#the absolute us against the world-ism of it all

[miss-positive-negative]

Fox Mulder: Before, I could only trust myself. Now, I can only trust you. And they've taken you away from me.

A few minutes later...

Fox Mulder: I may not have the X-Files, Scully, but I still have my work. And I still have you. And I still have myself.

The X-Files, S02E01 "Little Green Men"

[euripidestrousers]

What are your big wolfstar hc?

Ooh good question!

I tend to change my hcs based on the AU I'm writing, but i am not exaggerating when I say these little freaks are Always on My Mind so I have an ungodly amount of canon-themed hcs. Here we go:

- Remus is one of the only people Sirius cuts a fair amount of slack. Sirius has high standards and expectations of others but he has a huge Remus-shaped blind spot, so will find reasons to excuse Remus' sometimes shitty behaviour. He has heart shaped eyes for his gangly, sly, avoidant attachment style man.

- Remus sleeps like an absolute log, anywhere, anytime. Sirius has always been a light sleeper, wakes easily, and doesn't sleep much.

- They kept their casual fucking-turned relationship secret until well after graduating. The only ones who knew were James, Lily and Peter. Lily was the first one to figure it out because poor James had been in the trenches, so used to his friends' flirting that he didn't even clock it anymore. It brought Lily and Sirius together because he had someone to talk about it with, the first person he'd met who wasn't a casual homophobe about it, and was sympathetic.

- Second to this! James and Peter weren't always rainbow flag waving allies. They were teenage boys in the 70s - they'd drop casual homophobic comments all the time before finding out about their friends. Sirius joined in sometimes to hide it from James (he never cared what anyone else would think but he was secretly afraid of losing closeness with James), and Remus went very quiet whenever this happened. James was surprised at first when he found out but came around within minutes and apologised for being a thoughtless dick when he was younger.

- Peter most definitely used Remus and Sirius' tumultuous relationship against them. Remus was very avoidant about coming out and Sirius, while not his highest priority, resented having to hide. They bickered about it and Peter would often throw a spanner in to make their fighting worse.

- Sirius' hair is a good indicator of his mental health. While he's not vain he tends to keep it neat and out of the way when he's in a good place mentally. When he's fighting inner demons he lets it go and Remus knows this. He uses it as a Sirius-meter, and knows when it's starting to get long and unkempt to gently pry into what's going on with him.

- They do the crossword puzzles together most mornings (when Remus gets up in time)

- Sirius is fantastic at baking although he only did it once or twice for Lily's birthday (per her request). Remus is the cook for both of them, although when Sirius isn't there he sustains himself on tea, biscuits and deeply suppressed anxiety.

- Sirius is a singer when he's in a good mood. Remus adores coming home to hear his deep voice belting out a mix of muggle and wix songs because it means Sirius is in his happy place. Sirius is a serenader - it starts as a joke but there's a soft look in his eye when sings while he spins Remus around the kitchen. It's one of Remus' favourite Sirius-isms

- Sirius jokes about Remus' lycanthropy to make light of it. He can be a bit callous and insensitive about it at times, but his candour does make Remus feel less like a monster.

- They are god-awful at communicating as they're both rather private, skeptical people. While it's something they have in common and respect about each other, it makes for difficulties in a relationship.

- Sirius is a Nightmare when he's bored so Remus has a mental Rolodex of thought-provoking questions to stop him from wreaking havoc (or just being annoying). As soon as he sees the restlessness starting, he casually brings up that new law about to pass in the goblin senate, and how it might affect non-human creatures in the wizarding world. He still hasn't recovered from the time Sirius got bored and took apart his record player to see how it worked and he's not getting caught out again. This is also one of the reasons why Remus is in Sirius' top 3 favourite people - he always has something interesting to say and will happily debate for hours. Sirius is hardly ever bored around him.

- Neither of them are jealous lovers. Remus' self-worth is in the toilet, so if he sees someone flirting with Sirius he just feels miserable and spirals, thinking about how Sirius can do so much better than him. Sirius is a fiercely loyal person so he never flirts back and thinks Remus' self-image issues are ridiculous. On the odd occasion that someone flirts with Remus, Sirius rather enjoys it because a) it's ammunition for teasing and Remus will go bright red when he brings it up, and b) Watching Remus eventually realise he's being flirted with is prime entertainment - he fumbles and blushes so hard and almost takes out whoever's around in his haste to flee. It's priceless. Also - Sirius is extremely self-assured and knows his partner is hopelessly gone for him and would never cheat. Trust is extremely important to them both.

- Remus is extremely unpleasant around the full moon. He's got all sorts of aches and pains, has trouble sleeping properly, fatigue, and nausea issues. It makes him irritable and snappy. Sirius is incredibly patient with him and gives him space. He doesn't take Remus' mood to heart and occupies himself while Remus wallows. He's always there when Remus finally emerges from his misery to pitifully request a massage or a pain potion, and is uncharacteristically soft with him during the full moon period.

- Sirius. Cannot. Stand. the way Remus runs away from problems. It's his biggest pet peeve and it's a source of some of their biggest fights.

- Remus is mostly vanilla-aligned but is open to trying whatever new thing Sirius comes home with, smiling giddily and clutching a new toy or book with a spell he wants to try out. Occasionally Sirius will strike gold and find a kink Remus is wild for (ahem, praise kink), and is horribly smug about it

- Sirius is hopelessly gone for Remus' feigning innocence, lying through his teeth act. He doesn't understand it, but seeing Remus lie point blank to someone's face with those big, trustworthy brown eyes, sends him off-the chain, I-need-to-fuck-this-man-right-now-wild and he has no clue why. Remus is aware of this.

- They are mostly switchy but will go for months at a time with a preference for topping/bottoming. When Remus is feeling particularly insecure he tends to want to be fucked intimately, face-to-face, where he can see every twitch in Sirius' face, can catalogue the evidence of how much Sirius adores him. Sirius is just happy to be along for the ride because this way he can completely blanket Remus and grind slowly, swallowing every one of Remus' whimpers and broken moans as he fucks him slowly and thoroughly. Sirius can't get enough of taking him apart, finding his limits, anything that breaks Remus' finely tuned composure.

- Sirius is awful at apologies when they're younger. He has trouble admitting or even seeing his wrongs. After becoming an animagus he finds that it's much easier to apologise as Padfoot. After a fight he'll go for a rage-fuelled long walk or bike-ride, and cool down. When he's said or done something he regrets, he'll come home as Padfoot, tail drooping and wagging hopefully, big grey eyes fixed on Remus. He'll sidle up to him and just stare, wagging his tail. Remus knows exactly what he's doing but it's impossible to stay mad at him like this and he begrudgingly accepts that it's Sirius' way of apologising. It's not the healthiest communication tactic but they're not perfect. Once Sirius receives a begrudging head scratch, he changes back to his human form and acts like they never fought. It's annoyingly effective.

- Remus absolutely loathes flying on Sirius' motorbike. He begrudgingly admits it's hot to see Sirius dismounting, windswept, leather jacket donned, but god help him he'll do anything to avoid joining him on that death-trap. The only upside is that when he gets cajoled into riding, he can wrap around Sirius like a squid, burying his face in his back, and it's the only way it feels even slightly safe. Sirius secretly loves when Remus does this, and although he doesn't know what cute aggression is, it makes him want to squeeze Remus until his head pops off.

- Sirius is The Garbage Bin of the relationship. Oh you're not gonna finish your dinner? Pass it on over. Random assortment of treats Remus can't finish? Munches on them instead of meals. He often forgets to eat so he gets what he can when he can - ADHD eating style. Remus is the sick Victorian child, 'i can't eat too much dairy or I'll die'. Takes one bite of an apple and feels sick, Sirius, come get your snack, boy.

- Neither of them ever wanted kids but they both like children, which is a surprise to both of them. Given the chance, they are the Coolest Uncles, although Remus is cagey about their relationship and insists they're just best pals that live together until Harry is old enough to call bullshit, and Sirius just shrugs like 'yeah, he's weird about it. If you ask him about it he'll run away to Turkey. I'm working on it.'

Wowwww okay I have so many more but I have to stop somewhere. I hope you don't regret asking this question anon! You have opened Pandora's box

[thekidsarentalright]

the last of the real ones is like one of the most insane love songs ever made if u think about it like. the soulmate-ism us against the world you are my everything, the whole world could blow up and it would still be the two of us at the end of it all makes me absolutely sick

[nonstandardrepertoire]

as a Jewish transsexual, the Jewish ethno-nationalist¹ sales pitch has always left me cold.² over and over again, i've heard people plugging the State of Israel offer some form of the following: "history teaches that we can never fully trust non-Jews with political power to protect Jews; the only way to make sure Jewish people are always safe is to create and maintain a state where Jewish people have the political power, so we can look out for ourselves"

but the thing is, the worst transphobic harassment i've experienced in my life has come from Jews. i don't think this says anything about the relative transphobia of Jews vs non-Jews, anymore than the fact that most of my birthday presents come from New Yorkers says anything about the relative generosity of Californians, but still. the people who followed me out of the subway filming me while yelling transphobic abuse were Jewish. two of the most relentless boosters of the current wave of transphobia in the US — Ben Shapiro and Chaya Raichik — are Jewish. i should be safe in a state run by such people?

and the obvious response is to say that, well, this is about keeping me safe as a Jew, not necessarily as an anything else. it's a bulwark against anti-Jewish violence, not every other -ism under the sun.³ but the thing is, i'm not a potato-head person. you can't just snap off the trans part of me and the Jewish part of me and say the latter part is safe even when the first isn't. i'm 100% Jewish and 100% trans; if i'm not safe as a transsexual, i'm not safe as a Jew. and if i'm going to be having to fight transphobia anyway, what difference does it make if the people passing bills stripping my rights are Jews or not?⁴

if you really lean into the logic at play here — "no one outside a vulnerable demographic can be trusted to care about people in that demographic" — it's easy to wind up in absurdity. because if i can't trust goyim to have my back as a Jew and also can't trust cis people to have my back as a transsexual, perhaps i need a state run by and for Jewish transsexuals. but wait! white Jewish transsexuals are certainly regularly horrible to, eg, Black Jewish transsexuals, so we probably shouldn't be in the same state together, to say nothing of separating out the poor, the disabled, those without college degrees . . . and before you know it, you're committed to the idea that the only just world is one where we're each a state unto ourselves, perfectly safe in absolute isolation from one another — no society, no coming together across difference to lighten the burden of living, just infinite atomization, the perfect unending unwinnable war of all against all

and this, i think, reveals the fundamental futility of the project. as a transsexual, i don't think my safety will ultimately come from removing myself from people not like me. safety, i think, comes not from cutting ties, but from building them. i will only really be safe in a society that accepts difference, multiplicity, strangeness, variety. i will only be truly safe in a society where we come together — across the gulfs that separate us — to take care of one another

i think there are illuminating parallels with feminist/lesbian separatism here. in its most extreme versions, such separatism abandons the demand that women be safe around men and instead attempts the task of building a space without men for women to inhabit. similarly, it seems to me that Jewish ethno-nationalism abandons the demand that Jewish people be safe around goyim and instead attempts to build a space without goyim for Jewish people to inhabit.⁵ i think Jews can and must be safe among goyim. i think women can and must be safe among men. i think trans people can and must be safe among cis people. that is the kind of world i am committed to fighting for, not one where we give in to fear and retreat into gardens walled by suspicion and hostility⁶

i'm not going to pretend that that's an easy world to build.⁷ i'm not going to pretend i can point to a bunch of stable, just, pluralistic societies and go "eh, just do what they did!" (altho there's no shortage of societies i can point to that went the "this place is for us and only us" route and wound up producing dystopian nightmares⁸). i'm not even going to pretend that i think building a just world from where we are now is inevitable, or even that i always think it is possible. there are days it is very hard to believe. but i always think it's worth striving for. if a just world that guarantees a good life to all isn't worth striving for, what is? if we are to suffer defeat, let it be a slow defeat, a long defeat, a fighting defeat. i am not willing to give up on my neighbors. i am not willing to abandon the charge of seeking the good for those not like me. i am not willing to abandon the hope that will seek the good for me despite my strangeness to them. and i reject any philosophy or politics that asks me to do so

_________________________________________________

¹i'm using "Jewish ethno-nationalist" here because i think it's been subject to less semantic dilution than "Zionist", and i want to avoid semantic arguments here as much as possible. whatever prescriptivist arguments you want to marshal that this or that term should mean X, i think it's clear that the descriptivist ship has long since set sail when it comes to "Zionism". (when pushed for specifics, i've seen self-professed Zionists and anti-Zionists outline essentially identical political programs, which certainly makes it seem to me that these terms are of minimal utility at best)

²obviously, what's happening on the ground is very bad. but critiquing what's happening on the ground often runs into severe questions of evidential reliability and can also leave the impression that Jewish ethno-nationalism is a good idea implemented badly, which is why i want to take aim at this level here

³given the European origins of this movement in its modern incarnation, i think it's unsurprising who gets imagined as "just a Jew" and not any other marked category. and from there, i think it's also unsurprising (if depressing) how various Jews who do exist in other marked categories have been and are treated by the "Jewish State" — the promised safety turns out to be predicated on all the usual axes of whiteness, wealth, ability, and so on

⁴indeed, i have often found that groups predicated on the idea that "we're all in alignment here" are often much more resistant to acknowledging members' various bigotries than groups not predicated on that assumption

⁵and, similarly, this attempt to cleave the world along one axis of hierarchy invariably reveals the inadequacy of one-identity-only frameworks for tackling the full complexity of the world. among other things, feminist/lesbian separatism has come under sustained critique from Black feminists like Barbara Smith for sundering ties of solidarity that are critical for fighting racism. victimhood and oppression are not fixed, ontological states, but fluid, shifting, contextual relationships. we cannot undo the snarlingly intertwined systems of oppression by replicating them in miniature

⁶the fear is certainly a real emotion; it is one i have felt at times myself. sometimes it is even based on an accurate perception of the world! but also: sometimes not. my fear of kitchen knives spontaneously levitating and flying around the room certainly feels real to me, but it's not a thing that can actually happen. one of the really hard things to do in the world, i've found, is parsing out the fears that are just feelings i'm having from the fears that tell me actual actionable information about the world and then striking a livable balance between reasonable precaution and paranoia. precautions against danger often come with their own set of risks: locking a door to keep out potential thieves ups the odds of being trapped in a building fire; using a different complex password for every site raises the risk of forgetting one and having a critical account shut down; the medications that drastically cut the frequency of debilitating migraines can raise the likelihood of other adverse health effects. more broadly, viewing neighbors with suspicion, fear, and distrust has a corrosive effect on the social fabric, and makes it harder to structure society to make sure everyone has food, clothes, housing, healthcare — all the things a society is supposed to do. (it's hard to convince people to take care of people they're afraid of, especially if they believe (rightly or wrongly) that they will have to give up something they care about (usually money, but also convenience, prestige, power) for that to happen.) and that corrosive effect can get very extreme — when fascism wants to recruit you to its cause, the sales pitch is usually less "hey, do you want to unleash horrific violence against those folks over there?" and more "hey, aren't you tired of being ~afraid~? don't you want to feel ~safe~? isn't it about time you had all the wealth, respect, and power that's rightfully yours and that's been kept from you for so long?". fear isn't the only way that horrors get unleashed, but it's a very potent one. (i don't think there's a formula for striking the right balance here. as with so many balancing acts, too much comes down to context and the specifics of all those involved, not least because the scale and nature of threats can vary so wildly. i believe that everyone deserves to be safe (insofar as any of us mostly hairless apes clinging to a thin crust of dirt on an iron ball whirling thru the cosmic void around a sphere of nuclear fire can be safe from loss, grief, accident, disaster, or misfortune...), but being and feeling are different matters, and pursuing the feeling of safety without limit can easily lead to logics of annihilation.) (and indeed, i am not the first to be struck by the fact that in many ways it is in the interests of the State of Israel, as a state, if Jews feel unsafe in the rest of the world, because that feeling of unsafety is so easily leveraged to both increase political support for the State of Israel and encourage Jewish people to leave the Diaspora and move to the State of Israel. which, unnervingly, is where you sometimes find the State of Israel and its agents taking the position that Jews don't belong anywhere that isn't the immediate environs of Jerusalem, a position that is ultimately indistinguishable from any number of dime-store Judeophobias)

⁷indeed, i think this is one of many places where it's easier to identify the problem than it is to solve it. many middle schoolers can explain the problem of Fermat's Last Theorem; barely a handful of professional mathematicians in the world could explain the proof. my cat can figure out how to break a vase even tho he can't reliably find a toy he's just been playing with when he's sitting directly on top of it (it's fine, he doesn't follow me on here, i can say that about him); in some cases, a skilled artisan can repair the vase so it functions again; no one in the world can turn back time so that the vase was never broken to begin with. it's easy to invent chessboard solutions to entrenched societal conflicts — move this border here, enact this constitution there, change this societal attitude for all involved, and hey presto!, utopia. but the world is not a game of chess. education, advocacy, activism, political organization, even wildcat direct action — these are all slow, effortful, uncertain processes, and everyone with a different vision of the future is also exercising their agency to change the course of events. i think societies are easy to break and hard to repair. in many cases, i don't really know how we go from here, the real world as it actually is with all its shattered bones and aching wounds and long-festering resentments, to there, a world of true justice. but i think it's worth trying. i think it's worth imagining. i hope you do too

⁸like, idk what even to say if "Germany for the Germans" doesn't set off alarm bells. even if they raised up a brand new continent from the ocean floor, i still think i'd be wary of the political project of building a ~Jewish state for the Jews~. i don't trust nationalism of any flavor. i think the Diasporic notion of feeling kinship with and responsibility for people all around the world regardless of borders, flags, kings, bureaucracies is beautiful and worth cherishing and protecting. i don't dream of finally being on top of the hierarchy; i dream of there not being a hierarchy to begin with

[astro-witchery]

— 🅘🅝🅣🅡🅞 —

My name is Sasha. I am a cosmic/astro/lunar witch. This means: I do a lot of rituals around the moon cycles, I tend to also do intention setting based on lunar phases, and live my life by astrological and cosmic patterns and magic.

I am also an astrologer (I’ve been practicing and studying for over 6 years). I’m a Sagittarius sun, Sagittarius moon, and Cancer ascendant in Tropical Astrology. {Scorpio Sun, Sagittarius Moon, and Gemini Ascendant in Western Sidereal.} I study all types of astrology but I’m most well versed in Western Tropical and am studying Traditional Hellenistic Tropical Astrology to blend the aspects of both together.

I also do tarot, oracle, & dabble with other forms of divination. Plus, I believe myself to be claircognizant and use this to help aide in my witchery.

I consider myself an Agnostic Pagan and Witchy. I am also and animist. I identified as a Hellenic Polytheist for a while but have recently decided to explore my ancestry and it’s relation to other spiritual paths (absolutely not in a folkish or racist way btw!) I am adopted and it’s always been really hard for me, not being able to explore my ancestry and do ancestor work within my spiritual practice.

I am possibly a mix of Anglo-Saxon, Devon, & Cornish descent. My adopted family is of Scottish, Welsh, & French descent. I’m still putting together my biological family tree. This very hard for me to do as I don’t have a lot of access to info being an adoptee. (I am not claiming I have certain rights to cultures because of this, I am just trying to learn about my ancestors and their spiritual practices to find answers about my own inherent beliefs about spirituality that I was born with.)

I have always had a love for religious and philosophical studies. I had very profound spiritual experiences at a very young age (for example: I knew I was reincarnated without even really knowing what death was or about spirituality). Most people in these spaces have a similar story to starting off Christian and not being satisfied (or being traumatized) by their church. I grew up Baptist and when I could explore other options after I left home I did.

I currently research: Christian Sects (especially Catholicism and Greek Orthodoxy, but also really enjoy niche fringe sects and “folk Catholicism” or “Christian Witchcraft”), Pagan and Polytheistic religions (Hellenic Polytheism, Proto Indo-European Polytheism, Anglo-Saxon Heathenry, Norse Heathenry, & Celtic Polytheism or more specifically Cornish/Devon/Welsh Druidism), Hinduism, Buddhism, Atheism, and honestly I could add more to list but I don’t want to ramble on. This does not mean I am an eclectic witch or that I mix pantheons or practices, I just enjoy reading/studying all types of world religions and I’m still searching for the right practice for me.

This is just a place where I can share and reblog helpful info and share aspects of my craft ~

☾ ⁂ ——————— 🜸☆

𖦹 This Account Stands Against Bigotry 𖦹

This account is accepting of all people of all religions and belief systems that are not harmful to others. This account is a safe space for LGBTQA+ identities, disabled folks, mentally ill folks, plural/multiple folks, & strangers/travelers/homeless folks. This account is against racism, homophobia, transphobia, antisemitism, ALL the problematic isms.

I don’t do DNIs bc I prefer to block people.

I am happy that you are here! If I follow you back it will be from my main account @s4shiii

Feel free to send asks to get to know me more, to inquire about readings, or ask astrological questions. I do offer full paid astrological natal chart readings in Western Tropical & I also offer tarot card readings all for a sliding scale price! ~

[ofthehands]

The Swing

A short fic about the swing made of railroad ties in the Sawyer's yard. ~3,300 words. Warnings for general Sawyer-isms/ some implied child abuse. It's a little sad, but not too heavy.

It was a hot summer morning. Jedidiah sat outside, with his eyes closed tight, and his hand over his wife’s. It was so hot outside her skin felt warm, and he could almost convince himself she was still alive. Jedidiah had no intention of moving, of ruining the moment he had with his Edith. Until he felt a soft tug at his shirt sleeve. He opened his eyes slowly, and looked down at his youngest grandson. 

The little one was his favorite from the moment he was born. His oldest grandson was too much like him- in the face, in his heart, and in his heavy hands. When Jedidiah looked at Drayton, he could only see his mistakes. The middle boys- the twins- he was a little more fond of. There was novelty in having twins in the family again, his aunts were twins. But those boys were near rabid, and had the thinner, more weaslish features of their father. The twitchier of the two- either Nubbins or Bobby, Jedidiah honestly couldn’t remember- tried to get in his good graces, and would sometimes lay against his leg, calm-like and just talk to him. But the pair quickly fell into wrestling with each other again, and harassing their brothers. It was just their nature, like an old barn cat they would always be a little wild. Junior was special. He had a softer voice, and he was as kind hearted as it was possible for a Sawyer to be. And he had Edith’s eyes. There was something about that- something that got to Jedidiah’s cold old heart. Even though Edith was dead, gone for a long time, their love still persisted, still existed in the world in Junior’s face, and gentle hands, and the way he sang and hummed softly to himself. He was a special boy. Jedidiah loved him more than anything. 

Which was why, when the boy came to him with a problem of any sort, he did his absolute best to fix it. Junior made those soft noises he did, and whimpered, and held something out to Jedidiah. Jedidiah had to pull it close to his face to see it. His vision was going. At his age, everything was going. 

It was a broken chain link, and little Junior kept pointing at it, and babbling, and pointing to something else, something further. Jedidiah stood, slow and unsteady, and Junior grabbed his arm, supporting him gently. 

“Show me.” 

It was the swing. The Sawyers had an old white bench swing. The paint had chipped over the years, and it was rickety as all hell. And apparently, when little Junior sat on it, it broke. Well, Junior wasn’t exactly little. He had always been a big boy, with big hands and feet. Jedidiah figured he would end up the tallest of the brothers, though he didn’t tell that to the twins, who were constantly trying to one up each other, and teasing their older brother with threats of catching up to him soon. Regardless, Junior was a big boy, and it was an old swing. Jedidiah would have to get creative if he wanted to keep it from breaking on him again. The world would keep spinning ‘round, with or without Jedidiah in it, and he wanted to make sure the swing stayed up for his grandson year after year. 

“Don’t worry, Junior,” he said, his voice sounding weak even to his own ears. “Grandpa’ll fix it up.” 

It was the biggest project he had taken on in years. But it felt good. He used to take on things like that all the time- fixing stuff up around the house, and working on furniture, and when they came out, working on cars. But, his hands got shakier, his mind fuzzier, and his body weaker, so his projects had slowed down. It felt good to be doing it again, to be working with his hands and with his body. He had fixed the chain first, reconnecting it where it had broken in the middle with the piece of chain Junior had handed him and a pair of pliers. Junior sat at his side, clapping his hands and chattering occasionally, and watching with rapt attention. Jedidiah looked around at the surrounding trees, but they were all either too high up or too thin to support Junior’s weight long term, especially if he got as big as Jedidiah thought he would. So he started to scrounge around the property, looking for something sturdy enough, with little Junior helping to hold him up. 

It got to noon, or some time close to it, and he had still found nothing. He knew it was around noon, because the twins ran out of the house like someone had lit a fire under their asses so they could harass their eldest brother as he pulled up in the driveway. All that had happened was Drayton had come home from the gas station for lunch before he went back out, but for the twins it was one of the most exciting happenings of the day. Or, at least any day they didn’t catch some poor animal and drag it back into the house to play with. 

“Drayton! Drayton!” yelled the more talkative one. Jedidiah couldn’t honestly tell the twins apart, especially not that far away. The talkative one- Nubbins? Bobby? Jed was pretty sure it was Bobby- lunged at his brother the moment he got out of the car, throwing his whole body at him. The boy was only 12, and Drayton caught him, lifting him off the ground, to his great amusement. The quieter, twitchier one snuck up on him, then jumped at his back, trying to scale him like a squirrel running up a tree. 

“Wh- Goddamn- Nubbins- quit that!” Drayton yelped, tossing the brother in his hands back to the ground, where he started rolling in the dirt, laughing, as his older brother tried to grab Nubbins off his back. Nubbins tried his best to claw and bite his brother like a wild animal, which Bobby seemed to find hilarious, especially as it further pissed off Drayton. Nubbins didn’t break skin when he bit family members, usually, but it was still the kind of foolishness that made Jedidiah a little less fond of the twins. Junior was a good boy, rarely if ever up to foolishness, and whose occasional foolishness was usually related to the schemes of the twins. Drayton managed to dislodge Nubbins, and toss him at his other brother. It seemed to knock the wind out of them, but the boys were up and laughing and trying to roughhouse in a heartbeat, so Jedidiah didn’t worry. 

Those boys were as tough as they come- they probably wouldn’t have a mark on them, and it certainly didn’t ruin their mood. Junior was soft, emotionally- roughhousing too much with him upset him. And Drayton, when he was as young as they were, was a bit soft physically. He didn’t have any playmates, not really, but Jedidiah remembered how the boy had developed a habit of wearing long sleeve shirts in 100 degree heat, shamefully trying to hide handprints bruised onto fragile skin. Jedidiah always thought he might be soft with the boys, and honestly he was softer with his brothers than their father had been with him, but he had a temper that got the better of him at the worst of times. But, the boys had learned that quickly, about their big brother, and they were good at understanding when he was playing with them, and when to scurry like rats, into corners of the house they thought he might not find them in.

 It was good they had a strong man’s presence in the house. Jedidiah had his suspicions about Drayton, and he would put money on his grandson’s status as a confirmed bachelor, but it hadn’t held him back from being a solid male presence in his younger brother’s lives. Which, with their father gone and Jedidiah’s health failing, they would need. Jedidiah worried only about the lack of a woman in the house, but there was nothing really could be done about that. Drayton wouldn’t bring home a wife, and Jedidiah was happy with Edith- he had one true love and a wonderful life with her. He didn’t want more. So the boys would have to make do being raised by their Grandpa and their brother. Jedidiah was confident his boys would turn out fine. He just hoped he was around to see it. 

By the time Jedidiah was done thinking about all that, he and Junior had almost walked all the way to the front door. He used to be quicker. He had been a strong man, and a fast one too. When the old sheriff had come by their house yappin’ about a serial killer Jedidiah had run him down like a dog and beat him to death in one clean hit with the sledge. Nowadays, though, just walking down to the mailbox was an all day trip. He sighed a little, and Junior noticed, looking up at him, and slowing down a little. He made a soft noise, questioning, probably asking if Jedidiah was alright. 

“Grandpa’s fine, boy. Just thinkin’ is all.” He wished Junior would talk, the boy was at least seven years old now and he should have been talking a long time ago, but that just never happened. Jedidiah had gotten comfortable with the idea that he probably wasn’t going to. That was alright. He loved Junior regardless, and he knew, even if he never said the words, that his boy loved him too. 

He needed to get his boy’s swing fixed. 

“Oh, Grandpa, you’re uh- lookin’ bright eyed and bushy tailed today! You uh- you want some lunch? I- I got some fresh sausages today, cooked ‘em myself down at the gas station-” Drayton came up to them, rambling as usual. 

“Boy, I need you to do somethin’ for me,” Jedidiah said, putting a hand on his arm. Drayton’s eyes lit up. He liked to feel useful. “You know those railroad ties, them big logs those fellers that own that roofin’ business got?” 

“Oh, yeah- I- I seen those-”

“I need you to steal me some. Three, maybe four. Can you do that for me?” It wouldn’t be easy, for damn sure. 

“Uh.. Yeah- I’m- I’ll figure it out.” 

Jedidiah had to admit he was a little surprised when Drayton actually managed it. Drayton got home in the evening, a little earlier than expected, and brought the railroad ties with him. Drayton and the twins helped to unload them. Then Jedidiah got to work. He managed most of it on his own, with Junior or the twins occasionally coming out to watch him work on it, or to ‘help’. But, eventually, it got a little too hard to finish on his own. Jedidiah had worn himself out with the measurements, and the construction of the damn thing. He had built it laying down- that was the only way he could build it- and he still needed to get the back legs on the thing, which was going to be a bitch, and then tilt it all back up. He didn’t have the strength to do it, and even though Junior was a big boy, he doubted the two of them could get it done alone. 

“Junior, get your brothers,” Jedidiah said. “All of ‘em.” 

The boys didn’t question what Jedidiah told them, at least not too much. Drayton and the twins held up one of the back legs of the thing, while Jedidiah attached it. His hands were getting shaky, and weak, and he wasn’t sure how much more of this his old body could take. Junior sat in rapt attention, watching as he attached the first one. 

“I want all you little’uns outta the way now- we gonna see if it can hold itself up.”  The younger boys cleared, the less coordinated twin tripping over his feet, and being pulled up by the talkative one. Drayton was the only thing holding up the leg now. He was a grown man, but not an impressively strong man, but he wasn’t struggling. That was a good sign. It was probably holding its own weight. Which needed to happen- Jedidiah might not be able to attach the other leg if this one failed- he just didn’t have that kind of energy. “Alright. That looks good. Get on out of the way, boy.” Drayton moved, and let it hang. The leg stayed up on its own, and Jedidiah grinned. The swing wasn’t the most elegant thing he had ever built, but it was working. They just had to get the last leg on, and then tip it up, and it would be a job well done. 

“G-Grandpa, I-I’m gettin’ tired,” the twitchy twin said. 

“It won’t be much longer, hold still, damnit!” Jedidiah snapped. That was probably a lie. His hands wouldn’t cooperate any more, he could barely hold the tools he was working with, much less use them. Junior made a soft noise, and he looked up, still glaring a little. Junior held out his hand. And Jedidiah relented. 

He guided Junior, step by step, through putting the last leg of the swing on. Sometimes, he had to lay his hands over Junior’s and show him how to do it physically,  but the boy was catching on fast. Jedidiah hated losing control, hated the feeling of his body breaking down. But in that little moment everything felt alright. 

It was more permanent. One day he wasn’t going to be there. He would be dead, though likely never gone, out on the porch next to Edith, preserved, but not present. But Junior would still have his swing. And come what may- stormy weather or the inevitable grip of time- Junior would know how to fix it. Jedidiah knew he wasn’t long for this world. But he also knew his boys were going to be alright. 

They got the last leg attached, and the twins cheered and ran off before he told them to. Fortunately for Drayton, who was still under the damn thing, it was attached well. 

“Boys, get back over here!” Jedidiah tried to yell. His voice didn’t carry enough and the two of them kept springing around the yard. “I thought them little shits was tired,” he huffed. 

“Nubbins! Bobby! Get your asses over here!” Drayton yelled. The boys listened, unenthusiastically, but they listened. 

“B-but we finished it!” said the smaller one. 

“We finished it, we finished it!” the talkative one repeated, jumping up and down. 

“Yeah,” Jedidiah said. “And now we gotta tip it upright.” 

It took all the Sawyers to lift the damn thing, but when it went up, it flew back quick, landing on all fours with a slight bounce that sent the swing itself flying wildly. The younger boys thought that was funny, laughing and cheering and clapping their hands. And Jedidiah felt proud. Until the damn swing hit the frame and all the remaining white paint popped off like some kind of gag. Then he was mad as hell. 

“Damn it  all!” he snapped. He would have stormed off if he had the energy, but he didn’t, so he just stood there sullenly, shaking his head. That swing had been white the whole time they had it- since before any of the little ones were born, before Drayton was born, before Edith-

“W-wait Grandpa, we- we still got some ol’ white paint out in the shed. We could let the boys paint it up nice, and then have dinner, and then it’ll prob’ly be dry,” Drayton said. “Good as new!” It certainly wouldn’t be good as new. But Jedidiah figured it was better than nothing. 

The boys got a kick out of painting the old swing. Drayton fetched Jedidiah a chair, and let him sit out there and watch them while he made dinner. Junior did it nicely, trying to have some artistry to it. The twitchier twin- Nubbins, Jedidiah was half-sure that was Nubbins- tried to do something similar for a while, before his counterpart spattered him with paint on purpose. Then the pair quickly turned to playing with it, painting each other more than the bench. 

“Boys- quit waistin’ that paint. You know how hard that’ll be to get out of your clothes? Your brother’s gonna have a fit when he sees that.” The boys only sort of listened to their Grandpa, but he couldn’t find it in his heart to be mad at them. 

The bench got painted, and he was shocked it turned out as well as it did. They went in for dinner, and the twins told everyone about their day, and the hornytoads they had been terrorizing. It was nice. The boys only got along so often, for so long, but it had been a good day. For once, just for a little while, there was peace. Jedidiah wished there had been more of that. He wished, for just a second, that they didn’t live like they did, that he could pretend the boys had some shot, that they could have good lives, that anything could live in this house, and live well. But he was suddenly overwhelmed with dread. His boys had been shot in the foot at the start of the race. There was nothing they could do, no one in their corner. Except for each other. God, he hoped they remembered to be good to each other.

Jedidiah did his best to hide all that worry- and to chase the dread away. His boys would be fine. Outsiders would hate them sure, but they didn’t need outsiders. They would be fine by themselves. 

After dinner, the family made their way back outside. Drayton touched the bench a few times, and said it was dry, but as Jedidiah sat down it still felt a little sticky. He would have been mad about that, when he was a younger man. But it was a good day. He just sort of chuckled. Junior sat down on the bench with him, starting to swing them both back and forth. Jedidiah was bone tired, nearly asleep right there. Night time had come over them. The stars were out, and bright, and too many to count. He looked out at the field. Drayton was playing with the twins. Jedidiah had seen it happen a thousand times, so he was certain the boys had teased and annoyed him till he got up and chased them around a little, which devolved into a game of tag when they outran him long enough for him to cool down. Well, it was something like tag. Drayton was chasing the boys around, occasionally picking one of them up and spinning him or tipping him upside down, much to the twins’ great amusement. It was nice. Jedidiah rested his eyes for just a minute. He could hear them, still, the boys laughing and squealing as they were caught, and the soft song of crickets. Junior was humming something he couldn't quite recognize. He held his hand out and the boy caught it. He rubbed circles on the top of his little hand, and tried to commit that night to memory. There had been bad times. So many bad times. But there was good. His little family had nothing else. But they had each other. And in that moment, Jedidiah felt like it might be enough. He didn’t mean to, but he drifted off to sleep. He hadn’t even thought he could fall asleep on that swing, didn’t realize it till he woke up inside, in his chair, next to Edith. He could hear laughter from the other room. Trying to be quiet, but filled with just a little too much joy. He didn’t mind being woken up at all. He smiled a little, and took Edith’s hand. 

“We done good,” he told her softly. “In spite of everythin’... It turned out alright.” 

Grandpa didn’t stand again. Drayton said the day he fixed the swing must have been one last ‘hoo-rah’ from his body before it gave out. That made sense to Bubba. He could rarely remember Grandpa standing as long as he did that day, even with the help of one of his grandsons. 

The years went on, and the old swing remained. It was impressively sturdy, Bubba could sit in it with the twins sometimes. But, most often, it was just him and Grandpa. When he could, when his chores were done or if Drayton and the twins kept fighting too loud, Bubba would take Grandpa outside, and sit him down in the chair, and just swing with him. Bubba never knew why Grandpa liked that swing so much that he spent his last big push of energy on fixing it, but Bubba enjoyed it too. And, more importantly, he liked spending time with his Grandpa.

[octosan]

I still want to do my dragon age AU (that I've not discussed much on this blog but still) but I think now I have an added incentive of trying to re-establish my own peace of mind by doing so dkfgkdfkgfds

I'm not the kind of fanfic writer that can just make up entirely different stories apart from canon wholecloth. My AU will inevitably have a lot of stuff "from" Veilguard (and admittedly again, there was a lot of stuff I liked in a vacuum and sooo much supplementary material that the game simply didn't do justice to) but I have the freedom of what-if-isms to make it extraordinarily different in terms of the plot and narrative framing within those bounds.

As for my "canon" Worldstates coming out of Inquisition, well, idk, it bothers me that they aren't AUs I can do the same thing to. I can't even say "well they exist in the Joplin timeline" because Joplin is all conceptual and idk what that game would have looked like on release or how they wanted it to end.

But I definitely don't want their stories to end like they did in Veilguard.

I guess, broadly, and assuming this takes place in a better written game than we got-

Inquisitor Adaar - the Best Worldstate. The most political reform across Thedas, the best equipped to handle the Blight, so Southern Thedas ended up being way more okay than suggested in canon. In the end allowed Solas to tear down the Veil and use it to somehow make a place in Thedas for the ancient elves that were retconned out of the previous game as well as heal the spirits trapped on the other side, with the caveat that he did a lot of work throughout the game with Rook to make this possible without just destroying everything. Extremely messy concept but I mean the devs want to have a clean slate and destroyed most of the known world to do it so the veil coming down could have just been an option anyway.

Inquisitor Lavellan (Seravellan) - Similar to Adaar but her grudge against Solas because of his betrayal and the flaws of previous heroes before her leads her to fail a bit harder to make this into a better world and repel the effects of the Blight. Potentially her Rook convinces Solas to peacefully seal the Veil off with his lifeforce but it's just kicking the can along the road.

Inquisitor Trevelyan - Absolutely abysmal worldstate where Southern Thedas fell to the Blight, Solas was not convinced of shit, and Rook had to seal themselves and him into the Veil and leave a ruined Thedas with a ticking timebomb. That enemies-to-lovers Solrook tho

[broodsys]

was talking with my friends and i'm still having thinky thoughts about this so:

my opposition to all censorship | my opposition to the idea that anything has an inherent, absolute value/lack of value

my opposition to all censorship:

first and foremost, it is a slippery slope. if i advocate for any kind of censorship, if i promote that being an option, then i'm contributing to the idea that censorship is acceptable

it's never going to remain what i alone think should be censored. this has happened before. this is happening now

i find it incredibly important to stand firm against censorship in any way, shape, or form, and to openly advocate against censorship

yes, things can be harmful. they can be triggering. i have been triggered by media depictions! but that doesn't make them without value, imo

to say that bc smth hurt me it is without value to anyone forever would be ludicrously self-centered and egotistical; i am not the measuring stick for all of humanity, nor is anyone else

something that might hurt me could help someone else. could give them a moment of catharsis. could teach them about experiences outside their own. could provide insight into how unique and variable humanity is

intent v. impact. authorial intention may be one thing: it may be harmful, or lack forethought, or be based on institutionalized -isms

but that does not render it meaningless, because the impact - the effect - on people can be radically different than their intent

my opposition to the idea that anything has an inherent, absolute value/lack of value:

this is deeply related to the first part, but also stands alone outside of the context of media

one of my guiding principles is that nothing in the world is absolute, nor can it be viewed effectively as an absolute. nothing is a monolith. no group, no concept, no perception, nothing

i like to use gravity as an example. gravity is an accepted absolute thing... but even it is not absolute

all of science is based not on absolutes, but on the best interpretation of current data

when you work with the idea of absolutes in science, you limit yourself to seeing other possibilities

it was once considered an absolute that the sun revolved around the earth, but when people questioned that, when they studied it, they discovered that was not the case

if later on we discover that it's something else entirely, then our current and best understanding would no longer be the case. i find it important to keep this space for change

that said, i also want to use the best knowledge we have available

looking at gravity again, yes, i want planes designed based on our current understanding of gravity and physics

but if we find out that gravity is smth other than what we believe it to be now... that won't make our current studies meaningless

but it'll be harder to discover that - about anything - if we subscribe to an absolutist pov about it. a This Is True, This Is Truth perspective

going back to media... nothing is inherently harmful or inherently good

"good" things can harm some people - "harmful" things can help some people

i will advocate for harm reduction approaches, and i will acknowledge things that are more often harmful than not, but i won't promote censorship of things i or others find harmful, because that's accepting an absolutist point of view that is, imo, inherently false

[oh-my-damn]

If he really thought the criticism against Alba and her friends wasn’t valid he would have no problem still talking about social justice issues the way he used to before. If he really thought people were just making a mountain out of a molehill over “edgelord tweets” from 10 years ago because of envy, because they just can’t stand the fact that he has a girlfriend and it’s not them, he would have no issue adding politically-minded relevant content to his rotation of Instagram stories about tattoos, comedians and dogs looking at sunsets.

He owns and is the face of a political and civil education platform, for goodness sake. No one forced him to take on that project or coerced him into taking on that responsibility. He chose to do that because he claimed to be genuine and passionate about it and enjoyed all the glittering publicity as a result. Once he started ASP, it became reasonable to expect him to speak to current affairs regarding social justice. He really branded (yes) himself as wanting to be an activist of some sort, as wanting to do his little bit to be an agent of real change in the world, as working toward being an active anti-racist, as wanting to facilitate productive conversation between people with opposing views. He did that, no one else.

If he really thought there was nothing legitimate in the criticism of the behavior of Alba and her close friend group (however long ago) he would have no problem engaging in the way he used to - he could even do it through ASP and not his personal socials - but deep down he knows there’s something to the criticism. He knows it’s not completely baseless. He knows it says something about him. He could even afford to pay it lip service and say that he’s aware of people’s concerns but he’s confident that she and her friends are not those people, that becoming more socially aware is a process of unlearning, that he doesn’t support the ideas those tweets represent and that he’s still committed to things that inspired ASP.

I do think people belabour the point of the behavior in question and use it as a way of bullying Alba and being misogynistic (some of the language used toward her is really triggering) but I also think there’s something valid in the point and it’s spineless of him to remain this silent on the issue of her and her friends various “isms”. But, he knows. He knows that the way he portrayed himself a few years ago and the way he’s looking now don’t add up - and he doesn’t need to care because he’s got his multi-millions.

It’s just gross that he would have so much to say and get all that glowing praise from the media and the general public as his reward and now he’s wanting to protect that same glowing praise and use it as his cover and so he won’t speak up. He knows.

He absolutely knows.

Well said anon

[allegra-writes]

"And They Were Roommates" Part III

Armand x Daniel Molloy; Louis x Lestat

General Audiences

Warnings: General horniness, Daniel discovering the blue and pink light of bisexuality, graphic karaoke action, Lestat not beating the allegations of nepo baby-ism, Lestat probably singing about himself, cheesy 80s songs.

Another chapter by the incredible @faerywhimsy so please don't doubt about showing her some well deserved love.

Chapter 3: Karaoke Night

This wasn't the first time Daniel had hung out with Louis and Lestat. Hell, they'd been over at his place just the other night. He knew—and liked—Armand's friends plenty. Lestat was an utter riot. He was so over the top that it had made Alice's ultimatum look mild in comparison. Okay, no, that was still too soon. Louis, though, was quieter as well as the warmer of the two. Armand had made it pretty clear Louis had flirted with him once, when they'd first met, though Daniel hadn't registered it at the time.

"Do I need to be worried, now, that you and Louis are still such good friends?" Daniel had only thought to ask of Armand after the long, loooong make out session and more that had happened after Alice left him.

Thought hadn't been super high on Daniel's priority list before that. Learning the way Armand felt underneath his hands when it wasn't just a casual embrace, or leaning each other for movie night, that had been the most important thing. Licking his way clear along Armand's clavicle, which had been somehow driving Daniel's subconscious wild for at least a month, that had been a more important thing.

From the moment Armand had stalked across their living room and grabbed him by the collar of his polo, a lot of things from the past couple of weeks had suddenly become abundantly, inescapably clear.

For all that, Daniel didn't wanna be stepping on any other guy's toes, just because he didn't really get being bisexual yet. It... hadn't really felt good to him when Alice's voice had reached that pitch and she'd demanded of him something he hadn't been able to give. Armand was still his best friend. The absolute last thing Daniel wanted was to put Armand into any kind of situation like the one he'd just been in. The one Armand had basically stepped up and protected him from.

Armand, in response, had just given him and his question a cool, distant look.

Which prompted Daniel to say more words. "Look, I don't... I just don't wanna make you have to choose between us. Him or me, kinda like..."

Armand had only stepped forward then to press a finger against Daniel's lips. A finger he'd then replaced with his mouth.

Only when Armand was good and done with kissing him did Armand pull away. Daniel was in a daze. How long, he wondered, was it gonna be until his best friend-turned-best kisser in the actual world stopped pulling the carpet straight out from under him every time they touched?

What were movie nights on the couch even gonna feel like now?

"You don't need to worry about Louis," Armand had said, bringing Daniel's thoughts back to the present.

"Good." Daniel gave a little chuckle, even as he'd rubbed a hand over the back of his neck self consciously. "Cause I think Lestat is probably the jealous type."

There was a look on Armand's face then that Daniel didn't even begin to know how to read, let alone ask about.

Karaoke night. Daniel arrived with Armand, getting there later than Louis and Lestat who were already in the usual booth. It was a private booth with a pole near the edge of the stage, one of those spinny ones Daniel didn't have the least inclination or awareness on how to use. He was there to sing, not make an utter tit of himself by trying and failing to defy gravity.

He had seen Lestat eying it up a few times. That had been what might have inspired him to start a bit of a running bet with Louis as to how many weeks it would take before Lestat could be seen swinging around that pole. If it was tonight, it would sure take the sudden hyperfocus off Daniel and Armand's new relationship status.

Boyfriends. More than roommates. Daniel had never had a boyfriend before. Just the other day, he still thought he was straight.

Tonight, Armand had a proprietary arm draped over Daniel's shoulders in a flagrant sign of ownership. He'd been a little bit this way the night Louis and Lestat had come around to their place, but Daniel had mistakenly thought that demonstration had probably been just because it was still only so new. This was the first time they'd gone out together like this, and Daniel wasn't quite sure he would have been so comfortable with Armand's continuing outward display of physical affection if they'd been coming out tonight to see anyone other than Louis and Lestat.

"Hey guys." Daniel gave a wave because his hand was free, even if the movement of it was just a little curbed by the heaviness of Armand's arm. He was gonna play this cool. Totally cool.

Lestat was already looking over song choices, but Louis looked up to greet them from the booth and a ready jug of beer surrounded by four glasses. His smile was warm as he met first Armand's eyes, then Daniel's. Again, Daniel kinda wondered whether he had anything to worry about there. But Armand's arm never moved from across his shoulders, and Daniel trusted him. He really did.

"Hey Daniel. Armand." Louis. He patted the seating of the booth beside him, towards the back in the U-shape of the chair. Armand didn't move for a moment but, when he did, he led the way so that he would be sitting closest to Louis, which would leave Daniel closest to the edge, opposite Lestat.

"Ooh, I have the first one!" Lestat announced by way of greeting. There was a neon light in the room that lit up Lestat's locks like it was no one's business. With Daniel's dark hair and both Armand and Louis' skin, Lestat was far and away the brightest thing in the room, and that was before he grinned pointedly. "Do we want to know why you two are late?"

The waggling of his eyebrows that joined this query definitely suggested the follow up question, Sex before Karaoke, or after?

"You're early," Armand rejoined easily, not feeding into Lestat's tone at all.

Which, Daniel thought, looking over at Louis, was probably good. Louis had rolled his eyes and looked away from both his current- and his ex-boyfriends as though there was something very interesting about the damask wallpaper print on the back wall.

Lestat huffed out a breath, then made a show of looking down at a wrist watch that was likely more than the last three of Daniel's paychecks combined. Damn, Lestat was the lead singer in a band that was aspiring. The Vampire Lestat had hardly made headlines anywhere yet, so where did all his damn money come from? Vampires were so over anyway. Who did Lestat think he was? Anne Rice, or something?

"Perhaps," Lestat allowed eventually, in what was one of the least gracious acknowledgements of someone else being right Daniel thought he'd ever seen.

But he didn't say anything about that, because he was here to make a good impression tonight. As Armand's boyfriend.

"What's the song you picked?" Daniel asked gamely, because it was certainly a safer topic than anything else Lestat had started.

Louis shot him a look across the booth that was definitely grateful. Armand reached over and took Daniel's hand. And Lestat smiled widely at him. Daniel figured he'd made a pretty fair start to tonight.

"Well," Lestat said, and the opening chords to Nick Cave’s Red Right Hand began to play around them as Lestat all but skipped to the stage. He held the microphone stand with an experienced flourish, sending it forward towards the booth before pulling it back by the electrical cord.

It wasn’t the first time Daniel had seen Lestat in his element this way. What wasn’t really fair was the way he always claimed the first song. Daniel… didn't have the confidence Lestat did. Louis didn’t even sing most of the times they were here, so Lestat took twice the number of songs. Whose idea had it been to pick karaoke as the main regular catch up of this group? Daniel hardly had to guess. He just wondered what made Armand and Louis both agree to it.

None of that mattered right then, though. Because while Armand perused the song list, Daniel grew incredibly distracted by the way Armand had stared stroking little patterns across his palm.

He shuddered, only half paying attention to Lestat’s first performance, if even that much.

Lestat’s French accent was as subsumed as was more or less normal when he sang, but he gave he song particular inflections that were all his own. Nick Cave’s lyrics rolled from Lestat’s tongue as though they'd been written for him. He strutted back and forth during the instrumental sections. Lestat was a good looking man. Daniel was pretty sure he was allowed to think that kinda thing now. It all would have probably been very interesting, if not for Armand.

Yet, every time Daniel looked next to him to meet Armand's gaze, his boyfriend's brown eyes were still tilted down towards the song list. He didn't, not even once, look up to meet Daniel's eyes. And yet the tips of those clever fingers told Daniel that Armand's attention was never far from him.

The feeling was entirely mutual. It was definitely... very warm in here. Had they forgotten to put on the air conditioners tonight? Maybe Daniel needed to go see someone about this.

And yet, he could all too easily imagine Armand's fingers spreading to take his whole wrist within them if Daniel tried to move. So he stayed very, very still.

Daniel hazarded a glance towards Louis to see if he was aware of the growing hardness secretly happening in his pants, and with so little reason! But Louis only seemed to have eyes for Lestat as he rounded towards the end of Red Right Hand. Thank god for small mercies!

The next song was already beginning to play as Lestat came down from the stage. Daniel was still distracted but Armand, it seemed, had ended up picking something.

The country twang of the opening notes got Daniel's attention immediately. Hang on, what?

None of the four of them were on the stage. Lestat's eyebrows rose. "Who is singing this?" he demanded. It did not sound like a compliment.

Daniel glanced towards Armand. Unexpectedly, this time Armand actually was staring straight back at him. Daniel coughed out a laugh.

"Oh, you're on!" he crowed.

Daniel had recognised it immediately from those opening chords. Of course he had. This was the song that had been Armand’s ring tone on his phone for weeks.

Snorting, Daniel pushed himself up. If the song was playing anyway, Daniel had a point he wanted to make.

He was in this with Armand. Stupidly. Hornily. Completely.

The cheeky grin felt like it covered his whole face as he cupped the microphone in one hand. Armand hadn’t even tried to get out from the booth after him. That worked for Daniel. He'd sing this thing just for him.

Daniel picked it up seamlessly halfway through the first chorus, which were of course a repeat of the first half.

"I want you to want me. I need you to need me..."

He was thankful only that he'd chosen sturdy denim jeans for the night that would hide a host of sins under the lights he suddenly stood under. Between the song choice and the casual under table touching, Daniel felt horridly dishevelled. If he'd ever felt this way with Alice, he didn't remember it.

For half of the lyrics, Daniel wasn’t even in tune. But what he lacked in musical talent, he made up for with swagger. Just dancing back and forth. Shoulders moving up and down in time with the words, even more so every time the chorus came back.

“Didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I see you crying? Feelin' all alone without a friend, you know you feel like dying...”

By the time he came back to sit next to Armand, his dark hair was damp over his brow and he was convinced he’d just done his best performance ever on that stage.

His phone buzzed in his pocket before he sat down, and Daniel looked at it real quick.

A message from Armand. Who was sitting right in front of him now. I need you to need me 😘

Daniel leaned over. He was flushed and the whole world seemed amazing. “I do,” he whispered into Armand’s ear even as he fell back into the booth. Well, spoke the words normally rather than speaking over the music anyway.

Because Lestat was already back up on stage. And Daniel realised, oh, he loved this song! it was one of Lestat's own. How the fuck had Lestat managed to bribe the owners here to add it to the list? Did he really come here often enough for that? It was such a vanity project moment, and yet Lestat's cheeks and jawline were as pronounced as Daniel had ever seen them as he hummed out those opening notes. He was so involved in performing his own song here and like this that it didn't even seem to matter what the rest of them might be thinking.

For his part, Daniel knew Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene well enough from all the hours he'd spent listening to it on Myspace after he'd first heard it via Armand. Lestat didn't know this, but Daniel loved this song. He must have started mouthing along with the lyrics because, at some point, he noticed Lestat was pointing back at him. Daniel started, then pointed to his own self doubtfully. Lestat nodded, turning his hand around and crooking a finger back towards himself. The expression on his face while he sung seemed suggestive as hell.

No. Lestat couldn’t he serious. Daniel wasn’t just gonna go up there and join Lestat on singing his own damn song!

Except, karaoke was about fun. And Lestat looked like he was having a lot of fun up there. More than that, he wanted Daniel to join him.

There was still a light sheen of sweat against Daniel’s brow from the last song. Armand wasn't even touching him again yet, so this was a good time to go if he was gonna. His hard on had definitely calmed down during his time on stage. He found himself slowly sliding towards the end of the booth, only looking back at Armand only once. Armand nodded his head encouragingly.

Ah fuck it. He knew these lyrics back to front and wouldn’t even need to look at the prompter. Maybe Daniel could learn something about Lestat’s showmanship while he was up there.

Daniel downed the last of his beer before wholly committing to stepping out of the booth. Lestat had finished off the second chorus as Daniel leaned into the mic. He was surprised to find, as he begin the second verse, that Lestat didn’t sing it with him. Raising his eyebrows up to Lestat, he saw only that Lestat had taken half a step back and minimising his performance just to clicking both hands every other beat.

Oh, that wouldn’t do.

From somewhere in TV as a child, Daniel pulled out the finger waggle. Combined it with some steps he’d picked up from too many watches of Grease over the years. If they were doing this, they were doing it.

Lestat’s blond eyebrows lifted high, but he easily joined Daniel in the dance moves. The chorus was upon them before Daniel knew it and he and Lestat belted it out alongside each other.

“-straw blond hair, his arms hard and lean, he's the angel of small death and the codeine scene-”

It was hard to stand this close to Lestat without seeing the physical resemblance of him to the lyrics they sung.

At some point, Daniel looked out to Armand and Louis and saw Armand had pulled out the the small handheld camcorder he brought with him everywhere for ‘just in case’ moments.

By the last chorus, Lestat decided Daniel’s “moves” wouldn’t suffice any longer. Instead, dredged out some pop moves from the 80s and 90s and Daniel could help but laugh as he recognised them and followed through with him.

If he’s been sweaty after the last song, it was nothing compared to how he felt now. Daniel had come up here to have fun, and had worked out to have the time of his life. He was laughing and whistling at Lestat as they both came down from the stage, Lestat simply clapping in his direction and laughing as though he couldn’t contain it any better than Daniel.

The only downside was that, in their absence, Louis and Armand had finished off the jug of beer between them. And Daniel had finished what he'd had left of his own glass before he'd stepped up on that stage.

“Guess it’s my shout,” Daniel said, grimacing.

But, of course, Armand wouldn’t have that. He pulled a note out of his shirt pocket and handed it to Daniel. Cause of course he did. He'd been doing this far longer than they'd been boyfriends. Daniel didn't even see a point in arguing the topic with his fancy law intern boyfriend before he caught it between two forefingers then lifted it in a salute.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Colin Wright

Published: Mar 27, 2023

In a world flooded with information, the ability to discern fallacious reasoning is an indispensable skill to safeguard oneself against the tides of unreason. A skilled orator or debater, however, can easily obscure their faulty logic through the seductive power of rhetoric. One way to safeguard your mind against such manipulation is to expose yourself to specific fallacies and their related forms in advance so you can better spot them in the wild.

One of the most widespread and effective fallacies that activists, as well as prestigious journals and news outlets, continue to propagate is the Univariate Fallacy. The word “univariate” means “one variable,” and this fallacy works by concentrating on a single variable while ignoring all else in order to deceive people into accepting a distorted picture of reality.

Importantly, there are two versions of the Univariate Fallacy that you should be acquainted with. One version is blatantly applied broadly across many issues and is used to invent or exaggerate group differences, while the other is more cryptic and applied more narrowly to reduce or eliminate appearance of real group differences.

The first, more common version of the Univariate Fallacy serves as the foundation for virtually all “equity” initiatives that aim to eliminate outcome disparities for various identity groups based on immutable traits like race, sex, and gender identity. The reasoning behind this approach is premised on the mistaken belief that group disparities are in and of themselves proof of systemic injustice, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and a host of other -phobias and -isms.

Regrettably, these group disparities are routinely (if not invariably) calculated by comparing population averages of a single variable across groups without considering any confounding variables. This flawed methodology often leads people to adopt beliefs that are true in a very superficial and naive sense, yet false in a much deeper and relevant sense.

For instance, it is often claimed that black Americans are incarcerated at higher rates than other races without controlling for crime rates, or that black Americans are more likely to be victims of police shootings than other races without controlling for police encounters. There’s also the purported “wage gap” that asserts women are paid 77 cents for every dollar a man earns without controlling for differences in occupations, positions, education, job tenure, or hours worked per week. In each of these instances, the apparent disparities dissolve when a more appropriate and rigorous multivariate methodology is adopted.

The second and more cryptic version of the Univariate Fallacy is essentially the inverse of the first version—it is not used to invent or exacerbate perceived group differences, but rather to minimize or eliminate them altogether. This is most often deployed in the realm of sex differences, and even to the categories male and female themselves.

To minimize or eliminate the appearance of real sex differences, it is common for activists and activist scientists to insist that in order for differences to be considered real, they must be absolute; that is, it must be shown that these differences reduce to some single factor that clearly and categorically separate all males from all females. In practice, this means that no matter how stark an average sex difference may be, if someone is able to point to a single instance where that trait overlaps, they will insist the difference is not significant or materially real.

Take height, for example. Males and females differ in their average height, but because this difference isn’t absolute (i.e., some females are taller than some males, and some males are shorter than some females), activists will insist this can be ignored.

This flawed reasoning is frequently used to justify males who identify as women (i.e., “trans women”) to be allowed to compete in female sporting events.

An article in Deadspin, for example, uses the Univariate Fallacy to argue in favor of allowing the male powerlifter JayCee Cooper, who last year broke the Minnesota state record for women’s bench press after only one year of training, to compete in the female category:

When we shove the concept of athletic ability—strength, for instance—into the same black-and-white binary that we try to put gender into, we’re wrong. There is no stark line separating what men can do athletically and what women can. Some women, in fact, are bigger, faster, and stronger than some men.

The same argument highlighting the existence of some overlap in all performance-related traits between males and females was also made in a report by the Canadian Center for Ethics in Sports to justify including male athletes who identify as women in sports.

Since the early 20th century, elite sport policies worked to pathologize and control women’s bodies and enforce dimorphic sex. There is, however, a significant overlap in all sexual characteristics. ‘Male’ and ‘female’ are not mutually exclusive categories and should not be treated as such.

The inability to reduce sex differences in athletic performance to a single factor is thus used to argue against the existence of any inherent male sporting advantage.

But the justification for excluding male athletes from female sports is not predicated on there being no overlap in performance-related traits, but based on the fact that, all else being equal, male puberty gives male athletes an inherent advantage they wouldn’t enjoy otherwise that is not available to females. If the justification for exclusion required the total absence of overlap in performance, then this would prevent athletic leagues and events from excluding adults from children’s leagues or excluding athletes who take performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). After all, some children are bigger, faster, and stronger than some adults, and athletes taking PEDs don’t always win.

The same flawed logic is also frequently used to assert that there are no sex differences between male and female brains. For example, in a review of Gina Rippon’s 2019 book The Gendered Brain: The New Neuroscience That Shatters The Myth Of The Female Brain published in Nature, Lise Eliot claimed that the absence of a “decisive, category-defining” difference in male and female brains means that we cannot claim real sex differences exist.

Yet, as The Gendered Brain reveals, conclusive findings about sex-linked brain differences have failed to materialize. Beyond the “missing five ounces” of female brain — gloated about since the nineteenth century — modern neuroscientists have identified no decisive, category-defining differences between the brains of men and women.

But differences between populations don’t have to be “decisive” and “category-defining” to be measurable and real. As we saw with height, no rational person would believe that male and female height differences don’t exist because all men aren’t taller than all women, and the same goes with brain differences. Sex differences don’t have to be absolute and binary to be real.

There is an even more extreme version of the Univariate Fallacy that moves well beyond attempting to eliminate or minimize sex differences—it is used to argue that the sex categories male and female themselves are merely socially constructed figments of our imagination. To this end, the Univariate Fallacy takes the following form:

The insistence that all categories must be cleanly separable and reducible to a single essential factor in order for them to be considered real or natural.

Below are some examples of prominent outlets using this extreme version of the Univariate Fallacy.

This 2018 New York Times article by Anne Fausto-Sterling uses the existence of intersex individuals and the Univariate Fallacy to deny the existence of males and females as natural categories:

It has long been known that there is no single biological measure that unassailably places each and every human into one of two categories — male or female. In the 1950s the psychologist John Money and his colleagues studied people born with unusual combinations of sex markers (ovaries and a penis, testes and a vagina, two X chromosomes and a scrotum, and more). Thinking about these people, whom today we would call intersex, Dr. Money developed a multilayered model of sexual development.

This 2019 Independent article critical of a ruling that prevents male intersex athlete Caster Semenya from competing against females relies entirely on the Univariate Fallacy nested within an oppression narrative to make its case:

In fact, there’s a range of DSDs that can involve either rare combinations of sex chromosomes (e.g. XXY or XYY) or genetic mutations on other chromosomes that affect sexual development. Thus, no single factor, genetic or otherwise, neatly determines whether an individual is male or female. Furthermore, no formula exists that uses genetic and other data to produce an answer of whether someone is male or female. The IAAF regulation disregards this reality and was surprisingly unenlightened considering the chequered history of genetic sex testing in sport.

This Medium article uses the Univariate Fallacy to argue in favor of allowing Caster Semenya to compete against female athletes:

Yet even after these tests, determining the sex of an individual is not straightforward. There are at least six biological markers of sex: chromosomes, gonads, hormones, secondary sex characteristics, external genitalia, and internal genitalia. Each one contains significant variation, both within and across individuals, including testosterone. As a result, no single marker can decisively categorize a person as male or female.

Vox released this video on YouTube, now with 3.2 million views, that is essentially 12 straight minutes of the Univariate Fallacy regarding sex and its relationship with athletic performance, with special focus on Caster Semenya:

The Univariate Fallacy has also been used in court, as seen in this Caster Semenya vs. IAAF arbitral award, to argue against the IAAF’s decision to prohibit Semenya from competing as a female in some events. Also note that Semenya is a DSD male, not a DSD female as suggested below:

Dr. Vilain stated that as a leading expert in this field he “fundamentally disagreed” with the notion that females with DSD should be “defined” as male and “have male bodies”. That proposition is contrary to the current scientific mainstream, which recognizes that sex is not binary but rather a spectrum, where no single factor (e.g. presence or absence of testes) prevails above all others.

And lastly, this essay in Scientific American used the existence of intersex individuals and their oppression to suggest sex is a spectrum because it can’t be defined in “rigid” (i.e. univariate) terms:

DSDs—which, broadly defined, may affect about one percent of the population—represent a robust, evidence-based argument to reject rigid assignations of sex and gender. Certain recent developments, such as the Swedish adoption of a gender-neutral singular pronoun, and the growing call to stop medically unnecessary surgeries on intersex babies, indicate a shift in the right direction.

The argument that sex categories must be socially constructed and hence arbitrary because we cannot point to a single essential factor that unequivocally separates all humans into two neat boxes labeled “male” and “female” is rooted in the false notion that “male” and “female” are polythetic categories.

Polythetic categories are those that can’t be reduced to a single essential feature, but are instead formed by a series of overlapping similarities, where no single feature is shared by all members of that category. In other words, certain things cluster into categories by having a family resemblance. This applies to things like music and movie genres, games, and even mental disorders.

For a clear example of a polythetic category, take male and female faces. What is the defining feature that makes a face appear male versus female? The answer is that it’s no single feature, but rather the correlational structure between many features such as jaw size and shape, brow ridge prominence, the shape of the lips, nose size, and others. All of these traits taken together cluster into two (overlapping) categories that capture typical male and female face morphology.

[ Figure credit: from https://clinicalgate.com/aesthetic-contouring-of-the-craniofacial-skeleton/ ]

Gender activists want to portray “male” and “female” as polythetic categories, because this would imply that nothing in particular makes someone male or female, but that it’s just a matter of having more male- or female-typical traits in aggregate. This would also imply that a person can cross the statistical threshold between male and female categories by simply altering some aspects of their physical appearance through hormones and surgery.

But males and females are not polythetic categories; their existence is fundamentally rooted in the binary distinction between the gametes (sperm or ova) a person has the function of producing.

If we must reduce males and females down to a single bit of essential anatomy, the best choice is the gonads, as these are the primary sex organs that ultimately produce either sperm or ova. But this misses the point to an extent, because males and females are integrated wholes. Asking someone to single out a single essential feature separating males and females, apart from their biological function, would be akin to asking someone to single out the essential distinction between lions and tigers. Is it the presence or absence of stripes? Color? Body weight? Yes, and no. It is all these things, and not one in particular. But that doesn’t mean lions and tigers are polythetic categories, because you cannot turn a lion into a tiger by giving it stripes, or altering any number of its physical characteristics. They’re different species, and the existence of hybrids, such as ligers and tigons, does not negate the reality that lions and tigers are distinct creatures.

* * *

The Univariate Fallacy has proven to be a shockingly effective way for activists to manipulate the masses into adopting false depictions of reality for ideological reasons. By using the two forms of the Univariate Fallacy, activists can present their arguments in a way that suits their purpose. They can use it to invent a difference that doesn't exist in reality to push oppression narratives to justify "equity" initiatives. They do this by comparing groups across a single variable and ignoring all confounding factors. On the other hand, if they want to make a real group difference appear small or nonexistent to justify giving males access to female sports and other spaces, they can insist that the inability to reduce any sex difference to a single unassailable variable means the categories are imagined social constructs.

The statistical nature of the Univariate Fallacy makes it difficult for many to spot, which lends it an air of perceived intellectual sophistication. For the uninitiated, the Univariate Fallacy’s use of statistics and its appeal to reductionism can be alluring. It is not surprising that many people fall victim to these statistical and rhetorical tricks.

However, when academics or editors at respected scientific journals and newspapers use this fallacy to advance ideological or political narratives, it quickly graduates from the status of inappropriate or ignorant analysis to calculated propaganda.

[super-hero-confessions]

Hayley Atwell antis taught me what not to do when you're trying to get someone to believe you. There was a split second where I questioned whether the OP of the posts against her was telling the truth. But that chance faded away when I realized how they were trying to resort to all kinds of "-isms" and "-phobics" to defame her.

From claiming she was a racist because Peggy didn't get paired up with Gabe, to claiming she was powerful enough to decide Steve Roger's ending, to claiming a joke of her posing with a Staron pic was "harassing" the fans of the ship, to claiming she "sexually assaulted" Chris Evans for touching his chest. Don't get me wrong, racist actors absolutely exist and some actors absolutely can and do improv or contribute to the characters, and some celebrities absolutely allow for their fans to be shitty to others, and sexual harassment absolutely exists in the industry. I'm not trying to claim that these kind of things don't happen. But the second you start accusing the same person of all of it, with little to no proof other than your word, you absolutely lose all your credibility. Because you are trying to bring someone's downfall and are just using social justice as a way to turn prople against them, by throwing every accusation known to mankind.

Let's say that my co-worker started a rumor about me, maybe it was malicious, or maybe it was just a misunderstanding. If instead of saying "hey, they started a rumor about me" I say "they started a rumor about me and they also said disgusting shit about black people, and they said fat people are gross, and they support conversion therapy, and they think women belong in the kitchen, and they hit a child with their car when they were driving once, and I have no actual proof but I expect you all to believe me, cancel my co-worker and hold them accountable"... then people are gonna look at me as if I grew a second head, and rightfully so. Because it's obvious that I'm just desperate to make them look bad.

Go ahead and blame Atwell of bigger stuff. Like wars, poverty, etc, because apparently she is that evil and that powerful. But no one will believe you, and not because they like Atwell, but because you brought not being believed upon yourself. Because you are desperate to make her look bad and and you are willing to make any sort of excuse to do so, even trivializing things like racism, abuse or sexual assault. And this blog is anonymous, but if you are the same way in your personal life, I feel bad for you. Because we all go through bad things in life, and the day you do, the people who know you will not believe you or support you. You don't understand why? Check out the tale of the boy who cried wolf.

Or, one day you will make these accusations on your own blog to "prove" you know what you say is true, and Atwell will sue your ass. Either way, it's a lose-lose situation you got yourself into. Hell, if a couple of people got tired of GotG fans expressing how much they liked GotG 3, when it's something innocuous and positive, imagine how sick people are of your destructive, negative claims. You are trying to ruin a person's life and turning every real world issue into a tool in order to do so. And like I've said on this post, I considered believing you. But I did not, because your claims have reached a ridiculous extent. Get better at lying or stop lying. One day someone will lie about you.

And it won't be pretty.

[outdoornatureministry]

true remnant

What is the true remnant and Yahwehs true people. Throughout the Bible it has been about a small group of people who served and worshiped and made covenants with the one true God. These were the Israelites and they lived among the Middle East and were given the promised land after Moses time. These people have always been persecuted for their faith and have gone through cycles of prosperity and then being under harsh governments as punishment for what they have done. I believe they have moved all over this world and realm to establish and try to go to all the nations like it says in the Bible. The holy word changes people and has done so for centuries. There has always been an element against these people and they have put false preachers and prophets into churches and trying to change the word of god and have made false doctrines and false teachings like Mormonism and these other isms that I can’t say on here that just attacked Israel. The devil has made many religions and had us fight each other about the differences and things that don’t make a lot of difference when Yahweh changes and can guide anyone back to the truth but we refuse to listen and return to his true path. The Bible clearly tells us that he gives the inspiration and many people have words to share and things that help build his true word and they are muffled. We celebrate pastors who are controlled by boards and not allowed to truly speak what Yah gives them. To many pastors and modern day people claim it’s about gods church and supporting a building when in actuality it’s about his body and his true people that come to him on their hands and knees and worship him and spend their time with him. This is not a big group of people and the Bible clearly says it’s a remnant which means very small number. Their are many claiming to be Yahwehs and have no idea what he wants or about what it says in his holy word. Yahweh knows who are his and the battles we face on a daily basis. These are the people willing to fight and be persecuted and hated for the word. They are the meek and humble servants who get out their and share god and what they have with all. These are the ones who give up everything and follows him. We have lost family and friends and jobs and who would gladly give up their very lives for the one true God Yahweh. I am one of these people and have lost everything and have been persecuted and hated for what I believe. I have been alone for most of my life and spend my time in his word and making videos and doing blogs like I am now. Yahweh is pulling the plug in this world and the day of vengeance is at hand. The world is turning completely against us and calls us the problem and the enemy. This war that just started will not stop until the very end of time when god comes down with his heavenly armies and destroys the devil and false prophet and all the people who took his mark. Yahweh has delayed things for the few people who will return to him. It will shock everyone how few people will be taken in the harpazo or rapture. Most will experience the tribulation and go through a horrible time and the other side of God will be seen and it is one of vengeance and wrath and anger and absolute anger that will consume this world and lay it desolate. You will not recognize any part of this world when yah is through. Look up the day of the lord scriptures. I would stop listening to the world and the pastors out there. You need to get into the Bible and truly read and ask for discernment . You need to fast and pray and be in sackcloth and ashes and go to god and beg for mercy because his wrath is here. I only share what he gives me and want you to go to him and give up the world now. God bless you all.

[daeminia]

The Setting of Daeminia

The aesthetic of the setting is a mix of medieval fantasy Europe and the golden era of 1920s America, with the smaller villages and towns and most settings taking inspiration from the former, and larger cities and their technologies taking inspiration from the latter.

More details about the setting and cultures of the world under the cut.

Weather and Climates

The landscape of the world itself is divided among the four courts, each experiencing an eternal everlasting season of the respective court (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter). Each Court then has its own near consistent climate and weather, which are all based on the American Midwest climates. Springs are rainy but warm, summers are hot, autumn experiences cooling temperatures with some rain, and winter is bitter cold with lots of snow though the further you travel within the Winter Court the more arctic it becomes. Natural disasters and varied weather phenomena can occur in each Court; spring is susceptible to floods, summer to droughts, autumn to tornadoes, and winter to blizzards.

Languages

There are different ethnic languages in Daeminia. The most widely spoken is called Common, a mixture of borrowed words and syntax from other languages to form a language of common ground. Then, there's Volish which is mostly spoken in avian-monster communities. Another is Lochian, which is mostly spoken in merfolk communities. There is an ancient language written on archaic stones and literatures called Issu, but most of it has been lost to time; regardless, the Cosmic Deities favor this one.

Religion and Philosophies

The Cosmic Deities are real and tangible creation entities, and because of this a religion has formed around them called Cosmaeism (cause-may-ism). This is the most widely practiced religion that focuses on the absoluteness of creation and of reincarnation. Those who believe in Cosmaeism often believe that everything that is born from Chaos is perfect, and to go against this form is to disgrace and insult Chaos. Cosmists are very traditional, and often puts much of the expectation for others in society.

Due to the god-like and reincarnative nature of Major Daemons, there are also religions that sprout revolving them, making different religions, cults, and pantheons as numerous as there are stars in the sky. Even a single household can claim a patron/matron/atron deity for worship. However, there are a few Major Daemons that are widely accepted as major atrons to different races.

Akua - Major Daemon of water, oceans, lakes, etc.; atron of all Muruch

Aer - Major Daemon of air, flying, and wind; atron of all Volans

Terra'Ignis - Major Daemon of earth, metals, fire, and renovation; atron of humans

Because the monarchs of the four courts are also Major Daemons, and their powers are passed on to their children, some cults have sprouted surrounding the worship of the god kings. These modes of worship are collectively referred to as Singulataric.

Animals and Wildlife

There are two subtypes of animals: mundane animals, also known in slang terms as "moonies," and familiars. Moonies are normal Earth animals, such as your every day squirrel, cat, fish, or dog. Familiars however tread on the path of more fantastical creatures, and have or are able to use magic. Some familiars are hunted for their magical product or serve other uses.

Examples of familiars:

Hrelk: A large fanged deer that is the size of a horse; used for land transportation.

Hippogriff: large half-horse half-bird griffin; used for air transportation

Wobby (p. Wobbies): medium-sized axolotl-cat hybrids with dog behavior; often kept as pets by Muruch

Dragons: varied in size and shape, often kept as pets by royals or used as vehicles of war

Fashion

The upper scale of Minor Daemons and Major Daemons tend to wear drapes and loose-fitting robes, as it is the most versatile clothing style to cover their large or inhuman shapes.

Spring Court

Daemons of the Spring Court often wear floral-themed dresses and robes; colors include pinks, light blues, and mint greens. Fashion here is more suggestive and appeals more to sexualized taste. Even raincoats manufactured here are notable for being inefficient. Those with inhuman shapes can get by with simple drapes or nudity. Silk is prized here.

Summer Court

Daemons of the Summer Court often have clothing without sleeves, which extends into formal wear with sleeveless suits. Those with more inhuman shapes can get by with simple drapes or nudity. The Summer Court is the leader of the fashion industry, and so styles are very individualistic but trending. Cotton is prized here.

Autumn Court

Daemons of the Autumn Court tend to have a homely and comfortable preference towards fashion. Light scarves and cardigans are favored with muted color palettes and bright orange accents. They have no preference in the material of their clothes. Those with inhuman shapes tend to have articles of clothing made from branches and leaves and some animal furs or have magic that lets these things grow out of them naturally.

Winter Court

Daemons of the Winter Court are tightly bundled in warm furs and long coats. Fashion does not matter compared to the need to stay warm. Color palettes are either muted or high contrast with black and white and greys being the most common. Daemons with inhuman shapes have thick fur growing from their bodies. Bones are considered decorative, and it is not uncommon to see bones or skulls used as Keys.

[uefb]

A Love Letter to Newt Scamander’s Autism™ and a Plea to Those Continually Gloating About the ‘Failure’ of the FB Franchise

(this is stream-of-consciousness really, forgive me)

Look. I…dislike…JKR as much as the next politically active gender/queer who was raised on Harry Potter and subsequently spent their 20s raging against the binary and tearing down the system.

But look—

I’m also autistic.

So I can’t pretend to be able to celebrate the potential crash of the first fantasy franchise/series (well, any franchise, really!) to star an empathetic, autistic hero just because I hate her.

The lady has enough money to pave Europe, enough money to buy anyone’s votes—hell, enough money to probably repurchase the entire bloody (pun intended) British empire—

And she frankly has enough money to attempt to destroy trans folks and trans women’s lives whether or not FB continues.

FB is not the root of the problem.

JKR and the increasingly inflammatory political and economic and social moments we keep hurtling through are the problem.

So when I think back on that lonely, autodidactic, quiet, gender nonconforming, gentle, awkward, morally driven (and sometimes-accidentally-in-trouble) eleven-year-old version of me—

That little nerd who clung to the safety of Hermione (as close to a relatable fictional character as I would ever find for decades) like a life raft in the godforsaken sea of adolescence—

Well.

When I think how much Newt Scamander would have meant to that little dork then,

And how much he must mean to so many kids now (let alone adults)…?

I just can’t find it in my heart to purely wish ill on every single one of JKR’s endeavors. Or to celebrate JKR’s failure specifically regarding Fantastic Beasts.

(So maybe Cursed Child can die in a fire, and —yes — JKR’s isms and antisemitisms and absolute crock can—

Well.

You get the idea.)

And maybe it’s the Hufflepuff in me—masked so often by my more ADHD-forward Gryffindor traits—but I just can’t take joy in an atypical, kind, adult autistic character—an unusual hero, in fact!—being [potentially] cancelled when I know it not only hurts me, but so so many others. It’s not joyous to me that people are losing something dear to them, when it’s not the media itself that’s damning but the woman who dreamed it into existence. (Though so much of the good of FB was built by the producers and artists and actors—it was built out by them like a wood-elf in a well-tended garden. The core of it—the trellis, perhaps—was provided by she-who-must-not-be-named, but all that delicate work in between? the moments of worldbuilding, the nuance of character and culture and blah blah blah? they wove the intricacies of the fabric and fashioned the clothes to hang in her closet.)

But I’ve mixed my metaphors and I digress.

What I mean to say is this:

A franchise like FB being cancelled is nuanced and complicated—especially since WB is gonna milk the Wizarding World for all it’s worth even if they do drop FB. This is a multifaceted issue spanning individual, political, capitalistic, societal, etc etc overlapping and contradictory levels, and we should treat it that way, not the way I’ve seen it circulated in posts—just laughing about how JKR had it coming and skimming over all the rest.

Like yes, duh.

Of course she did.

Those of us who grew up on HP rejected her for the very same reasons we loved HP in the first place.

But use your critical thinking skills.

The world is bigger than JKR—art and media have implications and impacts outside of their origin. And, thus, implications for supporting or enjoying something exist on multiple levels that must sometimes be carefully measured and interrogated, even if individually or factionally we come to our own different—and perhaps opposite—conclusions.

So i’m just proposing: maybe we should reconsider taking joy in Fantastic Beasts failure when FB is about so much more than just JKRs considerable sins —

When so many people have seen in Eddie Redmayne’s Newt Scamander the first character who truly acts like them, moves like them, speaks like them—seems to see the world like them!—for the first time in their lives.

Because yes: JKR’s views and horrific anti-trans and—frankly—anti-anti-anti-everything campaigning are personal, but so is what Newt has come to represent.

Words can’t describe that for me. What he means, from an autistic perspective.

Anyway.

I only request that you place your thinking in the complex context it deserves.

.

.

Also, please don’t viciously @ me. I’m open to nuanced conversation, should I have the word-energy to engage—though I have been teetering on the edge of a shutdown for days—but I’m not open to being torn apart for loving quality autistic representation, and for simply wishing I could have more of that character and that content in the world. To not always have to be the one to push for it. To not always have to be the one to write my own representation, to seek it out, to demand I’m worth space and consideration as a reader and consumer with intersectional identities— 

It’s complicated. 

But I’m tired. 

And potentially losing Newt really isn’t funny to me.

[irandomblogfulb]

Please go off abt how unbelievably white the rwby fandom is

I don't want to pit marginalized communities against each other, but there's this overall gross sentiment in the fandom where white wlws feel represented by the show so they don't care that poc, other lgbt+ folks, and marginalized communities don't.

Rvvby is their comfort show and they're hooked on crvvby's parasocial 'we're your fwriends!! We care about you!! Pls give us your money!!' nonsense and because they feel represented they buy into it all. Just like team Rwby, they prioritize their own comfort above all else while they sit and virtue signal and tout themselves as allies until one of us expresses an opinion that goes against their 'Roosterteeth is so progressive and caring' narrative.

We've seen it with the whole Adam fiasco. These fans project themselves onto the abuse storyline and re-write canon to paint Adam as the absolute embodiment of everything evil in this world but when us poc go 'Um, the writers making the abused, minority character into a jealous incel and invoking sensitive imagery of a branded minority just to push a ship is kinda uncomfortable', they roar at us for being abuse apologists. This is the same nonsense in the Encanto fandom where white queers push Abuela as homophobic cause they can't identify with the obvious generational trauma theme in the movie.

And then there's the weird BTS army level of stanning a bunch of cishet white men doing the bare minimum for representation. I don't have to explain how backwards that is. RT has so many skeletons falling out their closet, to their frat boy, offensive humor, the crunch controversy, people like Ryan Haywood and Michael Quinn being outed as creeps and abusers and the company's large history of sexism, misogyny, racism and every ism and phobic under the sun . But the fandom at large doesn't care cause at least they might get to see their favourite ship kiss in the next volume. And if not in the next volume then, the volume after that, or the volume after that one, etc. MEK go 'hey fellow feminists. Look at these evil white men. We feminists hate white men right? Look at poor Winter. The nasty white man groomed and abused her. Screw the military!' and the stans eat it up. Funny how it's only Winter who's 'groomed' and 'abused' but not Clover or the other Ace-Ops. Nope, they're bootlickers, but not the white woman.

All of it cumulates to a very, uncomfortable experience in the fandom as anyone other than white and wlw.

Rvvby has offended the black community, the disabled, mlm, and the neuro-divergent. The only way this stupid, made-up 'war against the HTDM' ends if when Rvvby offends the wlws/white women. Then it's GOT, Supernatural and Voltron all over again, proof that they only ever care about representation when it only concerns seeing themselves represented.