#but yeah I think ppl tend to not realize just how big a part being stuck in the constant is in regards to hashtag wendy depression moments

[arolesbianism]

Wendy and Abby fuck me up so bad just like in general but what keeps coming back to haunt me is wondering how long they had to go through it all just them two. How many times did Wendy die, how many times did Abby watch the light fading from the eyes of her twin. How many times was it slow, how many times was it in a split moment, how many times were they together when it happened, how many times did Wendy die completely alone. It's just like god damn no wonder Wendy talks Like That not only did Abby die but poor kid has been forced to become accustomed with death in a much more direct way than even adults are built to handle

[inusmasha]

Just rambling about InuKag dynamics I don't see ppl talk about.

this is 'long post' disclaimer .

Its a ghostly day today, and I have it all to myself. So while defrosting this english muffin I started musing about what sort of dynamics I like most in fiction. Like not just romantic wise. I wanted to figure out what was.. the tension? I enjoyed most... between what two archetypes?

And I what I noticed is that I love a good Mentor/Mentee dynamic. It's something that's been pretttyyyy consistent since childhood. (I can't name any atm to help my argument but you feel compelled to keep reading)

However, I didn't see how this would fit InuKag? My Titanic? My ship of dreams? My childhood? InuKag sometimes stands out like a sore thumb compared to my other interests. I was going to chalk it up to "Well it's baby's first anime so.." UNTIL..

I realized the fandom tends to focus on how Kagome helped Inuyasha (recover his lost heart, humanity, the unconditional selfless love, understanding ect.) but like.. we don't really talk about what he provides for her as much? And I'd love to indulge you with my take but we'd have to go over why I think Kagome decided to leave the modern world and opt for a life in wilderness of the Feudal Era.

Yes, yes. A big part is Inuyasha. That is a huge driving factor. But Im saying step back and see what's happening in the grand scheme of things.

I think..for Kagome..her romance with Inuyasha acted as a portal to a type of freedom she didn't know she craved. He acts as a guide of sort. He gives her access and safe passage to explore this dangerous world fully without fear. It reminds me of when I was with my first bf and I was over the moon happy when I realized I could walk around at night with him. It was THRILLING to my sheltered teen ass. It was like I was holding the key to the VIP room. I was allowed backstage. He was a door that opened me up to new experiences that would not of been available to me at that time otherwise!

And then the benefit of being immersed in nature. With your lover. Who is a figure that exists outside of the society that was keeping you locked up in the first place. Kagome's name is also referencing 'a bird in a cage'.

Like?

Kagome also serves as a guide for Inuyasha. She brings him back from the liminal space of the forest to the village/community/connection. Again opening him up to the possibility of trusting others and forming bonds and setting down roots in the village.

Kagome also represents us the Audience. She is our perspective. She is "The Ordinary Teenage Girl". She's pulled into the well like we are being pulled into the narrative. She grapples with her identity. Her purpose. Her abilities. She's lip singing to Kelly Clarkson with her hairbrush in front of the mirror. She's trying to get to school but...OOP...You know what? I'm 16. I'm suddenly in a fairy tale. The faries spirited me away and I can't take the test right now. The magical jewel was in my hip you see. I'll think about high school entrance exams later when I'm done shooting my sparkly arrows.

You can't sit there and tell me that you didn't long to escape the druggery that came after graduating lol? The what so I do now? The who am I ? And where do I belong? What major do I want? I have to buy a house now? No? I have to fix my credit score-

No babe. You're going to hitch a ride on your bf's back with ya hair down and eat fruit by a waterfall. He's going to ask you wtf a test is to the sound of a million birds chirping in the morning. Then you're going to go back to your loving village that welcomes you home and calls you a hero.

It makes sense that she stayed. It makes sense. You just gotta... see the vision.. you gotta FEEEEL the escapism.

Anyway yeah lol. Not really a mentor to each other per say but their meeting was a catalysis for a lot of growth and learning and trials and tribulations that changed them for the better. And it just feels similar.

[pinkmoondoll9shihtzu]

diiary 2/25/2023

okayyy i been needing to write a longform post for a while! just to chronicle some thoughts in a cohesive way. & getting straight to the point: i'm realizing there is very little, if ANY payoff, to being an artist online. i'm not talking about money. im talking about the way it's like, the more ppl start to see you as an "artist", the more they feel like ur some kind of public figure they can lash out at w no repercussions. ur humanity is just wiped from their minds. i don't have some huge following by any means but for ME its gotten big since in the past i've been a serial deleter. usually at 800 followers im gone.

i love being creative & sharing for the sake of sharing but i deeply fear any kind of spotlight. since i came back onto tumblr i made the pledge to myself not to delete my account if it started growing but now im having second thoughts!! well i'll never delete this account cus im too sentimental but part of me just wants to stop posting in the ways i tend to do. like maube im too forthcoming & need to slink back into the shadows a bit. because i don't want to stop contributing art & music to the world but idk how to protect my heart.

like it's so crazy to me that artists are expected to b these idealistic icons of everything the viewer represents & if they make a single mistake its like fuck we better launch a pUBLIC HARASSMENT CAMPAIGN!! genuinely like, how are people supposed to want to put themselves out there when the climate is so hostile? it has got me feelin rly nihilistic i must admit. trying to put nice stuff into the world shld not be generating drama for me, especially when it's just my hobby & not even my "career".

for a while ive had no idea what to do for work or how to generate income in a way that works for me but honestly? im gonna bite the bullet & do some coding bootcamps so i can try n get a remote job doing some tech shit & making a fat salary. i guess i never rly considerd it before cus all the silicon valley stuff susses me out but idk. im naturally really good at code + my only real dream in life is to be able to support others & redistribute wealth. like ive never had anything of my own to share but if i could actually do this & become the secure+charitable person i wish to be, i think i cld finally have some inner peace/sense of fulfillment. plus i cld still be a recluse ^_^

ok well i guess that my diary entry for now. im rly grateful to everyone on this site who is genuine & respectful towards me. i am really enjoying all my creative projects right now & i just dont want it to ever stop being fun just because the internet doesnt want it to be fun for me. i seriously wonder why artists are the number one targets right now, i mean not to get too conspiratorial but like, this is exactly what the CIA wants :/ wahtever....i have no agenda other than plur. but yeah, i might just start to distance myself more from posting anything other than my work. we'll see. just kno that i dnt want it to b this way. ilu guys

[allaganexarch]

omg for the grad school anon! i am 26 and i chose to pursue a 2nd degree and i relate to a lot of things you said. esp about not being able to relate to other students, but also that really doesn't have to get in the way too much if you focus on building relationships with more ppl your age outside of college. thankfully i found another girl who is a year younger than me who also decided to get a 2nd degree and now we hang out a lot! will continue in a 2nd message this is getting long aaa

part 2! the thing about appreciating the value of education is so real! personally i might have even had better resources when i was doing my 1st degree but i had no idea how to use them. i was really in my head and going through a tough time mentally and looking back it's a real shame i didn't use everything given to me. now that resources are fewer i am getting more out of my degree tho bc i finally know what i want now that i'm older. i am actually interested in using them and i know how to!

God FEEL this so much!!! Yeah, I totally agree that not really connecting w your classmates isn't a big deal at all, just like a factor to be prepared for so that the idea of it doesn't make you feel weird I guess! I think because so much brain development happens in the early 20s + all the stress of living outside the structure of the school environment most ppl REALLY quickly feel very different from ppl who are still in the college mindset, like I remember already feeling that way when I was 23-24 LOL. It's definitely nice to connect with other ppl who have been out of school even for a little bit as they will just tend to understand where you're coming from a little better!

And yes, god, it's sometimes still a real struggle for me not to be hard on myself for how I acted when I was in undergrad even though lol, I was literally a child and had so much trauma I was dealing with on top of just simply being young. I think it's definitely worth knowing ahead of time that because you are in a way returning to an environment you were in at a very different time of your life, you can often be really painfully reminded of how you felt at that time. It can be good ultimately bc you can work through some of those old wounds you didn't even realize you still had, but it's been the most helpful for me to just remind myself that I was really young and doing the best I could at the time!

[kazuyummy]

AK anon is here -again- 🙊💛. I really wanna request a matchup with Amahisa but i have never done that before so kinda unsure how to do so but i will give it a go:

1- weak. 2- strong. 3- Insightful. 4- Cool (im not tho🤦‍♀️)

Orange (🍊): I am not very creative like you -🥺- so my ideas are very basic, but something like how he would approach a person like me ? I really can't imagine myself being with somebody like kousei who is so opposite. (personality wise). Ppl around think im cool, strong, independent women, laid back, chill etc .. but really im not like that, and i usually admire ppl who are like that (and like Kousei too). But what ppl see from outside is way different from inside ~~~ but ~~~~~ yeah ~~~~~ god i feel shy idk why 🤦‍♀️🙊🙈💛. Also, thank you for writing for DNA. I really enjoy my time on your blog.

omg no worries! usually in matchups you would give your info and then i would choose who to match you up with - but don't worry, i'd be happy to write one for you and amahisa (plus i can't see you with anyone else now LOLL)!

i think you and AMAHISA KOUSEI would be a perfect match particularly because you're opposites! he's a walking contradiction - whimsical but observant; carefree but invested; nonchalant but hardworking. so i think he'd really appreciate you being a bit of a contradiction yourself! sometimes he's so honest to the point that people can't tell if he's joking or not - so i think he sees your struggle in that area with being misunderstood or seen differently than you might think you act. and even if you don't think you're cool yourself - he certainly would, but not necessarily in the way others might perceive you. i think he'd want to get to know you at a raw, deep level - it might take you a while to be that vulnerable with him and open up, but he's determined to crack that shell and support you. and for someone who may get bored with one thing and move on to the next - he'd find you so interesting that he'd never get tired of you.

bit of drabble / headcanon under the cut! a bit longer than i usually do too ehehe 💕

❀ FIRST IMPRESSIONS

amahisa kousei is certainly one to say what he means, and you don't exactly understand that at first

his pickup lines aren't suave or clever - he'll literally tell you that you're pretty, smart, beautiful - with such a nonchalant face and then go back to doing his own thing

while you think you're gawking and panicking over what he's saying, you're really just staring at him with a straight face and a slow nod

"amahisa's always trying to get your attention... how are you always so cool about it? isn't he like, a big star on the baseball team?"

your friend taps your shoulder as you leave class, and you mumble back,

"he can't be that good at baseball if he has time to flirt like this all the time..."

your face is burning, but you play it off - sure, he's pretty handsome and charismatic. a bit of a mystery, even - but you do tend to wonder why he focuses on you specifically

it isn't until after you've parted with your friend and walked ten minutes to the bus stop that you realize something very important

you forgot your freaking laptop.

huffing, you start a light jog back but pause when you glance at your watch - there's no way you'll get there and back in time, and the next bus after that is in another half hour

and you definitely needed to grab your next batch of textbooks from home, or you'd miss your next class

"hey! you're pretty fast, you know? practically sprinted out of the classroom!"

when you look up, who else do you nearly run into but amahisa holding your laptop?

you blink once, twice. then you blurt out,

"you're a lot more thoughtful than you let on."

he lets out a full laugh, "and you're a lot less scary than you seem!"

you frown, asking what he means - to which he responds,

"everyone always says how intimidating and strong you are. but you're getting flustered right now, aren't you?"

"i- i- no i'm not! and i don't mean to look scary at all! that's just how people see me for some reason..."

you're feeling self-conscious, even when he gives you an easygoing laugh, and you're certainly thrown off when he ruffles your hair,

"you shouldn't care so much how people see you! except for me maybe, because i see you as pretty interesting."

you roll your eyes, taking the laptop from him, but can't seem to hide a slight smile from his watchful golden eyes

"see you later then, yeah?"

"we'll have to see about that. but i guess i owe you for this - so thanks... amahisa."

"it's kousei," he smiles before waving and taking off

"how am i supposed to talk to him if he doesn't even ask for my number..." you grumble

but when you pull your laptop out next class, a sticky note tumbles from it with his phone number and a "coffee soon?" on it - that boy certainly is full of surprises.

hope you enjoyed, i'm so happy i finally got to write for you and kousei - i love getting asks from you and think the two of you would make such an amazing couple ehe 💕

read completed matchups here 💫

[archangelgabriel]

idk if you guys remember my drawings of dean winchester jr, his sister, and the fitzgerald kids being friends, but here’s the part TWO (better this time)

(tap for better quality)

hcs under the cut:

idk of these look like teenagers but sam and cas are both 18, dean is two years younger than them at 16, and jody is two years younger than him at 14

oh yeah dean has a younger sister. her name is jody. honestly i’d name her something different now but my friends who invented her came up w jody and i feel like paying homage to them so it’s jody now 😌 maybe i’ll change it eventually since this is kinda my version

they all live in the same modest suburban area and investigate supernatural happenings together + kinda keep tabs on the secret life of the monster youth

sam (winchester) told his kids about the supernatural and they’re all just kind of witchy in their day to day lives. every other friday the winchester-leahys preform the family bonding Blood Ritual to summon auntie rowena over for dinner

jody and dean are both fluent in asl and often use it to their advantage. id like to imagine they go to the same high school and will sign things to each other from across the hallway and then get in trouble bc they called jody’s mean physics teacher a cunt right in front of him

dean inherited his fathers weird thing about serial killer podcasts, except he likes to investigate cold case files. his favorite thing is looking at some old super famous unsolved mystery and realizing that it was probably because of a ghost or vampire or some shit, bc it makes him feel special that he (and a few other ppl) are the only ones who’ll ever know the real answer

it’s kind of a family of nerds. jody pretends not to be but she is and she regularly participates in dean’s freakish magic science experiments

they regularly almost burn down the house together. eileen is so long-suffering (sam w. contributes to the chaos although he denies it when she’s around)

their prank wars are like magic prank wars. lots of (mostly) harmless hex bags are placed into each other’s backpacks

OH JODY MAKES THEM ALL FILM TIKTOKS WITH HER ADJHJNWJGD. THIS IS TRUE AND FACTUAL she is on witchtok and like just posts complete bullshit but with enough real magic to the point where she can fuck with people. it brings her great joy

sam (fitzgerald) very willingly does the trends with her he thinks it’s fun. actually lets talk about the fitzgerald twins

so basically they have the sweetest most loving least nuclear nuclear family ever. from my vague memory of the ep it’s just them, garth and bess, and their older sister who’s probably moved out so yknow. rowdy 18 year olds with the house to themselves. they’re super different but love each other and know how to live with each other after like over a decade of being the top and bottom bunk on the bunk bed (cas got top, sam was afraid of heights as a child)

they both wear the silver bullet necklaces that the whole family wears, n both are happy to. sam kind of secretly wishes he could just be a regular human boy, so he appreciates the message of “you’re just like a human! you are no better than them, so love everyone equally :).” cas actually kinda likes being a werewolf but he appreciates the message the necklace offers of “hey ur stronger and better than literally all humans but you can still die so, don’t eat them i guess.”

oh if you couldn’t tell cas is the emo one. sam took after the general fitzgerald household vibes of overeagerness and love and happy times! cas just tries to be… anything but that. he probably listens to, like, death grips.

he’s still a big hugger, though. kind of ruins his image when he’s saying goodbye to some acquaintance and almost instinctively goes in for a snuggle.

they both kinda tend to get into fights. there’s a similarly peaceful vampire family in town who just thinks they’re ~so much better~ than them, and it even pisses SAM off and he’s like a walking talking marshmallow cookie.

sam actually has like a secret aggressive streak just bc he’s very defensive over his family and friends. listen i know he sounds like a mary sue shut up shut up shut u—

sometimes cas gives jody piggyback rides if she asks nicely. he pretends to be super annoyed by it but he likes the opportunity to use his super strength every once in a while. sam is also very easily persuaded if jody asks nicely, but usually she is asking him to pick up dean just to piss him off.

i think it’s very funny how dean and cas are like the Intellectuals and they’ll talk about politics and current events and social justice and jody and sam are the Artists and will interrupt them to be like “look we broke two skateboards in half and then stuck them together in a plus sign shape to make the Mega Skateboard” and then jody tries it out in the driveway and then they have to drive to the hospital. huzzah

im out of hcs so here’s some bonus doodles

[shelobussy]

Ohmygod YES Susan Pevensie is awesome please talk to me about Susan i want to know everything you have to say

Literally THANK YOU for asking me this bc Susan Pevensie is a character I never get asked about and I have So Many Opinions.

I'm going to start by saying that Susan used to be my least favorite character in the series. This goes for the books and the movies. Some of it was for personal reasons--she reminds me of a couple of annoying ppl I know irl--but it was also bc I watched Prince Caspian which shoehorned her into a relationship with Caspian which I hated.

HOWEVER. I ended up rethinking this position after interacting with Susan fans and realizing that there are so many wonderful things to love about her!

(putting under the cut bc this got long)

Things Ash Loves About Susan Pevensie

Aight I'm not going to do a formal analysis yet on her, but instead rant about some of the unrelated things I adore about Susan Pevensie.

Susan the Archer

Look we all love archery here. I don't have anything more to say.

Okay, I actually do have more to say. I love the fact that Susan is a complete badass with the bow. You get the general impression that she's one of the royals in charge of public relations, traditions, foreign policy, etc. and yet she's the most competent archer in the series. One of the few things I liked about the movies is how they didn't downplay this. They actually let her be a badass and show off her skills.

Also the part where she kicks Trumpkin's ass was awesome.

Susan the Gentle

Susan being the most passive Pevensie was something I definitely underappreciated as a teenager. I think my non-ability to see past "I'm not like other girls" narrative and the combination of Susan being described as the most traditionally feminine woman in the Narnia series is what initially turned me off from her.

HOWEVER, now it's one of my favorite attributes! I love that Susan is a badass and the most beautiful woman in Narnia. She has hair down to her feet, every man and woman in the kingdom want to fuck her, and she's still a fucking badass who will not hesitate to kick your ass.

Susan the Sister

Most of my thoughts of Susan as an older sister mostly stem from my own personal headcanons, but she is an awesome sister to her siblings. She's Peter's voice of reason, Edmund's sass partner, and Lucy's big sister.

Susan the Mom-Friend

She is a literal mother-figure for Corin.

"[...] the most beautiful lady he had ever seen rose from her place and threw her arms round him and kissed him, saying: "Oh Corin, Corin, how could you? And thou and I such close friends ever since thy mother died. [...]"

-The Horse and His Boy, 33-34

Most everything I have to say about this ventures into headcanon territory, but I love the idea of Susan basically adopting Corin after his mom dies. The way she trusts Cor--who she thinks is Corin in this chapter--is really sweet and I wish we could've seen more of that relationship.

Susan the Flawed

Something I notice from the fandom is a lot of people who hate Susan tend to because of her flaws. On the other hand, most Susan stans like to wave away these flaws and blame C.S. Lewis for being misogynistic or Aslan for being a "cruel god" and ignore the fact that she is a deeply flawed person.

Susan gets something of a "reverse redemption arc" in The Chronicles of Narnia. This makes her not only a fascinating foil to Edmund--as both are analytical, logical people--but an interesting character by herself.

She starts out in TWW as very skeptical of Narnia and it's whole deal and also very condescending to Lucy throughout. She ultimately does admit that Lucy was right and does get on board with the whole prophecy at the same time Peter does, and ends the book being crowned "the Gentle Queen."

In The Horse and His Boy, she has a very interesting dynamic with Edmund and in even more interesting relationship with Rabadash. They don't even interact on-page with each other, but it's highly implied that she was interested in him when he was a guest in Narnia. His behavior obviously changed when she visited him in Tashbaan, but you have to wonder what their dynamic was like before for her to travel all the way to his home when relations between the countries were strained at best.

Prince Caspian is where the cracks start showing through. Susan has lived an entire life as an adult in Narnia, gets thrown back to England with her siblings, and is yet again in Narnia as a child. This book is what really emphasizes her one fatal flaw: convenience.

(Put a pin in that thought, I'll get back to it.)

Susan denies once again that Lucy saw something that the rest of them can't seen. She continues this narrative until every other sibling finally acknowledges Lucy in the right and only then does she apologize.

The last mention of Susan is in The Last Battle, where all of her flaws rise up against her in the worst way possible. I have a lot of controversial opinions on this that I'm going to address later, but I just want to say that Susan's reverse-redemption arc is something I actually like about her.

(There is also evidence that Susan does get a full redemption arc, just as Edmund and Eustace did, but C.S. Lewis was pretty much done with The Chronicles of Narnia at the point and instead encouraged fans to write their own version of how that went down.)

Okay, back to convenience being Susan's fatal flaw. So the one thing that comes up time and time again in the series is that Susan is very focused on material comforts. I believe it's implied that she's vain, and it's canonical that her own personal comfort spurs her to make decisions.

"[...] I really believed it was him — he, I mean — yesterday. When he warned us not to go down to the fir wood. And I really believed it was him tonight, when you woke us up. I mean, deep down inside. Or I could have, if I'd let myself. But I just wanted to get out of the woods and — and — oh, I don't know [...]"

Prince Caspian, 81

Prince Caspian has the strongest examples of Susan doing this, but certainly there's evidence elsewhere. There are a lot of fans who are distressed by this, claiming that Aslan and the others are too hard on her and shouldn't judge.

Honestly, I like that she's written with this flaw. Not only is it very relatable--(my own personal comfort and convenience is something I highly prioritize too)--but it humanizes a character who otherwise is ridiculously op and basically the Helen of Troy of the series. It may sound like I'm using this as an excuse to rant, but I really wouldn't have her any other way.

Susan As Portrayed by Anna Popplewell

Movie!Susan is a fucking delight.

She's sarcastic and badass and awesome and I could spend hours heaping praise on Anna's acting and her portrayal of Susan, but I can already tell that this post is going to be long so, I'll just stop here.

(10/10 want to be stabbed by her tho.)

Personal Headcanons

Let's talk about my fanon thoughts. I have many.

Susan is Aro

There's canonical evidence for this! Susan is a character who is heavily pursued by suitors everywhere, and even lets herself be courted by many of them, but chooses not to settle down. Even when she gets back to England and is described as only having interest in parties and material things, boys aren't mentioned.

I like to think that in The Horse in His Boy Susan was interested in Rabadash at first because he was a brilliant conversationalist. Nothing she says about him implies romantic interest, before and after she realizes the truth of his intentions.

Susan and Edmund Were Best Friends

This might be my love for The Horse and His Boy showing itself, but I think Susan and Edmund were thrown into circumstances where they interacted the most with each other.

Edmund is the ruler in charge of politics. Susan is the ruler in charge of Cair Paravel's public image. I imagine they spent time as ambassadors to other countries and planning royal functions.

They're also the most level-headed and logical out of their siblings, so they probably found a lot in common.

Susan Fancast

I literally just said I loved Anna's potrayal of Susan's (and I love what they gave us of older Susan too in LWW!), but I read the books in 2008 and my parents didn't let me see the movies bc I was like...nine years old and they thought it would be too scary.

So I had to headcanon my own interpretations.

Queen Susan the Gentle:

For some reason Merlin wasn't too scary for me to watch and I fell in love with Katie McGrath in like. Two episodes so. (On an unrelated note, I also fancast Bradley James as Peter at the time.)

Anyway, fanon Susan is basically Morgana Pendragon pre-evil arc. Sassy as hell, hot as fuck, and can kick your ass.

Unpopular Opinions

Yeah, feel free to skip this part if having controversial fandom opinions is a deal breaker for you.

The Problem With Susan Isn't Actually A Problem

I'm about to start so much discourse in the Narnia fandom, but C.S. Lewis's choices with her in The Last Battle weren't misogynistic. Bear in mind, I'm not saying that all of his writing choices in the series were A++ or excusing away certain racist/sexiest bits, but it's honestly baffling to me that people are so up in arms over Susan's exclusion in the final book.

So the part that everyone loses their shit over is as follows:

"My sister Susan," answered Peter shortly and gravely, "is no longer a friend of Narnia."

"Yes," said Eustace, "and whenever you've tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says 'What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.'"

"Oh Susan!" said Jill, "she's interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up."

"Grown-up, indeed," said the Lady Polly. "I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can."

The Last Battle, 83-84

There's a lot to unpack here and I first want to say that everyone's opinion on this part, no matter how different than mine, is valid. I'm going to be quoting some other ppl's opinions on here and by no means am I bashing them. I just want to address my feelings on the matter and the best way to do that is to cite the thoughts of ppl who have opposing ideas.

Here are some arguments on Tumblr I've heard regarding "The Problem of Susan":

"How about we talk about what might have happened if Narnia hadn't deserted Susan? [...] What if we didn't tell Susan she had to go grow up in her own world and then shame and punish her for doing just that? She was told to walk away and she went. She did not try to stay a child all her life, wishing for something she had been told she couldn't have again."

"Narnia is filled with metaphors (often not very subtle ones) that are supposed to teach us how to be, and the most glaring one for any young girl to absorb is that it's okay to be a girl like Lucy, unthreatening and cheerful and valiant and faithful, but to be a girl like Susan gets you punished - in fact, you aren't just punished, you're destroyed."

"why do we call it ‘the problem’ where’s the problem about a young woman dealing with her trauma and choosing her own path, actively making the choice to keep living and to stay and to carve a life out in England when her siblings couldn’t? what is the problem about susan forgetting to somehow cope with what she’s experienced? why is it ‘the problem of susan’ that she recontextualised her faith?"

And then there's JK Rowling who said this:

There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She's become irreligious basically because she found sex. I have a big problem with that.

It's weird how I'm still finding new ways to hate JKR in the year 2021. Again, there is absolutely zero implication that Susan had sex when she came back to England. ZERO. Did she actually read the books? IDK. If someone shares this opinion pls reply with actual canonical evidence.

Back on topic, I'm a firm believer of death of the author and interpreting art via your own experiences. Which is why I'm also going to share my own interpretation by saying y'all are wrong.

Susan Pevensie was not abandoned by Narnia. She was not barred from Narnia because she is traditionally feminine or because she "owned her sexuality" (another opinion I didn't have time to condense down for this post) or because she recontextualized her faith or even because she deserved to be punished.

I also fail to see how Susan recontexualized her faith, as the entire point of it all is that she has none. Bringing this back to Susan's fatal flaw (personal convenience/material comforts), her prioritizing herself over her own faith is the reason she is "no longer a friend of Narnia." Not...whatever fanon y'all are imposing on her character.

Susan is not being punished for liking lipstick and looking pretty. Susan's not even being punished. Y'all read Neil Gaiman's The Problem of Susan and forgot it wasn't canon.

There are many reasons Susan is not in Aslan's Country (one of them being that she's not actually dead yet), but the main one has to do with this:

"[...] But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

Voyage of the Dawn Treader, 215-216

Yeah, okay that's why Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia. The implication when the Pevensies are told that they can no longer enter Narnia is that they are to find Aslan in other places. Susan doesn't do this, instead choosing to focus her life on material things. It isn't the lipstick, it's that she only wants the lipstick.

Susan Had Sex In The Books

Oh and not in the context y'all are thinking. (Again, there are no implications that Susan was barred from Narnia for having sex or that she had sex when she came back to England.)

So there's actual canonical evidence that Susan and Rabadash had a sexual relationship. Sort of.

"What think you? We have been in this city fully three weeks. Have you yet settled in your mind whether you will marry this dark-faced lover of yours, this Prince Rabadash, or no?"

-The Horse and His Boy, 35

Edmund calls Rabadash her lover. Not her suitor. I don't know if the word had a different meaning in 1954, but it feels like C.S. Lewis is saying that they're fucking. I'm not really happy with the idea of Susan sleeping with an abuser, but really proud of her for Getting Some as a woman born in a time period where having premarital sex was a big no-no.

This also invalidates the weird opinion going on that Susan was barred from Narnia because she had sex.

Suspian Is The Worst

I haven't really talked about Movie!Susan much, but as long as we're talking unpopular opinions, it's worth noting that I hate Suspian. Some of it is the "Susan is Aro" headcanon screaming inside of me, but it's also the fact that it's written poorly, does nothing interesting for either character and generally comes across as awkward.

I feel like they were trying to make Prince Caspian sexy and relevant to teens. It came across as super heteronormative and unnecessary.

It also gets really really weird bc the next movie then gives Caspian and Edmund mad chemistry and we're all just like........ok.

Final Thoughts

Susan may not be my favorite character in the series, but she's grown on me over the years. I have many issues with fanon interpretations of her--which definately fueled some of my disdain for her initally--and I don't identify as a Susan Apologist.

I do however adore Susan and have many headcanons for her not mentioned here. I love reading fanfic, writing fanfic and meta, and generally having conversations about her and would love to talk more about it.

I welcome criticism (CONSTRUCTIVE) and conversation on all of my opinions and observations. Please drop into my inbox. <3

[elonmusksdickcheese]

Just a bunch of JosCarl hcs:

Joseph is the first one to realize he has a crush and is the first one to make a romantic gesture 

They first go over Aesop's heads and Joseph even flat out tells hims and still goes over his head (haha totally not projection there) 

Though Aesop ends up just being like "I really love you and want to marry you and die old with you",one day and Joseph is like "Yeah I've been trying to tell you the same thing for like 3 years :') my dear"

Joseph also calls Aesop his dear or his angel 

Aesop likes to Joseph his sunflower 

They end up moving in a small cottage on a hillside somewhere. They are surrounded by flowers, mainly yellow flowers. 

They also have a garden they take care of together along with two cats that are their fluffy babies

Once a hairless cat and the other one is a calico cat

Joseph loves taking pictures of Aesop, Aesop could simply be doing the dishes and Joseph will take a picture.

While Aesop doesn't like big events or lots of people they do still invite ppl over for holidays or little get togethers 

Definitely love going on picnics together, I see them living not too far from a lake and forest where they go and lay out in the sun. Joseph might bring painting supplies and paint while Aesop rests and reads a book.

They have wedding rings that are much like the hamlet and Judge rings expect their names engraved on them. 

Joseph is very affectionate physically and verbally while Aesop tends to give gifts and make food to show his love

Aesop often buys Joseph his favorite sweets or drinks or get him small little nicks knacks or jewelry 

Joseph loves to smother Aesop in kisses and cuddle him and give him complaints all the time, he's also one of the few ppl who can touch Aesop without asking

Aesop is the little spoon and Joseph is the big spoon. 

Joseph sometimes does try to cook, he isn't bad but he's not good and Aesop often has to help him or take over at points. Though Joseph does figure out how to bake. 

Joseph also can sew and make it seem like something was never torn in the first place. 

Aesop does still work as an Embalmer (no murder tho) and whenever he has a bad day at work Joseph makes him a thing of sweet tea and cookies and sits down in front of their fire place with him and wraps thems into a big comfy blanket until Aesop fills better 

Anytime Joseph had a bad day Aesop makes his favorite dinner and has him just lay down and not anything and may go and cuddle and kiss him If Joseph seems really upset 

They're both really open with each other and calm and like never fight though they do have differing views on death which does cause a little conflict but never an argument,  they're able to talk things out easily or simply step away whenever things are getting heated 

While Aesop does have more positivity views of death and doesnt mind the thought of dying he does have a fear of something happening to Joseph 

Also while Joseph had a much much more negative view of death , he does listen to Aesop talk about it and try to understand that part of Aesop. 

Aesop tries to understand parapsychology and photography as that is Joseph's hyperfixation,  he doesn't understand either of them but also tries. (He isn't very well with a camera and his pictures tend to come out blurry, Joseph thinks they're wonderful)

Joseph is pretty stubborn though and tends to hold little grudges, like if Aesop uses the rest of the milk before Joseph can add to his coffee , he will make sure he uses the rest of the milk next time. Aesop finds his little grudges adorable, though whenever they try playing a board game it's never good, Joseph gets really into them and really emotional. 

Their cats definitely sleep with them at night 

Their morning routine is pretty simple, Aesop gets up and starts making breakfast, Joseph gets up, makes himself coffee and Aesop tea while also feeding the cats. Aesop finishes breakfast and makes sure he and Joseph both have lunch. They shower together, Aesop gets ready for work (often letting Joseph do his hair) while Joseph just gets comfy. Though if Joseph does have to be taking a photoshoot anywhere Aesop does make sure he has everything and makes sure he's perfectly ready. 

Aesop likes to organize Joseph's bag, and has a certain place for everything. He's the same way plenty of things and does get ticked off when he can't find certain things despite them having a certain spot. 

Whenever Aesop is having a meltdown Joseph does remind him to breathe but know Aespp doesn't like being touch during these

OH they having matching stim toys and probably share them also 

They also dress their cats up and put little puts on them and sometimes take them for walks (with leashes) definitely take the cats with them on their picnics or into town. 

On the rare occasions Aesop is just physically affectionate Joseph just kinda melts, like obviously they give each other hugs cuddle and small kisses but whenever it's like him holding Joseph's face and gently caressing his face while kissing him over and over ,now that makes Joseph's brain stop working 

Oh also since Aesop is selective mute Joseph picked up sign language and uses it whenever Aesop can't/won't speak and sometimes just uses it ( he also uses it to talk with Victor whose mute in my au) 

[janiedean]

@seethemflying I think Sansa is in the next bracket down of important characters (with Jaime). In the outline, they weren't named as one of the big five, but in the process of writing have grown more important. No way is Sansa's ending going to be anything like Show Sansa's, though (and same with Jaime tbh).

agreed but lemme take a second from cramming to rant about this because I honestly have An Issue

in the sense: I 100% agree that both jaime and sansa are next bracket/secondary main (speaking as someone whose top five is made by ppl who are either secondary main or tertiary main if they have a pov like.... I'm not gonna argue that theon is a main fiver bc he's in my top three) but like what I can't deal with is the following as in that the main five are the main five bc they have in between them all the main themes george wants to tackle + the main plot stuff except for the 'romance is my #1 sense of existing in the plot', as in:

jon is azor ahai + has the chosen one deconstruction trope going on + most likely has the 'I never wanted to be Important™/have a throne but I'll have to for duty' ending + identity arc ie if he's not jon snow first of his name i'm eating my hat

dany has the dragons + the targ ancestry deal + 'I thought I wanted to rule but actually I don't I just want to help ppl' storyline (which is the hill i'm dying on)

bran has the oH WAIT fisher king deconstruction going on + the magic™ storyline + he's most likely kitn + he's tied to uh the literal rebirth of the continent so + how to deal with disability storyline

arya has the I NEED TO REALIZE WHO I AM storyline + the learning to be yourself as a gnc woman storyline + revenge is shit storyline + I'll become a skilled assassin and choose not to act on it unless absolutely necessary storyline + trauma/ptsd storyline tied to losing your own identity

tyrion has the shakesperean hero thing going on as in I have to make peace with the fact that I killed my father/did mistakes + overcoming the societal issues/problems/the prejudice most ppl have for him that’s caused by his disability storyline + he's the only one of these five who doesn't have any magical stuff in his background/only has his brain to rely on + overcoming his family's legacy and making it better storyline

now: a bunch of other minor/secondary characters have all of this (I mean idk theon and jaime have identity + learning to deal with/overcoming societal scorn given by them being disabled/having become disabled in various ways + ptsd, brienne has the gnc woman thing etc) but like each single one of these characters only lacks the OH I HAVE A BIGASS GREAT ROMANCE WITH MY BACKGROUND (I mean gendry exists to be arya's LI but idt it's gonna be important in her future storyline the way it'll be in brienne's to say one).. which oh wait SANSA JAIME AND BRIENNE HAVE, because guess what that's the next secondary bracket where those three characters have it as a main part of the story which is exempt from the politics angle (bc none of them is tied to the iron trap by the plot no none of them jaime doesn't want it, brienne isn't a contender and sansa was supposed to be queen in the beginning so she's obviously not going to be that later no not even qitn that's gonna be bran) and here falls the entire shebang because what half of this fandom doesn't seem to get is that *drumroll* george's favorite angle to tackle when it comes to romance is... THAT EXTERNAL BEAUTY IS NOT WHAT YOU SHOULD BE LOOKING AT IN PEOPLE AT THE END OF IT AND GUESS WHAT THAT'S THE MAIN POINT OF ALL OF THEM PLUS THE KNIGHTHOOD DECONSTRUCTION THING and with that I mean:

not counting that sansa's reaction to trauma is written to be specular and opposite to arya's as in arya tends to lose sight of herself/becomes someone else/resorts to violence to survive sansa never loses track of herself/her innate kindness which... is smth I wish dnd remembered, the thing is: sansa is presented in the beginning as 'i'm a twelve year old with all the issues with shallowness a 12yo brought up like me can have and everything I want from life is a good love story', which... guess what she's 100% going to get except

characters need to have an evolution, if sansa wants a handsome pretty guy who'll make her queen in the beginning and she has to realize joffrey was The Worst, do we really think her endgame is being queen of a handsome nice king when her entire schtick is liking songs about knights and wanting true love and someone gentle and brave blah blah? no, and that's exceedingly obvious when the text throws at you in the face that her only two actually viable choices for LI - sandor and tyrion - are.. guys who are either disfigured or disabled or traumatized or all three of them but are actually good people and she has to learn to see beyond looks, and no one else fits that bill period - sansa isn't getting with a pretty guy who'll make her queen, sansa will find love with a guy who's nowhere near pretty or handsome but will love her for who she is and that she will see the good behind the not-handsomeness dot and she'll prob go back north with him and be happy advising bran bc she learned stuff in court at most and I'm dying on that hill, bc again the entire point of her sl is having the nice good love story where she sees beyond external beauty which has been clear from page five of her first pov imvho

never mind that again she wants to be a queen in the beginning and then she realizes it's shit so why would she be one in the end? like not to be that asshole but george isn't exactly pro monarchy and it's obvious he's not going to paint it as an inherently positive thing

this attaches back to the fact that there's a whole knighthood deconstruction happening for which sansa has to realize that the gallant/true knights are not the ones who seem that/look like it/flaunt it around

which brings us to the fact that oh wait sandor and jaime in themselves are true knights in spite of the fact that sandor refuses to even consider himself one and jaime thinks he fucked it up and no one sees them as such

and that the truest knight in westeros who will get recognized as such is brienne

who doesn't look standard hot either

and has the love story with jaime right on page

and jaime also has the love story right on page where he has to realize he's into people that aren't c. especially brienne and so on which is what's happening right now like jb recognizing themselves as true knights™ is part of their whole thing like... it's... important

(this counting that san/san is beauty and the beast played straight with sansa as the beauty while jb is the same trope except reversed on itself five times because both j and b are both of them)

and this would also like make utter sense if oh, wait, jb weren't in the riverlands where sandor also is and if oh wait who has sworn a vow to find sansa like again I'm dying on the hill that brienne kills stoneheart, they go on the quiet isle to recover, sandor is like AH YOU'RE LOOKING FOR SANSA and sansa gets rescued in the vale by the only three true knights in these series including the one that's her actual love interest at least the way I see it and where do you think that's going to end yeah exactly

as in: she'll have the umpteenth proof that all the true knights in these books don't look like the songs and she'll get the one she wanted

(also brienne is way more like sansa than arya in personality so like... parallelism of two girls into romantic stuff getting with the guys they like? except that for b. it's relevant bc she's ugly and she gets with hot guy who's into her and for s. it's relevant bc she's hot and she goes with guy-everyone-considers-a-lost-cause showing that they're not exactly a lost cause)

like sansa is there to a) have half of the main love story plot b) as the resident song expert witness what knighthood actually means, jaime is the resident person doing things for love and finding ways to do it that aren't toxic/finds someone who'll actually love him and not what he represents, brienne is the resident 'I never thought anyone would be into me and I'm pursuing my dreams without a shred of hope they'll go well' and she gets all of that and sandor is there to be sansa's LI and to tell ppl that you can go to rehab and have a decent life even if you were used and abused to hell and back (jaime too tbh) and like none of that has to do with the iron trap, the magic, the zombies and whatnot but it's okay because it's their point in the plot and is2g I just wish people would take characters for what they represent instead of shoehorning them into others's themes/stories just because it's what they want for them, the end

(I could rant about the third bracket of characters ie theon & co & getting over trauma/ptsd without the Love Story™ but I have to get back to study if I wanna fill some prompts later so it's not gonna happen for now but... sorry for the rant I'm just really tired of the whole sansastark will get the iron trap and the north and be the ymbq and get with a guy that looks good for her depending on what we ship not considering the overall reaching plot or her book plot and everyone else will have zero relevance in the story because we said so especially when it means giving all of that to a character who is uh not belonging to any of the categories represented by the main five which are actually kiiindaaaa relevant rep but I'mma just gonna shut up here)

[hello-yue-here]

Yuetara, zukka, and maiko

yuetara

ship

1) its not one of my main ships. i dont rlly read fanfic for them but if i see a cute fanart of them ill enjoy it and i think i first started shipping it because of good fanarts for them.

2) i like yuetara because of how similar they are. theyre both women from the water tribe. they both understand the misogyny that they have faced. and they both said f sexism im gonna be a strong woman. i also love the tui and la parallel. moon spirit and ocean spirit parallel COME ON. YUE IS THE MOON. KATARA IS THE MOST POWERFUL WATERBENDER. THEY ARE THE OCEAN AND THE MOON. the push and pull they could give eachother. that dynamic ftw.

3) i guess if i didnt like something about this ship would be the fact that if i read a fic or see a fanart w yuetara then than means in that particular au i wont get any yuekka and yuekka is probably my second favorite ship. but then again if i get yuetara than i could get a plethora of other sokka ships to go with it so my sadness disappears in like two seconds. gosh shipping is hard sometimes until you remember ‘hey i have like fifty different universes in my head. all ur ships can coexist in ur brain olivia’ other than that i really see no downsides to this ship. maybe i wish it had more content. maybe if it had more content id ship it a lot more but its not one of the more popular ships so the content is kinda few n far between on my feed.

zukka:

SHIPPP

1) my boys. my babies. my loves. i watched this show for the first time when it came out on netflix and when it ended i really didnt ship anything other than kataang. i came onto tumblr to find fun atla content and one of the very first things i saw under the atla tag was zukka content. i was like oh? whats this? zukka? interesting... i was intrigued so i found a list of fic recs and i fell in love with the ship. the rest is history. its probably my number one ship because it was my very first ship here and im nostalgic

2) oh boy there is so much i like about this ship. i relate to a shit ton of characters in atla. but sokka and zuko may be the ones i relate to most. i relate to sokka because i tend to feel second best a lot to my friends. i try to stay positive but things rarely go the way i plan or hope for them too and while im happy for my friends and their achievements i oftentimes find myself thinking why cant that be me? and i see this a lot in sokka especially in sokkas master. i dont feel special a lot and idk seeing sokka feel the same way and then realizing he is special kinda helped me realize that im special too. on the flipside i relate to zuko because i have wild anger issues and difficulty dealing w my emotions a lot as well. i get broody and short tempered and insecure very often and i tend to push people away and i refuse to ask for help (the amount of teachers and adults and therapists who have told me its okay to ask for help ur not any weaker because of it is astounding. do i listen to them? .....im working on it.) and i saw a shit ton of this in zuko. book one and two zuko rarely asks for help as seen in the blue spirit and zuko alone and he pushes away uncle so many times and even when the gaang iffers to help him in i think its the chase he tells them to leave. when he finally has his redemption and joins the gaang and lets them kinda become a better person i was so happy. i want that for myself yk. seeing him finally win the agni kai and overcome his family that always told him he was nothing was such a win. my sister and i get along but when we were children we were very much like zuko and azula. it was extremely competitive all the time and there was so much toxicity and sibling drama to a concerning extent. we get along great now which im very happy about but yeah their sibling relationship hit a lil too on the nose for me. seeing as i relate to these character so much and want them ti be happy i want to live vicariously through them so seeing them together is amazing for me to project into them. i love projecting onto fictional characters and with them i can project onto BOTH so its a winwin. plus so many zukka fics are so well written and heartwarming and heartbreaking and emotional and fluffy anf UGH the talent here us astounding.

3) what do i not like about the ship? again the list is long. oops. mainly the toxic shippers. there are so many toxic zukka stans that sometimes make it hard for me to enjoy this ship but hey! thats what the block button is for:) i despise how often people infantilize zuko and completely ruin his character for the sake of making him a soft weak lil boy who needs protecting. thats just not zuko for me. and ive seen many many accounts even state that this kind of portrayal of zuko is rooted in racist stereotypes about asian men (now i am white so i personally have never experiences racism but i feel the need to bring that up because it is wrong and attention needs to be brought to it because a lot of poc fans have criticised this) and the same for sokka. some ppl rlly skew his character and make him a big strong brute and hypermasculine and once again poc fans have said that this take is rooted in racist stereotypes. again! these are just my opinions! this is my favorite ship! but i think its important to acknowledge some of the bad parts of our ships as well and be critical where criticism is needed :))

maiko

ship

1) I LOVE MAIKO. “i dont hate you” “i dont hate you too” BRUH. my little heart just burst into flames. im sorry guys but maiko is so cute. they hate everything except eachother. BRUH that is one of the cutest tropes. i shipped them the moment i saw them together onscreen and i was so happy when zukos face lit up in the finale when mai came back.

2) “i hate everything but i have a soft spot for you” TAKE MY MONEY I AM A SUCKER FOR THIS. they are so cute together. like zuko is rarely happy in a majority of atla but mai makes him happy and i- 🥺🥺 HE DESERVES IT. and mai is always so supportive of him. when hes stressing out about the war meeting she tries her best to comfort him. and zuko cares about her too. he may not be the best at showing it but oh my god hes TRYING HIS BEST. i think its a very accurate portrayal of teenage relationships because they arent perfect and they do fight but like,, every teenage relationship does that. and even after everything and how he left her in the fire nation she still had his back at boiling rock. she still risked her life against azula to save his butt.

3) the thing i hate about maiko isnt even about maiko. its about antis who think mai is toxic and that zuko deserves better. that has got to be the worst take ive ever heard. they had a fight in ember island. that is NORMAL. they are teenagers. they are not perfect. but underneath all the rough edges and things they need to work out they still care about eachother so freaking much. i genuinelt believe that neither of them would do anything to intentionally hurt the other and i think thats what matters the most. if anything mai is the best girlfriend in the entire world because zuko fucked up like,, quite a few times. he got rlly jealous and dumped her thru a letter and ppl always say that mai was toxic for being mad at him for those two things. umm she had every right to be mad at him for both of those. and while zuko is allowed to feel his emotions and be angry sometimes as well sometimes he needs to think things thru and realize that hey maybe some if this jealousy is unfounded. BUT EVEN THEN. HE RESPECTED HER FEELINGS AND DIDNT TOUCH HER WHEN SHE SAID DONT TOUCH ME. HE RESPECTED HER. so i hate toxic maiko takes because they are literally so wrong in my opinion.

again all of these are just my opinions!! feel free to agree or disagree but please be respectful!! i will respect whatever u think as well because this is all just for fun :)

[mejomonster]

Heartstopper, ep 2:

I always find coming out narratives in fiction interesting. Because like, 1 obviously all of our own experiences are uniquely different. 2 fiction has a reason to make it a neat event wrapped in a bow: character discovers they like x gender, character contemplates what that means about self identity, character weighs how ppl will react, then character tells ppl (or runs?). 3 particularly coming of age fiction has a tendency to wrap it in a neat bow. Because adult fiction can jump to the point where ppl are already self aware of their sexuality, or else can dwell in the grey area of figuring out what you like/if you'll tell/who you'll tell (and during what parts of yr life) because it's not rushing to quickly get to the teens in young crushes with their light drama stage lol. Because adult fiction can tend toward messier and less wrapped up without as much confusion from watchers.

So like. In reality? My coming of age "coming out" lol was probably most like Jennifer's Body. I liked girls, I obviously did and knew that since a friend told me girls COULD like girls AND boys when I was 12 and then suddenly everything clicked lol. I was also told only straight and gay existed by adults in authority, and told when I came out as bi (as soon as I learned the word) to go back into tje closet and "pick" (yikes! I'm glad sexuality education I hope is a bit better now with less lies being the only accessible info). So cause people insisted if you liked guys you were straight even if you liked girls too (thanks lying authority figures lol) I thought I was straight. When I doubted I was, I had plenty of teens calling me lesbian and dyke ans very very mean things all as insults to bully me, even in tje closet I was bullied for liking girls anyway. So I wasn't exactly hiding I liked girls by my teens. I was like Needy in Jennifer's Body, in some kind of mess friends witj benefits with a girl I liked, and both me and the girl were pretty aware we were kinda gay, and school was aware enough to bully me for it. And maybe a few times toward the end in senior year, I came out as bi to a few friends (finally finding online resources to reaffirm bisexuality is in fact real, and the ppl I grew up with had lied to me and shoved me back in the closet). And my friends already knew lol pretty much, so it changed nothing except I thought less about who knew or what I said. I didn't do some big come out to strangers, I just acted like myself with less hiding. The only big "coming out" was to my parents, and like some bi people can relate, i had to come out like 7 goddamn times for them to finally get that bi people are real. So very much unlike neatly wrapped up fiction, my real experience was not a neat figuring our I liked x gender, accepting myself, then telling people. It was more like realizing my feelings had a word for tjem, accepting cool I exist (but otjer ppl sure don't think I do), then getting bullied cause bullies don't care if ur out. And having crushes and dating people well before I knew what label I could use or how to get people to respect my label lol.

So back to Heartstopper: I find this a very interesting middle ground between realism and a gentler neater fictional take. I very much like the writing of the show so far. Charlie didn't come out, he says "it sort of just got found out." So like me, and probably a lot of people, he was just living his life and people figured he liked guys and decided to point it out whether he was ready for other people to give their unwanted opinions about it or not. But it's also in the narrative treated like he took them finding out and accepted that he was "out" now. So narratively the story can treat It like coming out and move on wirh it's plot. Even though the scenario implies he was probably a lot like most teens - living his life, some people called him gay, ans he was like well yeah I guess I DO like guys I'm not hiding it. That was me. I got called gay and I did like girls so I wasn't going to lie and say I didn't (I just am not the kind of person). That said, I met plenty of people like Ben too - who realistically were not ready to tell off/ignore people with their unasked for opinions. People who wanted to keep lying tjey didn't like what they liked, to keep people from saying things to them. And the reality is it is scary for teens. I wasn't scared of much so tje bullying didn't bother me. Charlie seems a bit like me in that he was like oh well I guess I'm out now.

I appreciate how this shows writing so far feels very down to earth. It feels somewhat realistic. I also do wonder if now in the younger generation than me, with teens now, and coming out as a bigger "thing" ans more kids and adults seem willing to openly mention sexualities, if this writing is more like how it is nowadays.

[thebeingofeverything]

I'm primarily a Mephiro shipper but I know you like MephAmaiRin and I'm curious about how you feel about your OT3 in these scenarios: 9, 27, 29, 31, 36 and 45 (This is for that "Send me a ship and a number and I'll tell you" ship post) and sorry I know it was supposed to be one number but I was curious about all of these haha

I will also gladly do a mephiro too ;D don’t hold back, I’m a multi-shipper at heart. But hell yeah ot3 :D

9. Do they discuss big issues? Religion? Marriage? Children? Death?

-Religion probably not, or in the vein of what goes on in canon so it’s nbd to any of them. Marriage, Rin is pretty much well if they’re happy with whatever we’ve got going on, it’s cool (tho he’d also be thrilled for an actual wedding, if only as a reason to get all his friends/family around for a celebration bc he’s sociable like that). But it’s right up there with the “love” topic and something Rin edges around bc he knows they’re not quite ready to hear that stuff. Children never really come up bc Rin doesn’t realize it’s even an option (tho given certain demons’ shapeshifting abilities~). And again, all things human concerns so Mephisto/Amaimon don’t look at them the same way Rin does so when the topics do come up, it’s usually Rin being the odd one out with his human upbringing making something like death more of a big deal. Mephisto knows to handle heavy topics a bit more delicately in a way that Rin understands if only bc he’s used to humanity by now. (I could write like an essay on how they each approach these topics and heavy issues in general but I just realized how many questions I have to get thru yet XD).

27. Do they have kids? Grow old together? Split up?

--I see Rin either adopting various strays he’s picked up and imprinted on over the years and Mephisto/Amaimon just huff and accept that they’re gonna have to share Rin’s attention with others. (Tho again, fun with shapeshifting vessels means I’d get to play with the ot3 and their horrible eldritch abominations/children and Rin being trailed by a flock of monsters he refers to as his babies lol). I tend to take that Rin’s demon heart makes him more like a demon king/satan than a typical nephilim that only live for 200 years so they definitely grow “old” together in a sense of the word lol But for splitting up, I’d say that in the end, it becomes a good-natured relationship between them and Rin throughout the ages. They might spend some centuries closer than others, and some more apart as they enjoy their various hobbies but never really “break up”.

29. How do they handle disasters or emergencies? Minor injuries? Sickness?

--Oooh well they’re really going thru it rn in canon XD So much like that, Mephisto’s probably got a plan, Amaimon’s a one-demon battering ram, and Rin is out there in the middle of things totally clueless but ready to throw hands  lmao Minor injuries are made a big fuss of by Mephisto for himself, those giant bandaids and requests for someone to kiss his owies better while Amaimon just stares into the camera like he’s on the office and Rin sighs and complies. Sickness is just an excuse for attention and they all take advantage of it since it happens so rarely (if ever, do we even know if demons can contract an illness? Maybe a demonic one like I did for the Quarantine Au lol). Thus, Rin becomes a living space heater and provider of hot soup, Amaimon is there with the absentminded hair brushing and tea, and Mephisto is awful but he might carry them to bed or help them take a bath/order Belial to give them a bath when he’s especially lazy lmao

31. Do they finish each other’s sentences? Pick up any phrases or habits from each other? Know when the other is hiding something?

--Rin and Mephisto are kings of being teasing shitheads to each other and definitely not above poking at inside jokes or little things like finishing sentences. Amaimon picks up habits all the time, constantly watching Rin/Mephisto bc he’s curious about the things they’re interested in and why. Rin is a terrible liar and they both know when he’s hiding anything, rip to him lmao Though they might guess he’s hiding something, but not what and he surprises them all the time. Amaimon is another open book, but only bc he doesn’t see the point in lying and will be blunt about most things or clam up and not say anything when he doesn’t want to answer. Annnd Mephisto is a horrible/perennial liar and at this point it’s safer to assume he’s hiding something than not. Tho he rarely fully lies, preferring to lie with the truth or let ppl lie to themselves. Rin/Amaimon are used to picking out when he’s masking things he’d rather not talk about, tho cornering him is the tricky part.

36. What’s their greatest strength as a couple? Their weakness?

--These guys are a power ot3 100% :D Rin doesn’t humanize them so much as bring out the best aspects of them, and they repay it with meeting him halfway. It’s all about getting Rin to recognize his role as Satan’s nephil/ the new godking of gehenna while also accepting the human piece of Rin and accommodating it into their lives. Their weakness is definitely that Mephisto refuses to let anyone really know his plans, and those can be unintentionally self-destructive, plus he tends to displace all his stress onto Amaimon as a convenient punching bag and Rin isn’t cool with that. They’re all incredibly stubborn too, so arguments aren’t always about changing each other’s minds, so much as letting them know what they’re going to do and doing it anyway.

45. Any special dreams or goals they have as a couple? Any heartbreaks? Regrets?

--Annnnd last question~ This is fun lol Mephisto just wants what he always has, to have the freedom to play with his sandbox/Assiah without someone trying to take his toys away or mess with them, as long as he has that, he’s happy playing with his toys and enjoying the excitement Rin and Amaimon bring to his life. Rin mostly just wants to explore the world (I’m thinking end of the series he goes off and takes Amaimon with to see all the cool places he’s always wanted to travel to, possibly picking up new cooking techniques along the way lol). He probably sticks around as paladin and mephisto sends him on fun missions to pick up haunted dolls for his prank collection XD They live it day by day, eternity makes it less crucial to have an end goal. Tho Rin’s biggest goal is to get them to the point where they can hear him say love without it making them act weird lol Heartbreaks probably come into play when the people closest to Rin begin to die from old age, leaving Rin to come to terms with it. Mephisto/Amaimon can logic it out why he’s upset, and they’ve seen enough humans die/react to death that they understand it’s difficult for them, but they still lack the compassion/sympathy to really help him and he’d have to do the emotional brunt work.

Ooh man this ended up long lmao There’s so much more to add too T.T

Thanks for the ask~ @entitycreation

[flying-elliska]

While I tend to take interviews that creators have with a grain of salt because they’re not gonna reveal spoilers and sometimes the specific creator has said things in the past that literally had to relevance, I still was like wow. the creator was basically like Eddie has doubts about Ana and he doesn’t know how he feels about any of it makes me wonder if they’ll have a breakup in s5. But idk. While they might break up, buck and Taylor will probs be together. I don’t hate them as a concept but like their getting together was weird as shit to me. I would’ve preferred it if there was a hint of something. Like we saw that it really affected Taylor thinking that buck had died, that he was being reckless but nothing happened but there was an air of something. Rather than jump to something in the finale. It cheapened them for me but they’re probs gonna be something so that’ll be something. It’s hard not to think that the creators and writers are not making buddie happen because it’s what a lot of people want. I’ve seen it happen where the white dude in charge gets mad and does the “unexpected”. One one hand, there are some ppl in this fandom that are intense as shit and need to chill the fuck out, but there is something there at this point. Before 4x13 I could probably see what they meant about their friendship being strictly platonic. But after that and the finale it’s like... if you want me to even care a little bit about their significant others, make an effort, because rn they sort of fade in the background compared to buck and Eddie. Like Ana? What is even her purpose except to show Eddie is in a relationship. But like there’s nothing there! Ugh ok sorry long rant over lol

haha rant ahead i love it when people rant at me

i do agree with a lot of what you said, it's pretty obvious to me that Ana and Eddie's relationship right now is doomed (if it isn't where they're going I'm going to call that bad writing, honestly)

and yeah, Buck and Taylor - wouldn't hate it if it was done well, because she's an interesting complex character who has shown a lot of growth, but this was just so overwhelming, it felt like an afterthought compared to everything else ? long term, i do think that this is going to be complicated, because Taylor has been shown to have commitment issues, so either they're going to show them work through that....or it could also be a big recipe for disaster lol. But it could also be a jumping point for Buck to figure out what (who) he wants and doesn't want in a relationship, that it's not just being in a relationship that completes him

as for what the creators think...honestly i've given up trying to figure that out lol, but i think it's more plausible that they didn't expect Buddie to be so popular, that they made a few jokes about in the show as a wink to the fans without realizing that the fans expect more now than just crumbs, and now it's like... something they're thinking about at least but still. might not be something that the network wants either. idk about the fandom's impact even tho yeah some parts of it are absolutely deranged, harassing the cast and acting as if they're on some sort of righteous political crusade like...chill this is fictional characters we're talking about, ffs. but if a creator decides not to do something just because of what the fandom wants, that's...very immature and stupid. from what they've said, i do have the feeling that they're trying to keep that artistic integrity of making decisions purely bc it fits their vision of the story, which would be good. but they could also be bullshitting us. who knows ? ugh

[ghostofcitrus]

more gender crisis bc i need somewhere to document this shit and also if u wanna read and say smth that’s cool too 🥺 fair warning it’s kinda longgg. but there’s a tl;dr and i tried to make the paragraphs short so it’s easy to read and i sorted the thoughts by paragraphs

ok so when i see a girl or group of girls or smth i, for the most part, am like yeah same. i have the same lived experience and like yeah u look cool and i relate in a lot of ways.

but like i also feel the same w non-binary ppl. i see agender ppl and i’m like oh nice that sounds like how i want to live MY life!! i get jelous. i saw a gender ambiguous person the other day and i thouvht i was going to lose my mind i was like AKSJSHJSJSNS Y O U. I WANT TO BE YOU. i talked to them i was like 😭😭i love your hair😭😭 and it was so compelling just seeing them i got my hair cut later that week. i like it.

and i cut my hair and i’m like y e s. and i’ve always wanted a very small/flat chest and have planned on getting a breast reduction (meaning i want basically no tits. i’m like a DDD rn. and i’m short and have a baby face so that’s like. very noticeable. pain.) ASAP. but i like dress and being seen as a girl? but i also want to be non binary, but it feels like something im striving for. i don’t feel like i’m there. i feel like i WANT to be there but i just keep hitting roadblocks.

when i think about OTHER girls, i’m like yeah. i relate to that. but when i think about myself. fully isolated. i want to present like a feminine agender person. i am connected to my girlhood. girl, sister, girlfriend, daughter... all of them accurately describe me. but i also like person, sibling, partner, child.

i like femininity. i like being seen like that. and being seen as a girl is cool and fine. but i don’t feel like it accurately describes all of me. but i’m like scared??

i want to be a “girl” in the way that when u look at me ur like ... is that a girl? my face i like lmao. it’s round and feminine. cool lol. my body.... i wish with like all my heart i woke up one day w/o titties or major curves. but i’ve literally work so hard to accept and like myself in my body. YEARS of forcing myself to look in the mirror and compliment myself. deconstructing fatphobia was a big part of it. but in my head. with no mirrors around. i think of myself as less curvy. a small fame, but not really curvy. much more neutral features. i forget what i actually look like. but when i do look in the mirror now i’m like she’s pretty. i like how she looks. nice. but it doesn’t really feel like me. but i feel cool. it’s like nice makeup that’s someone else chose for u and never comes off. like yes. that’s nice. but... it’s not like “me”. i feel like that about most of my features. but i’ve grown up in them. i don’t hate them. i think they look pretty and i feel confident enough like this. and after all the work i’ve done to get to this mindset... it’s just not what i want.

i think part of what’s messing with me is i’m automatically more comfortable with other girls/afabs, like we just share experiences and i can generally understand how they socialize. guys like,.. not so much. but most of my actual friends have ended up being guys. but im naturally wary of guys. and most around me end up being fucking republicans anyways. and another part of what’s getting to me is when i’m going about my life, i enjoy being stereotypically feminine. like i like to be taken care of, feel small , that bs. maybe it’s internalized misogyny that i feel like the only way i can be that is as a girl.

i also think i just have no idea what it would really feel like to go about the world non-binary. like i just want to keep blending into the background. i don’t want to be that noticeably different, i’m already autistic.

i think it’s also weird bc since middle school have been having periodic gender crisises but they always end in me just getting embarrassed, finding transmeds on the internet and also getting embarresed, not wanting to stop being feminine, or deciding it’s just not worth it.

and i think another thing is, i’ve always felt more connected to girls, but always on the outskirts of that, but that might just be because i’m autistic. but like i’m feminine in the sense that i like dresses. and being taken care of that and that shit. girls tend to really fucking irk me a lot of the times. i don’t really feel “connected” to them, more like “stuck” with them but making the best of it. some are pretty cool :) tbh it’s mostly just other autistic or queer girls i vibe with. other than that.. i struggle a lot to feel connected.

speaking of being autistic.... i’m realizing a lot of what i’m feeling is similar to how i felt when i first started to consider that i was autistic. when i was alone or in a space i was totally comfy in, i felt very confident that i was autistic. but when i was around people, i was like no i’m definitely not. and even now. i know i mask whenever i’m not alone. but i’m literally so fucking used to it it’s not hard at all. it hardly feels like a mask. just a different version of me. not the most authentic, but it’s how i operate around others. so whatever. not what i like per say. but in most cases, i can deal with it and still be perfectly happy (ish). this is exactly how i feel about all of this gender shit.

but i think part of my hesitancy to identify like this is i’ve never met ppl irl who identify as non-binary. that wouldn’t be a group for me to find and relate to and be comfortable with, i’d just be the different one. and i’m already different. and people don’t really get neopronouns and that shit.

ok and i’m anxious about my boyfriend as well. he’s a straight guy, idk how he’d feel about me being non binary. but i don’t want to sacrifice our relationship, so it’d be fine, because i also like my name and pronouns now. i like the shortened version of my name better tbh but i think my name sounds cool. mostly because saying it is a vocal stim for me, same with my partners name fore some reason. i just think they’re good names. they feel good to hear and say. and i’ve always been described that way and i’m like yeah that’s me.

i like dresses. feminine clothes? yes pleaseee. i like how girl are generally the ones who get taken care of. i like feeling small and dainty. i like being silly and cute. but like ... silly and cute arent like “girl things”?? but idk.

but i like “girl”. not “ladies” or “woman”. that feels too much like “female” and the only time i feel like i relate to that at all is in very specific situations. i’m feminine. i like that. i wish i could be feminine in an androgynous way tho????????

TL;DR: closing thoughts. if i were the only person on earth and i could do whatever i wanted like magically. i would change my appearance to look like my picrew... but like for an ex think Crona from Soul Eater of Ed from Cowboy Bebop. both of them are androgynous but when i see both of them i’m like they’re kinda feminine too! like that’s what i want to look like. i’d probably go by Citrus and neopronouns and maybe she/her (they’re fine but i feel like i’m lying about being non binary when i use them). ya know. how i want to be. but in reality. i am scared of that. it sounds like a lot of work and a big change that i could probably never really achieve. i also hate change. and constantly explaining shit.

also do cis people PINE over this shit the way i am? i’ve done this multiple times for years. not consistently bc tbh i have other shit i need to spend energy on but when i’m not pouring energy into somewhere else i tend to circle back to this. maybe that’s a sign that i’m right.

[sobdasha]

i’ve been rereading a lot of my favorite stuff for months now

since I'm lacking in spoons for library trips

And when I was cottoning on to the fact that I have, in fact, been autistic all along, one of the things I realized is that the connecting thread between the kinds of stories and kinds of characters that I like is in fact that they display autistic or autistic-adjacent traits. I had realized this, come up with a lot of examples. I knew this.

Haha yeah as I'm actually rereading the things the evidence is damning that I did not come even close to understanding the full depth of it.

~ Taucris Ithesta is Autistic and Other Adjacent Things re: Leckie's Novels ~

Actually let's start with The Raven Tower because you can't actually argue with me about autistic Siat.

Siat actively avoids eye contact, is """shy""", speaks too softly, has an excellent grasp of humor, likes rocks as a special interest, likes to collect rocks, likes to sort rocks, likes to line up rocks, has one (1) bff to conduct social interactions for her, notices patterns, is good at learning, and is considered disabled by society's standards.

Ughhhhh all that talk about rocks makes me sad all over again that I pitched my rock collection when I moved out (I saved the best fossils, though).

(ETA: I have since bought more rocks because polished gemstones with carvings on them make for great stims, I am very pleased with me)

Okay so now that that's been established, let's talk about Strength and Patience of the Hill.

Because this rock gets me. Originally I figured it was probably, y'know, like with Ancillary Justice Leckie's given me an ace-aro main character and I can identify with that as an ace-aro. But unlike Breq, who very much loves people and wants to take care of them and found family etc, Strength and Patience of the Hill doesn't give much of a shit about people. With some exceptions of people that are it's people, how dare you mess with them, Strength and Patience of the Hill will kick your ass. Although even then I'm not sure Strength and Patience is all that great at taking care of people. Also Strength and Patience of the Hill is very much absorbed in its own selfishness, very much consumed with his own internal world, and I am also a jerk like that so it was very relatable.

(Yes I am using multiple pronouns because one of my many favorite parts of the book signing was watching everyone scramble over pronouns for a rock because "It never came up so I never figured it out" and I'm pretty sure Strength and Patience doesn't even use pronouns because why would you need a gendered pronoun to refer to yourself??? You don't even need a name to refer to yourself, actually I'm pretty sure Strength and Patience doesn't actually consider itself to have a name.)

So it made sense that this rock just really gets me. I know it's bad when the majority of representation for ace-aro characters is stereotypical robots or rocks or aliens (oooh or sentient space rocks wait wAIT now that I've said that I've just realized the Myriad is the definition of a Crystal Gem, pffft) or whatever but honestly I don't care because I just really identify with the robots??? So I really liked it, YMMV.

(It's probably also bad if the trend for autistically-coded characters is just stereotypical robots or rocks or aliens or whatever too but like honestly a big autistic #mood is feeling like you are a robot or an alien or whatever so maybe that's why I'm not offended???)

My point being that Strength and Patience of the Hill displays a lot of autistic traits and is therefore very relatable, in this Ted Talk I will.

Strength and Patience of the Hill processes things slowly. She will come up with the perfect retort and tell you 5 years later with absolutely no context.

It loves daydreaming, staring at things, noticing patterns, and enjoying quiet and solitude. It loves thinking about why things are the way they are. Look I have fantasized about what if I could exist as just a pair of eyeballs and a mind floating around in space, observing things, thinking things, and not having to actually interact with the world, and I'm pretty sure this rock is living that life. (Until y'know it gets told life doesn't work like that.)

Despite his slow processing speed, and taking a while to learn language, Strength and Patience of the Hill is good at learning things, and I feel like it's the kind of sort-of-sideways, context-based accumulation of knowledge that I learn through as well.

Strength and Patience of the Hill has one (1) friend, and through the Myriad it benefits from the fact that the Myriad has an actual social circle, without having to put forth any effort of maintaining friends on its own, which is 100% the way to do it.

Strength and Patience of the Hill tends to attract the other "quirky" kids--that is, my impression is that the people who become his priests tend to be those people who look at the world a little differently, those people on the fringes. Trans people, autistic people, people with other disabilities.

Strength and Patience of the Hill trying to explain the state of affairs in Vastai to Eolo: "Okay so my first memory I can recall is…" No, okay, no, I know, it's just literally how the narrative has to be told, I'm not criticizing, but that doesn't make it any less reminiscent of "autistic person trying to explain a simple thing but starts in with 10 pages of context first to ensure the over-explanation makes sense" (haha that's why I consistently got stuck training endless new hires, I'm literally so bad at it that I'm the best in the department and I hate life).

Difficulty understanding other's feelings/points of view/circumstances (I know it's because he's a rock and a god but that doesn't make it any less relatable), hmmm what else…

Oh right, a typical interaction with Strength and Patience of the Hill:

Person: (gives offering) Strength and Patience: (offering is accepted because the transaction literally occurred, no need to respond) Person: "(asks petition)" Strength and Patience: ... Strength and Patience: wait Strength and Patience: what Strength and Patience: wait was I supposed to do something else Strength and Patience: did you ask something of me? Strength and Patience: I don't understand what you asked????? Strength and Patience: it's been an entire year now it's too awkward Strength and Patience: i'm sure it's. Fine. Strength and Patience: It's fine. (rinse and repeat)

Like I said, this rock gets me.

(Haha I was reading through my notes from the book signing and I found "Strength + Patience doesn't give a shit about balance, Strength + Patience is just selfish, which it manifests as apathy, which is why this rock gets me. All of my best interpersonal traits also spring from not giving a fuck and waiting ppl to go away faster lol" and why is that, oh because ~I'm~ ~autistic~ pfffft)

I started this post a while ago and this was as far as I got and I don't remember if I had more??? Time to talk about Taucris probably!!!

(I'm skipping Ancillary Justice etc for now because I do want to make a post about that but like there's just. So much. In those books. It's masking all the way down. So it can be its own post. One day.)

Because I waited so long I forgot what I was going to write so I'll just grab the book and flip through and comment as I see things.

To start off with: Taucris and adulthood. I've seen other people pick up primarily on the gender aspect of it--that Taucris waited until almost 25 to take her adult name because she she never figured out what her gender was (non- uhhhhhh what's the word for binary when it's three and not two? Non-tri-something Taucris in a society with 3 options but all 3 options are gendered? I'll go with that.) What really resonated for me was that Taucris waited until almost 25 to take her adult name because she never felt like an adult. And I get that ~everyone feels that way~ but I feel like it's Different for Taucris in the same way it's Different for me. Anyway I feel like no matter which aspect you choose, it's probably an autistic vibe.

Also Taucris seems to have a bit of a flat affect? She seems very serious (both in body language and in speech), and kind of intense sometimes when she talks, and Ingray notes how Taucris usually doesn't smile (she smiles with Ingray because Ingray makes her comfortable) and has always been """shy""".

Also Taucris...talks strangely? I am not sure exactly how to explain it. It's not written badly or anything, it's...you know how sometimes you suddenly sit back and look at dialogue and go no one speaks like this and it throws you out of the story because you dropped your suspension of disbelief? Taucris kind of gives me that feeling, and only Taucris. Almost like her speech is a little bit stilted? Awkward? She's very serious and matter of fact and says things like "You've always been so kind to me" with a straight face. But it doesn't feel like a """bad writing""" (quotation marks for subjectivity) thing. But I notice it every time I read her dialogue… I think it's just that Taucris is autistic and awkward and that's how she speaks. Also I think she's adorable.

Police work is Taucris' special interest. So much so that that's the entire reason she became an adult, so she could engage in her special interest better. She's ~weird~ for her single-minded interest and her interest in a job below her ~status~ and she doesn't care, she set her heart on this anyway, volunteering and interning so on.

Oh that was something else I was going to talk about--Taucris mentions feeling like she doesn't have her shit together, not like Ingray (who also doesn't feel she has her shit together. Kind of like "no one really feels like an adult). But Taucris seems quite calm and capable in Planetary Security. I don't know if this is just masking, but...I really hope that she does feel that way in her job. That because it's her special interest, that helps balance out the stress of being alive and simultaneously employed full-time. That because she's been volunteering and interning here so long, she's been familiar with the office and it wasn't a stressful transition. That she acts confident because she feels competent and respected. Taucris may look calm and cool and collected on the outside and be screaming on the inside but I hope she actually feels pretty good on the inside too.

I would also like to say that I like Taucris' nother. Despite what Danach implies, I get the picture from Taucris that e is supportive of Taucris' personality and interests even when e doesn't get it. E indulged her interest in police work, e didn't understand why Taucris wasn't taking an adult name but tried to be patient about it...so I assume that also means that e was understanding of all of Taucris quirks and stims and particularities. E's been a good support system while Taucris' peers have not.

(Except for Ingray, Taucris' one (1) friend.)

I like Taucris' relationship with Deputy Chief Veret too--the way Taucris quietly manages breakfast so e doesn't have to think about it or be put out (this is The Love Language to me, not being inconvenienced, and I feel that this is part of my personality because my personality is autistic, so). I don't know why specifically Taucris does this, but all the reasons I could come up with feel very wholesome. Taucris respects Veret as her boss and as a person. Taucris is empathetic and thoughtful (she doesn't like Danach but she tries to consider and understand where he's coming from; Taucris isn't Hatli but she considers Veret's fasting etc to be valid rather than a choice of superstition). Taucris' situation is different but she knows that it doesn't feel good to be treated as weird, to be sneered at because you don't act the way people expect you to. Taucris, being autistic, maybe has a lot of experience with "perfectly good foods" she won't eat. Taucris strikes me as someone who observes quietly, and considers carefully, and maybe takes a long time to make up her mind but when she moves it's deliberately and not carelessly. Which is, to me, a masking trait.

In the quantum version of this post I was going to write everything so polished and lay out my points so nicely but clearly that didn't happen and I don't know where to end this and I'm sure I didn't even explain things that well so I'll just say, I feel it was very autistic of Taucris in the last chapter to just be like "well IDK what you want from me and rather than expending massive effort trying to suss it out and guessing wrong I'll just be direct: I know you can't talk about what happened so I won't ask you about what happened unless you want me to ask you about what happened in which case you should say so and I will ask but I think maybe you just need to watch a movie with me instead."

[teledild0nix]

here’s some stuff that happened to harry between the end of the war and seeing draco again in moonrise

-he gave kreacher all the money sirius left to him, and tried to give him grimmauld place but kreacher didn’t want the house; for a while they lived together like roommates, and then kreacher went to live with some elves from the free elf movement in france

-harry testified at a ton of death eater trials, including draco malfoy’s and narcissa malfoy’s (lucius disappeared between the battle of hogwarts and the arrest of his wife and son; he was later found dead and draco has some very specific theories about that)

-due to harry’s testimony,  draco had a reduced sentence of 2 years of house arrest and 1 year of no magic (harry still had draco’s wand at the time so he knew draco was lying when he said it was destroyed during the war but he didn’t say anything); narcissa spent 6 mo in azkaban and is technically still under house arrest at the start of moonrise, but she breaks it to visit her sister bc she’s a malfoy damn it and she does what she pleases

-harry went back to hogwarts for a while to get his NEWTs because obviously hermione wanted to go and ron wanted to go with hermione and the idea of being without them and figuring out what to do with his life next made harry feel like he couldn’t breathe

-he had a VERY emotional first term with lots of yelling and storming off to sit by himself and he’s having trouble sleeping and he and ginny got back together and then broke up again and halfway through exams week during first term, he broke into the headmaster’s office in the middle of the night and just broke down sobbing because he couldn’t take it anymore and dumbledore’s portrait told him that he didn’t have to carry on at hogwarts and no one was going to be hurt/angry/disappointed in him, and he was SUPER relieved and he scared the crap out of professor mcgonagall (headmistress obvs) in the morning by having fallen asleep under the desk

-he went to stay at the burrow after that like he went for christmas and then the week between christmas and new year he broke down again and ginny told him that it’s okay that he needs help coping and there’s nothing wrong with getting it so he checked into st. mungo’s

-st. mungo’s has a new ward to treat wix who have been traumatically impacted by magic like straightforward spell damage or just had some kind of traumatizing experience with magic (mainly due to muggleborns being like please ma’am a crumb of therapy) and there are a ton of hogwarts students there including a bunch of slytherins and harry sees a lot of folks he knows which he finds kind of sad because they are all suffering at the same time for the same reasons and then also he knows there’s something good about it too because they can get help now, which they wouldn’t be able to before

-he sees neville a lot at st mungo’s, bc neville goes there to visit his parents and he gets sort of fascinated/obsessed with neville the way he does sometimes bc he can’t stop thinking about how neville could have been the chosen one and also he realizes that he’s attracted to neville and for a while he thinks neville kind of fostered this fundamental change in him because he’s never been conscious of being attracted to men before

-harry tries to ask hermione if there’s some kind of magical explanation for his interest in neville and hermione very gently tells him what being gay is, and harry’s like uhhhh yeah i actually have heard of that hermione but i’m not gay what about ginny so hermione goes to a muggle library and brings harry back a book about bisexuality and harry is like !!!!!!! he also revisits his past and realizes that he was very attracted to cedric diggory and viktor krum (he likes jocks) and also he realized that he still IS attracted to bill weasley 

-harry gets really into books because he didn’t know books could tell you such personal, useful things! hermione makes him get a library card

-ron leaves hogwarts after having obtained an acceptable number of NEWTS and moves in with harry at grimmauld place; hermione lives with her parents and ponders magical law school and visits a lot

-he starts dating neville! he only meant to come out to neville but neville thought harry was asking him out and accepted and harry was like okay yes let’s go with that 

-he gets a job in a muggle feminist bookshop and the middle aged muggle ladies who work there LOVE him so much because he’s polite and kind and down to earth and he loves books and harry is so MOVED because they don’t know he’s harry potter, they just know he’s a lovely boy. there’s one point where someone mentions a niece rather hopefully and harry’s worried it will get awkward but he just politely brings up neville, and they love him even more

-he breaks up with neville because he’s a little bored? he feels like there isn’t enough friction and then he is kind of miserable and self loathing for a while because he hates disappointing people and he has a little bit of a downswing

-ginny comes out as a lesbian and starts dating luna and at first harry kinda wonders if it had anything to do with him and he kind of hints at that to ron and ron scoffs and tells him he’s got a big head and harry is sheepish and realizes he’s being silly 

-ron and hermione get engaged which makes harry feel panicky again for a while and he thinks about how charlie weasley is part of a triad and harry wonders if he wants that with ron and hermione and then decides he’s not in the least attracted to either of them so probably not and then he makes them camp out in the sitting room of grimmauld place with him and they toast marshmallows on the fire and sit up all night talking and harry feels very loved

-the slytherin kids start showing up at grimmauld place one by one after they stand up to their bigot families and get disowned or else they just burn out in general. they tend to be a little snide but harry makes it clear that there is a standard for respect and kindness at grimmauld place, and people mostly meet it. harry and hermione help them learn some muggle skills and find muggle jobs so that they can support themselves (some of them have been banned from using magic or had their wands snapped but they’re trying to better themselves and learn how to treat ppl and harry rlly respects that) 

-around this time, harry starts spending more time with teddy lupin, and he keeps running into narcissa malfoy at andromeda tonks’ house, and he’s honestly kind of impressed that she’s risking being sent back to azkaban by breaking her house arrest just to see her sister and her nephew and he’s seen some other slytherins change, and besides she did save his life just because she loved her son, so he’s cautiously friendly to her

-the way narcissa (aunt cissy to some) talks about draco makes harry very curious about him like she implies he has a Terrible Secret and harry’s like !!!!!!!!!!! i must know all at once

-harry digs up draco’s wand, which he has never bothered to return and decides now is the moment to return it because he’s DESPERATE to speak to draco and see him with his own two eyes