WAS MY EXCUSE FOR BEING THE SAME PERSON. IT ACTUALLY WORKED

admitting to being tam cam as isa instead of katie was a very big brain move on my part if i do say so myself.

anyway this is embarassing but yeah I actually don't have an online friend that close. Also I have no clue how brazil works but I do speak portuguese. I do also know spanish, I wasn't lying about that! I just didn't tell the full truth!! And I actually do have a crush on a blonde guy. That's actual lore.

oh yeah i probably need to explain w hy i was arguing with myself over whether he liked me or not.

okay you know what? just send me questions about the stuff you want me to clear up, mkay? I can't put it all on here. this is a deep freaking conspiracy and i am in such a deep hole i cannot even begin to explain my way out of it without some help.

[perotovar]

get to know your moots

tagged by angels @guiltyasdave @kedsandtubesocks and @morallyinept ty bbs <3

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what's the origin of your blog title?: my title is only visible on my desktop theme, but it's "white roses, black doves" which is a lyric from "take me back to eden" by sleep token

OTP(s) + shipname: halsin/astarion, frankie/santiago, thorin/bilbo, shane/tim, river/frankie, joel/tess, i have a lot lmao

favorite color: dark green

favorite game: baldur's gate 3 (no one is surprised)

song stuck in your head: "take me back to eden" because i started singing it when i read my blog title lmao

weirdest habit/trait?: biting my nails. i've tried stopping for years. fuck anxiety.

hobbies: playing video games, making gifs, making bracelets

if you work, what's your profession?: not currently! i'm a student.

if you could have any job you wish what would it be?: something in the film industry. cinematography, film editing, music, anything

something you're good at: i think i'm pretty good at being creative. not in any particular way, someone else would have to tell me lol

something you're bad at: at the moment, writing LMAO i can't get the words out, maaannn

something you love: i love a lot of things lol i'm having some arnold palmer tea/lemonade rn so i'll say that

something you could talk about for hours off the cuff: metal bands and pedro lol

something you hate: a lot lmao but right now, it's homework

something you collect: so much................. it's a problem. little figurines/funko pops, d&d dice, plushies, stationery, etc

something you forget: SO MUCH. it's the depression/anxiety i think

what's your love language?: acts of service/words of affirmation

favorite movie/show: narcos and lotr

favorite food: ramen

favorite animal: bison and bears!

what were you like as a child?: i was a relatively good kid, but i was a little shit too lol

favorite subject at school?: english, american sign language, and orchestra

least favorite subject?: math/science, but i appreciate these a LOT more in college

what's your best character trait?: i think i'm a good friend? again, someone else would have to tell me lol

what's your worst character trait?: i hold myself back a lot out of fear

if you could change any detail of your day right now what would it be?: today? i'm skipping class to do homework, so i guess i'd change that i'd have to do homework LOL

if you could travel in time who would you like to meet?: jrr tolkien

recommend one of your favorite fanfics (spread the love!): literally any of the frith fics people wrote 🥹 they're all SO amazing

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np tags: @sp00kymulderr @for-a-longlongtime @quinnnfabrgay-writes @ozarkthedog @chronically-ghosted

@moonlitbirdie @userparamore @iero @morallyinept @sin-djarin

@covetyou @arthurhowlett @reedrchards @lotusbxtch @wolvieispunk

@gasolinerainbowpuddles @djarinmuse @almostfoxglove @schnarfer @missredherring

@agentmarcuspike @ghostofaboy @bonezone44 @yopossum and anyone else that wants to <3

[taffywabbit]

I've been thinking about this song a lot again since yesterday, and if you'll indulge me in being overly wordy and a bit sentimental, I kinda wanna share some of my thoughts here:

so I alluded to this a bit while rambling on bluesky earlier, but early in the process of composing this song I REALLY wanted it to have lyrics. I tried writing some, and having looked at them again this morning, frankly they're kinda garbage and I stand by my decision to scrap them and let the music just speak for itself. but I only really wanted to write lyrics in the first place because I got ONE specific line (and subsequently a chorus, or at least one version of it) stuck in my head and wanted the rest of the song to kinda revolve around it.

the scrapped verses were sorta loosely about how, when you're younger, you tend to have a very straightforward and simple sense of optimism and justice - kids generally believe that things WILL just work out somehow, and often have surprisingly obvious and on-point responses when they learn about societal issues, but adults will often talk down to them and tell them they just don't understand how the real world works yet. and as you get older, that optimism gets conflated heavily with childlike naivety and kinda gets metaphorically beaten out of a lot of people over time, until they're just kinda consigned to the status quo and thinking of societal problems being too large/permanent for them to fix or influence.

this song was meant to embody a sense of rebellious optimism - a stubborn belief that we have a say in the kind of world we live in, and furthermore that our inner child would never forgive us for shrugging and giving up now that we're finally Adults and Adults are supposed to be the ones with the power to actually Fix Things. it was meant to evoke some nostalgia too, sure - thus the title "Grass Stains", which came from the scrapped first verse about childhood, and also just the general musical style being reminiscent of pop punk music I really liked as a kid and still tend to associate with summertime and old video games from that era. but more than that, I wanted to convey the idea that, sooner or later, we have to stop waiting for the Adults to decide how to fix things and get a hand on the ball ourselves; the idea that growing up should empower us, not make us cynical and detached and too tired to care anymore.

anyways, I will spare you most of the unfinished lyrics because I really do promise they're not interesting or good at all, but here's the chorus part and the specific last line that I was really fixated on back then and (for reasons that are probably not hard to imagine) thinking a lot about again now:

you keep pacing

so sullenly facing

away from the task left to you

why can't you see it?

if you want hope, then be it

those gears aren't just going to move

you gotta change the world, before it changes you

so yeah. shit's rough out there right now. shit's been rough for a while and it's gonna continue being rough for the foreseeable future. like I mentioned in the original caption, i wrote this song when I was feeling pretty awful (both mentally and physically, actually - I'm pretty sure I had covid for the second time when I made this lol) and needed something to perk up my mood, and it... kinda worked honestly? and now when I listen to it again I still kinda get a boost from it, especially if I let myself think back to the original message I was trying to imbue it with. it's hard for me to feel totally hopeless or unmotivated while I'm listening to it, and I hope that energy sorta comes through for other people too (though I would obviously be just as happy that people like the music I made anyways, without deeper context or ideas attached to it).

I guess i just wanna say this: remember that the world's gonna change one way or another, but your contributions to it are never meaningless, and their absence would be felt. and you also have the power to embolden and support those around you to become a stronger force for good together. the only real way to fail in all of this is to give up and lay down and let whatever happens wash over you, to believe them when they treat you like you're too small to be a threat or a challenge. and even if you don't believe your efforts matter to anyone else, let them matter to you. if you want hope, then be it. strive to be a force for good in spite of all opposition, and that goodness will in turn continue to propel you forwards.

ok I think that's about as sappy I can stand to be, I'm going to bed lol

hey i finished a new song!! check it out!!

my prompt for starting this was essentially "i'm in a bad mood and i want to make music that'll fix that". apparently what that translated to was whatever genre "music that would make 9-year-old me think they could do a backflip off the swings at the park" is, but like... it DID cheer me up? so, mission accomplished? i hope you enjoy it too!

♫ made with OpenMPT! ✎ cover art by me!

[pixiecaps]

what is ur beef with trsmp? genuine question because i haven’t personally seen any problems with it (not a fan either but that’s just cuz it hasn’t grabbed me yet)

(also sorry if i sent this ask last night or something. unless i didn’t do that. i might have dreamt that)

going to preface this with this is a matter of my own opinion. i know theres trsmp fans here hiiii mutuals so take this with a grain of salt guyssss

i watched since day one and kept up with the server a lot so something that i immediately disliked was the actual system used to level up. i felt it was incredibly boring to watch. this is something i expressed since the first few weeks of the server as someone who was watching it consistently. it really does get boring and never gets better content wise

initially the server was advertised as being fully chill with like a minimal amount of rp, if any at all. this was expressed a lot by cc’s on day one explaining the server to people. and now its completely about rp. which is personally annoying as i was looking forward to a server where cc’s could interact and chill.

the actual rp, again, this is my opinion, is aggravating. i dont find divisions like this in servers to ever play out in a satisfying way and it always ends up with just negative feelings while watching. whether that be becoming annoyed at other teams and so forth. kinda takes away from the whimsy of watching the server when it just causes bad feelings.

now additionally to me just not liking the rp overall the whole idea of the factions event is so beyond bad. i get what tubbo and his team were going for but the weekly tasks and splitting people up just isn’t fun! and i acknowledge that for some people this is very fun! but i dont like it myself and how the factions event basically fueled this rival bit between foolish and bad and led to whatever the rp is now and all the. “sides”

more on the factions event i cannot understand why when the new players joined as red tubbo wouldve wanted all the other factions to work in unison against red. when clearly that is so so unfair towards the red faction, as new players who were completely under prepared compared to players who’ve been playing for a month now, i think the whole factions event is very stupidly planned which ig makes sense considering how fast tubbo cooked up this server. i also dont understand why tubbo would think people would work together when green and yellow were already majorly beefing. it just feels like poor planning and decision making.

now getting more meta i dont like this type of rp and factions event because have you seen the state of the fandom on here? quite literally another qsmpblr purgatory moment where everyone thinks their faction is the correct one and everyone is being passive aggressive and people are getting unnecessarily heated over minecraft again. where is the fun in that? when i started noticing this behavior i sorta stepped away from the trsmp i dont watch it daily or very much anymore. yesterday being the exception where i tuned in to tubbos stream for an hour before leaving again cause rp stuff was happening. i just despise these type of events because it takes a perfectly fine group of individuals and turns them into what i can only compare to toxic sport fans and its not nice to see or nice to read posts that are so rude. i know some people love drama and conflict and discourse in fandom but its personally not my thing.

and also every discourse that comes out of this server is so minuscule but people get so so pissed about it and its like okay please chill. calm down its not that serious. stop interpreting everything in such bad faith.

i didnt like the snails decision. which if u dont know theres admins who play snails who follow players around and can take their levels if they get too op. i was more okay with the idea when it was initially meant to be One snail following whoever had the most levels on the server. despite that being stupid it was funny so i was okay with it but then it became heres a snail for everybody. and oh look you can name them and some have accessories and this ones a butterfly now and etc etc. and i dont like that. history repeating itself and all that shit.

i dont like how the admins seemingly side with certain people and groups on the server.

i dont like how certain people keep getting nerfed and whilst i understand the reasoning it truly sucks any fun out of the server and makes it harder for the cc’s to make content they want to make on the server.

and personally i think maybe some cc’s need to have a sit down chat perhaps and discuss what is okay or not cause sometimes its evident theres a lot of miscommunication and people getting upset etc etc.

so thats my explanation. Now to be clear if roier ever got added i’d most definitely watch the server again. as is the life of a tripoier.

i do think the server has good things like the cc’s themselves especially when theyre just chilling and having a good time without the fuck ass rp.

[realbeefman]

stacy is sooo interesting because she's in love with house but knows that they will never ever be able to have a healthy, stable, sane relationship because they're too similar so. she finds house-lite instead and marries him and. essentially moves on with her life! and is successful in this because she's a moderately well-adjusted person!

wilson, in contrast, never manages to escape the inevitable, in spite of his best efforts to find a house-lite of his very own, because he's an absolute fucking freak and ends up glued to house to the bitter. bitter end

[captain-astors]

Creature. (The rendered ones are referenced from manga panels)

[itspileofgoodthings]

ALSO I am learning how to teach very introverted students, something my natural skillset as a teacher does not help me with.