#you may have noticed i write about grief quite a lot

[trans-cuchulainn]

one thing i have been finding with books recently (especially fantasy, and especially YA fantasy, i think) is that so many of them treat life so cheaply. characters die and others immediately move on, skim past it, even if they were responsible or even if they cared about the person. the depth of grief isn't there, and because death is not given the weight it feels like it should have, all of the other emotions also seem... hollowed out, shallow somehow. like, if life is not precious and if these characters are not grievable, why does any of it matter?

and i guess. not every book has to be About Grief™. but books that treat death casually run the risk of making me not care about anything, because the lives of the characters are not valued, are not seen as worth grieving, and so therefore they are not worth my emotional investment, either. it's like they've told me i don't need to care if these people live or die, because none of the other characters will

on the flip side, it means when books DO dig deep into grief and death and the absolute profound awfulness of irreversible endings, i get a lot MORE emotionally affected than i would otherwise because i've got so used to skimming over the surface of characters and never being dragged down into caring, so it catches me out a bit more

[moonastro]

peoples first impression of you

pick a picture

left to right(top)-> 1,2

left to right(bottom)-> 3,4

°DO NOT take this as literal, take everything with a grain of salt as this is purely and intendedly for entertainment purposes. °Don't be afraid to give feedback and opinions about this post (as I would entirely appreciate it). ° This is a GENERAL reading, take what resonates and leave and pass on what does not!

***IMAGES ARE NOT MINE***

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pile one-

people perceive the resilience that you give out, they are aware that you are not easy to mess with and you aren't as careless as they would have though you are. People often see you as closed off, most likely because of other worries of occurrences in life. You have this courage that is very noticeable and often people see that you are fearless. They see no weakness in you, you will approach life with full confidence and power. Sometimes, you can break your cool but its not because you are needy or arrogant, its because you cant stand unfairness, people notice your ambition to fix a problem especially when it is so obvious. Yeah, you have a very fixed presence and most people can be quite scared to mess up, this can be because of your facial expressions or you could be someone that is hard to impress especially with new people as you don't show your inner self to them yet. Yet you might be seen as someone gullible too. you also can be perceived as someone with their head up high and ignoring their surroundings. This can make it harder for someone to approach you as they see that you are someone who may not be in the mood to talk to people. you may struggle to trust your intuition and you may just take the leap without thinking much of it with the mindset of whatever happens- happens.

first that people notice: your physical health (you may workout or are in great physique), your beauty, your style of clothing (may be very put together and neat), your smile, your limbs.

your vibe to other people:

chic, modest, unbothered, chill, independent, cool, grounded, intellectual, business oriented, career opinionated, vintage, fashion

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pile two-

people may not necessarily notice you, this can be that you don't show yourself or you just prefer to observe from afar. Yeah, people notice how you isolate yourself so they rarely see you hence why others don't see you very much. This may also be that every time someone sees you, you may not have changed that much in terms of style, appearance or attitude which may leave them not have a new impression of you. people notice how you are stuck with old patterns. this may not be a bad thing its just what others observe about you. there is lots of loneliness and others may think you are struggling with something but they feel that they cant help you because you wont allow them. they feel useless. you may have lost someone close or these transformative occurrences keep happening so you may be in constant mourning and grief and may not have time to heal. this is not the end of the world though, they may think that you have something that others may want but you are too focused on he negative. you are very good with words. you have a poetic way of speaking and when you do people are fascinated. people notice your way of thinking and how you come up with solutions very easily and quickly. you may write a lot maybe journal and get your worries out on a piece of paper.

first thing that people notice: your walk, your head pieces (may be headband, ribbon, hair clips and whatever else you wear on your head, may even be glasses), your right hand (may wear significant jewellery on that hand, your clothing colours, odd style.

your vibe to other people:

eccentric, colourful, tired, unbothered, baggy clothing, indie, untidy style, unconventional, alternative, eyes blocked/ covered, unapproachable

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pile three-

people notice your positive view of the world, you may talk or have relations to other people who like your attitude and they may give you job related opportunities. you have good news with money so people give an impression that you are financially stable. you may not like to be in big groups and may not work as well in a team. this may make you quieter that you are or this may make you feel small and useless. you also may not address problems and keep them in. people usually only hear you speak about the positives in life and they wonder what you truly go through as you don't really address those topics. you are rather serious and don't take things lightly. you can take some things too seriously and people notice that about you. you take whatever you have and make it work for you. you are very vocal about your possessions and are not afraid to show off your ideas and abilities. yet, others notice how you work with whatever you are given and you do it well. you are proud of your creations and skills and are not afraid to use them and show them off. people see you as someone who is very proud of themselves. you are quite flirty in nature, you tend to show off your financial earnings in order to get others attention. you are every good with emotions and others see your empathy and interest through your expressions- this makes you very approachable and friendly. people feel like you are someone who they can trust in the long run. on the other end, you constantly regret your actions from the past which can change your mood completely. you have matured well and others notice that.

first thing that people notice: your creativity, your potential (you seem like someone who is on the path to success), your inspirational nature, your ideas, your fighting nature, your motivation, your hair.

your vibe to other people:

classy, successful, positive, fiery, showing your legs/arms, confident, powerful, smiley, expressive, formal, sexy.

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pile four-

you are very hardworking and are always keen to learn and master your skills. people notice how patient you are and very detailed. you take time to get to know something so you will be able to teach someone else. people notice your ability to teach and coach others. you are are very peaceful soul, very laid back and very reserved. you will give others the chance to shine instead of yourself and i feel like only some notice that about you. you sometimes are on the verge of giving up and you are vocal about it. yup, you always give give give. you are the most selfless person that anyone knows. you are so generous that most people can think you are putting up an act but truly you believe that what you give out comes back to you. people notice your curiosity, you may question a lot of things and ask lots of questions to other people. you may also observe and talk about the things others don't care about. you always seek the truth and it may be why you question everything as you wish it would give you answers.

first thing that people notice: your pet (may walk your dog a lot of you may spend time with an animal a lot), your leadership, your vision, your determination, your honesty, your stubbornness, your friendly nature, your structure.

your vibe to other people:

casual, simple, comfortable, easy going, in your own world, warm, natural, open, free, informal, effortless, sincere, not extra, relaxed, placid, flexible.

That is all!! thank you so much for reading, have a good day and i hope something amazing happens today.

[lilythesingingwitch]

So I may have created a trolls AU based the show Julie and the phantoms (which I highly recommend you check out)

In this AU, instead of being a simple boy band like in the movie, they a literally a band, with JD on the lead guitar, Bruce on drums, Clay on the bass, Floyd on keys, and Branch is the second guitar in training. Poppy and Branch are still best friends, and are gonna become a couple eventually, but in the beginning, just friends.

So, without further adieu, let me introduce you, to Poppy and the Phantoms!

First up we have Poppy (Please don't mind the fact that she doesn't have tail in the drawing, I forgot to add it here but it will be present when I digitalize these)

Poppy is a University student still mourning the death of her mother, who is desperately trying to fix her inability to sing and play music since her mothers passing. She still loves music, but the grief is sadly stronger. When her dad brings up the thought of selling the house in favor of helping her, Viva and himself with moving on from her death, she goes to clean the garage, aka her moms old music studio. Where she finds an old CD, for a band called Brozone. When she puts it in the player and lets the first song play, three familiar ghosts pop out of nowhere.

(Things written on the paper, without my spelling mistakes and some minor stuff I didn't write down)

Lives in the house that John Dory and his new band would live and practice at

Discovers the phantoms when looking through her moms stuff in the garage

Figures out pretty quickly who they are, with Branch being her best boyfriend

They make a band to help the guys ascend and Poppy to mend her relationship with music

Lives with Viva and her dad

Next up, John Dory

Back when he was in his teens, he and his brothers made a band called Brozone, which, despite was pretty popular all things considered. However, when they were preparing for one of the biggest concerts of their live, they get into a fight about John Dory being too bossy and demanding of his younger siblings. After which, John Dory leaves the house and his family at the age of 17. In the span of his time alone, he makes a new band with some of his new friends. In a short span that they've been a band. John Dory wrote pretty much all of the songs that they sang, and though trial and error, they got an opportunity to play on a stage that has made a lot of underground artists mainstream. However, John never gets the chance to play on that stage, for her dies from a poisoning 30 mins before the show.

(Things written on the paper)

He and his brothers were in a band called Borzone, where he played the guitar

Until he, SpBruce and Clay quit, leaving Floyd and Branch alone (Well, they all lived with Grandma, you get what I mean)

Regrets it, deeply

Wrote all the Brozone songs, including songs for his new band

Also wrote "Unsaid Emily", which was originally named "Unsaid Family" as a tribute to his biggest mistake in life and an apology to his brothers, but renamed it.

Died right before his big performance on the same day and Bruce and Clay

Died at the age of 23

Bruce next

When his brother proposed the idea of making a band, he had his doubts, since they were all in school and had their own stuff to do, but then again, up until then, he and JD always did crazy things together, and band was by far the most tamest of his brothers ideas. And with everyone else on board he thought "fuck it, why not?". And it was fun for a while, until he noticed how controlling JD had become, always telling him to go practice instead of letting him hand out with friends, telling him to watch his shape, giving him a work out routine for that, Bruce had enough and finally stood up to his brother and claimed that he's quitting the band, to which Clay joined in on, and which prompted JD to leave all together. And soon after, he leaves the house at the age of 16. He rents a small house by the beach, works at the cafe near it, changes his name from Spruce to Bruce, and takes up surfing. Which also becomes his downfall on a particularly bad day, and he takes his surfboard out for a quick swim, gets swallowed by a wave, and never resurfaces.

(Things written on the paper)

Was the drummer in Brozone

Was the first one to declare he's leaving the band and feels like it's his fault for causing the butterfly effect of others quitting as well

Left to live by the beach as soon as he could

Wanted to reach out to his brothers, but only ever sent a single post card to each

Died in a surfing accident on the same day as John Dory and Clay

Died at the age of 22

Cried when they all realized that they're dead

Last but not least (for now), Clay

Clay was, surprisingly, very on board with JDs idea about the band, despite being the nerd and bookworm of the family. He just wanted to spend more time with his brothers and have fun. That quickly changed when John completely stopped paying attention to Clays interests, hobbies and dreams. And especially with the forced title of "The fun one". He finally snapped when John kept trying to push them beyond their limit for their important concert, the time they should've spent relaxing after all the hard work they did to get this far was instead spent with their instruments like that's all that mattered. When Bruce brought up quitting the band, Clay happily joins that train, and walks out the door as soon as John and Bruce do. And so, Clay leaves the house and goes to stay with his friend at the age of 14. He finishes high school, gets accepted into a very good university, and moves into a dorm as soon as he can as to not cause more trouble for his friend than he already has. And life is good again, he's doing what he wants, works at a local library, studying to be a licensed CPA, and is gathering his courage up to confess to Viva. However, he does the latter too late, for he confesses to her and dies in a fire at the university while saving her, pushing her out of the burning building before it collapses on top of him.

(Things written on the paper)

Was the bassist in Brozone

Stayed with a friend after leaving the band and moves into a dorm as soon as he got accepted into uni

Was going to be a licensed CPA

Was best friends with Viva before he died

Died on the same day as John Dory and Bruce in a fire

Died at the age of 20

Was also in a sad book club

There's still a lot I need to write out about this AU, and a lot of characters to draw and design, but I hope you all like what I have so far! Here are some redraws of certain scenes from Julie and the Phantoms with this crew (again, excuse the lack of tails on one of these, I once again forgot to add them, just imagine that they're there)

[haze-of-hyperfixations]

i was going to try and write a competent ask but i am very sleepy so i shall just ask instead - do you have any opinions/headcanons about odysseus’ dynamic with athena through the ages? no pressure to answer or anything of course <3

hi!!

i have a few thoughts on them, but they aren't the most coherent thoughts. kinda more vibe-based ramblings? that being said, here they are!

i think they have such a multi-layered aspect to their dynamic. like. she's his mentor, she's his friend, she's a goddess with the power to help him or end him at a moments notice. she's genuinely proud of him when he proves his skill. she's also disappointed and furious when he doesn't meet her expectations. they're both so single-minded in their goals. their bond sours, and they both snap. they both have specific ideas in their heads of who the other is, and a lot of those ideas are oversimplified and originated from both of them kind of projecting onto the other (more on that later). he feels comfortable enough to scream insults at a goddess, and she leaves him without harming him. that's really interesting to me.

"my life has one mission: create the greatest warrior." "(what do you live for?) Penelope." i love characters who are single-minded in their goals. i love when there's conflict between characters like that. i love when there's bitter understanding between characters like that. i love when there's both at once.

i also think their dynamic adds an interesting perspective to the narrative about gods and mortals. because, for a while, they let themselves believe that they understood each other.

and Epic primarily focuses on the blurring lines between man vs monster. but if we throw the gods into the mix as a separate category, we get a triangle where each line blurs at different points in the story. and each point on that triangle has its own tragic aspect to it.

the isolation that is inherent to godhood. the grief that is inherent to humanity. the insatiable hunger that is inherent to monsters.

and Odysseus cannot understand that kind of isolation. and Athena cannot understand that kind of grief. and the reason they both feel betrayed is because they let themselves believe they could both understand. it's their pride, they're warriors of the mind, they don't want to believe that this is beyond their capabilities.

mortal grief vs immortal isolation. "unlike you, every time someone dies, i'm left to deal with the strain." vs "since you claim you're so much wiser, why's your life spent all alone?"

"i am neither man nor mythical" takes on an interesting meaning with this concept. you can try to blur those lines in hopes of avoiding tragedy, and you may succeed, but the end result won't be in your favor. something about getting the worst of both worlds.

and back to the thing about them both projecting onto each other. "have you forgotten to turn off your heart? this is not you." i love the phrasing. because it seems to me that she's characterizing Odysseus in the same way she would characterize a fellow deity. because she knows what he's capable of, she knows he can be great, but she's also simplifying some of his more complex motives. because gods aren't usually as contradictory as mortals are. they have to be at least somewhat representative of their domains. and on Odysseus's side, I think he often found himself…not quite forgetting that she was a goddess, but unconsciously starting to characterize her more similarly to a fellow mortal. and i think neither of them were aware that they, themselves, were doing this, but were aware that the other was doing this. and Athena thought it was interesting and somewhat amusing, and Odysseus thought it was interesting and somewhat flattering, until it suddenly stopped being any of those things and became infuriating for them both during My Goodbye.

and as for their dynamic post-Cyclops saga, i don't have a lot of thoughts yet. i do think the concept of god-monster-man all being categories that can blur into each other is pretty cool for a concept that i just thought of today. i like the idea of Odysseus trying so hard to leave behind his humanity (and therefore the grief and guilt) and become the monster (hungering for home and family and survival) that he ends up alone. just like he had accused Athena of being. "one day you might understand. one day, but not today. for after all, you're just a man." and now he understands. and now he's alone. and he's no longer just a man. and not only does he have a deeper understanding of the monsters, he has a deeper understanding of the gods, of Athena.

idk. i think their dynamic is really interesting and complex, and i'm really looking forward to Athena showing up again, because I feel like I don't have the most solid grasp on her character at the moment.

and also i really like all the concepts of Athena hanging out with Odysseus in owl form. I think that's really neat.

(i hope at least some of that makes sense, i've been typing for so long and my thoughts feel scrambled and incoherent.)

thanks for the ask!! hope you have a great day!! :)

[halliescomut]

Jeff Satur song theory

So there's something I noticed in listening to Jeff's English songs after Dum Dum came out last week. And it's just a theory, but it honestly was so interesting my brain just latched on and wouldn't let go.

For some caveats, I'm only counting songs he released in English that aren't related to tv shows, aren't collabs. So that means Fade, Hide, and Dum Dum. I'm specifying them having an English version, because there's not always full clarity with translated lyrics. With English releases I know that Jeff consciously chose the wording to evoke certain ideas/emotions, even if it may not be a direct translation to the original Thai.

So here's my theory...THE STAGES OF GRIEF.

The reason I thought about this was is interview with Woody where he talked about writing more melancholy music because he'd not had a successful relationship yet. Meaning for whatever reason they broke up, whether it was mutual isn't really the point, and honestly, the man is 28 (I think, I can't be bothered to Google) so in a decade I'd imagine he's had at least a few longer term relationships. But his songs that he writes are about his feelings after those 'failed' relationships. (I don't love the term failed, bc often it's not really anyone's direct fault, but I digress.)

But anyway, listening to Dum Dum, that's anger, 100% .

The lyrics scream anger and frustration, the aggression in the melody of the song, in the music video. It's all that white hot heat, and I think if you also look at the concept of there being two Jeff's in the video--there's a pretty common idea about anger turning someone into a different person. I've also seen people referencing the video in regards to Jeff kind of stepping back into the shoes of Kim almost in reference to what could Kim have been like if he lost Chay, or if he never found him, if he never became WiK, and I can definitely see that was well. In all of those scenarios, it's a Kim who's in mourning. A Kim who's grieving the loss of his true love, his first love, his chance at love. Grieving the loss of a future he decided for himself. There's a lot of possible subtext to read there. And all of this is what sparked the idea of grief and our human reactions to it as a possible theme of Jeff's music recently.

Going back and looking at the previous releases, we start with Hide, which was released in May of 2022. The lyrics, tone, feeling of the song, the say denial to me.

This idea of going to the places that remind him of their relationship. Asking to sing them one more song. Asking why they don't truly believe in his love for them. It also to me gives a feeling of maybe the relationship ending because they weren't in the same place as far as readiness for something public, serious, exclusive, there's quite a few reads here (which is why it's interesting). If you want to read it through a queer lens, as though one party was not ready to be out yet. I'm not here to speculate specifically on Jeff's sexuality, and honestly as a lyricist and composer, I don't think he needs to have direct 1:1 experience to be able to address that idea or include that as a facet of his lyrics.

The last song to go over is Fade. Fade to me brings to mind the bargaining stage, but in a little bit of a different way.

Normally with bargaining in regards to grief, it's very connected to denial, it's this concept of "if I had had done something different...", "if I made different choices...", "if I was a better person...". The music video offers the idea of his love interest dying, but this is of course applicable to just the idea of the 'death of a relationship'. It also relates to the story of the M/V on the level of "if I do better this life, maybe I wont lose them, maybe I'll be deemed worthy of more time with them..." Looking at the lyrics alone, without the context of the video, they can be seen as bargaining with the memory of the person. It's this exhaustion of being continuously reminded of a person, which makes you experience that grief over and over again. Our minds can't maintain that, regardless of the relationship you're grieving or the way in which that relationship ended.

In another aspect, not inline with this discussion, but certainly related in terms of this being a deep dive into his lyrics and concepts of his songs. I like that Jeff references crying. There's the overarching reason of it's important for boys and men to understand that crying is an acceptable reaction to grief and sadness. I think it really does matter, even with this not being the main point of the songs, it's still there, so it's still affecting listeners, it's still encouraging the idea of not being afraid of tears as a man, or as a human.

The lyrics of Fade say "crying but my eyes both have not been dry for days". He's deep in the grief still. Then in Dum Dum, "I used to cry but the tears is dry". He's starting to move on a little. I would say, based on the anger of Dum Dum, it's a mix of moving on and masking your pain with anger. I've said it before on here I'm sure, but it was pointed out by a therapist that anger is a secondary emotion. It's a reaction to something else, like frustration, like disappointment, and of course like grief or sadness. We bring anger to the forefront because it doesn't allow for too much analysis, and it also takes a lot of energy, which can help put you in a state where your mind becomes exhausted enough to rest. It's a similar idea to working out or doing activities you find physically exhausting in order to tire out your body.

Anyway, I don't know if any of you might have found this specifically accurate, relevant, interesting, but it's something that I just couldn't put away once I had sort of made the connection. In know they're loose connections, very much so, but I also don't think they're wild leaps.

I appreciation for reading all of this...if you did...enjoy yet another hot ass picture of Jeff:

[quaranmine]

The Incandescence of a Dying Light (Chapter Eight)

July, fireworks, and some insight into someone we don’t actually know much about.

Chapter Eight: 5,436

<< Chapter Seven | Masterpost | Chapter Nine >>

HEY Y'ALL! Those of you who follow me on tumblr have been kept pretty well apprised of this chapter's progress, but it's good to be back. I've struggled with this chapter a lot, not out of any fault of its own, just because real life decided to beat me over the head in July and August.

Anyway, this chapter has a few content warnings.  CW for past injury, car accident, death, and as always…grief. Nothing graphic but it beat me over the head while I was writing it oof.

Finally, as a disclaimer—there is information in this chapter about wildfire survival. I’m not an expert, and some of these topics are quite literally life or death in real life. I’m an entry level environmental scientist whose only professional experience is in topics entirely unrelated to this. While I have done my research on this fic and done my best to always present accurate information, I am not a reliable source. This is a Hermitcraft AU fanfiction. Please do not take or substitute anything I say in place of information from actual professionals, lol.

“I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling.”

Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

»»———-　　———-««

July 1989

It’s July, and there’s a complete burn ban put in place for Shoshone and the other national parks and national forests that surround it. If you ask Scar, it should have been put into place two weeks ago. The scattered storms and rain in May and early June has done nothing for the landscape now, which is dry and still full of theoretical tinder from years of fire-suppression activities. 

It’s July, and it’s sweltering outside. The main radio chatter during the daily weather conditions report says the temperatures have been record-breaking in the region. This is unsurprising to Grian—his cabin feels like less of a lookout and more of a greenhouse these days, with the inescapable sun taking great advantage of all the windows. He’s not really cut out for the heat of the summer. It makes the days feel listless and blend together, but at least it cools off in the evenings.

The fire season starts to ramp up in other ways too. There’s a fire reported in the Bridger-Teton National Forest, located immediately to their southwest, and officials seem concerned it will grow quickly with the hot, dry temperatures and wind. Elsewhere around the country the picture seems just as bleak: fires in the 1989 season have already burned hundreds of thousands more acres than the same time period in 1988. 

Apparently, the Two Forks lookout had gone unstaffed for several years prior, before the Yellowstone fires last year caused the agency to consider hiring more staff. The fires last year also, coincidentally, increased the budget for this year’s activities.This seems to have been a prudent decision, because the season is shaping up to have a spark indeed. They’re keen to use Grian as much as possible. 

Grian can’t see the smoke column from the Bridger-Teton fire on the horizon; it’s too far away. Instead he starts to notice that his visibility on the horizon is worse now, as the haze in the sky slowly grows. Distant mountains that were once brown and green are now wispy tones of flat yellow and gray. The Trout Fire still burns steadily in the distance. It’s a stubborn nuisance to the Forest personnel, but not a big enough fire yet to garner any worry. There’s more than enough worry to be passed elsewhere.

All of this would be enough on its own, but another contender has just stepped into the ring: Independence Day. 

The 4th of July is on a Tuesday this year, which means Grian and Scar get the wonderful privilege of working overtime all weekend watching the mountains, and holiday pay for the day itself. In all likelihood, people will be just as likely to celebrate on Saturday or Sunday or Monday as on Tuesday. Mary, a lookout in a more northern section of the Forest, has already called in to report a few incidents in her sector. The extra pay is welcomed; the responsibility for idiots is not. 

Fireworks are strictly banned, of course. The acknowledgement of that, however, requires campers to actually care in the first place. They do not. 

And so the month begins. 

»»———-　　———-««

Fire is, both philosophically and literally, one of the most important things humanity has ever been able to harness. It can be the difference between life and death, and yet it is both life and death. Fire fosters warmth and light and power and life. Fire caresses life and leaves behind destruction. 

Shoshone National Forest exists as part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, one of the largest mostly-intact temperate-zone ecosystems in the world. It’s part of a great chain of protected lands and wilderness spaces in the northern Rocky mountains. Shoshone is the second piece of that puzzle—just as Yellowstone National Park was the first national park to be established, the neighboring Shoshone National Forest was the first ever national forest to be designated in the United States.

It is also, like the other lands in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, fire-dependent. Plants and animals living in such ecosystems are often adapted to their local fire regime, which is the expected pattern, frequency, and intensity of the fires in their area. 

Lodgepole pines dominate the middle elevations of the Shoshone National Forest, and are the poster child of a fire-dependent species. These trees produce cones that are sealed with a tight resin that relies on fire to melt it. Fire is, therefore, essential to the reproduction of the species. But fire is also essential to their life cycle in another way: just as fire is necessary for the baby trees to sprout, lodgepole pines are very easily killed by fire.

And if the fires kill the weaker Engelmann spruce found in Shoshone’s higher elevations, that’s okay too—it just leaves room for the much more tolerant whitebark pine trees to grow without being outcompeted. Fire similarly benefits wildlife in Shoshone by diversifying the forest understory, encouraging growth of new plants, and providing dead tree snags for shelter. 

It kills, but it also supports life. 

The history of Shoshone National Forest and fire has its bleak moments. In 1937, a lightning strike started the Blackwater Fire in the Absaroka Range, a range of mountains located predominantly in the national forest. Dry weather and high winds turned the fire into one of the deadliest wildland firefighting stories in American history, with 15 firefighters killed and 38 injured. 

Labor laws are written in blood. Safety rules and best management practices are, too. Although no fault was assigned for the tragedy—a rigorous investigation deemed the situation was out of anybody’s control—the Blackwater Fire would ultimately change the landscape of wildland firefighting. It is remembered in the Ten Standard Firefighting Orders, a set of systematic guidelines developed by the US Forest Service afterward to reduce danger for firefighters.

These orders are still in use today. 

So what is a lookout’s role in a wildfire, other than keeping watch for it? Historically fire lookouts were used as firefighters themselves—expected to hop on a horse and head straight to a fire after seeing it, tools in hard—but in modern times lookouts are primarily used for providing updates. A lookout’s job is not complete once a fire is spotted and reported. They are expected to provide constant updates on its size and location, as well as assist firefighters and smokejumpers from their position. This work is very important—so important that sometimes fire lookouts don’t evacuate the scene until a helicopter is required for their rescue. 

And what if you’re a hiker? What if you’re on the ground? The prospects aren't good: hikers should just avoid being caught around a wildfire at all costs. Survival odds are, unfortunately, low. 

But what if you can't avoid it?

Try to determine which way the wind is blowing and remain upwind of the fire. Fires also burn fastest uphill, so seek lower ground. Fires will burn cooler and slower downhill. Try to find a safe spot from the fire, something that would burn less easily such as a rock slide, a large meadow, or a lake. Crown fires burn tall and hot in the tops of trees, so even a meadow will be safer than a forest. Cover your nose and mouth with clothing to protect your airways. Huddle close to any large object that can buffer the ambient heat. Lay face down. Don’t attempt to outrun the fire. 

Sometimes, setting your own fire is an option. Burning out an area large enough for you to lie in can allow the wildfire to move around the already burned spot—but this attempt is best saved for a grassland. Forests take too long to burn. And if the fire is close, and if you can see a safe, already burned spot through it, and if the flames are less than five feet tall, the best option might be to just run through the fire. 

Jumping in water is an option, but that might not save you. Superheated air, smoke inhalation, and lack of oxygen in the area is a primary concern. Fires move faster than most people can imagine. Fires can create their own wind, their own weather.

Fire, above all, should always be respected.

»»———-　　———-««

“Draw something for me,” Scar says suddenly into the still blue air of the dusk. “And, dude, turn your light on already.”

“Huh?” Grian says. He frankly doesn’t mind sitting in the dark while there’s still a little light left in the sky to adjust to, but his hand reaches automatically for the lantern’s switch before he even really processes Scar’s words. With a soft click the cabin is bathed in warm tones. Really, the reflections on the windows only obscure their visibility now that it’s mostly dark, but it’s undeniably more cozy now. 

“Ah, it’s good to see your little light in the way over yonder,” Scar says. “You’re like my little firefly in the mountains!”

Grian rolls his eyes at that. “What did you mean by ‘draw for me’?” he asks, blocking any spontaneous attempts at poetry Scar can make. 

“I mean, I’m bored. And I know you’re bored. It’s been a long day.” He hums a little to himself. “Figured you might wanna do something to pass the time.”

Scar’s right, it has been a long day. It’s the 4th of July, and they’re in it for the long haul. Grian thinks they should have just been allowed to sleep and clock in later in the day—who sets off fireworks at 8 AM?—but the fire season doesn’t rest and neither do they. Now, it’s evening, and this is where the real monitoring begins: after dark. 

Unfortunately, it’s also when the morale to keep sitting at the desk is starting to dip precipitously. Firewatching after dark is difficult and typically something they aren’t required to do. As a lookout, he primarily looks for smoke, not fire. Fires themselves are often too small or too tucked away for their light to be seen, and at night the smoke blends into the dark sky. But fireworks, fortunately, tend to announce themselves gaudily. 

Mostly, it’s the sheer personal resolve to pay attention that takes the greatest hit. Scar’s idea isn’t a bad one, there’s just one significant snag:

“I don’t draw,” Grian reminds him gently.

“But you used to,” Scar persists. 

“I drew houses,” Grian corrects, even though he knows that his drafting is far from the only thing he’s practiced over the years. “For work. It’s not the same.”

“Well, then draw your lookout,” Scar says and then seems to almost cut off his own thought with a—”Ooh, maybe draw mine instead!”

“I can’t do that.”  It’s a black and white statement of fact, but Scar doesn’t agree. 

“C’mon,” he says. “You definitely brought your materials with you, I know it.”

“You don’t have any way of knowing that.”

“You have to have a pencil and a notebook, right? How do you take your notes for the morning reports?” Scar says this in the sort of way where he knows he’s right. He says it playfully, like it’s a silly mistake right under Grian’s nose. 

“Okay, fine,” Grian says, trying to imbue an eye-roll into his words. “I get it.”

He’s not really sure why he picks up the yellow legal pad from the corner of the table, or the pencil in the cup. He tears the top sheet off where he had, in fact, scribbled some notes earlier about temperature and wind speed.

The thing is, Scar can’t even see him. He could lie to Scar and say sure, of course, I’ll do it, and Scar would be none the wiser, miles away on the horizon. 

He picks up the pencil. The notebook stares back, blank except for the faint lines. 

He does try to draw his lookout first, from memory. He thinks of it the way he always does in memory—a snapshot, perfectly clear image his mind took one day. In his mind's eye, the lookout starts to rise over the horizon in the late afternoon sun while he hikes up the hill towards it. He doesn’t have a ruler in the tower, so he carefully uses the spine of one of the old paperbacks as a straight edge to run his pencil against. 

It just…doesn’t look right. First of all, angles are off. He’s messed up the two point perspective somehow and he doesn’t have his usual drafting materials with him anymore. But it’s more than that. The lookout, despite being bathed in golden light in his visual memory, just doesn’t feel inviting. It’s just intimidating. A place where, despite its natural beauty, Grian just sees his worst days play out over and over again. 

He crumbles the paper again and tosses it to the side. He grabs the radio again. 

“Scar, you paint don’t you?” Grian says. “You’re an artist.”

“Well, I guess if you say so,” says Scar slyly, “one could refer to me as a bit of an artist.” 

“Why?”

The bluntness throws Scar. “Huh?”

“Why do you do it?”

“Why am I an artist?”

“Yeah. What made you start?”

Scar is quiet for a long time. Not too long to be worrying, but enough to seem…contemplative. He finally replies, “You know, I always liked it. In school I’d always get recruited to help with posters and stuff ‘cause I was one of the better ones at art, which maybe said more about them than me because I wasn’t an artist then. I didn’t practice. I didn’t know anything.”

There’s another pause, but not as long. Grian doesn’t interrupt. 

“It wasn’t really until after my accident that I started pursuing it more. It was somethin’ to do! And one of the nurses told me it might be meditative. Help me out a little.”

“Did it?” Grian asks softly. 

“I think so,” Scar says, and then with a little bit of a chuckle he adds: “But I don’t think I have to tell you though that sometimes a drawing frustrates you so much you want to throw it across the room! It isn’t all meditation. But I think that’s the point.”

Grian flushes a little. Scar’s comment is truer than he knows; the crumpled evidence of his most recent drawing attempt still sits on the floor by his chair. He reaches for the pencil again, and looks at the page once more. Maybe he will try to draw Scar’s lookout. He won’t tell that to Scar, of course, because he’ll be insufferable about it, but maybe he’ll try. 

Grian doesn’t really know exactly what Scar’s lookout looks like. It’s far away, and he’s looked at it in the binoculars a few times, but the details are always fuzzy and hard to make out; each shake of his hand jolts the image at that level of magnification. And it’s far too dark for him to look again, so—so he improvises. Scar’s cabin is not on a tower like Grian’s is. It's situated on a large piece of rock at the top of a mountain. It doesn’t need to be on a tower, because there’s nothing around it tall enough to block the view, unlike the trees next to his tower. He fills in the details as he remembers, and creates new ones in the place of things he forgot. 

The soft scratch-scratch of the pencil is lost to the noise of the radio again. “I broke my arm pretty badly at the time—needed surgery on that—but it wasn’t my dominant hand so I still painted. I like doing landscapes, mostly,” Scar says. “Pretty things. I grew up in nature. My dad and I went camping a lot. I missed it. I…wanted to do that again. Didn’t know if I would do that again.”

“I would love to see one of your paintings,” Grian says. 

“I don’t really think they’re worth getting excited for,” Scar says, doing a bit of regrettably predictable artist’s humility. “But I’ll mail you one, if you want. Oh! Maybe you’ll even get a little surprise. Jellie likes to help me sign a few pieces, whether I want her to or not…”

The idea of a painting signed with a paw print is so utterly charming to Grian that he almost suggests that Scar should do it with all his paintings as some sort of signature flair. Then it occurs to him that it might be hard to wash a cat’s paws, and starts to ask Scar about what he does—in his cabin in the middle of nowhere with no running water—when a sparkle catches the corner of his eye. 

Grian whips his head around just in time to see the sparks die. “Ugh,” he radios. “I just saw a firework. Super far away though.”

“Well, I was surprised neither of us had seen anything yet. Go ahead and mark the general direction of it even if it’s out of your district. Hopefully if there’s a fire someone else closer will catch it, but you could always check on it in the morning.”

Grian wanders over to the firefinder in the center of the room. Conveniently reminding him of which direction it was, several more fireworks go off in quick succession—golden, blue, red. It’s too dark to take a real reading, so he just points the sight in the general vicinity of the celebrations and takes its azimuth. He’ll spend extra time tomorrow examining this direction. 

As he takes the measurements, a thought drifts into his mind. It’s something about the convergence of this specific job, a job nobody’s ever heard about in a Forest overlooked because of its more popular neighbors, and the wistful quality of Scar’s voice when he spoke about the subjects of his paintings. He found this job advertised in a newspaper. How did Scar find it? Who trained him to do this?

He sits back at the desk, and starts to sketch in the mountains around Scar’s lookout. This, he remembers well. He knows the familiar fold of the hills and peaks like the back of his hand, even after a little more than two months on the job. 

The question circles his mind. 

“Scar,” he says finally. “You know why I came here. To this job. To this National Forest. I’ve…made that really clear, whether I wanted to or not. But I don’t think you’ve ever said why you came.”

“Oh,” Scar says. His voice is quiet. “I guess I haven’t.” 

Grian lays the radio down on the table, giving Scar space to speak. There’s something about the way Scar acknowledged him that sounds like he’s been exposed. One thing Grian has come to learn about him is that he’s a smoothtalker, and an excellent actor. Scar has dramatic flair in spades, and if he really wanted to, he’d spin a captivating tale for Grian about the totally-true events leading up to his place in this forest. It’d be as truthful as his name. 

He doesn’t, though. 

“People come out here for a lot of reasons, but not every person can stick with it. It’s lonely, for sure. And, of course,” he chuckles, “the bugs are pretty bad. I’ll tell you right now, I’ve seen more than a few volunteers and new lookouts suddenly get afraid of the dark when it’s just them and no one else for miles,” Scar says. “But the people who stay tend to fall into two categories.”

“What are they?”

“People who are running from something and people who are looking for something.”

There’s no need to question which category Grian is in. Not when he’s already laid his whole soul open for Scar to pick through and deeply intertwined himself in this mystery. 

There’s only this: “Which one are you?”

“It’s hard to say,” Scar replies. “But I think I was running away.”

And Grian wants to say from what? but he doesn’t. And he wants to be sitting in Scar’s lookout right now, or anywhere but here, but he isn’t. 

He sets the pencil down, temporarily abandoning the drawing he’s been scratching this whole time. He looks straight ahead through the window, but the glare from the lamp on the glass just reflects his own face right back at him. In the shadow where his head is, he can pick out the faint outlines of the hills beyond. 

“You can’t run from yourself though,” Scar says. “‘Cause it just follows you. And being alone with yourself just makes you face it faster. I think my mom was right. She was worried about me. That’s why she made me take Jellie to keep me company.” 

“I think I need to meet this Jellie,” Grian says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. Scar doesn’t typically sound so serious, and it’s a little jarring. “She sounds pretty fantastic.”

��She is, she’s—hey, what about meeting me?”

“Nah, I think I prefer the cat,” he says. Cheeky. 

“Well, I can’t say I don’t agree,” Scar says. He sighs. “I guess I should just talk about it, right? You can ask me whatever you want. ‘Cause the more I ramble, the less I talk about it, and the less I actually answer your question. Which is the fun of rambling! If you say enough words people forget about what you’re distracting them from. Oh, but I don’t know why I’m telling you that. A true salesman never gives up any secrets. I’m only a salesman in the winter, though. What am I selling now? I guess I’m selling myself. Wait—no, not like that, don’t you dare be laughing over there, G-man!”

Grian says nothing, and he isn’t laughing. He just lets Scar’s words fill the space. He doesn’t ask anything else. It feels hypocritical to do so. He’s dying to know everything, of course, but he also knows what it’s like—that looming weight on your neck from the pressure of well-meaning friends who just want to talk when all you want to do is be alone. If Scar has come all the way out here, then he must really have wanted to be alone. 

Scar seems to rattle himself out of it on his own. “I’m stalling again,” he says, voice like lead. “I’ll just start. It’s okay. It’s been 10 years. I’m fine.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” Grian says. “I was just curious. You know all this about me but I didn’t know anything about you. But if it’s a…thing then you don’t have to.”

“No, no,” he says. “It’s fine. I already told you a lot of the story. I just left out some pieces.”

“It’s a slow night,” Grian says. “Only a few fireworks. Plenty of time to talk, if you want…or plenty of time to just watch.”

“I appreciate that,” Scar replies. He takes a deep breath. It’s a funny thing, that. Grian can’t see Scar’s face—he has no idea about anything, even what color hair he has—but he knows the sound of Scar’s breathing. 

“I told you about my accident,” Scar begins. “I told you about how it nearly killed me, about the hospital, about taking up painting. And I told you about the way I’m still in pain, even years later. I don’t think it’s ever going to fully go away. But that wasn’t really the whole truth, or the worst part. The worst part was that I wasn’t the only one in the accident.

“I should have been, though. I was the one driving. I was just running an errand, but I was living with my parents at the time so I asked my dad to come with me to help me pick something out. I don’t even remember what it was. And I don’t remember the accident, either. I only know what they told me. I read the accident report. But there’s a wall of glass between me and what happened. Apparently, we hit some black ice in the road and it spun the car into the other lane. We got hit by a truck. It happened so fast. He didn’t know what was coming either.”

Scar pauses there. Grian tries to take in the story. “I’m sorry,” he says. “That sounds terrifying.”

Scar’s voice breaks on the next line. “The doctor told me my dad was dead when the paramedics arrived. They think he probably died instantly. I don’t remember that, though. I don’t remember anything. I just—I just woke up a week later in the ICU. That’s what I remember. Everything was just so fuzzy and hurt so bad. I could tell something was up but I was too tired. I slept. They waited three days and made my mom break the news.”

“Oh, Scar,” Grian says. “I’m so sorry.” But everyone is sorry. They’re always sorry. It doesn’t do anything. So instead he adds, “You must have been so scared. It must have been confusing.”

“It was ten years ago. I’m fine,” Scar repeats, and Grian doesn’t comment on the way it sounds like a lie. Maybe it isn’t a lie on most days of the week, but it certainly is tonight. Scar continues to talk. “I don’t know why that’s what messes me up the most. That I caused it and I don’t remember it. That it’s my fault but I didn’t know for so long.”

“It’s not your fault,” Grian says gently. “It was an accident. That’s what accidents are, they’re not on purpose. So it can’t be your fault.”

“And you’re right, G-man,” Scar says. His voice wavers. “I already know that. It isn’t my fault. I didn’t mean for any of it to happen. I didn’t know about the ice. I know it’s not my fault but…it’s really hard to believe that, isn’t it?”

Grian swallows against a lump in his throat, and flicks his eyes down to the table. It’s the hardest thing in the world, just below staying alive. 

“I just think about everything I could have done differently. Why didn’t I just go alone? Why didn’t I wait until the next day? What if I was driving slower? Would the difference of one mile per hour, or five, or ten have been the difference between life and death? What if I had reacted faster, or better? What if I saved the car from spinning? If I had left just one minute earlier, or five seconds earlier, there might not have been traffic in the oncoming lane. If I had left three hours earlier, maybe the temperature would have still been high enough to keep the ice from refreezing.”

He stops to take a breath. “It doesn’t ever stop. And it doesn’t bring anyone back. The worst is thinking about the things you did and the things you didn’t. Like maybe I would have told him I loved him that morning if I’d known that was the last day I’d see him. Or maybe I wouldn’t have stolen $20 from him and then lied about it when I was 8 years old. Or maybe I would have asked him again to tell me about his funniest story from when he was a teenager. But that’s just how it is, I think. It all comes back to you.”

“How do you deal with it?” Grian whispers. 

“Badly,” Scar says, and for once he doesn’t sound like he’s on the brink of tears. “You go forward. And then backward. And then forward again. You live through it.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“You’re already doing it.” 

“I’m not doing it very good.”

“That’s the only way you can do it.”

There hasn’t been any more fireworks since they started talking. The night outside is dark, with only the slightest sliver of a new moon. Millions of tiny stars glitter in the sky in nearly uninterrupted view. It’s a beautiful night out there, hot and still, but Grian stays in the four walls of his cabin. Enclosed.

Scar speaks. “One of my steps was coming back here. I think, in the end, it was a step forward. This place gives me comfort. I always liked this part of the state. My dad used to take me camping out here all the time, like once a summer. Sometimes we went to Yellowstone National Park. Sometimes we went to Grand Teton National Park. Sometimes we went to Bridger-Teton National Forest. And sometimes we went here. It’s the quietest here.”

“It sounds like you were close with your dad,” Grian says. “It sounds like fun.”

“It was,” Scar says. “My dad was cremated. It was a while before I was out of the hospital, and it was a while before traveling somewhere wasn’t an ordeal. We saved some of his ashes for closer to home, but we made a special trip out here and scattered a little in each spot.”

“That sounds nice…” Grian trails off.  “Like he’s still here, somewhere. In a place he loved. In a place with you.”

“I think I fell a little in love with this place then, in a way I didn’t when I was just a child. Or maybe I was just antsy. I wasn’t doing very good, I guess I can tell you that. There was too much guilt and familiarity at home. I wanted out. I wanted to be anywhere else but there. It took me two years after the accident to make it but I came here.”

“So,” Grian says. “Running from something. I see it.”

“Yeah,” Scar says with a huff of air. “Not that great at running these days though! I mean, I’m barely a hiker anymore without being wiped out for a few days! My mom thought this job was a terrible idea. She thought the last thing I needed was to be alone. I guess you know what that’s like.”

“I didn’t even tell my friends or my mum I was taking this job,” Grian admits. “They’d freak out. The reaction from people I knew back in Colorado was bad enough. So I just sent ‘em a letter the first week I was here. A ranger told me I had mail at the main office but I don’t want to check it.”

“They’ll give it to you at the end of the season if you don’t come pick it up,” Scar says. “You can read it then, after you’ve already done it.”

“Was it what you needed?” Grian asks abruptly. “Being alone.”

“I needed it. I think—sometimes everything in your head makes you want to avoid people. You feel like you need the silence of an empty room to just let it all fall out and fix itself. It helps. But only for a little while, because it never really fixes itself. After a while it just eats you up.”

And Grian wants to say, I think it’s eating me. And he wants to say, I think I am not alone enough, I still need more space, I still need more time. And he wants to say, Everything will be fine, I just need to find him. And he wants to say, I don’t think I would have lasted this summer without you.

“I didn’t have anyone to talk to my first summer as a lookout,” Scar admits. “But you have me. And I think—Grian, I know you think you’re alone, but you aren’t. And I know you think nobody understands, but I do. I’m trying to.”

“Oh,” he says. Oh.

There’s tears suddenly welling up in his eyes, and Grian rapidly tries to blink them away. He sees it in the incessant chatter that had annoyed him on the first week. He sees it in their radio channel, the one just for them to talk on, the secondary channel that ensures the main frequency is always open for real emergencies. Scar’s been cultivating the perfect landing spot for Grian to fall into, before he even knew Grian needed it.

“It’s not actually two different things, is it?” Grian finally responds. “Running away from something, and looking for something.”

And Scar says, “I don’t think it is, in the end.”

<< Chapter Seven | Masterpost | Chapter Nine >>

[concerningwolves]

Hi! I really like your blog and you have some much appreciated writing opinions to me. Apologies if this is not an allowed question but would you have any suggestions on what to keep in mind when writing a character with Russell Silver Syndrome? I have been doing my research but unfortunately as with many conditions most things I can find are based towards parents of children with and not adults who have it. Sorry if this is disruptive,Thank you for your lovely blog

oh man this question makes me so happy anon you have no idea. RSS/SRS representation!! Yes!!!

Writing a Character with Russell-Silver Syndrome/Silver-Russell Syndrome

Russell-Silver syndrome (RSS) is a rare condition associated with poor growth both before and after birth. Signs and symptoms vary and may include low birth weight, short stature, characteristic facial features, large head in relation to body size, body asymmetry, and feeding difficulties. Other features may include poor appetite, clinodactyly (curved finger), digestive system abnormalities, delayed development, and/or learning disabilities. The genetic causes of RSS are complex and relate to certain genes that control growth. — information on RSS from rarediseases.info.nih.gov

What this this answer will cover:

My experience with RSS and various thoughts on living with it

RSS in adults (+ adult characters)

Things to remember when writing any disabled character

Resources

My experiences with RSS and various thoughts about living with it

Russell-Silver syndrome has felt like a non-issue to me for a long time, but I'm realising now that that was only because so little was known about it. There was no molecular test when I was born so my diagnosis was purely clinical, (using "a checklist", as my dad always told me). Still, I've grown up under this... not quite a shadow, but definitely a pervasive awareness, that I had this rare disorder. It made every meeting with a new health professional that much more exhausting, because nobody ever knew what it was (and this is still a problem I have when explaining my health history to new doctors today). Either me or my parents would end up teaching doctors, and for a long time, we were working with outdated information because very little was available to us. Since I first got access to the internet in about year two at school, I've repeatedly sat down and searched for Russell-Silver Syndrome – and I've watched as, over the course of those last seventeen years or so, increasing amounts of information have appeared.

The increase in information is wonderful! It gives me hope! But growing up with this sense that there was something strange wrong with me was deeply alienating. I have a lot of grief about it.

What you say about not being able to find many sources for adults with the condition also raises a very important point: RSS literature focuses very heavily on symptoms in infants and children because that's when the condition is most "obvious" and/or when it has the most noticeable impact on a person's life. In other words, most information is written up to help parents cope with the extra needs that RSS kids have because of their condition. Infancy is also treated as a sort of golden period for clinical diagnosis, because individuals with RSS will usually lose the more obvious physical traits as they age.

Although RSS has a firm diagnostic criteria, it can look quite different between individuals. (I'd actually say it's fairly similar to autism in that respect). The term used for this is phenotype:

... a phenotype is all the physical characteristics and abnormalities found in an individual patient that are attributed specifically to RSS. Some individuals with RSS have many traits, thus a severe phenotype, while others have very few traits, thus a mild phenotype. → from the MAGIC Foundation's RSS page

I was an extremely ill baby. A lot of the medical problems I faced were linked to RSS, but I don't remember this on account of being, y'know, a baby. So, if you'd asked baby me for my opinion and if baby me were somehow able to answer and comprehend, I'd have said I had a severe phenotype. Now that I'm in my early twenties, I'm more inclined to say I have a mild phenotype – but as I'll explain, I'm no longer sure how true that is.

[Russell-Silver Syndrome in adults, basic disabled character guidelines, and resources below the cut]

Russell-Silver Syndrome in Adults (+ adult characters)

You can see in my childhood photographs the RSS-typical "triangular" face caused by a too-small jaw and large forehead, and slight facial asymmetry. I was chronically underweight until I got urgently referred to a dietician in like 2018, and my parents had an absolute nightmare of a time with feeding and making sure I ate enough when I was younger. I was still ordering toddler or child portions at restaurants well into into my early teen years because my appetite was so limited. I was also quite delayed in walking, speaking, and in development of motor skills, which are again typical of the condition.

Most of these traits don't affect me any more. The facial asymmetry and face shape are basically unnoticeable. I had surgery to remove four teeth, which fixed the overcrowding caused by the small jaw, and braces sorted out the rest. The dietician helped me learn how to make foods that were calorie-dense so I could get the nutrition I needed in smaller portions, and I'm now a good weight.m(The only part of the infant criteria that noticeably still affects my day-to-day life is the lack of appetite stuff, actually). I grew taller than the doctors expected me to, although I'm on the short-to-average end. I still have issues with balance and spatial awareness, but it's manageable. I've been in and out of physiotherapy and podiatry since I started walking. So, no, most of the RSS traits so common in infancy don't affect me now – but I'm still living with the condition, and it's taken a hell of a lot of treatment to get to where I am now. I honestly didn't realise how much until I started writing this answer!

Interestingly, the end of the MAGIC Foundation's RSS page has some information on RSS into adulthood, prefaced by this sentence: "Many people with Russell-Silver Syndrome (RSS) believe that once they reach their final adult height, their “RSS issues” are over." Other anecdotal evidence from other sources says the same thing. I would have once been inclined to agree, but my latest bout of reading up on RSS has taught me some interesting things. For example, there's overlap between autism and RSS! Or at least, according to the silverrussellsyndrome.org: "Some evidence indicates that there may be neurodevelopmental differences between the different genetic causes of SRS". Other sites state more explicitly that there's a link between RSS and Austism Spectrum Disorder, and research seems to still be ongoing, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When I went to a chiropractor, he pointed out an issue with my jaw muscles and placement (? Couldn't quite hear what he said about that), and said this could be at least a partial cause for my chronic migraine. I explained about the RSS small jaw thing, and he nodded and said that made sense. Anecdotal evidence also now shows that many adults with RSS experience functional problems with muscles and their skeleton, including back pain – which sure goes a long way to explain the near-constant pain I get, as well as the fibromyalgia. Once again, research on this is ongoing.

There are also some health risks that adults with RSS are more likely to face. These include metabolic syndrome, hypertension, testicular cancer and gynaecological issues. It's stressed that not everyone with RSS will develop these; but some are more common and should be monitored for, as in the case of testicular cancer risk in RSS individuals whose testes didn't descend properly.

Your takeaway from this is that RSS in adult characters would be represented differently from the way it's described in children. Because the phenotype varies so much from person to person, my experiences are absolutely not universal. There may be people out there who've retained the asymmetry, for example, or those for whom the digestive/appetite issues are an even bigger problem. It would be so nice to see an adult character with RSS though, because it's not a condition that you outgrow – it's one where the condition seems to grow with you.

Things to remember when writing any disabled character

People are people: don't just think about the disability! We're more than that. Make sure your character has what any strong character should have (regardless of identity) – quirks, desires, motivation(s), some kind of conflict that affects the plot, their connection to other characters, etc.

Do your research: might feel slightly counter-intuitive to the first point, but it is important you know what you're writing about. I.e., does your character take medication or undergo treatment? Do they use accessibility aids of any kind? What accommodations do they need in day-to-day life? How does their disability impact said day-to-day life?

Reasonable limitations: it's okay to have a disabled character be, y'know, disabled. Sometimes they need help, or sometimes they'll need to assert boundaries or ask for accommodations. Sometimes they simply can't do something because they aren't able to. These are facts of a disabled existence. The crucial thing is to avoid framing the character consistently like a burden or a hindrance.

Inclusive worldbuilding: most relevant in SFF genres, but basically, if you're taking the time to do any degree of worldbuilding (be that a "real"-world urban fantasy environment or an entire invented continent with dragons), consider where disabled people fit in. Abled authors rarely, if ever, have to consider their place in the real world, so they rarely consider accommodations and accessibility features in their fantastical worlds. It's important to consider these things if you want to have well-rounded representation for disabled characters.

Listen to disabled voices: Ask disabled people, read/watch/listen to media created by disabled people, and remember that no one disability is a monolith. There may be a lot of nuance and debate within communities, but you can do your best by listening to the consensus and keeping an open-minded, good faith mindset.

This list ↑ is very much a TL;DR set of guidelines, but it's a good place to start. You'll find more information in the resources section below.

Resources:

In reference to your question, you might find my answer to this ask about including little-known conditions in fiction useful.

You'll find more discussions and guides in my disabled characters tag, my disabilities tag and my sensitivity & representation tag, as well as links to other resources.

The MAGIC Foundation – they have more in-site resources for RSS linked at the very bottom of the page

Silver Russell Syndrome Organisation – whole website dedicated to providing information about RSS

Diagnosis and Management of Silver–Russell Syndrome: First International Consensus Statement – This is a 2017 international consensus of research on RSS, condensed and simplified for general audiences. The original consensus is geared entirely towards medical professionals for treatment and research of the condition.

If anyone who has RSS wants to weigh in, please do!!

[spidercrusadersworld]

hiii!! I'm here to ask about Maya🕵🏽

I'm curious about her age, since she was married and had a job at some stage which is really cool!! I keep forgetting that point and imagining she's like.. 18 which I'm not sure is right😅 unless maya and jade were like child prodigies or something🤔

SPEAKING OF JADE, how did the 2 meet? who asked out who? who proposed? what was their wedding and wedding outfits like👀👀

(unrealted: I'm kinda curious what maya and fern's (my spidersona) dynamic would be like if they ever met. they're both characters who suffer through a lot of grief and idk I think it would be interesting)

sorry for the word vomit🏃🏽‍♀️

That’s a good question! To be honest, when I made Maya’s backstory, I never actually considered what age she would be. But in my mind, the education system in Mayas universe is different, as well as the average age of employment and marriage. Keep in mind, Maya is not Married, but she was engaged. (Tho I don’t blame you for thinking that I’m pretty sure at one point I said she was married)

So I imagine that high school is instead of further learning, taking notes, ect, it’s hands on learning applying what you’ve learned. In Mayas universe, elementary school is very effective, it covers most high school topics, of course there are more traditional schools that students can choose to go to, but they mean that you are less likely to get a steady job, most people go to those kinds of schools, but some, like maya, found the thought of the hands on experience, more beneficial than sitting in a desk all day writing stuff down. But to be honest, most people who go to “schools for higher education” are forced to by parents. In these high schools, you are given an option of three subjects you excelled at in elementary, and you get to choose the one you are the most passionate about.

For maya that was biological sciences. Where she was partnered with Jade at age fourteen Both of them chose to go to the schools of higher education, and had seen each other around there elementary school for higher education. Maya may or may not have had a major crush on Jade, but never said anything due to social anxiety. But when given the option to choose a lab partner, Jade b-lined to maya.

Maya assumed it was for any other reason than the fact that she had any positive emotions towards maya, and often lost sleep wondering why a popular, smart, cute NO CAPABLE girl, would choose an anxiety ridden mess like her, over all the other popular and smart guys in the class.

Jade was very outgoing, and was very good at reading people. Maya was quiet and curious. So when Maya was thinking of something but was to nervous to say it, Jade could get her to say it, not in a forceful way, in a natural way, that made her feel heard and valued. And when Jade would go rambling on with theory’s Maya would be right there with her, admiring her innovating and different way of thinking. I wouldn’t be wrong to say that they where perfect for each other. You really couldn’t blame Maya for developing feelings.

One day Maya really wanted to ask Jade out on a date. Jade could tell something was up, so she as usual, encouraged maya to get it off her chest, and was quite pleasantly surprised when Maya had very nervously (she found her tripping over her words very cute and endearing) asked her out on a date. And she said yes.

So they went out, on a date to get bubble tea, and they hit. It. Off! they have many common interest, and on the walk back home, when passing the alchemax building, they see large vibrantly coloured spider, spinning a glowing web. Jade getting curious, trappes the spider in a container, and is about to poke holes in it, when they see it jutting out solid sharp, almost needle like strands of webbing, to poke out holes itself.

That is what finally gets maya to agree to take it back to the lab for further observation. The high schools for higher education are different, due to the fact that, if your project gets noticed by someone, they might ask to hire you and have your project funded in a better place with better equipment for further studies. Meaning that you can graduate early and continue being employed for doing your field of study.

And that’s exactly what happened with Jade and maya. Just over three months after finding the spider, they where payed top dollar to continue researching it under employment at Alchemax. It was more than either of them could ever dare hope for, so of course they took the job. And at fifteen years old they where both official employees at the most prestigious scientific lab in the UKA (United Kingdoms of America). Their official tittle being Bioharmonic Alchemist (remember all science and math sounds like magic in her universe)

They continued to date for four years, Jade was working on the bus since she was thirteen, and after meeting Maya they started to work on it together, by the age of eighteen it was finally finished. so at the age of nineteen Maya proposed to Jade in the forest, amongst all the colossal trees, she said yes. Maya got bit the Jade died when she was just under the age of twenty, and by the time the stories start with Peter, she is twenty two and a half. BOOM TIMELINE.

As for fern, it’s hard to find her whole narrative by looking on your page, could you maybe give me a run down of her character so far, just so that I can see it all in one place (and assume I will draw the two of them together lol) anyway thank you so much for asking, any more questions are TOTALLY welcome! I love sharing Mayas story with people! I know it’s HELLA LONG so I thought I would leave it here and then go into fern later, if you could reblog this with a rundown of her backstory, personality, lore, abilities, likes and dislikes ect, I would love to go into further detail about her relationship, sorry this took so long btw!

[jeongyunhoed]

As seen on my FF.net Also seen on my Ao3

Following the events of fifth year, a new adventure awaits for Norah Lee. Boys, exams, school events, common room parties, and old foes outside of Hogwarts. Even battling pensieve guardians was easier than this.

Main Pair: OC/? Genre: Adventure/Angst/Fluff (it's a little of everything, tbh)

KEEP IN MIND: Characters are aged up (even if the story's got them in sixth year) to make it more appropriate. Time period is leaning towards the modern day so in case you might find anachronisms in the dialogue or references, this is why. This may also be quite a lengthy fic too.

BE WARNED: Social anxiety, mentions of blood and injury, grief, drinking, kissing but nothing more than that, death (this is Hogwarts Legacy, after all)

P.P.S: The more I write this, the more anxious I'm becoming because I usually write 10-chapter fics, but I'm kind of challenging myself to let the plot, the story in itself breathe a lot longer compared to before. I hope I'm doing okay though. I also referenced a spell that in the game canon, wouldn't exist until decades later. But whatever.

And I also kind of lied with this being the party chapter, sorry. We finally know who Nick is!

Masterlist

Chapter 10

As Norah learned, the secret passageway to Hogsmeade would be packed with students on the days of house parties. Prefects provided some cover, along with Gladwin Moon, who would assist in bringing in barrels of butterbeer to the school. If there were teachers that questioned, the cool Hogwarts caretaker would only brush it off as acquiring some flesh-eating slug repellents instead. After all, the One-eyed Witch passage was the only way they could bring in several other drinks and food from Hogsmeade back to Hogwarts without Black or any prissy student, prefect, portrait, gargoyle, or nearby house elf noticing much.

Hufflepuffs were lucky when it came to their parties. They need only take food from the kitchens nearby, with the house elves happily obliging, sometimes even to the point where they happily demanded they bring back more than what they needed.

She was on a little day trip to upper Hogsfield, noticing the old goblin encampment nearby had turned into a wide space where many of its residents held picnics, painted the scenery, and flew kites. After what was happening the entire week, she needed a little break from wandering about the castle. In a span of a year, so much had already changed.

"Ah! Norah! How have you been? Up to your ears with NEWT subjects?" Claire Beaumont, a local merchant whose brother she helped locate, greeted her when she approached. "People are still talking about you taking down Ranrok and his loyalists. You've become quite a heroine."

Norah smiled. "I've been alright, Ms. Beaumont. Just spending my weekend as usual. And yes, I've been up to my ears with all the homework," She said. "How are things?"

"Ah, well, relatively peaceful as usual. Since you took down the loyalist encampments and Ranrok, no ashwinder nor loyalist has set foot in these parts," Claire explained. "But, I do fear now that Harlow's back on the run, growing his followers, that things might go back to the way they were before you came in."

An opportunity to get back on the path to catching Harlow once again, she thought. With all the fuss over Professor Ronen's secret summoners and homework, she nearly forgot she was on the hunt for Harlow since his escape from Azkaban a month ago. "Ms. Beaumont, I don't suppose you haven't...heard of anything else regarding Harlow, have you?" She said, quietly enough that hardly anyone around them heard.

Claire seemed to get the idea of where Norah was coming from. "You're still so young and you're already having to do something no girl your age has to," She sighed. "But, I would advise you to stay away from Horklump Hollow and Spinners Cavern. I heard he's assembling some of his men and women in those places."

"What?" Norah knew of those two places, having ventured into both during fifth year. "Quite risky, assembling in there. They could've easily been killed."

"That's what I thought too," Claire nodded. "I reckon they've turned everything in there upside down and formed their own fortresses. It's too dangerous for you. You should just let the authorities take it from here. You've done enough, you needn't concern yourself with Harlow anymore."

She smiled and shook her head. "He will be after me regardless if I go to him or not, Ms. Beaumont. But you didn't hear it from me."

As she purchased a few potion ingredients, it was now making her think of what to do with Claire's information. She suddenly thought of what Sebastian and Ominis might be up to at the castle. They knew where she was, since she told them before apparating. Did she want to ask for Natty and Poppy's help? Could she get Amit to get down from the Astronomy tower for a moment?

Not wanting to attract too much attention, and also to keep anyone from getting suspicious about why she was there, Norah went to the small coffee shop a little past Claire's. It reminded her of Steepley & Sons, with the cozy interiors, flowery wallpaper and decorative plates. She ordered herself a coffee, thinking that by waiting, she'd come up with a plan.

Before leaving the castle, she finally took the chance to reply to "Nick." He was all she could think about since figuring it out. But even as she was sure it was him, anxiety crept in, questioning if she was certain it was who she thought it was. There was still a chance that it was someone else entirely.

Norah brought all the letters "Nick" sent with her during this little outing. The thought of possibly confirming her suspicions at the Gryffindor party that was going to happen in the night ahead seemed to make her anxious. Anxious in a way that she was looking forward to meeting the very boy who was giving her riddles and leading her to the secret dating spot in the Forbidden Forest she discovered in fifth year.

After paying for her drink, she left the shop. She didn't want to pull anyone else into what she planned to do while she casually left the hamlet. Yes, she was certain she needed to go at it alone. Until the nagging thoughts of what Professor Weasley told her, and of Sebastian, of Ominis, and of Natty, what the three of them have told her off for. This time around, she needed a reminder that she couldn't face everything on her own.

Especially when it might lead to her risking her life once again.

Norah groaned, torn between what she planned to do and what she also had to do. Taking another step forward in the direction of Horklump Hollow, she was still contemplating on whether or not to tell anyone she knew, at the very least, Claire and the widow Dorothy Sprottle. She needed to return in time to get ready for the party at the very least. They had all agreed to meet Natty by the Faculty Tower entrance.

Still undecided on whether to go alone or tell someone, Norah went ahead anyway, walking in the direction of the entrance of Horklump Hollow. She wondered how Harlow would manage to set up a base in there. It would be nothing more than an old troll dwelling, since the last time she ventured inside. As for Spinner's Cavern, however, not every spider was killed there. She wouldn't be surprised if the grounds of Spinner's Cavern would remain littered with more dead poachers and Ashwinders from spider bites and entanglements.

Maybe this could be her chance to continue practicing non-verbal spellcasting, especially after learning more spells in the past week. Including a few seemingly unsanctioned spells with Sebastian, one of which was quite bloody if cast correctly. The thought of using newly learned spells in a possible battle with more poachers and Ashwinders occupied Norah's mind the closer she got.

Unsurprisingly, there were some poachers keeping watch at the entrance of the cavern aptly named for having an abundance of horklumps. An Ashwinder ranger, known to be skilled in casting petrificus totalus, flanked by two others dressed in their yellow jackets.

She was about to take another step forward when she felt a hand grab her shoulder. Norah nearly yelled in surprise when she saw the faces of none other than Sebastian, Poppy, and Cressida. Sebastian and Poppy in particular, were looking at her as-a-matter-of-factly. "Bloody Merlin, you almost gave me a heart attack," She slapped Sebastian's arm.

"We couldn't let you follow a lead on your own, you know," Poppy pointed out, although the wide grin on her face seemed to suggest she was unsurprisingly preoccupied.

"A lead? Are you following Harlow?" Cressida questioned, making the three of them shush her. "Sorry," She whispered. "If you were wondering, I accidentally summoned Sebastian's name. I was supposed to summon someone else."

Sebastian looked incredulous, while Norah bit back a laugh as did Poppy. "That was mean, but I appreciate the effort, I guess."

"Sorry," Cressida mumbled. "So, how can I help the three of you?"

"You're just as brilliant at non-verbal spells anyway. I'm afraid we're up for a little game of cat and mouse," Norah explained. "Ever been to Horklump Hollow, any of you?"

"You told us about that," Poppy said. "You had to take down a troll in there. But what's so special about Horklump Hollow? Aside from all the horklumps?"

"Claire Beaumont told me that Harlow and his cronies are turning this and Spinner's Cavern into their own forts, out of sight so no authorities can raid them, probably," Norah explained, looking back at the entrance. "Why would they want to take over two places that are undoubtedly so dangerous? I reckon there are still hundreds of spiders being bred in the other cave."

"Spiders?" Cressida looked horrified. "Trolls? Harlow? We could be killed in there."

"You think it's time to bust inside that cave?" Sebastian asked. "Say the word, Norah."

Norah wasn't sure. "We're just going to take a better look, see if what people in Upper Hogsfield have suspected are correct. I don't think anyone's been inside Horklump Hollow for a while."

The four of them quietly went down the path towards the cavern. A pack of dark mongrels were wandering nearby. Not wanting to deal with those, they obscured themselves with the disillusionment charm, doubled with the invisibility potion Norah handed each of them. Fully unseen, they approached the entrance. Sebastian and Norah led the way, petrifying everyone standing by until they fell to the ground, completely frozen.

They entered the cavern, hearing a commotion coming from the light at the end. The closer they got, they saw that the suspicions were correct. It wasn't clear how long, but the open space, where the troll cage used to be, was cleared out and turned into somewhat that of a headquarters. Trunks of treasures and other sorts were strewn around, and the mound of concrete and debris Norah remembered having to climb over to get to the passage going out was cleared out, with makeshift stairs and ramps in place.

The gap that Norah remembered having to jump over was since covered with planks. "How oddly considerate," Poppy muttered as they pressed on, walking over the planks until they approached the slope. "This place used to be a dungeon, from the looks of it."

"Yeah," Sebastian agreed, sticking close to Norah while they led the way, "Nature seems to have a way of taking what's theirs, from how run down everything is."

"There's no other way to go but down," Norah told them. "If we want to move forward, we'll be surrounded by these poachers and ashwinders. We'll need to find out more, we can't do anything just yet. Let's go back."

"With Victor Rookwood gone, how many other Ashwinders left are now working for Harlow."

They heard someone say from above. The four of them stopped. It was a group of Ashwinder scouts, most of their faces obscured by the masks they wore, with exception of their eyes.

"That child ruined everything we've worked for. We could've had it all. We could've had all the galleons in the world," Another one said, making Sebastian and Norah exchange looks. "Children should be seen and not heard, Victor Rookwood always used to say that."

"We'll be back and running soon enough, once we've cleared out this stinkhole of a place. Drain the waters, and maybe connect this to the other cavern," A third Ashwinder scout said, only to be met with slaps. "Ouch!"

"Once we recruit more to our cause, we'll have enough firepower to restart our empire. Breed dugbogs and kappas or something like that. And then, maybe kidnap a few people as an insurance policy. If that child knows what's good for her, she won't dare do anythin' to them."

"Why take those when we can get the child herself? Those seem like a waste of time."

"Yeah. Show her the meaning of pain. Inflict a cruciatus curse or two, torture her until she goes insane, that one."

Norah, Sebastian, Cressida, and Poppy quietly backed further into the entrance of the hollow. Removing the disillusionment charm, they went to what was once the loyalist encampment near the stream. "Bloody hell, they're after us, they're after you," Cressida panicked.

"They're planning on breeding more dangerous dugbogs?" Was what Poppy took away from the conversation they overheard. "And what else? Continue Horntail Hall?"

"They're planning on kidnapping people," Sebastian muttered. "Especially you."

Norah studied their expressions. All of whom looked worried, concerned, and in Sebastian's case, a little annoyed at what they had just overheard. If they planned on doing those things. As far as they knew, Harlow's army would connect Horklump Hollow to Spinner's Cavern, perhaps through the use of goblin-made drills or even bombs. It was unclear whether she, Fig, and the teachers succeeded in taking down every last goblin loyalist in the caverns of the school.

There seemed to be one way to find out. "If they plan on doing what they say they're doing, then we're in for quite a search," She said.

-

When it came to common room parties, it was an excuse for the girls to show up in less than formal party attire. Norah, as well as Natty and Poppy all decided to get dressed in the Room of Requirement, which also provided them with some makeup to put on, out of wanting to really enjoy the night. As Norah was more familiar with what muggles tend to do at house parties, from the movies she had seen, she helped Natty and Poppy with their looks, while they changed into their outfits.

"Andrew says he'll be meeting me at the Transfiguration courtyard," Poppy said excitedly, stepping out from behind the changing partition in a yellow dress, in keeping with her house colors.

"Henry and I agreed to meet there too," Natty added, sporting a simple red blouse and jeans. The red blouse was part of her traditional wear in her home country. "We can go there together. What about you, Norah? Did you meet 'Nick' yet?"

Oh right, Nick. Norah was dressed in an emerald green high-neck blouse under a black leather jacket and a denim skirt that went a little above her knees. Her wavy brunette locks were tied in a ponytail, some parts of it curled thanks to a spell Natty knew when it came to styling hair. Parts of Poppy's light brown tresses were also curled while the Gryffindor herself let some strands of her hair fall in front of her eyes.

"I haven't, I'm sure he'll make himself known to me at the party itself. He might even be helping set up the party, don't you think?" Norah grinned, putting on very light makeup in front of the mirror.

The two girls giggled, going off into a conversation about the two boys they were to meet. Norah smiled to herself. Looks like sixth years in the wizarding world weren't that different from muggles in the same year. Especially when it came to possible romance. It was almost as if they didn't risk their lives in Horklump Hollow earlier.

Once they were ready, they left the Room of Requirement, already seeing some of their fellow students dressed much casually, passing by every now and then. Amit, in particular, had just come down from the Astronomy tower after a few hours of stargazing. He too, was also dressed to enjoy the festivities that lie ahead in the common room.

"Wow, the three of you look great," A blush appeared on the Ravenclaw's cheeks. "Andrew's already at the courtyard waiting for you, by the way, Poppy. Shall we go? Where's Sebastian and Ominis?"

"Probably back at the common room," Norah replied, although she knew Sebastian would be in the Undercroft. As for Ominis, she wasn't sure. Having heard him talk about gillyweed earlier, she suspected he might be in the greenhouses trying to see if Professor Garlick kept some. She wasn't even sure if Ominis planned to go to the party, in the midst of getting preoccupied with what was in front of her.

The four of them walked down the staircase, passing by Arthur Plummly along with the girl he had secretly summoned. Nevertheless, Norah went with the three of them all the way down to the Transfiguration courtyard. Henry and Andrew were caught up in conversation until they stopped upon seeing Natty and Poppy. Both boys had the biggest smiles on their faces, something Norah was happy to notice.

"Don't be surprised if you see Poppy in your common room, Amit," She teased, and the blush reappeared on his cheeks at the thought, making her snicker.

"Hello Norah, Amit," Henry and Andrew acknowledged their presence. "You look beautiful, Hogwarts heroine."

The sudden compliment took her by surprise, and she just shook her head. "I tried," She said.

"She's always been so humble," Natty pointed out with a chuckle. "Even when she won Crossed Wands."

"Beginner's luck?" Norah shrugged, making them laugh. "Well, I guess I'm off to find Sebastian and Ominis. Amit, we can go to the greenhouses, there's a chance Ominis might be there as well as Samantha," She said.

The assertion seemed to make Amit's already ruddy cheeks even ruddier. Not wanting to say more, he gave a wave to the four before following Norah to the Central Hall. They passed through the crowds of students gathering by the fountain and sitting around, some of whom were waving at them as they went through the doors that led to the greenhouses.

"You haven't met your summoner yet?" Amit suddenly asked as they climbed down the staircase.

Norah shook her head. "Haven't received a letter from him either. Perhaps I'll see him at the party itself."

"He's being mysterious until now, eh?" Amit chuckled as they looked around for a sign of the two. He easily found Samantha, who was sitting on the nearby bench. "Wow, you look beautful," He sputtered.

Samantha grinned. "You look just as dashing yourself," She said. Catching sight of Norah, she waved. "See you and your "Nick" later."

Norah smiled. "Have you seen Ominis?"

"Oh, he's downstairs over there," Samantha pointed to the tree at the very end. "Watch your step. We'll see you."

As the pair walked off, Norah climbed down the stairs that led to the room where several othe plants and weeds were kept. There Ominis was, waving his wand around trying to find the gillyweed she remembered him talking about. But Ominis looked quite different, a little more casual especially when a lock of his blonde hair went a little out of place, sticking out over his forehead. With a dark green dress shirt under - to her surprise - a leather jacket. He looked especially handsome.

"Feeling rebellious, Gaunt?" She teased, making the blonde stop looking, his sentient wand pointed at her.

Ominis tilted his head. "What do you mean?"

"Did Sebastian put you up to wearing a leather jacket?" She continued. "This isn't something the rest of us see everyday. Especially of you, a Gaunt."

"O-oh," He sputtered, cheeks turning pink from embarrassment. "I thought I'd try something new for a change. Parties didn't seem to interest me much, but I am willing to give it a go now."

"Well, you look really handsome," Norah paused. "Nick."

There it was. She said it. Ominis froze. He felt his heart skip a beat at the name she called him. "...At last, you've figured it out," A smile crept up on his lips.

"I had a feeling it was you, possibly from the very first note you sent me," She said. "The only other person who would know about that secret date spot in the Forbidden Forest would be someone the likes of you."

"Family secret, I'm afraid. Goes back to when Apollonia Black and Richard Jackdaw first dated," Ominis explained, slowly gaining some confidence. "Another secret aunt Noctua told me about before she ventured into the Scriptorium."

Norah smiled. "And the riddles always seem to mention eyes, seeing, or not being able to see, or telling a close friend the answer to those riddles. It kind of led me to think maybe you summoned my name."

Should he tell her? Should now be the time? Ominis needed to make a decision and fast. "Well I didn't want to have to spend the entire week writing to someone else," He blurted out.

"Well, I didn't know you wrote poems," Norah teased. "How did you come to learn about Nick and Nora Charles? Aside from me telling you?"

That was a detail she was curious about him knowing. "One time in the library, Sebastian noticed a book that fell out of your bag."

"Oh," She mouthed. "You remembered that, huh?"

"Hasn't Sebastian told you? I have the memory of an elephant."

Norah laughed at the comparison. "No he hasn't. I guess we haven't talked enough to know those details."

"I suppose not," Ominis said quietly. Not wanting to let a silence ensue over them, he cleared his throat and looked aound. "I was actually here looking for gillyweed."

Norah went up to him, linking her arm with his, taking him by surprise. "I can tell you all about what I saw from the merpeople in fifth year."

Ominis looked flabbergasted as he allowed himself to be led back up the staircase. "You what?!"

[andromedaexists]

WUPDATE: Desecrate

𝚆𝚎𝚍𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚍𝚊𝚢, 𝙼𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑 𝟸𝟶𝚝𝚑 || 𝙿𝚘𝚜𝚝-𝚂𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚕𝚎

God is it already Wednesday again???

Well, I guess a short rundown is in order! I am back from my trip to Seattle, I get back yesterday at 12:30AM EST!! It was quite the shock going from 70 degree weather in Seattle to having to brush 2" of snow off the top of my car in Ohio, but such is the nature of this hell state

I also had my 6 month employee review today which was def not something that stressed me while i was away idk what you're talking about...

Besides that though, I do have some exciting news! I have some announcements coming up in regards to Desecrate, which means it's time to start throwing together a Street Team! This team will be an early access team, having a chance to see the cover as soon as I have it and get access to the ARC well before I send out ARC applications. In exchange, all I ask is that you help me post about announcements like my cover reveal and all that. If that sounds interesting to you, sign up here!

Now that all that's taken care of, I wanna mention that I have written exactly nothing for Desecrate over the past week while I was traveling. I did write a new grief short that's available on my itch.io for free but that's the extent of the writing I've done. I do have some words to share though:

Well, I guess it's more I have art to share that correlates to words!!

This lovely art was done by Jacqueline Illustrations (@/jacquelineillustrations on IG) and it depicts this scene:

For a moment he thinks that he might be too late, that the figure may be long deceased. That is, until the figure moves and Kit comes face to face with the skull he had seen in his dreams. His eyes widen as the figure stands up, going from a huddled mess on the ground to towering above him. They aren’t able to fully stand in the room, instead bending at a painful angle due to the low ceiling. Even as he registers that the being in front of him must be in pain, Kit can not move. He is rooted to the spot, unable to breathe or think as he realizes exactly what he is stood in front of. I am in front of God. Kit feels as if he should be on his knees begging for forgiveness, repenting every sin he has committed in his life. Worship the not-quite-human being standing before him. Revel in Their glory, but he can’t.

I also have these more fun/individual pieces from Clanky!

I'm having a lot of fun with this novel if y'all haven't noticed lmao, I hope you guys will love it as much as I do!!

TAGLIST

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[supremechancellorrex]

I've seen a lot of negativity growing around Hunter, my emotions have also become complicated recently regarding his character. I think the problem with Hunter this season is he simply has nothing going for him this season and that's why the reaction to him is getting noticeably negative from what I've seen. In a season where he hasn't done much as the character focus has been more on others, his 'unheroics' moments really stand out and because of this even the understandable moment of grief and want to even more keep Omega safe after Tech's death scene fails to garner the sympathy it would if he HAD had different writing this season.

If Hunter had convinced people he cared about fighting fascism or slavery in any real way, if Hunter had not said to Echo saving his brothers from said fascism and slavery "When will it be enough?" like Echo was getting obsessed about collecting stamps, if Hunter (and TBB besides Echo) had even just felt any guilt or accountability for the role TBB played in accidentally handing it to Palpatine in the Clone Conspiracy Arc and being a part of screwing the 'regs', saved 'regs' of his own and his team's initiative alone or said something sympathetic about the suffering reg clones to show us his humanity and empathy, then the reaction to him wanting to go away again and take Omega would have been wildly different for a number of reasons I think.

The Problem with Hunter

The problem is that Hunter has come across as unempathetic/unsympathetic and tone-deaf to me and others due to the writing, so logically a fair number of viewers will be unsympathetic to his plight. If Hunter cared about helping the slaves and this was shown clearly, people would care about him and thus his grief and 'tiredness', but because they view him as apathetic, which he has been on SLAVERY of all things, the sympathy isn't activated and that just leaves frustration at Hunter not caring about the 'regs' again. Now, where does this frustration come from? Well, one, the Bad Batch have been very passive this season because they can't seem to be able to will it in themselves half to the time to engage with the plot and have no emotional connection to it whatsoever. Well, the plot is the plot about fighting fascism, clone rights and saving 'reg' slaves they're genetically related to from mistreatment, death and fates worse than death, with many 'regs' characters shown to be quite nice like Rex, Cody, Howzer, Gregor, Mayday (so all the named ones). Hell, people even like Fireball, they even like Wilco. They like that Echo has a team of 'reg' clones he gets on well with and who clearly respect him.

So, it definitely doesn't help Hunter's tone-deaf "When will it be enough?" scene on Echo saving clones happens right after Echo just saved Howzer. Howzer, who warned the Batch of Crosshair's trap and put himself at risk. Now, of course, Hunter probably doesn't know Howzer was rescued, but it furthers the viewer's dissonance regardless because it reminds us again every reg clones is an individual who matters. It makes viewers like me want to yell "Well, Hunter, I'll have you know, Echo saved Howzer! The guy who helped you in Season 1 at great cost!" Hunter comes across as callous again.

Empathy and Humanity

I'd like to contrast with Cut Lawquane here, a beloved former clone trooper who also has a family to look after. Cut has also left the fight for his family, but the reaction is wildly different because you were always given the impression Cut cared about his brothers, the clones. He even helped the Bad Batch out, he helped Rex out when he unexpectantly landed in his lap in Deserter and helped him out again as a brother and friend, he's helped other clones where he could of his own volition and initiative because it's the right thing to do. He may have left the fight, he may have gone off somewhere to keep his family safe, but his empathy is clearly represented. "Everybody I cared about was gone". He also is not linked to a history of looking down on other clones.

When the Bad Batch have a history of calling normal clones 'regs' like they're dirt in a tone that reminds people of how Krell said 'clones', making them feel elitist, when the Bad Batch help more natborns this season than actual 'reg' clones even though the need is pressing, when Hunter doesn't express clear empathy for the clones and tells Echo "When will it be enough?" when it feels like Echo is the only one trying to help the 'regs', his brothers, and Hunter can't seem to get how it's near enough the same as him saving Omega, problems arise. It's not Hunter going off to Pabu to protect Omega that's really the problem, it's the fact people think he doesn't give a shit about anything or anyone but his unit. I've seen people 'joking' he'd 'let a reg clone die to get Omega or Wrecker an ice cream' they view him as callous. I do too. Why doesn't he care? Well a lot of people feel he doesn't feel the normal slaves are worth his time. Hunter at least needed a moment roughly like:

"What's happening to the rest of the clones... *It makes me angry*, but I can't have Omega get involved in this fight. I'm... I'm not even sure it can be won... I'm sorry, Echo."

-

"I understand, Echo, they're your brothers. I'd do the same for Omega. It's just... the team isn't the same without you. I hope some day you'll make it back to us."

Yeah, people would still grumble about how "Well, why let her walk around the Senate or handle explosives if protecting her is so important to you", which is fair, but it would have really softened things over all and he might have got more sympathy when the writers wanted us to feel it. Instead because people are beginning to view him as cold and only self-interested due to the writing, they view him with coldness too. As their sympathy isn't activated, they're left with less charitable emotions and just feel their frustrations "Oh yeah, ditching the 'reg' clones again. Not worth your time" or "Oh yes, go back to Pabu, try to waste time again, avoid the plot again".

Conclusion

I feel the fan reaction we're seeing is the writers just failing to get people to care about Hunter or his feelings. Fundamentally, everyone gets that Hunter loves Omega and why he wants to protect her, but they just don't like him because of his perceived apathy to a group historically looked down on by his squad as 'just the *regs*. In absence of more positive feelings garnered about character people naturally make negative conclusions about the character, and then this happens as a consequence.

Now, do I, myself, hate Hunter? I'll get back to you on that, maybe. Essay or rant for another time if there is one. We'll see.

[sjullay]

Why the Film Adaptation of Red White and Royal Blue Missed the Mark

By Sera B

*This is my word vomit response essay to the movie and I didnt go back and edit it so sorry for any typos or grammar issues

** I use the word queer a lot, it is a word I believe is reclaimed and it is one I use to refer to myself 

As an avid lover of Casey McQuiston's work, I was excited when I heard their 2019 novel Red White and Royal Blue was being made into a film. As a queer person, I have loved the author’s contributions to LGBT+ storytelling for both YA and romance readers. Their writing brings light and joy to queer stories while making me as a reader feel seen and understood. 

So I will briefly start with what the movie did well.

All of the important scenes were there… The kiss, the turkey, the lake, the museum, etc. The movie gave us a line drawing of the plot while the book gave us the statue of David. The casting of Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine as Alex and Henry was in my opinion and fantastic choice. These two clearly understood their characters, had fantastic chemistry with one another, and showed amazing emotion throughout their acting. They were so gentle with each other and you could feel the love between Henry and Alex even with the pitfalls of the plot. Secondly, the physical intimacy was fun, and sexy, and fairly accurate. You would not believe the number of times I have yelled at my tv screen because a queer couple in a show is having sex in a position that doesn't make any sense for queer sex. Additionally, there were a few fun details that brought a smile to my face. Most notably the British Prime Minister is portrayed by a black woman, and the choice to bring on gay icon Stephen Fry as the King of England (instead of the Queen of England as written in the book. 

So let's get on with what was wrong with the movie (and sadly it was quite a lot).

The compression of the plot

As I began the film I immediately noticed that the pacing felt jump and off-putting. While I understand the time constraints of a movie over a book, the choices the filmmakers made left little room for the audience to get to know these characters. The scene transitions felt like jump cuts from one important scene to the next with little care for the impact or the arch of the story.

The Romance 

Where were my details?

The biggest heartbreak for me in watching this movie was the complete eradication of details that made these men who they are. I fell in love with Henry and Alex reading about two dorks with big hearts who helped figure each other out through grief, and bravery, and political climates, and family dysfunction. They are thoughtful and funny and talk like I do and the details are what made them interesting and real. 

Star Wars

I know this may have been a licensing issue but still… To me, the Star Wars scene in the Hospital is the first time Alex as well as the readers get to see Henry. We see that he doesn’t know that he is brave and that he really does believe that anyone can be a hero. Later in the emails Star Wars becomes a cute joke between our romantic leads and shows a story that to some level reflects their own. A princess who is being told her role but finds that she is in control and she is powerful falling in love with a rouge bandit just trying to find his way in the world. This reference also shows that Henry’s taste is relatable and not just the pompous posh of the royal family. In the end, the mural of Henry and Alex as Lea and Han is a symbol of hope, rebellion, and queer liberation. 

Texts, Emails, and the first Phone Call

While the movie did well the first texts, building from teasing quips in response to tabloid articles slowly into longer friendship building conversation. But as it progressed they stopped including the body of most of the emails sent between the two. The few they included were included as seemingly phone conversations but were instead filmed as in person conversations. Setting a confusing tone to the scenes from the start. Then the turkey call was short and was not the first time they had called. The main subjects of this call and how it was the first time they really started to know each other were also brushed passed for the comedy of their being a turkey in Alex’s room. Alex slowly falling and not really realizing it is instead replaced by a series of fast surface level texts and calls that simply establish that they don't hate each other anymore.  The feeling you get as a reader of enemies falling into friendship falling into a situationship then falling in love is almost completely lost. 

History Huh?

One detail of the book that may have seemed small to many but made my heart sing was the post scripts on each email. The historically queer quotes gave context to their love story and showed readers how we really have always been here and queer. The movie omitted not only those but all historical context as to why this love story is important. The museum scene is important not just because it's a safe place for Henry but because he gets to come here and learn! Learn that there was a gay king of England who openly expressed his love. And that the art that was gifted out of that queer relationship was one of the few things freely given to the British monarchy, not just in their museums as an unjust product of colonialism and violence. 

Additionally, the museum scene was changed to have Alex offer to dance which to me felt a bit off because that made it so the romance never really came from Henry. (This is a whole other rant but it felt like they just wanted to put Henry in the role of a woman instead of honoring the differing gender dynamics in queer relationships)

Then the song that plays both here and later during the piano scene is not Your Song by the gay icon Elton John. To me, Your Song was perfect here as it gave Henry an outlet to express his true feelings and implied hope for a future where they could tell everybody (this is their song ;)). 

Henry’s Charity Work

Henry in this story also seemed to not do anything. He was the prince, he attended events and meetings, and he knows how to play polo and piano. Thats it. We got nothing about what he thinks, what he likes to do, or who he is when he is just Henry Fox and not Prince of Britain. As said above we don't know he likes Star Wars, or that his fact sheet was written for him to make him sound better to the crown. We don't know he devotes his time to working with Pez to create charities and give as much of his royal family money away as he is allowed. We don't know his love for music, that he shares with Bee. We don’t know his love for art and history and queer stories. While the movie says it is showing us Henry Fox (the boy brave enough to be gay I guess). It really only shows us one dimensional Henry who is scared of what his family and the world will think. 

Why were other characters even included?

With the obvious start to the movie showing us the lack of integral characters such as June and Rapheal Luna I thought well at least we will get the fun, joyful dynamics of Nora, Pex, and Bee with our iconic star crossed political figures. Sadly this was not the case. With the most screen time, Nora became a soundboard for whenever Alex needed to say something out loud to someone who wasn't Henry, Her role otherwise was superficial, silent, and really almost nonexistent. Even more, hidden away was the best friend to his royal heartiness Pez! Pez had one line in the entire movie and immediately became the prop to the already prop character Nora. This was especially shocking to me as it tokenized both of these black characters both of whom get rich interesting personalities and lives within McQuiston's world. Lastly, Bee. In the book, her character serves as a primary companion to Henry and as another example of how the British royal family has failed these young people. In the film, her backstory and dynamic with Henry was completely erased and she served a very similar purpose to Nora, a sounding board for the few times Henry wasn't talking to Alex. She again felt like a beautiful character that became a flat prop waiting to be picked up only when she is deemed useful enough.

Henry’s Mom and Dad

The lack of parental influence on Henry's story may feel appropriate based on how the royal family really has failed him in both the book and the movie the eradication of the story of his parents further robs Henry of his own emotional depth. While the film does acknowledge the death of Henry's dad it is only to explain why he was a prick to Alex one time. In the book, we are able to see the weight Henry carries and how he goes through grieving periods and depression because of the traumatic loss of his father. His father was the person who understood him and helped keep him and Bee out from under the intense judgment of the crown. Additionally not having Henry's father included means his mother isn't as well. Her grief is a mirror of Henry’s and (in the book) we see her getting braver as a reaction to Henry’s strength and bravery. It shows a story of a mother who got lost in herself and was still able to find her way back and fight for her children. She is the carrier of change for the royal standard.

The 2016 and 2020 Elections 

While the Red White and Royal Blue movie still technically included an election, the context for why this election was important was completely omitted. Casey McQuiston's book was written as a direct response to the 2016 election and imagined a kinder world in which instead of Trump we had the first female president of the united states. The speeches in the book direct acknowledge the hate that has been so prevalent in recent years and how all people still deserve a voice at the table. By disregarding this context the urgency and heart of the movie fell flat again. Instead of a corrupt politician working to out Alex to ruin his mother's campaign the film had a petty gay journalist who used Alex to get his five minutes of fame. Not only does this feel homophobic but the catty nature of the articles and interview portrayed makes the entire plot point of Alex and Henry being outed to the world feel flippant. The film completely lost the weight of these two boys being maliciously outed to the entire world without their consent. 

In the End

My biggest question at the end of this movie is why don't we get to see the crowd? If I had not read the book I think I would have been left wondering who the crowd was and why are they important past just being people to simply see Henry and Alex go onto the balcony? In the book, these crowds are reported to be not just all over England but all over the world. They are crowds with signs and shirts and flags and rainbows. They are the diversity of the world showing up for these young men who are like them. The lack of these images also made me further miss many of the missing details I discussed above (Amy’s queer and transness, Han and Leia mural, history huh shirts, etc).

While I really wanted to love this film as much as I love its source material I really felt that the movie completely missed the heart of Alex and Henry’s story. Without the context of their detailed interactions, their relationships with others, and their place within our world the story fell flat. I didn't know what message I was supposed to get besides just the basic being gay isn't shameful. And if the point wasn't a message and was just a love story then I really wanted to feel their love. I am not saying the book was perfect but I personally loved it and wish the movie had carried its same soul. 

I know there is lots more than I put in this post and please feel free to discuss! 

Thanks for letting me word vomit my feelings out :)

[penname-artist]

Newewews

Sum shit been happenin’, so in case there was a noticed lack of me, I’ve had company over this week, and we’ve been going and going and going and I am mentally pooped. I have no more spoons, my body turned into noodles on me yesterday (although maybe that was more the fault of the CBD...more on that in a sec)

But I’ll be back to doing my stuff again towards the end of this week, after a recovery day and such. But while I’m on the train of next week:

I did not quit my job last week. Believe me, I was gonna, I planned it, and then right ON the day I was set to leave, something interesting happened. The [new] manager had me start teaching how to do planograms and label changes and all my regular job to two new hires. All was going swimmingly. And then he pulled me aside and went “PLEASE I need you, I need your brain, can you work supplemental?”

So, I said I would, and we talked it over with the district manager as well and my title, officially, has been moved to part-time. This way I have the same set time to come into work, but I can work more hours in the week if need be. And what time do I work you might ask?

Three hours a week. T’ursday, nine to noon. I’m working, while not working, and making something to cover smaller expenses while I focus on my other goals. AND I can keep the shirts. And not need to go through the rehire process later on. Thank you Lord!

And with that set aside now, I can really really focus on my art finally. I have plans to start up some [ugh I actually don’t like them but whatever pays] commission work online through sites like Fiverr and Upwork. I’m also going to invest time into learning a new animation program and uploading videos to my channel a little bit more regularly. I have big goals for 2023 on that front.

And something I’m very deeply debating, in the ways of making content, is doing personal stories. I debated making all those possible stories into animated ones like every other YouTube creator has, but I kinda want to take the content that I’ve made with speedart and combine the two. You can watch me draw a thing and listen to me rattle on about a story at the same time. I may add small animatic elements too, to keep it interesting.

As far as what those stories entail, well I have some lighthearted funny ones I can go over, like my pet history, art camp, actual camping experiences, lots of mental health stories, and maybe down the line some brushing over of my trauma experiences with sudden and unexpected friend losses and grief. That, and/or the repercussions I’ve gone through as a result of that, when I get stressed and my body goes “aw HEEEELLLLL NAW” and shuts itself down.

Fun stuff.

But that’s all on the roadmap, might not get any traction til after the beginning of 2023. But I will be able to get back to writing and drawing and such, I’ve got several projects I’m still trying to get made and finished and posted and they’re being very slow.

But I shall keep y’all posted!

[findmeinthefallair]

Hi, you can ignore this if it's not something you'd like to answer, no worries!

But I was wondering if you'd recommend Voltron (I think it's called? The one with the Keith fella). I see you posting about him/the show and it seems to have some of the same trauma themes/representation as The Owl House? You've definitely made it sound quite interesting

Hope you have a good day and may the week be kind to you :]

No probs, happy to answer this ^.^

Yep, Voltron: Legendary Defender. The first few seasons are great, but I stuck around till the very end because idk I'm permanently invested in the wide variety of characters and always resonate with the core themes, arguably more than I resonate with Owl House. With enough rationalization of canon and filling canon with my screencap edits, I'm able to still savour the show today, as a whole xD (I also love things on an epic scale e.g. the fate of the whole literal universe at stake, exploding planets, lots of blasters and alien weapons, giant robots fighting other giant robots lol)

Compared to Owl House, imho Voltron excels more in the visuals, animation and soundtrack departments. But Owl House's writing consistency very easily outmatches it.

But the concepts and themes aren't as similar between both shows. Voltron is about belonging and teamwork as well, though not really about grief, but doesn't go deep into trauma themes like Owl House does, plus believing in yourself.

And the "believe/trust in yourself" theme specifically, is shown via the bond between the main characters (the Paladins) and the giant robot Lions that choose them as their pilots, where each pair represents one of five elements (Sky, Fire, Water, Forest and Land) and has to build trust with one another. While it wasn't mentioned in canon, I personally think the Lions represent the best versions of their individual pilots, the whole "what you have the potential to be" thing. It even feels spiritual since the Lions do have a spiritual significance in the show.

It's my fave aspect of the show coz each of the five Lions make different contributions to the team, have different personalities e.g. some of them are more trusting and friendlier, have different stats for speed/attack/defense (*geeks out* I have the Paladins Handbook which shows each Lion's stat bars, omg), and if a particular one picks you as their pilot, it noticed something in you that you haven't discovered about yourself yet, and the Paladins unlock more abilities and weapons in their Lions as the plot progresses. There are even some layers to the plot e.g. a former Paladin tries to win back their former Lion's trust, which I enjoyed a lot.

Same to you, have a good week. Thanks!

PS: The Keith whump is great in S2 and S7, teehee.

[myalchod]

Fanfic asks: 🤲 🛒

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc. I definitely tend to write a lot inside of characters' heads -- does that count? My most common AO3 tags are angst and introspection and that's 0% wrong. A whole hell of a lot of talking (or even thinking) around rather than about feelings, because it's more fun? Thematically, I seem to hit loss and grief quite a bit (which I guess goes with the angst tag). Small touches and significant facial expressions and other gestures in that vein, because they are my kryptonite in a visual medium and I love echoing them in text. I also like incorporating vague mythological allusions, even if they're so vague only I'm going to notice them, because they give me joy.

🤲 Would you please share a snippet of a wip? Gonna go with a couple because I can't pick and because I've been jotting down a lot of little snippets that I want to turn into longer things lately ... and because I owe you opera fic and I haven't forgotten that. (Most of my WIPs right now: House of the Dragon, Fate: the Winx Saga, and occasional operatic and/or theatrical bits as I watch too much of those.)

[ but first, for anyone who wants to ask more ... ]

<Les pêcheurs de perles, because so many operatic tragedies could be solved with judicious applications of threesomes>

Nadir looks back at her, and she sees her heart echoed in his eyes. When she reaches out, his hand finds hers, fingers twining through her own. "Alright?"

"No," she murmurs, "and neither are you," because their hands may fit together smoothly but something is still missing, and because she had learned to watch, in her years at the temple, and she understands. She had wondered how she could reconcile a heart divided until she'd seen what underscored Zurga's pain, seen Nadir's indecision in that final moment. And so she eases her thumb across his knuckles, soothingly, and says, "We need to go back."

That he does not question says everything.

<House of the Dragon, because it felt like time to try to get into Corlys' head for a bit instead of just camping out in Rhaenys' forever>

He leaves without saying goodbye, still smarting from how she had pushed him away. In that moment, perhaps more than he ever had before, he’d needed his wife, but she had refused to leave the hall, sobbing over Laenor’s body like her heart had shattered, and he could not stay there — not when she refused his touch, not when he could not bear to look upon the charred remains of his son — his son, the only legacy his name and his blood might have known. He knows they grieve in different ways; has he not seen her through the loss of so many of her family? And when the news from Pentos had come, they’d held onto each other. But this … this is different.

He bleeds, and part of it is the wound she’s dealt him, and if he knows it was anger and grief that caused her to lash out it makes it no easier in the moment, for his emotions are running as high and wild as her own. Does the sea not boil into a tempest, as surely as a fire may blaze?

But she had told him no with that one gesture, and he cannot stand a fire right now — not when it has taken both of his children in such a short space of time. He needs the solace of the sea, the only comfort that has never denied him, now more than ever.

[ladymorghul]

I agree with you on that nasty anon being, most likely, a toxic Aemond stan posing as team black but I think it needs to be said that there are some nasty black stans out there who hate Aemond with a passion and who, by extension, also take it out on Helaemond and Helaena specifically, calling her names, bland and how she and the ship are only a self-insert for us plus countless other stupid arguments. I've also seen on some of their blogs the same Daeron discourse anon was spewing as well as the GRRM being involved with S2 writing thing as proof that Aemond will finally be portrayed as his book counterpart which further means that Helaemond will never be a thing. Maybe, maybe not, in any case most helaemonds know the ship in just a show only thing that may very well not happen if the writers choose so. Either way I hope that person, whoever they are, gets a life and stops harassing other people online. I also hope you're okay considering the amount of hate you've been constantly getting on this blog, please don't let the haters succeed into bullying you off this platform.

oh yeah, aemond and helaena definitely also get hate from team black stans, that much i know, and especially since i spend a bit of time on twitter too

however most of the hate i've seen from team black stans when it comes to helaena and aemond is aimed separately, rather than necessarily at helaemond itself. for example, some say helaena is bland, boring and definitely did not deserve to get dreamfyre and then not use her. there's a lot of grief about her claiming rhaena's dragon. aemond is usually insulted and interpreted as some "cheap version of daemon" and how he's actually just a loser, etc.

but this hate is usually character centric from what i saw and there's plenty of team black stans who don't care that much about aemond or helaena, but they don't hate them either, and by virtue of being team black, they're also more relaxed about the incest side of the targaryens, so there's many who actually did pick up on all the helaemond hints and wouldn't mind it

however i don't doubt that there's probably black stans who hate helaemond as a ship as well

my conclusion of this being a green aemond stan is specifically based on me having knowledge of how i post my posts and tag my posts, who follows me, etc. and certainly most helaemond vitrol actually comes from fellow greenies. and, sadly, for some time now, i've noticed some lowkey helaena hate too. i say lowkey because well, as a team black stan, not caring / disliking helaena wouldn't be a huge shock, but a greenie? disliking helaena of all characters? mostly if not surely over ships? that would be hard to justify

honestly so sick of grrm discussion.... both team black stans and some green anti helaemonds use grrm's "comeback" (he was always there, but okay) as some sure fix for all of their grievences with the plot. some say it means the end of helaemond, others say it means the end of rhaenicent, others say he will make everyone like in the book. it is tiring, especially since it's being used as a "gotcha" against people having different opinions or expecting other things based on what they've seen so far

but thank you for thinking of me. i do appreciate all the kind words i get. once i started reblogging or posting about helaemond more, not only did i lose a bunch of followers (which is fine bc i do believe in curating your experience), but i also got quite a bit of hate and it's been.... a journey. i would like to say that things might get better but i think it's just gonna get worse until people realize that you shouldn't take out your frustration over fictional characters onto other people (send anon hate).

why do people care about who i ship or what my opinion is on a given character? i'm just some girl, i don't have grrm or ryan on speed dial

but anyway thanks for your message ❤️