#but i don't think fr wizards have to study THAT much

[dickbaggins]

genuinely asking. are you insane. Ive just read The Stakes last night and it changed the chemistry of my brain in a ways that I can't comprehend. i couldn't sleep last night so i am now taking suburban train, eyes blood shot and thoughts racing in my scull like bugs or vampires in the forest searching for someone to bite. I don't even have much to say about the smut except that it was one of the best that i read ever in my life and i found out fanfiction exists when i was like 12 so i read. A Lot. but ... the. the state of their relationship??? jdbdjkdjdjd how do i call it. the way they are insane about each other and Gale ohhhhhh GALE. What The Fuck Gale. What The Fuck DickBaggins. who will take responsibility for all this i am genuinely asking. who will pay for my therapy AFTER THIS. I can't like describe the state of my mind when Astarion left Gale's apartment, taking a train and looking at Waterdeep, the City that took... from him. Feeling like this. Yooooo

now it wasn't surprise that you could capture the nature of Astarion's inner mind very well since i am a fan of your other bg3 works but to do it in an au like this?????????? to extract his utmost self and insert it in what looks like silly hockey au just for it to actually be very complicated world where Gale did such a big mistake when he was younger he's going to pay for it gods above and belong only know how long???? maybe forever??? maybe he'll never wake up feeling Astarion's arms wrapped around him???? And Astarion as an elf he. he relives his memories while he trance yes???? idk if you keep this funky little detail in your au but to think about. It. Losing my mind tbh

what i am trying to tell you. this au brought tears to my eyes and i expected something smutty and juicy and maybe funny and silly and instead you just submerged me in a tragedy so gut wrenching and raw (HA). I am not even exasperating. Wtf.

so. Thank you i guess. I am going to think about it for 30 business days at least :)

That was. Phew. I need to dive in Mithridatism's Gale's weed collection after this because i can't legally find it in my country

Hope you are well, friend

elves are so fucked up. they've just gotta lay there and contemplate all the shit that's ever happened in their lives? this isn't restorative? this is a defect!! and it has to mess them up

and everyone else gets to relax and snore their way through some nonsense dreams every night without the horrible shadow of their past looming over them in razor-sharp, unbidden memories for eight hours straight??

what a raw fucking deal

(and for me canonical vampire spawn astarion doesn't sleep or meditate or any of that stuff UNLESS it's with someone else. otherwise he's up all night prowling and doing his hair and oiling his hand crossbows)

hey I'm glad to have ruined your life a little bit over my hockey au! even though it's uuuh heavy?? it was a lot of fun to write. kinda want to keep finding new aus to throw them into now? there's just so many more situations I want to put them in

[sorcerous-caress]

Imaginary Human and elf conversation I have in my head the past few day :

Elf : I’m finally 100 yo! I can’t wait to start picking up some study and hopefully start venture outside my home in the next 50 years!

Human : That’s neat. I left home when I was late teen to find job by that time I’m quite a competent wizard since I started immediately after I can read. I got accidentally captured by drows, lived in Menzoberranzan for a year or two. I escaped after poisoned Matron mother to death. Then I returned to surface, helped a random village from being wiped out by goblins and orcs. Dating one high elf, who I already divorced, and had two half-elves children. Oh and I probably changed nationalities two times by the time I’m 25. I don’t think I accomplished much as a 25 humans :(

Elf : Y O U W H A T

— RED Anon

Dudee that's what I'm saying! Elves are too coddled fr.

Humans start their education at 6 years old, sometimes younger if you count kindergarten, then finish it at 18.

And the second you hit 18, all the questions start pouring in like

"When are you getting a job?" // "When will you ge married?"

"Who will you vote for?" // "So, did you find a place to move out to?"

And don't let me get started on the weird 20's span where half your friends are married with kids and the other half are in the club.

And that's just the basic of human life, there is still their adventurer class studies or training.

Sure, elves consider their 18-year-old youngs technically adults, but that's just an excuse to allow them to drink and go wild with each other. But in their own circles, they still treat them as kids who don't know better and should wait for their 100th birthday to mature.

Also, the inherited human feelings of shame and incompetence, a tendency towards addiction.Like you're not doing enough, and you're lagging behind.

That is a real thing.

It's called the hedonic set point. Each human has it a certain point in a scale of "happiness" or the emotions responsible for it in general, the feel good hormones your brain releases on average.

If something happens that makes you feel good, your emotional state goes above the set point, if you feel bad, your emotional state goes below the setpoint.

But eventually, you will always return to the starting emotional state, your hedonic set point.

And we don't determine where it's set, nor do all humans have it equally set. Which means some people will always have a worse emotional state by default, with no faults of their own, no matter what they achieved.

Addictions are an easy source of happiness hormones, rewards hormones etc. It can be food, sugar, gambling, gaming, or even more extreme addictions. That's why human resistances to addictions varies widely

Which is what honestly drives some people to always seek more, to achieve more or climb higher.

( i removed a previous written part here after editing this post months later because I couldn't find sources to support the theory, it was the part about the hedonic set point being the caused by evolution and natural selection, that sad humans are more likely to survive)

It's also an existence crisis in It's own, isn't it? The feeling like everything cool has already been done before and you will never stand out from the billions of the humans on earth. The feeling that your life is meaningless and the world wouldn't change if you had stopped existence.

So you take art, like writing, hello there :), or music or climbing or anything that will leave your fingerprints behind. Leave an essence of yourself behind that says I was here. I am a human being and i effceted people and things, I Existed and I Mattered.

All of this is the human experience. To be human.

The constant race between each and every one of us, the constant need to shift and change and improve upon ourselves and our own society. Each generation is vastly different than the last and sometimes condems all their ancestors' rules.

By the time an elf matures, a whole generation of humans came snd reshaped society before bidding their goodbyes. All races will have to readjust to the most recent human culture that frequently changes.

If anything, one could argue that long-lived races hinder human progress. The only thing constant in humans is change and expansions. But for elves they rather take a small space and join the natural progress while humans seek to destroy and flee the the cycle of nature.

[nizar-dreams]

If Only You Believe in Miracles So Would I Summary

"The Department of Magical Education has twisted Albus Dumbledore's arm and have required the Headmaster to get a second teacher for each core subjects at Hogwarts. Severus Snape almost weeps with relief at the news. But the school year is not without other far interesting events. With young Harry Potter starting his first year at Hogwarts, new (surprisingly competent) teachers, a suspicious Albus, and a rare and powerful artifact hidden inside the school, Severus wonders if he ends up trading less homework for even more stresses in his life."

Okay listen, this story was birthed for many reasons. My continued obsession with Severus Snape, my anger at Albus fucking Dumbledore, and the incompetency of (Wizarding) Government. But the biggest one, which bamboozles me the most, is the lack of teachers for Hogwarts.

Think. About. It.

If you have gone to a school of around 400 students, you and I are aware that at this many students, you still have at least two to three teachers per core subject. Why? Because it is a foolish notion to believe that 1 (one) teacher can even handle teaching all 400 students in one week without seriously sacrificing student education and how much you actually teach them and what they have to self study. Which, as someone who's already graduated high school nearly two years ago, self study was not my strongest suits at all unless I liked the class and teacher.

As someone who observed my own teachers and how they handled various class sizes (choir was the easiest to see as Jazz was the smallest, but we'd easily have 25+ students for regular choir and that was... ridiculous for my teacher to handle somedays.) I can confidently say, that teaching two Hogwart Houses that are easily 20-30 students per house, which means a classroom of 40-60 students, is absolutely bat shit insane.

And then you have to be a Head of House as well? Or if you're McGonagall, you're also Deputy Headmistress and having to cover for Albus bloody Dumbledore because the Headmaster has a second job as a politician and the current Minister Of Magic is an idiot? I would be sobbing and burnt out by the end of the first month. I would need a Time-Turner just to have some sleep and me time.

Or if you're Snape, you're trying to save a child from getting himself killed, while playing spy, while playing evil teacher who favours his snakes, while also having to deal with children trying to blow themselves or their classmates up in his classroom. Because potions is a dangerous art, and children, especially the first and second years, are idiots. And especially whoever decided that Gryffindors and Slytherins get to spend potions in the same classroom. Together.

Whoever makes that schedule is an idiot, or horribly optimisitc.

But as you can see that is such a ridiculous amount of pressure to put on a single teacher that teaches the core subjects at Hogwarts for virtually all 7 years. So. This story was created. The Department of Magical Education finally got the memo and were like "wow are kids are kinda... fucking stupid compared to Ilvermorny, Beauxbaton, and Durmstrang... that's mad embarassing" and told Albus that he had to get more teachers and that was not negotiable. Except for history. They don't exactly care about history it seems. (I also lowkey forgot about it, but I think it makes sense that they already have a 'nonpayed' teacher so why bother with an actual one? Don't worry some parent will make a fuss about it or something, and a good portion of the teachers are good with history anyway so its all finnneee)

Well. Here we are. I have thus 'hired' 6 additional teachers besides Quirrel. 6 competent adults who take their jobs pretty seriously. I actually love all of them, they have their quirks, and I tried diversifying the staff as much as I could without it being forced.

For instance, our new transfiguration teacher is an older gentleman, 61 years old, who studied at Beauxbaton, and from Denmark. Our Herbology teacher is a young Scottish woman, barely 28 with a boyish charm, and is subtley bisexual. Our charms teacher is 35, and they use neutral pronouns and have an otherworldly appearance with big eyes and bronzed skin. My main character, our additional potions teacher, is 41, Salvadoran-American, and gay. Our astronomy teacher is a striking Irish woman who learned at Ireland's school, Erehnoll. And lastly our other DADA teacher is a woman born in El Salvador, 37, and has lived a very interesting life since.

We're branching out, alright. Like yeah I could branch further, but already some of the canon characters who could be considered as simply 'British White' will probs not be just that. And this is just the first year with new teachers. Maybe another year if results are good, I could introduce more. (It's so many characters to jugle but I think I am doing admirably. But I think for now, the current cast is already better then years prior. If I do add more teachers, it'll be for history for sure.)

For now, this is why I made this story. That it was absurd to leave the 6 out of 7 of the core subjects to a singular teacher. I would be in tears, really. I do go more in details on the ridiculousness of this all in the story, but here I am giving you a sneak preview at a lot of my thoughts on the subject that get dramatic and also distorted through character POVs. I think it'll be fun to read it from one of the characters, it makes me smile. They seem the type to be sarcastic and dramatic in their thoughts while exasperated to the 10th power.

I can't wait for Janurary 1st. I'm so excited for you all to see the chaos.