#now twitter cropping is just horrible

[aquamine-amarine]

It's time for Part 2 of "I hate the fucking anime adaption so fucking much". Part 1 is here.

I've known about this since the start of the month since Nakayoshi posted a black and white ad in the January 2024 Issue talking about it, it just took a while for Marukuji to actually post about it in color. And it still doesn't make it any better.

That looks NOTHING like Amu. Holy shit is it bad. I had to do a double take when I first saw a cropped version of the ad on Twitter because that didn't look like Amu at all. It's horrible. Ikuto looks so fucking awful too. Why the hell is he wearing purple too? It looks way too similar to Utau. It's all so bad and out of character, and it's worse than usual because it's also a lottery. Yeah no, fuck this, I ain't buying it. Last year when they made that new anime art I refused to buy anything with the new art on it and I only bought the ribbons, purses, and mirrors. I hated it that fucking much.

Why do people think this is good? Why? I'm seeing so many people on here and in the Japanese fandom fawn over this and I don't understand why. There's so many yes men in these fandoms I swear, like you're all too afraid to say something is shit when it's shit. And this is shit. It leaves such a bad fucking taste in my mouth that they got the old anime character designer to do another set of merchandise. I really wanted that crap from last year to be a one time thing, and then this happened. Really makes me sick thinking about a reboot potentially bringing that old character designer back… God no. This is terrible. The art is so bad.

I know Rozen Maiden is doing the same thing lately, with the 2013 anime character designer making new art for merchandise and lotteries, the difference is that the 2013 Rozen Maiden anime art is actually good. It was a massive improvement over the horrid Nomad art. They never ever use the Nomad art anymore, and God I wish they would treat SC! the same way. Make a reboot, make merchandise using that new anime art, and please pretend the old anime art doesn't exist anymore.

I'm still convinced they will reboot it, with all the money they're hoarding from the constant new merchandise. Here's hoping we get some nice news after the sequel manga starts. Unfortunately right now they're going to focus on the Vampire Dormitory anime adaption. Shoujo anime adaptions are making a comeback, and they choose to give this trashy manga an anime adaption... sigh. And we still don't have a start date for the Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card Arc anime sequel either. I guess they just don't want it competing with these two anime at the moment, so they're waiting.

I need some eye bleach, I can't stand looking at this fucking art anymore.

#Shugo Chara! #Shugo Chara #Peach Pit #Amu Hinamori #Ikuto Tsukiyomi #Tadase Hotori #Utau Hoshina

[pianostarinwonderland]

same non as the one prior!,listen I love hearing people ramble about the things and characters they like it nice to see someone go off about their favorite characters so yes im serious please go on n release the rot!!

[Reply to here!]

damn y'all 😭 HAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YOU REALLY WANT THIS SO BAD y'all gonna regret this horribly

Brainrot under the cut because this WILL be a long boi

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Į̸̮̪̗̝̭̦̭̕͝ͅ ̴̰̱̥͒͊̉ṣ̶͔̂̇̅͝ẽ̵̳̥̞̦͈̱̊̈́͊̀̓̎̆̚e̷̛̱̜̤̓̈́ ̵̝͎͛̈̋̇͗̀͜y̵̙̜̻͂̍͐ǒ̷̲̬̺̦͎͍͚̺̔̌ͅṵ̶̢͍̹̄̈́̏̆͒̒̚'̷̭̼̞̱̗̦͙̥́͐ͅṛ̴̛̉̏̿̋̓̄̚̕͝è̴̡̡̗̰͕͎̝̣̌́̾̊̈́̒̃͆̽ ̵͔͇̻͓͉͖̕h̸͈̙͈͚̯͈̱͛e̶̪̙̲͐͐r̸̛̲̜̟͍̯̟̭̔́̅̊̎̕͘͝ĕ̸͔̗̮͕̭̗̄͒̈́̕͘͠ :)

Ok first off, I do have some thoughts listed down here already, but we'll have the screaming version of them here.

so now, let's pull up a pic of Azul's full sprite, bless be to alchemivich for this

I guess let's start from the top then work our way downwards~ (just how I like to do it ;) bricked)

SO let's talk about Azul's glasses, as they're a hot topic now

We've always known Azul with his rectangular frames. I myself have always wanted to see him in round frames, but now that we have them, well,,, time for an explanation WHEEZE.

So when you choose your glasses, you have to take into consideration how well they complement your face. Lots of places will tell you to consider the shape of your face, how long or short it is, even the width of your face and the nose bridge, etc. There's a reason why Azul's usual glasses really work on him—there are several factors, but the one I will talk about is his face shape, which seems to be on the softer and rounder side.

Rectangular/square frames work well with rounder face shapes because of contrast. Rounder frames will further emphasize the roundness of the face, which well if that's the effect you want, then hell yeah go for it. But it can also feel a little off, especially if you aim to balance out your looks.

Azul's round frames emphasize this roundness. But the thing is, the specific thing they emphasize is not his jawline or anything but his forehead LJADLKSJKSLSFJ like, it really doesn't help that he pushed back his bangs inside his hat because there's more skin showing aka there's more of that bald feel.

Am I saying that the glasses don't fit him then?

... not at all. HONESTLY IN FACT, THEY FIT HIM 🤡 it gives Azul this old timey wizard vibe, especially paired with the rest of his outfit. And idk, he always had a knack for those types of glasses that have the chain, like it really just fits his character. They're on the more mature side.

Onto his hat, one of Azul's voiced lines has him saying that he pushed his bangs back because the hat itself is so fancy and very elaborate. And you know what? THAT IS SMART OF HIM 😩 because true, his bangs would add a little too much to the visual aspect. The hat itself is so nice though. I always imagined him having a similar hat to that along with a feather, so seeing this coming to life really satisfied me so much 🥺 It's one of the many things I've asked for. I didn't expect the coral design in front, though! That one, I find pretty neat.

ngl though lowkey hoping for a groovy where he doesn't have the hat though 😳 and we get a view of that SLICKED BACK HAIR— bricked

no like . seriously though, imagine we get something like THIS wonderful gorgeous godly sight right here??? for a groovy??? Yana Toboso, I am currently demanding right now.

Anyway, let's move o—

. hold on.

what is this I see?

... let's get a different image just to be sure

. . . . . .

SO WE HAVE TWO THINGS TO DISCUSS HERE

Number 1. That nautilus shell.

It is about TIME that they gave Azul that nautilus shell necklace that is not in his overblot form AND ALSO LIKE, LOOK AT HOW FANCY IT IS!!!!!!! IT'S SO 😭 it's so pretty like,,, uhuhuhuhu after 2+ years of waiting, I finally got this

Number 2. We all know what it is. :)

look at that. look at that fucking s H E ER RRR R R R 🧍 I was peacefully scrolling through Twitter when I saw that crop + a JP user's caption about how they're like IT'S SHEER???? AND NOW I'M LIKE HO FUCK IT'S SHEER?????????? AZUL ASHENGROTTO, THE MAN WHO COVERS UP EVEN HIS NECK, HAS HIS NECK AREA PARTIALLY VISIBLE???????????? I finally know how victorian men feel when they see a woman's ankle.

And I get why the tweels' favorite food are octopus dishes. 🧍 We'll leave it at that .

Sleeves design! Honestly, I find it interesting how the fashion designers in-universe thought that Azul really fit the NRC robes to the point that they thought oh we should make his outfit similar to the robes. And boom, here we see sleeves and gold decor that is as intricate as the robes but still a little different. Honestly, seeing the entire outfit in general reminds me of one of Robe Azul's lines: "These ceremonial robes do wonders as something akin to a business card. Just wearing these off campus will gather admiring glances." (taken from @/mysteryshoptls) It's such a nice nod to that line 🥺 and I'll be honest, the art for Robe Azul isn't one of my favorites, so to see him in this outfit and as an SSR is so rewarding because like #DESERVED

onto the . whatever you call this, the collar?

There's a point where you gotta wonder how Azul really feels about this outfit in general. Like, he was already disturbed that Rollo knew him and where he came from, he was also disturbed that they knew about his eyesight. But that collar design, that resembles the suckers on his tentacle arms, I don't think you can just brush it off as "oh they're meant to be bubbles underwater". It's not a bad design, it's just how does Azul really feel about the outfit with its under the sea motif and even this kind of pattern? 😂 Is he trying to hide the discomfort about this out of politeness? Or is he so private about this kind of insecurity that he dares not voice it out unlike the way he's clear about his discomfort about how they know about his eyesight?

wow ok we got serious there. Don't worry, though...

We're just getting to the exciting part

So of course Azul would have a belt on his outfit. He needs that cinched waist after all 😩 ughhh I have a special weakness for slim waists because the way a slim waist feels in my arms is so , ,,,, ,,, u uu uu u you get this deep primal urge to protect the person you're holding that holding any other waist just cannot give you. at least, that's just my brain being coocoo wwwwwwww

Something even nicer is that the belt adds so much more to the silhouette that the overall outfit gives. It's cinched at the waist,, but then it flairs out with the TAILCOATS

OH MAMAS THOSE TAILCOATS ARE GOING TO BE THE ABSOLUTE D E A T H OF ME

I mentioned it already. I always loved tailcoats. They give that classy and authoritative aura. AND LOOK AT AZUL MF ASHENGROTTO WITH SIX OF THEM

They also look like they're made of a really really good material. Like, just look at the card art. That material looks so nice and sturdy.

AND THE WAY THAT THE FRONT AREA OF HIS TOP ENDS LIKE THAT, LIKE ,, ,,,, , HUHU HUU HUH UHU you know I always always wanted to wear an outfit like that ever since I was a kid? Ends short at the front but there's a trail or a tailcoat at the back, and it's BLACK TOO like u u u uuuuu uu just seeing that on Azul makes me so oughohouohodfoghodf it's everything I wanted and it's really like Disney saw my childhood imagination uwehhhh waddafak !!!!

and ughh hh h ok can we like . talk about the ribbons too and tailcoats and how they just accentuate his legs so fucking well

Like come ON MAN

whoever drew Azul's live2D was thinking with their dicks because why the FUCK did they decide "hoho what if we draw the ribbons in front such that it creates the illusion of Azul's legs being slimmer and then flaring out at the bottom aND THUS MAKING HIS LEGS LOOK EVEN MORE APPEALING TO LOOK AT" LIKE COME ON,,,, THEY WERE DEFINITELY ON SOMETHING WHEN THEY WERE DRAWING THOSE RIBBONS LIKE . THAT . AND THE GOLD TRIM AT THE END DOESN'T HELP AT ALL LIKE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

please like . those pants . those pants look so nice like hello I like those pants. I want to steal those pants. I want to eat those pants.

but most importantly, I hate hate hate the way that those pants make Azul's legs so so so s os os os os oso soo so ooo so 🤡

. ok speaking of legs, we can establish that the tailcoats + ribbons resemble Azul's 8 tentacles underwater (he really isn't getting a break from being his octopus self wwwwww). But I want to talk about the design in the tailcoats themselves??? Like, it's so delicate and really pretty 🥺 it's not like the design on the collar, but it looks more floral ish. It sort of gives the same hypnotic feel as the Fibonacci sequence or even the golden ratio in some way. It's so delicate and pretty and just huh uh u hu hu

Lastly, shoes , ,, ,, shoes. Those are nice shoes. I love that he has heels. . . WAIT HEELS I JSUT REALIZED HE IS WALKING IN HEELS HELP NKFJNKJDNSNSDNFS HOLD ON HE HASN'T BEEN COMPLANING ABOUT THE HEELS ???? HE'S ACTUALLY BALANCING ON THOSE HEELS?????? HE'S DOING OK IN THE HEELS?????? ok granted though, they are wedged heels, but like, even wedged heels are hard to balance on if you aren't accustomed to heels (flashbacks to the first time I had to wear heels when I was 12 yrs old and wobbling on my own feet when the heels were 1-inch high and wedged).

last but not the least, you can watch the Midnight Masquerade here. At the Goofy part starting 13:27, the dancers' costume vaguely reminded me of Azul's silhouette that his outfit gives him. Makes me wonder how much Twst team took inspiration from this performance honestly.

SO ANYWAY UH GOODNIGHT I'M HAPPY WITH THIS EVENT FOR GIVING US GOOD GOOD SHIT ABOUT AZUL 🤡

#twisted wonderland #twst #azul ashengrotto #twst jp #ask

[sortyourlifeoutmate]

Another thing we’re seeing crop up in the news with a fair amount of regularity is reports on the ease of access children have nowadays to pornography, and how this is A Bad Thing. I’m not even being flippant about that, it is transparently a bad thing with the sort of consequences you can’t reasonably measure but which just sort of sink us all into a sucking mire of unpleasantness.

Like, what’s this:

“Almost half of young people say girls expect sex to involve physical aggression, such as airway restriction, the [children’s] commissioner’s report says.”

Fucking wow. And immediate followup:

“One 12-year-old told Dame Rachel her boyfriend had ‘strangled’ her during their first kiss. He had seen it in pornography ‘and thought it was normal’.”

Yikes. Fucking yikes.

(Also kind of baffles me that apparently Twitter is the top choice for finding pornography for the young people they asked. Twitter? Really? Man, shows what I know.)

See, that’s bad. But what I don’t like about all this reporting on the subject is that it broadly isn’t leading to calls for, you know, more comprehensive PSRE sort of education with emphasis on the importance of consent and all that, and a general drive towards open communication and education. No! Of course not!

They want the Online Safety Bill!

You know! Have some government spiv decide what you can and can’t see online! With no oversight! Just some knacker in a room somewhere saying yes, no, maybe, hmm no, no, no, yes.

Now look, a lot of shit online is demonstrably vile, but that is the low hanging fruit for this particular argument. They’ll point to a disgusting cesspit of misogynistic nonsense or a profusion of pro-suicide horror and say that that’s what they’re going after, and I’m sure they will, but you’d be an idiot to think that’s where they’d stop. Where will they stop? Who knows? Will it be your toes that get trodden on? You who gets told you’re a danger to the children and so are getting shut down? Who knows!

Like, look, I don’t trust anyone at any point in this chain. I don’t trust the people making horrible stuff online, I don’t trust the people looking at it (with a bit of leeway given to the kids, you know), I don’t trust their parents, I don’t trust the services hosting it, I don’t trust the government. Everyone involved is an idiot. But that doesn’t change that this is a big problem! And doesn’t change that the proposed solution – making it harder – is really fucking stupid.

I do not trust any proposed age-verification measures, I don’t trust the companies standing to make money from their age-verification measures, and I don’t trust that it won’t go wrong and won’t get misused.

But, like, what do you do? A lot of this stuff is genuinely nasty.

Man, I don’t know, but my first thought wouldn’t be “Cover their eyes so they can’t see”, because they will see somehow, and when they do they won’t have been told how to handle it, because apparently we all live in terror of education kids on this stuff THAT THEY FIND ANYWAY.

I don’t know, man. But it boils my piss that they keep dragging out the most horrendous examples just so they can point at them and go “Eh? Eh? We should give the government more powers to do stuff about that whether you like it or not, eh? Eh?” and the thought of better education never crosses their mind because a bunch of pearl-clutching nutbags would shit the bed if their child was in the same room as the word ‘penis’.

Fucking wasters.

[sorrowandpride]

I don't think Gen Z understands why Millennials are so terrified of y2k trends coming back into fashion. A lot of Gen Z was still in diapers when this look was in fashion. However, we grew up and spent our preteen and teen years during that time. The quintessential bared-midriff look created by crop tops and low-rise pants is limited (in that for most body types it is very uncomfortable) to an extremely specific body type (very skinny with narrow hips, relatively small bust, and small bottom), which was viewed as the only acceptable body type. Women and girls were considered "fat" even if their BMI fell into the "healthy" range. This left a lot of us with horrible senses of self-esteem and, in extreme (but still a lot of) cases, eating disorders. What's now considered "thinspo" was normalized back then and advertised as the ideal. Content that people on ED Twitter are called out for was pervasive throughout the internet, and not considered very extreme. This look was pervasive in both mainstream and alternative circles. There's a reason why people started pushing for body positivity, and a lot of people (especially afab) are still dealing with the consequences of it. We thought that by embracing body positivity we could prevent future generations from falling victim to the grips of heroin chic. Now we see it coming back, and we're terrified that the cycle's going to repeat itself. So many of us started pursuing excessive thinness as kids and hated ourselves when we failed to obtain it. We don't want anyone else to have to go through that.

This is not to say that people can't recreate looks from the '90s and '00s. People can wear whatever they like. I'm just explaining why so many people are expressing visceral reactions to these old trends coming back.

#ED CW #Fatphobia CW #Body Shaming CW #Mishka's Ramblings #Not to mention that the culture was SO hypersexual #I remember girls under 10 practicing pole dancing in the school bathroom and wanting to be Playboy bunnies #Don't get me wrong #There are looks from back then that I would love to start wearing again and are comfortable for all body shapes #Those of us who didn't meet the ideal body standard made do #I just don't want any more kids to grow up in a culture that encourages them to unnecessarily restrict and hate their bodies

[spacejams]

i've been flaking on my duties, but i assure you it's just due to december being a hectic time of year. i'm glad your candy apple was satisfying. but oh, i love them all! and i love that you've managed to introduce me to all new fcs aside from jonathan! i've started working on things, but i am curious, what are somethings you'd love to be gifted?

bestie you and me both december has been insane fr i didnt even finish irl gift shopping until yesterday :) omg pls i love that!! sab's a lot more common w twitter rp i think?? but i really wanted colorful hair for my girlie <3

in terms of gifts i'm truly open to whatever brings you joy to make!!! i mostly write on discord now, so icons that are cropped well for tupperbox would be incredible. icons for tumblr would be amazing too, i'm a big keroppi fan (as u can see) and i love emojis too. i'm a fan of png as icons personally so anything cute and aesthetic would be awesome. psds if you're photoshop minded would also be suuuper appreciated, i'm awful at doing more than just color correcting tbh. templates, too, like spotify wrapped, spotify listening to (spotify car templates would be sick), other social media, tiktok templates, etc that are super simply but Fun ??? truly i'll be happy to see anything though i'd take a list of basic starters and ask memes too bc i'm horrible at starters lmfaoooo

#rphservergifts #answered

[odinsblog]

i usually use the anon function bc im embarrassed to ask people things sjfjfjhs but I've never sent anything horrible to anyone!! I'm sorry you've had negative experiences with the anon function before, you don't deserve that at all!! sending love!

[re: this post]

Thank you. I genuinely appreciate you rn

People like you are literally the only reason why I don’t completely disable the anon feature, because I understand that sometimes people are shy, or they want to express themselves without taking shit. I actually dO get that

But alas, as with everything, there are those who abuse what really should be thought of as a nicety, or privilege—some people just abuse it

Very long rant, incoming

So here’s the thing, right? Sometimes when people are online, they act and behave in ways they wouldn’t dare to irl

I’m not the government. I don’t have a staff to edit my posts. I’m not anybody special. I’m just some dude on the internet who enjoys sharing my opinions and other things. If YOU don’t like or agree with my opinions or something else that I post, you are completely free to keep scrolling or to block me. That’s fine. But when anons begin demanding that I phrase things the way that they’re more comfortable with, then we got serious issues

And another thing: people need to not be so quick to assume malicious intent where none exists

For example, I have accidentally typed the number 500 in a post when I meant to type 50–now, in the specific post, it truly was a significant error. But an anon immediately jumped into the comments and self righteously accused me of lying to make a point, rather than saying to themselves, “Hm, maybe Odin just made a typo”

And my personal favorites

them: YOU’RE SPREADING MISINFORMATION AND DISINFORMATION !!!!

me: um, it was a fucking joke? do they have jokes where you come from?

Or,

me: posts a video of an alligator and some cranes, and adds a bit of whimsical commentary

them: WELL ACTUALLY, THAT IS PROBABLY PREDATORY BEHAVIOR AND I THINK YOU SHO-

me: no. goddamn, I can’t be fucking whimsical on a social media site? eat shit. stfu

And also,

them: well technically, it’s not really fascism

me: maybe not, but it’s fucking close enough. I’m not gonna wait for people to start getting marched into ovens and say, “now can we call it fascism??”

I have literally had all of these dumb, stupid ass conversations (almost verbatim) here on tumblrdotcom, and lemme tell ya, it’s frustrating af

And other times, when I author a post containing a hyperlink on desktop but then later edit it on mobile, sometimes the hyperlink doesn’t carry over to mobile and you’re left with a post that may say “source,” but is not clickable. It happens sometimes, and it’s not a big deal, right?? WRONG! Instead of sending an ask to ask me what happened to the link, I’ve had anons accuse me of “not crediting” a source

I’ve had people use anon to accuse me of cropping videos so that I could somehow “steal” credit from others, and I’m just like … What??? Who does that? Who has the time for all of that? Are you aware that sometimes people on the internet see something like a video or a photo from somewhere else (also uncredited from twitter, reddit, facebook, etc), and then just post it here on tumblr??

And no, I am not talking about reposting someone’s art or other works

Look, if YOU get your thrills from finding out who/where/when the very first instance of every single cat or dog video came from, that’s great! Do you. Knock yourself out. Have fun. But don’t try to shame others because we aren’t all humorless poindexters like you

If I post something from tiktok, the video generally tells you where to go to see it there. If it’s a tweet or from reddit, again, there are usually twitter or reddit handles in the tweet. And NO, I am not putting a link to every single tweet or reddit thread or facebook post — if that’s that important to you, then figure it out. It’s not hard, and in the year 2023 most adults should have the necessary skills to find an original tweet, if that’s something that’s important to you. I’m not doing it for you, not sorry

(SN: I’ll never forget when I took my first college English literature course, and at the end of the semester I was on the bubble for getting an A or an A+ in the class, and our final exam was a written essay that would decide my final grade. I didn’t quite score the A+ that I wanted, and when I looked over my essay, the professor wrote on it: “Odin, you are the quintessential college freshman, and your inquisitiveness has made this semester one of my most enjoyable.” And after class, I walked up to him and thanked him, and asked him what quintessential meant? He opened his mouth and was about to answer me, but then he smiled, wagged his finger at me and said, “you should learn to look things up.” He was one of my favorite professors (had a British accent, eyeglasses and reminded me of Giles from Buffy), but I’ve never forgotten that lesson. Some of you very obviously need to learn it too)

I’ve also made what are very obviously jokes online, only to have people accuse me of misrepresenting facts—and then I’m like, do I really need to explain the concept of what a joke is to you people??

Like, I could see if it was something racist, trans/homophobic, Islamophobic, antisemitic, etc, BUT I DON’T DO THAT

I think that some people need to be seen as, or have a desire to be known as a gatekeeper, and instead of using just a tiny bit of common sense, they try to make mountains out of molehills to elevate themselves in the eyes of their followers

The people who act this way are truly joyless human beings, and they probably suck all the fun out of parties and other events that people are forced to spend time with them

Maybe try socializing a bit more? Learn to read (online) cues. Don’t be so eager to accuse everyone of doing something wrong just so that YOU get to look like the good guy

And all of that’s without even addressing all of the straight up racist anons that I constantly receive

Like, do people even understand that we aren’t inside of each other’s heads? Sometimes we’re all dealing with life and other stuff. And just maybe people are busy trying to have just a tiny bit of fun, and then the mf fun police come along and try to ruin shit? Because I don’t use a word exactly the same way you do?? Or because of an obvious joke?? You guys who do this kind of shit really SUCK

I feel sorry for you

I almost can’t believe this is the piddling little shit that some people choose to be upset over

Please find some REAL things to be upset over

Try learning to use the feature that lets users (gasp) make a post of their very own! instead of fixating on one goddamn mutha fucking post that wasn’t worded to your liking

I am not here for the discourse with anyone with an internet connection and a keyboard

Please go touch some grass

#anon #ask #answered #odin rants #please grow up #dont be so fast to assume the worst in everyone #stop trying to be a gatekeeper #lighten tf up

[themountainsays]

I was scrolling through the Encanto tag, as one does, and came across this post that has so many things wrong with it.

1) No credit to the artist. I wanna know who the wrist is! This is really pretty art.

2) No. Everyone does not agree seeing as all human beings have different people have different opinions. Also someone had to draw the uncredited ray. Seriously, who drew it? They’re talented as fuck.

3) In the tags it says “fypage.” . . . Honey, there is no algorithm. Go back to your natural habitat somewhere else. Do not try to migrate for you will find you are an invasive species here for many reasons. To name one, not crediting where the art you used in a post came from.

I know the art has a signature but it’s so goddamn blurry because they (person who made the post, not the artist)made it so small that I can’t read it even with my glasses. This is really just me wanting to know who the artist is and wanting to poke fun at someone thinking this website has a for you page.

I can't express how angry I feel right now. Your art is like your baby. To have it disrespected and insulted like that feels like a stab to the heart, and I can't imagine how the artist must feel.

I'm trying to do a reverse google search to find the original artist. It's not looking pretty.

Just when I thought it couldn't get worse. I feel horrible for the artist right now, because they really do deserve better.

But, I mean, maybe I can find SOMETHING about the artist through these videos? A name? A screenshot of their twitter page, maybe?

Well, aside from the fact I'm seeing more wonderful artists be slandered and insulted, some of them with several thousand likes, that doesn't seem to be working. Clicking on these links keeps taking me to general "nasty Encanto ships" search pages with more videos than I can watch, I can't seem to find any about this specific piece, and the ones I can find aren't accompanied by credit. My next step was to ask the folks over at the server. While I wait for a reply, I try to sharpen the image a little so see if I can read the watermark.

If I had to guess, I'd say it looks a little like it says Erakim, maybe? I'm 97% sure the first letter is an E, and there's clearly a k, but it's the last two or so letters that confuse me.

I looked through TikTok again to see if I could find ANYTHING. I learned the madrigalcest tag over there is a cesspool of hate and vitriol. Don't recommend looking for ship content there because it's almost entirely antis disrespecting us and our work.

found... this.

At first I thought, oh, nice, it looks sharper! Surely I can read the... nope. They went OUT OF THEIR WAY to crop the image and hide the artist's watermark. I admit I have mixed feelings about that, because while I don't think for a second that this person was trying to protect the artist, being unknown could have saved them some harassment. To destroy their art like this is a horrible insult GOD you see how little respect they have for us? They don't "simply dislike us", because you can dislike someone and treat them with basic decency. When I don't like someone, I try to be nice and quietly avoid them, because that's what social etiquette dictates you should do. You don't insult, you don't attack people, and if they're an artist, you don't disrespect their work. I don't expect antis to not hate our ships, but I think all conflicts should have a level of respect between the different parties. There are lines you don't cross, and Antis insist on crossing them over and over again. Of course, any anti reading this would be thinking "why should I feel bad for a proshipper?" I don't know kathelyn, why should you feel bad about anyone you don't like? Because that's what cultural values dictate, kathelyn, that's why. If you're not using aggression to defend yourself, you offer other humans unconditional respect, and proship artists simply exist without hurting or attacking anyone. But, of course, we're just words on a screen, so it's easy not to have sympathy for us.

(the person on tiktok goes by "proshipslander" btw, which says a lot already. They have only a few videos, all of them about proshippers, all of them disrespecting some truly beautiful works, two of them "fixing" the works of friends of mine. I suggest reporting them).

Anyway. Okay, so whoever made that ugly meme must have gotten the picture from somewhere else, and not directly screenshot the tiktok in question. That means it's at least two instances of this work being disrespected, which makes me feel even worse, but okay, this picture is sharper, maybe I can find something if I reverse google search this one. But nope. No results.

Then I remembered I had a brumira work saved on my phone with a very similar style, you know, I thought, maybe it's by the same artist, maybe I can find the watermark there annnnnnd no, it was no good, because that one doesn't have any watermarks, and it doesn't look all that similar now that I visit it again. yay.

Oh, but maybe I could google Erakim? Uh, no, it doesn't lead anywhere.

Let's be honest - it's very likely that the artist is no longer online, probably because of this. Seeing the "fypage" tag makes me suspect the meme might have been made by this "proshipslander" person, who most likely has a copy of the piece saved. Which, imo would be even worse, because it means they just keep beating a dead horse for the sake of shitting on people's work. I don't know, I might be wrong so don't take my theory too seriously.

I'm just... really angry. We don't deserve this treatment. At all.

The folks at the server haven't replied yet. If anyone recognizes this piece and the artist, please share their name, because they are the one who deserves the credit, not fucking "proshipslander on tiktok".

I have to admit, it made me more angry to see my friends' art in there, but at least we all knew about it already and, well, I know who drew what. The worst part is that there is no fixing it, once they put your art out there to be ridiculed. It breaks my heart, both for my friends and for this one artist.

The general Encant0 tag has become a landmine. As much as I love the film, I can no longer visit it without feeling nauseous, which is why I stick to madrigalcest spaces even though sometimes I want to shut my ship brain off and think about cute "normal" family dynamics, but see, they drive you away like this, polarize the fandom, eliminate neutrality, and before you notice it's become a witch hunt and you can only rely on your fellow freaks.

All I can say is... look, Madrigalcest Week is in six days, and we're all going to be posting new works. Let's try to celebrate respectfully and look after each other. Take the time to block as many antis as you can to avoid harrassment, because it's very likely that they too are waiting for Madrigalcest Week to do their thing and go after us. Block and report if you encounter anyone acting too violently. REBLOG people's works if you like them, DO NOT REPOST THEM WITHOUT PERMISSION, comment on fics and fanart, share them with friends, and make next week a nice moment for everyone. At this point that's what we can do.

#madrigalcest #shipping discourse #proship

[junicai]

infinite.

| summary | When Aria's with her boys, it feels like the sky's the limit.

| word count | 2.3k

| warnings | none

| era | circa. June 2021, filming for Hello, Future music video

The grass in the empty stadium had been liberally covered in fake flower petals - the healthy green of regularly watered grass slowly becoming overshadowed by the light pink and yellow that settled lightly atop it. 

The white corduroy overalls that Aria donned were splashed with colour in fake paint splotches to compliment the petals - yellows and greens and pinks mixed with blues and oranges in a jumble of streaks that were stark against the otherwise plain material. The Doc Martens that all eight of the members had been fitted for were all padded at the toe and the heel - lest the hard rubber break away skin and cause them to bleed during filming.

Aria crunched several petals underfoot in the heavy boots as she wandered over to the other boys who had been released from hair and makeup a handful of minutes before her. 

The sun was just reaching it’s highest point in the sky, the heat bearing down onto her exposed midriff and almost entirely cancelling out the cool breeze that threatened to rise goosebumps on her stomach. The floaty, bell-sleeved crop top was, in Aria’s opinion, absolutely gorgeous. She had already planned out the best way to corner Heejin unnie - one of the stylists that had an especially soft spot for Aria and her pout, when used effectively. 

Shaking her freshly dyed blue hair out of her eyes, Aria broke out into a light jog to catch up to Renjun, swinging an arm around the boy’s shoulders. 

“Hi!” She smiled brightly. 

Renjun wrinkled his nose at her playfully. “Hey. You done in makeup?”

Nodding, Aria replied, “Yeah. They wanted to touch up the colour in my hair and stick a couple more tattoos around.” She pointed to the new daisy sitting underneath her eye, and the Make Peace, Not War written in differing fonts along her left forearm. 

He aah’d exaggeratedly, patting his own upside-down HELLO on his arm absent-mindedly, before frowning lightly. “Is your colour coming out already? I thought they only dyed it a couple days ago.” Lifting up a hand, Renjun brushed away the strands in Aria’s fringe that were falling into her eyes, cringing lightly when they came away covered in blue residue. 

Aria pulled away from his fingers, shaking her fringe back into place. “They didn’t have any dye left, so it’s hair chalk.” She explained. 

Renjun made another noise of understanding, looking at his smurf coloured fingertips thoughtfully. When his eyes flickered up to meet Aria’s, they had a mischievous glint in them, and she barely had the chance to turn on her heel and break out into a run before Renjun was giving chase hot on her heels. 

“No!” 

“Yes!” 

Her boots were beginning to rub the skin around her ankle raw, still not broken in enough to stand the test of a sprint through a football field, but Renjun was behind her - holding up his hand threateningly - and that was enough to keep her powering through the burn.

“Stop it!” Aria panted, laughter beginning to soil her already failing lung capacity. Her pace was lagging, but much to her relief; so was Renjun’s. With a final burst of energy at seeing the ground she’d gained on him, Aria made her escape attempt-

Only to be captured by Jeno, strong arms wrapping around her waist and swinging her around in a circle to be plopped right back down in front of a now jogging Renjun, an evil smile on his face. 

“Lee Jeno!” Aria protested, wriggling against the arms that had yet to release her. “Let me goo!” 

He deigned not to respond, but Aria could see the matching glint in his eye, and she resigned herself to her fate. He shared a nod of understanding with Renjun who was advancing slowly now that his victim was immobile. 

“Renjun.”

A small smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. 

“Renjun, I’m sorry.”

His smurf-hand raised threateningly again. 

“I’ll do your dishes for a week.” 

With a final step, Renjun was now within a half-arms distance from Aria. 

“Jenooo-” Aria cut herself off with a squeak, as Renjun dragged his fingers over the bridge of her nose, leaving behind a trail of the blue hair chalk. Aria flailed in Jeno’s grip, but he held her fast, even going so far as to tug her down into his lap on the ground to hold her steady. 

Now entirely stuck, Aria resorted to flailing her limbs as much as she could, which really wasn’t a lot when Jeno tucked her legs beneath his knees, trapping her with all four of his limbs as Renjun rubbed the rest of the hair chalk off of his fingertips and onto Aria’s nose and cheeks. 

Revenge enacted, her attacker eventually settled back onto his heels, fingers now chalk free - having spread most of it over Aria��s face as a replacement for blush. 

Aria let out a small sneeze when the loose dust tickled her nose, blinking harshly in surprise. 

With her eyes closed, she couldn’t see the hand Renjun held to his heart, or the pout that Jeno’s lips formed at the cute sound. The two men peered up at each other, silently agreeing that: Yes, it was unfair that she looked so tiny and cute with blue blush. Sometimes, life wasn’t fair, and it was coming for Renjun and Jeno’s heart in the form of a very tiny girl with a blueberry nose. 

With a pat on the arm from Renjun, Jeno released Aria from his grip who promptly turned around and rained a series of light smacks onto his chest, only stopping when her rings snagged in the necklace he wore. He made no effort to help her, asides from holding her up when he accidentally leaned back and nearly took her down with him. 

“Traitor!” She declared once she had untangled the jewelry. For her own revenge, she ran a finger through her hair to collect the chalk and smudged the colour onto Jeno’s cheek in a bright smear. 

The shocked look in his wide eyes was enough to have Renjun coughing out a laugh, the other two soon following. The patch of grass they had settled onto was far enough away from the filming location that there were no petals to hinder Aria’s plans of laying down onto her back, hands splayed over her stomach as she laughed along with the boys. 

“Guys!” It was Mark’s call that drew their attention away from the coloured chalk - although Renjun did let out another snicker at the light blue cloud that Aria’s hair left on the grass where she had been laying - and together the trio made their way back over to the other five members. 

When Jeno and Renjun got distracted in comparing the temporary tattoos they had both been decorated with, Aria slowed her pace enough to let the two wander ahead without her. 

She slid her focus away from the duo and towards the group that had settled in between the flower-covered goalposts, some standing, some sitting.

The bright colours of this concept was a nice change, Aria thought. She loved doing sexier concepts - don’t get her wrong, she loved the empowerment that came with it, and the twitter reactions were always fun to scroll through - but she’d missed this kind of bubble pop. Songs that made something uncurl up in your chest, complemented and encouraged by all the bright colours and messages. 

When Aria had read through the lyrics the first time, she’d never felt like she’d loved a song more without hearing it. They meant something, especially to her. 

Hello, Future; and all that.

And the costuming was always so fun. Short skirts were never the most ideal things to dance in, and the heeled shoes were the bane of her existence (no matter how good she looked in them) so the sturdy boots and durable overalls was a welcome switch-out. 

Her boys looked happy with it as well.

With Hot Sauce, there was an infinite amount pressure to get it right. It was the first full album that NCT Dream was going to release, and it was 8DREAM. They had Mark back. They were all adults at that point. There were expectations to meet. They couldn’t pass things off as being children anymore; they had millions of eyes watching them, and it was like having someone breathing down your neck. 

The pressure just kept mounting and mounting until it loomed over them all like dark clouds that you could just know held heavy rain. It was like they were debuting all over again. Re-debuting as eight again. Aria doesn’t think she remembers a single thing from the set at all. The whole thing is just a blur in her memory. 

Hello, Future, this time around, is different. The members had gathered in the living room around Donghyuck’s laptop when the Hot Sauce music video aired, watching as the views racked up and positive comment after positive comment poured in. They’d read through each and every one, Mark and Aria translating the English ones that the others couldn’t read. 

If Aria cried, one arm wrapped tightly around Jaemin, with the other held Mark’s right hand in his lap, then no one commented on it. It could be, because they had tears of their own in their eyes - but no one can say for sure.

They ended up sleeping on the floor that night, laptop discarded on the couch that was stripped bare of pillows and throw blankets. Curled around each other - this time with her head on Renjun’s chest and her stomach monopolized by both Chenle and Jisung lying horizontal from each other, Aria felt the tension and the fear that had been teeming underneath her shoulders for the last two months abate. 

The terror that if the album had flopped, then they’d be facing disbandment like so many kneitzens wanted. 

Or worse: Dream would keep going, but they’d lose Mark again. 

Even the thought made something horrible curl up in the pit of Aria’s stomach. 

No. 

Never again. 

The odd sleeping arrangements were not something that were uncommon in the Dreamies dorm (Honestly, Aria can’t remember the last time she had slept alone in a room, let alone a bed. They had a system worked out for when someone genuinely needed time alone, but otherwise, most bedroom doors remained open all night.)

This time, Mark was forcibly settled into the middle, everyone clamoring that he’d missed out on nearly three years of them - and he wasn’t getting ride of them that easily again. 

To his credit, Mark went without much argument, although that probably falls down due to the fact that god, he had missed them too. 

Over the weeks of practicing together, re-working the choreography for the songs that had been released when Dream was seven members only, they found their rhythm again. The one that they had lost in 2019, the one that Mark had taken with him when he’d graduated from the group.

Finding it again felt easier than breathing. 

Aria thought she’d never get to see her boys smile so brightly as they did together again, giving the colourful flowers lining the grass a run for their money. 

From her position a ways away from the group, she watched as Chenle immediately launched himself at Jeno as soon as he was close enough, tackling the older boy onto the ground where they both landed with a thud, Chenle’s head whipping backwards with the force.

She watched as Jeno - ever careful - had tucked a hand behind Chenle’s head to catch him even before they started to fall, his hand taking all the impact as they came into contact with the ground.

Jisung was quick to clamber up, eager to pull Renjun over to Jaemin and show him what they had been doing. She watched as Jaemin held up a small crown made of the fake petals, held together loosely by the short strands of confetti that were scattered around the goalposts. 

Mark was leaning his back against the post, head tilted down onto Donghyuck’s shoulder. Donghyuck was watching Jeno and Chenle wrestle with each other - cheering for one or the other, depending on who was winning at that exact moment. 

Aria watched as Donghyuck slowly slipped into silence, tilting his head down to look at Mark’s peaceful expression as the eldest seemed to almost doze off on his shoulder. 

And, she watched as Donghyuck lifted his eyes, flickering from each of the members. His eyebrows furrowed, scanning the group again before he craned his neck towards the rest of the field.

When his eyes locked onto Aria’s, he raised an eyebrow, but deigned to stay quiet - choosing against startling Mark with a yell. His expression was enough, though. 

Donghyuck understood Aria on a certain level that she thought not a lot of people could. She had a unique bond with each member of Dream, but Donghyuck sometimes knew what was going on in her head before she even did. 

Which is why, instead of teasing her for being an introvert, or running away; when Aria strolled up to join the group he just extended the arm that wasn’t wrapped around Mark’s waist, beckoning to her.

After being firmly tucked into his other side, Aria curled into his chest with a sigh, shivering lightly when the sun slid behind a cloud for a brief second and the air felt cooler than it had all day.

Feeling her shudder, Donghyuck tilted his head down to look at her the same way he’d looked at Mark a moment ago, before pressing a kiss to the top of her head. 

“You okay?” 

Aria nodded. “M’okay.” 

(Donghyuck didn’t realize that his lips were blue from the chalk until Jisung pointed it out, some thirty minutes later.)

#*aria.writings #nct #nct imagines #nct additional member #nct female member #nct 24th member #nct extra member #nct female member au #nct additions #nct addition #kpop addition #kpop additions #kpop #kpop oc #nct female addition #nct female oc #nct scenarios #nct reactions #wayv #superm

[insane-mane]

Hot topic alert, Derrick J Wyatt getting blamed for every single decision/everything that happened in OV is of course bullcrap. Plus it takes away from the people who made those decisions, and for the stuff that was a group effort. Pinning everything on derrick is so unfair.

Look, it's no secret that Derrick can be very short and even rude with people, but I feel like a decent amount of that is warranted because of this exact reason.

The moment the first OV promo dropped, the worst parts of the fandom went straight to their keyboards and relentlessly attacked the show before it even had a chance to air, simply because it wasn't what came before it. Derrick had the most presence when interacting with the fans, and being the one responsible for the show’s new, drastic style, a large amount of the blame and pure hatred was dumped all on him, and it was an absolutely sickening example of fan entitlement.

I truly don't blame him at all for leaving when he did. I've had my fair share of moments where I've felt like leaving and I'm just a small time fan artist! Imagine working on a show you're passionate about and being lambasted to the point they make fun of your physical appearance and tell you to kill yourself, causing you to remove yourself from the internet entirely for your mental health’s sake.

My biggest pet peeves, especially now, are the devil's advocates coming out of the woodwork to preach about how, "Oh, well he's an industry professional! How dare he not respond to malicious and stupid draining comments with calm, well-reasoned responses!?" Like, I'm sorry but as someone that gets shitty, inane comments every day, FUCK that noise. These people completely ignore the fact they're talking to a human being, an adult no less. Internet anonymity doesn't give you a free pass to be a garbage can of a human being to others and NOT be scolded. You are not the victim after seeking someone out to purposefully annoy or shit on them and they lay into you. But of course it's easier to just critique how “incorrectly" someone responds when you're not the one at the end of it. I guarantee if you were in this position, you wouldn’t come out as “squeaky clean” as you demand of others. These people shouldn’t get away with treating people horribly. 

Rant aside, it's just annoying hearing how Derrick “Destroyed Ben 10″ or “Ruined our childhoods” or “Poisoned our water supply, burned our crops, and delivered a plague onto our houses”. You’re free to not like or enjoy what he contributed, and you can disagree with some of his lore! I take literally everything Duncan Rouleau says with a grain of salt but you don’t see me harassing him on twitter about it. The hatred was unfair and horrendous when it happened to Omniverse, and it was unfair and horrendous when it happened with the reboot. Neither one of these people are the sole creators of Ben 10, tons of other people worked on it and had their own input. 

Think about that before directing your blind hatred at these people for making a cartoon you didn’t like. 

#ben 10 omniverse

[shutupanddance]

Bones / Reader — Remember Me

Hey my fellow fan fiction people, I have MAJOR writer’s block, and I really want to get these requests done, so I’m hoping that this will snap me out of it.

Warning: this is angst!!

How would Bones react to your death?

Normal text is present time, and blocks of italic text are memories!

Enjoy ;)

Dr. Leonard McCoy is experiencing a “slow day” in medbay. Not that there isn’t the occasional ensign coming in with a scrape or broken bone, but it’s nothing like when the away missions come back.

Speaking of away missions, you were on one now. You weren’t scheduled to come back for a week, though. You were a microbiologist, so your missions were usually much longer, and consisted of more time going back and forth between your lab on the Enterprise and the planet you were stationed on. 

The personnel staff realized pretty quickly that very little got done when you and McCoy were on a mission together. The doctor was so worried for his fiancé that he spent more time making sure you were safe than doing his job. So, it was a rare thing nowadays that you’d be put on a mission together.

Spock is suddenly in medbay.

“What are you doing here?” Leonard grumbles, glancing over his shoulder.

When Spock doesn’t respond immediately, he turns. Something is wrong, Leonard can tell. But whether Spock has a common cold or the ship is about to explode, he can’t tell.

“Captain Kirk requires your assistance on the bridge.” Spock states coolly. Odd.

“Are you sure? Can’t he just ask me through a holopad like everyone else-”

“Please come with me, doctor.”

Doctor McCoy follows, but he grumbles the whole way.

As soon as he’s in the elevator, another team rushes into medbay. They’re surrounding a gurney. And attached to that gurney is a heart monitor, which is beeping slow. Dangerously slow.

You’re not really sure why you got picked for the Enterprise. I mean, it’s Starfleet’s flagship, for crying out loud! But here you are, working away in one of the most advanced labs you’ve ever seen, floating many many miles from home.

You’re still processing all this when a beaker slips out of your hands, and shatters violently on the floor.

Luckily, no one else is in your lab right now. You stay calm, walking on careful feet, and retrieve a broom. As you’re sweeping, though, you realize blood is running down your fingers.

One of the shards of glass must have flown up and cut me, you realize.

You carefully wrap the small wound and apply pressure, then begin walking to medbay. 

The nurses don’t immediately notice you, probably because you’re just standing there looking like you’re out for an evening stroll, but soon enough one happens to glance directly at the gauze you have wrapped around your forearm.

“Oh, dear!” She says, guiding you to a bed. “Dr! Dr. McCoy!”

Out from a nearby office walks Dr. Leonard McCoy. He’s got dark hair, the most alert eyes you’ve ever seen, and damn he’s hot.

“What happened to you?” He grunts.

“Beaker broke. Shard of glass flew up and cut me. No other injuries, and there’s no glass in the wound. I was able to stop most of the bleeding, but I think I’ll need stitches.”

An eyebrow goes up.

“Alright, why don’t you sit down and I’ll take a look.”

You didn’t know it, but in that moment, Leonard McCoy nearly fell head over heels for you. And all he showed for it was a raised eyebrow.

The Captain will not stop insisting that he needs a plan for contagious diseases on the Enterprise.

“We already have one,” Leonard reminds him.

“But will it work? Do we have one for different situations? For instance, if we’re docked on a hostile planet-”

“Are you trying to keep me from my job!?” Leonard asks, more as a pointed jab, but when the room grows uncomfortably silent, he realizes he’s right on the money.

What else does he realize? That every face in the room looks forlorn. And a bit defeated.

“What’s got everyone so depressed?” He asks, swiveling to see the entire bridge crew. No one answers.

Finally, Spock clears his throat.

“We wanted to keep you away from medbay while the doctor’s worked on Y/N.”

There’s a moment, a brief moment, where Leonard’s brain stops working. And he’s paralyzed with fear. But, it doesn’t last for long.

“WHAT!?!”

Jim steps in.

“She was injured on the away mission. Some animal we’ve never seen before came out of nowhere and attacked.”

Bones is trying to get away.

“She saved everyone else’s lives by luring the beast away, doc,” one of the crew is saying, but he doesn’t care. He needs to get to you-

The door to the bridge rolls open. M’Benga is standing there.

And Leonard has never seen the man look so guilty, so distressed, so sad.

“Watch the Coreolis Anjankus!” You say, pulling a red shirt away from a very poisonous plant. You pass him to Dr. McCoy, who pushes him even farther away.

“I thought you were a microbiologist?” He chuckles.

“With a minor in botany!” You smile.

You were one of the few scientists Leonard found to be cool under pressure, and the only one with real common sense. Still, despite all you knew about the dangers of every planet, you were always completely relaxed. If he was being honest, the doctor envied you (just a little bit).

“Tell, me, how did you get stuck with this motley crew?” He asks, eyes trained on the Captain, watching for any dangers.

“I’m not really sure,” you admit. “They just sent me a message one day asking if I wanted to join.”

“And you said yes.”

“Of course I did! Have you seen the labs on the ship?!”

Leonard laughs.

“I’m a nerd, I know, but this assignment is everything I’ve ever dreamed of.”

Dr. McCoy finds himself staring at you, suddenly. He doesn’t really remember how he got here. All he can think of is the fact that your heart’s not beating. That your body is mangled and bloody and despite M’Benga attempting to close the wounds, you look horrible.

It seems ironic, almost, in that instant. The woman who never worried about anything is lying mauled in a biobed. Dead.

The medical idea of death has settled in Leonard’s mind. No beating heart, no brain activity. But what he can’t wrap his head around is you being gone. You’ve  always been there. And, for a moment, he’s convinced that if he sniffles too loud, you’ll hand him a tissue. If he mentions he’s hungry, you’ll wake back up, dig through your duffel bag, and pull some food out.

But you’re not moving.

“Where’s her duffel bag?” He asks, voice as loud and cranky as ever.

Kirk hands your bag over.

Bones reaches in, and digs around until he feels something soft. A teddy bear. He places it on your chest, and lifts your arms to hug it. The soft fur stains with blood.

It’s a horrific scene, the one in front of them.

A village destroyed by a massive storm system. Houses leveled, fields of crops uprooted, and hundreds of people injured or dying or dead.

But you’re standing there, cool and calm as ever, handing out blankets. You smile gently at each villager who steps up, and ask them in one of their native languages what else they need. You direct them to different crew members who can help.

One kid walks up, so young you have to crouch to be eye-level with them. He’s alone. And he looks so terrified, so empty, that you immediately wrap him in a hug. He clings on for dear life.

When he finally let’s go, you begin to explain to him that he needs to see the doctor. He shakes his head so hard you’re afraid his neck will snap. You say some more words in his language, and reach into your duffel bag.

You pull out a teddy bear. The boy smiles, ever so slightly, and immediately gives it a tight hug.

You speak encouragement at him, something about bravery, and the little boy makes his way over to the medical tent with his head held high.

All this Leonard watches. You look at him. He looks at you. And for a while, an unspoken respect passes between the two of you.

He asks you later why you had the teddy bear.

“I always have one on me,” you smile sadly. “You never know when you might need one.”

The ship docks at Command, and the usual celebratory revelries aren’t being heard. The crew is somber.

Your body, encased in a beautiful casket, is loaded onto a small carrier vehicle. Jim, Leonard, and Spock follow it as it weaves its way through the halls.

Your parents are there, and the funeral is quick. No one can really find the strength to say what they want to. No one can choke through their tears long enough to tell your story.

Bones is the last to leave. He watches your casket for hours, almost as if he’s waiting for you to spring out and laugh and kiss him, promising it’ll never happen again, promising you’ll never leave him…

He smiles. A memory-

The town of traders on this new small planet offered the Enterprise crew a place to stay overnight, and Kirk had agreed.

Their houses stood on stilts overlooking an ocean, and there were beautiful torches that burnt blue everywhere to light the paths. Bird-like creatures swooped through the town, twittering and squeaking.

You’re watching them silently through a window, a soft smile on your face. Leonard is sitting next to you on the bed, kissing your shoulder.

Two of the bird things get into a fight, and screeching is heard. Feathers fly.

You laugh, loud and unapologetic, as they tussle. Leonard laughs too. He’s smiling at you as you watch them, so completely wrapped up in how beautiful you are.

You fall back onto the bed, hair flying everywhere. You’re still giggling.

You look at your fiancé, enjoying watching him watch you. You feel comfortable. The house is warm and the blue firelight traces his face. The face of your love.

Leonard is wondering how on earth he landed you. How he convinced you to love him. But he truly has no idea. You’re lying there, eyes locked with his, gazing with so much love he feels he’s going to burst.

You lying there like that, hair spread out on the bed, a lazy smile on your face, eyes sparkling with the reflection of torches… he locks that picture in his mind.

And Leonard thinks that he’ll always remember you this way.

#reader insert #star trek reader insert #star trek #Star trek reboots #star trek fanfiction #star trek headcanon #bones x reader #bones imagine #leonard mccoy #leonard mccoy x reader #leonard mccoy imagine #masterlist

[hearts-hunger]

what kinds of things are people saying about danny??? :( I don't have twitter but... he seems like such a nice boy :(

so, ok, preface. i don't know the whole deal, but apparently a number of years ago there were some questionable tweets that danny liked that didn't sit right with people. to my knowledge, he was a LITERAL TEENAGER when this stuff was going on, and has since apologized for it.

but twitter stans have taken it upon themselves to drag this stuff back up and now either 1) act like he's not even in the band, or 2) are absolutely hateful to him. they call him names, like "ooga booga" and "drumkit"; they crop him out of pictures; they comment things like "nobody wants this" under gvf official posts about danny. i'm sure there's more, but i don't want to know what it is. they're also just generally unkind and gatekeep-y towards anyone not in their little twitter clique.

the funniest (or saddest) part of it is that they all have bios like "treat people with kindness" or "where there is not love we must provide it" and call themselves part of the peaceful army. they also worship the ground the kiszka boys walk on despite the questionable tweets/social media posts that they've made, and despite the fact that they're best friends with a someone who's apparently a terrible horrible racist. one would think that if danny's bad enough to be cancelled, then the boys who love him and support him are just as bad. right? well, that would require a modicum of logic and critical thinking, and i just don't think they're bothered with that sort of thing. my personal opinion is that they don't like him because he's not a kiszka, and they're just coming up with reasons to hate him. if they were really concerned about holding danny accountable, they'd be just as concerned about holding sam, jake, and josh accountable too. but they're not, which leads me to believe that they just plain don't like danny.

anyways, sorry to give you a whole essay, nonnie. this is just my two cents on the matter. i love all four boys and i think they really do try to live out their message of peace, unity, and love. they're young and they have a huge platform - they're going to make mistakes, and those mistakes are going to be way more public than any mistakes average people make. i'd like to ask these stans if they think every post they've ever made and every sentence they've ever said would stand up to intense public scrutiny. but, to make a long story short, i believe the boys are learning and growing and figuring out how to be good, kind humans just like the rest of us, and i try to extend grace wherever i can.

#i don't have twitter now either because it was just so horrible and frustrating to see the way gvf stans were acting #i think tiktok is a pretty strong community of kind people - at least the side of gvf tiktok i'm on seems to be #and of course most everybody on here is lovely <3 #maddie talks to friends! #greta van fleet #gvf

[esmorothfallen-a]

Color Finally Explains Why She’s Been Inactive, The Masterpost (and why she’s probably gonna continue to be inactive oops)

//Oh boy. Hi guys, it’s been a bit. I know I kind of vanished off the face of the earth without any prior warning whatsoever, and I’m really sorry about that. Those of you who know me well are probably thinking ‘oh boy Color’s switched main fandoms’ again and... yes? But also no? It’s a little more complicated than that.

Also! In case you’re concerned, no, nothing’s wrong with me. I’m fine! This time it actually has nothing to do with real life stuff at all. So don’t worry about that.

With that being said, details are under the cut. ‘Cause it’s long.

There’s actually several reasons why I’ve been inactive, some of which are specifically tied to this blog, and some of which aren’t. So I’ll just kind of. Go over all of them below. In chronological order of when these problems started cropping up.

#1: Most of y’all are oblivious to this because I’m the dummy who decided to be active on Twitter, but there was a huge blow up in the Infinity Train fandom on there shortly after the art gallery exhibition. I don’t really want to discuss it here, but it was bad, and it kind of killed my drive for participating in the fandom in general.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love Infinity Train. This isn’t actually a case of a full main fandom switch in which I’ve dropped my previous main fandom entirely (which I’ll explain more later) but my motivation to create things for it, especially when it comes to writing (my writing motivation is very fickle anyway and is easily affected by things like this) kind of went out the window.

You’d think that problem would’ve resolved eventually, but it kind of hasn’t? The fandom’s... died, a little bit, since that incident. And with it my hope for getting anymore of Infinity Train went out the window. So... my motivation never really came back.

As a sidenote to this one, the Infinity Train RPC also kind of disappeared off the face of the earth shortly before this happened, and I was already struggling with that because while I do love crossovers, it’s always easier to maintain a blog when I have other canons to bounce off of as well.

#2: I’m gonna be completely honest. Tumblr roleplay has been stressing me out lately. My motivation to write long-form roleplay replies has slowly been trickling out the window for a little bit now, maybe because I’ve been writing the same muse for so long, and it’s made it hard for me to reply quickly except for certain threads that I still had really high muse for.

And that was making me really anxious because I felt bad that I was taking so long to reply to everything else. I also felt like I was dropping too many threads, that people were gonna start getting annoyed with me for all the draft purges I inevitably ended up having to do.

On top of that, I’m also horrible at plotting. There’s no sugarcoating that. Unless you come to me with an idea first, or I had a more general idea beforehand, it’s not gonna work. Which is a problem, because Tumblr roleplay honestly works better with some kind of plot outline.

So, where have I been since I’ve been gone? ‘Cause I haven’t stopped roleplaying. Well, the first answer is Discord. Some similar problems can be encountered there, but like... I’m less anxious about it because the people I write with on Discord are close friends who are used to me being slow, and used to us not always being able to finish roleplays.

The second answer is a little more out there. I’ve been roleplaying on Roblox again. Specifically on a game called Revamp Project, which surprisingly has a lot of decent roleplayers! This is more short-form roleplay because the Roblox chat has a character limit, plus it has a visual aspect which has always been something I liked about roleplaying on Roblox. The community I’ve gotten involved in on Revamp Project is actually really nice, and it is still a form of literate RP, it’s just usually no more than a paragraph per-post and it involves a LOT more improv because you never know who you’re gonna run into.

And tbh, I think that’s the kind of roleplay I prefer.

#3: And here’s the one y’all were expecting! I’ve been bouncing around hyperfixations again! But not quite in the same way as usual. So, like, the thing with Infinity Train happened. THEN, the announcement was made that one of my favorite RPG horror games, and one of my previous main fandoms, is getting a remake. Obviously I then had to replay said game, which resulted in me falling headfirst back into that fandom!

HOWEVER, surprisingly, I did not switch fully. I ended up juggling it with Infinity Train. Which was really nice tbh.

And then Deltarune chapter 2 happened. And I loved it. It didn’t become a main hyperfixation immediately because I didn’t think I had gotten attached to any of the characters in quite the way that makes me switch (keywords being “I didn’t think”), but I started consuming a lot more content for it, and it wormed it’s way up to being at the top of my secondary fandoms.

AND THEN I DISCOVERED THE SNOWGRAVE ROUTE. And all of a sudden I realized that whoops! I might be a little bit attached to Noelle, actually! And also Berdly slightly don’t @ me. SO. Funny story. I’ve actually been writing post-Snowgrave Noelle a whole bunch on Discord and Roblox lately.

But the thing is, I’m still more or less juggling three fandoms. Deltarune has most of my attention at the moment, but I guarantee you if I was to replay Ib again, or rewatch a season of Infinity Train, I’d be right back down those rabbit holes. And considering my issues with Tumblr RP in general, the fact that I’m honestly not confident enough to join the Deltarune RPC, and my inability to juggle blogs very well... my current situation just isn’t working with being active on here atm.

And, that’s pretty much it! Thank you if you actually read all of that. I know it’s a lot, but I felt like it needed to be said. I can’t swear that I’ll come back, but I also can’t swear that I won’t.

As always, if any of my mutuals want to keep in touch with me, you can add me on Discord!! I’m CONSTANTLY SWITCHING FANDOMS™#0154 (yes, in all caps, some of my friends (jokingly) peer pressured me into matching with them HKHDJHGF) and yes Simon is still my icon on there. I still love him, don’t worry.

#ooc | blog related #OOC | important #//posts this and runs for life #//OH ALSO #//I HAVEN'T BEEN POSTING BUT I'VE ACTUALLY STILL BEEN HERE HAJSKJDDJK #//i'm always lurking on the dash

[j-reau]

a hiatus or something

I didn’t want to post this. I told myself to give it until morning and sleep but I’ve been laying here for over an hour and I can’t sleep and I know I’m not going to sleep until I get it out. And I decided I’m not going to do the pretend things don’t bother us mentality that tumblr likes, the don’t show emotions on the dashboard, don’t let people know you’re hurt or angry out of fear it’ll be seen as ~drama or whatever thing stop me from just saying how I feel. Because I feel pretty shitty? I’ve been feeling shitty for a few days now. Maybe more. Last week I told myself that the drama that had randomly cropped up was just too much and I wasn’t going to let tumblr be something that made me cry or panic or kept me up at night over bullshit like arguing with someone over things that happened years ago. So I set my focus on my friends, on my dashboard, on reminding myself why I love RP and why I’ve been in it for this many years, for so long, with all of these people. Those Valentines I posted were part of that project for me. It was a reminder, for myself and my dash about all of the human connection that happens here, all the people we meet, all the little pieces of each other we take on and take with us, all the ships, all the conversations, however brief.  From the people we just see on our dash to the ones we talk to about all our fears and insecurities. And how all of it matters. 

I know how much we all love to say calm down gregg, it’s tumblr RP. I know how we all loathe this hellsite when we’re being our worst. I know how we all talk about how we’re too old for this now or we’re tired. We’re just here to write. I’m just here to write. I love writing. But what brings us all back time and time again, what keeps us here is the fact that it’s not just tumblr RP. It’s a community. Whether you have a real life that keeps you busy or your whole life is here, whether you have plenty of friends offline or all your closes people live on discord, we’re all people. And we all take this with us. We make friendships and we talk to each other. We open ourselves up to the constant trust and fear of interaction, of  plotting, of who is going to reach out or send the meme. We build friendships based on that, we care for each other, we see each other’s bad days on the dash, and great days and inspiration. And it means something. It may just be tumblr RP, but it matters to us. Because of the people here, because we give a fuck about each other. Or at least I’ve always liked to hope we do. I have friends on this website I’ve had for ten years, some just for 3, and others just a few months. It always floors me how we can always come back to it, how we stick with each other or don’t, how we see the good and the bad and the ugly. 

So to get on with it, I wrote those Valentines.  I hit refresh on my blog and put the weird random drama in the past and moved forward. I made this blog for JJ only about 3 months ago. I don’t know how I got 500 followers in that short time but I did. And it’s. been the wildest experience I can possibly explain, having that happen so quickly, finding so many people out in the RPC that I hadn’t before on my other blogs. I felt fucking good. I was excited. Not just to write a character I had wanted to and loved for years but to find so many people who I vibed with. I remember writing a post about a month in and being so fucking ... floored. By how much I loved you all, by how amazing it was to be received like that still, to find people my age and who wrote things I liked and loved their female characters. I fucking love JJ. I LOVE THE SHIT out of my partners on this blog, even the new people I’m still itching to write with. And yet, I did that little refresh, posted my valentines , got ready to go and felt .... sad. 

I tried to explain it. I tried to tell myself it was a bad mood. I hoped maybe it was medication. But I couldn’t shake the weird funk. And everywhere I looked it seemed like things were .... not good. My friends taking breaks, people feeling sad too, relationships splitting, people I liked and respected separating themselves. Tonight, one of my closest friends I’ve made on this blog blocked me. Someone I adored and trusted and absolutely loved to write with. Tumblr says we’re not supposed to care. That we’re supposed to let people draw their lines in the sand and take their leave and maybe we are. Maybe it’s important to let people make their choices. But I also think it’s important as fuck to talk to your friends, to mean what you say when you tell someone they’re important to you. I think it’s important that we remember on the other side of every blog and discord user is a person. Who has bad days and bad feelings and cries and feels insecure and tells themselves it’s just tumblr RP even when they know somehow it feels heavier when it’s bad. This was a friend I had talked to at length about all of those exact things, about how personal the community can feel sometimes, about feeling replaceable or invisible, even for the toughest most confident most take no shit people. I’ve always considered myself a pretty tough, confident, take no shit person. I think anyone who has known me for as many years as I’ve been around has seen that first hand. I don’t like how sad I’ve felt lately. I don’t like the insecurity that’s making me want to know why things feel way or why people vanish without so much as an explanation. I had to block a mutual last week I saw making fun of me on their twitter. A mutual. Someone who chose to follow me and on a public place where my other friends could see it made fun of what I posted. And I just don’t know what we’re doing anymore. It didn’t bother me. I don’t have hurt feelings over it. That’s the kind of stuff I definitely know I’m confident about. But .... it did really fucking floor me. Because here we are, on a sight where users talk about positivity and not sending anon hate, and we can treat each other like that. 

I’ve been sitting up in bed for hours trying to figure out what to say or what to do. That’s what I do I guess. I try to figure out what to do, how we fix it, like somehow there’s some unified we and some responsibility to make things better. A lot of you have only known me for a few months so this probably sounds all kinds of nuts. And you’re probably going JJ you’ve been an emotional mess since the moment we met you. Because I feel like that’s how it’s been for the last few months. But that’s not how it’s always been for me. That’s not who I am. So for now I guess I’m just trying to figure out what I do. Instead of sitting here and spinning and trying to figure out how we as a community fix these gaping holes and the way we talk about each other like we’re disposable and treat each other like names on a list instead of people. 

For now, I think what I do is take a little break. It’s the very thing I don’t want to do. Because it feels like quitting and it feels like being scared away. So I feel the need to promise whoever has read all of this and myself that that’s not what it is. Maybe I’ll be back in two days, maybe two weeks, who knows. But I need a break. From whatever this feeling is that seems to have come over things lately. I’ve loved these few months on this blog so much. And maybe that’s half the problem. Maybe I got spoiled and this is the come down. Maybe I’m just an idiot who thinks what we all want on this website is to find people and love each other and write together. I never knew that me -- the person often accused of being aloof and feelingsless and distant would somehow turn into the emotional bitch on this website but here we are I guess. I just don’t know how to navigate this anymore. I don’t know how to put my heart into relationships and friendships that can just be switched off like we can just stop caring about people. I don’t know how to ignore people who say horrible things and do horrible things to each other just because we don’t want to see it on our dashes. I don't know how to give enough of everything to everyone so that every single one of my mutuals and partners knows they’re valuable to me. I don’t know what I hope to accomplish. I don’t know when I got to be so much of a raw, frayed edge on tumblr dot com but that’s how I feel. And I hope in a few days or sometime soon I’ll have an answer or at least get my hard shell back.

I want to keep writing. I want to keep talking to you guys. I don’t want to lose anyone. I truly mean what I say when I say you’re all important to me. I plan to still be around on discord. I’ll write on discord if anyone wants to keep writing. If we aren’t discord friends yet and you want to be, send a message. I plan to come back. I don’t want to abandon anything. I’m so deeply fucking sorry for this rant, for all the overflow of feelings lately, for anyone that’s had to listen to them, for putting them on your dashes, for fucking all of it. Please be good to each other. Please talk to each other. Please remember that if we’ve crossed paths at any point on this blog, I value you. I value all of your friendships, your writing, your shitposts, your dash commentary, your tiktoks you dump at me on discord. I love you. Every last fucking one of you. 

#💛✌🏼💛✌🏼💛✌🏼💛✌🏼💛✌🏼✌🏼✌🏼💛 #i am dead fucking serious please feel free to stay in touch i just #need my dash closed for a while #message me if you want my discord

[desidarling123]

FATWS Episode 4: A Definitive* Rank Ordering of Most Interesting Character Arcs, from Yours Truly

(*And by definitive I mean completely subjective, but yanno.)

IF YOU HAVEN'T FIGURED IT OUT BY NOW: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR FATWS. SCROLL AWAY NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT EM.

Now let's get into it:

1. John Walker

Let me start by saying -- the near-universal John Walker hate from fandom has always been largely undeserved, and that's a hill I'll die on. It comes out of, I think, a visceral sort of need to slot him into an easily understood black-or-white binary when, truthfully, he is neither, and I think this episode was the BEST example of that. The sheer range he exhibits in such a short time -- a handful of character moments and action sequences in the larger fifty minute episode -- serve to humanize him in a way that's messy and intense and very, very real.

Because MAN. Whether you were already sympathetic to John's plight or not, the death of his partner, Lemar Hoskins, is viscerally disturbing. There's no other way to put it. FATWS has not shied away from some pretty crazy onscreen kills, but this one was arguably the worst in how brutally mundane it was. Lemar was in the wrong place at the wrong time -- a man fighting amongst a whole room of super soldiers. He never stood a chance -- and yet, he still jumped in harm's way to save his best friend, a man in whom he saw indisputable goodness, even when the man could not see it himself. There's an obvious Steve/Bucky parallel here, but with a much darker and more realistic twist -- not all of us, after all, can be lucky enough to receive super strength that could save our lives. Lemar was always a regular mortal -- and for that transgression, he pays the ultimate price.

And then. What happens after. Oh. My. God. I felt Walker's rage and hopelessness through the screen. The death of that Flag Smasher -- at the hands of Captain America, no less, a man he'd admitted to admiring as a child not ten minutes earlier -- was brilliantly executed.

With the final shot of the townspeople recording the brutal murder it becomes overwhelmingly clear -- we are witnessing the tragic fall of a man who was, for all his previous missteps, trying to be a hero. But John's moral compass just died a meaningless, horrible death -- and without him by his side, Walker has become a man unhinged.

2. Bucky Barnes and Ayo

I debated putting this one at number two because I'd argue there were some weird elements to the writing choices made (more on that in a sec), but, nevertheless. Bucky and Ayo get slot #2.

That flashback to Wakanda got me excited, but I didn't expect my heart to get shattered almost right away. Oh. My. God. His interactions with Ayo BROKE ME. There's so much nuance in a scene that’s incredibly well-acted by both Sebastian and Florence — you see both of them in a moment that is incredibly pivotal for the former’s character, and we see the latter reacting with sympathy, strength, and enormous grace. I had expected a scene like this to be with Shuri (given that we last saw her with Bucky in the post credits of Black Panther) but, given the context of what was being performed (a final test of the trigger words) having Ayo there made a lot of sense. She could take him down if need be — but as the scene so wonderfully shows, thankfully, she doesn’t have to. Instead, she’s there to let him know that for the first time in almost a century, he’s free again.

Now, let’s get into some of the unevenness. I had hoped, at the end of the last episode, that Bucky had at least informed the Dora Milaje of his liaison with Zemo — that, perhaps, it had been Bucky’s intent to hand him over all along. Alas, that was not the case — Bucky, it seems, had broken Zemo out with little thought to — or perhaps simply silent acceptance of — the consequences that would come with it.

This is the part, again, where the writing felt a bit weak. We know from the opening shots of the episode that Bucky cares enormously for Ayo — they’re not simply soldiers in arms, but they’ve shared a moment of immense vulnerability together. We ALSO know that he cares enormously for T’Challa, for Shuri, and for Wakanda as a country (see Infinity War, where he says “I love this place” in reference to his new home).

So that begs the question — why? Why did he betray them in that way, besides sheer desperation for a lead? And it’s not one, I’d argue, that we are given a satisfying answer to. Bucky has been reckless to an alarming degree in the last few episodes, but not informing Wakanda of his intention to liaise with the man who killed their king feels like a MAJOR tactical oversight. Is he willing to burn everything down to win this battle against the Flag Smashers? Are these his self destructive tendencies kicking in? OR, is he just truly so blinded by his emotions surrounding his past that he’s willing to throw away what could very well be his future? Only time will tell. But I hope he’ll do right by Ayo and Wakanda, as he clearly has a LOT to make up for.

3. Baron Helmut Zemo

God. I love Zemo’s psychotic, problematic ass. Say what you want, but the man is the most efficient of them all and he isn't a super soldier or an Avenger. Over and over, he shows that he's truly smarter than them and always has been.

He doesn't get personal. He doesn’t get distracted. He knows exactly what his goal is, and he executes on it. Mans didn’t hesitate to unload several bullets into Karli, and as soon as he figured out what the vials were, he destroyed all except one. Like I said, the most efficient person on the team. Has arguably done more to forward the cause against the Flag Smashers/continued existence of super soldiers than anyone else and it’s only been a few days. Between that, his god-awful dancing skills and him shooting the eugenicist scientist without so much as a blink of an eye, I think he's a man after my own heart. I’m almost sad to see him get what’s coming for him come next episode. (Because y’all, he did still kill King T’Chaka, and there’s no way the Dora leave here without taking him out on a silver platter and an apple stuffed in his mouth). But again, let’s see how that pans out.

4. Sam Wilson

WHAT are the writers doing to Sam, I swear to God? We didn't get too much introspection into where his head's at during this episode, and when we did the treatment felt uneven at best. I think, in trying to have him create a rapport with Karli, the writers have created some areas of commonality that didn’t always translate as they’d like. It was also weird to see Sam swinging from the well-earned cynicism of the previous two episodes to the sort of wide-eyed optimism Steve used to portray. Perhaps that was simply to try and show Karli an alternative, but as the episode showed, she clearly wasn't buying (though, in Sam’s defense, he came pretty close).

Something about Sam’s characterization in this episode didn’t really do it for me — I would argue episode one and two were both stronger in that regard. Nevertheless, I’m hopeful that they’ll correct it in the next one.

5. Karli Morgenthau

Her treatment is arguably the worst of them all. She is young, yeah, but she oscillates at an alarming rate between spouting class discourse that, by this episode, feels largely derivative (like someone scrolled on Twitter and put a bunch of keywords together in hopes of evoking an emotional audience response) and homicidal tendencies that show a brutal yet fundamentally messy underpinning. Unlike Zemo, she is still too easily confounded, and that will come to bite her in the ass sooner rather than later. (See: The Power Broker)

Perhaps I'm meant to be rooting for her on some degree but I really can't -- she's cruel and sloppy, which I cannot forgive.

Oh, and she killed Lemar Hoskins and threatened Sarah Wilson. Yikes.

Overall Episode Takeaway: A lot of shocking moments and great acting beats for everyone involved (arguably some of the best of the series thus far), but the weakness of the writing does crop up in parts. Whether they'll be corrected for going forward is to be determined...

UP NEXT: Meta pieces for Sam, Bucky, John, and Zemo all in the works!

#fatws #tfatws #sam wilson #bucky barnes #john walker #fatws spoilers #tfatws spoilers #tfatws meta #karli morgenthau

[awesamponk-updates]

Sam replied to Tim the Tat Man on twitter!

[Image ID:

A cropped screenshot of a tweet by timthetatman @/timthetatman with a reply by awesamdude @/theawesamdude.

Tim’s tweet reads “is naruto better than attack on titan?” Attached is a video of Tim streaming. A 250 dollar donation comes in and he says “Okay, 250 from Austin”. He reads the donation aloud, which reads “Hey Tim, this is 250 dollars just to tell you that Naruto is a S+ tier over Attack on Titan”. Tim then responds “Now listen. I’m gonna make this as simple as I can, alright? Listen: Naruto is mid.” The video then transitions to an edited version of the 20th century fox logo, which reads “No One Cares” with a crappy flute version of the usual theme playing.

Sam’s reply reads “Honestly, horrible take. Please tell me who you think is going to win the Super Bowl so I know who will lose.”

End ID]

#awesamdude #mcyt #timthetatman #image id #no id in alt text #transcript available

[aci100]

Fire and Ice

Fifth-year AU: A rebellious streak burns inside Harry as Umbridge descends on Hogwarts. Its raging flames burn unchecked until it is met by another, opposing force of equal strength. Harry/Daphne Winter One-Shot

https://archiveofourown.org/works/35863489

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14008865/1/Fire-and-Ice

Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction based on the Harry Potter universe. All recognizable characters, plots, and settings are the exclusive property of J.K Rowling. I make no claim to ownership.

Acknowledgements: Thank you to my editor Athena Hope, as well as my other betas 3CP, Fezzik, Luq707, Raven, Regress, and Yoshi89 for their incredible work on this story.

Self-Promotion: I have a Discord server where you can chat and read all of my chapters early. If you would like to join, simply copy the link on my profile. You can do likewise to follow the ACI100 Twitter account — @ACI_100 — for live updates and to check out my official website.

If you would like to get my chapters even earlier than Discord and receive other, exclusive benefits whilst generously supporting me at the same time, I have a P*T*E*N page. My top-tier patrons got this one-shot back in September and are entitled to these kinds of stories four times a year. The link to that platform can also be found on my profile.

Dedication: This story is dedicated to my first ever Deity-level patron, ShadowWolf, as well as my first ever Primordial-level patron, Lillian. It is because of support like that which you two have given me that I hope to one day make writing a profitable full-time career. I will never be able to repay such generosity, but I hope you enjoy this one-shot nevertheless.

Fire and Ice

By ACI100

September 27, 1995

The Second Floor, Hogwarts

6:21 PM

Harry strode onto the first landing of the marble staircase with light and purposeful footsteps. The din of conversation rising from the Great Hall almost directly below him wafted up like thick, billowing steam. Its sound was as tempting as the scent of freshly baked bread with the butter still melting, but he did not relent. The longer the meal stretched on downstairs, the more convenient it was for Harry. So long as the toad-faced tyrant stayed seated at the staff table, his plan should go off without a hitch.

The noise grew fainter as he moved further away from the staircase and took turn after turn. The corridors really were a maze. Many of the newest crop of first years must still be struggling with them, just like Harry remembered doing himself four years earlier. The twisting halls seemed to never end and there was often very little to distinguish one ancient stone wall from another. Torch brackets hung on most of them, and the suits of armour that lined the corridors were uniform. It took a great deal of practice to know where one was at all times.

Harry had wished for the noise to fade a minute or so earlier so he could focus, but he found himself missing it now that it had. The meal could end at any moment and he would be caught unaware. There was also a certain level of comfort provided by the herd of voices. Now, he was left entirely to his own thoughts and doubts.

He had found himself both wishing for and hating the quiet as of late. The constant droning of people who wanted things from him was draining in ways he couldn’t seem to handle. Friends who wanted nothing from him had become few and far between this year. Harry was quickly realizing they were a precious commodity that he could do with more of.

He could have used one of them now. Never before had he attempted to break into a professor’s office. Not one that had defences and not alone. Of all the chaos he had stirred whilst residing in the castle, that was not among his many escapades and he began to doubt his ability to pull it off the closer he drew to the horrible room.

Harry forced himself to remember all that had happened during the summer and since arriving back at Hogwarts. Everything since Voldemort’s return had been a colossal pain in the neck. There was hardly a single second of it he could look back on fondly, and the more time that seemed to stretch on, the more and more riled up Harry became and the less he desired to wait for others to take action. He had found himself sympathizing with Sirius lately. He could scarcely imagine what it must feel like to be locked up in Grimmauld Place whilst the world descended into quiet chaos as a three-way cold war was waged from behind the scenes.

This past summer was hardly the first miserable one Harry had ever been through. It was the worst to him because of the anxiety induced by not knowing what was going on, but it was hardly the first. Awful summers had become a sort of annual tradition since his enrollment in Hogwarts. What had been less standard thus far was the school year itself.

Hogwarts had been the first and only home Harry had ever known. He had always been able to rely on the castle, even when things on Privet Drive had looked especially bleak. Despite the dangers that seemed always to loom just out of sight and lunge at Harry from areas unseen, there was no place on earth that made him happier than Hogwarts.

Until Dolores Umbridge had shown up in all her lurid glory, descending down on them like a pink demon from the depths of hell.

She had been annoyingly successful so far. Not only had she sucked the life out of Harry’s favourite subject and single-handedly ensured that half of his year would fail their upcoming OWL exams, but she had also gone to horrendous lengths to secure her position as Hogwarts’ newest and most cruel authority figure. Argus Filch suddenly seemed like the most popular kid in school next to Umbridge, the metaphorical outcast loathed by all.

Just thinking about the woman made Harry seethe. Anger bubbled in the pit of his stomach. It was red hot and so turbulent that he felt it sloshing about like restless waves surging forth with destructive vigour. It was the same anger that had risen within him that first night at Grimmauld Place; an intense, all-consuming haze that made everything else fade to the background. Everything but the stabbing prickle of pain emanating from the still-raw skin on the back of Harry’s hand. He paused his stride for a moment and lifted his arm, allowing his hand to protrude just enough from under the invisibility cloak for him to make out the swollen pink letters that had been painfully carved into his skin.

I must not tell lies.

The words echoed inside Harry’s head. It was like someone had stood inside his skull and shouted them, just to hear them thrown back. It was deafening and it crushed all of Harry’s lingering doubts in a single heartbeat.

When the door of Umbridge’s office loomed up ahead, his vice-like grip tightened still on his wand and he marched forward with renewed purpose.

October 1, 1995

The Great Hall

8:33 AM

NEWLY-APPOINTED HOGWARTS HIGH INQUISITOR INTRODUCES HER INQUISITORIAL SQUAD

By Barnabus Cuffe

“This rag can’t be serious,” Ron muttered after scanning the newspaper Hermione had passed him and Harry.

The school had been in quite the frenzy since the news had leaked that Umbridge had returned one night to find her office in complete disarray and many of her possessions damaged beyond repair. Harry had listened to all of it with a triumphant glee.

Umbridge had been in a storming mood ever since and she had made his most recent Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson a living hell. It was no secret who the High Inquisitor thought was responsible for the chaos, but there was no possible way for her to prove it. Not that she cared about proof or ethics. Harry had been issued more detentions on the pretence of disrespect shown during the last lesson, but he hardly cared.

Yet this had not been part of his plans. A group of select students made up almost entirely of Slytherins that would serve as Umbridge’s personal enforcement squad. The article made it sound like they would have all the powers assigned to prefects and that they would serve not the school, but Umbridge and Umbridge alone.

It was horrid. Harry could see that many of the staff agreed with him. Professor Flitwick was considerably less energetic than normal and Professor McGonagall looked as though she had bitten into something foul. Dumbledore looked as unperturbed as ever, but Harry was sure even he was beginning to grow uneasy. If Umbridge was allowed to continue her reign of terror unchecked, there was no telling how dark and dreary the halls of Hogwarts could become.

Harry glanced from the newspaper, to his friends, and back again. “Fine. I’m in.”

Ron’s head jerked up. “You’re… what?”

“I’m in. I’ll do it; I’ll teach you lot Defence, along with whoever else wants in.”

Ron looked like he had been run over by the flying Ford Anglia his father had once owned, but Hermione’s beaming smile stretched so wide it looked fit to fall from her face.

October 7, 1995

The Slytherin Common Room

7:44 PM

Daphne’s head lulled as the crackling of the fire played like a soft and soothing harmony. Her eyelids flickered in unison with the fire as she fought to stay awake. It had been a long and tiresome month. Many of the students had wondered after the first week or two whether the workload would relent. Some thought the teachers were just giving them a brief taste of what they were up against this spring, but those optimists had been disproven in short and forceful order. The work just didn’t stop coming; it seemed to slam against all of them like how the black water outside sloshed against the common room’s porthole over and over again.

That wasn’t helping her stay awake, either. Once the sun set, all light beneath the Black Lake’s surface vanished and their common room was plunged into complete and total darkness sans the fire, torches, and lanterns casting ghostly green light about the room.

She realized she had fallen asleep some time later when she heard the sound of stone grinding against stone. It was quiet and subtle, but it was there any time their common room opened to admit one of them inside. This time it was her sister. Her skin looked unnaturally pale in the light of the room and her brown hair did not give off the same sense of warmth it did in most lighting.

Astoria’s appearance mattered naught; what mattered was that her arrival had jolted Daphne awake. Tracey was doing her homework beside Daphne and she must have noticed her friend’s movement, for she looked up and between the Greengrass sisters with a questioning stare.

“Don’t worry about it, Tracey,” said Daphne. “This isn’t worth slowing down your essay.”

Astoria was watching her closely. Daphne could tell this had come as no surprise to her. It really shouldn’t have, but her sister would do well to wear fewer of her emotions on her sleeve. Daphne was hardly impassive, but she liked to think she didn’t shout ‘I am guilty and proud of it’ for the world to hear whenever she broke some sort of rule.

The two of them departed the main room and trudged through one of the stone tunnels that sloped still further down into the bowels of the castle and led to their dormitories.

Daphne’s was empty for now, so she led Astoria inside and rounded on her almost at once. “What were you thinking?”

Astoria’s chin jutted out as she looked up to meet her sister’s eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Astoria, don’t lie to me.”

“Then don’t get involved in things that aren’t your business.”

“You’re my sister—”

“Exactly! Sister, not daughter!”

Daphne felt a wave of heat roll up her body. She tried to stop it from flooding her cheeks, but judging by Astoria’s smirk, she had been unsuccessful. Was it so wrong of her to want to protect the people she loved? “Would you actually listen instead of making snarks?”

“Would you get to the point instead of lecturing me all night?”

“Oh, for the love of… fine.” Daphne was now scowling and not at all pleased about it. Astoria had a special talent for frazzling her. No one could put her in a foul temper faster than her devil of a sister. “What do you think you’re doing getting involved with Potter and his friends?”

“Learning.”

“Learning what?”

“What the toad is—” her voice was cut off when Daphne took a step forward and clamped a hand over her mouth.

“Idiot,” she hissed. “Do you not realize that most of our housemates are in the woman’s pocket?”

“There’s no one here!”

“That’s not the point! The point is that you shouldn’t say those things in the dungeons.”

“You’re as stuck up as Grandmother!”

“And you’re as reckless as your new friend, Potter!”

“I don’t even know him!”

“But you trust him to teach you?”

“Does it really matter? He can’t be worse than her. Honestly, Daphne, I’m going to fail my exams because of her. I don’t know how any of you are going to pass your OWLs.”

“Some of us put in actual effort before this year, so one bad teacher won’t ruin everything.”

“Ha! So you admit she’s a bad teacher?”

Daphne rolled her eyes so hard she thought they might fall out. “Don’t be a child. Just because I don’t go around shouting about it doesn’t mean I don’t see what’s going on.”

“And…”

Daphne glared at her. “Yes, she’s not teaching anything. I doubt anyone would deny that.”

“So, there you go. I’m making sure I pass my exams.”

“You could do that without Potter. The older students are running a tutoring program for Defence Against the Dark Arts.” Astoria shrugged and Daphne felt her temper flare. Her sister’s constant disregard for caution was going to get her in trouble; trouble Daphne feared she wouldn’t be able to save the girl from on her own. “Why do you insist on running off with Potter and his group of morons? Do you not see what’s going to happen?”

“They have a plan. They’re not stupid, whatever you think of them.”

“Well, they’re clearly not subtle. Did you see the new educational decree? She’s onto them already. It’s only a matter of time until they’re caught. I bet she’ll expel Potter once they are.”

Astoria snorted. “She can try. I doubt Dumbledore will ever let her.”

“Dumbledore might not be around forever. Not if Fudge and the ministry have their way.”

“I guess we’ll have to wait and see,” Astoria said with a shrug.

“So, what? You’re going to keep doing… whatever you’re doing — even though it’s going to lead to disaster?”

“I’ll take my chances with Potter and his gang before I end up alone in a room with Bletchley and his so they can… teach me Defence.”

Daphne winced. She wished she could tell Astoria that none of the more nauseating rumours about that crew were true, but she was far from certain. There was a reason she would not be joining that tutoring program despite Umbridge’s subject being one of her weakest.

“If this blows up, if you get caught… you know what that will mean?”

“Personally,” said Astoria as she moved for the door, “I’d rather not think about it.”

October 8, 1995

The Third Floor

8:11 PM

All had been calm and peaceful until they reached the third floor. Harry had been walking alongside Ron, the twins, and the rest of the Gryffindor team as they made their climb to their common room. One minute, they had been gushing about Ron’s incredible save that practice. So brilliant it had been, it mirrored one made not long ago by the Irish national keeper, Barry Ryan. Even by his lofty standards, it had been considered magnificent, so for Ron to do something so similar was a big deal. Especially after weeks of poor play. They all hoped this was a sign of things to come and perhaps a glimpse of a future in which Ron would match Oliver Wood’s old brilliance.

That conversation had been taking place before a group of Slytherins descended on them. Spells flew in all directions as bodies threw themselves to the side in order to avoid the haze of light. A shriek tore through the corridor seconds after the melee had begun. There had been a second’s pause to see what had happened during which Alicia Spinnet must have been hit with something vile. Her eyebrows had swelled so horribly that they now obscured most of her face. She couldn’t see a thing and was stumbling about the corridor.

The pause gave the Gryffindors time to draw their own wands. When the skirmish began anew, it returned with a vengeance that had not been present the first time.

Harry made to draw his own wand but never got the chance. Something grabbed him with a grip so tight on his wrist that he felt the tips of his fingers go numb. He tried to spin out of their grip but winced when dagger-like nails pierced his skin. Blood welled up and threatened to spill forth if he pulled away, so he allowed himself to be dragged backwards, ready to draw his wand and fight at the first available opportunity.

It turned out that Harry had been standing near a doorway, for he swiftly found himself pulled inside what appeared to be one of the castle’s many abandoned rooms. Whoever had a hold on his wrist released their grip and Harry whirled to face them, bringing his wand up to fire a spell as he did so.

“Would you really curse a sweet and innocent maiden, Potter? That wouldn’t be very chivalrous of you, would it? Dumbledore might even be disappointed.”

Harry held up his left arm. The skin where her nails had dug in had quickly swollen. There was now a ring of it that had puffed out and turned pink. “I don’t know what you call innocent, but I do know this definitely didn’t feel very ‘sweet’.”

“It would be boring if all of our taste buds worked the same way, wouldn’t it?”

Harry scowled as he straightened his shoulders and looked at his assailant for the first time. She was tall and slender, with pale skin, honey-blonde hair, and ice-blue eyes. Her pink lips had an upward curve to them that indicated she was resisting the urge to smirk.

Harry was too aware of the danger the girl posed to look away from her face. He searched for any sign of movement or impending attack. He found none. The slim nose and perfectly shaped brows betrayed her prestigious ancestry, but no sign of a threat. Harry found it hard to look away once their eyes met. Hers were bright and wide with the rush of the moment. They seemed to have their own gravity and it took a concerted effort to pull his gaze away from hers.

Harry recognized her, if vaguely. He could never remember saying so much as a word to her, but he knew her name if nothing else. Snape had praised her often enough in Potions and Hermione had mentioned her once or twice. If only she could be convinced to join the DA. Perhaps then, the Order would one day have a potioneer they could rely on without expecting a dagger in their backs at every turn.

“What the hell do you want, Greengrass?”

The girl raised a thin eyebrow. “Touchy, are we?”

“I think that describes you better than me,” Harry bit back, showing her the marks on his wrist again. He flicked his eyes away from her face and pointedly down to her hands. “Do you touch up every bloke you come across?”

“You seem awfully bothered by a couple of scratches. Between the two of us, it doesn’t exactly make your fairytale about last June seem any more believable.”

Harry ground his teeth together. Of course she was going to side with Voldemort. She was a Slytherin, a snake, the enemy. He had been foolish to hope for a second that she could believe in him.

“I guess it would be a fairytale to you, wouldn’t it? What, with your snake-faced bastard of a master back again? Have your parents already kissed the hems of his robes? Or maybe he prefers they do lip service somewhere—”

Harry’s ears rang and his head snapped back as the loud smack of Greengrass’s hand against his cheek rang through the room. “Don’t you dare talk about my family!”

Harry raised his hand and felt the cheek she had slapped a second earlier. It felt hot to the touch and he suspected it too would swell up before the night was at its end. He hadn’t even noticed her step forward before her hand had left yet another impression on him. She had yet to step back. If Harry leant forward even an inch, their bodies would be in contact and perfectly aligned, curve fitting against curve like a human puzzle made only from two pieces.

Daphne’s chest was heaving up and down from her angered breathing and her mouth was slightly parted and turned downward with her disdain. She had slapped him and was still acting as righteous as any Gryffindor could ever hope.

“Then make your point and be quick about it,” Harry spat at her.

“If you hurt my sister or drag her down with the rest of you idiots, you’ll have worse to deal with than scrapes and bruises.”

“Your… sister?” Harry’s rage broke all at once. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but that had not been it. Something about Umbridge, perhaps. Greengrass was a part of her Inquisitorial Squad, after all.

This had apparently been the wrong thing to say. A reddish-pink tinge had taken refuge in Greengrass’s cheeks and she suddenly looked ready to slap him again. “Yes, Potter, my sister. Glad to know how little you care about the students you’re teaching.”

Harry opened his mouth to snap back, but he closed it just as quickly. If Greengrass was a member of Umbridge’s band of sycophants and she knew about the DA, that meant that others might, too. Perhaps the Top Toad herself knew more than even her most recent educational decree indicated.

“I don’t—”

“Oh, can it. I’m off-duty and don’t plan to sell you out to Umbridge. It wouldn’t matter if I did. Your little group isn’t going anywhere unless you’re stupid enough to let someone prove that it exists. Not as long as Dumbledore is Headmaster.”

“Then what are you after?”

“I told you that already. Merlin, you’re dense. My sister. She was stupid enough to join up with you. I want your word that you won’t let her get into any trouble.”

“My… word?”

“Yes. I’d offer to use smaller words, but I think I might have a hard time coming up with many shorter than four letters.”

“You’ve made it pretty clear you don’t trust me,” said Harry. “What good is my word to you?”

Greengrass’s expression shifted to something more stoic. “You’re a lot of things. I think you’re an idiot, but I don’t think you’re as big a dick as Malfoy says you are. A bit too attention-seeking for my tastes, but I do think you care about other people — even if you don’t remember all of their names.”

Now, it was Harry’s turn to blush. “Look, there were dozens of people there. I couldn’t have—”

“I get it,” sighed Greengrass. “That part… might have been a touch harsh. I do actually believe you care. I don’t see why you’d have started this group if you didn’t; it’s not like you’re starving for attention as of late.”

“Then why come after me so hard?”

“I just… you’re not smart enough to make sure this whole thing doesn’t go up in smoke. Neither is Granger, no matter what you think. I don’t want my sister caught up in your mess. Your word, Potter. Your word that you’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“You just said I’m not smart enough to keep myself and the group out of trouble. What makes you think I can keep your sister out of Umbridge’s line of fire?”

“That’s not what I said. Your group will go up in smoke, but you’ll get away — you always do.” She was looking at him differently now. There was a probing look about her stare. It was strangely intense, almost as though her eyes were trying to swallow him whole. It was like she was trying to pull answers out from under his skin just by looking at him. “If there’s one thing I’ve always respected about you, it’s your knack for getting out of impossible situations.”

Harry understood her meaning. “I’ll make you a deal, Greengrass.” She tilted her head to the side and did not break eye contact with him the whole time. “I’ll keep your sister out of trouble if you’ll hold off on slapping me in the face next time we run into each other.”

The last thing Harry expected to happen took place then. Greengrass actually smiled at him. It was a strange sight after how furious she had been glowering a moment earlier.

Harry preferred her smile; it suited her well. “I’ll hold you to that,” she vowed. “I won’t make any promises about what will happen if you don’t hold up your end of the bargain.”

“Between the two of us,” said Harry as he moved towards the door, “I’m going to really hope we don’t need to worry about that possibility.”

The next night, in the Room of Requirement…

There was something incredibly fulfilling about watching the members of Dumbledore’s Army practicing the Disarming and Shield Charms. Simple as Zacharias Smith might have made them out to be, a great number of the students had struggled at the beginning. Many of them had gotten the hang of at least one of them over the course of the lesson. Even Neville was casting Expelliarmus perfectly more often than not, though his aim was more worrisome for people nearby than it was for its target.

The expressions on many faces as they left the room made Harry smile. This was truly what learning was all about. Umbridge, Slinkhard, and that damn book could go burn in whatever hell awaited them. This was how it ought to be done; with students learning magic, forging friendships, and enjoying themselves all the while. Ron and Hermione appeared to agree with him if the ear-to-ear grins they wore were any indication. It really was a euphoric feeling. Not unlike winning a heated Quidditch match in a lot of ways. The feeling was so uplifting it had even purged him of the dread he felt at Umbridge’s inevitable retaliation. He had skipped detention with her tonight in order to host the DA’s first official meeting.

Somebody cleared their throat from nearby. The spell that glee had cast upon him did not break when he saw the girl standing before him, but it did waver as he remembered a stinging pain on his cheek and an icy-eyed glare.

“Greengrass, right?” Harry asked the girl who had probably been watching him all lesson long.

“Astoria, yeah.”

Harry could see the resemblances to Daphne, but the sisters were far from the same. Their faces were shaped in similar ways and they both had a perpetually haughty look about them. Astoria’s eyes were brown as opposed to ice-blue and her hair was of a similar colour — several shades darker than her older sister’s. She looked warmer somehow, looser and more inviting in a way her sister had certainly not seemed.

“Can I help you with anything?” asked Harry, suddenly aware of the many pairs of eyes that watched them as he wondered how much of the previous day’s events Astoria might have known. He tried not to tousle his hair or look away as he waited for her answer, for both impulses felt as pressing as the need to scratch an especially vexing itch.

Astoria too seemed aware of the watchful eyes all around them. She appeared a great deal smaller and less confident than Daphne had been the day before, but she held his gaze. “I just wondered if my sister had given you any problems.”

“We… had a discussion,” Harry admitted.

“Sorry,” Astoria muttered, suddenly blushing. “She shouldn’t have done that; I told her to stay out of it.”

“It’s fine, I get it. If I had a little sister, I’d want to make sure she was all right, too. She was just… uh… forceful.”

Astoria winced. “Yeah, she is a bit, isn’t she?” She twirled a lock of brown hair around her finger. “I hope she didn’t do anything like make threats or something.”

“She… had some choice words.” When Harry saw the flush return, he sighed. “Look, it’s all right. She’s not the first person I’ve dealt with threatening me for things I never did or haven’t done yet. And after Voldemort, your sister doesn’t scare me much.”

Astoria looked dumbstruck for a moment before she hid a giggle behind her hand. “No, I guess she wouldn’t, would she?”

“Not really, no. Don’t worry about it. I can handle myself and I can handle your sister. Just don’t make me regret letting a ‘slimy snake’ in the DA. I’d hate to have you turn against us when we crush you bunch of gits out on the pitch.”

A smile returned to the girl’s lips; a slight, thin smile that teased the coming of more. “Keep telling yourself that, Potter. Be careful out there; Daphne might not hit that hard, but I bet a bludger will.”

It was the most she had resembled her sister all lesson and Harry resisted the urge to smile at the reminder of Daphne’s flare. “From Crabbe or Goyle? It would probably hurt like hell. I’d have to ask the spot about ten feet to my left; I reckon it’s more likely to get hit than me.”

Astoria giggled once more as she shyly waved and made off for the exit. Harry watched her back as she left. It was so strange how unlike each other siblings could be.

October 10, 1995

The Entrance Hall

6:52 PM

Umbridge’s rage had been something to behold after Harry had skipped her most recent detention. He would now pay for it by spending at least one evening each week in her office writing lines until the end of the year. Harry had broken her first cursed quill the night he’d broken into her office, but she had evidently ordered another. The words on the back of his hand had already begun to heal less effectively than they had the first few detentions. Soon, he was sure they would cease disappearing altogether. Harry suspected that by the year’s end, they might well be visible from half a room away.

His lesson with the vile woman that day had been the worst yet. Gryffindor had lost more points than they had ever lost during a lesson with Snape. The pink-clad pest had been fit to explode and Harry had been told to wait outside the Great Hall once he finished his meal that evening.

That was where he stood now. Ron and Hermione had offered to wait with him, but he ushered them off ahead. If Umbridge was going to personally escort him, it would do no good for them to be in her crosshairs. She might well assign them detentions for her own sick amusement since by now, she was far beyond caring about the castle’s rules or any ethics that supposedly came with the position of a professor.

“Come with me, Potter.”

Harry snapped out of his daze as though he had suddenly been pulled from a deep and vivid dream. It was not Umbridge who stood nearby waiting, but Daphne Greengrass, tapping her foot upon the floor much like Astoria had done last night as she waited.

“Umbridge sent you, I take it?” Greengrass nodded curtly. “Figures. She would send one of her attack dogs to do the dirty work for her.”

Daphne’s expression was completely impassive. “Professor Umbridge has better things to do than to make sure students make it to detention on time.”

“Yeah, I’m sure she’s having a right old time trying to come up with new and creative ways not to teach us Defence Against the Dark Arts.”

“Come along, Potter. I also have better things to do than to make sure students make it to detention.”

“Is she doing this for everyone?” Harry asked.

“No, just you. She’s set up a rotation.”

“Aren’t I special?”

“That’s certainly one word for it.”

“I prefer spectacular, but it will do.”

“Stupid twat might suit you better. Now, follow me.”

“I think you’re getting me mixed up with your boss,” Harry said as he finally began to follow in Greengrass’s footsteps. “Maybe you can take that up with her next time you’re nose deep in her—”

“She is our teacher; get a grip and stop being a child.”

Harry shrugged, hesitated, and held up his hand right as the two of them passed by a line of flickering torches. The words stood out starkly in the torchlight, and even though she spared him but a quick glance, it was apparent by the widening of her eyes that Greengrass had spotted the results of Umbridge’s cruelty.

“Sorry, Greengrass. I must not tell lies.”

November 17, 1995

The Seventh Floor

8:41 PM

Dolores Umbridge was a lot of things. Harry listed unattractive, abrasive, annoying, and a complete and utter bitch chief amongst them. What she wasn’t, unfortunately, was stupid.

This attempt at breaking into her office had not gone as successfully as the first. Unlocking the door had obviously triggered some sort of warning sign because before he had finished trashing the place for a second time, the Inquisitorial Squad arrived in all its green and silver glory.

Harry would have liked to put on his invisibility cloak and just vanish into thin air, but that was quite difficult when being chased by a bunch of inbred, pureblood fanatics. Their spells were basic, but many were vicious and clearly carried ill intent. They just kept on coming. Harry was faster and well-practiced at these games. They had made up a large part of his existence on Privet Drive. He also had a much deeper understanding of the castle and its secret passages.

What he was not, unfortunately, was able to multiply. There were considerably more of them than there were of him, which made losing them altogether more difficult than he had anticipated. A couple of the spells actually managed to get through — a nasty Cutting Curse had opened a fair-sized gash right above his ribs; one that stung like a hundred pointed needles. He was also beginning to tire as they reached the seventh floor.

He could think of only one escape as he hurtled around a familiar bend and plunged into a corridor that was marked by an absurd tapestry of an old, bewildered-looking man trying and failing to teach a number of mountain trolls the art of ballroom dancing.

More spells flew past him, but he had put some ground between himself and the others. It had been told to him by Dobby that he needed to walk back and forth three times in front of the blank stretch of wall. The elf had never mentioned anything about sprinting both ways. He had never told Harry he couldn’t, so the Gryffindor youth supposed it was as good a time as any to test that breakthrough theory.

The door materialized on the third pass just like it always had. Its arrival came not a moment too soon, for they were well and truly on him now.

Harry’s body thudded against the door as his hand scrambled to find the knob. His momentum forced it open and he toppled inside. The last sight he saw before frantically scrambling to his feet and slamming the door closed once more was the sharp, knowing gaze of Daphne Greengrass.

November 26, 1995

The Third Floor

9:34 PM

Daphne ran a hand through her long blonde hair as she stepped out from the broom cupboard she had just been confined to. She was grateful no one was around to see her now. Her hair was a tangled mess and her robes had been jostled and were in a state of disarray. Creases showed all over and they were far from straight. Anyone who spotted her then would have been surprised by how unlike herself she appeared.

Cormac McLaggen was far from the most pleasant fellow she could have chosen for the day’s… escapades, but he was the very definition of a brainless Gryffindor. It had taken almost no effort at all to get him into a compromising position and even less to convince him to talk once he was there. He had also been the surest bet she could come up with for someone who had pissed Umbridge off enough to earn himself detention. Daphne had felt her own mood dip after three minutes of being in the boy’s presence. If he had lasted this long without detention from Umbridge, she’d have swallowed Lucius Malfoy’s famous cane.

Not only had he served detention, but he had been the second Gryffindor she had spotted with odd scarring on the back of his hand. His had been much less distinct than Potter’s and the words had been different. She hadn’t been able to decipher exactly what they were, but she quite liked to think they said something along the lines of: ‘I am a bumbling troll who should never have pretended otherwise.’

She wondered whether the fainter scars were what made it seem different now. She had felt nothing when looking at McLaggen’s; just a dull sense of dread when thinking about exactly what she had gotten herself into.

When she’d looked at Potter’s… it had been different. Something had stirred inside her. It had been massive and restless, writhing with furious displeasure when she had glimpsed the words carved into the back of the boy’s hand.

She shook herself from the thoughts and glanced at her reflection in a nearby window. She looked as out of place as expected, but that was not what she was focusing on. Her blue eyes watched the tiny silver badge she wore. From afar, its design was impossible to decipher. Up close, one could make out the faint outline of a wizard with his wand held high, surrounded by a witch, a centaur, a goblin, and a house elf. Daphne recognized the image. It was eerily similar to what was depicted by the Fountain of Magical Brethren, situated in the Ministry of Magic’s main atrium. It was about as subtle as a speeding bludger, but it sent a very clear message.

A message that Daphne had questioned in the best of times. A message that had become murkier still when she began to watch her peers falling further and further behind in Umbridge’s class. A message that became even harder to buy into the second Astoria had thrown her hat in with Potter and his friends.

But now?

How difficult was it going to be to support the message and its sender now? Now that she knew exactly what was going on behind closed doors at Hogwarts and now that she had seen what the woman was putting Potter through.

No… that last thought did not warrant consideration. It was stupid; he was stupid — just a simple-minded attention seeker draped in crimson robes. She should cease sparing the thought of him her time or energy.

Daphne could see her expression in the window. She had a way of looking emotionless and robotic when she was confused or lost in thought. It was ironic, really, for that was how she would need to act if she wished to maintain this facade.

Daphne shook her head slowly at the sounds of movement from behind her. It was coming from the broom cupboard; her cue to flee the scene of the crime had come.

December 2, 1995

The Dungeons

3:43 PM

Harry really despised Helga Hufflepuff’s taste. Of all the places she could have situated her common room and the kitchens, why in Merlin’s name had she chosen the dungeons? They were dark, dreary places often disturbed by dusty drafts and dampened by desolate air.

And, most unforgivable of all, there were Slytherins in the dungeons.

Harry had never exactly gotten along with the fourth of the school that traipsed around in green and silver, but their relationship had grown more toxic than ever since the return of Voldemort. Accusing the parents of some of the house’s more prevalent members hadn’t exactly bolstered any shreds of goodwill he may have had left within the house of cunning. Nor had pissing off Umbridge, who had treated their house with almost as much partisan favour as Snape.

This had been his first undisturbed trip down to the kitchens in quite some time. Lately, he’d found himself plagued by malicious snakes more often than not. They were almost as troublesome as the Inquisitorial Squad. It was no surprise. Tensions between the two houses had been at an all-time high since the violent conclusion to their most recent clash out on the Quidditch pitch. Green and silver-clad figures had been making his life hell ever since. Intruding upon their domain in the dungeons was really just asking for trouble.

This afternoon had been different. Harry had made it all the way into the kitchens without drama and was on his way out with his pockets full of sweets when he noticed something was off. There was shouting from not far away. Several different voices appeared to be arguing with one another.

Harry ought to have used the distraction and fled the dungeons right then and there. Most students would gladly have seized the opening, but Harry was more curious as to what was going on than he was averse to spending any more time in the dungeons.

Having an invisibility cloak also helped. He made it all the way to the scene of the shouting without trouble, but his eyebrows rose at the sight before him.

A fourth-year Slytherin boy was sprawled out on the floor. Bits of his hair were strewn all over the corridor and what was left on his head was chopped and uneven. Good, Harry thought. That was what the prat got for taking one of Umbridge’s silver badges.

“His hair,” Harry heard someone whisper from nearby. “Someone said it tried to strangle him and had to be cut!”

“That’s ridiculous,” another voice replied. “I’ve never heard of a spell like that.”

“I have,” said a third, “read about it in a book I took out of the Restricted Section once. It might look funny, but it’s actually a dangerous spell. People have died because of it.”

Harry too knew the spell. It was one he had used as an example in one of the more recent gatherings of Dumbledore’s Army. He hadn’t taught the class how to cast it, but he doubted it would have been difficult to learn once the members knew of it.

“I didn’t do it!”

That voice jolted Harry from his thoughts. It was a relatively new voice in his memory, but it was one he still recognized. He crept closer to the centre of the crowd and saw her.

Astoria was standing with her back against a wall. Dolores Umbridge was looming nearby with an ugly sneer upon her toad-like face. She just had the most cursable face — Harry wanted to try out some of the more vile magics he’d read about any time he saw it.

Umbridge gave her usual, tittering laugh. “My dear, you’ve been caught red-handed. We have an eyewitness report.”

“Well, your eyewitness lied.”

“And why would she do that?”

Astoria scowled. “Beats me.”

“That’s not a very convincing defence, if you don’t mind me saying,” Umbridge said with that same, tittering laugh.

Harry’s eyes swept over the crowd. The entirety of the Inquisitorial Squad was there, but Harry’s eyes rested on one member in particular. Her lips were pulled in a tight line that would have made Professor McGonagall proud and her eyes looked ready to shoot sparks.

Harry remembered the conversation they’d had earlier in the year after the girl had dragged him forcefully into an abandoned classroom.

“I’ll keep your sister out of trouble if you’ll hold off on slapping me in the face next time we run into each other.”

Bugger!

That had been a promise Harry had thought nothing of at the time; merely an amusing quip that got Greengrass off his back. Now, it was suddenly more relevant than he had ever planned on.

If Astoria had snuck out after curfew or violated one of the educational decrees, that might have been one thing. Harry supposed he had never specified the offence had to be DA-related, but he thought he might have been able to get away with standing back in one of those cases.

But this had resulted from a spell he had indirectly taught her, and Astoria was definitely guilty. Harry had grown up around Dudley — a boy who had spent half of his time in elementary school lying his way out of similar situations. Harry knew exactly how to tell when someone was guilty of these kinds of offences.

He looked at the eldest Greengrass sister once more. Something tugged inside him at the sight of her expression. She seemed so tense. It bothered Harry. There was something about her that was gone. A sort of smooth, elegant confidence that was maddeningly hard to ignore. He felt himself tense as his muscles seemed to solidify along with his resolve.

He audibly sighed as he stepped forward and swiftly pocketed his invisibility cloak. Damn his Gryffindor chivalry, damn his profound lack of foresight, and damn Daphne Greengrass, too.

Umbridge’s beady eyes found him at once and he knew without needing to hear what came next that she was about to conveniently forget both Astoria’s existence and her eyewitness report. Anything to pin the crime on her least favourite student.

December 10, 1995

The Seventh Floor

10:11 PM

Hogwarts’ High Inquisitor had many vexing qualities. Her utter refusal to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts, her loathing for any colour that wasn’t pink, her disdain for anyone who opposed her ideals — the list went on for as long as the sprawling bit of parchment hung in Filch’s office stating exactly what he forbid all the students from doing. Harry thought that among Umbridge’s most horrid qualities, the one that annoyed him most may have been her knack for not making the same mistake twice.

Her Inquisitorial Squad had chased him onto the seventh floor again. He had briefly contemplated making a break for the Gryffindor common room, but he had dismissed the idea just as fast. Malfoy would absolutely be petty enough to go to Umbridge directly, who would absolutely be stuck up enough to barge into the common room.

His next thought was to flee once more to the Room of Requirement, but that was when his plans ran head-first into a brick wall about as thick as Umbridge’s ego.

Two seventh-year Slytherins guarded the mouth to the corridor he had vanished in last time they had chased him. Thank Merlin that patrol wasn’t a regular fixture of the castle. It would have made DA meetings impossible if it had been.

Harry could hear pounding feet behind him drawing closer and closer. At least the two students up ahead had not yet spotted him. In a bout of desperation, he dove sideways, hit the floor, and rolled behind the nearest suit of armour just as the first pursuer flew around the corner.

It was Greengrass. Her chest was heaving, her hair was tousled, and her complexion was uncharacteristically marred by a thin sheen of sweat. Seeing her so dishevelled was odd, but Harry found something about it entrancing. The soft yet persistent sounds of her weary breathing, the way thin strands of her bright hair stuck to her forehead and shone in the torchlight, the rhythmic movements of her chest…

Harry forced his mind to move on; now was not the time. He knew he was finished as soon as she entered the corridor. Her eyes had honed in on him at the last possible moment. She must have caught his movement or otherwise spotted the hem of his robes. It mattered not what she had seen, he supposed. All that mattered was that she was about to alert the Inquisitorial Squad to his predicament and the chase would be over. He could see it now. Her eyes flicked around the corridor and her lips were parting to call forth the death blow…

“He’s disappeared again! I don’t see him anywhere!”

Harry almost choked on his own breath.

What had just happened? Why the hell had Daphne Greengrass lied for him? Lied to her friends and companions.

Many curses streamed from the group of now panting students who had stopped dead upon hearing Greengrass’s proclamation.

“Let’s check this way!” called Montague — the Slytherin Quidditch captain. “He could have slipped off down here; there’s a tapestry down this corridor and to the right.”

Harry’s pursuers regained their vigour and charged off in the direction Montague had indicated. Daphne Greengrass hesitated for a moment before glancing around, almost as though she wanted to be sure no one was watching her.

Her hand moved swiftly. It vanished into her robes for a moment before re-emerging and falling to her side. It happened so fast, Harry might have thought she was scratching an itch if not for the roll of parchment that fell to the floor and skidded towards him just as Greengrass took off after the others.

Harry gawked at the missive as though it had fallen from the stars. Among the deepest, darkest secrets of the known universe, Harry counted teenaged Slytherin girls as being right near the top.

December 11, 1995

The Black Lake

6:45 AM

The next morning dawned with all the vibrant glory one could expect from a December morning in the Scottish highlands. In other words, the sun had shown no signs of emerging whatsoever by the time Harry left the castle that next morning, bundled in his warmest travelling cloak and shivering against the vicious winter winds.

If anyone would have asked him the day before, Harry would have told them that Daphne Greengrass could not become any more perplexing. It was a statement he would have been about as confident in as he was in the return of Voldemort, but it was one he would have swiftly needed to retract the second he read her conspicuous letter.

Why in Merlin’s name she would want to meet before seven in the morning in the dead of winter, Harry would never be able to comprehend. It was a horrific time of the morning on the best of occasions, but in the middle of December, his travelling cloak seemed about as useless as wrapping himself in a layer of parchment.

Snow had fallen in the dark of night. When Harry had closed his eyes yesterday, there had been but a thin dusting of pale flakes splattered across the frozen earth. There was now a layer of it that shone pearly white in the darkness of the early morning and blanketed the grounds like a gleaming layer of icing. He could still hear the water sloshing in the Black Lake as he drew near. It must not have frozen over quite yet, but Harry knew the ice would soon come. He shivered at the thought. Diving into its frozen depths last February was one of his worst memories from fourth year. Which really was saying a lot considering all that had happened as a result of Voldemort’s master plan.

The wind picked up as Harry neared the lake’s bank. Leafless branches rustled above his head as the now frail-looking trees teetered under the wind’s malicious wrath. It kicked up the snow, blowing it this way and that. Some of it hung in the air like a pale layer of fog while most of it just blew into Harry’s face or broke against his cloak.

“Glad to see you look comfortable.”

She was standing on the edge of the water as she watched him, dressed in a travelling cloak of her own. Hers had a hood so large that her head was almost lost in it, but her blue eyes shone in the darkness all around them. They looked like strange muggle traffic lights, but Harry was happy to see them. They were oddly familiar and seemed to soften the harsh touch of the loudly whistling wind.

This time, Harry knew what was coming and looked away before he could become lost in those eyes. “Comfortable’s one word for it,” he said as he stepped up beside her and looked across the water to the towering cliff the castle rested atop. It was one of the only things that seemed unfazed by the arrival of winter.

“You look awake; that’s more than I expected.”

Harry did his best to raise an eyebrow despite the fact he was shivering and she likely couldn’t see it anyway. “Did you think I wouldn’t show up?”

“I wasn’t really sure. I expected you to look like a corpse if you did.”

“Sorry to disappoint you. You’d have needed to summon Ron at this time if you wanted a corpse.”

“If I wanted Weasley, I probably would want his corpse. Talking to that would be just as interesting.”

“Oi!” Harry protested, but he could not hold back the laughter that spilled from him. “What did you want me for, then?” he asked.

Greengrass turned away from him for the first time that morning. There wasn’t enough light to tell for sure, but Harry had a strange suspicion she might be blushing. “To thank you.”

Harry’s eyebrows rose again. “Thank me for what?”

“For getting Astoria out of trouble. I know she was the one to curse Harper. She had been going on about him the night before. I… didn’t expect you to help her out of trouble if it didn’t have to do with your little study group.”

Harry ran a hand through his already windswept hair. He could feel Daphne looking at him again. He remembered the expression she had worn during their first meeting in the abandoned classroom. He shivered at the memory — no, it must just have been the cold, but Merlin… there had been something desperate in her stare; something he could not place. It was a look that might belong to someone who had fallen upon hard times staring at one far more fortunate as they passed by their battered alley.

“It sort of did have to do with our group,” he admitted after a pause, shifting uncomfortably as he did so. “I mentioned the spell she hit Harper with in the last meeting before she cursed him. I’ll bet she heard me talk about it and then looked it up.”

“That does sound a lot like Astoria.” Daphne hesitated again. “She’s getting better, you know.”

“What?”

“At Defence Against the Dark Arts. Her grades these last few weeks have been better than they ever were. I don’t think she’s the only one, either.”

Harry shifted from foot to foot. “I’m… uh, glad to hear it.”

Merlin, would she look anywhere but at him? It was unnerving. “You have no idea what you’ve done, do you?”

“What I’ve done?” Harry asked

Greengrass sighed. “It’s more than just helping them pass their exams. You’ve made them better. I’ll bet more aurors come out of this crop of students than any in the last two decades.”

Harry opened his mouth, but closed it again when he realized he had no idea what to say. He had never thought of it like that. The DA was supposed to help them all pass their OWLs and for the other students to pass their own sets of exams. Harry had never once dreamed that it might do more than that. It was a jarring thought, but a nice one. A pleasant feeling bloomed inside his chest and suddenly, the frigid air seemed bearable at last.

“I’ve… never really thought of it like that,” he admitted.

“You should think more. It would do you wonders. Who knows? Maybe if you did, you might not even be in detention every second day.”

“Plenty of thought goes into those detentions,” Harry said with a smirk. “Trust me, I plan every one of them.”

“You’re as mad as Dumbledore.”

“I could do worse if that’s who you’re comparing me to.”

Harry could just make out the edges of her smile now. The faintest bits of light had crept into the air all around them and, if he squinted, he could make out her expression more clearly.

“Well,” she said, “thank you for helping Astoria. Both with getting out of trouble and Defence Against the Dark Arts. I still wish she never joined your gang, but you’ve done a lot for her.”

“It’s not my gang. I just teach anyone who wants help.”

Daphne shrugged. “Whatever. I wish she wouldn’t have. I still think it’s going to end poorly, but I appreciate that you at least put in the effort.”

“Was that why you helped me yesterday? To pay me back for helping your sister?”

Daphne stumbled on her words for a moment, but she recovered quickly. “Sure, it was only fair. Chivalry and all that, right?”

Harry laughed, his voice lost in the rush of wind all around them. “Yeah, sure, chivalry. I think I’ll be chivalrous this time and warn you that if you don’t get inside soon, you’ll be lucky to escape without frostbite or hypothermia.”

Finally, it was her turn to laugh — the first time Harry had ever heard it. It was softer than his; quieter, too, but the wind had ceased blowing for a moment so he could hear it clearly. His own lips fought to curve upwards, but he resisted the tug. Why would he smile just because she had laughed?

“I think I’ll take your advice. I’ll see you around, Potter.” She was moving away from him before he could say another word and by the time he moved to follow, she had quickened her stride and was all but gone.

December 18, 1995

The Dungeons

12:02 PM

Astoria cringed watching her sister’s eyes follow Potter as he walked a few paces ahead of them, flanked on either side by Weasley and Granger. Daphne liked to say that Astoria always wore her emotions on her sleeve, but lately, her sister might as well have made a wardrobe out of hers.

Not that Harry was much better. Astoria had not missed the way he looked at her more often than the others during DA meetings. She knew Harry wasn’t interested in her. She knew it wasn’t her who had caught his attention, and she knew it wasn’t her who he saw every time he looked her way. Astoria had seen that enough times in the past few years. Before she had aged into her body, many people who were more interested in her sister looked at her. It had bothered her then, but now, it vexed her in an entirely different way.

She didn’t care that Harry Potter was interested in her sister. She cared even less that her sister seemed incapable of taking her eyes off of Harry Potter. All she cared about was the fact that it was making her life a touch more inconvenient and several times more awkward. Astoria hated cringing and she had done it a lot lately when watching Harry or Daphne.

She thought back to all those times Harry had watched her in the Room of Requirement. It had been especially easy to tell during this last meeting. Harry’s house elf friend, Dobby, had decorated the room for the last few meetings before the winter break. Astoria had been able to see Harry’s emerald-eyed stare reflected in the glass baubles as she practiced the Reductor Curse and the Impediment Jinx.

Dobby… that was a thought. The elf had not only decorated the room, but he had done it up in Harry’s image. It was strange. She had never heard of a house elf ever being so fond of a witch or wizard who was not its master, but perhaps the oddity could be of use to her.

The elf had given Harry instructions about how to use the room, after all…

December 20, 1995

The Room of Requirement

9:43 PM

The DA’s final meeting before the fast-approaching winter holidays had been the most joyous Harry had yet experienced. Seeing the students learn and make friends always made for a pleasant evening, but there had been something special about that night.

Harry wondered if it had anything to do with the nature of the Patronus Charm. Patroni were spirits born from pure and unadulterated happiness. They were literal creations of euphoria. Harry wondered if that was infectious somehow or whether just seeing them cast had been enough. He had been mightily impressed by the members of the DA. A number of them had managed to cast the charm at least once; it was by far Harry’s proudest moment as an instructor.

Something about the meeting stuck with him. The Room of Requirement just seemed more inviting after the night’s affairs. He found himself not quite ready to go when all the other members began filing out. Harry even told both Ron and Hermione to go on ahead and that he would meet them in the common room.

Despite being alone, Harry could still see Neville’s bear traipsing about as he peered around the room. He could still hear Hermione’s otter, still see Luna’s hare bounding through the awestruck students. He wondered whether or not he himself might be able to use the memory for his own patronus in the future. It was among the happiest he could ever remember feeling.

The creak of the room’s entrance opening drew Harry’s attention and he spun on his heel, grasping for his wand as he moved. It was fortunate he never got there, for he was sure he would have dropped it out of astonishment at the sight of the girl standing in the doorway.

“Greengrass?”

She stepped slowly inside and closed the door behind her. “Potter.”

“How did you get in here? I thought—”

“Thought that only members of your gang could get in? That was true until a friend of yours told me how. Don’t worry,” she said, taking several steps towards Harry when she saw him move to protest, “I have no plans to tell anyone else how to get in.”

Daphne had a scent about her that he had never been able to place. Now that they were closer to each other than they had ever been, he thought it smelled vaguely of cinnamon.

“I… appreciate it, I guess.” Harry suddenly found looking at her to be oddly fatiguing. His pulse seemed to quicken every time he did, as though he was partaking in something strenuous. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

Daphne looked him up and down. She had that look again. It made Harry shiver and want to move; towards her or away, he did not know.

They were only inches apart from each other now, both bathed in the light of a nearby torch. Harry liked what it did to Daphne’s hair. It seemed lighter in its glow and it sparkled just like the snow had that morning out by the Black Lake.

She saw where he was looking and glanced towards the torch before something else appeared to draw her attention. Harry saw her glance up and followed the motion, only to freeze, staring up unseeingly at the smooth-edged plant with oval leaves and berries bright as any freshly fallen coat of snow.

“Well,” said Daphne, “I suppose that now, I’m going to thank you properly.”

She was on top of him before he could place her meaning. Harry’s eyes widened as she lurched forward, but her lips met his before he knew what to do. His initial impulse as he felt something he realized a moment later was her tongue was to pull away, but something stopped him. Something forced him to part his lips. It must have been something about the room — he would never have acted in such a way under normal circumstances. That would have been completely ridiculous.

He did it again. She tasted like she smelt; it was a remarkable taste. That morning out by the lake, he had been so terribly cold. The air had chilled his bone and the wind had frozen his blood.

This was different. He was warm, so very warm; he could never remember being so warm in all his life. He liked the warmth; cold suddenly seemed a distant memory, even a foreign concept as he felt his muscles melt and his blood turn to liquid fire. In that room, in that moment, Harry wondered if he would ever be cold again.

Author’s Endnote:

This is extremely far from my normal writing style, so not my best work, but I value practicing things oneself struggles with.

I would like to give a special shoutout to my editor, Athena. Her and I had it out several times over this one. We had very different philosophies on how to make a number of things work, but her input was integral to making this story what it is now. I thank her for not just the input, but for her unwavering patience. This story would absolutely not be what it was without her.

Thank you so much once more to both Lily and Shadow. Seriously, your guys’ support has boggled my mind and I still cannot comprehend it, even now. Thank you both so much for all you have given me and I look forward to keeping up with both of you as time continues to pass.

Happy holidays, everyone!

P.S. I will now be posting one-shots four times a year, roughly on each solstice. If you are fond of them, I look forward to seeing you again this spring!

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