#sort of but like not in this post specifically

[fernisfreaky]

Best thing about writing fics and drawing fanart is that I can draw fanart for my own fics 😎🔥🔥

the fic in question!! (mind the tags pls)

[esotericbluntbaby]

indelible

hamzahthefantastic x reader

description: it's been a full year since you and hamzah broke up, causing you to go silent towards your whole friend group. after rekindling at a grocery store, mandy invites you to a party she's hosting. you go, noticing a familiar set of eyes staring at you throughout the night.

mentions: reader heavily loves pickles, angst and yearning (obvi), she/her pronouns, slight argument, ex!hamzah (who will be back for a lottttt of different fics), sfw!

blood orange is so freaking good i was listening to blood orange and got the idea for this fic <3

--

"martin, is that..?"

you turned around in the aisles messily stacked with assorted jars of pickles and olives, revealing a guy and a girl of your past: the faces behind the whisper. you gazed at the couple in front of you with a certain whimsical, yet surprised stare. martin and mandy were the two people who, at one point, helped toronto feel like home after moving there from the states. meeting mandy at a frozen yogurt stand after she complimented your outfit with welcoming radiance, you soon met martin and became apart of their small, yet comfortable and familiar group.

it was only until you met hamzah that they remained the people who created warmth for you to take in. you and hamzah had a specific energy, tying your souls together as if they were forever meant to be intertwined. chemistry erupted from the first interaction between the two of you; a nostalgic, childlike sense of happiness emerged between you guys similar to high school football games and puppy love. with hamzah, you were never scared. in fact, risk and excitement amplified itself within you every time you took your friendship with him a step further.

it wasn't surprising when hamzah decided he'd kiss you in front of martin, mandy, claire, and chase while at martin and mandy's abode. it also wasn't surprising when you two popped out as a couple a day or two later. the relationship your friends observed was one they rooted for; you knew in that moment that none of your friends would pity you at your wedding, which was new to you after trials and errors of different relationships with different guys.

it was definitely not a fairytale of your childhood dreams with him, actually, the complete opposite. you enjoyed the fact that your days weren't always fast-paced and full of moments that felt like it should be posted on some social media to get a thousand likes. sometimes, your days were slow. your days were filled with laundry baskets piled to the top and a race to see who gets to sort clothes faster. your days were filled with morning breath and uncomfortable, yet cozy positions in bed with hamzah. your days had occasional arguments, yet, they were always solved within a day or two. this was the man you wanted to marry.

however, you've always had the mindset of fairy tales always containing an ending to them, happy or not. you saw him less and less as the relationship went on, as his channel with martin was slowly but surely taking off the mainstream media. he began to hermit inside of his office, sometimes even sleeping there for days, almost as if the job was a ball and chain tied to his leg. yet, he also didn't want it off of him no matter how many times he's found the key. he would spend days without seeing you, seemingly by choice, leaving you worried and lonely. it was after a full two years and three months that you decided to end things with him for the sake of your own mental health, sanity, and wellness.

it was hard at first; honestly, you wanted to curl into a ball and hide away from everyone. martin and mandy were supportive, as they noticed all the times hamzah ditched you to edit or to film or to email. yet, each time you saw their faces, all you could see was him. so, slowly, "yeah, you can come over later," turned into "i'll see if i have plans," which eventually and gradually turned into, "sorry, i'm busy." you felt guilty, but you needed to erase him from your mind, like white paint to a canvas, in order to fully heal. it was never going to be a permanent thing, yet it's also been a full year since you last spoke to them. this was probably one of the most awkward things you could've ever encountered and on this fateful thursday night, you did.

"oh, hi," you softly greeted, rubbing the back of your neck with your free hand that wasn't holding the grocery basket.

mandy's gaze was as surprised as yours was, "wow, it's been ages."

"yeah, y'know... i've just been busy..."

"are you doing anything tonight?"

the guilt of being gone for so long finally decided to show up, chasing after your stream of consciousness like a dog chasing a bone.

"no, no i'm not."

--

without fully realizing until you were sitting in their dining room chair, you were now at martin and mandy's amicable apartment. a cup of tea accompanied your hands; for warmth or for comfort, you weren't really sure. it's been small talk for the past twenty minutes since you've arrived. guilt, as it always does, was still biting at your chest cavity like a parasite. so, to ease it away from you, you decided to speak about the elephant in the room.

"look, martin, mandy, i'm really sorry i haven't spoken to you guys in ages and just stopped responding. honestly, i guess i kinda saw hamzah every single time i saw you two. it hurt too much and i couldn't take it anymore."

mandy held your hand in her palm, "no, i get it-"

"are we pushing you too far by, like, bringing you to our apartment right after seeing us again without it being planned?" martin asked, genuine worry laced in his vocal infliction.

"no, no, definitely not. i've healed, already," you sipped your tea, "i was planning on contacting you guys soon. i guess soon ended up being, y'know, today."

"how have you been? or, like, have you healed from you and hamzah" mandy asked hesitantly; almost as if the mere mention of his name would've broken you like fine china being dropped.

"i've, uh, i've been alright- i guess, sometimes, i still think about him. it's inevitable. the mere thought of him chases after me to this day. it's weird, like, as soon as i got rid of his stuff, i felt okay; i felt fine and i didn't cry, but then there are days where i stumble upon an ad for fantastic mr. fox and i end up crying for weeks straight. i'm not really sure, y'know, when it'll end. hopefully, soon."

mandy's grip on your hand tightened as martin listened to each word you said, processing every emotion and memory held onto your words.

"would you ever get back together with him?" martin asked, as mandy lightly slapped his shoulder, "sorry, was that too blunt? or, like- fuck- sorry you don't have to answer tha-"

"maybe."

mandy's eyebrows raised inquisitively, "really?"

you placed your cup of tea down and started fidgeting with your hands, "i mean, i've always believed in that whole fate thing. destiny can't be changed and that type of shit. i don't hate him. i guess i- what's the word- resent.. him..? i couldn't hate him if i tried. i guess what i'm saying is if the universe decided to bring us back together, i'd probably be scared, but i also wouldn't oppose it completely. i don't know; we were young and i didn't know how to communicate and he didn't know how to balance. it's obvious that it wouldn't work out, then. i don't know about now."

"you seem to have thought about this a lot, to the point where you can talk about it in that way," mandy mentioned.

"so, you would give him another shot?" martin added.

you thought for a moment, "it depends on how that shot happens."

looking at the clock, you realized that it was now almost 10 pm. though you didn't have work or plans tomorrow, you didn't want to overstay your visit and leech onto them and their house. after all, the three of you just reconnected after a full year of absence and silence.

"i didn't even realize it was 10; i should probably get going, now," you got up and scooted in your chair.

mandy reached out to give you a hug, to which you returned, "wait, me and martin are having a get-together tomorrow. it's not a rager, but it's also not, like, lame, i guess. come. chase and claire are visiting and they've been asking about you lately too. everyone misses you."

the whole day was filled of taking chances and playing with the fate you previously thought you were aware of. what's one more game of odds?

"sure. i'll be there."

--

the house was dark, yet also thoughtfully lit with ambient lighting. shades of oranges and blues lit everyone's skin with a contrasting hue, reminiscent of a sunset on the ocean. there wasn't too many people there; if anything, you knew a good majority of them. yet, the thought of why you knew them, or the thought of hamzah's many introductions to get you used to his crowd, made your heart hurt a little. you arrived late, letting yourself in since mandy, nor martin weren't answering their phones. greeting a couple of familiar faces on your way in, you finally found your way to martin and mandy, speaking to chase and claire.

things felt normal for the first time in a long time. you were not alone, in fact, you were with the people who created what "home" was, in the first place. for being in a room with so many people who helped create the best atmosphere for you to thrive in, you still felt lonely. you didn't know it was possible to feel this conflicted; how could you feel lonely when you know you aren't alone?

suddenly, hamzah walked through the kitchen doors to the dining table you were sat at. a red crewneck and baggy, black jeans adorned his body, as well as the black sambas that were years and years old. the beanie that adorned his head, revealing tiny, black curls peeking out of it, complimented the silver chain on his necklace; you recognized it. it was yours.

"i could not find the cups, mandy, where are the cu-"

his eyes locked onto yours as if your pupils were magnets destined to be pulled together. you, then, saw what you witnessed when you first fell in love with him: nostalgia. childlike wonder. puppy love. the table went silent, watching this encounter unfold. everyone's eyes were widened in shock. in that moment, you couldn't hear the music, nor the people around you speaking, nor the drinks being poured or dog barking outside. the only thing you were focused on was the boy in front of you. frozen in space, you hoped you wouldn't have to be the first to speak. yet, you also never were the first one to speak.

"can we talk?"

you nodded, not knowing where this conversation was going to be headed.

--

you were both outside on martin and mandy's rooftop. you mentioned to him that you find it easier to talk when gazing at the stars and being in his presence, though, you were also dating at the time. you wondered if he remembered or if this was a coincidence. currently, you were sat in silence, waiting for him to break it.

"that wasn't the first time i saw you, tonight."

your gaze turned from the stars of the sky to the ones reflected in his irises, "what?"

"this whole night, i've been staring at the door. i wasn't really sure who i was waiting for, but i just felt the need to. now that you're here, i know now. i saw you when you entered and had a mini-panic attack in the kitchen. i don't even know what to say to you now that we're out here."

it became silent again, as you didn't respond.

he continued, "i miss you. i don't think there's a single day that went by where i don't fuck myself up for losing you. fuck, baby, i miss everything about you."

"you do?"

"there's so many texts i wrote you, but i just never sent them. i almost send, like, three of them a week."

"what do they have in them?"

"y'know, updates, my life, asking how you are, apologizing for being a total fucking ass."

"you were a total fucking ass," you teased, laughing ever-so-slightly, "it's okay. it's obvious you've changed and most likely grew."

he laughed as well before his face morphed into something more serious, "if you let me, i'll spend the rest of my life making everything i did up to you."

"and remind me what you did?"

"i didn't treat you the way that i was supposed to- the way you deserve. i'm sorry, i promise i'll fix things," he grabbed your cheek gently and nudged your head towards him, "please, baby, let me fix things. i'll beg, if i have to."

you sighed, "hamzah, i'm scared."

hamzah took out his phone and put in his password.

"my birthday? you haven't changed your password from my birthday in a full year?"

"yeah, uh, i just didn't want to."

he clicked on his notes app and gave you the phone, then turned to the sky and gazed at the different twinkling lights up above.

"what is this?" you asked.

"i write you letters whenever i think about you so much to the point where it gets overwhelming.

you read the first note titled "1/19," which was a couple of days ago.

1/19

hey, baby. how are you? i miss you a lot. i went to the store today and i got the pickles you like. i don't even like pickles. or, i guess, now i do. ever since we ended things, i go to the store just to get a jar of the pickles you liked. i think every time i eat them it makes me think about that one time you forced me to try one and i literally almost threw up because of how disgusting they are. i think i just eat them because idk they make me think of you. i hope you're doing alright. i hope your studies are going good. you're graduating in, what, like a year? that's crazy. i hope i'll be able to be there with you. i'm sorry, for everything, again. i say this in every paragraph. i fucked up. i know that, but please, please let me fix it. i'll be a good boyfriend, i'll even be a good husband one day. i promise. i'll talk to you again soon.

by the end of the paragraph, you teared up. looking beside you at him, a worrisome look entered his face as he gazed ahead of him; a second chance is the most desirable thing to him. he doesn't care about money, or fame, or sex. he's been yearning for you.

you copied his move; your hand made its way to hamzah's cheek, nudging it slowly but surely towards you. the twinkle in his eyes held hope, as did yours as it mirrored him. you sat there, simply looking into each other's eyes and possibly each other's soul; there was no rush, there was only love. your lips made its way onto his, softly, for a mere second. you pulled away as his lips chased after yours, kissing once again with a certain firmness and desperation laced into it.

"i'm sorry again, baby," he admits as he pulls away, "please, please let me back into your life. i don't care how hard or how long i have to work for it; let me earn you back. i can't live without you."

you smiled one of the most genuine smiles you've had in ages, "i trust you, hamzah."

"is that a yes?"

"i dunno. what do you think, idiot?"

--

author's note

goodnight guys! <3

[transit-fag]

Not posting anon because specifically fuck people doing that, lol.

I'll be real on that I think randomly policing the slurs people use without knowing them personally is one of those brainworms that can only do harm. I've called myself a dykefag for years specifically just to make these sorts of people mad.

Sorry that folks are being shitters. I wish you the best in self discovery. 💓

Yes, it drives me insane, like yes these words can be harmful, I have not denied that, but I genuinely think more harm comes from policing the use of them than will ever come from casual use in a reclaimed sense

[fear-less]

₊˚⊹˚ 𐙚 this is awkward..

pairing: james potter x f!reader

➥ In which, you were fed up with James, deciding to put aside your pettiness you drag him away from the gryffindor party to talk to him.

Warnings: angst, fluff, james pov, this inspired by awae (aka the best show ever), r and james speaking is 𝓱𝓮𝓪𝓿𝓲𝓵𝔂 inspired by gilbert confessing that he wants anne so effing bad bc he 𝓯𝔀 𝓱𝓮𝓪𝓿𝔂, lowkey dont hate me for making the “dreams” u want so like…. I just didn't know what to do bc like idk smh i set back women 50 years by that

a/n: tysm for all the love on this series!! y’all are NOT ready for the next chapter, writing it rn and 😭🙏 BUTTT tysm for 300🫶🫶 also I finished the last chapter... do y'all want me to post it today or edge y'all and post it tomorrow

series masterlist ! - divider creds: i-mmaculatus & dollywons

It was now nearing the end of the school year—even if there was still a month to go. James could now be in the same room as you without glaring daggers at whoever you were talking to. Though he told himself he was over you, he knew deep down that the feelings never faded.

He told himself it didn’t matter. He told himself he was fine. And yet, every time he caught sight of you, every time your laughter reached his ears from across the room, it was as if someone had set fire to his resolve.

He wanted to talk to you so badly it was almost pathetic. But it was like the universe itself was conspiring against him—or, more specifically, like Finn Laurier had developed some sort of sixth sense for James’s intentions.

Because every single time James gathered enough courage, every time he braced himself to walk over to you, Finn would appear out of nowhere. Whether it was in the Great Hall, the library, or even during Quidditch practice, Finn always seemed to materialize by your side at precisely the wrong moment, stealing away your attention and leaving James feeling like the outsider in his own story.

It was infuriating.

“Mate, you’re grinding your teeth,” Sirius remarked casually one afternoon as they sat under the beech tree by the lake.

James startled, realizing with some embarrassment that Sirius was right. He quickly unclenched his jaw and let out a frustrated sigh.

“Sorry,” he muttered, running a hand through his messy hair. “I’m just…”

“Just what?” Sirius prompted, raising an eyebrow.

“Nothing,” James lied, though his voice betrayed him.

Sirius gave him a knowing look. “If this is about her again, just—”

“It’s not about her,” James interrupted quickly, though he winced as the words left his mouth. He knew Sirius wouldn’t believe him, and he wasn’t sure he even believed himself anymore.

Sirius sighed, shaking his head. “Prongs, you’re going to drive yourself mad if you keep this up. Just talk to her already.”

“I’ve tried!” James snapped, louder than he intended. He lowered his voice and added, “I’ve tried, but every bloody time, Finn shows up. It’s like he’s got a bloody tracker on her or something.”

Remus, who had been quietly reading nearby, finally chimed in. “You know, maybe you’re overthinking this,” he said, not looking up from his book.

“How could I possibly be overthinking this?” James demanded, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

“Maybe Finn’s not doing it on purpose,” Remus suggested calmly. “Maybe it’s just bad timing.”

“Bad timing?” James repeated incredulously. “Bad timing doesn’t happen this often, Moony. This is a pattern.”

Remus gave him a skeptical look but didn’t argue further.

James leaned back against the tree trunk, closing his eyes and letting out a long breath. He hated how much this was bothering him. He hated how much control this entire situation had over him.

But most of all, he hated the thought that you might actually be happy with Finn.

It wasn’t that he thought Finn was a bad guy—quite the opposite, really. Finn was charming, talented, and annoyingly good at everything he did. He was the kind of guy parents adored, the kind of guy professors went out of their way to praise. And worst of all, he was the kind of guy who could make you smile in a way James had only dreamed of.

James opened his eyes, staring up at the branches overhead. “Maybe I should just give up,” he muttered.

Sirius snorted. “Yeah, right. That’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve said all day.”

“I’m serious,” James insisted.

“No, I’m Sirius,” Sirius quipped, smirking.

James groaned, throwing a small pebble in his direction. “Not the time for jokes.”

“Fine, fine,” Sirius said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “But seriously, you’re not giving up. You’re James Potter, remember? Stubborn, arrogant, never-takes-no-for-an-answer James Potter. You don’t give up on things you care about.”

James hesitated, staring at the rippling water of the Black Lake. He wanted to believe Sirius. He wanted to believe that there was still a chance, that you weren’t as far out of reach as you seemed.

But as he watched you across the courtyard later that day, standing beside Finn and laughing at something he said, James couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe, just maybe, it was too late.

But his doubt soon melted into something far more unsettling when he noticed your gaze shift. For the first time in what felt like forever, your attention wasn’t on Finn Laurier—it was on him.

James felt like he might throw up.

His heartbeat thundered in his ears, and his hands fidgeted with the hem of his robes as he quickly looked away. In fact, he didn’t just look away; he turned his entire body in the opposite direction, hoping to mask the flush rising to his cheeks.

“C’mon, James, you’ve got a Quidditch game to win today! Channel all that anger you’ve got towards Laurier into winning us the Cup!” Sirius said, clapping a hand on James’s shoulder with his trademark grin.

James gave a faint nod, trying to let Sirius’s words sink in. He wasn’t sure if it would work, but he had to admit—focusing on Quidditch might be better than brooding.

As the match began, Sirius’s advice started to help. Flying through the air, the roar of the crowd, and the adrenaline coursing through his veins almost made him forget the mess he was tangled in. Quidditch always had a way of making the weight on his shoulders feel lighter.

Almost.

At first, he wasn’t paying much attention to the game. His mind wandered back to you, back to everything that had gone wrong. He thought about what he would say, how he could even begin to fix things. And, like always, he couldn’t resist scanning the crowd for you.

Even in the middle of a fight, even when he swore to himself that he was done, James always looked for you in the stands.

And he found you—right where he didn’t want to.

You were sitting with Finn Laurier, your hand clasped in his. James’s stomach twisted painfully at the sight, and he forced himself to look away, though the image burned into his mind.

Of course. Finn fucking Laurier.

He sighed, his grip tightening on his broomstick. There was no point in hoping anymore. Whatever chance he’d had—if he’d ever had one—was gone now. Maybe he’d already been downgraded in your life: a friend at best, a stranger at worst. The thought stung, and James shoved it down, refusing to dwell on it any longer.

And then, something golden caught the corner of his eye.

The Snitch.

For the first time all game, James’s focus snapped into place. He leaned forward on his broom, his heart pounding—not from heartbreak this time, but from the sheer rush of competition. If nothing else, he could still win this. He could still bring home the Cup.

James shot after the Snitch with everything he had, the rush of wind against his face only fueling his determination. The crowd roared, but their voices blurred into the background. His world narrowed to one thing: the golden glimmer darting just ahead.

The Hufflepuff Seeker was hot on his trail, but James barely registered them. This was his moment. The Snitch veered sharply to the right, and James followed, his reflexes razor-sharp. He could feel the weight of his emotions—anger, heartbreak, frustration—all pouring into this chase.

The Snitch dipped low, skimming just above the grass, and James dove after it, his fingers outstretched. The Hufflepuff Seeker was closing in fast, but James didn’t care. He pushed his broom harder, faster, his body leaning forward so much it felt like he might fall off.

And then, his fingers closed around the Snitch.

The Gryffindor stands erupted into cheers, deafening and jubilant. The sound echoed across the pitch as James pulled up, the Snitch held high in triumph. For the first time all week, a genuine smile broke across his face.

He’d done it.

Back on the ground, his teammates swarmed him, yelling and celebrating as they lifted him off the ground in a flurry of hugs and pats on the back. Sirius was the loudest, of course, laughing as he shouted, “That’s my best mate! Did you see that dive? Bloody brilliant!”

James grinned, allowing himself to soak in the moment. But as the initial adrenaline rush faded, his thoughts drifted back to you.

Through the crowd, he spotted you walking toward the castle with Laurier. You looked happy—laughing at something Finn said, your hand still in his.

James’s chest tightened, the pain creeping back in.

Sirius slung an arm around his shoulders. “Oi, don’t let that git ruin your moment. You just won us the Cup, Prongs. Focus on that, yeah?”

James forced a nod, plastering a smile on his face. “Yeah. You’re right.”

But deep down, as the team carried him back to the common room, the ache lingered. Winning the match had been a distraction, but it wasn’t enough to erase what he felt for you—or the sting of seeing you with someone else.

Still, James promised himself one thing: he’d get through this. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually. And who knew? Maybe, someday, you’d see him the way he saw you.

ʕ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ

The Gryffindor common room was a chaotic blur of red and gold, filled with triumphant cheers and laughter. The moment the team returned from the pitch, the party was already in full swing. Someone had charmed a banner to flash "Gryffindor Wins the Cup!" in shimmering letters, and butterbeer bottles floated around the room, courtesy of a cheeky charm from Sirius.

James stood in the center of it all, grinning as his teammates and housemates patted him on the back and congratulated him. For a brief moment, he allowed himself to bask in the glory of the victory, letting it drown out the knot in his chest. He’d won the game, and Gryffindor had the Cup—he deserved to enjoy it.

“Prongs!” Sirius yelled over the noise, shoving a butterbeer into his hand. “You’re the man of the hour! You better milk this for all it’s worth, because Merlin knows you deserve it.”

James laughed, shaking his head. “Don’t let me hear you say that too often, Padfoot. I might start believing it.”

Sirius gave him a devilish grin. “Oh, you will. Now, c’mon, let’s make some noise!” He climbed onto a table, raising his bottle high. “To Prongs, our Quidditch hero!”

The room erupted in cheers, and James couldn’t help but laugh, taking a sip of his butterbeer as the noise washed over him. For the first time all day, he felt lighter.

As the party went on, James moved through the crowd, chatting and laughing with his housemates. But no matter how loud the celebration got, his eyes kept drifting to the door, half-hoping, half-dreading to see you walk in.

And then, you did.

James froze mid-conversation, his heart doing that familiar stutter-step it always did when he saw you. You looked radiant, wrapped in Gryffindor colors, your cheeks flushed from the cold. But his chest tightened when he noticed Laurier trailing behind you, his hand resting casually on the small of your back.

James quickly turned back to his conversation, forcing a smile and pretending not to notice. He wasn’t going to let Finn Laurier—or his own stupid feelings—ruin the night.

“Oi, Prongs,” Sirius said, appearing at his side again. “Stop moping and do something fun. We just won the bloody Cup, mate! At least pretend you’re having the time of your life.”

James forced another grin. “I am having fun, Padfoot. Loads of fun.”

Sirius narrowed his eyes. “You’re staring at her again, aren’t you?”

“I’m not,” James lied, taking a long sip of butterbeer.

Sirius groaned, grabbing James by the shoulders. “Look, here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to stop torturing yourself, and you’re going to have a bloody fantastic time tonight. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll prank Laurier so hard he won’t know which way is up. Deal?”

James couldn’t help but laugh at that, shaking his head. “Alright, deal.”

Hours later, the party was still going strong. Someone had turned the music up, and the common room had transformed into a dance floor. James found himself dragged into the middle of it by Lily Evans, who gave him a pointed look.

“Stop sulking, Potter,” she said, smirking. “You just won the Cup. Act like it.”

“I’m not sulking,” James said, though his half-hearted smile gave him away.

Lily raised an eyebrow but didn’t press further. Instead, she tugged him into the rhythm of the music, and for a while, James let himself get lost in the moment.

It wasn’t until he caught sight of you again, laughing at something Laurier said, that the knot in his chest returned. He took a deep breath, plastered on another smile, and decided that, for tonight, he’d keep pretending.

He watched you from across the room as you and Laurier continued talking, laughter bubbling between you two. He could see the way you looked at him now—so different from the way you looked at him before. It was like there was a barrier, a wall that hadn’t been there when he first met you.

“Prongs,” Sirius appeared at his side again, his voice low and concerned. “Look, I know you’ve been through a lot, but this is ridiculous. You’re letting Laurier ruin your night—and you just won us the Cup, for Merlin’s sake. You’re allowed to be happy tonight. So go talk to her. If you don’t, I swear I’ll do it for you.”

James frowned at him, irritated. “I’m not talking to her, Pads. Not now.”

“Then at least get out of here and enjoy yourself,” Sirius pressed. “We’re celebrating, mate. You’ve earned it.”

James looked over at you one more time, and for a second, he almost gave in. But the knot in his chest was still there, tightly wound, and it made everything feel so much harder than it should’ve been.

But maybe... maybe he could find a way to feel better. Maybe he could lose himself in the celebration.

“I’ll think about it,” he finally muttered, glancing at his friends.

Sirius didn’t seem convinced but let out an exaggerated sigh. “Fine, but I’m not letting you go off and brood in some corner. The whole bloody school’s celebrating with you tonight.”

James smirked faintly, feeling a little lighter. Maybe he could pretend to be okay, at least for tonight. He could let the victory, the laughter, and his friends drown out the ache for just a little while longer.

But as the night continued, and as the music played on, James found himself once again looking toward the doorway, hoping—just hoping—that you’d look his way.

For the first time in forever, the world was finally on his side as he saw you quickly leaving Finn and walking straight to him.

“May I speak to you, please?” James nodded, Dumbfounded. 

You quickly grabbed his hand and went outside the common room and into the corridors. 

You took a deep breath, your fingers twisting nervously. “James… I’ve been meaning to talk to you for a while now.”

James’s throat went dry, his pulse quickening as he struggled to find his voice. “Yeah?”

You nodded, glancing down at your hands before meeting his gaze. “I—I’m sorry.”

That wasn’t what he had expected. Of all the scenarios he’d played out in his head, an apology hadn’t been one of them.

“For what?” he asked, genuine confusion coloring his voice.

“For everything,” you said in a rush, your words tumbling out before you could stop them. “For avoiding you. I was confused—about what I did that made you ignore me. And I guess I wanted to get back at you for ignoring me, so I decided to do the same to you. And… I’m sorry for whatever happened between us that made things so weird.”

James stared at you, your vulnerability hitting him like a Bludger to the chest. His heart ached at the uncertainty in your voice.

“You don’t have to apologize,” he said quickly, shaking his head.

“Yes, I do,” you insisted, your voice firm despite the tears welling in your eyes.

“No, you don’t,” James countered, his tone soft yet resolute. “It’s not fair to put all of this on yourself. You’ve always been there for me, and I—well, I’ve been a terrible friend lately. I was practically acting like you didn’t exist.”

James faltered when he saw the blank expression on your face. Panic flickered in his chest—had he said too much?

But before he could say anything more, you stepped forward and wrapped your arms around him.

“Oh, James,” you murmured into his shoulder. “It’s okay. I—I was acting like you didn’t exist too, but only because you were doing it to me.”

He blinked, caught off guard, before slowly relaxing into the hug. He looked down at you, his hand instinctively reaching up to brush away a stray tear trailing down your cheek.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.

You shook your head, a small, watery smile breaking through. “We’re both sorry. Let’s just… not do this anymore, okay?”

James nodded, a faint smile tugging at his lips. “Deal.”

“It feels so much better having my best friend around again.” James’ smile faltered again, he never liked the word “best friend” when it came to you, he always wanted more.

“Definitely”

You two let each other talk for what felt like hours even though it was barely fifteen minutes. He enjoyed every second though, until you brought up Finn and future plans they may include him. He couldn't believe it, when had your parents met his? He remembers your dad telling him how much he was rooting you and him to be together, now he's okay with you dating some other dude? And worst of all, your father was okay with that same dude wanting to marry his daughter? James felt like throwing up.

“Then he said that my father laid it out on a silver platter.”

“Laid... what out on a platter?”

“My future! Gave him the blessing to...to propose. I don't know what to do.”

“You told me you don’t mind being married straight after Hogwarts if you truly loved the man. That being a wife and mother... is your dream. Finn is.. nice, and both of your guys’ parents are supportive. I don't understand. What's holding you back?”

“Just… one thing.”

“What am I supposed to do? Everyone else is just... moving on, and now you’re... and I’m still... We never even... And he’s there, and you’re—Merlin, you’re never going to find someone who—” James stopped, his voice cracking. “I know that much, so how... how am I supposed to... I can’t... I— We...”

Before you could speak–a drunk Sirius somehow found you two. “Woah James you're really speaking to her? Atta boy, now, let's get back to the party, cmon, we are going to do something cool, have you heard of ....” Sirius rambled on, tugging on James’ arm to drag him back to the party.

“I’ll be off, then.” You said, voice quivering as if hesitant to leave.

ʕ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ

All James could think about was the previous night—the talk you two had shared. Your words, your voice, the hesitation in your eyes—it all replayed in his mind like a haunting melody. What would’ve happened if Sirius hadn’t barged in, if James had told him to leave, if he’d been brave enough to stay in that moment with you?

“I think…” James began, his voice breaking as he paced the Gryffindor dormitory, “I think she might’ve been asking if I love her. And—and I think I told her to marry someone else.”

Sirius, slouched in the chair by the window, looked stricken. “Mate…” he started, his tone heavy with guilt. “If I’d known—if I knew what was happening—I wouldn’t have gone looking for you. I—I practically ruined your chances. Merlin, I’m so, so sorry.”

James stopped pacing, running a hand through his already-messy hair. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t even know if she meant it. She said so much without really saying anything, and now I don’t know if I imagined it all.”

“‘Sure, take option two,’ when option one is all she wants for her future?” James muttered, his voice thick with frustration.

“What is option one?” Peter asked, his curiosity breaking the tension.

James scoffed, bitterness creeping into his tone. “It’s Finn, obviously.” He paused, his anger flaring. “But both their parents support it, and she told me that! Before she spilled all of that on me, we were talking and laughing like nothing was wrong. But now…” He exhaled sharply, his voice softening as he sat down on the edge of his bed. “Now it feels like I’m being asked to explain the rest of my life on a bloody ticking clock. And if I make the wrong decision, I’ve either ruined my life—or hers.”

The room fell silent. Sirius and Peter exchanged uneasy glances, while Remus seemed lost in thought, unsure of how to respond.

ʕ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ

Meanwhile, you had confided in your mother about your plans the night before: to finally tell the man you truly loved how you felt. You hadn’t wanted to bring it up while you and James were laughing and enjoying each other’s company, but you knew if you didn’t seize the moment, you’d never say it at all.

What you hadn’t expected was for him to turn you down. To tell you—calmly, almost dismissively—that you should marry Finn.

Your mother was waiting for your response. You knew she expected good news, a letter confirming that you and James were finally together. Instead, you sat at your desk, penning words that left a bitter taste in your mouth.

Dear Mother,

I did what you told me to do, but I fear I shouldn’t have. We were talking just fine, and then I told him everything. I told him how I felt. And he told me to marry Finn.

Finn is lovely, yes—but he’s not James. I asked James if there was any chance for us, and he said no. At least now I have clarity on where I stand with him. And I know it sounds awful to compare Finn to James, but... maybe knowing what I know now, I can learn to be happy with Finn. Father and Finn’s family are all thrilled, after all. I don’t even want to think about what I would’ve done if James had said he felt the same.

You sighed, folding the parchment carefully and sealing it in an envelope. The weight of your words sat heavily on your chest, but you couldn’t dwell on them any longer. You needed to send this letter immediately.

Pulling on your cloak, you found yourself heading for one of the secret passages to Hogsmeade—the ones you and James had used so often. The memories stung, but you pushed them aside. This time, you’d be using the passage alone.

The quickest way to deliver your letter was through the owlery. You knew exactly which owl was the fastest.

As you walked, you let your mind wander to James one last time, allowing yourself the quiet ache of what could’ve been. You would never speak to him again, not like before. That part of your life was over.

Finn was your future now. And while it hurt to admit, deep down, you knew it was for the best.

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[crowithy]

Gonna take this chance to ramble about the world building I swear I will post eventually, but just the points from this in no.particular order

- 3 moons (4 if you count the one that blew up)

- planetary rings (from the moon that blew up)

- no "true night" due to how much light is reflected from the moons and rings (think twilight and little to no stars)

- Moons aren't actually moons, they are dormant gods (sleeping like curled up cats) that slowly turned to stone. The moon that blew up was because of a fight amongst all 4 gods, against him. This fight was due to a disagreement about how to deal with the mortals during the "chaos times".

- a very rare "weather" pattern caused by mass death in one localized area. Unnamed as of yet but it's essentially a tornado of souls trying to rip itself apart, but inadvertently pulling itself together. (Like crabs in a bucket, it's not intentional but the act of trying to pull oneself free pulls everyone back in). This was very common during the above mentioned "chaos times" it's also partly how gods form.

- for the dragons of this world some cultures make carvings with inset gems on the horns. Often times the gems reflect the eye color of the dragons partner, or their partners favorite though this isn't exactly a rule.

- technically the dragons on the volcanic islands are obligate carnivores due to not having plants around the active volcanoes. Overtime they lost the ability to digest plants for the most part. The technically is also because on the rarer occasion they will eat rocks. Why? I forgot it's in my notes somewhere tho I'll figure it out eventually.

- due to all animals scaled up to dragonsize humans can't really have animal pets. They get bugs (and maybe some rodents but mostly bugs) the bugs aren't scales proportionally though, a random example is bees are the size of toddlers. Each human kingdom has a dedicated bug, with mixes of each specific species fulfilling some niches by irl domesticated animals (wooly moths acting as sheep, i would put more examples but so far only the moth kingdom is fleshed out) but msot have their own unique things. Bee hives are entire cities (though the cities in this kingdom do range on the smaller side, solely for the bees) which each houses having honeycomb integrated into walls and 2-10 "house bees" depending on size. They also get their own dedicated buildings on each street, for the "street bees". It's a very symbiotic relationship with the bees.

-two of my kingdoms mainly use sign language, the mermaids, due to verbal language not being applicable underwater, although they still use it on land as they prefer it. As well as my bee kingdom, due to having a high deaf population.

- one kingdom uses preserves vines wood and flowers for jewlery. The monarchs crown is even hand weaved by each successive ruler and magically preserved to last year's after their own death. After each ruler, small flowers from the crown are removed and incorporated into the new rulers crown and the largest is added to the throne. The oldest flower on the throne is 500 years old and is a now extinct flower.

- don't know if this counts but the bee kingdom uses honey or beeswax products as currency.

- magic tends to mutate the more exposure or by extensive use of it. Those born magically often often have some sort of visible mutation. For example, a non aquatic dragon may be born with gills. Someone might have an extra pair of wings, a split tail, four ears, an extra toe, one may become biolumecent and glow when injured, the tail tip of one may grow. This happens with humans too though less common.

- in relation to this, the magic mutations also are the reason dragons despite being wild different are able to hybridize. Think like dog breed except it was magic. This happened to humans too, there's mermaids,satyrs,elves,dwarves, but they are still technically human. There's also regular humans, but each still has some magic influenced trait. One kingdom has visible stripes, another has tails (not like animal tails just like if you extended a human spine). The mutations just depend on the amount of magic in the area

- speaking of magic, magic is caused by the moon dust and rocks that settled and landed on the planet. I mean its the corpse of a dead god

- one of the human kingdoms makes jewlry from bug exoskeletons

- the aquatic dragon kingdoms can change the color of their skin and communicates by creating patterns, with color acting as like tone indicators/punctuation. (They also have really soft scales because of this ability)

- the gods do *kinda* looks like people, if your counting dragons but in a weird messed up way. Like it's a mix of human and dragon features in a way that it's really neither. Idk if this really counts tho. There are lesser gods that look like neither but I'm not fleshing those out yet

- the main aquatic kingdom tends to make jewlery from sea glass more than crystals

-carnivorous unicorns

-carnivorous rabbits

And that's all I have that fits this

Small fantasy worldbuilding elements you might want to think about:

A currency that isn’t gold-standard/having gold be as valuable as tin

A currency that runs entirely on a perishable resource, like cocoa beans

A clock that isn’t 24-hours

More or less than four seasons/seasons other than the ones we know

Fantastical weather patterns like irregular cloud formations, iridescent rain

Multiple moons/no moon

Planetary rings

A northern lights effect, but near the equator

Roads that aren’t brown or grey/black, like San Juan’s blue bricks

Jewelry beyond precious gems and metals

Marriage signifiers other than wedding bands

The husband taking the wife's name / newlyweds inventing a new surname upon marriage

No concept of virginity or bastardry

More than 2 genders/no concept of gender

Monotheism, but not creationism

Gods that don’t look like people

Domesticated pets that aren’t re-skinned dogs and cats

Some normalized supernatural element that has nothing to do with the plot

Magical communication that isn’t Fantasy Zoom

“Books” that aren’t bound or scrolls

A nonverbal means of communicating, like sign language

A race of people who are obligate carnivores/ vegetarians/ vegans/ pescatarians (not religious, biological imperative)

I’ve done about half of these myself in one WIP or another and a little detail here or there goes a long way in reminding the audience that this isn’t Kansas anymore.

[hanamukes]

Uika in Ave Mujica episode 4

For episodes 1-3 of the Ave Mujica anime, I felt like while there was definitely stuff going on with Uika that's worth unpacking, the scenes were straightforward enough in what they wished to convey that I didn't feel like they warranted explanation. Episode 4 has completely turned my view of this character on its head though. It feels as if her every word and action in this episode completely contradicts what we knew of her prior. What is going on with her?

I wanted to talk about her in a longform post, so here I am. This is maybe half analysis, half just me rambling my thoughts on what's happening on screen.

DISCLAIMER: If you're not familiar with the way I discuss this character, let me make it clear now that I absolutely love her! This post is essentially a love poem dedicated to how fantastic I think her writing is. That said my tone here might come off a bit sharp, because of how contradictory she is (which I say as a compliment) and how I want to grab her by the scruff and shake her until she tells me what's going on inside that head of hers. Just wanted to mention something before anyone gets the impression I'm criticizing her or the writing when I'm doing nothing of the sort.

Her first moment happens and immediately a lot stands out to me

First: the models in this anime fall under two specifications, girls who always have a blush programmed in and girls who don't. For instance, Sakiko has one so she's always blushing no matter her mood. Uika doesn't. But throughout this entire episode, she does. Why? Why is she so... eerily happy, in a way we have never seen her before?

Secondly, what is her aim here? Sakiko expressed her discomfort with everyone's attitudes, and rather than just being "Sakiko's second voice" as she has been up until now (take the episode 3 fight as an example), she's taking everyone else's side. Her actions are already in total contradiction with the Uika we've seen up until now, who didn't care about anything except easing Sakiko's feelings

Then this happens. Uika is basically in la-la land daydreaming about having her destiny tied to Sakiko's forever (especially because Nyamu points out that sounds like something Sakiko would say), yet she's ignoring her beloved who sits on the other side of the table

Uika, do you really love Mujica as it is when Sakiko's expressing to you directly that she's unhappy?

Ironically, when she does acknowledge Sakiko directly, it only leads to further frustration for Sakiko

Because she's focusing on the wrong thing. She's more worried about Sakiko's exhaustion from writing songs (which is something she can physically see, thus easily pick up on) rather than Sakiko's concerns with the band (which is something she'd have to actually stop to think about). It really feels like she doesn't understand Sakiko at all. How much does she actually stop to think about her feelings? How surface leveled, rose-colored lens does she view her?

Her actions here scream, "well, so long as I get to stay with Sakiko, I don't actually care if she's happy," regardless of if that's her intent. Sometimes your inner feelings aren't enough, Uika. Sakiko is actively looking miserable in front of you and what are you doing about it?

Are you really just going to leave without saying anything to her? You express concern when halfway out the door, yet when face to face with Sakiko, you act like nothing is wrong?

Again, yes, Sakiko is exhausted, but that's not all there is to it Uika. And she hasn't exactly been subtle about what she's worried about!

Mortis keeps the focus of the conversation to Sakiko having to write all the scripts (thus prompting Uika to point out that she's been pulling all-nighters and maybe that's the problem), but I quite like this line, as there's a lot to unpack here

前はそういうの絶対見せなかったのに

The translation gets the idea across fine to be clear, but in Japanese, there's an emphasis on the "never" part. It feels unthinkable to Uika that Sakiko would perhaps lash out, or show her exhaustion to the others. Kind of putting a mental pin in this because that's not the impression we, the viewers, have seen from prior episodes (Sakiko in this episode was acting incredibly in line with what we've seen of her already in this anime), so I wonder where Uika got this idea from. It makes you wonder just what Uika's impression of "normal" or "prior" Sakiko is

This line is genuinely sweet of her, if not a bit ironic because Uika's already absolutely overworking herself for Sakiko, which Sakiko pointed out in episode 1 (a lot of the officially published interviews have been pointing this out over and over too, just as a side note). They really want to ease each other's burdens...

Yeah, we're not even being subtle about Uika having to "borrow" ways to cheer people up anymore

I actually noticed this about her even back in It's MyGO. When Uika comforted Tomori in episode 10, it was eerily close to what Sakiko did in episode 3. Tomori even associated Uika's actions as being reminiscent of Sakiko's behavior. I had no evidence about Uika copying what Sakiko did then (I don't... think? know? that Uika saw Sakiko's meeting with Tomori and thus could copy it), but now? There's evidence that perhaps her acts of generosity are in fact just things she's imitating from others. If you're curious about the It's MyGO example of this, I highly recommend watching this for yourself

Oh, I'll also mention that in my pre-anime analysis post for Uika, I mentioned she probably doesn't "shine" at all as an idol without Mana, and she more or less just confirmed that for us

Again there's a lot to unpack with this part

Hoo boy. Let's go back an episode. In episode 3, Uika was feeling insecure about the fact Sakiko "knew" Mutsumi "very well since they were kids." She looked visibly bothered by it before changing the topic. So hearing from "Mutsumi" herself that "Actually, you're the one closest to Sakiko, not me" must be making her day. Mortis is actively using Uika's affection for Sakiko against her (well, for the sake of the band, but she's still manipulating (for lack of a better word) her regardless). It's a bit harrowing when you realize that Uika's happy that her "competition" for being close with Sakiko is dead, despite her not realizing Mutsumi more or less is dead at this point...

Moving on to the scene in her apartment, my only addition here is... well, it sure is something how the only things she said to Sakiko were what Mortis told her to say. She has no lines here that weren't just parroting advice. Is that really all you have to say to your beloved?

This is an interesting comment from her

Because there's a couple ways you could interpret this. Is Uika referring to the "stiff" expression, or the close proximity? We know for Sumimi, she views herself as having a "terrible expression" (when Mana's not around to change her energy), but it's also not lost on me that it could also be referring to "my image of Sumimi [where we take photos together in close proximity]"

Sakiko's reaction to this is what makes it so meaningful to me

Nyamu and the photographers are saying "this doesn't look like Mujica at all, but that's a good thing," which Sakiko is obviously displeased about. Why would going against Mujica's worldview be a good thing? And yet... even Uika, who founded the band with her and who writes all their songs, is saying she likes the photo. Once again, Uika is completely disregarding Sakiko's feelings despite how close she is to her. Physically, they're almost close enough to brush shoulders, but emotionally, I don't think Sakiko's ever felt further from her. The betrayal in her face and voice feels so obvious, yet Uika's still in la-la land like she was earlier in the episode and doesn't acknowledge it at all... we really can put ourselves in Sakiko's shoes throughout the whole episode, because truly, what is going through Uika's head?

Uika doing sweet gestures for Sakiko. This is the character I recognize!

It's not lost on me that 1. she has two umbrellas like she does in her apartment, and 2. there's this almost eerie focus on Uika making coffee for people. I say this because the opening itself has a shot of her mugs, there's that weirdly placed clip of coffee dripping in episode 2 (it's also in one of the trailers), the donut scene in episode 3, and now this. I'll be interested in seeing why this is so important to her

I do wish we had gotten to see the conversation Uika and Sakiko had here. Sakiko has a habit of brushing Uika off, but she was finally able to open up to her about something. They finally talked together amidst all of this miscommunication and not understanding one another, but we didn't get to see it... (which may be a sign they didn't really talk about much, but hey, I like my Uisaki crumbs where I can get them)

Thank you for the confirmation that Uika would be the first victim in a slasher film. Moving on

I love the way this comment is framed. If Sakiko left the band, who would be most hurt? Sakiko or Uika?

Uh oh. She's having her words used against her

What she said in episode 3 was honestly a bit careless* (she said it in front of Sakiko, who famously broke up Crychic by leaving it)... but she did have a point. She just wanted to articulate that Ave Mujica should be the 5 of them, and that surely they have a strong enough bond that if one of them left, they wouldn't be able to carry on and just "find a replacement," right? She's our kindhearted front of the band who loves everyone equally, right?

Well

(To clarify the translation, it's not super clear whether Uika said this directly to her, or if Mortis just hit the nail on the head)

Oops! Now that's an awkward position to be in, especially in front of Sakiko herself! Zero denial either...

(*I'll just tack this thought on here, but there's potential Uika's "Please don't hate me" line from the trailer could be because she feels guilt for having said the "if one member quits it's over" line (and thus bringing about the downfall of the band))

Last thing for this episode...

Same, Mortis. What? Why does she have no fight in her? Why doesn't she care? Why is she not saying anything? Are her feelings of guilt, embarrassment and self-hatred actually overpowering her drive to be with Sakiko? Is it over for her, now that the cat's out of the bag regarding the fact she only ever cared about the band to be with Sakiko?

I noticed she acted like a kicked puppy in episode 3 as well. When someone points out how selfish she actually is, she loses all her edge and goes quiet. She wants to escape the situation. She can't fight against what's true about her (the ugliness in her heart), after all, lest she drives herself into a corner as a hypocrite even more than she already has. But her reactions are fascinating to me, because you'd think the front of the band, and someone who swore her life to Sakiko out of profound love for her, would put up more of a fight to keep the band together so she can stay with her. She's not doing damage control at all, she's just taking the hits and all the impact that comes with it. Maybe it's some form of self harm...

(I'm also incredibly curious to know what Sakiko thought of all of this, but maybe that was the least of her concerns...)

Anyway, we'll see what happens next week. I wonder if and when we'll get closure on why she's been so apathetic to Sakiko, despite her claimed devotion for her. I get the impression Sakiko will be moving out (next episode?), so we'll have to see how she reacts to that...

[icaruspendragon]

Hello, Berk!

Warning you now: this might be an absolutely crazy ask. And feel free to tell me “hell no”.

I’m Madeleine (@layniejane), and I’ve been on various social media sites (Twitter, Tumblr, TikTok, etc.) for pretty much most of my middle school/high school/college life. Growing up with these online communities and seeing them grow and develop as I did led me to study English and Communication Studies at college, focusing primarily on rhetoric and language use online.

My senior thesis is due this May, and I am writing about rhetoric and communication on Tumblr and Twitter (and probably a little bit on TikTok), and how it has changed and adapted over the years. I’m planning on it being both fandom specific, including language that people might associate with online fandoms or specific fandoms, and a more broad view, with focus on posts and formats that anyone on these apps might have run into at one point or another.

I’m wondering if you would possibly be willing to be interviewed about your time on these sites over the years. This can be either as informal or formal as you are comfortable with, and can take any sort of format. If you aren’t comfortable being interviewed but might have some posts or historic Tumblr moments that you think I should include, I would be thrilled and appreciative for those.

If this is an absolute no, for whatever reason, I appreciate you taking the time to even read this and consider it! This feels like an insane thing to put into someone’s ask box on Tumblr, but at the same time, feels oddly appropriate for the subject of my thesis.

Once again, thank you so much for reading, and I hope to hear from you on this in some regard soon!

oh fuck yeah i love being a primary source!! shoot an email to me at berklienovakstolz@gmail.com and we’ll get something worked out!!

[zlo-sovs-lifeboat]

I'm new here, what constitutes as "bad tags"? I don't usually leave tags anyway but I'd like to know just in case

Good question, to be specific let's define what good tags are first. Good tags are those that help categorize works and relate it to randoms or styles for ease of sorting.

That's it, i know people have been using tags for other things here, and I'm not going to come in telling everyone else how to live their life. Do whatever, HOWEVER. There are a whole 2 types of tag usage that drive me, quite literally, mad, and i will go to extreme measures to never see them under my work. 1.Redundant tags-i loathe when people state the obvious.I believe everyone here has enough perception to not need tags like #not-my-art or #[artists name] UNDER THE ARTISTS OWN GOD-DAMN POST. It's legitimately upsetting, and i know it's stupid, and it makes me angrier. That's not how you categorize shit, that's how you bloat your tag pool with useless bullshit.

2.Tags that should have been comments. That one is self explanatory, if you wanna say "wow so cool" or "i like this" or something to that effect-just or engage in conversation- say it to my face, via a comment. Call me a boomer for this if you have to but i am not budging on the matter, i am not engaging in parasocial reblogging and i will yell at clouds about it, because it makes me angry for how stupid it is as a practice. Example:

as you could have guessed- some of you lot fucked it up again. Terrible tag usage. But... I'll tolerate it, because it's my fault for not explaining what i hate in the first place.

[mixupmycota]

i should probably talk more directly about the state of things so

i am not from the US. I have to pay very close attention to american politics, because those same politics are being exported out and diffused to the rest of the world at varying speeds, and it's part of knowing the enemy there.

first trump presidency i was a LOT more politically active than i am right now and kept abridge of everything. I was also someone who was warning my friends when he first announced his run that he would likely win, and I was not taken seriously. I was not taken seriously on most things until the january 6 riots.

I grew up learning to read on records of ww2 atrocity. From the 2010's forward, I have kept tabs on far right groups around the world, how they mobilize and radicalize, and how the leaders of america, australia, new zealand, england and canada cooperate in order to create a sort of staggered escalator of oppression, laundering each others reputations.

trump announced his open nazi intent multiple times during his first presidency. he talked on twitter about forming a millenium empire. people did not take me seriously when i raised alarm flags about this. i am not making this post to scare people or otherwise fear monger, but because i think it is important to be clear on this.

do not underestimate him, or musk, or zuckerberg, because of internalized ableism. do not, for a second, think these men are "too dumb" to carry out their plans. they specifically cultivate that perception and have successfully weaponized it for a very long time.

the next four years At Least for those over there are going to be very, very dangerous, barring an uprising that removes him from power briskly.

if you are in any way marginalized over there, you need to be so careful, and you need to be practical about it. you need to decide if being open and out and bold about gender and sexuality is something you can survive, if someone becomes violent about it.

there is no shame in it if the answer is no. there is no shame in retreating back into the closet for this and scrubbing information that marks you as queer in any way from your paperwork and online presences. i suggest using a different name for gender purposes online than the one you do offline in your private life. make yourself difficult to track down.

regardless of the answer you land on, you need to be prepared. doubly so if your marginalization is not something that can be socially concealed.

prep a go bag, i am so serious. especially if you're in a centre or right wing leaning state.

get your important documentation together, anything you cannot afford to lose. a first aid kit, and learn how to use it. a couple boxes worth of protein bars or nutrient supplement drinks, and aim for a few hundred dollars of cash to have on hand in it too.

even if you think you could not possibly need it, i recommend this. it's helpful in the case of natural disaster or abusive family life as well.

if you do not have neighborhood community level ties and it wouldn't be suicidally dangerous to try: start cultivating these. you want to have a face to your neighbors. you want them to have positive associations with you. you want them to care if a disruption happens in your environment.

i can't give specific advice for this in a general post, because everyone's circumstances will be different, but there's been countless wonderful organization efforts in the US to draw inspiration from on approach.

if you cannot do this, and you only have online community ties: everyone needs to tighten those up. everyone needs to upskill in their communication levels. there is no room for petty infighting that can fracture solidarity. everyone needs to be able to trust each other in a crisis to step up and offer what help they can - whether that is emergency funds, or willingness to shelter someone for even a couple of hours.

if you are cis and white and straight, or it's not known that you're not straight, i encourage you strongly to be someone who initiates efforts to get to know others in the local community, to make it easier for everyone else to participate in this. there are lots of different roles to play, and you will have strengths that will lend themselves to different ones. but you can be a protective barrier for people, and if you have space to spare consider how you would shelter people if they needed it.

rehearse being willing to open your door, if there is violence outside it. rehearse being brave and letting someone who is running away seek shelter even for a couple of minutes inside your place.

prepare for the worst and be pleasantly surprised by anything else. if you think you might need to migrate if it gets very bad, start setting aside money for this now. Even if it is just a dollar a day.

and for the love of god kill the cop and HOA member inside your head.

edit to add:

also PLEASE if you are not armed and actually militantly serious about it and involved with others on an organization level do not put open statements on your online profile info that you're a communist or an anarchist

Do not tie this to your legal name and to your face. Anywhere. And if you're doing truly serious organizational work, do not be doing it on discord. Telegram, at the minimum.

[ominous-faechild]

Hey how do you do the color gradient thing for your dialog tags?

Assuming you mean these things, I've actually been meaning to make a guide of my own for a while lol.

For one, you can only do this on computer/the website of Tumblr! There's no option to select this stuff on the app.

STEP 1: CREATE A NEW DOC / GO TO SETTINGS

It opens a dropdown menu/whole screen full of options!

From there, select the "text editor" dropdown, which starts as displaying "rich text".

Select "HTML"

And it should change how the entire post looks!

STEP TWO: CHEAT

Yeeeeeaaaaah, so I use a website for this lol

I inserted my colors for faeries (#30853C) and Cloud (#6DC1B4) for my example of "these things" earlier. To make this easier, I most often have two windows open at a time while working on uploading my scripts to Tumblr.

To get colours to insert into the Text Colorizer website, you can use any kind of hex color picker or even this one website I've used to yoink "thematic" colors from photos!

Personally, I've developed a massive library of colors over time for this exact purpose lol. Using my old colors as a "base", I can change it accordingly to the kind of "new color" that I want for a specific character or thing!

(I'll use the website to also make gradients for "in-between" colors lol)

STEP 3: INSERT TEXT / DESIRED COLORS

To make Nova's gradient, I start with #A600D9, my color for Magic, and end with #F56745—their individual color. However, being as it's short, I'll use a quote from them instead lol.

Once you've inserted your text and colors, you will click in the text box I highlighted in red, ctrl+a and ctrl+c to copy it all, and go back over to your new tumblr post tab!

From there, you'll ctrl+v to paste the entirety into the HTML area, which pastes the code into your post!

AND VOILA!

You have gorgeous gradient text!

However, I want to give a fair warning and a bit of advice! If you didn't notice wayyyyyyy back when...

Tumblr warns that this all can break your formatting!

It doesn't do it too often, but take it from someone who does an obscene amount of formatting... it's 100% true.

STEP 4: CHEAT SOME MORE!

For this reason, I personally have a whole separate draft post full of my characters' colors (and names lol) that I use to copy-paste them in from rather than using the "html" text editor on every post!

I mentioned earlier I often have multiple windows open while editing? Here's what that looks like!

Additionally, I'll use a separate tab off on the left (my "current wip post" side) with the "html editor" enabled for me to copy-paste stuff!

(Also here's yet another example of how many colors I have)

Once again, you can ctrl+c these things to paste them into another tumblr post with the correct colors!

And it's ONLY possible to do on the website!!!

EXTRA INFO!

WARNING:

Tumblr will only allow each "paragraph's html to be so many characters long, so you can't have too big of anything in a gradient!

And by "anything"... I mean you really can't have that big of a gradient in general. RIP lol.

It straight-up won't save the post so long as you have that "overflow" in the character block! MAKE SURE YOU'VE FIXED IT, OR YOU CAN AND WILL LOSE ALL PROGRESS ON YOUR POST!

SINGLE-COLOR TIP:

You don't need the website for a single color! If you'd like, you can just change the "color code" within the html editor to change specific colors!

MAKE SURE COLORS CAN WORK ON DIFFERENT BACKGROUNDS!

On desktop, you can use shift+p while not on any sort of textbox to change the color pallet! I always do tests to see which colors work best before settling on any!

(Tho, the blue background SPECIFICALLY is nightmarish to work around. So if that's the ONLY thing I can't make work, I often ignore it and let you guys who use it suffer lmao)

(Hopefully this'll give you guys some respect for me and how much I do to make my posts aesthetic af lol)

Also hopefully this all helps???

divider by @cafekitsune

[mask131]

This is about Neil Gaiman's work - this is NOT about the rape accusations, but it is about the aftermath of them. I wanted to make a post for some times now about works you could read that were similar to Gaiman's works if you wanted to go see something akin to his fictional world without directly supporting him. Which would have been a VERY easy post since Gaiman kept listing everywhere the works that influenced directly or indirectly his own novels and creations. But I realized other people were already doing this, so I just thought "Heh, let's not bother with this".

And then I randomly stumbled upon this post which is trending on Tumblr. And this post got me a little mad. Because while I do agree that several of the facts in there should be more well-known and more talked about... I also think this post is quite unfair in its depiction of how Gaiman acted towards his inspirations.

People are currently screaming that Neil Gaiman plagiarized stuff by "taking huge inspiration from things and not crediting people". Except... he did credit people. It's just that his fans never bothered to go look for what inspired him. I was there back in the old days - so I saw exactly how it went. Don't start telling me Neil Gaiman purposefully stayed "silent" about the works that inspired him - I clearly saw how people were just apathetic. Myself when I compiled lists and made posts about all the works that preceeded Neil Gaiman or that he explained were his inspirations for things, people didn't bother and had no interest... but when I made a list of Gaiman's work suddenly everybody reblogged. Whether Gaiman plagiarized or not is not the thing I want to talk about today - but I want to HEAVILY criticize the way people are saying "Neil Gaiman never said he took X from X" when in fact, he did, and people were just too lazy to do their research. (Or, if you take the "Gaiman is a villain " angle, Gaiman counted on the fact people would not bother to read the original books and he won his bet!)

I am deeply sorry for this rant but it is a little trigger for me, since I have been studying and exploring the "chain" of inspirations and rewritings throughout literature and the fantasy genre (half for university work, half for personal hobby), and I have seen people literaly ignore all the bibliographies given to them under titles like "If you want to read more of the sort". [For example the original post talks about how Martin was very honest about how he took inspiration from Druon's book series. Fair. But nobody is talking about how he indeed kind of "plagiarized" Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. A lot of people don't know about this series, despite said series having literaly almost all of ASoIaF's supernatural - in fact, the reason Martin seems to be under-using his own supernatural creations, like the White Walkers, is precisely because they don't come from his mind and they are just a copy of Williams' Norns and he seems to not really know what to do with them. But that's a talk for another day.]

EDIT: I realized the post got very long, so all my personal objections and my argumentative points against the post I linked above will be under a cut. And if you want a conclusion to my long rant below the cut, it is this one: You can shit all you want about Gaiman, but at least get your facts right. It is not because someone turns out to be a bad person that you must feel the need to blast cultural misinformation. Heck, I will directly compare it to how the entire Internet wished and wanted Rowling to have "plagiarized" Gaiman's Books of Magic, because of their similarities, only for Gaiman himself to point out, no, it was not plagiarism, it was just a set of similarities and coincidences due to both works coming from a same British culture with a specific background in children literature and fantasy works. It just happened that people didn't know anything outside of Harry Potter and Gaiman's works and so assumed it was the only two pieces of a much vaster puzzle...

Yes, Neil Gaiman is very derivative. Yes he is very imitative. But he never hid it? He always said he was, he always pointed out the works that influenced him, he always listed the stuff that he based his own works upon - down to sometimes helping these works come out of obscurity when they were too forgotten (like the Lud-in-mist novel?). People are doing a "surprised Pikachu face" today but... he never hid his derivatiness. In fact it was a certain part of the "charm" people found in his work back in the days. He never hid anything, it's just that a lot of people didn't want to see it or didn't care about it...

Gaiman posted an entire page on his blog for American Gods (back in the early days of Internet, he had a blog to follow his writing process for American Gods, weeks after week, you can still find it somewhere) listing the three dozen of books that inspired him/that he took elements from/that he learned stuff from. People can accuse him of having plagiarized Zelazny's work in American Gods because of one scene - Wednesday having Shadow drive into the "Backstage", which is a rewrite of the "driving to Amber" scene from The Nine Princes of Amber. But the accusation of "plagiarism" becomes a bit muddled when you know that A) Gaiman has been screaming for years about how the main source of inspiration for American Gods were all of Zelazny's mythological works and B) He literaly dedicated American Gods to Zelazny, first page you open.

When does an homage becomes too much? When is plagiarism allowed? Is taking after public domain a bad thing? What are the moral consequences of your work overshadowing your source of inspiration? These are questions I am not wanting to answer today and this post isn't about them - plus things are even more complex when you remember Gaiman was one of the most fervent defensers and advocates of fanfiction, reacting positively to it and encouraging people to do it a lot ; as well as one of the main celebrities on Tumblr to warn people to NOT send him fanfics so that it wouldn't cause legal troubles of potential plagiarism.

Anyway, my actual angry rant is below.

I/ Tanith Lee and Sandman

The post that got me angry starts with Tanith Lee. I do agree that it is a shame Tanith Lee is not more talked about and didn't receive as much fame as she deserved. I do agree that Neil Gaiman's work was heavily inspired by Tanith Lee's writing. I do agree Gaiman's work overshadowed Lee's own (for a long time I didn't know she was the first one to do a vampiric Snow-White twist, before Gaiman's own). However I have to recuse the idea that Sandman is a rip-off of Tales from Flat-Earth.

It doesn't help that the person who made this original claim clearly doesn't know very much about either Lee's Flat-Earth or Gaiman's Sandman (with easy to debunk claims like how "Delusion" is one of Gaiman's Endless - no, the character does not exist). For example the poster rightfully compares how the top-dogs of the supernatural pantheon of Lee's Flat-Earth are the Masters of Night, Death and Delirium, wth the Master of Night's physical appearance echoing Dream of the Endless' appearance... However the comparison stops there, unlike what the poster tries to claim, because the Master of Night is a demon who rules over hatred, fear, curses and malevolence first and foremost - and is this world's equivalent of Satan/Iblis - and is not a personification of dreams, imaginations and sleep like Morpheus. Also, unlike what the OP claims, the Demon Princes are not like the Endless, "eternal entities beyond gods" - on the contrary, it is shown by book one the Demon Princes CAN be killed, and that there are gods who are a distinct species far above the Demons.

It is also incomplete to try to claim that having Dream and Death be siblings is a "proof" of Tanith Lee plagiarism... Because Gaiman is very explicit in his narrative of how Dream and Death are transpositions of the Thanatos & Hypnos/Thanatos & Morpheus twinship present in Greco-Roman mythology (Ovid's "Gates of Horn and Ivory" are literaly there in the first issues). Plus, since we do have the original manuscripts and the proposition draft Gaiman sent to DC (it is in the bonus of collected editions and in companion books), we know Gaiman originally had just three Endless in mind, Death, Dream (who was a reshape of DC's Sandman super-hero), and Destiny (who pre-existed in DC's universe), Delirium only coming far later.

That being said, I am feeling very sad for Tanith Lee through the testimony of her friend - how, again, she had trouble becoming a recognized author despite her work being very influential and frequently talked about for the fantasy genre (all the fantasy manuals and guides and encyclopedias of France list her among the authors to be read), and I do feel her distate for Neil Gaiman's work vampirizing hers is very justified. But to jump into saying Sandman is a copy-paste or a full on rip-off of Flat-Earth is unfair and very limiting. Flat-Earth was one of the inspirations of Sandman, but it doesn't own "everything" to it.

Plus, the OP also gets very angry at how Gaiman "never" talked about Tanith Lee and ... you know how I got to learn about Tanith Lee, and how I got encouraged to read her? Through Gaiman's Tumblr blog, where he regularly listed her as part of the authors that inspired him/the fantasy authors he enjoyed/the authors he encouraged others to read. I saw her appear like five different times on his Tumblr, and without him I probably wouldn't have started getting curous about her. So he did talk about her and he did present her as one of his inspirations and favorite authors... At least on Tumblr, and for several years.

II/ Coraline and Thief of Always

The comments mention Coraline and the Thief of Always as possibly being another "plagiarism" of Gaiman... I remember when Neil Gaiman was asked on his Tumblr about how similar Thief of Always and Coraline were, and he simply answered with the fact he and Barker had a similar thought process and came up with akin works though very different in the results.

You could say it is a form of copy or plagiarism (though Gaiman at least did an effort to make Coraline the almost opposite of Thief of Always in several ways). But I will have to point out that that Neil Gaiman and Clive Barker know each other, and that it has been reported, talked about and evoked a lot of times how they hanged in the same circles, with the same people, and exchanged thoughts, and talked about their mutual creations. We know Gaiman talked of the early Sandman issues when they were created with Alan Moore and Clive Barker, while Moore talked of his creation of From Hell. We also know that a part of the Sandman's universe was indirectly created by Barker - as Gaiman explained the idea for naming Desire's domain "The Threshold" came from a story Clive Barker had planned but never wrote, exploring the puns "threshold" could offer.

To my knowledge Clive Barker never claimed that Gaiman plagiarized him or stole from him with Coraline? But I might be wrong.

III/Other details

The comment about the "Lovecraft and Doyle" comparison is clearly taken out of context, because it was literaly about a story which WAS a literal Sherlock Holmes meets Cthulhu fanfiction, "A Study in Emerald". The commenter seems to think this comment applied to Gaiman's entire work? No it does not.

I don't know anything about the Lenny Henry situation, I will have to look for this.

[air3d3lalm3na]

Okay, but coming at it from this angle refuses to address the elephant in the room. -- And I'm saying this as someone who saw it develop online for years and rejected the major trend of it around 10 yrs ago and got massive flack for it, so I clearly don't think this is healthy behavior. Just getting that out there.

But it's not based on individuals' personal urges. For the past good few years, young people with generally good intentions have been exposed to concerning online circles which literally utilized cult tactics (directly using the BITE model here and not exaggerating) to mentally manipulate us into complying with really sick ways of interacting/being interacted with and looking at the world.

I was initially one and felt the massive pressure of it for a time before rejecting it. And I'm a very stubbornly independent individual at that, and still went through that.... Most people in general aren't, and they crave and feel a deep need to "fit in" and "be normal + accepted" in a group and these tactics worked precisely on that factor.

This particularly targeted young LGBT people and anyone in a similar situation, ie seeking community with members of some minority group you're part of, online.

We know disinformation targeted minority groups (here; here).

A few (though not enough) people have thoroughly criticized the cultlike nature of specifically this site. But in the end it always went back to posts like this one -- expressing judgment in some supposed personal moral failing. Which, considering that that sort of peer judgment was always the cudgel being used in the above interactions, heavily shaping these perspectives... It's ironic to see the same social tool being used to criticize those mired in this worldview.

Missing the forest for the trees, here. Fingerpointing won't get people out of this/deradicalize; and, if that isn't a goal, well -- it isn't even a particularly accurate or realistic way to discuss what's happened here, period, even while "just venting"/personal blogging.

We tend to feel comfortable addressing the way that this has gradually happened to the MAGA/QAnon crowd, and the open fact that it's clearly not grassroots/organic and is a top-down influence with right-wing think tanks and money involved. But people seem to be much less comfortable acknowledging that the same has fully been done on the left/generally-left-leaning crowd.

Getting ahead of the black-and-white-minded accusation of conspiratorial thinking that naturally comes when trying to have this discussion: Obviously, there have been tons, realistically much higher numbers actually, of genuine people who have been exposed to this rhetoric, involved in it personally, repeating it, and generally being its "useful idiots" -- which was always the point. The point was to plant specific deeply harmful ways of engaging socially with others in such a widespread way as to make the actual left/left-leaning movement(s) ineffective. Many (most?) people having at least centerist-conservative psychological behaviors in their social upbringings just increased the effectiveness of this (i.e. the desire to follow a leader, hero worship, clique/groupthink -- on a larger scale as well as small, again the black-and-white thinking, "us or them", needing the comfort of simple ideas, etc).

Until any of this is properly addressed, we won't get anywhere, or even have the dignity of knowing we're having this conversation honestly.

I think my patience for people who wanna say radical things that have no hope of ever accomplishing anything and don't serve to do anything but signal they are the maddest angriest has done dried up

[mangionebabymama]

Okay but in the picture with his friend where he pretended to be jealous like... does it look like he has a hickey on his neck or could it be something else

So I’ve noticed that too, and I found it in another photo:

Both of these photos were taken in March of 2019 within a span of a few weeks (these were from his Instagram, and there’s a screen recording of his feed on YouTube), so, I doubt that it is a hickey, considering it’s in the same exact spot below that one mole of his. If it actually was one, whoever that was sucking on his neck must be a vampire, sheesh.

It could pass as one though, lol. I’ve said this before in a previous post, but I have a birthmark on the side of my neck that could pass as a hickey—especially if you’ve never seen it before. I understand where that might be a first guess.

So hypothetically speaking, no, I don’t think it is one. I’m gonna be a nerd here with my pre-med education for a moment and say that it is probably was an allergic reaction of some sort on his skin, or, maybe his Lyme disease.

According to Luigi, he was diagnosed with the condition when he was 13. He talked about it in two separate comments under the r/BrainFog thread on Reddit in 2018:

“A lot of similarities here: I contracted Lyme when I was 13 (7 years ago) and started noticing mild cognitive decline when I was 15. (I don't actually remember contracting Lyme or getting treated or anything about it, I just remember that I missed soccer tryouts and didn't make the soccer team that year because of it)

After my symptoms severely worsened last year, I underwent several rounds of blood tests. Two of them included Lyme (I'm not sure which specific tests), but the results were negative. Do you think this definitely rules out Lyme, or is it still possible to have Lyme given negative results?”

Then, another:

“I 100% contracted Lyme (was tested and treated immediately) when I was 13.

“I was then tested again this year given my symptoms. I just looked back at these tests, and the only one for Lyme is called "Lyme AB Screen," which I assume isn't terribly specific. I will definitely look into more comprehensive testing.

What do you mean by ‘after it was too late?’”

To sum it up, Lyme disease is an infection caused by a tick bite. It can cause joint pain, fatigue, and flu-like symptoms. It’s mainly characterized by this red bull’s eye rash, and it can appear anywhere on the body. Antibiotics are given to treat it.

From his comments, given at the time, he seemed like while he was in college, his symptoms were in remission, but who knows if they could ever reappeared after he graduated from UPenn. I haven’t ever noticed clear, evident red patches on his body in photos where he was living in Hawaii, but that’s not to say that he could have (if his condition was in a flare-up) a rash in other places that weren’t readily visible.

I mean, really, I’m just speculating here, based off of information that is clear, I’m not saying this is all true—but yeah! That little thing does look a bit suspicious 🧐

[satinroses]

Future Works Poll!

Hi all! I just posted a little work on the sort of nightly routines of harbingers and their darlings, specifically about Capitano, Dottore, Pantalone and Scaramouche. I WAS going to write one for Childe too but then i lost my 50/50 for him to KEQING so im currently stewing in bitterness. I would be fine if i lost it to Baizhu or Shenhe or Ganyu or literally ANY of the limited 5 stars but NO! I lost it to keqing… I streamed my pulls to my friends and i was laughed at for a good 20 minutes when that keqing showed up. On the bright side !!! I got Arlecchino!!! Yay! I now have 2/3 playable harbingers and i really hope to get them all and ill definitely pull Capitano when he comes out (delusion).

In the meantime i was hoping people could answer this poll about what they want to see next. I can’t guarantee that the top result will come out first as all these WIPS are at varying degrees of completion but i just want to get a feel for which pieces people want the most. Thanks so much for all your support and i hope you all have wonderful days/nights <3

here are quick summaries off the potential works so you now what you’re voting for:

’Off the beaten path’ pt 2: Yan! Albedo x reader x Yan! Susbedo, its my first post but you shouldn’t have to scroll to far as i haven’t written very much.

In event of their deaths: What sort of contingencies would the Yan! Harbingers have in place should anything happen to them, which would set you free? which would leave instructions for your care? Which would entrust you to the care of another harbinger? This would likely be written for Scara, Dottore, Pantalone, Childe, Arlecchino, Capitano (RIP) and maybe Signora (RIP) or Pierro

Yan! Akademiya Dottore x reader: I find the concept of him being a complete loser very amusing and would like to elaborate on it with him having a crush while he was studying at the Akademiya and quite possibly being the most awkward person in the world around them. I’m still unsure whether the darling will reciprocate his feelings or not.

Yan! Harbinger rankings: ranking the harbingers on now ‘good’ they are to live with and which are the most tolerable and which will drive you insane, i'll likely write this for everyone but Pulcinella (and maybe Sandrone)

[system-of-a-feather]

So what's up with the Feathers anyways?

Hey all, I just wanted to make a formal post that I can attach to my pinned post explaining a few things that we - as a collective and system - are doing lately as part of our recovery since it's something I know might be weird in the standard CDD / system experiences found online.

For those that don't know, we are a diagnosed DID system that has fully fused (we personally dislike Final Fusion as a term the word "Final" implies stuff that doesn't suit us nor do we like the idea of any sort of finality). This just means that probably about 90% of the time, we operate as a fused whole of all parts of our system that we call Feathers, Fei, [irl name], or "the collective" depending on the setting and/or what flows better in text / conversation. This fused whole / collective is what you probably close to what you think of when you think of final fusion and us operating as a "singlet".

The remaining 10% or so are times when we actively choose to operate as individual parts / a specific part separate from the collective; most often this is either to 1) enjoy something in a specific way that a specific part does 2) explore a concept, topic, situation, interaction, event, etc from a specific lens or a diversity of lenses and engage in discourse with ourselves because we find that fun and 3) to assist in trauma processing. (See FAQ 1 below)

And so we've spent the past year? two? three? in a state of functional multiplicity then this weird hybrid of alternating between functional multiplicity and fully fused, and then almost a year of being a fused whole most of our time. We've become extremely resilient and very stable and most of our trauma processing and therapy goals have been explicitly about self improvement and reclaiming the last tight knots of trauma that we still struggle with. We have gained a shit ton of coping skills, self sufficiency, and honestly most of our days are a 8/10 if not better.

That said, even though we are fully fused, that doesn't mean we are perfectly integrated. While we have very very low dissociation / dissociative symptoms and access to all parts of ourselves without experiencing much dissociation, not all parts of ourselves has been fully processed and not all of our parts have found their niche in our fused whole. This also makes it so those parts are MUCH more prone to both being interested in and actively presenting as independent parts from the collective. (See FAQ 2 below)

Historically, our system that is polyfragmented has had one half / side of our overall system that has explicitly refused to engage with life which we respect through our recovery. (No I will not explain any questions on that being unhealthy, its not your place to judge.) We actually managed to reach full fusion without interacting much with those parts beyond through a liason (ie Lin). Because those part had a minimal role in our recovery and development of a fused self, those parts are unevenly integrated and repressented in our fused whole.

Thus, while Feathers / the collective is a fused whole of our entire system, Feathers / the collective is EXTREMELY biased in favor of the "main system" that has been running this blog since like 2018. By all means this is absolutely a sustainable place for us to be in; however, as we've been working in EMDR we've been hitting stuck points rooted in parts in the other side of the system that are harder to navigate and challenge because those parts are not as well integrated as the other parts and thus are less open to discussion and are more rigid. Those parts still operate more as explicit ANPs and EPs (think primary stuctural dissociation) when approached about trauma associated with those parts and it's been a challenge.

Adding on that those parts have been made more aware more often of life continuing forward, we've actually heard expressed interest in potentially "trying again" and exploring themselves as parts, which is an AMAZING win and step for our system. Those parts struggle a lot more than parts of the main system and have much less positive experiences than even some of the "most traumatized" parts in the main system, so even the most ANP part we consider to need a lot of trauma sensitive support.

Lin, who has worked with these parts the longest, has his Method of Doing Things with Heavily Traumatized Children in our system and a lot of that starts with letting those traumatized parts explore the world a their own pace and get used to being Not Triggered AND present and after thinking about it we decided the best way to let those parts explore themselves, explore their world, explore themselves in relation to other versions of themselves, would be to allow that whole side system to do EVERYTHING our side did, but in their own way.

And so we are doing what we jokingly call DID NG+ or DID Season 2, where we are letting all those parts - whenever prominent or present - express and engage in the world as themselves, independent of the collective but not without the collective there. (See FAQ 3 below)

And so our system is fully fused, frequently operates as a fused whole still about 85-90% of our day, AND has a bunch of parts showing up and posting on this blog as independent selves / parts because online spaces is their first place to explore and adjust to existing once again.

Our main system / overall collective honestly doesn't have too much to say on this blog much anymore because plurality and DID just isn't that interesting, relevant, or something we really experience too much anymore; however some of our parts are going to be exploring the DID experience somewhat again and a lot of those parts have a more genuine and personal interest in the topic as it is relevant to them.

Thus, for the most part, we are kind of passing the torch of DID related topics and discussion to those parts. Feathers and the collective and all those parts that have run this blog are 100% here, but its very likely the amount of DID/plurality related posts we make as a collective will likely be SWAMPED out by the more-motivated to talk about DID stuff side system. (See FAQ 4)

-------------

FAQs beneath the cut.

FAQ 1: Wait so are you intentionally dissociating? Isn't that harmful? Aren't you just splitting? Do you switch? Are you really at final fusion / fully fused if you still identify as individual parts?

No. No. No. No. Yes.

No #1. Firstly, this is something we actually practice as something adjacent to our Buddhist exploration and our active practices with mindfulness and meditation and it is partially a meditation on ourselves, a practice of observation of our raw and innate self, and a practice of non-attachment to the concept and sense of self. As a result, our experience of selves come from a method of mindfulness and meditation; as a result we have some of the LEAST amount of dissociative symptoms when we do this and actually function with a lot more awareness of + connection to ourselves and surroundings. It is explicitly the opposite of dissociation in experience and I would know, because I used to chronically dissociate.

No #2, 3, 4. It is not splitting or harmful because there is literally no dissociation. (We heavily disagree that identifying different parts of yourself is inherently dissociative and find that claim to be very White / Western centric and culturally insensitive + blind to systemic white bias in research + clinical spaces) We can choose to divide ourselves, but no part is ever actually separate from the whole / collective beyond self expression and internal representation. Also no, we don't switch nor do we ever feel inclinded to use that word anymore because it really doesn't express our experiences anywhere near accurately. We present, we appear, we show up, we MIGHT consider using the word "front" but at no part does any part ever leave anymore, so switching and implying that places have changed just doesn't make sense. At most a part fades into the background, but that is less them being "gone" or "not front" and more of them just not being prominent, much like water receding from the shore isn't "gone".

Yes #5. Because our base line is fused and every part is actually connected 24/7 and present 24/7, so yes.

FAQ #2: Okay but are you REALLY fused with that side system if you didn't interact with them much? Okay but do THOSE parts have dissociation / switch / everything in FAQ #1?

To the first, yes; to the second, no. I really can't elaborate more in a way that I think isn't a waste of words. All I can say is "you are allowed to be skeptical, but I know myself and my experiences and I think its very weird for that to be questioned"

FAQ #3: So how does this look irl?

We appear and act as a fused whole most of the day, most of the time, and basically in all spaces that are not theraputic or just us on our own. This is likely going to change over time because all the parts from those side are very adverse to being around people irl, so as that likely changes for the better, so will this presentation probably. We aren't too sure exactly how it'll present then, but we are pretty excited to find out. Most of this happens in our own head and in private spaces; online spaces are just the spaces where we practice moving it beyond just our private spaces as it's the next step for parts that are ready.

FAQ #4: So is Feathers / the Collective an alter?

Uhhh.... not really but also kind of? We honestly don't really... identify, like Feathers / the Collective isn't really a person or thing; it's a concept. We don't really consider ourselves a person or a part or an alter in any solid way because we're not really this tangible thing. We just kind of Are. Feathers is just Feathers.

That said, when we do operate with these parts who are exploring themselves in something of a traditional DID process, we kind of operate with them something like an alter / part. I wouldn't say its exactly the same as they still have a very strong and clear connection and access to Feathers / the collective, but we largely do still maintain our mostly fused whole while those parts operate independently and use that lens to mostly observe and every so often assist / debrief about things going on with those parts. We are more so a mentor than anything else? Those parts also aren't seperate from Feathers / the collective literally ever so.... *shrugs*

Honestly, I can't really say a firm "yes or no" to this because I think its really just depends on a lot of a philosophy of "self" and what concepts and philosophies you subscribe to. So I guess my answer is "do you think they are?" cause really, I think either answer could be right and I don't really care too much to label it one or the other.

[phacheltheprophetess]

Who Is Crushing On You!?!?!?

Piles 1-3 Respectfully

Pile One: This is someone who you could have just met and who is a little older than you. They are just newly coming to the conclusion that they’re interested in you in this way. It was something that you did around them or possibly worn front of them that made them realize they were more attracted to you than they initially thought. This can be someone who wants to make a small offer towards you, but it’s still pondering on the decision. They could be heavily critical and judgmental of you as a whole

Pile Two: The person who has their eyes on you is a serious soulmate connection. This may even be your life partner. This person is someone who has their life together and has a lot of things on their plate, but they are wanting to communicate with you and make room for you. They see you as someone who is very interesting and has a quality of someone that they want to be with long-term in a serious relationship. This person could’ve already began communicating with you or will very soon. They’re keeping an eye on you as well.

Pile Three: This could be someone who’s very money focused, and that is their main priority right now. This person believes in being slow to give but quick to take. They are known for taking advantage of the people that they deal with romantically, but they are still curious about you and want more information on you. They feel like having proximity to you will be a victory for them. They can see lot of people want you and this makes them even more attracted to you. They want to see if they’re able to get you in some sort of give-and-take relationship. This is like a goal for them. they’re moving very slowly.

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Fun written out pick a pile reading 💕🧚🏾‍♂️

Collective general energy for this reading. Much like every other pick a pile it had no specific audience in mind. So if you felt drawn to this post it was simply meant for you to see 💕

I offer more personalized & concise messages always available via dms and/or email divineempress777@gmail.com

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