#and in answer to a perfectly valid question

[galedekarios]

the way some ppl go out of their way to actively seek out appropriately tagged content to get upset about to the point of making several posts in a row abt it... it's like that guy on bike meme tbh

[shima-draws]

Shima is it Coralaw 👀👀👀

...................MAYBE

[shiftthemoon]

reality shifting isn’t hard. you’ve been told it’s hard because everyone’s too scared to admit it’s not. they cling to their 800-step methods, their must-have crystals, their perfect conditions because they think that if they let go of that control, they’ll fail. but here’s the thing: the more you try to control the process, the more you convince yourself it’s out of your control. and that’s the problem. that’s why so many people feel stuck. shifting isn’t some big, far-fetched thing. it’s just you. it’s always been you.

we’re conditioned to think we’re powerless. think about it—school, work, society, all of it drills this idea into us that everything has to be proven, earned, validated. so, when you hear about shifting, your brain freaks out and says, wait, wait, this is too easy, this can’t be real. and then you spiral. you overcomplicate it. you make yourself think you need the “perfect” script, the “right” subliminal, or that you have to meditate for three hours while the stars align perfectly. like, no… you don’t. all of that? it’s fluff. it’s noise.

at its core, shifting is belief. just belief. no, really, let that sink in. you don’t need to “do” belief perfectly. it’s not something you master through sheer willpower. it’s something you already have. you’ve believed in things your whole life. you believed in gravity without needing proof. you believe your favorite songs are beautiful without needing to explain why. belief is natural. it’s effortless when you stop overthinking it. that’s the energy you need to bring to shifting—trust. trust that your mind knows what it’s doing, and that if you let it, it will take you there. every single extra thing you pile on? the overthinking, the doubt, the need for guarantees? that’s what’s slowing you down. not the “lack of progress,” not some mythical “block”—it’s you convincing yourself it’s harder than it is.

and let’s talk about social media for a second. oh my god, the shifting community on social media… i get it. it’s comforting to see other people on this journey. but let’s be honest—how much of that content is actually helping you? like, really? 90% of the time, scrolling through shifting advice isn’t inspiring; it’s overwhelming. everyone’s got their own opinions, their own “best methods,” their own rules. one person says scripting is a must, another says it’s a waste of time. one person swears by affirmations, another says visualization is the only way. and before you know it, you’re sitting there questioning everything you thought you knew, wondering if you’ll ever get it “right.” spoiler alert: you already know how to shift. you don’t need a thousand voices telling you what to do. in fact, the more you listen to them, the harder it becomes to hear yourself.

take a break. seriously. log off the apps. give yourself space to breathe and think. ask yourself: why do i want to shift? what’s stopping me? what feels right to me? no tiktok trend, youtube guide, or reddit post can answer those questions for you. only you can. and i know that sounds scary. we’ve been conditioned to think we need external validation for everything, but shifting is a deeply personal thing. you don’t need a step-by-step tutorial. you need to trust your instincts. that’s it.

and let me be clear: i’m not saying methods or subliminals are bad. they’re fine if they help you feel aligned. but they’re not what makes shifting happen. you are. methods are just tools. if you use them, great. if you don’t, that’s great too. because the truth is, shifting isn’t about doing things “right.” it’s about letting go of the idea that you need to.

so let me break it down for you. the only things you really need to shift are:

1. a desire. you have to want to go to your desired reality. no brainer, right?

2. belief. this is the big one. you have to trust it’s possible. no “what ifs,” no “but hows.” just trust.

3. persistence. if it doesn’t happen right away, that’s okay. don’t give up. if you’ve ever learned to ride a bike, you know that falling doesn’t mean you can’t do it—it just means you’re learning. shifting is the same.

that’s it. no fancy rituals, no endless research, no “perfect” conditions. the process is simple because it’s natural. you’ve probably done it before without even realizing it— the only reason it feels hard now is because you’ve convinced yourself it has to be.

stop making it harder than it needs to be. shifting isn’t this unattainable, mystical thing reserved for “chosen ones.” it’s something anyone can do. you can do it. your mom can do it. that anti-shifter lurking in every crevice of shiftblr could do it. you’ve always been capable. but you have to stop getting in your own way. stop doubting yourself. stop relying on others to tell you what’s possible. this is your journey. own it.

and above all, be patient. shifting is not a race. it’s not about how fast you can get there or how perfect your dr is. it’s about trust, intention, and focus. log off, tune into yourself, and let it happen. shifting has always been yours to claim. it’s not something you need permission for. it’s not something you need to earn. it’s just you, your mind, and your belief. always has been, always will be.

[prokopetz]

"But doesn't having a notion of 'balanced' combat inherently imply that all combat encounters are expected to be fair and winnable" well, no – it implies only that the GM has the ability to know whether a given combat encounter is fair and winnable.

There's a story that's been going around for decades about a Dungeons & Dragons party who encountered a large room full of treasure while exploring a dungeon. Immediately suspicious, they asked their GM a series of detailed questions about the room, but no obvious dangers were identified. Satisfied, they moved into the room – and were immediately set upon and eaten by the dragon that had been sitting atop the pile of treasure the whole time, which the GM hadn't mentioned because the players never specifically asked about the presence of living creatures within the room.

While this is obviously an extreme and ridiculous case, it illustrates an important point: as GM, you're the group's eyes and ears. If you don't describe something, the player characters literally can't see it – that dragon was effectively invisible from their perspective. The trick is that active malice isn't the only way to invisible-dragon your players; a group can also find themselves invisible-dragoned because the GM simply failed to provide sufficient information for the risk in question to be identified. This can happen through neglect, but it can also happen because the GM themself was unaware that the risk was present.

Now, hold on, you might be saying: the GM "plays" the entire world. How is it possible for the GM not to know that a risk is present? Well, that brings us back around to the subject of combat balance.

A game in which "balanced" combat is a meaningful thing to discuss is typically going to be one in which both the players and the GM are actually making strategic, tactical, and/or logistical decisions, rather than merely producing a description of their characters making such decisions. Without a good handle on the interplay of these decisions, it's completely possible for the GM to be wrong about the level of risk the scenario they've constructed entails.

That's actually pretty critical, because even if you don't care about the game being fair and winnable (and that's a perfectly valid stance), your players are still depending on you to be their eyes and ears, and to give them enough information to make good decisions about whether the fight in front of them is one they can win. A game where not every fight is expected to be winnable needs to be a game where the players have the opportunity to walk away.

No matter how objective you try to be, your own sense of the answer to that question is inevitably going to colour how you communicate about it. You being wrong about the level of risk at hand inherently increases the chance that your players will make bad choices. The party eating a TPK because they made a stupid decision is one thing; the party eating a TPK because they made a decision that looked reasonable from their perspective based on your unwitting miscommunication of the level of risk involved is quite another!

Sure, once the dice hit the table I'm probably going to realise that I fucked up, and I can adjust things on the fly to bring the level of risk that's actually present in line with the level of risk I communicated – but that's extra work I don't need with everything else that's on my plate. And that's a best-case scenario; if I'm running the game for a hardcore let-the-dice-fall-where-they-may group (and such groups tend to have a pretty significant overlap with groups that are cool with not every fight being winnable), I may not be able to adjust the fight's parameters on the fly without violating the social contract of the table.

Basically, whenever I see an OSR game with tactically crunchy combat brag about how its author never even thinks about "balance", what that's telling me is that running this game is going to create a whole lot of extra work for me as a GM. This is not a selling point.

[comicaurora]

A bit of a strange question, but if there were any of your videos you were to "remake" today for any reason (ex: you feel like you misrepresented the original text or spread misinformation), which would it be and why? None of them is a perfectly valid answer

Again: bit of a strange question, but I've been thinking about my own creations and how I could have done so much better with some of them, but I also know that is a sign of my growth and constantly chasing "what if I did this instead" isn't always healthy for nurturing a creative mindset, and I was wondering what your opinion might be as a Creator of Things with a bit more experience than I

There's been a few trope talks where I've thought later of other angles I could've explored that might warrant sequels or part 2s, but I don't dislike any of the summaries enough to justify a rework.

I always find "I could've done this better if I made it now" to be a bit of a fallacy. I'm only better at making things now because I made all those earlier things. If I knew everything I'd learn from making a project before I started the project, it wouldn't come out the same.

I think when it comes to the "rework remake perfect" instinct, it helps to zero in on what the impulse is really grounded in. In my experience, more often than not, it's not actually about making the art better, except incidentally. It's usually about showing that you are better. It's demonstrating your competence and your higher standards and your skills, and more importantly it's overwriting the proof that you were once less than perfect. If people look at your old work and think that's all you're capable of, they'll be judging you poorly!

If that's the motivator, it's a very unhelpful one. You can't control for being harshly or incorrectly judged. It's a fruitless effort to stave off potentially upsetting outdated criticism, and it's not even going to work. Fear of critique is an unreliable and untrustworthy motivator.

If it really is about making the art itself better, perfecting your magnum opus with your newly leveled-up skills, that's a little more solid. But from where I'm standing, it's always better to use those skills to make something new instead of polishing something old. The older, unpolished work has already acquired its audience that finds it appealing for reasons that might never occur to you. Trying to bury or overwrite it just deprives that audience of the thing they like, and maybe makes them feel bad for having liked it in the first place. Also, usually when you look back on the older work, you'll conclude that the problem is everything and it'll need to be torn down and started from scratch. I know when I revisited the first three chapters of the comic, when I let my critic brain spin up, it wasn't shading or lineart I wanted to fix - it was panel composition, overall pacing, the entire structure of the chapters as a whole. I would've had to make them all over again to be happy with them, and they wouldn't be the same story by the end.

I've been thinking a lot about the Discworld through this lens lately. It ended up over 40 books long, but everyone agrees that the first two are not what you should start with, because they're the worst ones. They're entirely parodic, purely referential of at-the-time major fantasy series, and borderline mean-spirited in places. If you haven't read Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and Dragonriders of Pern, you're not gonna understand like a full 50% of The Colour Of Magic.

It's clear that when he started in on them, Pratchett was entirely focused on taking the piss out of a genre he found mostly shallow and unimpressive. But the Discworld wouldn't leave his head, and everything he made fun of he clearly eventually found himself overthinking. He'd make little one-off jokes in the early books about Dwarves having no women and a hundred words for gold, and then twenty books later he'd have a Dwarf gender revolution make waves across the Disc, and then he'd write Thud!, a book that delves deeper into the nuances of Dwarf societal structure than Tolkien ever did.

If you look for them, there are continuity errors everywhere in Discworld. In his introductory book, Carrot defused a dwarf bar full of rowdy brawlers by guilting them all into writing to their poor lonely mothers back home. Shortly thereafter, Carrot will be outraged at the mere concept of an openly female dwarf. Pratchett even eventually wrote Thief of Time, a book that loosely explains that the Disc makes no sense because history has been broken and put back together incorrectly twice, and therefore any continuity errors are because of that.

He's the writer. He could've gone back and fixed it, edited the reprints to be less disruptively discontinuous with the later books. Instead he continuously moved forward and allowed the world he made to grow without cutting it off from its roots. And because he didn't bury his older, far worse work, we have the privilege of following the Disc's evolution from the very start, and seeing how this shallow, stock fantasy world parody became something incredibly rich and complex without ever pretending like its early installments never happened.

Anyway, that's why I think it's better to move forward. You make more good stuff that way.

[linddzz]

I am slamming that validation button like a rodent wanting more sugar water so here's more mostly rough draft Jayvik.

A continuation of the nicknames fic. More science dorks being dorks, this time greatly featuring some seriously questionable boundaries between totally normal lab colleagues, and much more briefly featuring Viktor being so horny it makes him stupid. Also appearing is Jayce Talis, ADHD King and allusions to Viktor's past slut era. Both fics are a sort of preview chapter in the bigger thing @amahhi and I are working on!

Thank you to @avelera for planting the idea of platonically dubious scritches in my head, and for being a constant sounding board!

Rating: PG

Pair: Jayvik pre-relationship

----

It continues to be surprising, how not surprising everything is when it comes to Jayce.

A week into the partnership, and that initial bright thrill of something new has not dulled in the slightest. Nor has the perfectly ordinary, easy comfort that he feels with Jayce. The un-remarkability of this calm is what makes it remarkable. With Jayce, there is none of the discomfort of dealing with another person. None of the abrasive tension that arises when Viktor must face other people as distinct personalities which he must contend with, instead of the larger concepts of People. People as an idea have problems that he can solve, whose suffering he can reduce without any needs for interaction causing issues.

But Jayce functions outside of these issues Viktor often finds himself in. Jayce slots into a space Viktor hardly knew existed, like there had always been this jagged edge to him that, to his great surprise, was actually part of a puzzle that Jayce had the other half to.

Past experience would have him expecting that, with time, the shine would wear off. The glow would dim. He would learn all the little faults and human contradictions of Jayce and would grow to feel that jagged tension return. Spending hours upon hours each and every day for a solid week with him have revealed Jayce’s little foibles, yet not one has grown into a frustration. In actuality, Viktor has had nothing but further data points to add weight to his newly forming thoughts of destiny and its relation to himself and Jayce. For each little fault and lacking Jayce has, Viktor can help. He can, perhaps, be the puzzle piece that returns the favor to fit neatly into Jayce's life.

For example, Jayce can grow blind to his surroundings, his mind too caught in their work. Viktor had assumed that the apartment was in the state he first found it in due to an explosive force of arcane power. He still thinks that, but he has learned that this great force was not the struck gem amplifying and reflecting the kinetic force aimed at it to exponential levels, but Jayce himself. He often forgets his keys, or his mugs, or his pencils behind an ear, his goggles on his head, his tools, everything but his journal really.

It was the third time that he left his keys in the lab (on top of twice that he came in groaning that he had locked himself out of his temporary housing), that Viktor realized what the pattern was, and that he could provide a solution.

Jayce had more important things to focus his mind on, so it was both useless and counterproductive to adjust Jayce’s behavior or habits so he could track the little necessities of life. Fortunately, Viktor is well practiced on keeping track of what he needs to. It’s a skill that was refined when he first used it to avoid detection in the Academy, and then even further developed as Professor Heimerdinger’s assistant. When Jayce left his keys behind again, the answer was simple and obvious. They were already missing from Jayce’s person, so Viktor simply took them to the sort of establishment in the lanes that would never ask any questions, but would always make a perfect copy of any keys brought to them.

Jayce’s keys were neatly returned to him, and Viktor took no small delight in waiting for the next time Jayce smacked his forehead as they left for the day, realizing that he had once again locked himself out of his rooms, to reveal his backups. There was a brief moment, where Jayce stared at the keys hanging from Viktor’s finger, when he worried in a flash that this was not something a friend or colleague should do, that he had overstepped in some way. Then Jayce snorted with his grin, called Viktor brilliant if a little terrifying, but mostly brilliant, and everything was perfect.

The key was only for Jayce’s temporary rooms in the Academy housing, but Viktor could make another set once the apartment repairs were complete, even if it seems wasteful to have Jayce eventually move out of the building that Viktor lives in.

Jayce is also wonderful at taking notes for his work, but less skilled at going back to reorganize or refine those notes. His notes are exemplary, even with the little flair of him signing every single page, but it leads to problems.

These problems are their current struggle in the cramped space of their semi-lab at some odd hour of the night. Viktor stands and contemplates the board crowded with copies of Jayce’s notes, additional observations both have about that first successful arcane spell, and Viktor’s little chalked notes next to clusters of paper denoting what sections of an article each goes to. Behind him, Jayce is not exactly pacing, which would require repeating of one path, but he is in a constant state of muttering movement with occasional bursts of frustration over paperwork.

Because they can make a fully stable arcane frame that affects the gravity within the dean’s office, but that means nothing to the academy if it is not properly written and submitted for review. They are on their fourth draft of the paper, and the initial excitement over being published has dwindled with every draft that has been returned with Heimerdinger’s cheerful blue ink slashed across the pages. One of Jayce’s faults, Viktor is finding, is that he does not take such things gracefully. It takes the second set of revisions for Viktor to realize that pride is not the primary hurt that Jayce feels, but the thread of anxiety Viktor had seen woven through Jayce’s journal. The need to prove himself, and the fear of impending failure at every turn.

“How else do they want me to explain it?” Jayce groans, and Viktor does not need to turn around to know that the perfectly clean cut hair is likely sticking out in every direction.

“I was hoping the Professor would not have edited “crank it” so quickly out of the methodology.” Viktor muses. That was his greatest disappointment. “I am deeply curious on how he expects us to find half of the citations he has requested for this entirely new scientific field.”

“And when the Academy insists there aren’t more tomes on mage lore!” Jayce snarls.

“We will have to expand outside of the Academy in the future.” Viktor agrees, turning a little to once again look over the taped up pages of their latest draft and what blue marks are where. “However, I think a more concrete description of the runic array you conducted into the stabilizer may be our ticket past many of the other issues he has found.”

Instead of grumblings or more huffed complaints, a heavy weight thumps onto Viktor’s shoulder. He pauses, realizing immediately that it is Jayce’s head that has slumped against him, and Jayce’s impressive body heat against his back indicating that there is, at most, a few inches of space between them.

“I don’t know how.” Jayce groans, but it’s less petulant and quieter, almost fearful. “I don’t know how to describe what I did.”

“Hm.” Is all Viktor can say in that exact moment. He is, briefly, distracted by Jayce’s hair brushing against his jaw with the strong scent of some sort of…of fancy wood. It is not an unpleasant scent.

“Sorry.” Jayce mutters. “Sorry, I know you’re not touchy I just- gimme a second I gotta think.”

“That’s perfectly alright.” Viktor assures him. It is alright. Jayce is correct that Viktor is not nearly as tactile as Jayce is, but he is at this point well acquainted with Jayce’s propensity towards touch. His own lack of aversion or any other strong reaction to it was one of the earliest surprises in their partnership. “Take your time gathering your thoughts. This is a far less dire circumstance than that first stabilization was.”

“You told me there was no pressure then.” Jayce mumbles, already sounding a little less miserable.

“That is because I was lying.” Viktor hums, delighted at the snort he gets, and the way he can feel Jayce’s movement from the small laugh.

“Seriously V, I just remembered that night, remembered what the mage looked like and what all the magic looked like and I…did the same thing. But it wasn’t the same thing, because no one got teleported. I don’t even know if what I did was a spell.” Viktor thinks he can feel the resonance of Jayce’s voice through his core, spreading in waves from the point where Jayce’s forehead presses down at the top edge of his shoulder.

The distraction is not a true distraction however, because Viktor catches something in what Jayce is muttering. “You can remember how he moved, what the runes he summoned looked like?”

“I remember everything about that night.”

“Yes but-” There is something here. He has already seen Jayce's remarkable skill at memorizing things that Jayce deems worth memorizing. If Jayce says he can remember it, Viktor does not doubt it. “The order of them, could you remember that?”

The head on Viktor’s shoulder shifts as Jayce rolls it slightly to one side, but he doesn’t move it in the other to shake his head. It’s a contemplative movement. “Maybe…I think so. Let me...ok this is going to sound so weird but can I just uh, hang out here for a second? It helps me think.”

“By all means.” There’s something particularly marvelous about becoming a stabilizing agent for Jayce’s mind, he would be a fool not to agree to the opportunity. As Jayce calibrates himself, Viktor once again considers their paper, the problems it has given them. Jayce had moved the dial of the stabilizing framework like a conductor, with precision. Heimerdinger wants written out theories and explanations and citations, but what if they could instead find a formula. What if the precision of Jayce’s input could be broken down into components and quantified…

His free hand moves with habitual lack of awareness to where it would usually begin fiddling with his own hair, and it takes a few moments for him to notice the slight change in both texture and location of the hair he is rolling between his fingertips. Even then, he only notices because Jayce’s head becomes an even heavier weight on his shoulder.

“Ah, apologies.” He says, stopping the movement, thinking this might be a thing to feel awkward about. “Force of habit, it helps me think.”

“No, s’fine.” Jayce says, voice thicker in a way that is dangerous for Viktor’s higher thought processes. “It’s nice, actually. I don’t mind.”

After a second, Viktor continues. This time he notes the finer texture of Jayce’s hair. It’s very soft, sleek almost, with traces of the gel he uses to style it making sections of stiffness that crunch away under Viktor’s fingers.

“You smell nice.” Jayce mumbles.

A response to that requires some consideration. Viktor…considers.

There was a time, not all that long ago, where he would have leapt on someone with Jayce’s build telling him he smelled good while standing a scant inch away from Viktor. He would have assumed that the intent was for him to leap. Viktor is more discriminating than he used to be about sexual escapades, mostly because he began finding the nights spent on dalliances not worth the distractions, but even he can admit that if Jayce had put a head on his shoulder and told him he smelled good a week ago, Viktor would know exactly how to respond. It would have involved leaning back against that broad heat, turning lightly twirling fingers into a fist in Jayce’s hair, then gleefully seeing where things went from that point.

But now…

Jayce fits in like a missing puzzle piece. Whatever Jayce is, it is not one of Viktor’s brief encounters. Viktor would want to tell Jayce he didn’t need to get his apartment repaired, when Viktor lives much closer to the lab and things would be much more efficient if they lived together. Viktor can be wildly in love with this man in every definition of love that exists, but romantic or sexual entanglements (and if there is one, Viktor very much wants the other as well) often end. In Viktor’s personal experience, they ended before morning, and that was only considering the sexual entanglement. Heightened intimacy was desperately tempting, but it risked a greater end to the entire partnership. Even if nothing ever started, a proposition alone could forever poison what there already is.

Jayce is tactile in a very casual way. He flirts with everything that smiles at him for more than three seconds, and there has been nowhere near enough data for Viktor to calculate the risk of losing that side of the puzzle, or how much of a reward he would gain from taking that risk.

“Thank you.” He says eventually, slow and still considering. Then, because that feels incomplete and awkward, he adds, “I use soap.

Jayce snorts again, the head on Viktor’s shoulder shaking as Jayce’s body shakes with quiet laughter. Viktor knows he is shaking with it, because every other hitch up of Jayce’s shoulders causes a tiny sway forward, which bumps Jayce’s chest against Viktor’s back. Each of these millisecond bits of contact makes Viktor once again run through the considerations of risk versus reward in relation to getting his hands on that chest. Under the shirt. He would need both hands. There is an awful lot of chest, after all. Maybe both hands and his mouth. Definitely all three. It really is so much chest.

He takes the fantastic effort to rein his mind away from Jayce’s prodigious chest, even more effort to pull it further from contemplating the amount of shoulder matching that chest and what the rest of the torso probably looks like. There should be a response in kind to Jayce’s. A friendly compliment to return a compliment.

“Your hair is very soft.” He decides, as that seems safe as well as relevant to Jayce's compliment. Jayce’s silent laughter turns into some small hitched sounds that near a squeak, which means that Viktor’s thoughts are successfully pulled away from the sexual distractions, but only into the romantic sort.

“Thank you.” Jayce says with a dreadful mimic of Viktor’s accent, which only strengthens Viktor’s resolve to not take any uninformed risks that could lead to him losing this, “I use a leave-in conditioner.”

Viktor’s hand drops from Jayce’s hair, and he turns his head as much as he can to shoot a baffled look at the top of Jayce’s head.

“Why the fuck would you leave in a hair conditioner?” He asks, affronted. “Conditioner already feels dreadful. It’s heavy and slimy, absolutely horrendous.”

Jayce shoots up (which is a shame) so that he can lean around and give Viktor a look of equal outrage. “What does- Viktor it’s a different thing from- do you not use conditioner!?”

“Of course not. It feels terrible, I already said that.” Jayce makes a pained sound, and Viktor waves him off. “Enough of that nonsense. It is a waste of time. I have an idea.”

Jayce moves up next to him, facing Viktor with an intent eagerness. “What is it?”

“You are going to describe to me exactly what you remember. Each rune, each movement, as much as you can.” Another thought occurs to him, and Viktor snatches his cane from where it’s leaning on the board so he can turn to the inert stabilizing frame sitting on a table. “And I want you to dial in the stabilizer as you did in Heimerdinge’s lab as you do so. I will record everything. I believe there may be something we can measure, some sort of constant in the timing and the runes used, a way to-”

“We can make it an equation.” Jayce interrupts, breathless and awed, knowing what Viktor is thinking without Viktor needing to explain any of it. He so deeply wishes Heimerdinger had let them keep “crank it” in the paper. “Something concrete.”

“Precisely. The runes are instructions, a code. Perhaps the clockwise and counter-clockwise cycles of them are additional instructions. We can use your stable field as a baseline to begin working on a formula.”

“We can give them a solid theorum.” Jayce is already rushing to the stabilizing frame, even recreating the hunched over pose he had that wondrous night. “Okay, tell me when you’re ready.”

Any thoughts on conditioner or smells are gone. In the future, it will be as common as breathing for them to be drawn together when they need help thinking. Jayce’s head will always find Viktor’s shoulder, and Viktor will learn that playing with Jayce’s hair further settles his restless mind and channels his thoughts towards solutions. Whatever else there is, the most important goal to further all other goals of Viktor’s life is to keep the partnership. In the partnership there is the work, the thrill. The endless infinitesimal ways they fit together, two pieces destined to find the other. In the moment, Viktor takes up his notes and marvels again on the nature of fate, of probability, and of magic.

[gigislandofrandom]

Okay y’all, I don’t really get political on here as much as some other people—I have done political stuff in the past, but not a lot. But something needs to be said.

And yes, I will be the one to say it, because if a Jewish person says it, some people are just gonna say that they’re colonizers, this, that, and the other. But we need reason, and not just blindly accuse each other of deplorable acts.

There’s been a lot of heat on both sides of the Israel-Palestine issue, and for good reason. But I’m going to offer my own perspective. I know I’m going to get a lot of hate, but I’m not going to stand here and just blindly accept the marginalization of human lives.

I’m from the USA, as some of y’all know, and my country has sadly done a lot of hurt towards many different people of many different backgrounds, and we’re still dealing with the repercussions of that today. So keep this in mind, because I want to ask you all some questions.

Native Americans were subject to horrible treatment by white settlers, including being put on reservations, having their land taken, and having their culture erased. Would this give them the right to storm the US Capitol, rape women, take mothers and children as hostages, and kill civilians?

African-Americans, also, were subject to horrible treatment, including the slave trade, segregation, and outright murder based on nothing but the color of their skin. Would this give them the right to storm the US Capitol, rape women, take mothers and children as hostages, and kill civilians?

For a more recent example, Japanese people were put in internment camps during WWII. Many of these people had never set foot on Japanese soil, but had been born and raised as American citizens. Would this give them the right to storm the US Capitol, rape women, take mothers and children as hostages, and kill civilians?

If the answer to these three scenarios is no, why is it okay when Hamas does it to Israeli citizens?

I’m not going to address the issue of land ownership, since that isn’t getting anyone anywhere with this argument. But what I will say is this: the day that Hamas chose to start this whole thing shows you all you need to know about their true colors.

What day was that? October 7th, 2023. Right at the beginning of Simchat Torah, one of the holiest days in Judaism.

Hamas literally chose one of the holiest days in the Jewish faith to start the killing, torturing, and suffering of Jews that continues today, more than a year after it started. This is no arbitrary date, and many other terrorist groups have a similar modus operandi—take the 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings, for example.

Hamas aren’t freedom fighters, or a resistance movement. They are terrorists who will not stop killing until every Jew both in Israel and outside Israel is dead.

And they don’t just kill Jews. They’ve even killed other Palestinians—take the conflict in July and August of 2014 when 23 Palestinians were murdered by Hamas, many of whom were supporters of Rafah, Hamas’s political rivals.

When I say this, I am not trying to dunk on Palestinians. Many Palestinians have nothing to do with this, and just want the fighting to stop. But there are other Palestinians, and many Palestinian supporters, who have done absolutely reprehensible things—attacking Jews publicly, tearing missing posters of Jews down, and calling for the death of Jews, to name a few.

I fully understand that many Palestinians do have grievances against the Israeli state. That is perfectly valid, and I will always fight as an American for free speech everywhere, and for the right for the people to speak out against oppression. But these actions that are being taken are not the answer, and they’re only going to lead to more antisemitism and Islamophobia, both of which we have enough of in society without all this.

In summary, to the Jews: keep fighting. You matter, you are loved, and you are necessary in this world. All is not lost yet.

To the Palestinians: You have a right to your beliefs, and to your opinions, including about the Jewish state. I will always fight for your right to speak your minds, and to speak out against oppression and discrimination. But all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. Speak out against oppression of your neighbors, and speak out against terrorism.

History has its eyes on both of you. For your sakes, and for the sakes of those after you, choose wisely.

[wisteria-lodge]

What are your thoughts on those who believe hp fans (fan writers, artists, and appreciators alike) should leave the fandom sphere in favor of not giving JKR any “support” even if one does not share her views, as opposed to consuming fan content (or even the original media) while understanding the separation between art from artist (even if that can’t truly be 100% done, as HP is JKR, though that is another discussion entirely)?

I can only answer for myself, but I guess I would say - I'm a teacher, IRL. And my students, they know about Harry Potter, they know the property, they grew up with the movies, they read Harry Potter fanfiction, and... they talk to me about it. I think it's *good* that they talk to me about it. They ask questions about JKR, about the problematic elements in the books, trans issues, queer villains. Whatever is bothering them, whatever they otherwise feel dumb about asking.

Just the other day I had a very sweet conversation with a trans student who had realized he was gay because Harry and Draco in the books were so "real" and "me coded" (and then he realized people shipped them and was like OH.) Basically, he just needed to be told that his experience was still okay and valid even though JKR is such a terrible transphobe. I had another one ask me "why are all queer people Wolfstar?" (what she meant was, why do gay couples in media tend have a masc one + a femme one. But for her, patient zero is Wolfstar, and that's how she phrased the question.)

On this blog, I'm in this position where I clearly know like, a lot about Harry Potter, I clearly authentically love it (and the fan culture around it...) but am very VERY critical of both JKR as a person, and specific choices she made while writing the books. That's a combination that's definitely got me some hate mail, but also thank-you letters, and extremely earnest questions. And, if I never touched HP meta or fandom, I wouldn't get to occupy that space.

I completely, completely understand people who never want to read the words "Harry Potter" ever again. That was me, for years. I only started writing about Harry Potter on this blog last July, but so far it's been very a interesting, rewarding, cathartic experience. I've also had a great time writing fic, and using that as a means to examine my emotions and issues around this property, and with JKR herself. I got such a kick out of matching JKR's writing style as perfectly as I possibly could, and then writing Book 4 babygay Drarry. Or making Tonks just like, super genderqueer, trans, all of the above. Or flipping the framing to write a 100% canon compliant morally grey Dumbledore, and a sympathetic Lucius Malfoy. People seem to really like the fics too, so that's a nice bonus. I've gotten a lot from fanfiction myself in the past, I think it's a fascinating and useful form of art. So, I like getting getting to continue the cycle.

[skepticalarrie]

Hey, there’s something I don’t quite get. With everything going on right now with Louis’ public image, it brings back a question I had a while ago with Harry: are they victims of the industry, or businessmen who’ve sold their souls to it?

People always say that whoever they’re seen with publicly is part of some obligation, while others claim those are their real friends. Some say they’re involved in making decisions about the stunts, and others say they have zero control over that. Some paint them as really smart guys who make calculated industry moves and have their careers perfectly mapped out, while others see them purely as victims.

With Harry, people say he’s a smart businessman because of his public circle and career moves, but then whenever he achieves something big, he just seems so genuinely shocked by it. And I don’t think he’s faking that.

With Louis, they’ve said he’s been business-savvy since the 1D days, but right now he’s making moves that honestly seem kind of damaging to his career—at least for the moment.

It's confusing 🙃. Maybe it's something in between all of that?

Absolutely no shade to you, anon... this is actually a really interesting question and a valid discussion to have. But honestly, one of the things that’s made this fandom feel so toxic and uninteresting to me lately is the constant need for people to pick sides, label everything, go to extremes, and demand clear-cut answers. Everything comes with so much judgment.

But real life isn’t like that—things are complicated, layered, and rarely black and white. Every story has more than one side, and yeah, I do think the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Because they’re human beings, and so are we. I think part of why some things upset us so much is because we look at it too coldly—we forget to factor in the human side of it all.

I don’t like framing these things as “here’s the villain” and “here’s the good guy.” That just doesn’t exist. I think both Harry and Louis are smart, well-trained people when it comes to navigating this industry, and yes, I think they know what they’re doing business-wise. They’re part of the system. But that doesn’t mean they’re not victims of it too. They’re closeted artists—there wouldn’t be a closet if there wasn’t oppression, or pressure, or contracts behind it.

So just because they’ve chosen to stay in the game and make some compromises, that doesn’t mean the industry isn’t still brutal to them. Yes, it's confusing.

[lynxindisguise]

"why didn't james have his wand when he answered the door?" is a perfectly valid question, but I want to know why he didn't turn into a stag.

I mean it might not have saved his life, but. imagine you're voldemort, and you're charging in ready to avada kedavra the fuck out of everyone (and you've blown off the roof for no discernable reason?) and there's just a fuckass deer standing in the living room. at the very least you're pausing to ask "what the fuck?" and then prongs could've charged. could've headbutted him or something. there were Options, okay??

[isoobie]

NERDY ─── classmate sunghoon

🍵 wc 400 none! 𝅘𝅥𝅮 cute and shy sunghoon is the best

“honestly, what is his problem?” the voice in your head echoed for the third time today.

park sunghoon, you were curious about him— very. he was timid, hidden away by textbooks and only talked when necessary. he wore these thick, black rimmed glasses which sat perfectly above his nose bridge, and every time he used his delicate fingers to make them upright, you couldn’t help but look.

you hate to admit it, but sometimes you catch yourself getting lost into his dark pupils while admiring his annoyingly pretty face. if sunghoon stared at you the most, you stared at him— even more.

he came to school on time, never had a crease on his uniform and was a cliché, top student. ever since you had moved from your old school it looked like you had caught his attention. you would catch him stealing glances at you while nervously pretending he didn't. it was cute, you thought.

vice versa, sunghoon caught your eye as well. it's basically impossible to look away when he looks so angelic under the sunlight not batting an eye at anything but his work.

“are you staring at me?” it was probably the first time he had ever directly talked to you, hence the tensed tone in his voice.

“what if i am, it's not like you haven't,” you could see his blush creeping up on his cheeks and his ears turning red, you wish you could photo this moment and use it to tease him for the rest of his life.

“by the way, do you need help on that problem?” his voice was high pitched and apprehensive, anyone could have easily told that park sunghoon was nervous, because of you.

however, his question was valid, you were struggling on this problem for a long time and unconsciously, you had observed him so that he would help you.

“why don't we go to a cafe after school to solve it, we should focus on the lesson right now, don't you think so?”

the textbook that was on the desk concealed his face as you try to hide your smile, when was he ever this adorable? but as you reach it, you see his flushed cheeks and a smile mirroring yours.

he fixes his glasses again before saying, “my answer is always a yes when it comes to you.”

isoobie 2024

[rachhaven]

For poly!moonwater, the three of them all being in different houses and get their ties mixed up and that's how Sirius discovers their relationship?

here you go lovely- i wrote this in my lecture and during an endo flare so apologies if it doesn't make sense 😭

635 words- ish?

Last night had been- fun, to say the least. A game of exploding snap between the three of you leads to a cup of tea spilled on the wooden floor of your dorm, and then Regulus’ feeble attempts to clean it up lead to a bleach stain on Remus’ trousers, and the horrid smell left in the air, so to the Slytherin dorms it was, spiked hot chocolates in hand a good book to fall asleep reading together. It was nice, peaceful even, to sneak around and spend the evening together without fearing your and Regulus’ older brothers finding out. 

The brothers, the older brothers, James and Sirius are a package deal, so it only made sense that their little sister and little brother met and spend time together, and Remus just slotted in so perfectly and beautifully in the way that only he can, it just worked, but James and Sirius still don’t know. Well, until now. 

It was safe to say you were all running late when you woke up with only half an hour of breakfast left before lessons, so you were all in a hurry to get ready, chaste kisses and hugs goodbye as you all head to your separate tables, Hufflepuff for you, finding Hannah sat and waiting, Reg heading towards the Rosiers and Barty at slytherin, and remus towards the rest of the marauders on the gryffindoor table, happy as larry and finally ready to start the day. 

“moony?” Peters brow furrowed. “reg?” asked between laughs on Barty’s behalf. “Y/n?”, Hannah’s voice breaking you from plating your food. 

“Who’s tie are you wearing?”

Shit. 

You look down, a green and silver tie around your neck, your head spins to regulus, a red and gold tie around his neck, and finally Remus, adorned in a yellow and black tie. Shit. Shit. Shitty fuck. 

A squeal breaks through the air and it’s the only two you can imagine it would be, Sirius and James. Something about being ‘brothers in law’ and ‘family holidays’ and ‘shared bloodline’ and you’re all lost, you and reg excusing yourself to the Gryffindor table to sort this mess out. The tie you originally had on is in your hand, passing it to regulus as regulus passes his to Remus, you taking yours back at the same time. Cheeks burning red and embarrassed, but the feeling of safety you only get when you’re with your boys, Remus welcoming you to sit down with him, and sort this out, your forehead falling on Remus’ shoulder as regulus shoots daggers at his brother. 

“how long?” asks James, eyes curious and filled with such joy, speaking at the exact same time as Sirius, “how didn’t I know about this?”. Both questions are valid, James is nosey, always has been, but Sirius, he’s best friends with Remus, regulus is his little brother, and since moving in with the potters back in third year, he’s your older brother by proxy too, he means a lot to all of you. 

“six months”, you mumble, answering your brother, regulus answering his. “they were hesitant, didn’t want to upset you if anything went wrong” he explains, his head tilting towards you and Remus, Remus’ arm over your shoulder to try and ease the anxiety all the attention is giving you. Reg was loud and proud about his love, relieved to have finally found someone, two people, who he can actually open up to, who love him for him, but with your brothers antics and both yours and Remus’ hatred of being looked at by everyone else, it was nice to keep it quiet, like a sanctuary, but with how open and welcoming James and Sirius have been, maybe there wasn’t any need of fear. And just maybe, everything will be fine. 

[works-of-heart]

I've seen a lot of takes saying that Azriel is over Mor because of how he looks at Elain and wanted to taste her and fuck her. A lot of them quote saying because Az and Elain have had multiple glances between each other.

I truly do not believe that Az is over Mor, not in that healthy, I can walk away and wish her well kind of way, nor even in the "I'm sincerely in love with someone else, and do not think of Mor" kind of way.

Not only does Rhys challenge this by asking "what of Mor", but Azriel tells us all we need to know, by not answering. If he was well and truly over her, he would have told Rhys right then and there. But honestly? I don't think SJM is going to end 500 years of pining and longing off page where we don't even get to see both of them grow and accept this.

"But he wanted to beg on his knees for a taste of Elain!"

And? Even while Azriel was deeply pining for Mor, even while he had been in love with her, he had no shortage of lovers during those 500 years. Neither of them did, but Az certainly had his fun. Elain would be no different from any one of those previous lovers.

"He questioned his religion for Elain!"

He believed Mor was his mate, something he wanted dearly (because in this setting having a mate is the greatest gift of all) and for someone like Az, being gifted a mate would mean the world to him, especially after all he had been through. So imagine when the girl you've wanted for 500 years sleeps with everyone but you and avoids you. He even looked at Mor with heat and Yearning in his eyes so intense Feyre had to look away and Elain was right there.

Mor wasn't giving him the validation he longed for from her, but along comes Elain who gives him charged looks and brief hand brushes and suddenly Az is just over his 500 year long crush? I think it's far more likely that Azriel was just happy to have someone who seemed to want him, and as a bonus her sisters are mated to his closest friends, his brothers.

In that regard Az is saying why wasn't she given to him? The girl who seems to give him any kind of attention vs. Mor who avoided him. Why was she given to Lucien, when his brothers got her two sisters? Rhys called out out perfectly, he felt he deserved her being his mate.

Azriel in this moment isn't in love with Elain, he didn't bother to truly know her (I'm sorry sitting in a garden or listening to her talk while having little to no interest isn't knowing her), he doesn't show any kind of support in her abilities, (Scrying for the trove is a darkness she should not be exposed to), hell he even drew straws with Cassian to baby sit her so he could go to Hewn City. Other than naming her powers, Azriel doesn't really know Elain. He could not admit to Rhys that he was over Mor because he simply isn't.

Meanwhile when it came to Gwyn, we see how he approaches her is vastly different to his toxic thoughts of "the third was given to another". I'm not saying he fell in love with Gwyn in that moment, but SJM shows us how Azriel's interaction with her are very different.

From the way he was settled, their light banter, and the training lessons he gives her, it's like you can see easily that he was objectifying Elain while Gwyn's company is light and easy. It really does say something when he got the necklace for Elain but gave it to gwyn, and only with Gwyn did he think about her teal eyes lighting up upon receiving it. Thinking about her getting that gift made him smile to the point he had to force himself to erase the smile and shove that image down in his chest. Not once did he think about how Elain would smile and light up getting his gift, the only time he thinks about her face is when he's jerking it... how romantic.

And to those who say he didn't care at all about Gwyn when she was thrown into the BR, his siphons flared and his shadows deepened. Knowing his shadows are a part of him and react to him, and his siphons reacting to him as well, I think there's plenty to say. Even then he believed in her, just like he did in the ring when she cut the ribbon.

As much as I believe that Gwynriel is endgame, I think Az is going to have to really and truly deal with his feelings on Mor. I think Gwyn takes him in a good direction, but this man has some not so savory traits that he has to deal with and come face to face with before he's ready to step into a healthy direction. So when Rhys asks him again, "what of Mor?" He can proudly answer that question without hesitation.

[callingitquits]

How Johan Handles Family, Friends, and Rivals—[requested]

How Johan interacts with different people in your life. Whether they’re loving, toxic, or competitive. I usually keep things gender-neutral where I can, but in a few moments, using she/her just carried the weight and clarity I needed for certain scenes. Hope that’s okay.

If Your Family and Friends Are Kind, Supportive, and Loving:

He Watches Closely Before Moving

At first, he says nothing. Just observes. Watches how you light up around them. How they ground you. He notes every laugh, every name, every shared memory. And beneath his silence, something starts to tighten.

He Never Says ‘I’m Jealous’

Instead, he lingers just a moment too long after you mention them. Asks questions that sound casual.

“You see them often?”

“They matter to you?”

The smile stays soft, but the pause after your answer speaks volumes.

He Finds Subtle Ways to Separate You

He’ll never tell you not to go. Instead, he invites you somewhere else the same day. Offers to help with something that just happens to fall during family plans. You might not even realize you’re drifting….until the distance is there.

He’s Perfectly Polite When He Meets Them

He’s charming. Polite. Just vulnerable enough to disarm. They’ll say he’s lovely. Thoughtful. A little quiet, maybe, but kind. But behind his eyes, he’s measuring every one of them. Deciding which ones matter. Which ones are threats.

He Plants Doubts Without Seeming To

“They mean well.”

“They just don’t know what you’ve really been through.”

“You seem tired after you see them.”

His tone is always gentle. Supportive. Like concern. But he’s shifting the lens. Making you question what’s always felt like home.

He Tries to Become Home Instead

He learns your rituals. Brings you the tea your mother makes. Remembers the traditions. He doesn’t erase them. He absorbs them. So slowly, so gently, that one day you look around and realize: he’s your only constant now.

If Your Family or Friends Are Toxic, Controlling, or Hurtful:

He Notices Before You Admit It

He sees it in the way you shrink when their name shows up on your phone. In the forced laugh. The too-long pauses. The subtle jitter. He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t need to. He already knows.

He Offers Quiet Validation

“It’s remarkable. After all this time, they still own your silence.”

“You don’t speak like yourself after talking to them.”

Not judgment. Just observation. Precise. Unnervingly accurate. Like someone holding up a mirror you weren’t ready to look into.

He Never Tells You to Leave. He Makes You Want To

He lets you come to the conclusion.

“You deserve better than that.”

“They don’t see you.”

He never pushes, never demands. But every word drives a wedge between you and them with surgical intent.

He Can Be Vicious Without Raising His Voice

If they confront him he stays calm. Smiles. But his words hit like knives.

“She told me how you speak to her.”

“You shaped her. And now you don’t recognize her.”

And when they flinch, he leans in softer.

“That’s your legacy.”

He Eliminates Quietly, Permanently

If someone is truly harming you, he won’t let it continue. But you won’t see the moment it ends. A lost job. A sudden crisis. A permanent move. He’ll never admit involvement. He’ll just hold you afterward and say, “It’s over now.”

He Becomes the Safe Place You Were Denied

Not loudly. Not tenderly. Just by being there. The way they weren’t. The way they never could be. You’ll cry and he won’t flinch. He won’t comfort correctly, but he won’t leave. And in his stillness, you’ll start to feel safe in the wrong ways.

He Doesn’t Forgive Them, Even If You Do

Even if you reconcile, make peace, move on….he doesn’t. He never forgets who hurt you. He watches them with quiet loathing. And if they ever cross the line again, he will act. Not for justice. For you.

If Someone Thinks Something Is ‘Off’ About Him and Tries to Warn You:

He Knows Immediately

He can sense it the moment they look at him too long. The moment their tone changes around you. He registers the hesitation, the guarded glances. They’ve already decided. They’re going to try to ‘save’ you.

He Doesn’t Confront. He Performs

He becomes exactly what they think he’s not. Warm. Open. Vulnerable. He smiles at the right moments, helps clean up, toasts the hosts.

“I’m so grateful she has people who care about her.”

And just like that, they begin to doubt themselves.

He Makes Them Feel Like the Problem

Without saying a cruel word, he reflects their suspicion back at them.

“I hope I didn’t make them uncomfortable.”

“Do you think they’re okay?”

He plants concern instead of defensiveness. Now you start wondering why they’re being so aggressive.

He Twists the Narrative Just Enough

“They seem protective of you. That’s sweet.”

“But it feels like they don’t really trust you to make your own decisions.”

Just like that, it’s no longer about him being off. It’s about them not believing in you.

He Weaponizes His Gentleness

If they push harder, warn you directly—he steps back. Withdraws, just a little. Not with anger. With hurt.

“I don’t want to come between you and your family.”

“Maybe I should go.”

Now you’re defending him. Now he’s the one who’s being mistreated.

He Makes Them Out to Be the Threat

He never accuses, but he lets you feel it. That they’re judgmental. Controlling. Overstepping.

“You don’t have to choose, I promise. But I won’t fight for space in your life where I’m not wanted.”

He sounds calm. Mature. You feel torn.

If They Keep Pushing, He Dismantles Them

If they won’t let go….he finds their pressure points. The fight they had with you two years ago. The secret they thought no one knew. The addiction. The affair. The hypocrisy. He doesn’t expose it directly. Just leaves it where it’ll be found. Quiet sabotage.

Eventually, They Leave or You Drift

Maybe they say one last thing. Maybe they just fade. But Johan makes sure of one thing: you don’t believe them anymore. You trust him. Even if a part of you still wonders, he’s woven doubt so delicately into the dynamic that you’ll never untangle it fully.

If You Have a Jealous Rival Trying to Sabotage You (Including Your Relationship with Johan)

He Recognizes the Threat Immediately

He doesn’t need to be told. He watches. Quietly. The way this person interrupts you, subtly undermines you in front of others, offers ‘friendly advice’ that always ends in doubt. He’s seen envy before. He knows it by scent.

He Lets It Happen. At First

He doesn’t intervene right away. He wants to watch. Wants to see how you handle it. Wants to see what you believe you deserve. He stores every slight. Every look. Every lie. Every attempt at character assassination. He’s building a blueprint.

He Is Impeccably Polite to the Rival

Charm turned up to just the right level. Nothing overt. Just enough to make the rival feel small in comparison. Johan gives them the kind of attention that feels like being dissected under a smile. A single compliment from him feels like mockery. They hate it. They feel it.

He Begins the Isolation Subtly

He doesn’t need to ‘ban’ them. He just makes you unavailable. Plans things when the rival can’t come. Shifts dynamics so they’re always one step removed. Slowly, the rival finds themselves outside the circle they thought they controlled.

He Sows Seeds in the Right Places

“Were they always like that with you?” he asks someone else, casually. “It’s strange—they seemed so kind when I met them.” He never accuses. He simply whispers doubt into the ears that matter. The rival begins losing social ground and doesn’t even know why.

He Turns the Mirror

One day—just once—he gives the rival the look. That Johan look. The calm, blank, full-eyed gaze that sees everything. And says, in perfect composure:

“You don’t have to compete. There’s nothing here you could take.”

They know, in that moment, he means it. He doesn’t say it to you. He says it for you. In defense. Without raising his voice or changing his tone. That’s the worst part.

He Makes the Rival Implode

Eventually, they get sloppy. The frustration builds. They say something too harsh. Act out in front of the wrong person. Try to humiliate you one last time, and look a mess. Johan doesn’t even flinch. He just watches. He lets them destroy themselves.

And He Holds You Afterward, Like Nothing Touched Him

He reassures you without ever calling it a ‘victory’. He wraps you in something warm.

“They never saw you clearly. But I do.”

That’s all. His quiet presence becomes your shield, your comfort, and your quiet realization that no one—not even envy—can reach you when he’s there.

If You Have Fair Rivals Who Compete with You Honestly:

He Observes Quietly. Not to Eliminate, But to Understand

Johan watches the dynamic. This rival isn’t cruel or manipulative. They push you to be better. They make you sharper. Stronger. They might frustrate you, even outpace you sometimes, but it’s mutual respect. That interests him.

He Rarely Interferes

Johan doesn’t disrupt something that’s genuinely good for you. If the rivalry challenges you in a way that doesn’t diminish you…if it builds your confidence, makes you more determined—he lets it unfold. He might even subtly encourage it.

He’s Unbothered by Their Presence

He’s never threatened. That’s key. In fact, his demeanor toward them is neutral, even cordial. He might speak well of them to you in his own way:

“They know your worth. That’s why they try so hard to keep up.”

He Pays Attention to What the Rival Brings Out in You

If they make you laugh—really laugh—he notices. If they bring out your competitive fire, your focused silence….he watches with quiet admiration. There’s a part of him that likes watching you fight for something you want. It reminds him you’re still alive in there, not swallowed by fear or doubt.

He Learns From Them, Too

A fair rival can expose parts of you Johan hasn’t seen yet. Your resilience. Your pride. Your stubbornness. He tucks it all away. It helps him understand you more deeply.

He May Even Respect Them, Quietly

Johan doesn’t respect many people. But someone who challenges you without cruelty, and makes you stronger, gets a silent pass. He may never say it aloud, but he doesn’t view them as obstacles. If anything, he considers them—occasionally—useful.

But He Will Step In If They Overstep

If the rivalry ever shifts from fair to cruel, or if they say something that genuinely hurts you….he will know. And he will make it known, very gently, that he noticed.

“I thought they were better than that. You deserved more grace.”

That’s all it takes.

He Doesn’t Compete with Them. Because He’s Already Won

Johan never stoops to one-upmanship. He doesn’t need to prove himself. He simply remains your constant. Unshakeable, watchful, eerily composed. While the rival runs their race, he’s the one standing at the finish line, hands in his pockets, smiling faintly when you reach him.

[bridenore]

HD Party Games fic recs

Here are a few drarry fic recs in which party games play an important part. Listed in alphabetical order, as always.

Back to You by @aibidil & daisymondays [8k]

The eighth years make Harry and Malfoy go head to head and back to back in a question-and-answer drinking game. The worst that can happen is they end up drunk, right?

Boom Clap (The Sound of My Heart) by @femmequixotic and @noeeon [39k]

Post-war Hogwarts has been energized by its new teaching fellows program. Where once bitter enmity divided the wizarding community, Malfoy and Potter chummily patrol hallways together whilst Granger and Zabini seek lost parts of the castle at McGonagall’s behest and Chang supervises Quidditch when not lecturing in Charms. It’s a veritable wizarding utopia and life is predictable for the first time in years. Which is, of course, when everything blows apart as the result of a drunken dare and Malfoy’s life is ruined beyond his capacity to repair it. Ever. In a million years.

check this hand 'cause I'm marvelous by @lqtraintracks [7k]

Harry's had a crush on Malfoy for months now. But it will take a bar full of his friends, some Firewhisky, wagers made on his behalf, and Malfoy himself to get him to act on it.

Erase the Shame by FleetofShippyShips [6k]

An Inter-House unity party is the last thing Draco wants to go to. It's not long into a game of Truth or Dare when he is reminded why. But maybe his dare is worth it after all.

Exceeds Eggspectations by Elle Gray (LGray) [61k]

Eighth year. Winter. Christmas has been and gone. Harry’s just been dumped and so has Malfoy. There’s a stupid fake baby assignment to be done, and what’s the harm in doing it together, really, when life is this shit already? This is not slow burn, this is a roman candle pointed at a pile of dry twigs that represent your heart.

Games Night by @agentmoppet​ [6k]

Harry has no idea why Hermione decided that an inter-house Games Night would be a good idea, but he’s here now, and he intends to beat Malfoy, no matter what game he chooses. But, who would have thought muggle games could be full of so much... tension?

How to Handle an Enemy by who_la_hoop [7k]

Everyone knows that it’s no fun playing truth or dare with a Slytherin. But add a little Veritaserum, a scheming duo of Slytherin girls and surprising things can be revealed. Particularly about the fine line between love and hate… Turnbout Is Fair Play by who_la_hoop [10k]   After a – cough – revealing game of truth or dare instigated by  his fellow Slytherins, Draco Malfoy finds himself in possession of a).  the interesting knowledge that a certain Gryffindor horror may not be as   immune to his personal charms as hitherto suspected and b). the   password to the Gryffindor Tower. But Draco makes a fundamental error   when he decides to make use of these facts.

Love, Harry by Zzzara [26k]

Harry Potter keeps a huge secret: that scary thing he can’t tell anyone about. Until a mysterious penfriend changes his life, because he keeps a secret, too.

Never Have I Ever Thought That You Might Want Me, Too by @drarrymyheart [8k]

“When it’s his turn, Ron gives Harry an ominous look. “Never have I ever wanted to kiss any of the boys in this room.” Harry freezes. Dean, Seamus, Hermione, Hannah, Pansy, and even Blaise are all immediately lifting their drinks. Malfoy moves to pick his up as well and Harry tracks the movement as if watching in slow-motion…The ridge of Malfoy’s bottle of cider pushes against his lower lip as he takes a sip. Harry nearly groans. Steeling himself, Harry drinks.” Harry and the crew take a ski trip. Harry can’t seem to keep his eyes and thoughts off a certain blonde.

One Night at the Leaky by birdsofshore [41k]

Harry should have known better than to accept a drunken dare. Especially when Malfoy was sitting right there, looking like that and wearing those bloody tight trousers. 

A Perfectly Valid Dare by kitty_fic [5k]

“It’s a perfectly valid dare,” Pansy says, and somehow she looks like she actually believes what she says. “I am not doing that,” Draco insists. He really has no idea when daring someone to wank in Harry Potter’s bed became a perfectly valid dare?

Right Hand Red by @lqtraintracks [73k] 

Harry felt Malfoy’s breath on his lips as they came together over the bottle, hands firmly planted on the floor as though they each needed their familiar soil, refusing to cross into enemy territory. Except that Malfoy no longer felt like his enemy. Malfoy felt inevitable.

Silk Scarves and Enchanted Handcuffs by TommyLane [28k]

It was only supposed to be for seven minutes and then the blindfold would come off and he'd be free from the dark cupboard and his mystery partner - only Harry was no longer sure he wanted it to end.

Starts With a Spin by Maxine [119k]

It started with the spin of a bottle, and now Harry and Draco have gotten themselves so far into their own game there's almost no way out again. Except to keep playing.

Truths, Dares, and Love Affairs by @ronbinary [17k]

NEWTs are approaching, Mind Healing is mandatory, and something is wrong with the castle. And then, there’s Potter.

When I Put My Eyes On You by Zzzara [31k]

When a hero defeats a villain, there’s supposed to be a happily-ever-after… but when did anything ever happen to Harry Potter the way it was supposed to? Having sacrificed himself to the greater good, Harry is left alone in the darkness, blindly groping for the shreds of the life he knew. When the enemies meet, how is the story supposed to go, once they learn there’s more to it than the eye can see? A story of pain, hope and things we discover, once we stop looking for them with our eyes.

where all the veins meet by eight_of_wands [146k]

It’s the summer of 1998. The battle is over, and Voldemort is dead, but Harry still has more questions than answers. Who is he without a piece of Voldemort’s soul in his head? What is he supposed to do now? His friends try to help, but the only thing that can hold his attention—one of the only things that ever has—is Draco Malfoy, out on parole and weirdly hanging around the British Museum. As they keep running into each other, Harry sees that Malfoy is different, and he wonders if he can be someone else, too. Featuring rumpled band shirts, poker games everyone hates, fumbling sex, and a Harry going a little mental over how wands even work.

I hope you enjoy these stories as much as I did!

[jewishpositivity18]

Suuuuper loaded question but humor me!

Feel free to explain your answer via reblog/tag if you feel comfortable doing so

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