#my heart needs should update

[candlesoul]

sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined.

[skepticalcatfrog]

Guys I feel like I am trying to put together a puzzle out of pieces from one million different puzzles where no one full puzzle is present. I was looking at This Foul Murder today and I came across the part where Marshall describes Benedikt's eyes as being "brown-grey" and "ambiguous dark". I was already familiar with this because I am a frequent peruser of Benedikt's fandom wiki page. But I always just assumed it was mistaken on the wiki page, because I was 10000% sure I had read in the books somewhere else that his eyes are light colored/blue.

I absolutely SCOURED TVD for any mention of Benedikt to try to find an answer and I came up with nothing. Did I imagine this?? Have I created an alternate timeline where Benedikt underwent a change of eye color akin to Thalia Grace of the Riordanverse??

[satorisoup]

EEEK good afternoon friends and happy sunday !! ⸜(*ˊᗜˋ*)⸝ i hope everyones day is full of love and i’m sending all of you SOSO many smoochies !! MWUUUUAH !! 🍓

[merverelli]

👼🗡️ toddiel, the golden sword of the inconquerable dawn. 👼🗡️

[toestalucia]

would u like to talk about main story

[itsalwaysforyou]

fic list!

jal (in timeline order - fics are all standalone however!)

what’s there to be faithful to? (i am faithful to you, darling): jay and mal give each other tattoos

you feel your heart taking root in your body (like you’ve discovered something you didn’t even have a name for): it’s a cold night on the isle, and jay doesn’t want to go home

a flash in the sky: jay and mal get caught in the rain

even when i look away i am still looking: jay is hurt and mal tends to his wounds

your body told me in a dream it's never been afraid of anything: mal has a nightmare, and jay is there to comfort her

the black sky and all those lights: jay and mal spar (valentine’s day fic)

eventually the birds must land: jay, mal, and vulnerability

the place where we weren't stitched up quite right: jay is ill, and mal gets him to eat

core four

take the light inside you like a blessing (like a knee in the chest): there is a storm on the isle

you were burned, about to burn, or still on fire: jay finds it hard to stop stealing in auradon

misc

you’d break your heart to make it bigger: uma cares too much

you find yourself down the hall again (the lights gone dim): coach invites jay round for dinner, and jay begins to learn what family is

[victorluvsalice]

Another Smiler Outfit Post For You All

Because back on May 31st, I played around with putting one of my Smiler Sims in a few new outfit possibilities for their birthday, and, well, I like sharing my attempts to make my Sims into fashion icons with you. XD So here is the latest selection of Potential Smiler Outfits:

First up, we have what I believe is an all-Vampires formal look, featuring a lovely fancy tailed tux with a bright yellow patterned vest; a black top hat; and a pair black shoes with white spats. Plus some lovely dramatic purple eye makeup and yellow eyeliner. I genuinely didn’t realize this tux had this swatch – I will have to keep it in mind for future save files where I use Smiler and need a formal outfit for them!

Next, we have another formal look that, as you might imagine, was at least partially inspired by me seeing that sparkly yellow jacket and going “Felix E. Lated Vibes!” XD But yes, Smiler here is sporting a sparkly yellow jacket and off-white shirt combo from High School Years; a pair of black base game pants with a belt (I have decided I like Smiler in belts); a pair of yellow shoes from Luxury Party Stuff (which are maybe not QUITE the right shade of yellow, but they still felt them); and some dramatic yellow Get To Work eye makeup paired with some winged black Luxury Party Stuff eyeliner. I liked the combo and felt it suited the look!

Here we have a party-ready Smiler wearing one of the base game full-body party outfits – loving the sparkly dark yellow jacket and black pants, but I’m not a big fan of the red undershirt or, honestly, the tie. If I could get a version of this that ditched the tie and had like a black or yellow (or even purple) undershirt, this would be fantastic. *shrug* But you work with what you’re given. Anyway, the dark yellow Discover University shoes actually pair really well with this outfit (the texture goes well with the sparkly cloth), and I found some sparkly yellow eye makeup from Luxury Party Stuff to pull it all together! Which doesn’t show up well in the full-body shot, so here’s a close-up:

Yes, so I caught them at an awkward moment mid-blink, what can you do. XD Anyway, yeah, isn’t that a good match for the jacket? I love the glittery effect. Discovered this while working on their OTHER party outfit and realizing I got a LOT more makeup options when I took off the “masculine” filter! Speaking of which –

Almost forgot to get a picture of this particular outfit when I first played through this CAS makeover session! XD Anyway, this one was a result of me playing around with the color filters, looking for stuff in purple and yellow, which led to me stumbling across this High School Years top and going “YES.” I mean, I would have gone “YES” even harder if the overshirt was yellow instead of purple, but this is still VERY The Smiler-ish, I think. Plus I feel it’s good for Smiler to have some purple-themed outfits – breaks up all the yellow and black! But yes, here we have Smiler in a black-and-white-checked long-sleeved undershirt with purple short-sleeved overshirt (not QUITE a fan of the high collar on the undershirt, but still), black belted base game pants (of course), white and black Get Famous shoes (to go with the shirt), and some purple-with-the-brightness-adjusted-to-better-match-the-overshirt Luxury Party Stuff eye makeup! *nods* I mean, I think it looks good. :P

Here’s a quick “hot weather wear” fit I whipped up because, well, it was the Unofficial Start Of Summer when I originally did this. Featuring a Get Together hat that has a plant symbol on the front because that was the only design that had the right yellow brim (again, I need the help of modders to get me a plain version...or a version with The Smiler Logo on the front instead XD); a Perfect Patio Stuff light yellow overshirt/white undershirt combo; those base game yellow-and-black shorts I found and decided had to be Smiler’s from when I did the “SDX Swimwear” looks; a pair of yellow-and-black Get Famous sandals; and a yellow-and-black base game bracelet for their – guess it would be right arm, since they’re facing us – that I stumbled across looking at some of the bracelet options. I like the chevron one on their other wrist best, but this is still good!

And finally, Smiler in goofy heart-print boxers. Because they would. XD And because they were originally wearing flame-print boxers, and I was like “uh, way too Wickerman.” XD

[dutybcrne]

Thinking of Kaveh with Unhinged partners again

[capricioussun]

I swear to god I’m a better writer than I am. I don’t know what happens. I come up with really great stuff in my head, like, dialogue, paragraphs, interactions, but even if I rush to write it down immediately suddenly my brains like :) huh? wuh? I don’t know what you’re talking about soorry!! WHY! How does this HAPPEN. Why can’t I put down the words from my brain where’s the disconnect?!

[kellystar321]

.

[caninecowboy]

crying screaming throwing up etc etc etc

[trashbaby1996]

Got another page done on my fic for today. At this rate, I think the chapter will be done by the end of the week!

[ghoulfr13nd]

god do i know how it is, not to widen the overlap between us on a diagram but man, getting passionate about something feels like a blessing and a curse at the same time, makes brain go BRRRRRR sometimes too much so i have to calm it down with something different and less positively stimulating fgsdjfk but yeah i totally get that, that's why some of my playlists are for a very specific types of players fsdgj it's hard to include all potential classes! so i think that's a great idea!! and you know! heart was actually an aspect that i first thought of for Mac! of course that was just a first instinct but something about her projecting this persona, wearing masks and containing almost contradicting multitudes + wanting to be center of attention read heart to me, but rage could also match! i love to think about classpects in terms of some sort of indication for potential of character arc? like, with mac maybe it'd depend of what's more important in her character development? creating her own identity or her own beliefs and where to direct her "rage"? (i also see people associating rage with religion and belief so technically it'd fit the bill with mac but idk if it's just fandom's association of rage with purple bloods fhsdjl) and it's totally fine, i love talking about your ocs! ("i have to shift into long reply mode" <why is that such a mood fgdsjkfl) love the idea of being penpals! :D i am in fact incapable of writing short asks/replies fsdghjfds and you know, i wanted to say my postal services are like. fine? but after reading about your experiences i think mine are excellent actually fgasdjk ;v;

music anon 🎶

MUSIC ANON YOU MAKE ME SOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! INSANE! i love your asks so much:’) gotta scrunch up my face real good and tighten my shoulders up and shake my head back and forth rq give me a sec

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.

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ok ok we’re done we’re back.

you and i are shaking hands 🤝 same neurodivergent tendencies. love that for us. we should start a club. maybe get jackets.

and yeah i get you :0 but you’ve seen my perfectionism score. you saw how high it is. i HAVE to make PERFECT classpect playlists or i will. idk. explode or something maybe. implode. turn into ash. etc.

and i love that you thought of heart for her…… i do think it fits so well. the thing about heart is that it has a lot to do with identity and emotion, and i think the way rage would manifest for her as a maid would be very similar to heart. in both cases youre embracing your own emotions, your own ideas, and using them for yourself. and i do think she is ruled pretty heavily by her anger and by her fear. but at the same time, like you said, she wears these masks and that contradict with, well, her heart! it seems like to the difference between them is a very thin, fine line, you know?

it means so much to me you enjoy talking about them 🥺 since i’ve started talking about them with you, they’ve been feeling a lot more… solid? in my head. i still have some ways to go, but hopefully i’ll have enough to start making stuff about them soon!

and im SO glad you get what i mean. which is like. AGAIN SO SILLY!!! LOOK HOW LONG THIS ONE IS GETTING!!! i, too, am incapable of writing short replies. shaking hands with you again.

also KFJSLDJSK THAT IS. so funny to me 😭 “mine are excellent actually” 😭 yeah hungary’s postal services are so cursed its unreal.

[kahin]

In light of recent events with White people yet again being racist against Palestinians and purposely spreading what should be considered disinformation at this point, and given my relatively large following on here, I would like to spotlight four campaigns:

The first I would like to spotlight is the Ostaz family, whose fundraiser has been low on funds ever since the creation of it in January. Ahmed Al Ostaz has reached out to me numerous times since around May or July, and it breaks my heart into pieces when I check back on his campaign, and it's still stagnating. Their fundraiser is vetted, number 125 on the el-shab-hussein and nabulsi's fundraiser spreadsheet. 15,871/70,000 EUR raised.

The second is Abdullah Ameen's family, whose campaign has around 200 donations and was created back in April. It's still quite low on its goal, with 5,066/30,000 EUR raised. Number 134 on the spreadsheet linked above.

The third is a campaign for Doaa's family, who are trapped in Khan Yunis. Funds are to evacuate each member of her family, her sisters and their husbands and children. They are all living in inhospitable conditions and some need urgent medical care. 1,930/65,000 USD raised. Vetted by 90-ghost.

The fourth and last campaign I am going to highlight is Mahmoud Nedal's family. There are 6 family members to be evacuated, the campaign was created back in March, and is low on funds. 123 on the spreadsheet. 3,089/50,000 USD raised.

Donate if you have the money to, and share/reblog as much as you can if you do not! These are urgent! No excuses.

[plain text: Donate if you have the money to, and share/reblog as much as you can if you do not! These are urgent! No excuses.]

[shirogane-oushirou]

🩷,💌, and 🎁 for the emoji asks? :D

tysm caitie for the ask!!! ☺✨💕

gonna go for a change of pace and talk about my main man oushirou, my beloved freak of almost 15 years. gives him a little kissy. mwah.

🩷 for a headcanon about f/o.

the desire to seem non-threatening is what got him to start experimenting with things like his looks and his weird-funny-guy personality... then he crossdressed for the Funnies once and realized it was fun, actually... then he started being a little more flamboyant because it came naturally to him... and this was all in the gender-rigid environment of the all-boys-except-tsukiko seigetsu academy.

so as soon as he graduates to go to college, get an internship, enter the journalism field, travel all over the world... he realizes how even HIS view of the limits of expression are... well... limited. he feels more free to try new things, wear bold patterns, paint his nails, do his hair in even more interesting styles. as he learns new languages he also learns all new ways to describe gender and expression and sexuality. in the end, he realizes doesn't really need defined labels; he's simply oushirou, and he's going to look beautiful and handsome and charming and sexy and flirty for anyone and everyone who's willing to give him their time.

when he shows up at the 10 year seigetsu reunion, wearing a zebra stripe suit with polkadot tie, red aviators, black nails, and an intricately styled hair-do, it catches everyone a little off guard... but they quickly lean into the bold changes when they see just how much more comfortable and self-assured he seems.

(tl;dr: i hc him as genderqueer and pansexual lol. and he has a VERY nonbiney fashion sense ksjnkjnsf which is canon but like. they didn't INTEND for it to be typical nonbinary fashion, they just wanted him to be a little weirdo man. no, sorry, i'm The Oushirou Guy (tm) and i declare he's Gender.)

💌 for a snippet of a conversation we had.

(ngl i'm extremely brain empty, so i'm actually going repurpose and rewrite part of a prompt i did in... uh... 2012????? jfc i'm a selfshipping grandpa.)

“Kehe! What, are you afraid to show a bit of leg, sweetheart? You know I’ve already seen them before right?”

The door closes, and the red-head strides over to the bed and, with a grunt, plops himself down where Ro’s feet end under the covers.

“Doesn’t mean you just get to see 'em for free, you know! B'sides, if I ran around half-naked all the time I don't think it'd stay entertaining for long.”

“Oh, you doubt the power of a true pervert? Kuhihi~”

He begins to move, and Ro closes their eyes and tenses, preparing for the usual onslaught of wriggling fingers and wet, sloppy, gross kisses...

The weight on the bed shifts, and two warm arms wrap around their waist.

A quick kiss at the corner of their eye.

“…Did you get a lot of work done?”

Their shoulders relax, and a sigh escapes them as they look up into his face, much closer now than it was before. “Enough…I guess. It’s hard to say at this point.” The work of a freelancer is never done, after all.

“So then,” his hands slowly, gently travel up and down their arms, “how about a nice, relaxing, eight-to-ten-hour sleep break with me, hmm?” He moves his head to the crook of their neck, nuzzling into it. Ro brings one hand to his long hair and begins running their fingers through, the other rubbing his shoulders and back. “Just you, me, and this big ol’ comfy bed. Ah, and your pants-less legs, of course~!” He grins against their neck.

“As long as you don’t look at them, mister.”

“Oh c'mooooon, don’t pull the ‘mister’ thing on me right before bed! It makes me feel so oooold and formal. You’re so mean, sir.” He looks up from his comfortable neck-crook long enough to wipe a fake tear from his eye and pout at their serious face.

A few seconds pass, the two staring intensely at each other, before Ro huffs and breaks into a small smile. They lean forward and give Oushirou a light peck on the lips, and as they lean back to lie on the bed, his lips eagerly follow theirs, wanting more.

🎁 for a gift f/o has given s/i (or vice versa).

he travels all the time, all over the world, so he tries to bring back little trinkets from all of the places he's been. just tiny painted keepsakes. i keep them displayed on a shelf as a reminder of just how much he's been able to do, how far he's been able to go, and how many people he's met.

and while bringing back cooked food with him would be... difficult, he does sometimes bring back interesting recipes from those who are willing to share. when we meet up again, he buys some ingredients, borrows the kitchen, and cooks something to allow me to experience a small taste of the places he went to.

[inhonoredglory]

Aziraphale’s Choice, the Job Connection, and Michael Sheen’s Morality

Update: Michael Sheen liked this post on Twitter, so I'm fairly certain there is a lot of validity to it.

I’ve had time to process Aziraphale’s choice at the end of Season 2. And I think only blaming the religious trauma misses something important in Aziraphale’s character. I think what happened was also Aziraphale’s own conscious choice––as a growth from his trauma, in fact. Hear me out.

Since November 2022 I’ve been haunted by something Michael Sheen said at the MCM London Comic Con. At the Q&A, someone asked him about which fantasy creature he enjoyed playing most and Michael (bless him, truly) veered on a tangent about angels and goodness and how, specifically,

We as a society tend to sort of undervalue goodness. It’s sort of seen as sort of somehow weak and a bit nimby and “oh it’s nice.” And I think to be good takes enormous reserves of courage and stamina. I mean, you have to look the dark in the face to be truly good and to be truly of the light…. The idea that goodness is somehow lesser and less interesting and not as kind of muscular and as passionate and as fierce as evil somehow and darkness, I think is nonsense. The idea of being able to portray an angel, a being of love. I love seeing the things people have put online about angels being ferocious creatures, and I love that. I think that’s a really good representation of what goodness can be, what it should be, I suppose.

I was looking forward to BAMF!Aziraphale all season long, and I think that’s what we got in the end. Remember Neil said that the Job minisode was important for Aziraphale’s story. Remember how Aziraphale sat on that rock and reconciled to himself that he MUST go to Hell, because he lied and thwarted the will of God. He believed that––truly, honestly, with the faith of a child, but the bravery of a soldier.

Aziraphale, a being of love with more goodness than all of Heaven combined, believed he needed to walk through the Gates of Hell because it was the Right Thing to do. (Like Job, he didn’t understand his sin but believed he needed to sacrifice his happiness to do the Right Thing.)

That’s why we saw Aziraphale as a soldier this season: the bookshop battle, the halo. But yes, the ending as well.

Because Aziraphale never wanted to go to Heaven, and he never wanted to go there without Crowley.

But it was Crowley who taught him that he could, even SHOULD, act when his moral heart told him something was wrong. While Crowley was willing to run away and let the world burn, it was Aziraphale (in that bandstand at the end of the world) who stood his ground and said No. We can make a difference. We can save everyone.

And Aziraphale knew he could not give up the ace up his sleeve (his position as an angel) to talk to God and make them see the truth in his heart.

I was messed up by Ineffable Bureaucracy (Boxfly) getting their happy ending when our Ineffable Husbands didn’t, but I see now that them running away served to prove something to Aziraphale. (And I am fully convinced that Gabriel and Beelzebub saw the example of the Ineffables at the Not-pocalypse and took inspiration from them for choosing to ditch their respective sides)

But my point is that Aziraphale saw them, and in some ways, they looked like him and Crowley. And he saw how Gabriel, the biggest bully in Heaven, was also like him in a way (a being capable of love) and also just a child when he wasn’t influenced by the poison of Heaven. Muriel, too, wasn’t a bad person. The Metatron also seemed to have grown more flexible with his morality (from Aziraphale's perspective). Like Earth, Heaven was shades of (light?) gray.

Aziraphale is too good an angel not to believe in hope. Or forgiveness (something he’s very good at it).

Aziraphale has been scarred by Heaven all his life. But with the cracks in Heaven’s armor (cracks he and Crowley helped create), Aziraphale is seeing something else. A chance to change them. They did terrible things to him, but he is better than them, and because of Crowley, he feels ready to face them.

(Will it work? Can Heaven change, institutionally? Probably not, but I can't blame Aziraphale for trying.)

At the cafe, the Metatron said something big was coming in the Great Plan. Aziraphale knows how trapped he had felt when he didn’t have God’s ear the first time something huge happened in the Big Plan. He can’t take a chance again to risk the world by not having a foot in the door of Heaven. That’s why we saw individual human deaths (or the threat of death) so much more this season: Elspeth, Wee Morag, Job’s children, the 1940s magician. Aziraphale almost killed a child when he couldn’t get through to God, and he’s not going through that again.

“We could make a difference.” We could save everyone.

Remember what Michael Sheen said about courage and doing good––and having to “look the dark in the face to be truly good.�� That’s what happened when Aziraphale was willing to go to Hell for his actions. That’s what happened when he decided he had to go to Heaven, where he had been abused and belittled and made to feel small. He decided to willingly go into the Lion’s Den, to face his abusers and his anxiety, to make them better so that they would not try to destroy the world again.

Him, just one angel. He needed Crowley to be there with him, to help him be brave, to ask the questions that Heaven needed to hear, to tell them God was wrong. Crowley is the inspiration that drives Aziraphale’s change, Crowley is the engine that fuels Aziraphale’s courage.

But then Crowley tells him that going to Heaven is stupid. That they don’t need Heaven. And he’s right. Aziraphale knows he’s right.

Aziraphale doesn’t need Heaven; Heaven needs him. They just don’t know how much they need him, or how much humanity needs him there, too. (If everyone who ran for office was corrupt, how can the system change?)

Terry Pratchett (in the Discworld book, Small Gods) is scathing of God, organized religion, and the corrupt people religion empowers, but he is sympathetic to the individual who has real, pure faith and a good heart. In fact, the everyman protagonist of Small Gods is a better person than the god he serves, and in the end, he ends up changing the church to be better, more open-minded, and more humanist than god could ever do alone.

Aziraphale is willing to go to the darkest places to do the Right Thing, and Heaven is no exception. When Crowley says that Heaven is toxic, that’s exactly why Aziraphale knows he needs to go there. “You’re exactly is different from my exactly.”

____

In the aftermath of Trump's election in the US, Brexit happened in 2018. Michael Sheen felt compelled to figure out what was going on in his country after this shock. But he was living in Los Angeles with Sarah Silverman at the time, and she also wanted to become more politically active in the US.

Sheen: “I felt a responsibility to do something, but it [meant] coming back [to Britain] – which was difficult for us, because we were very important to each other. But we both acknowledge that each of us had to do what we needed to do.” In the end, they split up and Michael moved back to the UK.

Sometimes doing the Right Thing means sacrificing your own happiness. Sometimes it means going to Hell. Sometimes it means going to Heaven. Sometimes it means losing a relationship.

And that’s why what happened in the end was so difficult for Aziraphale. Because he loves Crowley desperately. He wants to be together. He wanted that kiss for thousands of years. He knows that taking command of Heaven means they would never again have to bow to the demands of a God they couldn’t understand, or run from a Hell who still came after them. They could change the rules of the game.

And he’s still going to do that. But it hurts him that he has to do that alone.