#don't let the world tell you who you are

[nymv1iane]

Babe, take those photos. Capture those moments. Whether you are not feeling the best or you might think that you are in your ugliest moments, take photos. You might not like how your nose looks, your eyes, your brows, your cheeks, your lips, take those photos anyway. Even if you might feel like carving your eyes because you think that you are "ugly", or too skinny, or cutting your fat thighs, your flappy arms, your stomach rolls, take those photos. Capture your moments. One day, you're gonna look back at those photos with much more kinder eyes. With much more kinder words. Don't let the world tell you who you are and who you are supposed to be. When the world turns its back on you, please, don't turn your back on yourself.

[knifearo]

this year my challenge for everyone is to unlearn the association between love and morality. love is not something that is inherently morally good, and the absence of love is not something that is inherently bad. sex without love isn't morally bankrupt, it's just an action. people without love aren't less kind or less good, they're just people. when we can get past this false (and often unnoticed) dichotomy of good love/evil lovelessness then i think we are going to be able to take leaps and bounds in sex positivity, aro advocacy, certain discussions of mental health...

[sickfreaksirkay]

when people say it's stupid to learn latin because it "isn't useful" i literally go crazy wild like i get violent and aggressive and start gnashing my teeth looking like a dog with rabies or something

[hazel2468]

Something that I need people to understand, especially on this hellsite. Is that oppression does not depend on who you actually are.

It depends on how the world sees you.

If the world sees you as X identity. They will treat you as X identity, whether you are or not. If the world sees that you are not X identity, but they can use the oppression of X identity as a cudgel to make you act the way they want you to? They will use it.

Oppression is NOT dependent on who you actually are. It depends on how the world sees you. It depends on how people see you and what they decide to put on you because of that.

Oh. And when someone experiences a form of oppression that is NOT based in the reality of who they are? It's still that kind of oppression. It's not "misdirected"- it is still that kind of oppression being leveraged to maintain the current social climate.

[cluescorner]

Arlecchino's whole deal is unbelievable

Arlecchino: Huh I wonder what's causing my weird powers? I can't really worry about that right now tho, I've gotta become King and then kill my "Mother".

*Kills Clervie and "Mother"*

Arlecchino: Huh I wonder why I was able to defeat a Fatui Harbinger when I'm like 17 or so? I can't really worry about that right now tho, I've gotta be in jail and become a Harbinger.

*Is in jail for a while and becomes a Harbinger*

Arlecchino: Huh I wonder why I am-

Pierro: Hey what's up hello, anyways you're descended from the Crimson Moon Dynasty of Khaenri'ah. I'm sure that this is a lot for you to take in so-

Arlecchino: Ok.

Pierro: ...You're just cool with that?

Arlecchino: IDK maybe? I can't really worry about that at the moment, I'm a father now. This orphanage full of children I love (who also are child soldiers and are not allowed to leave or else I'll execute them except maybe now I'm just gonna wipe their memories IDK I'm morally complex) isn't gonna run itself.

*Runs the orphanage/spy recruitment initiative*

Me, the fucking player: WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU ARE KHAENRI'AN? WHY WASN'T THIS BROUGHT UP IN YOUR FUCKING QUEST?? OR ANYTHING ELSE????

Arlecchino, talking to me through my phone: I honestly don't know why you care, I'm too busy to give a shit. Anyways, I'm gonna go fight fate itself I guess. I'm sure that I don't share any thematic parallels with any other Khaenri'an characters (particularly as it relates to acting and family angst) and that I haven't made the idea of 'curses' on Khaenri'ans and what they entail even more complicated than they already were. See ya.

[greenerteacups]

hi GT!

Lionheart had me the moment you kicked it off with “it’s a nice day to start again.” Might i ask why you chose that particular line?

And, if you havent already answered to this emoji:

❄️

P.s: you have my eternal gratitude for creating the most brilliant piece of writing i’ll ever read. I shout about it from the rooftops, share it on my socials, requested my spouse to read it so we may discuss it together (in lieu of a present for my 30th birthday), et cetera.

I see from your URL you are a fellow lad of taste.

There's a couple things going on in the epigraph for Book 1. On one level, it's a lyric from the first muggle song I picture Draco listening to on his walkman at the end of the book, so there's a cute full-circle thing there. The second layer is the theme of change and redemption, which, in Lionheart, doesn't so much come from major moments or self-sacrifice, but from the slow, grueling, everyday work of living, and living better. It's a nice day to start again because every day is. You always have the opportunity to start making better choices, no matter what lies behind you. That's the thesis of any Draco redemption arc, right? You have to imagine that he could have chosen to be better.

And then thirdly, there's the audacity of doing a full Hogwarts canon rewrite, a good 30 years after the original books came out, millions upon millions of words of fanfic later, and basically asking everyone to read the same story they did the first time around, only different. So it's a kind of winking entreaty. It's saying to readers, many of whom are understandably wary of doing it over, zeroing out the characters to starting positions, and starting from the beginning with 11-year-olds all over again. It's going: "hey. That was fun, right? Why not do it again?"

[starpirateee]

i would actually die for a owen and curt both join chimera au!! ur writing is incredible and i desperately need more of it for my blorbos <3

One of these days you anons are gonna have to tell me who you are so we can talk (/nf /hj) cos you guys have some BANGER ideas

oh and, uh, please don't actually die? I'm gonna need you back here to read this thing you got me excited over 👀

[ February, 1959 ]

He was assigned the agent who almost got away. An American with a name that struck a little bit too much of a chord.

Mega.

They'd finally caught Mega. Part of him hated to think that Curt was next on their ever expanding list of potential hires, because if they failed, that would likely be the end of agent Curt Mega, and not only how the world knew him. But that thought and all of the others were drowned out rather fiercely by the vast majority of his mind that was glad that they finally had the chance to take him down a notch.

Curt wasn't conscious when Owen entered the room. It gave him enough time to survey him and the injuries he'd already sustained trying to fight them. All things considered, he seemed to have been putting up a fairly substantial resistance, but Owen quietly supposed that such confidence wouldn't last him much longer. They were supposed to be sending the man currently under the guise of deadliest man alive after him. If Curt hadn't caved before then, he'd surely be in for a world of pain.

Owen leaned against the wall in wait, folding his arms over his chest. By the end of 1957, he barely recognised the parts of himself that he couldsee, and resented that which he couldn't. These days, the inconsistencies in his body- the pale flashes of skin, the constant ringing or low throbbing in his ears, and even the way they'd had to force one of his hands to cooperate with the rest of his person, leaving him with a stiff tremor- felt more or less neutral. They were slightly outdated pieces in an otherwise well oiled and perfectly running machine, and he had that machete weilding assassin to thank for most of that.

He didn't know how to deal with that which was wrong with his body, so most of the time, he simply… Didn't. It was easier that way.

Curt's eyes opened, and he tried to get used to the world again. It had been the same scene for- days? Weeks? He didn't know how long exactly, but the more times he woke up in it, the less he had to force himself to get used to it.

There was one thing different this time. One thing that, when he saw it's tall frame casting him an all too familiar glance from across the room, startled him to no end. Of all the times… Of all the times he really needed his mind to cooperate, it did something like this and screwed him all over again.

"Oh god. Oh god… Not now…" His voice was raspy and so quiet it was almost a whisper. He was begging the universe not to make him see Owen. Of all the times for his ghost to show up uninvited and take up that aching part of his brain, now was probably the worst of all. He cursed under his breath, willing the pain of the past to just leave him alone for once. "God, Mega, pull yourself together! He's not even real!"

Owen huffed a breath of laughter. Not real? That was a new one… What was going on in Curt's head to make him believe he wasn't real? Why was that his first response?

He pushed himself up off the wall, deciding to put this notion of his to the test. He looked Curt right in the eye as he approached, making sure to keep his gaze intent and focused, and then slapped him across the face. Curt gasped, recoiled, and then his eyes went wide.

"Is that real enough for you, Curt?" Owen hummed, straightening himself up and clasping his hands behind his back. That had been two years in the making. He was surprised it wasn't harder…

"Owen..? That- that's not possible… You're-"

"Dead?" Owen scoffed. "So you seem to believe… But did you ever think to verify that for yourself?"

"I watched you fall. I-I watched you hit the ground." Curt could feel the heat spreading across his now tingling cheek. This was real, alright. Owen was real, and right in front of him, and alive. Owen- this real, not-inside-his-head Owen- had just slapped him right across the face like this wasn't the first time they were seeing each other in two years or more. All of this was actually happening, right there in the hands of the enemy.

Owen was in the hands of the enemy.

Owen… Was the enemy.

"You didn't ever take it further, did you? You just assumed I was dead right from the off, and you never took it further!" He shook his head, somewhere between offended and completely unsurprised. On one hand, did he really expect anything else? Curt wasn't the type to go back to anything, and that shouldn't have been surprising in the slightest. Still, he was a little disappointed, now having to force himself to understand that everything they'd tried to tell him was right. Curt was a coward. Curt did leave him for dead out there, and he didn't have an intention to return.

He'd managed to convince himself for a while that Curt wouldn't possibly leave him to suffer in the ways he had. Even at the time, that was no more than an attempt at self regulation, trying to pretend that one day, Curt would follow the end of a trail that led him straight back to him, and he could leave the pain behind…

Of course, that day never had come.

Curt watched his eyes cloud over with something that may have been a slight of genuine heartbreak, and felt his stomach drop. "Why are you here?"

"Thanks to you, both the American government and my own believe I'm rather dead. After that, there weren't a lot of other options." Owen answered, as bluntly as he could manage.

"You can't be saying-" But, no matter how hard he protested, it was his fault. And even he knew it. Every single step in this catastrophic failure had been his fault. He sighed. Even the fact that Owen could no longer live or work in the UK or the US because he was legally dead… That was his fault too. "Don't answer that. What do you want from me?"

"I want you to see some sense. We want nothing from you, so to speak, just enough of a chance to make our proposals?"

"You're crazy if you think I'm gonna cave just because it's you."

"I didn't expect you to have a bias just because we have a history. I know how hard a man you are to break."

Owen's eyes still burned with that same passion that they always had. Golden shimmers burst through the burnt caramel of his irises, and it felt like he knew them so well. It was distressingly familiar, and devastatingly handsome.

"But, all the same," Owen continued, voice not half as alive as his eyes. He took a well thought out step back, and started to pace. Curt heard his every step as they resonated through his ears, sending tiny shivers up his spine time and time again. "You know how I refuse to compromise."

The pacing stopped for long enough for Curt to nod, and then began again. In trying to ignore it, he dared himself to get a little confident. "Go on, then. Draw me in with the same bullshit they forced into you. I'm all fucking ears..."

"That's what you don't understand. What we're trying to create, it could change your life. This world isn't built for men like us, and you know it. Doesn't matter how hard you fight, the federal governments are never going to change their stance."

"You don't know that—"

"I do. Nothing will change if we don't force the change out of them. What you're doing is fine, as far as these things go... But, Curt... What happens when your agency finds out about your affilations?"

"They won't."

"What, ever? You're careful enough for now, and my death certainly helped with that aspect of things, but you do realise that the second they find out- in fact, the second they even start to suspect you- you're going straight to death row. That wouldn't be the case if the plan came into fruition, you understand..."

Owen passed through Curt's line of sight, and he scoffed, forcing the Brit to stop in his tracks. In a moment, his gaze was back on him, and Curt felt the intensity of it as it weighed heavy on him. This kind of unbridled confidence and sudden slights of anger had only been seen in the most calculating of adversaries, but Curt had never thought to believe he'd see it ignited in the face of someone like Owen.

"You sound mad. You know that?"

"Mad?" Owen raised an eyebrow, his head tilting as if he were trying to consider Curt's accusation. "Right... Is it mad to want what everyone else has? You're the one of us from the self proclaimed land of the free, and you're telling me you don't want a slice of that freedom?"

"No, I-"

"A straight answer, please, Curt. You beat around the bush more than a bloody politician. do you, or do you nor, want to be a free man, without the repercussions of people knowing who you are?"

There was a beat of silence. Not like Curt needed to think about it, but the last thing he wanted to do was show any ounce of desperation, especially not in front of Owen. He didn't deserve the satisfaction of knowing he was right, not in any capacity. So, he baited him for a moment, testing the possibility of saying no in his head.

But the truth was as plain as either of them could make it without words. He wanted to be free so badly. He wanted a life without repercussions, without the need to hie any one part of himself from everyone, for fear that they'd have his head if they found out.

It was mainly just the fact that Owen had called him a politician...

"Yes. Yes, I wanna be free. But not like this."

"Not like what? You have no idea of what we are capable. Nobody will care by the time we're finished. We will be on top of the world."

Curt didn't want to believe a word, but Owen was so convincing in his own way. He made this freedom sound both easy and attainable, when he knew it was anything but. When they had been fighting for so long, how was Owen and his organisation so sure that everything was going to change, just like that?

He suddenly felt confident enough to put into words what he had been thinking since Owen first started making his proposal. He looked up, registering that Owen was still there in front of him. "Do they know about you?"

Owen froze momentarily, drawing in a breath. Curt managed to convince himself that this was the edge, this was the one thing he had over him and everything he was saying, however tempting it was to listen to. Eventually, Owen sighed, but he had the pride enough to not drop his gaze through the defeat that was so evidently- and yet so briefly- written across his face.

"No. They don't."

"So, why'd you think they would accept people like us? You make out like it's easy, but you don't know! You don't know whether these plans will accomodate everything wrong with the world, because you've never bothered to try and find out!"

The risk was too great. It always had been. Owen knew for a fact that the more they knew about him, the more they could expose. All things considered, he had somehow managed to remain a closed book, even here. They only knew anything at all about him as an operative, very little about the man behind that aim, that laser focus... If presented with the opportunity, they may have known more, but they had been rather built on the idea that all secrets would be exposed in their time, and therefore, anything their agents were keeping would also leak from the woodwork.

"The way the system works," he started to explain, partly aware that Curt would buy it even less now that he'd found that edge. "We wouldn't be the ones in the public eye. All over the world, those who turn thousands in profits, and those who keep their secrets tight, will be forced into watching everything be exposed, piece by piece. The people's focus will be there; reams of government secrets and endless, publically available data, and it'll be people like us who will revel in the change."

"But how do you know that?"

"Because I've seen it. I know what they're going to do with it. Think of what they could pull from the secret service, for example. Tell me you believe the public will still have their attention on men like us, when everything that the secret service has kept hidden is suddenly on the record."

This was the kind of back and forth that happened every time Owen and Curt saw each other again. Owen would get closer and closer to genuinely moving Curt, and Curt would become less and less convinced that he was going to leave this place. For some reason, he still felt completely familiar in Owen's presence, and it became harder to ignore what he was saying.

It came to the point where he started realising that he was being offered everything he'd ever wanted. Owen's silver tongue had him convinced that whatever was going to happen in the long run was going to be an improvement on the world's current state. He got in easier. His words started having more of an effect.

Curt was a recruit under Chimera by the end of the month.

[bumblingbabooshka]

On s'est déjà tout dit Et j'ai déjà tout vu Je l'ai déjà apprise, la leçon la plus dure J'suis tombé droit dans l'mur, une fois, deux fois

[We've already said everything and I've already seen it all. I've already learned it, the hardest lesson. I fell straight into the wall, once, twice.]

[msnihilist]

I'm not super involved in the Nicktoons Unite fandom, but I have been combing through fics and I'm already tried of Danny being portrayed as the big brother/second smartest one instead of what he actually is: a fucking idiot.

[deathtodickens]

Temptation is a dream to which Conscience has lost herself far too many times. Far far too many times.

[hiis-theme]

somewhere out there is an alternate timeline where toby was correct and people actually did hate spamton. could you imagine that. i have to imagine we wouldn't have gotten the spamton sweepstakes in that case which is crazy to think about given how much lore that gave us-

[fionnaskyborn]

Was tagged by @oceancamp to post my current five favorite songs! (They should invent a stages-of-grief-esque model that encompasses and accurately describes both types of anguish I had to go through making this list - the one of limiting myself to only five songs, and the one of trying to put as little videogame music on here as possible so that I don't end up looking like an absolute goddamn geek, which... I am... Oh well!)

Thank you so much for tagging me - here are the songs!

Heaven Pierce Her - War Without Reason

Tatsuro Yamashita - Love Space

This specific arrangement of Death And Republic + Meet Again

Winger - Junkyard Dog (Tears On Stone)

The Protomen - Light Up The Night

Is it courtesy to tag other people after you've been tagged in a post like this? If that's the case, I'll tag @spiralled-fury, @solradguy, @swamppossum, @five-by-five, @northstarring, @ineedmoredragons and @tbonechessor!

[saviourkingslut]

not to be about opera again but to be about opera again. as an art form it has the reputation of being super stuffy and something for snobs who don't know how to have fun only but honestly this was one of, perhaps even THE main theatrical entertainment for centuries. i wish people knew how hard these things can go and how engaging they can be. like characters kill and die and fight wars and (almost) commit human sacrifice left and right. characters fall in love they mourn they're ecstatic they cry they're furious it's an extremely dramatic and emotional art form! and i understand that opera does not appear approachable bc of the general conventions of the art form but i promise old works can be fun and engaging if you go watch them with some preparation beforehand (reading the libretto helps) - not to mention not all operas are old bc there are so many modern operas which engage with topical events! also the music slaps.

[uselessnbee]

people who absolutely hate crossovers and crossover shipping and shipping characters who barely/never interacted but the fan is interested in what their dynamic could look like, who hate any non-canon shipping are boring as fuck and really annoying when they have the need to go in the comments of these posts and be like "that's so weird why do people do that?" or start ranting how much they hate it

because they can and it's fun, dumbass so stop ruining other people's fun just because you don't like it

if it's not for you that's all cool and fine it's not for everyone but you can just scroll away or block such things you don't have to spread your negativity in the comments where others are just trying to have fun with other people who have the same interests. stop it. you're being the weird one here.

let people have fun in the fandom that's what fandoms are for!!

[robinmage]

no kind of relationship will ever be as impactful as the slightly toxic slightly homoromantic hyperdependent bestfriendship you had with someone when you were like 12

[oatbugs]

oh my god ! haha . anyway a bit buzzed perhaps. anyway here's what happened on the date