#someone to you

[charlies-corner-of-hell]

Someone to You

A Starchaser Oneshot

Regulus desperately wanted to matter. He craved to belong, the way his body craved air after every swim he took. He knew what it was like to be forgotten, what it was like when his so-called “best friend” suddenly acted like he didn’t remember him.

Evan Rosier. His former best friend… Now Regulus could only watch through teary eyes as Evan attached himself to none other than Barty Crouch, Jr. Regulus seethed internally when he first found out. He didn’t have a problem with Evan and Barty, no, his problem was that Evan abandoned him. Just like Sirius did.

He didn’t belong with Evan and Barty though. No, those two had their own complicated dynamic Regulus could only dream of. All he wanted was to be somebody to someone. He wanted someone to look at him like he was the brightest star they have ever seen.

Enter James Potter. His brother’s best friend, the star chaser of the Gryffindor’s quidditch team, the golden boy of Hogwarts. Regulus watched James from his hidden nooks, never daring to get close, but basking in the sunshine aura that seemed to follow the older boy around. He thought the smiles on James’ face seemed too forced to be authentic. It was understandable. Regulus was aware of the immense amount of pressure Potter was under, between exams and quidditch and upholding his family name.

One day, Regulus was wandering the castle at night. Alone. He used to do this with Evan, but now Rosier was too busy with Crouch to spare him a second glance, let alone continue their old traditions. So, Reg was exploring alone tonight, silently heading for the hidden room under the lake, where he can watch the creatures of the water through the glass ceiling. The door waiting for him at the end of the corridor was not the door Regulus was used to. The normal door was all delicate glass and silver knobs, but this door was all wood and iron and intricate runes.

Curiosity not one of his main characteristics, he almost turns back. Honestly, what would he be going back to? An empty dorm? Regulus pushes the door open and stares quietly inside. Sitting in front of a fire with his head in his hands was none other than James Potter.

Regulus had never seen someone look more human than James did in that moment. A muttered ‘fuck’ and the older boy turned to fix his hazel eyes onto Regulus.

‘You’re…Sirius’ brother. Regulus…right? Black, what are you doing here?’ James laughs bitterly. ‘Come to witness the sun’s explosion?’

Regulus can only stare. James knows his name. He knows his name. ‘Sorry, Ja- Potter. I found the room by accident. I just needed a place to be..well, just be, I guess.’

James, no, Potter stared at him. ‘Funny, I need a place to escape everything I have to be.’

Cold, stormy eyes flicker as Regulus makes his way to sit next to James. ‘Maybe we are the opposite, Potter. I just want to be somebody, y’know?’ James is silent for a moment before gruffly mumbling, ‘If you wanted to, you could be somebody to me.’

[sleepyheadnat]

𝑺𝒐𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒖𝒏𝒍𝒐𝒄𝒌 𝒔𝒆𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒕 𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔

Lonesome Dreams – Lord Huron

14.3 Billion Years – Andrew Prahlow / Outer Wilds

The Lament of Eustace Scrubb – The Oh Hellos

Da Vida, O Melhor – Projeto Sola

to Asteroid B-612 – sasakure.UK (part. lasah)

The Mortal Boy King – The Paper Kites

Mischievous Alchemy – Amos Roddy & ToyTree / Kingdom Two Crowns

Alfyn, the Apothecary – Yasunori Nishiki / OCTOPATH TRAVELER

サニーボーイ・ラプソディ – toe

Paint – The Paper Kites

Cherry Lake – Paper Mario: Color Splash

Priscilla – Sea Wolf

In The Wind – Lord Huron

Feel – Lies of P

saudade, saudade – MARO

Harpy Hare – Yaelokre

Thus Always To Tyrants – The Oh Hellos

Someone To You – BANNERS

Grand Escape – RADWIMPS

Caledonia – Celtic Woman

Big Sky, MT – The Arcadian Wild

7 P.M. – Animal Crossing: New Leaf

part one | part two ▷

[permanenthaunt]

Someone to You

[deesi-academia]

i really need somebody through it all i wanna be somebody to someoneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[scribefindegil]

Everyone is so weird about people who cry easily. Fellas, is it evil and manipulative to *checks notes* have an involuntary stress response?

[koobiie]

shoutout to everyone who wants to infodump but cant string together coherent thoughts to form sentences and instead just look at you like this

[kawareo]

Art snobs are actually a thousand times less annoying than people who respond to everything with "it's not that deep bro"

[maskenjager]

I can't unsee this

[icewindandboringhorror]

(also feel free in the tags to clarify Why you made the choice you made!! :0c)

[werecreature-addicted]

people are always like "Oh a vampire wouldn't get horny while drinking someone's blood, that's like getting horny while eating a sandwich" and like man have you never had a really good fucking sandwich?

[inkskinned]

please i love you i'm begging you bring back suspension of disbelief bring back trusting the audience like. i cannot handle any more dialogue that sounds like a legal document. "hello, i am here to talk to you about the incident from a few minutes ago, because i feel you might be unwell, and i am invested in your personal wellbeing." "thank you, i am unwell because the incident was hurtful to me due to my childhood, which was bad." I CANT!!!!

do you know how many people are mad that authors use "growled" as a word for "said"? it's just poetics! they do not literally mean "growled," it's just a common replacement for "said with force but in a low tone." it's normal! do you hear me!! help me i love you please let me out of here!!!

[thought-begone]

I guess the real glorious evolution was the homoerotic yearning we made along the way

[shadesofmauve]

I want to step away from the art-vs-artist side of the Gaiman issue for a bit, and talk about, well, the rest of it. Because those emotions you're feeling would be the same without the art; the art just adds another layer.

Source: I worked with a guy who turned out to be heavily involved in an international, multi-state sex-slavery/trafficking ring.

He was really nice.

Yeah.

It hits like a dumptruck of shit. You don't feel stable in your world anymore. How could someone you interacted with, liked, also be a truly horrible person? How could your judgement be that bad? How can real people, not stylized cartoon bogeymen, be actually doing this shit?

You have to sit with the fact that you couldn't, or probably couldn't, have known. You should have no guilt as part of this horror — but guilt is almost certainly part of that mess you're feeling, because our brains do this associative thing, and somehow "I liked [the version of] the guy [that I knew]", or his creations, becomes "I made a horrible mistake and should feel guilty."

You didn't, loves, you didn't.

We're human, and we can only go by the information we have. And the information we have is only the smallest glimpse into someone else's life.

I didn't work closely with the guy I knew at work, but we chatted. He wasn't just nice; he was one of the only people outside my tiny department who seemed genuinely nice in a workplace that was rapidly becoming incredibly toxic. He loaned me a bike trainer. Occasionally he'd see me at the bus stop and give me a lift home.

Yup. I was a young woman in my twenties and rode in this guy's car. More than once.

When I tell this story that part usually makes people gasp. "You must feel so scared about what could have happened to you!" "You're so lucky nothing happened!"

No, that's not how it worked. I was never in danger. This guy targeted Korean women with little-to-no English who were coerced and powerless. A white, fluent, US citizen coworker wasn't a potential victim. I got to be a person, not prey.

Y'know that little warning bell that goes off, when you're around someone who might be a danger to you? That animal sense that says "Something is off here, watch out"?

Yeah, that doesn't ping if the preferred prey isn't around.

That's what rattled me the most about this. I liked to think of myself as willing to stand up for people with less power than me. I worked with Japanese exchange students in college and put myself bodily between them and creeps, and I sure as hell got that little alarm when some asian-schoolgirl fetishist schmoozed on them. But we were all there.

I had to learn that the alarm won't go off when the hunter isn't hunting. That it's not the solid indicator I might've thought it was. That sometimes this is what the privilege of not being prey does; it completely masks your ability to detect the horrors that are going on.

A lot of people point out that 'people like that' have amazing charisma and ability to lie and manipulate, and that's true. Anyone who's gotten away with this shit for decades is going to be way smoother than the pathetic little hangers-on I dealt with in university. But it's not just that. I seriously, deeply believe that he saw me as a person, and he did not extend personhood to his victims. We didn't have a fake coworker relationship. We had a real one. And just like I don't know the ins-and-outs of most of my coworkers lives, I had no idea that what he did on his down time was perpetrate horrors.

I know this is getting off the topic, but it's so very important. Especially as a message to cis guys: please understand that you won't recognize a creep the way you might think you will. If you're not the preferred prey, the hind-brain alarm won't go off. You have to listen to victims, not your gut feeling that the person seems perfectly nice and normal. It doesn't mean there's never a false accusation, but face the fact that it's usually real, and you don't have enough information to say otherwise.

So, yeah. It fucking sucks. Writing about this twists my insides into tense knots, and it was almost a decade ago. I was never in danger. No one I knew was hurt!

Just countless, powerless women, horrifically abused by someone who was nice to me.

You don't trust your own judgement quite the same way, after. And as utterly shitty as it is, as twisted up and unstead-in-the-world as I felt the day I found out — I don't actually think that's a bad thing.

I think we all need to question our own judgement. It makes us better people.

I don't see villains around every corner just because I knew one, once. But I do own the fact that I can't know, really know, about anyone except those closest to me. They have their own full lives. They'll go from the pinnacles of kindness to the depths of depravity — and I won't know.

It's not a failing. It's just being human. Something to remember before you slap labels on people, before you condemn them or idolize them. Think about how much you can't know, and how flawed our judgement always is.

Grieve for victims, and the feeling of betrayal. But maybe let yourself off the hook, and be a bit slower to skewer others on it.

[sillyguy-supreme]

white americans when you tell them that the idea of climate change as an impending disaster is a reductive first world perspective because it’s a tangible reality for many in the global south already:

[shinesurge]

Honestly I can tell you finding out art was made by AI really does immediately, legitimately sour it for me, like people will trot this out as a Gotcha for anti-AI people but it's just making it clear they don't consider art to be the conversation that it is lol. It's similar to the way Harry Potter immediately soured for me because engaging with it while knowing the kind of heart Rowling is writing from changes the way the work feels; there isn't any moralizing or whatever that I have to do, it's easy to drop it because it's rotted in my hands.

"Oh but you LIKED this song before, nothing changed!" The conversational partner did. A very large portion of what is interesting to me about art is thinking of why the creator chose that instrumentation, or what made them want to make the thing in the first place. Finding out I've been talking to a wall completely removes an entire third of the force that art is to me, and I can't argue that anything about art or its consumption is Objectively Correct but I can argue it's fucking boring lmao