#to share some of the things ive absorbed from years of Interest

[gaypiratepropaganda]

gay pirate glossary

articles- ship's articles. the papers you sign to join a crew. different ships have different rules. pirates got to make up their own.

bosun- boatswain. in charge of things that happen on deck. pretty sure there's supposed to be an apostrophe in there somewhere (bo'sun? bo's'n?)

bosun's chair- the swing thing for working on the side of the ship or bringing breakfast up to your co-captain.

bow- front of the ship.

bridge- the higher deck on top of the cabin? where you steer the ship from. only certain people are supposed to go up there, usually.

brig- the jail place below deck where you keep people who are annoying you.

captain- you know this one for sure, but pirate captains were a bit different than other captains. since they weren’t backed by any kind of government and could be mutinied or voted out at any time, they had to earn their crew’s respect. they needed the crew to see them as an equal, but still an authority on certain things. sometimes there was no captain, or they took turns.

doldrums- when the wind isn’t blowing for a while and everyone kind of loses their minds

flogging- punishment used on sailors in which a person is tied up and whipped a certain amount of times, depending on their transgression (30 lashes, 40 lashes, etc). It could get pretty bad, people died from it. allegedly you could volunteer to whip your friends so that it wouldn’t hurt as bad. people say this is where the phrase "I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine" comes from, but that doesn't seem true

galley- the kitchen on a boat. sometimes doubles as the infirmary.

grog- daily rations of rum, mashed fruit, sketchy water, and sugar mixed into a delicious punch.

gun- the thing that shoots cannonballs.

hardtack- hard sad little crackerbreads that keep well but are very bland. sometimes there were bonus bugs in (extra protein!)

head- the toilet. it’s basically a board with a hole in it at the front of the ship. it goes straight into the ocean.

keelhauling- tying someone to the end of a rope and dropping them off the front of a ship so that they’re dragged under it and they drown or their skin gets ripped up by barnacles. fun.

(note: pirates didn’t usually use torture methods like keelhauling or flogging, especially not on their own crewmates. that was the navy and the merchant ships. a lot of people started out on those, mutinied because of the harsh conditions, stole the ship they were on, and became pirates. if a pirate captain tried that shit, they would not be captain for very long.)

kohl- black eyeliner made by the indigenous people of africa, india, and the middle east. i think it was invented in egypt? if pirates wore it, then tragically no one wrote about it. but it’s part of the lore at this point and it’s pretty. just accept it.

letter of marque- papers that prove someone is a privateer.

matelot- pirate husband. there was a matelotage ceremony, papers to sign, and a party afterward. a mate served as, like, next of kin. they made decisions if the other couldn’t, shared quarters and possessions, all that. some people insist it was only a financial arrangement, and maybe sometimes it was. but so were straight marriages, especially at the time.

port- left when you’re facing front (like stage left)

press-ganged/shanghaied- being drugged, stolen, and sold to work on a ship involuntarily. the recruiters just had to forge your signature and then you were stuck. some people became pirates to escape. it’s press-ganging when the navy does it, shanghaiing for the merchants.

privateer- like a pirate, but authorized by the state. they were allowed to kill and steal but only enemies of the crown and they had to give everything to the king. it was a good way to get a pardon and avoid being hanged. privateers often went right back to being pirates at the first opportunity.

quartermaster- first mate, also elected by the crew.

raid- when you go on another ship and take their things. pirates weren’t really out there stealing fabulous treasure or anything. It was more basic necessities like food, water, medical supplies, clothes, dishes, money, sugar, spices, and anything of value they could find to sell. they tried to be as scary as possible so that people would surrender and they wouldn’t have to kill anyone unnecessarily. if you could get them to join your crew, even better.

rigging- all the ropes. you can climb around on them.

round robin- when you sign your names in a circle so that no one gets singled out for signing first. used in the navy.

salty- of or related to the sea, experienced as a sailor

sextant- that thing you use to measure the stars so you know where you are at sea. i think you can also use your hand somehow? i don't understand it.

shanties- those songs sailors sing. you know the ones. they were work songs, to get everybody in the same rhythm, but they were also for entertainment. there’s a lot of downtime on a sailing ship. my favorite thing is that when singing a song from the perspective of, for example, a woman waiting for her bonny lad to come back from the sea, they would sing in their man voices without changing the words.

shares- an equal cut of the loot. some people might get a share or half share more or less than other crewmembers. sometimes the captain was the one who got less? this was decided by vote. it’s like a non-profit stealing co-op.

starboard- right when you’re facing front (like stage right)

stern- back of the ship.

watch- everyone took shifts staying up to watch for other ships and make sure they stayed on course.

yardarm- the horizontal thing that the sails are on. yardies!

some basic pirate terms for you in case you need them. I did not do any research, this is 100% organic vibes-based pirate lore in honor of our boy david. i have read a lot about pirates over the years, though. fiction, nonfiction, and primary sources. these are just the fun bits that live in my brain <3

[pub-lius]

I just wanna say, DUDE. The majority of what I know about amrev comes from your blog. Your in-depth posts literally have me FOAMING AT THE MOUTHH I don't have much time to read longer books due to school but I wanna feed my obsession so do you have any books on the shorter side or some websites/archives I can research/read a bit quicker? If not it's totally fine.

Also off topic but I'm loving "It Began About Dusk" on AO3 <3

OH MY GOD THE FLATTERY‼️‼️‼️ you’re making me blush here anon. im so glad that you find my posts helpful!!! AND IM SO GLAD YOU LIKE MY FICS i have a chapter of it began about dusk in the drafts rn so you’ll get more content soon

now this is a tricky question because im absolutely insane and ive barely ever read short books. right now im reading His Excellency by Joseph J Ellis and i recommend it!! its only around 2-300 pages which is the shortest history book ive got VSJWBW primary sources can be really good to get in book form, things like Common Sense by Thomas Paine, Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior (Washington’s rule book), and Memoir of Lieut. Col. Tench Tilghman, Secretary and aid to Washington are all primary sources i have on my shelf that are short and sweet.

i also have Hercules Mulligan by Micheal J. Obrien which i haven’t read but is VERY small. there is also James Monroe by Gary Hart which is short but i have not finished (i dont even truly remember reading it but i annotated part of it apparently), The Drillmaster of Valley Forge by Paul Lockhart is a little longer than those others, but still isn’t chernow levels of wrong, but i also haven’t read that one. Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger isn’t the most serious history book, but it is pretty good and an easy read.

as for secondary source websites, start with encyclopedias ie Britannica, which post short articles on different historical figures and events that give you the overview. from there im gonna point you to the National Park Service. this is the best thing the US government has ever made for researchers. this is all your battlefields, winter encampments, historical reproductions, and former capitals. also check out private residences turned museums, such as Mount Vernon, Monticello, and Schuyler Mansion. these institutions have an abundance of easily accessible information on more than just the people who lived there.

now the Library of Congress was a good decision on Jefferson’s part, but it can be inaccessible if you don’t know how to use it well because their website is one of my least favorite things about being alive. so instead, i recommend using Founders Online for any primary source regarding the founding fathers or amrev figures. the Washington Papers are filled to the brim with almost everything that went out of headquarters during all 8 years of the war. founders online is the shit

all of these websites i’ve mentioned are free to access, because i do not pay money on any research tools besides books out of spite for late stage capitalism. also any primary source is 100% accessible online. that includes memoirs and court transcripts, which can be very helpful

also i really do recommend watching documentaries and informational videos on the subjects you’re interested in while doing work or other things if you’re someone who does that (ik some people don’t have background noise but im just assuming you’re as neurodivergent as i am) because you can absorb just a little of that information and it being about a subject of interest can make academics seem a little less miserable!

i hope this is helpful and if you have absolutely any further questions, feel free to ask. i know im very privileged to have the time and resources to read long ass books, which is why i very freely share the information i absorb with the public bc i believe education should never be gatekept by anyone. so if you have any questions, im happy to research them for you, or at least point you in the right direction. love ya!!

[iwillburn]

I’ve put myself in a prison of my own creation I did this to myself I over share, I tell my plans thinking people are in my corner or have my best interest at heart

I’m constantly self sabotaging pushing the people I love the most away I something do know what real anymore idk who wants me I’ve realized so much about myself this year and I’m disgusted with myself I promised my self I’d be strong I never thought I’d turn into this when I telling the truth it’s looked at as lies and when I’ve lied it was to protect myself from more pain I’m not a victim I haven’t been a good person I must accept my wrongs and take accountability all year has felt like one big reaction …… reacting to people throwing jabs at me trying to destroy my mental …. Reacting to people pull at my heart going for my soft spot using me because they know how I love and how much I have to give and my reactions are my fault as a man I should have control over how I engage with people I should know better and I’m so disappointed and how much control I have people over me, I’ve been cruel I’ve been dishonest, I’ve been cold, I’ve been angry, and over all ive been a loser when i look i. the mirror idk what looking at anymore ive been called every name in the book for incel to narcissist, self absorbed, bipolar, autistic, slow dumb, know it all, lame, goofy fucboy, burnout, junkie clunker….like make up your mind i wont pretend like i dont have issues but i know now i have to be careful and who i allow to come in my energy give theyre opinion of who i am i almost started to believe them i have so much work to do and i cant let anyone in rn i to be sure im doing whats best for me and i wish this year didnt happen but i needed very lesson every step of the way i lost my person ik she was my person and it scares me to think ill never have a connection like that ever again we had so much in common it was wild at some point i thought she was copying my every move just to get attached in reality i got caught uo in my head inlet the people around me and my past hold me back from letting this person in….. all the plans we had all the places i wanted to take her all the self improvement we did together she has been the only person in the past 10 years thats help me in ways i didnt know i needed she made me want be a better man not only for myself but for everyone around me i fucked it up but how i did is so dumb paranoia and letting other people get in between us i was gang stalked my her ex and his friends and i should kept it to myself but at some point i thought she was in on it she would pull away at random and treat me as if i was a stranger all the things we told each other started to feel as if they've never been said at all she made me feel weird or creepy for check up on her or comforting her for sub tweets i knew were aimed at me all of a sudden im a stalker or im not respecting boundaries i deactivated all my accounts not only because of the gang stalking but also because i never wanted anyone to feel like im watching them that shit made me feel gross and i care so much about her feeling and her privacy i respect this person they've go me through the tuffest time in my life they dam near brought me back to life bur i cant accept the treatment anymore i found out they had 6 profiles and they would watch me on them so the projection is crazy i started making profiles to get away i had a youtube channel input alot of work into ive learned to keep they things i hold dear to myself now my accounts kept getting reported on all platforms she use my new accounts as proof that i watching her from them but i was trying to get away from her ex and continue my career well wanna be career ive been dealing with this so long i almost started to believe her i became scared to long in anything because i felt like many im the problem i havent been perfect but wtf is going on my mental was really tested this time im still trying to understand what was real this hurt me to my core she knows how much power she has over me and i wasnt afraid to hide how important she was to me i still dont want to believe she did any of this on purpose i dont want to believe her and her ex we in on it together but ill truly never know

[khodorkovskaya]

15.06.23

so today was eventful and uneventful at the same time. i had my lesson with lucien this morning, then went to the library, then there was the q&a session with the differential geometry assistant, then i went back to the library. so i was quite productive but it didn't really feel like it.

i started watching the new video lauren southern put out about her divorce. and likeee. she's so cringe idk. youtube's been forcing tradwife content on me lately. like i think it started with me watching fashion shorts, then i started getting a bunch of those like "dark femininity" and "old money aesthetic" videos and now it's straight up "here's how i became a traditional wife". like im so glad im not an impressionable teenager anymore. because imagine. like back in the day we had our fair share of brain rotting anti-sjw content but nowadays it's even worse.

but anyway, back to lauren southern. she's so stupid! like idk if it's her neurodivergency or what. and i want to be empathetic. but like. the decisions she's made and still makes like. girlie.

it's funny bc i skimmed thru a video essay the other day about like tumblr culture and microlabels and mogai and stuff like that. and it wasn't a super interesting video bc being on tumblr you kind of absorb all of this information against your will lol. but the person was saying that basically a lot of neurodivergent teenage girls found those microlabels and various neo gender identities comforting. because a lot of neurodivergent people feel the need to like organise everything into categories and assort and classify everything in their brains. and when the video essay author said that i was like oof i feel that so deeply. like my whole personality basically consists of lists and categories i feel very strongly about for no logical reason. everything i like or identify as has to be sorted and classified into "favourites" and "hate lists" and different levels and ranks and stuff. so i do think that if i grew up even more chronically online than i did, i could've definitely been some kind of surrealgenderkin neopronouns weirdo.

and i was thinking about that and how growing up with this kind of weirdly wired brain was very strange. because i could never like something in moderation, no, i always had to be obsessed. and i couldn't just be obsessed, there were always some kind of rules i had to follow. i had to classify my obsession, study it deeply and behave accordingly. i had to absorb it all and become my obsession.

and the funny thing about this, is that no matter how consumed id always felt by my obsessions, it was all very surface level. it felt like trying on an intricately made beautifully detailed costume, but a costume nevertheless. like when i went thru that lizzy-grant-i-like-older-men phase, it was never about actually liking older men or actually being attracted to them or actually believing that it was natural to be attracted to older men, or whatever bullshit i would say. it was about being consumed by the aesthetic of it, all while convincing myself that if i pretend and fit in hard enough into the cage i had once again forced upon myself, this lifestyle will finally make me feel at peace. and every time i would try on a different belief system, a different political point of view, etc, i would just try to follow the rules of it and force the dogmas of it onto myself, without digging deeper or asking myself why and if i actually liked the thing i was obsessed with.

like it's weird and it's illogical. but ive always perceived the world as something that comes upon you from the outside that you have to get used to. meanwhile in reality, your opinions, desires and beliefs come from within you. and ive only figured that out literally this year.

so i remember being a teen, struggling with trying to find peace with transitioning into a young woman, trying on different belief systems, convincing myself that one of them has to hold the truth. but it was the wrong way to look to begin with! you have to find your values first and then see if maybe they align with anyone else's. not the other way around! it sounds stupid when i say that, but when all you've been doing your whole life is classifying things and sorting all of your interests into boxes, you don't ever realise that your thoughts can come from within! you feel like an empty vessel, needing to be filled with obsessions from the outside world. but those obsessions will never make you feel at peace because you have to produce your own thoughts and beliefs and have your own values. and that concept is still very hard for me to grasp.

so now this is where i see the problem with lauren southern. i feel like she too was in the same scenario with her failed marriage. as a young woman she became an anti-sjw activist and then pushed herself further and further to the right, all while having the most basic and surface-level understanding of it. she followed all the steps laid out for her by the ideology she chose: be catholic, marry a man, have a child, be a housewife. and shocker! those weren't her values to begin with. so she became unhappy.

and there's something so relatable about that. like i remember being obsessed with B, the same way id be obsessed with anything. i pushed this obsession on myself and then tried to convince myself that it was for me, all while staying superficial, never questioning my choices or values. why did i like B? why was B a good fit for me? why did i have to be with him? i don't know, i just had to. it was some supernatural force i guess, convincing me that i had to follow those rules in my brain in order to be happy. but why? i never asked myself the question.

and now lauren is like "i married the guy bc he promised me i could be a housewife and he was catholic and traditional". like you see how superficial that is? it's literally the same story as collecting microlabels like pokemon bc your neurodivergent brain finds it satisfying. like catholic man? check. traditional catholic man? check. housewife status with traditional catholic man? check. baby with traditional catholic man? check. but now what's next? what's the essence of it all? why did you convince yourself that this was good for you? do you even know why you believe what you claim to believe? it's all for aesthetics and obsessive compartmentalisation.

anyway, i didn't watch the whole video because it's like an hour+ long and i have shit to do. but i did watch a bit of lana lokteff's reaction to it. and god she's such a vile woman. like as soon as i saw the thumbnail of her video in the recommended bar i had a vomit reflex lol. but in her video she was basically scolding lauren for making bad choices and not thinking things through, all while saying how marriage is so much deeper than what meets the eye and marriage is great basically. and yeah, you can't argue with that. marriage isn't just some life trophy to collect, it's a whole thing. but does the altright ever explain that to women? are those tradwives making tiktoks showing what marriage actually is? all rightwing women hear is "get married, have kids, it's great" and that's it. and if your understanding of the world is flawed because of the weird mechanics of your brain, you're gonna understand just that. and marry the first catholic man you meet like lauren southern. and be unhappy because you were never taught to question why.

[meowww-ffxiv]

Meowdred and black magic.

The copium lore I've been coming up with surrounding how he used black magic in particular.

.

As he was very interested in the War of the Magi period, Mordred's version of black magic more closely followed Yafaemi traditions than modern Eorzean thaumaturgy. That wasn't to say he didn't know them -- he knew all of the rites for burial and funerals, because he first learned thaumaturgy at 19 years old, from stranded priest in La Noscea, following the Calamity's wake, specifically to help bury the dead.

But outside of some shared basics, Mordred liked keeping those things separate from the Big Fireballs of Doom he used in battle. Some things ARE sacred, you know?

Onto the casting:

Mordred's spells are voidsent-empowered. But he's a union man so he didn't enslave his voidsents like Mhach tended to do.

Hence, pacts, and several of them. Each of his Fire spells, Flare, Despair, Xenoglossy, Thunder, and Scathe were powered by his besties in the Void.

When Mordred cast a spell, he only paid the personal aether toll of laying down the template -- the incantation. Enochian was the verbal component and mechanism that invoked the appropriate pact and caused his voidsent companion to funnel their much larger and personalized store of aether through said incantation. The result was a HUGE increase in the spell's power when it came out, as well as its eerie precision.

Only the Umbral Ice phase was entirely Mordred's effort, where he wove a net around himself and rapidly absorbed ambient aether to recover his reserves before he passed out.

Each of the voidsents who were the templates for those spells of Mordred's must meet a certain threshold of aether, as well as be of an appropriate element. The pacts varied in their nature, and there were times when the voidsent died, and Mordred had to go look for a new partner.

It didn't hamper his damage output in those cases, really. Instead of him splitting the work 60/40 with his partner (him the 40, them the 60), he would have to fuel the incantation with 100% of his own aether, so it was more taxing on him.

...Or he could simply kill a voidsent of the appropriate aetherial density and alignment, store it in a crystal, and use that to feed his spells for years (Scathach, Diabolos).

But Mordred tended to find many voidsents to be thinking, feeling beings and so killing them to use as magical catalysts seemed cruel to him. So he didn't.

Before setting off for Ultima Thule, Mordred did end many of his pacts prematurely -- whoever's terms it was that had them being able to return to the aetherial sea at the end of their service, he released them early, since he wasn't sure he was going to win. Some few did stick it out with him till the very end, but not very many.

So he'd had to spend all the patches of 6.x readjusting his incantations to accommodate for his new crappy immune response to large influxes of aether AND finding new partners.

But now we are balling. 🫶 ☄️☄️☄️

Notably, Mordred's voidsent who was so aetherically dense she could Enshroud him, aka his Reaper voidsent, had nothing to do with his spellcasting.

This was why she always sulked and needled him to "go reaper", because otherwise she just hovered around in the Void waiting for him to call.

She reminded him of Feo Ul, who Mordred had a giant soft spot for, so he would indeed take her out for joy rides frequently.

As for the others...

Fire / Fire III / Fire IV / Flare -- 1 guy

Thunder spells -- 1 guy, he might be dead tbh or inert somewhere but when Meowdred rang that bell, he was still channeling aether thru so we're good...

Despair -- Fire guy and Thunder guy kissed in the spell array

Foul / Xenoglossy -- used to be Scathach's condensed corpse that Meowdred kept in his backpack, but she's been nearing the end so he's been hunting for someone else... Hadn't found them yet.

[cursestothemoon]

yay for the open requests! I really reallyyyyyy love your Harry's older sister hc, could u pretty pls do more? like their brief life as a family with lily and james, then to the dursleys and then at war, so on. I agree with the anon that did the request, harry does needed a bigger sister❤️

aH I LOVED THESE REQUESTS

YOU GUYS CAN READ THE HEADCANONS THIS ANON IS TALKING ABOUT HERE

ok so this is L O N G i need to add a keep reading tab

alright so let's talk about harry's older sister

so lily and james did not plan you

they were straight out of hogwarts

just having fun

and suddenly lily is having morning sickness and james running into a store to buy a pregnancy test (or whatever the wizard equivalent would be 😗)

james would be so nervous the weeks leading up to your birth

he already knows that you aren't even here yet and there isn't anything he wouldn't do for you

and when you are born

he swears he'd never love anything as much as he loves you

his little girl

this sweet little lump of baby fat that was born with eyes just like his

he'd put his glasses on your little baby face, and he could laugh for hours at the way they just barely sat on your little nose (a miniature version of his)

your chubby little baby hands are his favorite

when you'd plan your hands on his face or wrap your hand around his finger he'd melt

Lily would joke all the time about how she carried the baby yet James is constantly hogging her

I think james would have some serious separation anxiety

Lily would also have trouble leaving you to go do something but she knew that you getting to see other people would be good

james is NOT a fan

and you were a big daddy's girl

"it's going to be alright, darling, uncle Padfoot and uncle Moony will take care of you."

and you'd respond with sad baby talk, something along the lines of 'daddy' and 'wanna stay with you' and you'd get all teary eyed

it's a whole dramatic scene

youre crying

james is about to cry

Sirius is quite literally trying to sob silently into his hand because you just look so sAD

and remus and lily are just

😐

because you guys do this eVERY TIME

there was one time james got back into the car with lily after dropping you off and he was unusually quiet until he kinda just whispered out

"It just feels like i'll never have enough time with her, like one day i'll wake up and suddenly she's not mine anymore."

his tone gave Lily the worst chills, his tone and the fact that she felt the same though never voiced it

honestly

i don't think harry was planned either

he kinda just happened

and they were like

you know what, yes.

so you were two when harry was born

and you LOVED your baby brother

he was so small

so cute

and he had your mum's green eyes

from the get go you were very protective of your little brother

james thought it was the cutest thing

ok ive been avoiding it

but we need to talk about October 31 1981

you were upstairs with our mum and harry

james was downstairs cleaning up from dinner

that was when there was a knock on the door

assuming it was peter, uncle wormtail, james was quick to go open the door

grabbing his wand for protection was the last thing on his mind

the thud of his body was loud

he was killed before he could even open his mouth to warn Lily

the door to Harry's nursery flew open and it all happened so fast

there was screaming

bargaining

a sudden flash fo green before Voldemort turned to harry

his cold, pale hand pushed you out of his way

the prophecy had said nothing about you, so he didn't care for what happened to you he just needed to kill harry

which obviously backfired

half the house was blown up

he was gone

harry was crying

and you just wanted your dad

you found your way downstairs, just barely making it down the steps

lily and james had never let you go up or down the steps on your own

only to come face to face with your dad just lying on the ground motionless

his eyes were still open

now i want you guys to think of the lion king

you know the scene where simba finds mufasa's dead body and just lays with it because he doesn't know where else to go

you just wanted any kind of comfort you could find

so with tear streaks going down your face you slayed next to your dad, getting as close as you could, hoping he'd just wake up

sirius is the one who finds you, asleep next to james' body

it was rather rough for sirius

and he could hear harry crying somewhere upstairs

you wake up to uncle padfoot trying to keep in his tears as he takes in the scene before him

you're just glad to see a familiar face

you run over to him, tears freshly falling as you wail about how daddy and mommy won't wake up

you also gently pull james' glasses off his face and keeping them in your small hand

keeping them safe for him later

you knew he didn't like to sleep with his glasses on

eventually hagrid shows up

you guys know the story

but i will say

it takes a lot for you to leave uncle pads and go with this big strange man

youre basically heaving as you beg to stay with sirius

and forcing you off his hip and onto the bike with hagrid was the worst thing he's ever had to do

even for a two year old, youre eyes held such a strong emotion of betrayal

sirius would never forget it

the dursley's were not fond of you and harry

you had james temper and stubbornness

harry was just a 6 month old baby

doing 6 month old baby things

for the first month you'd ask for james, lily, uncle moony, uncle padfoot, even uncle wormtail on a daily basis

until one day petunia just snapped

you had asked about sirius, or as you called him uncle padfoot, and petunia lost it

she started to shout, her hand coming out to strike your cheek as she told you that no one was coming

not now

not ever

you never asked after that

over time you forgot about sirius and remus and peter

you forgot about the song your dad would sing every saturday morning when making breakfast

or the way your mom would hum when she brushed your hair

all lily and james had become were familiar scents and the same pair of eyes you'd see in your dreams (though for a long time you just assumed they were your eyes, they looked enough like yours)

and you grew up always feeling like you were on the wrong side of a billowing curtain

you and harry grew up only having each other

you were very protective of him

and dudley hated it

because you had James art for pranks

and his art for rarely getting caught

unfortunately for you petunia and vernon didn't need evidence to incriminate you

you were often on the receiving end of disciplinary swats and missed meals

and you'd often take harry's punishments for him

you and harry were also forced to share a room

or cupboard

you let him decorate it with all his things (he didn't have many)

and you guys shared a bed up until you got your hogwarts letter

which that was kept very quiet

you got the letter

and petunia and vernon were just glad to be able to send you and your pranks away

you weren't allowed to tell harry

but you did anyway

secretly

you didn't tell him all the details but you told him that you were going to a school far away and you'd be back whenever aunt petunia let you back

going to school was interesting

you didn't know anyone

bUT HAGRID WAS ALSO THERE TO HELP YOU AND BUY YOU YOURE STUFF AND HE BOUGHT YOU YOUR FIRST WAND

you still have james' glasses

you put them on when youre nervous

so youre sitting in the train

first day

you don't know anyone

big round glasses sitting on your nose as you look out the window barely able to see what's going on

james was as blind as a bat

on the train you spend your time reading your new books

absorbing all the material

you were not going to just walk into this new school of mAGIC not knowing aNYTHING

by the time you got there you were at leas base level with most subjects

some were easier to catch onto than others

as long as you didn't let the logical side of your brain do too much work

within the first week you'd find out about your parents

curtesy of older gryffindor kids who knew your last name and were just amazed by the story

oH ALSO YOURE IN GRYFFINDOR

AND WHEN MCGONAGALL READS YOUR NAME SHE GASPS TO HERSELF

BECAUSE

Y/N POTTER

she remembers when james had written to her with the news of Lily's pregnancy with you

and how he was nervous you'd come out just like him and he wouldn't be able to handle you as well as she had, he was asking her for advice

and when you walked up to sit on the chair she nearly dropped her scroll of parchment and pulled you into a hug

you looked just like him

dark hair

pale skin

same eyes and eye shape

and same habit of picking at the skin around your thumb nail when nervous

the hat announcing you were a gryffindor was very overwhelming for her

then she realizes you

are e x a c t l y

like james

and merlin is she tiRED OF THIS SHIT

ok so at this point i am going to direct you to the other headcanon (linked above) if you want a more fred x reader approach 

continue here if not

so youre on the quidditch team

and youre a natural 

let me tell you

you just have the innate ability 

much like james

and at first they had you as a seeker

and you were good

but you excelled as a chaser 

i also firmly believed that there was a practice broom that james had carved his name into

or maybe just a ‘J.P.’

that was the broom you'd practice on

even use for games before you got your own broom

ok so

let’s talk your relationship with harry 

you made sure you were the one to tell him what happened to your parents

as i said it was your first year when you fond out about what happened 

the gryffindor student had told you what they knew

and you went to professor mcgonagall pretty distraught 

you were near tears as you practically begged her to just tell you what happened, you wanted the truth 

because all your life your aunt and uncle had told you that your parents had been killed in a car accident 

needless to say 

you didn't want harry to find out that way

but you also knew he was noticing the stares

the whispers

so you told him on the first night

he had already been put into gryffindor and was getting ready for bed when you are up to his dorm 

bECAUSE IT’S CANON THAT GIRLS CAN GO UP INTO THE BOYS DORMS AND BOYS CANT GO UP INTO THE GIRLS DORMS AND I WILL CITE THE PARAGRAPH IF ANYONE NEEDS

and you kinda push out ron, neville, and dean 

but yeah thats how he finds out all the details and such 

ok so you and harry are sUPER CLOSE

and you are very 

v e r y

protective of harry 

you'd do anything for the kid 

wHEN YOU FIND OUT ABOUT THE WHOLE SORCERER’S STONE FIASCO 

YOU ARE LIVID

because harry is your baby brother and you love him so much and don't like seeing him hurt 🥺

as harry grows older he gets a bit more

embarrassed 

about having you protective over him

and im pretty sure i mentioned this in the last headcanon post 

but yeah he’d be like 14 and you'd be 17 and he'd just

“stOP this is so emBARRASSING”

what a little dweeb

ok leTS TALK ABOUT SIRIUS 

BECAUSE YOU AND SIRIUS WERE CLOSE WHEN YOU WERE YOUNGER

HE WAS UNCLE PADFOOT

YOU LOVED HIM

until your fifth year (harry’ third) when you were told he betrayed your parents and got them killed 

youre in the whomping willow when with harry, hermione, and ron 

its a lot for both of you

because sirius is seeing his goddaughter who looks just like james, and his the same fire in her eyes as his bestrfriend

his b r o t h e r 

and youre seeing the man who was responsible for your parents murder 

again 

it was A LOT

i have a feeling you, JAMES POTTERS DAUGHTER, would just lunge at him 

and youre crying

trying to hit him

hurt him like he hurt you

just anything to bring pain upon this man

and sirius is having flashbacks of when you had ran to him from next to james’ lifeless body 

and how different everything had been just days prior to October 31 1981

upon finding out the truth 

scammers is now wormtail

peter ‘little bitch ass’ pettigrew

you and harry are immediately forming this connection

this sort of dependency on sirius 

within a few minutes

because he is the only living connection you have to your dad 

apart from yourselves of course

but eh was the only reminder that james potter was a real man 

and lily potter did exist 

and there was a time where your family was complete 

it never crossed your mind that any more misfortune could strike 

not now 

not when you finally got back your uncle pads

and then you guys walk into the moonlight, the full moon light

everything flips instantly 

you guys are back to square one 

i like to think you have a very big part in getting sirius free 

so you guys know what happen in between prisoner of azkaban and order of the phoenix 

and this headcanon is already getting very long and we haven't even gotten to the wAR YET 

so we are doing a little time jump

order of the phoenix 

your last year

you are living with sirius in grimmauld place 

petunia and vernon kicked you out once you turned 17 after finding out that was the legal age in the wizarding world

you and sirius are close 

super close

i mean he is like a father figure to you

he is uncle pads again

oOO AND OK 

SO 

AFTER FINDING OUT HIS DAD AND HIS BROS 😤

WERE ALL UNREGISTERED ANIMAGI 

OBVIOUSLY YOU WANTED TO BE ONE TOO 

youre a gazelle 

it just makes sense

father figure sirius is not happy when he finds out

uncle pads, however, couldn't be happier

its finally starting to feel like a family again

you and harry have sirius 

aLSO REMUS

icon

anyway

everything is falling into place

you and harry are filling the james sized hole in Sirius’ heart (not completely but it’s better)

and he is doing the same for you two

you and harry love your uncle pads

then the battle in the department of mysteries happens 

youre there

you see it 

you watch as bellatrix hits sirius with a curse 

youre not sure which 

nothing too serious you hope, and seeing that he’s still standing he should be fine 

but then he stumbles

she's stunned him perhaps 

and he makes eye contact with you

there was a look so final, so sad

yet so relieved in his eyes as you watched him fall through the veil

remus grabbed harry

tonks held you

if she hadn’t been you knew you would've thrown yourself into the veil after him

its a whirlwind from then on let me tell you

so we know what happens

all that fun stuff 

the war hits

harry, hermione, and ron leave

youre left with the weasley’s 

it’s hard being away from harry

not knowing if he was ok

if he was even alive 

you guys finally reunite at shell cottage 

bill calls you the second he sees harry, hermione, ron, and dobby apparate in front of his house

you were quick to pull harry into a bone crushing hug 

keen on never letting go 

because after all he is still (and always will be) your baby brother 

you guys are all at the battle of hogwarts

oK WAIT

SO

YOU REFUSE TO LET HARRY WALK TO HIS DEATH ALONE

ALSO YOUVE FIGURED WHAT HE PLANS ON DOING BUT NEITHER OF YOU HAVE SAID ANYTHING

NOT WANTING TO ACCEPT THAT THIS COULD BE THE LAST TIME YOU GUYS SEE EACH OTHER 

AND THE RESURRECTION STONE COMES OUT 

BOTH YOU AND HARRY ARE HOLDING ONTO IT 

AND SUDDENLY

SIRIUS 

REMUS 

THERE ALL THERE 

EVEN A WOMAN WITH RED HAIR 

AND A MAN WHO LOOKS PAINFULLY FAMILIAR 

ok so hear me out 

i think harry enjoyed looking at pictures of james and lily

but you didnt

you didnt want to see everything that was taken from you

so you weren’t super aware of what your dad actually looked like seeing as you avoided pictures of him and your mom like the plague 

but you just knew 

and james was standing there

beaming

and he just looked so proud of you and harry 

so did lily 

she was the first one to say something 

“Your father and I are so proud of the both of you”

and you just broke down 

james right there with you 

he watched as you sobbed, choking on your cries 

and he couldn’t do anything about it 

he couldn’t hold you or comfort you

he couldn’t be a dad 

and it broke him

as much as it could break a dead man 

“you’ve grown so beautiful, darling” he'd smile sadly

his voice seemed to bring back all of your memories once lost 

“have you always been here, with us?”

“always.”

“typical, your father shows up and everyone forgets about uncle padfoot”

both you and harry laugh at that 

but the mood was somber 

harry then speaks up

“does it hurt?”

it was the first time either of you had confirmed that you both knew what was going to happen 

“dying? not at all, quicker than falling asleep.”

“will you stay with me?”

“until the very end. 

james is the one who answers, looking teary eyes at his son

and you know you cant go any further 

harry has to do this alone 

its quite symbolic actually 

the one time you'd let go of the reigns 

removed the protective arms you had around your baby brother 

he’d die 

but you had to do it 

so everything goes as planned 

harry dies

comes back

we love a resurrecting king 

and the war ends 

when you got back home from the war 

let’s say you are still living at grimmauld place seeing as it was left to you 

the first thing you do is go through old photos with harry 

any and everything you can get your hands on 

you see your mother’s sparkling green eyes

the same eyes your brother had 

and your father’s unruly mop of curls 

the same wave pattern in your dark hair 

everything finally felt right 

tags:

@pogueslandia

@vsawyer1989​

@lifeofkaze

@siriusement

@erinruby003

@maybesandohnos

@onlyfreds

@fullofsourgrapes

[d-criss-news]

The Glee star and Emmy winner for The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, Darren Criss, 34, will be releasing his first album of Christmas songs, titled A Very Darren Crissmas (October 8). It includes duets with Adam Lambert, Evan Rachel Wood and an original song, “Drunk on Christmas,” featuring Lainey Wilson.

What was your goal with this Christmas album?

To reintroduce familiar songs in a new way. But I also wanted to take lesser-known songs and make those feel more familiar. And, most importantly, I wanted to take songs that people don’t associate with Christmas but I do—like Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”—and try to make them feel like Christmas songs.

What inspired you to write “Drunk on Christmas”?

It’s about the end of Christmas when everything’s been done. There’s wrapping on the floor, you’ve cleaned things, the in-laws have left and there’s nothing else to do. It’s two people having a sit-on-the couch moment, sipping a glass of cocoa with some SoCo [Southern Comfort] in it.

What is it about Christmas music? Why did you want to do the Christmas album?

Christmas or the holiday season is something that, whether we like it or not, we experience every year, and that comes with a litany of wonderful songs and music that again, whether you have been proactive about listening to it or not, it’s pretty hard to avoid. It’s permeated our cultural consciousness for our entire lives. So if you happen to be someone like me who consumes music at a hyperactive level, I’ve always adored Christmas music.

People say this because of the way that it makes them feel and the things that it reminds them of. There are so many layers to why people enjoy Christmas music. It’s nostalgic, it is very romantic, at least in the true dictionary meaning of the word romantic. And to me, I’ve always loved it for a much more anthropological reason, which is for one month or several weeks out of the year we suddenly subscribe to a certain sentiment that the other 11 we don’t really dial into. We want it all, then we want it to just go away.

What makes Christmas songs different?

As a musician I’ve always loved that Christmas music can employ certain musical elements that otherwise aren’t very popular. To me, it’s incredible that without a doubt the estates of many artists are guaranteed placement on the radio even though many of them have been deceased for many years. The pop charts are dominated by whatever contemporary, awesome artists there are nowadays, but in December you can guarantee that Burl Ives and Dean Martin will be on the radio with the best of them. I find that so charming. It’s because people really, really love this music.

And those songs don’t sound like the sounds that we’re hearing on the radio, sonically, harmonically, rhythmically. They employ a lot of “classic” sounds that evoke the feeling of Christmas. I’m a self-proclaimed genrephile—this is a term I use for myself throughout all the stuff that I do. I can’t help but be so enchanted by this idea that artists have license, and by license I mean an excuse to do things that you ordinarily wouldn’t be encouraged to do, or that audiences wouldn’t necessarily be as quick to absorb.

So, when you’re talking about classic Christmas writing, for lack of a better word, you use clichéd Christmas terminology, you use certain chords, and harmonies, and instrumentations that you just wouldn’t do throughout the year. It leans on the slightly more sophisticated, slightly more musical, and that is really exciting for someone like me.

How much does the fact that your last name is Criss play into this?

If you play music and your last name is Criss, every year someone says, “You know what you should do?” as if they’re the first person who’s ever thought of this idea. So I’ve always wanted to do this; it was just a matter of time. And I also didn’t want it to be phoned in, I didn’t want it to seem like, “Oh, here’s some songs that you know already.”

I wrote this in my liner notes that my favorite thing to do with art, but particularly music, is curate, interpolate, create and personalize. That’s my main thing. I’m an OK singer, I’m an OK musician, but what I really think I have a yen for is trying to interpolate something new that people didn’t know before.

If you think about a song like “Jingle Bells,” it was not written for Christmas. It was a song from 200-something years ago that bears no mention of Christmas whatsoever, but we associate it so heavily with Christmas. Lately I hear Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” come up on Christmas playlists. I think it must have something to do with the Christian angle of the song and the reverence of the word “hallelujah,” but there’s no mention of Christmas.

So there’s a lot of different things that can make people feel like Christmas if you arrange it a certain way, and that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted this cocktail of songs that people didn’t know and I might be able to introduce to them in a really new, interesting way.

You duet with Adam Lambert, Evan Rachel Wood and Lainey Wilson. These people couldn’t be more different. How did you select your song partners for this?

Honestly, people are busy, so I leaned on friends of mine. The album is called A Very Darren Crissmas, and I wanted to make it just that. Songs that are very, very me, doing things that are very me, and using the talents of people who are legitimately in my life. Adam has been a pal for a long time. We’ve known each other from just adventures in Hollywood, but he, of course, was on Glee with me. Evan Rachel is a dear pal of mine; we’ve done some things together. She’s played my festival, and I’ve done comedy sketches with her and stuff. These are all extraordinarily talented singers. As I told them when I asked them to be a part of it, “I’d be very lucky to have you on this record.”

I had not met Lainey Wilson before I started this. But when you’re in Nashville, you are in the Olympic tent of USDA certified prime country singers. And that’s a bit of a blind spot for me as far as who’s on the up and up, who’s somebody that can really give a level of authenticity, legitimacy to a more classic ’50s Nashville sound, which is the song that I wrote called “Drunk on Christmas.” My producer Ron Fair, who has been living in Nashville for a while, suggested Lainey and we got on like a house on fire. She’s an extraordinary talent and I was happy to have her. These were all people that were part of this grassroots friend to friend thing. That’s how I got them and I’m very lucky that they’re on the record.

There are hundreds of Christmas songs. How did you choose what to include?

Choosing was extremely hard. I had a list of about 100 songs. I’m not done; this record is only phase one in my mind. There are so many songs that it will make your head spin. If you go, “Did you think about this song?” The answer is yes, and I absolutely had to deliberate which ones I had to triage out of the sequence.

I even said no to “The Christmas Song,” which is on the album. I didn’t want to do it because I was like, “Everybody knows it; it’s perfect by Nat King Cole,” and Mel Tormé [who wrote it] is one of my favorite artists of all time, much less songwriters and musicians. So I was like, “I don’t want to have to do that.” And on the day when we were there, we just had a guitar and said, “Let’s just do it for fun,” because I love singing that song. But I was like, “It’s been done perfectly too many times, I really don’t want to have to put myself up against that.” But we had a nice take, it’s live in the room. And hey, come on, it’s Christmas. So I left it on there.

If we were to come to your house during the holidays, what would you be listening to?

I’d probably sit you down and play you my favorite songs that you’ve never heard that I think are great Christmas songs. But what’s nice is I’ve now put those songs on this album, hopefully, in a perhaps delusional effort to standardize these songs in the Christmas pantheon. There has to be an air of delusion to being an artist in the first place. If one of these songs that no one’s ever heard before catches on with a family or a person and becomes part of their Christmas playlist every year, then I will have succeeded in my efforts.

What did the Emmy you won for The Assassination of Gianni Versace do for your career?

Although the Emmy has just my name on it, the number one thing that I’m most proud of is it’s more symbolic and representative of the work of the whole team. It is a validation and celebration of the really hard work of people that I spent a lot of time and energy with creating this role.

You have a couple voice roles coming up—in Trese and Yasuke—but what are we going to see you in next, not just hear you?

I don’t know. Let me know if there’s any opportunities. A huge reason for why this album was made was because I had the time. Making records takes a lot of time, and I’m envious of people who are just singers. I don’t know how people do that, that’s just not who I am. I’m a producer, I’m a writer, I’m a musician. It takes so much out of me to make a body of music because someone doesn’t say, “OK, here are the songs, show up on a Tuesday, you sing it and then you leave.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Some of my favorite artists can do that and are blessed enough to be able to just do that. I can’t.

It takes so much time for me to really get in the weeds, arrange, edit vocals, edit instrumentation, mix tracks, really getting in the jungle of music production. I can’t function any other way and that takes an extraordinary amount of time. Even when there was a global pandemic, I still had deadlines that we could barely make to finish this album because that’s just how my brain works.

So I haven’t been able to act. I haven’t had an acting job in almost two years. That’s not entirely true. I’ve had little bit things during the pandemic, but no big series or films or anything like that. It’s just been mostly working from home and being as proactive as I can be. I started a weekly podcast with a friend of mine, I put out an EP. I’ve been extremely busy with high output and low visibility. I’m waiting for the next thing, but I’m not one to sit still. If you give me time, I’m going to fill all the spaces out. So I did that with music this past two years.

Are you going to go back to Broadway now that it’s opening again?

I don’t want to say anything that is not perhaps confirmed 100 percent, but I will say with full confidence that I have always had the intention of going back exactly where we started. I’ll let them announce what’s happening because every show is in its own unique holding pattern. But, yes, right before the shutdown I was doing American Buffalo in New York, and talk about the actor’s dream, that is right up there. Doing a great American play that I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve had a long history with that show, and I finally get to do it for real with two of my favorite actors—Sam Rockwell and Laurence Fishburne. They are two acting heroes of mine.

So I was in rehearsals for that. We were about to go into tech, and things got shut down. But we’re in a very fortunate position where you’ve got two huge movie stars, you have a very well-known play and you have a fixed set and just three guys. There are musicals that have orchestras, big choruses and huge set pieces, and the overhead and upkeep of these productions is quite complicated. And a lot of them, for that reason, fell by the wayside during the pandemic, and it’s an awful tragedy. But our set and our billboard and our posters are exactly where we left them. It’s kind of a trip. If you go to Circle in the Square, I keep telling people it’s the longest I’ve ever been on Broadway because it’s just sitting there dormant, waiting to be resurrected.

I think all of us are planning on going back. I think the show is scheduled to reopen almost to the day that it was supposed to open in 2020. We’ll see how the schedule ends up, but you have three guys whose heart and soul is the theater. I don’t want to speak for the other two guys, but I’m almost positive that all three of us would rather be doing that play on Broadway than anything else. So when I say I haven’t had an acting gig in two years, it’s been a comfort to know that that was waiting for me on the other end. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we’ll be able to do it. We’ll have to make sure that everything is hunky-dory with theater audiences, et cetera, et cetera, but that’s the idea.

How did Ryan Murphy casting you in Glee change your life?

I said during my Emmy speech that actors are only as good as the moments they get. I used to say actors are only as good as the parts they get. Take that with a huge grain of salt, obviously, it’s not entirely true. But in context of that moment, certainly you can understand what I meant. Acting is a proactive craft, but in many respects it’s a passive career, where you have to hope and wait for a benefactor, a patron, a supporter to say, “OK, all right, kid, you’re up. I think you can do it.”

I think any artist’s life is a constant compromise between knowing what you can do and what you want to do, and having other people, audiences and creative authorities alike, have an idea of what you can do. You have to have that balance of somewhere in the middle, where hopefully you can rise to an occasion that you know you can do, that somebody’s going to give you the opportunity to do. But you’re not in control of that relationship, and so you have to sit and hope and pray that someone is going to give you that moment and that opportunity. That was something that I’m fully indebted to with Ryan.

Because he did say, “All right, kid, you’re up,” and gave me that shot. We talked about the The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story series for years before we did it. I didn’t think he was ever going to do it. By the time we started shooting, he probably mentioned it to me three or four years prior. And I kept asking about it like, “Hey, you still want to do this thing?” I think he was just always obsessed with the fact that I was half Filipino and that I bore a certain resemblance to the guy. Age and everything, it seems pretty spot-on. But he was a man of his word, and he really did end up making it. So I’m incredibly indebted to him and I’ve always been very effusive about that.

Now that you have this modicum of fame, what would you like to use it to accomplish?

For me, there are so many things that I love in this world that I don’t think other people are familiar with. One of the things about having a modicum of a platform is hopefully embracing that to use it as a gateway drug for stuff that people might not be familiar with. I don’t know if they’re going to like it as much as I do, but I’m looking at this track list and there are songs that I guarantee that you don’t know.

These are all things where I go, “OK, I have this moment of people’s attention, hopefully, this is a fun way to have them have eyes on something that I think is deserving of eyes, and not because of me, but because of other people who have made something amazing.” And, hopefully, they have the same proactive curiosity that I had growing up where I look at the liner notes and see who wrote the songs and where they came from. But we’ll see. We’ll see if people have that reaction.

You’ve accomplished so much. What’s the dream going forward?

The dream is to keep doing me, really. I think all you can do is be as true to yourself and try and do as accessible and as valuable work as you can. And, hopefully, in so doing, represent people, giving them visibility and encouragement towards their own place in the cultural conversation.

[dionysusbabe]

Grand Theft Auto Headcannons

Ive got some Unholy Trinity headcannons for you all! enjoy~

Love language

Michael

Quality time. Sit down and watch a movie with him, walk in the park, lounge by the pool, hell love it all. As long as you're around him he will always find himself deeply in love and so full of serotonin and dopamine that he will sometimes be unable to take his eyes off of you as he admires everything about you and this moment, wanting to snapshot it forever.

Franklin

Gifts. Now, hear me out, this man absolutely hates receiving gifts, he despises being the centre of attention (he almost punched a waiter who was about to sing happy birthday to him when he was 12), but giving gifts is his way of saying ‘I love you.’ He feels like sometimes his words aren't enough and will absolutely shower you with compliments, but when he hands you a (not so) delicately wrapped present, you can rest assured that man would go to the ends of the earth for you.

Trevor

Physical touch. Trevor Philips is a very touch starved man. Sure, sometimes he puts a bullet directly into someone's skull if they touch so much as his arm, but, if he cares about you, he will beg and plead for a hug or for you to simply hold his hand. This does, however, mean that he will 100% be hugging you any chance he gets, or will constantly have his hand in yours or snaked around your waist. If you ever seem uncomfortable or ask him to stop, he absolutely will. His love language may be touching, but he would never make you uncomfortable. 

Best date ideas

Michael

Movie night. He’ll invite you over for a movie night and will let you pick any movie you want, though, keep in mind, he will have his mind less on the plot and more on small things like lighting, cinematography and continuity. Sure, he’ll try to hold his tongue on some of these things but sometimes he can't help but blurt out what's bothering him. If he ever goes silent while watching a movie, he’s most likely watching your reactions and admiring you again. Either that or you've actually captured his interest in the movie (which is extremely hard to do, so congrats!)

Franklin

Stargazing on the hood of his car. Franklin’s always been fascinated by space and stars, something about the greater beyond calls to him. Start him on a conversation about stars and you will NOT hear the end of it (though he will profusely apologise after). Combine stars with the next best things, you and cars, and you've got the best evening this boy could have ever dreamt for. Franklin will tell you about every constellation he can see and will lay right next to you so you can see what he sees. If you glance at him, you’ll see how the stars reflect in his eyes as they’re filled with childlike wonder, either that or he’ll have his gaze settled on you as he admires how you absorb the night sky above you both. 

Trevor

Shooting range. It's not unknown that Trevor enjoys guns and shooting, something about the sound and feel really hits differently for that man. But being able to share his love with someone he cares about is the best thing ever for him. If you were to go to a shooting range with him, he would spend half the time with his arms wrapped around you from behind as he teaches you how to shoot or helps you steady your aim and the other half of the time would be spent challenging you. If he wins, he will NOT live it down and claim that you are paying for ice cream at the pier. On the other hand, if he loses, he will claim it was for some reason done by the hand of god, pout and demand you still pay for ice cream at the pier (though he will absolutely cave and end up paying for it). If he ever does lose one of these challenges, it's because he spent most of the time admiring how you aimed, stuck your tongue out, and then squeezed the trigger. 

What’s their sleeping position?

Michael

Michael prefers to sleep on his back, occasionally shifting to his side where he faces towards the door. He once stated that “it helped align his back” which may be semi true, but you know deep down (and so does he) that it's really a last minute grapple for a sense of stability and manliness in his life. A form of dominance. He finds laying on your stomach or side to be inherently feminine, and though he explains that there is nothing wrong with that, he doesn't want to portray himself as feminine in any way, shape or form. 

Franklin

His back with one arm outstretched for you to lay on and his other hand resting behind his head. Franklin will forever try and keep you close so he will always have one arm around you while he sleeps. When he’s sleeping alone he will put a pillow over his arm where you usually rest as a way to calm himself down and will pretend that the pillow is you (he uses the one you usually sleep on so it smells like you too, which he adores).

Trevor

It changes. Trevor sleeps on his back when you're around and lets you sleep with your head on his chest, that's on a good night at least. On a bad night, if you're with him, hell wrap his arms around you and hold you tight until he can fall asleep. If he’s by himself on a good night, he’ll sleep on his side and hug a pillow, imagining it's you. If it's a bad night by himself he either won't sleep, or will sleep on his side in a fetal position with a pillow squeezed between his arms and legs. 

What’s something they like that may be surprising to others?

Michael

Trains. Ever since he was little, Michaels has been into trains. Thomas the Tank Engine was the show that calmed him down from meltdowns when he was little and every year up to his 13th birthday he would always ask for something related to trains. If you rummage through his closet, there's a box labeled “EXCLUSIVE” in bold black sharpie which is filled with old birthday cards that have train paraphernalia on them. Bring up trains around him in private and he will pull up pictures on his phone and ramble on for ages. Bring up trains around others and he will glare at you until you shut your mouth. 

Franklin

Stars. Since Franklin was a boy he's always had a deep love and connection to stars and the deeper beyond. Something about the abyss calls to him on the daily. When he was a kid he would draw pictures of himself in rocket ships that would always be pinned to the fridge. When he was 7 he got his first telescope. He used it every single night and still does. His favourite constellation is Cassiopeia and his favourite star is Alpha Pegasai. 

Trevor

Model cars. Something about those tiny wheels makes his little brain go brr. Trevor enjoys occupying his time by doing models, model cars are his favourite. If he doesn't have something to do he will end up picking at his skin until it bleeds, so he picked up model building. Ever since then his closet has been stacked with boxes that are separated neatly into two piles. “Complete” and “Unopened”. There's a special shelf in his closet where his completed model cars sit. Bother him while he's building and he will punch you in the jaw, its his favourite thing. 

How they are in the DEED

Michael

Michael is rather a selfish lover. He tends to forget about his partner's needs through the deed itself, though afterwards will ask and prod if you're okay, if you enjoyed it ect. If you ever say that you didn't feel complete afterwards, he will promise you he’ll make it up to you next time, though if he keeps up to his promise you'll never be certain. 

Franklin

He can be kind of needy through the deed. Being a switch is tough work. He will either be on top of you or will be doing whatever you request of him. Franklin is a rather even lover, he’ll do whatever it takes to please you while also making sure he, himself, is pleased. Franklin will constantly be asking if you're okay with what's going on throughout and will, beforehand, ask if you have any boundaries. 

Trevor

You're going to need a safeword. Trevor will make sure you are pleased before him, sometimes he will even go without finishing himself just to see you squirm and melt under his touch. If you have boundaries, he will push them, though as soon as you say the safeword he will stop and make sure you're okay without hesitation. He just hopes that goes the same if he ever needs to say the safeword for whatever reason. 

[judediangelo75]

Doctor/Hospital AU Snippet

Side Note: I am, by no means, a medical student okay? This isn’t gonna include a lot of medical jargon. This is just to test this AU to see if I’m gonna be invested in this idea. And to see if you guys like it too, I do like sharing my work. 

Plus small age difference, Talbott is 27 while Judith is 25.

Judith went over her clipboard, reviewing the information on her latest patient as she sipped on her green tea.

Talbott Winger. 27 year old male, six foot tall, weighing at 183 pounds. Came in with a fatal bullet wound in the chest, just missing his right lung by a two inches.

The night the young man came in was one of her rare nights off, being called at 1 AM at night to come in to do an emergency surgery to save the man’s life. 

The operation was deemed a success, Talbott has been sleep induced to help his recovery process, but Judith had yet to return home. Even after one of her closest friends, Chiara, insisted that she could take over from there. But Judith was rather stubborn, and stayed.

She was running off of caffeine and the energic buzz of her work place to help keep her going. She was doing her last round and was visiting the poor man who found himself at the wrong end of someone’s gun.

She finally entered her patient’s room to check his vitals. This stuff was like clockwork for her, she was so absorbed into her work that she didn’t noticed red eyes staring at her.

Talbott awoke to the beeping sound of a heart monitor and gentle, but firm, hands wrapping something around his arm.

He felt groggy as he opened his eyes, trying to remember what lead him up to this point.

He could remember gunshots, shouting, police sirens, the searing pain of a bullet entering his body, Tonks’ yelling at him to ‘stay with me, you bastard! You can’t die on me now!’-

He blinked a few more times as reality sunk in.

He was shot in the midst of a home invasion and was taken to the hospital. His chest still hurt but it was to the point it was bearable. 

He finally took a look at who was tending to him, only for his heart to skip a beat.

A young woman was mumbling under her breath as she jotted down some notes on her clipboard. She looked to be about his age or so. She at least half a foot shorter than him, but had a “no nonsense” air about her that made her seem taller. She had dark flawless dark skin, long brown black locs set in a high ponytail, and the most breathtaking eyes he has ever seen.

A pale shade of gold.

Talbott swallowed briefly. 

‘I’m in so much trouble...’

Talbott used to be a married man. He married his high school sweetheart, Badeea Ali, when he was 22. But after just four years of marriage, things fell apart. With Badeea traveling to showcase her art and him working in the police force, spending time together grew to be nonexistent. They still cared for each other and remained friends, but Talbott never dated again afterwards.

He focused on his work rather than dating. Even though Tonks, Andre, Penny, Nuri, Chiara, and his ex-wife Badeea were all insisting that he go out on a date with someone. He always said that nobody caught his eye and that he just wasn’t interested.

Until now...

Now here he was, probably still high off of painkillers, staring at this young woman in black scrubs and a white coat as if he was hit by Cupid’s arrow. He bit the inside of his cheek as he studied her facial features. His heart skipped another beat when she stepped closer to replace the IV needle in his arm. A faint sweet smell wafted up to his nose, making him feel lax. 

And he knew it wasn’t the pain meds...

‘Definitely in so much trouble...’

Judith paused when she heard a small irregularity in the heart monitor, her eyes finding red ones staring back at her. She rose a brow in surprise finding some clarity in those beautiful red irises...

‘Wait, beautiful?’ Judith mentally shook her head.

‘Chiara maybe be right. I need to some damn sleep if I’m thinking like that...’

“Ah, awake I see. Hello, Mr. Winger. My name is Judith Harris, I’m your assigned doctor as you recover here at Saint Mungos. How are you feeling?”

‘Like a high school boy with a crush...’

Talbott willed his brain to function on responding and not focusing trying to figure out that sweet accent in her voice-

“Thank you, Ms. Harris. I feel a little groggy. Slight chest pain but nothing too unbearable,” he answered. Judith nodded promptly, making slight note of this. Talbott took note that she didn’t correct him to say “Mrs.”, meaning she wasn’t married. 

‘Don’t go jumping to conclusions, she could have a boyfriend...’

“Do you remember how you got here, Mr. Winger,” she asked, looking up from her clipboard to study her patient. 

Judith would be a damn liar if she said that the young cop wasn’t piquing her interest. He was rather handsome. Dark skin (though a few shades lighter than her own), sharp angular features, thick sharp brows, trim bicolor hair, full lips, and piercing red eyes.  

He had a dark, mysterious vibe to him that appealed to her. Eyes that spoke of secrets about his personality...

And she felt tempted to look into them to see if she could figure them out.

She mentally shook her head again.

Goodness gracious, her singlehood was showing again...

She hasn’t dated since college, after her last failed relationship. All her closest friends have seen what type of mess she was the days after the fact before she just buried herself in her studies. 

She wanted to enter the medical field from a young age. To be like her dear father and help people. She’d be damned if she was going to let a break up over a man ruin her dream.

Even though that meant cutting off dating altogether.

David, Nuri, Chiara, Orion, Rath, Bill, Jae, Andre, even her aging father Kendrick have been on her ass about at least going out on a date. She always shut all of them with all types of excuses. Biggest one was that she wasn’t interested in ANY one.

Until now...

And out of all people on God’s green Earth, it had to be a patient under her care.

Bloody hell, she should schedule a vacation after this...

“I remember being shot...” Judith snapped out of her musings when the deep voice of her patient reached her ears. 

“Yes, my team and I were able to remove the bullet and keep you stabilized. You’re quite lucky, just two more inches to the right, that bullet would’ve punctured your lung,” she said. Good, no signs of memory loss...

“Lucky indeed... enough to be saved by an angel...” Gold eyes blinked at him in surprise and Talbott realized that he said that out loud.

Shit.

Judith cleared her throat.

“W-Well Mr. Winger, by the looks of things, you seem to be healing quite well. This is the end of my shift, so if you have an questions, require anything, or need assistance, just press the buzzer and your assigned nurse, Ms. Lobosca, will come and assist. I’ll see you soon, Mr. Winger. Have a good night.” Talbott didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to his beautiful doctor (surgeon?) as she briskly walked out of his room. He groaned.

He really got it bad...

[funny-house]

huhu u got me to watch opal the other day since u keep talking abt it and im glad bc i Really Enjoyed It but !! anyways , i saw u mention mirror man doing makeup for someone and i keep thinking about it so Thoughts Incoming sorry in advance lmao. i think he would like to do claires makeup (and teach her abt it in general) when she gets a bit older,, both bc it seems like a legitimate hobby he would enjoy (i imagine if he werent Like That he probably could have been a makeup artist or something similar!) and bc he would like to ‘prettify’ her a bit.

and ah well,,, a lot of parents Like Him sometimes try 2 make their child a carbon copy of themselves or of an image they enjoy so if he grew to like claire more or already does like her enough for that (or just, wants things to revolve around him More) hed try to nudge things in that direction. and in his own way i think He might think hes doing something good, he knows when he was her age he would have killed to have a parent so eager to help him learn makeup and stuff but. claire isnt him. she probably isnt even interested in it at all but shes kinda desperate for Nice Moments and also doesnt wanna risk making him angry so she goes along with it. she always has her head in the clouds so all the things hes saying is too much at once but shes trying to comprehend it,,,,,

nd he keeps giggling at her for how awkwardly she moves her arm when putting on foundation and blush nd gets kind of annoyed with her for repeatedly flinching when he tries to help her with mascara nd teases her a bit for trying to taste the lip gloss (and keeps pointing out a flaw or two on her face “well, youve always had a sort of weird shaped face but youve always had the cutest little smile, its like Mine :)”) but they do it !! together !!! and nothing (that) bad happened !!!!!! so claire is happy,,,,,,,,,,, until that inevitably opens the gates of him trying to pick out what she wears for her and “””suggesting””” hairstyles for her and getting manipulative and even flatout Angry when she doesnt do what he wants her to (bc even when things Seem like theyre about claire they Are Not, its what He wants for her , in the end its still all about him) but, ive rambled enough to you already <:o) sorry for talking so much i just wanted to chat a bit abt opal with you !!!! hope ur doing well hehe . and im sorry this is rambly nd probably incomprehensible i just did a lot of work hkehri

ohhhhhhhh !!! FIRST  I am super glad that all my constant rambling about this man has allowed you to go watch Jack Stauber’s awesome little short, it’s really good and deserves all the support !!!

also i totally appreciate you wanting to share your thoughts with me ;u;

AND I TOTALLY AGREE  the whole idea of him projecting himself onto her, trying to take over her, I think that is so fitting for the short itself tbh, because it’s a reflection ( mirrors, hehe ) of what the mother wants from Claire as well. The thing that terrified Claire near the end is the mother reaching to hold onto her, specifically after the mom said that she was going to become just like her. The idea of her becoming her parents? it terrifies her, clearly!!

And Mirror Man, he is what they call a “archetypal narcissistic abuser”, in my eyes at least,  and it would be really really common to see someone like that not only be so controlling and self absorbed that they treat their child like a decoration to themselves, but also use that child, especially as they get old enough to have opinions on the situation, to turn them against their partner-- such as.... the mom

so picture this

Claire is like 10-12, and she’s bright and she’s got a good heart but she’s WELL and truly Affected by the years of being brought up in that ridiculously toxic hell hole-- I mean house no idea if the grandpa would live that long uhhh in his state, but even if he does, he’s still very sick, disabled, and senile and he isn’t going to be much help. and Claire, she’s starting to have Opinions,, on how things are running around here,,      but in swoops Mirror Dad

He’s like........ it’s your mother’s fault. Oh, absolutely, have you seen her? I mean look at her, she’s disgusting. she’s a drug addict, she’s a drunk, she’s ugly, she’s the reason you feel like this-- and maybe some of that is understandable, i mean she’s a real mess of a mom, no mistake, but hey

Nobody’s going to tell Claire who made her that way! Nobody’s going to tell her Mirror Dad was the one who trapped her in an unloving, possibly violent relationship, with a kid, and ripped apart every inch of her self worth !!!

Nope. she just sees the aftermath. So mirror dad...... turns claire on her. And she starts to side with him on things and she starts to even kinda talk like him maybe even....... learns how to do that dark and scary insecurity voice of his and one day She walks by the.... Reflection Chamber and Mirror Man is there in that way He Always Is in that seat he always sits in, and he says something very very odd to her!   he raises a finger and curls it in and says    come sit on my lap you haven’t gotten too big to sit on my lap have you?? come here!! and i mean Claire is still very very uncomfortable even being near him, and this feels like a trap, but i mean she can’t just say no, and there’s a part of her that’s kinda hoping... maybe he really is trying to be nice. and so she does and she sits with her but you’ll notice he is never looking directly at her. Even as she’s approaching literally right in his line of sight, he stares straight into her reflection, never her face.  It’s like she’s not even real unless she’s in those mirrors.

And he tells her he wants to do her makeup! yay! how fun! and he tells her to close her eyes and pout her lips and try not to flinch when the sculpting starts or he’ll use his deep voice-- and how he’s going to finally FIX her. Goody!! then maybe the constant barrage of insults and negs and criticisms will stop!! (p.s. they wouldn’t have )

And so she opens her eyes..... and the face of her abuser is looking right back. It’s her face. Or it used to be-- now it’s literally his and it’s hideous-- it does not AT ALL belong on that body, and the only thing left of her is her big shiny eyes

and she  S C R E A M S that way Claire does,,,

but this time, loud enough to crack the mirrors, and stun the dad just long enough for him not to catch her in his hands when she leaps off his lap and books it for the attic the attic, the view of the billboard with the same worn out, not updated ad for Opal’s in the window. She locks the door, it doesn’t take long for mirror man to come banging on it, telling her she’s ungrateful, she doesn’t deserve what little she has, taking back every nice thing he ever said, etc,,,

and Opal just starts clawing off the makeup/clay/whatever from her face in the mirror’s glass reflection, putting her hair back into the pigtails her father said made her look stupid

but she isn’t Opal, she’s changed, she’s aged, but Opal-- she’s always the same!! happy!! cared for!! and what is she supposed to be under the makeup? huh? Who is she besides the abuse she’s put through, that billboard and what it sells to her?  she doesn’t know! nobody does nobody ever bothered to get to know what it even means to be Claire.

[johnnyutah]

why is hermione granger censored like that in your quiz post?

ough some people have asked me this in the tags too so hang on.

tl;dr it was a joke.

but.... ok......... time to be crazy! 

for me hermione carries a lot of baggage now as a character. i don’t know if other people feel this way but whenever i see people posting gifs from the HP movies or quotes/headcanons from the books, i feel a slight distrust— and however slight, it’s not something that for me i can always readily dismiss. 

last summer one of my closest, nearly lifelong friendships drew to an awkward, shuddering close because we got in a fight about supporting jk rowling, and being trans, and supporting jkr AND being trans, and the everlasting significance of a piece of work that meant a lot to you while you were a kid or even as an adult, and what it feels like we should do when the creator of that piece of work has been a hateful, bigoted person. especially with harry potter, the books themselves get elevated higher than other fantasy series made for the same age groups. for instance part of the original premise of the first book was lightly lifted from an Eva Ibbotson novel, and all of her work is simultaneously much more complex and delivers better, clearer points with regards to morals and things children should be absorbing. 

the conversation i had with my old friend was cut short so we never got to delve into the conversation on any levels past comprehensive— we never got to discuss that some of the themes in harry potter are antisemitic, transphobic, classist, and racist. that my privilege meant that i didn’t ‘turn against’ harry potter while i was reading it, i only lost interest as i grew up and then started to observe the problems later as i gained experience and years. we never got to discuss things like people reclaiming hermione as black, or misguided attempts at finding LGBT representation in the series and the emotional weight that that carries for people. unfortunately our conversation ended due to heightened emotions and ideological differences. 

as for the author... i can’t roll with the ideologies that jkr is hatefully spreading and propping up with every action she takes. she is a beacon of hatred; she actively promotes the vilest, most transphobic things. thinking about some of the people that rowling has shared her platform with sickens me, because she is such a popular icon for women and a lot of people who are in the middle of the debate and who have never been around any trans activists have seen her posts and it has changed their minds about an issue they haven’t even fully comprehended. the evidence for that is disgustingly easy to find; literally just go look up british women’s groups and read about some of the issues there.

now. with all of that lingering on my mind. back to hermione. because hermione is an inspiring character for young children— an icon for girls. she speaks her mind, she reads, she’s brilliant, she stands up for causes that no one else seems to care about, she loves her friends and finds inner bravery to support them. 

hermione is also a self-insert character for jkr— this has been well documented across the years. and while i understand the writing process and i understand that this doesn’t make hermione a virulent transphobe, it can’t help but sour my perception of the beloved childhood icon. i dressed up as hermione for years when i was a kid; i work with kids now and they love her, all clamouring to play her in any game or defend her in any discussion. but it all feels a bit like there’s a giant elephant in the room, to me. thinking about how much i loved her when i was a child makes me cringe, and not in a ew! cringe! way.. more in the way of— how can i convince these kids to read better things that aren’t as popular? how much would i have changed if i had been introduced to more diverse book series at a younger age? and i don’t mean that my identity is so flimsy that it would have morphed into something completely different, but… i don’t know, just something ive been thinking about.

(and the spew thing.. hfhdhdhd we can’t fully get into this)

people have criticized hermione before— if you’re interested in genuine character problems, here’s an essay written by someone who cares about HP but that isn’t really my focus. i just censored hermione’s name as a joke because i thought we were all in on this. the community i’ve curated on tumblr feels a lot more inclusive to me than other social media so i didn’t think i would have to explain (to multiple people!) why i might censor one of the protagonist’s names from a popular series written by the world's most prominent transphobe. 

anyway there’s my little rant, if you made it to the bottom congrats. please don’t reblog this frankly just because i cannot deal with adult harry potter fans coming into my inbox. i hope i answered your question!

[varusai]

who do you think is the most dateable dark matter thief?? i know you have an opinion and i need to hear it

sorry for the late response anon i honestly had to think abt this one for a few days lmao, but yeah i have opinions. below the cut bc fr i have opinions, all of them have major pros and cons (based on my characterization at least) and really i just have to break it down for u

Boros, everyones obvious first choice, but certainly not mine.

Pros: rich, tall, pretty, fun af, passionate, will kill for you np, give you anything you want, literally anything.

cons: has a god complex, doesnt respect you, not his number one priority at all, will forget about you once its not interesting for him anymore, probably argumentative/combative af, is very very smart and has no problem manipulating you in all the worst ways, is very entitled so he will never feel bad about anything, cant win arguments either bc he’ll want to settle it with combat, will get offended over little things just to argue bc he thinks thats fun

this is a relationship you’d get into if you literally have nothing to lose and dont care about your mental health. like hes hot but this shit would be toxic af and he will ruin your life and leave you to go fuck around and fight someone on the other side of the universe. this will be the best of times and the worst of times for you and you will never be the same afterward mentally or emotionally. the only way i would even consider it is if i lost my damn mind. The only way a relationship with him would ever work long term is if you were physically stronger than him and were capable of putting him in his place OR you were smart enough, suicidal enough, and interesting enough to him to engage in some psychological warfare and reject him if he asked you. Make him chase you for years, say yes, then decide that /he’s/ boring /you/ and leave him for another member of the squad to just destroy their established hierarchy and humble him to the point that he’s obsessed with you.

i dont have the energy for all that, so i’ll just smash and pass.

0/10 completely undateable

Geryuganshoop, also a probable second choice for many:

pros: cute, nice, tentacle alien (obviously), will respect you np, will also give you anything you want, not antagonistic at all, telepathic communication so no risk of miscommunication, emotionally intelligent and available, loyal to a fault,

cons: horrible boss/best friend that you will have to listen to him vent about for at least 3 hours a day, complete yes man as well so he will not tell boros no or cut him off and you will be stuck dealing with this no matter what, severely mentally ill and wont go to therapy bc he thinks hes handling it well, workaholic, needs a lot, and i mean A LOT of attention

this relationship would be great if not for boros lol. boros sabotages his social and romantic life but geryu has been friends with him too long to either cut him off or establish boundaries. he has no backbone (figuratively and literally) and wouldnt even consider it. he’ll ignore you in favor of his job too, to a massive degree. also i think that while the telepathic communication would be a major plus in most cases, here i feel like i’d have no less than 16 different, never before seen on earth, mental illnesses projected right into my brain just from being within a certain radius of him.

im already fucked up enough in that sense so pass unfortunately.

it would be a yes without boros in the picture tho lmao

so prob like 4/10 iffy datablillity, 1 level increase with each decade of therapy he gets tho so a lot of potential :D

Groribas, my fav girl:

pros: straightforward, realistic, very clear expectations, will not fuck around with you whatsoever like there is no mind games or anything here, will kill for you, rich and non materialistic so she’ll basically just let you do whatever with her money since she doesn t care about it, cares about her job but like...a normal amount. she absolutely has a good work/life balance, highly organized so she will not forget important dates, loyal af and will defend your honor under any circumstances, mean but in a funny way, a ton of fun to hang out with if you’re into that, no eyes so i dont have to worry abt eye contact ever

cons: extremely high expectations, like exhaustingly high, and not even a bit of flexibility there, if you dont meet the cut its a no, she’ll let you know and leave same day, she will also bully you, you need a thick skin and great sense of humor to survive, bad at feelings if you need emotional support???? go elsewhere, shes mega emotionally unavailable, will probably want to share bodies as a form of intimacy

overall its a solid 6.5/10 dateability for me i love the directness and no bs approach, we would def get along well. however, while im not sensitive, shes def gonna hit on some insecurities at some point and it will cause an argument lol. but i mean whatever. it happens. the body sharing would be an issue though, same reason i wouldnt be chill with having a symbiote despite being a major venom fucker. i need my space i cant deal with that. so thats a possible deal breaker if she couldnt get over that lol. and she wont, so we wouldnt work out. i wish it fuckin would tho😭😭😭 i would take whatever crumbs of attention she would be willing to give me

Melzalgald, my fav they/them bastard:

pros: amorphous and shapeshifting aka extremely attractive according to my taste in monsters, tall af but could chose to be a more reasonable survivable size lol, self contained and self-entertaining so they dont need a ton of attention to be happy, funny af, rich, will give you whatever you want and probably a bunch of shit you didnt know you wanted, very fun, built in friend group if you didnt already have friends, extremely emotionally intelligent and great people skills due to living in a collective, stupid af by choice, like some of em are very smart, but they dont claim that, will say fuck work and tell boros to eat shit to spend time with you, will kill for you as well, but only if you ask them to bc their first inclination is to just bother someone to death, very loyal, once they like you they like you really forever, it would take some pretty extreme circumstances to make them dislike you

cons: annoying af and its unavoidable, will talk over you, all of them at once will talk over you and do so loudly, no respect for personal space, they dont even know what that is, will probably accidentally manhandle you, they act stupid but arent so they can be manipulative, even if it isnt bad and they dont really mean to be, impulsive, forgetful of the needs of organic creatures so they will bother you at all hours of the day and night if you arent firm with boundaries, disgustingly extroverted and will bring randoms to your place without asking, or just...make new cluster members and you have to roll with it, will eat or absorb literally anything you have, will antagonize and bother you for fun, major jump scare risk since sometimes the forms are....fleshy

this ones hard for me like theyre hot af and i feel like they’d be super fun and good partners, but god....the noise. idk how long i could deal with that lol i dont like people in my house. it would drive me up the wall, but then again...i can simply kick them out when ive had enough. they arent projecting mental illness directly into my brain or requiring me to share a body sintelligento major plus. creepy thing/symbiote style hot monster without any of the invasiveness so tbh 8/10 dateability

some people date loud annoying extroverts who dont understand personal space that /arent/ rich, loyal, or emotionally intellegent so i’d be winning on a few different fronts lmao

[credulouscanidae]

ive wanted to do youtube, or animation, or anything to do with being an influencer, for literally 6-8 years, ive attempted to make videos during those times, or write scripts, or do anything along those lines. but every single time ive attempted, ive had the same trains of thought or the same voices in my head that essentially make me give up before i even start. i have super complex feelings about it and im in a rambling mood so i guess im just gonna vent all i can about it and get it out.

i mean, a huge reason has been because ive been going through absolute hell my entire teenage/young adulthood, just all these personal traumas/emergencies/crises that have made me need to prioritse surviving day by day, which makes taking time to create genuinely so difficult. it makes me sad because as a preteen/early teen, i of course went through a lot of trauma and family dysfunction, but i used the computer and mt creativty to escape it all. i was really actively making amv’s, stories, art, etc. i arguably had more of a following/community than i do now. and im not sure what changed. i think just the general....fact that my trauma started to get more complex and being repeatedly shown that escaping didnt truly let me escape my abuses. i think ive been rewarded for staying low, keeping quiet, staying agreeable and compliant, because anything outside of that has gotten me hurt in the past.

i feel like im constantly swimming with ideas and inspiration, and i have a lot of feelings and need to talk about things. im not self absorbed by any means, and the idea of being an “influencer” itself is not whats appealing, i just like the idea of having my ideas out there and seeking connection through that. 

and a lot of the thought patterns i get when i think about creating are a combination of “whats the point?” “someone else has already done it and better” “its an oversaturated market” “what makes me more interesting than the next person?” “i cant handle having my existence on display to others for them to critique and form opinions about” etc which i know are all very self-deprecating thoughts

but they get more complex than that

i think about how much youtubers are under scrutiny, i think about how toxic internet culture has become, and not even in a just way, like i literally cant handle the idea of a small group of people stalking my internet history over the 14 years ive been online, even knowing my deadname or some shit. and ive seen how much people can hurt when they wanna hurt.

i also, in a self deprecating way, just find myself not interesting. i think a lot about how people are constantly fighting algorithms and creating an online persona to get an edge, to grow their platform. then i get into this spiral of feeling like ugh. we’re forced to make a brand out of ourselves and sell ourselves. we lose a lot of our humanity through this, because weve curated a very specific version of ourselves that is digestible and consumable. im also not a confrontational person (due to trauma) and i see a lot of the popular youtubers be people that are very outspoken, cemented in their ideas, and unfortunatly, are in dramas or even seek/perpetrate it. of course i follow a lot of people who arent like that, but they feel a lot more educated and well spoken compared to me.

again, i understand a lot of this comes from self depreaction and pesimission, but i literalyl cannot shake these thoughts every time i go to create something. “whats the point” is a very strong thought, because i feel like a nothing, someone who cant add anything substantial to pretty much any topic that has already been discussed into the ground. it feels very bleak and a big reason ive struggled to even draw or create merch the last 2 years. or bothered with my online presence as an artist. i have lots of visions and goals about where i wanna take myself, but dont have the charisma, motivation, or certainty that i want to.

and i know that being a creator isnt as vapid and vain as im making it sound, being a creator online is just that, a creator. expressing creativity, taking the ideas in your head and sharing it with others. i feel like thats, at its core, why pretty much everyone starts out doing this. but i mean, dont even get me started on the need to monetise off your creativty, thats another big chunk as to why i falter in producing “content”. im just so fatigued, because i know i cant ever been like my 13 year old self again where i just created whatever the fuck i wanted out of fun, bc i now feel like the internet has been...”infected by capitalism” for a lack of a better term, and theres a lot of pressure nowadays to sell yourself to a certain standard.

ironically, i feel like composing a proper think piece about my feelings and putting them into a video lmao.

also just practical issues like i dont have the money to invest in a camera/equipment, ive had unstable housing in the past so production has been difficult/impossible, and i havent had the computer to handle video editing up until last year. siiiigh, just so much fuckery

[prompt-master]

Would you be willing to share how you might rewrite Yukizome, Sakakura, and Munakata to make them likable characters (if not ppl Bc there’s a big difference)???

ahhhhhhh this ask got me so stupidly excited that I was like wavin my hands around. I think about how to rewrite their characters OFTEN. very often. I’m gonna go with likeable character over likeable people because I think they work better where they’re actually not that likeable people. 

The one I think about the MOST is Munakata. He was SUCH wasted potential and I partially blame the medium for that (a single season anime is too constrained for future, it needed more time and care to be a proper story). But Munakata is actually so close to being a compelling character but they made some MAJOR mistakes with him. This ended up getting really long and more like a 3 page ADHD ramble essay. SO IM VERY SORRY to anyone who cannot read this but TYTYTY if you did because these ideas make me very happy! Oh it’s only about Munakata btw because of how long it got

The thing about Munakata is that he is designed to be a foil to Naegi. In fact a majority of dr3 future FOCUSES on this foil dynamic. It is Naegi’s hope vs Munakata’s hope. The World’s hope vs The FF’s hope. And more importantly it is True Hope vs Corrupted Hope.

This is a fantastic concept...so why didn’t it work in canon? I think that the biggest most glaring issue with Munakata’s hope is his logic. Munakata is meant to be a logical man, although with corrupted morals that lead him astray. Yet in canon his logic is laughably infallible. For example as a major figure in the FF and someone who wants to spread hope....why would he tell Naegi to kill himself? More importantly why does he continue to try and slaughter Naegi? The issue here isn’t from the fact that he wants him dead but from the fact that he is under the IMPRESSION that this entire game is being broadcast to the world.

Think about this for a second. In Munakata’s eyes he is going to kill the Ultimate Hope, an international symbol of a better life, live on TV. He doesn’t just want to kill the Ultimate Hope..he wants to do it BRUTALLY as a MAJOR FIGURE OF THE FF. IMO this should have happened later on as the game furthers the emotional turmoil in Munakata’s head and he eventually snaps and gives in to the desire to kill Naegi despite the fact that this is live. And then there should be CONSEQUENCES for that. I wanted so badly a realization where Munakata realizes that he is hurting the Ultimate Hope in front of what he believes is the entire world. 

Another issue with Munakata’s logic is saying things such as...implying that the HPA KG was...just a game. I mean...people DIED. it's not hard to see how wrong that logic is. you can't say “this is the real world now” when what Naegi experienced WAS the real world. I think that this could be fixed through a bit of world building. DR3 Future is rather isolated from its world. We don’t really know much about the world and its dynamics. I think it would make perfect sense if the general public viewed the HPA KG as a tv show, they got numb to the sight and even those untouched by despair had a hard time connecting that these are REAL people suffering. With this previously established Munakata expressing that the KG was not real would make a lot more sense and play into his corrupted idea of hope. 

There is also Munakata’s connection to his other friends. Now I’ve talked about this before but the game was clearly designed to BREAK Munakata and Naegi. This way the FF would die, both the FF and World’s hope would be broken, and upon seeing this Mitarai would have no choice but to deploy his own forced hope. So it makes perfect sense that Yukizome’s death would break him (in fact if she hadn’t died in that way, her NG code was designed to be Munakata’s fault). But something about it felt...superficial. Again I think this is the mediums fault but it almost feels as though Munakata just forgets about Yukizome until later. I think they should spend more time establishing his pain and what he has lost and why this pushes him to kill. In his eyes if she can die then nothing else matters. It should be THE breaking point, not the first push. I do like the betrayal he feels towards realizing she had despair but it needed more time to fester. 

And his relationship with Sakakura also felt weak. In all honesty it was hard for me to feel as though they were ever friends. Sakakura is written as though he just follows Munakata like a loyal dog and Munakata just orders him around. Establish their relationship more! Why are they such good friends? Why is Sakakura important to him? And more importantly why did Munakata decide to cruelly gut Sakakura knowing he was about to confess? This is because he believed that Sakaura was despair and that his confession was more manipulation, but they didn’t show this well at ALL. Munakata just comes across as a major a-sshole who does not care. I also personally found it distasteful that when changing his heart Munakata only seemed to cry for Yukizome. I understand that was his love interest but Yukizome at the end of the day killed herself. Sakakura however was an unnecessary betrayal he took into his own hands AS HE HIMSELF KILLED HIM. He should have more guilt over that! Not just in that moment where he runs to Sakakura, but ahead of time as well! Maybe even DURING his rampage they could have shown him having moments of guilt but he is so absorbed in the idea that all despairs have to die that he doesn’t even realize he has become despair in the name of hope.

A BIG weakness on Munakata’s part comes with interacting with other characters. He is a man who should know how to take charge, lead, and doesn't know what to do when things are getting too crazy even though he THINKS he does. Munakata is heavily flawed, OBVIOUSLY flawed, but many of the interactions with him are as tho his rampage isnt a big deal. There should be reasons for this! Why do people trust Munakatas guidance so much? I dont know! All ive seen from him is that hes insane! Maybe even pieces where around others hes a lot nicer so you can understand why they follow him, even though hes ready to gut Naegi alive with a flaming katana. His interactions with others feel like the writers just wanted to see the next big evil thing they could think of, but for Munakata’s character this doesn't make sense because he was appointed a high status in the foundation for a reason. Maybe even have people say they disagree with some of his methods but at the end of the day he gets the job done!

There is another major missed opportunity here and it's why Muanakata wants Naegi dead so badly in the first place. The remnants. Hiding terrorists in the apocalypse is a PERFECTLY valid reason to want someone dead and think they're a bad guy! But I think since Naegis initial arrest was already so hostile and violent we get the sense that the FF is simply just...crazy. 

And let’s think about what Munakata WANTS from Naegi. He does not just want Naegi dead he wants something worse. He wants Naegi to suffer first. He thinks that Naegi doesnt understand his own personal pain. He thinks that because Naegi protected the remnants he must also not care about the suffering the remnants caused. He wants Naegi to feel despair and then die. This is important to his corrupted hope. He thinks the suffering must be shared in order to understand who must die, but he is creating a cycle of pain. Tie this back to the broadcasting issue. He wants Naegi to break for everyone to see. I think..and this is just a concept..I think it would have been a great idea for Munkata to force Naegi to watch the despair video so that he has no choice but to understand. 

AND themes are majorly important to Danganronpa. And I don’t think its a stretch to say that there are parallels between Munakata and Naegi. In fact I would say that there are aspects of the og trio in this new trio. I think it would have been really cool if they showed how our favorite trio could have ended up if they had been corrupted as well. But the parrellels dont stick strongly. I think it would have been cool to show a past where Munakata’s idealism lies more strongly than Naegis. As the student council president there was a time where he himself had to use his words to solve problems. Perhaps he learned that sometimes his words made things worse. Munakata does not have Naegi’s talent of emotional intelligence. He is a man of action over words. So he interprets this as WORDS being the problem rather than understanding he does not have these skills. Especially when the apocalypse breaks out, it becomes all action over words. So he sees Naegi who is all talk as a genuine threat who will let everyone die through his “weak ineffective” idea of hope. 

Another parallel could be drawn from the fact that they both have hope based careers. Their job is too keep things hopeful. Maybe Naegi stays safe doing public broadcasted speeches, while Munakata is on the field weeding out despairs. This would cause Munakata to feel as though Naegi is doing no real work yet getting all the credit for being a savior.

Munakata constantly complains that Naegi does not know true pain. But he and we as an audience have followed Naegi through his entire process of trauma. We know he is in the wrong. But what do we as an audience know about Munakata’s suffering? We are shown almost nothing! There are some implications, but for how intense he is implications are not enough. We need to see his suffering. We should see how he has witnessed death. Yukizomes death is not nearly enough for this because he talks as though he has suffered for years. How can we as an audience understand that when we have never seen it? How can we understand Munakata when he is outright denying Naegi’s trauma that we KNOW existed with no proper justification for his reasoning?

I also believe that Munakata should have died. It actually upsets me a bit that he was PLANNED to die but didn't. He should have died protecting Naegi after all that suffering and relentless brutality he offered him. Munakata again is a man of action over word, and protecting Naegi with his last breath is the perfect way to show how in the end he changed. Especially when all he wanted initially was for Naegi to die. I find that much more satisfying than just…...walking off to who knows where.

So lets recap some changes. Munakata needs a proper display of his past traumas and his relationship with Sakakura and Yukizome. Munakata needs a proper display of his work relationships and the respect he has earned. Munakata needs to fall into corruption at a better pace, and have geniune reasons for his illogical attacks on Naegi. Munakata needs to care more for his friends. Munakata needs to deal with the turmoil of wanting to hurt Naegi while he believes the world is watching. Munakata needs to die for Naegi

This has gotten long...and I still have things to say. There is so much to make Munakata a good character. Future had a lot of potential and is amazing for a rewrite concept. As for Sakakura and Yukizome since this has gotten long feel free to ask for another round of this individually when asks are open again! If you read all of this somehow….TYSM

[mary-tudor]

~HENRY TUDOR: A SOCIOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION.~

Today, I'll be discussing a character who left his mark in History, fathering a dynasty whose most proeminent members were his (second) son Henry VIII and his granddaughter Elizabeth I. Often overshadowed by his descendants, Henry's own deeds as a king and as an individual of his own days have been neglected until recently, when efforts from British historians have been working hard to change that. 

The reason why I decided to bring him here was not only due to personal affections, though they certainly helped it, but because there are aspects overlapped in social structures that shaped him. In other words: what's Henry Tudor as a sociological individual? Can we point him out as a constant foreigner or someone whose socialization process were strongly marked by the addition of two different societies? 

Henry Tudor was born in Pembroke, located in Wales, in January 28th 1457. His mother was Margaret Beaufort, a proeminent lady whose grandfather John Beaufort was the son of John of Gaunt, son in turn of King Edward III of England. The duke of Lancaster fathered four ilegitimated children (who were legitimated in posterity) by his (third marriage to his then) lover Katheryn Swynford, amongst whom John Beaufort was the oldest. Therefore, Henry was  3x grandson. to the duke and, despite what some might argue when Henry IV became king, in great deal to inherite the throne. Well, it's not my intention to deepen the discussion as to Henry's legitimacy or the Beauforts. 

Though his father's ancestry, Henry's blood led him to the royal house of Valois. His paternal grandmother, Katherine de Valois, was the sister of Isabella, who had been the second wife of the ill-fated king Richard II. She was also descended of Louis IX and his spanish wife, Blanche de Castille. Henry was also a royal man from the Welsh lands, as Owain Tudor, his grandfather, was related to several princes of Wales. By all these I said, the first thing one might think (considering 15th century and it’s nobility) Henry would receive a proper education due to his status. However, this would not happen in the strict sense of the word. Let us not forget that England was collapsing by the time of Henry Tudor's birth and his childhood. Why am I using the word 'collapse' to qualify the civil war we know named as wars of the roses?

Émile Durkheim, a french sociologist, would write several centuries later, about how a society is formed: he compared it to the working of a human body. If the head, the brain of our body does not work well, what happens? The body will not work well, certainly. Neither would the head work well if other parts hurt somehow. Although if you did break a leg, you could still make use of your brain, but as a whole how limited wouldn't you be? He'd also say that when the human body, or as he called, the society was sick, it was because of the social structures which imposed the human being to the point where there would be no individuality, no matter of choice. 

Such created social facts that were completely external (althoug well internalized through means of a process we call socialization) but coercitive. If they are not working, what does this mean? That soon another social facts will be replacing the former one. But between one and another, we have a "very sickly" society. Taking this understanding back to England's 15th century, it is not difficult to see what Durkheim was talking about. 

The king was the head of the English body. If we have here two kings fighting over one crown, fighting over the rule of an entire body... Well, then? We have the collapse, a civil war that lasted for the next 30 years. Here, it's less about discussing who started what but why they did what they did, and the explanation for it. Power is power. It's crystal clear, and a statement that, however simple might it sound, points to the obvious. Factions that fought for power intended to dominate others, using the concept very well developed by sociologists as Pierre Bourdieu and Norbert Elias. This domination is a large field, a concept that embrace all sorts of it. Looking back to England's latter half of the century, domination was peril. The head was about to explode. The society was ill... and dominated by it.

What were the values? What was the racionalization proccess of social action led by individuals that were not only individuals but a group? How would all of this affect Henry Tudor? It was not about merely blaming the capitalism, because such coercitive system wasn't present yet. But Henry was, directly or not, linked to the royal house of Plantagenets, whose eagerness for dominating one another and by extension the rest of the country would include him in the game. 

"Game." For Durkheim, this would imply an agitation, like a wave of sea, from which no one could escape from. Let's not forget that Institutions created ideas, renewed them, shaped them to the practice whether to dominate the weaker or to defeat the stronger. Whatever the purpose, we here have the Church, not the religiosity, but the precursor of ideas would subdue individuals to share (or manipulate to their own goals anyways) values in order to keep determined mentality to it. But also, monarchy was too an institution which held control over the lives and deaths of thousands of people. A monarch, as we know, is never alone regardless of how "absolut" they could be in different times and contexts. They were not above the law, either. At least where the socialization process is concerned. For the monarch embodied the content which was the law back then. He was literally the law. 

Furthermore, Henry's education would foresee this fighting, which I'm not merely referring to custody going from his mother to another, before finally staying under his uncle's responsibilities, as well as the civil war itself. (Anyone remembers Warwick executing Herbert before the boy?) 

See, we all know and comprehend today what trauma are capable of doing to someone. Such experience is the main responsible for shaping ideas, values and even costumes. Now, a society which is very much sick by it's own values and moral costumes (a point here must be made: the public consciousness always preached for a warrior, strong king, but has no one thought how this "common sense", validated by a general expectation towards the head of society, was what led it to... well, for the lack of better word, suicide itself? 

For it's widely accepted that weak kings do not last long. But that is when we deal with a good deal of expectations that, when turned to frustrations, bring awful results. If England's society was ill in it's very extreme sense of the word, was because the values they created turned against themselves and that would leave it's mark in a boy as Henry. And until the age of 14, he was still absorbing these concepts, these morals, values, costumes from institutions (let's not forget that a monarch shares such with the nobility that surrounds him, as was the case of House Lancaster,f.e) before he was casted out to Bretagne and, in posteriority, to France. Now, I believe you all know what was done whether in England or with our king during these 14 years spent outside his own country before he became king upon the victory settled on the battle of Bosworth field.

I am not interested in discussing historical facts. At least not now, as we are finally dealing with Henry Tudor as a social actor

----/-HENRY TUDOR: A FOREIGNER? AN EXILED? OR AN OUTCAST?--

These questions mobilized me as I came to read a text written by 19th century sociologist named Georg Simmel. He wrote an essay (pardon by any mistakes in translations done from here on) entitled "The Foreigner", in which he brings a sociological question at why  foreigners are seen as strangers who are never entirely immersed in the society they attempt to be part in. 

Here's an excerpt translated by me in which he explains it:

"Fixed within a determined social space, where it's constancy cross-border could be considered similar to the space, their position [the foreigner's] in it is largely determined by the fact of not belonging entirely to it, and their qualities cannot originate from it or come from it, nor even going in it." (SIMMEL, 2005: 1.)    

Furthermore, he adds:

“The foreigner, however, is also an element of the group, no more different than the others and, at the same time, distincted from what we consider as the 'internal enemy'. They are an element in whose position imanent and of member comprehend, at the same time, one outsider and the other insider." (SIMMEL, 2005: 1).

Here's why Henry, as Earl of Richmond, was not well seen by the Britons and the French, in spite of being "accepted" by them. Never forget that he would still be seen as an outsider by his own fellows. As Richard III would call Henry a bastard, one could understand this accusation with sociological  implications. English back then detested these foreigners and by the concept brought here by me from Simmel we can understand why. But we could also see being called a bastard as a way to point out Henry's localization. Where can the Earl of Richmond & soon-to-be king be located?

I have pointed this far the structures which were raised and caused a collapsed society to live broken in many, many ways and how this affected Henry this far. Seeing how foreigner he was, nonetheless, he did not belong neither to England (at first) nor to the Continent.

On that sense of word, says Simmel (2005: 3): 

"A foreigner is seen and felt, then, from one side, as someone absolutely mobiled, a wanderer. As a subject who comes up every now and then through specific contacts and yet, singularly, does not find vinculated organically to  anything or anyone, nominally, in regards to the established family, locals and profissionals”

Even though we find a dominant group of foreigners in France, as we are talking about of nobles displeased with the Yorkist cause and supporters of the Lancastrian House, they were not majority. Where can we locate Henry, then? We don't, because he was not a French and however well he could speak the language, it was not his birth language. The French culture was not passed nor naturalized by him through the teachings of a family or the church by the institutions: monarchy, church, family, parliament, etc; he would have been defeated a long time. But that he did manage to, using this popular expression, put things together and become the first king to die peacefully since Henry V, it tells us a lot. Not rarely an immigrant is accepted by a society whose demands are forced upon him, most of the times in aggressive ways. But it's not often either that we see a king occupying such place in society. 

Indeed, one might say that kings as Henry II and the conquerors before him were too foreigners, but not in the sociological way I'm explaining. Because the social structures were different. Henry's government were settled in a more centralized ruling, far more just and peaceful, more economic and less concerned with waging wars than his antecessors. The need to migrate was not 'forced', neither 'imposed' and even back to the 11th and 12th centuries were motivated by different reasons. That's to accentuate how English society evolved throughout the centuries. And I used again and again Georg Simmel to prove my point about casting a sociological light towards Henry VII not as a historical character so distant of us and who remains an object of controversial discussions, but a man of his times who was forced to deal with expectations that placed him in social positions nearly opposed to one another to fulfill each role whether as king or as a man. For some reason, the broken society shaped Henry as an immigrant, but as history shows us, it was this immigrant who helped shape medieval society, directing it towards the age of Renaissance and in posteriority to Modern Age.

Finally, to close this thread I leave here another quote (translated to English by me) found in the text written by Simmel: 

"The foreigner, strange to the group [he is in], is considered and seen as a non-belonging being, even if this individual is an organic member of the group whose uniform life comprehends every particular conditioning of this social [mean]. (...) [the foreigner] earns in certain groups of masses a proximity and distance that distinguishes quantities in each relationship, even in smaller portions. Where each marked relationship nduced to a mutual tension in specific relationships, strenghtening more formal relations out of respect to what's considered 'foreigner' of which are resulted." (SIMMEL, p 7). 

Bibliography: 

AMIN, Nathen. https://henrytudorsociety.com/

DURKHEIM, Émile. "The Division of Labor in Society”.

KANTOROWICZ, Ernst H.”The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieavel Political Theology.”

PENN, Thomas. Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England.

SIMMEL, Georg. The Foreigner. In: Soziologie. Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung. Berlin. 1908.

[troybeecham]

Today, the Church remembers St. Bonaventure.

Ora pro nobis.

He was born at Bagnorea in Umbria, not far from Viterbo, then part of the Papal States, in 1221 AD. Almost nothing is known of his childhood, other than the names of his parents, Giovanni di Fidanza and Maria di Ritella.

He entered the Franciscan Order in 1243 and studied at the University of Paris. In 1253 he held the Franciscan chair at Paris. A dispute between seculars and mendicants delayed his reception as Master until 1257, where his degree was taken in company with Thomas Aquinas. Three years earlier his fame had earned him the position of lecturer on The Four Books of Sentences—a book of theology written by Peter Lombard in the twelfth century—and in 1255 he received the degree of master, the medieval equivalent of doctor. After having successfully defended his order against the reproaches of the anti-mendicant party, he was elected Minister General of the Franciscan Order. On 24 November 1265, he was selected for the post of Archbishop of York; however, he was never consecrated and resigned the appointment in October 1266.

Bonaventure was instrumental in procuring the election of Pope Gregory X, who rewarded him with the title of Cardinal Bishop of Albano, and insisted on his presence at the great Second Council of Lyon in 1274. There, after his significant contributions led to a union of the Greek and Latin churches, Bonaventure died suddenly and in suspicious circumstances.

He steered the Franciscans on a moderate and intellectual course that made them the most prominent order in the Catholic Church until the coming of the Jesuits. His theology was marked by an attempt completely to integrate faith and reason. He thought of Christ as the “one true master” who offers humans knowledge that begins in faith, is developed through rational understanding, and is perfected by mystical union with God.

Bonaventure was formally canonised in 1484 by the Franciscan Pope Sixtus IV, and ranked along with Thomas Aquinas as the greatest of the Doctors of the Church by another Franciscan, Pope Sixtus V, in 1587. Bonaventure was regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of the Middle Ages.

Bonaventure wrote on almost every subject treated by the Schoolmen, and his writings are very numerous. The greater number of them deal with philosophy and theology. No work of Bonaventure’s is exclusively philosophical, a striking illustration of the mutual interpenetration of philosophy and theology that is a distinguishing mark of the Scholastic period.

Much of St. Bonaventure’s philosophical thought shows a considerable influence by St. Augustine. So much so that De Wulf considers him the best medieval representative of Augustinianism. St. Bonaventure adds Aristotelian principles to the Augustinian doctrine, especially in connection with the illumination of the intellect and the composition of human beings and other living creatures in terms of matter and form. Augustine, who had introduced into the west many of the doctrines that would define scholastic philosophy, was an incredibly important source of Bonaventure’s Platonism. The mystic Dionysius the Areopagite was another notable influence.

In philosophy Bonaventure presents a marked contrast to his contemporaries, Roger Bacon, Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas. While these may be taken as representing, respectively, physical science yet in its infancy, and Aristotelian scholasticism in its most perfect form, he presents the mystical and Platonizing mode of speculation that had already, to some extent, found expression in Hugo and Richard of St. Victor, Alexander of Hales, and in Bernard of Clairvaux. To him, the purely intellectual element, though never absent, is of inferior interest when compared with the living power of the affections or the heart.

Like Thomas Aquinas, with whom he shared numerous profound agreements in matters theological and philosophical, he combated the Aristotelian notion of the eternity of the world vigorously (though he disagreed with Aquinas about the abstract possibility of an eternal universe). Bonaventure accepts the neo-Platonic doctrine that “forms” do not exist as subsistent entities, but as ideals or archetypes in the mind of God, according to which actual things were formed; and this conception has no slight influence upon his philosophy.

Like all the great scholastic doctors, Bonaventura starts with the discussion of the relations between reason and faith. All the sciences are but the handmaids of theology; reason can discover some of the moral truths that form the groundwork of the Christian system, but others it can only receive and apprehend through divine illumination. To obtain this illumination, the soul must employ the proper means, which are prayer, the exercise of the virtues, whereby it is rendered fit to accept the divine light, and meditation that may rise even to ecstatic union with God. The supreme end of life is such union, union in contemplation or intellect and in intense absorbing love; but it cannot be entirely reached in this life, and remains as a hope for the future.

Like Aquinas and other notable thirteenth-century philosophers and theologians, Bonaventure believed that it is possible to prove the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. He offers several arguments for the existence of God, including versions of St. Anselm’s ontological argument and Augustine’s argument from eternal truths. His main argument for the immortality of the soul appeals to humans’ natural desire for perfect happiness, and is reminiscent of C. S. Lewis’s argument from desire. Contrary to Aquinas, Bonaventure did not believe that philosophy was an autonomous disciple that could be pursued successfully independently of theology. Any philosopher is bound to fall into serious error, he believed, who lacks the light of faith.

A master of the memorable phrase, Bonaventure held that philosophy opens the mind to at least three different routes humans can take on their journey to God. Non-intellectual material creatures he conceived as shadows and vestiges (literally, footprints) of God, understood as the ultimate cause of a world philosophical reason can prove was created at a first moment in time. Intellectual creatures he conceived of as images and likenesses of God, the workings of the human mind and will leading us to God understood as illuminator of knowledge and donor of grace and virtue. The final route to God is the route of being, in which Bonaventure brought Anselm’s argument together with Aristotelian and Neoplatonic metaphysics to view God as the absolutely perfect being whose essence entails its existence, an absolutely simple being that causes all other, composite beings to exist.

Bonaventure, however, is not only a meditative thinker, whose works may form good manuals of devotion; he is a dogmatic theologian of high rank, and on all the disputed questions of scholastic thought, such as universals, matter, seminal reasons, the principle of individuation, or the intellectus agens, he gives weighty and well-reasoned decisions. He agrees with Saint Albert the Great in regarding theology as a practical science; its truths, according to his view, are peculiarly adapted to influence the affections. He discusses very carefully the nature and meaning of the divine attributes; considers universals to be the ideal forms pre-existing in the divine mind according to which things were shaped; holds matter to be pure potentiality that receives individual being and determinateness from the formative power of God, acting according to the ideas; and finally maintains that the agent intellect has no separate existence. On these and on many other points of scholastic philosophy the “Seraphic Doctor” exhibits a combination of subtlety and moderation, which makes his works particularly valuable.

In form and intent the work of St. Bonaventure is always the work of a theologian; he writes as one for whom the only angle of vision and the proximate criterion of truth is the Christian faith. This fact influences his importance for the history of philosophy; when coupled with his style, it makes Bonaventure perhaps the least accessible of the major figures of the thirteenth century. This is true, not because he is a theologian, but because philosophy interests him largely as a praeparatio evangelica, a preparation for evangelism, as something to be interpreted as a foreshadow of or deviation from what God has revealed.

In a way that is not true of Aquinas or Albert or Scotus, Bonaventure does not survive well the transition from his time to ours. It is difficult to imagine a contemporary philosopher, Christian or not, citing a passage from Bonaventure to make a specifically philosophical point. One must know philosophers to read Bonaventure, but the study of Bonaventure is seldom helpful for understanding philosophers and their characteristic problems. Bonaventure as a theologian is something different again, as is Bonaventure the edifying author. It is in those areas, rather than in philosophy proper, that his continuing importance must be sought.

Almighty God, you gave to your servant Bonaventure special gifts of grace to understand and teach the truth as it is in Christ Jesus: Grant that by this teaching we may know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.