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thefeathercollective · 7 months

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we're 99.9% sure that portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa was plural.

okay uh disclaimer. we're not a psychology or literature expert by any means. we rarely even read poetry. we only heard of this guy in high school literature class and the thought stuck with us and then we found plausible evidence lmao. also, as a plural system ourselves, we're clearly biased.

and a considerable amount of this post will be sourced from wikipedia. and this is the first time we've made a post like this. please don't come after us I'm just writing this for fun lmao

huge ramble ahead!

who even was that man

Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa (Portuguese: [fɨɾˈnɐ̃du pɨˈsoɐ]; 13 June 1888 – 30 November 1935) was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher, and philosopher, described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language. He also wrote in and translated from English and French.

yeah that's who the man was. but what really sparked our interest in him during class and made us wonder if he was plural were his...

✨heteronyms✨

y'know pseudonyms? when someone writes under a different name than their own for whatever reason? these are similar, but the catch is that the different names have different personalities, supposed appearances, philosophies, all that shit.

the term was coined by Pessoa himself, and his heteronyms were written as if they were real people. they had detailed careers, histories, etc. he had at least 70, although I vaguely remember some other source estimating it at around 100.

"but eva, these could just be OCs or something!",

he had 3 main ones though, being Alberto Caeiro (known for interpreting the world as-is, without greater meaning or anything, like some sorta anti-poet), Álvaro de Campos (a naval engineer who even had multiple phases in his philosophy) and Ricardo Reis (who wrote with a lot of structure and rationality, and was very pessimistic).

I predict someone typing. to that, I begin my endless copy-paste + ramble about all the things that make us think the heteronyms were headmates.

I'll throw in a section of a letter Pessoa wrote to some other poet (bolding the parts I find relevant because I don't love walls of text lmao)

How do I write in the name of these three? Caeiro, through sheer and unexpected inspiration, without knowing or even suspecting that I'm going to write in his name. Ricardo Reis, after an abstract meditation, which suddenly takes concrete shape in an ode. Campos, when I feel a sudden impulse to write and don't know what. (My semi-heteronym Bernardo Soares, who in many ways resembles Álvaro de Campos, always appears when I'm sleepy or drowsy, so that my qualities of inhibition and rational thought are suspended; his prose is an endless reverie. He's a semi-heteronym because his personality, although not my own, doesn't differ from my own but is a mere mutilation of it. He's me without my rationalism and emotions. His prose is the same as mine, except for certain formal restraint that reason imposes on my own writing, and his Portuguese is exactly the same – whereas Caeiro writes bad Portuguese, Campos writes it reasonably well but with mistakes such as "me myself" instead of "I myself", etc.., and Reis writes better than I, but with a purism I find excessive…)

so not only does he describe writing Caeiro completely unexpectedly, he also gives the same sort of opinion about his heteronyms' writings that we've seen (and experienced) plural folks give about their headmates' typing or drawing styles.

hell, "writes better than I but with a purism I find excessive" is exactly my opinion of lynn when he does our assignments lmao

the semi-heteronym surfacing when Pessoa is sleepy could be some sorta dissociative state that lets a headmate come through, be it straight-up fronting or passive influence... but I'm probably forcing it too much here.

uhhh here's something on the heteronym thing from some guy called richard zenish. I bolded some parts again

For each of his 'voices', Pessoa conceived a highly distinctive poetic idiom and technique, a complex biography, a context of literary influence and polemics and, most arrestingly of all, subtle interrelations and reciprocities of awareness. [...] Pessoa was often unsure who was writing when he wrote, and it's curious that the very first item among the more than 25,000 pieces that make up his archives in the National Library of Lisbon bears the heading A. de C. (?) or B. de D. (or something else).

"okay.... they could still be characters though"

the heteronyms were aware of and sometimes interacted between themselves. wikipedia's list of Pessoa's heteronyms even has the man himself as a heteronym and pupil of Alberto Caeiro, although I don't feel like going after the source for that bit.

dear hypothetical person I'm quoting here, you're entitled to your opinion. but how about we take, say... a more DID/OSDD-y approach to things? because there's things that hint that Fernando Pessoa's plurality could be traumagenic and/or disordered too.

When Pessoa was five, his father, Joaquim de Seabra Pessôa, died of tuberculosis and less than seven months later his younger brother Jorge, aged one, also died (2 January 1889).

(written by himself about himself:) Nothing had ever obliged him to do anything. He had spent his childhood alone. He never joined any group. He never pursued a course of study. He never belonged to a crowd. The circumstances of his life were marked by that strange but rather common phenomenon – perhaps, in fact, it's true for all lives – of being tailored to the image and likeness of his instincts, which tended towards inertia and withdrawal.

(written by a schoolfellow:) For one of his age, he thought much and deeply and in a letter to me once complained of "spiritual and material encumbrances of most especial adverseness". He took no part in athletic sports of any kind and I think his spare time was spent on reading. We generally considered that he worked far too much and that he would ruin his health by so doing.

so childhood trauma, check...? at the very least this stuff doesn't sound very good for a child's mental health.

Pessoa's earliest heteronym, at the age of six, was Chevalier de Pas. Other childhood heteronyms included Dr. Pancrácio and David Merrick, followed by Charles Robert Anon, a young Englishman who became Pessoa's alter ego.

"I can remember what I believe was my first heteronym, or rather, my first nonexistent acquaintance — a certain Chevalier de Pas — through whom I wrote letters to myself when I was six years old, and whose not entirely hazy figure still has a claim on the part of my affections that borders on nostalgia. I have a less vivid memory of another figure . . . who was a kind of rival to the Chevalier de Pas. Such things occur to all children ? Undoubtedly — or perhaps. But I lived them so intensely that I live them still; their memory is so strong that I have to remind myself that they weren’t real."

oh I just found some spiritual stuff too

the appearance of the first heteronym was after his family members died so that's one thing... and like, that's not just one childhood heteronym but at least four. and well, to me they sound a bit too vivid for your average imaginary friend.

Pessoa's interest in spiritualism was truly awakened in the second half of 1915, while translating theosophist books. This was further deepened in the end of March 1916, when he suddenly started having experiences where he believed he became a medium, having experimented with automatic writing. [...] Besides automatic writing, Pessoa stated also that he had "astral" or "etherial visions" and was able to see "magnetic auras" similar to radiographic images. [...] Mediumship exerted a strong influence in Pessoa's writings, who felt "sometimes suddenly being owned by something else" or having a "very curious sensation" in the right arm, which was "lifted into the air" without his will. Looking in the mirror, Pessoa saw several times what appeared to be the heteronyms: his "face fading out" and being replaced by the one of "a bearded man", or another one, four men in total.

........

man, this wikipedia article is extensive and full of stuff that supports our silly little theory, huh.

yeah, so he attributed it to spiritual reasons which is fair and valid, but... "owned by something else" all of a sudden? the thing with the right arm sounding a lot like partial possession in tulpamancy? seeing his heteronyms' faces in the mirror?

yeahhhh.

(I'm guessing the magnetic aura thing could be some sorta derealization, contributing to the he-was-a-dissociative-system hypothesis, but that's yet another stretch on my part.)

(plus, spiritual plurality is a thing.)

oh! this thing he wrote sounds a lot like it too.

"This tendency to create around me another world . . . began in me as a young adult, when a witty remark that was completely out of keeping with who I am or think I am would sometimes and for some unknown reason occur to me, and I would immediately, spontaneously say it as if it came from some friend of mine whose name I would invent, along with biographical details, and whose figure — physiognomy, stature, dress and gestures — I would immediately see before me."

let's just do a quick google..

am I biased? yes, very much so. but y'know. you can see I have my reasons.

to see if any people with more qualifications than we have think the same about Fernando Pessoa possibly being plural lmao.

...oh, yes. contrary to what we thought a couple years ago when we had that class about the guy, other people have indeed thought the same. and written about it.

keywords "fernando pessoa mpd" give us:

this paper from 2012 (in portuguese) that... well, I *think* it claims he had mpd but it's very convoluted and abstract about it

this little... forum post? from 2009 that quotes a dead link :v

this one seems kinda cool. it regards Pessoa's positive approach to his heteronym-having as a creative condion called Pessoa Syndrome, and later mentions some Multiple Personality Order (not disorder). don't love some of its wording about mental disorders and madness... it's good to see someone consider healthy multiplicity as a thing that exists, though. it also claims Pessoa became someone with multiple personalities through his heteronymic writing, which is yet another possible origin I hadn't considered before for some fucking reason.

this one cites a dissociative process

this one straight up calls it "subject plurality"!

conclusion ig. I'm pretending to be organized here.

other keywords (like "fernando pessoa dissociative") provide some more results :0 but I've been writing this post for far too long now and would rather not read through more odd wording lmao

it really surprises me that wikipedia doesn't mention the possibility at all from what I've read and ctrl+F'ed. I thought we were being a conspiracy theorist about it but then I found even more stuff to back us up, including other people's analyses. so that's nice.

and I think this kind of thing, of plurals of the past, should be talked about more in the community. it's really interesting to say the least.

...

how does one even end a post like this one.

uhh thanks for reading!!

#eva.headmate #pluralgang #plurality #plural community #plural system

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minsungchronology · 5 months

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My Personal Opinions on Minsung's Dynamic (2022)

Disclaimer: I am not trying to pass off my opinions as facts. This is my personal interpretation of what is laid out right in front of us. I could be completely off base because I don’t know these guys personally, so take this with a grain of salt and feel free to disagree!

UHHH???

WHAT THE HELL IS IN THE AIR THIS YEAR??

I kept on saying that to myself as I kept collecting more and more clips to add to the video. They’re so sweet and gross and flirty, it’s adorable.

If you’ve watched the previous years, think for a second and compare their interactions from 2018-2021 to 2022. Whenever the two of them would be on screen at times I'd be like “Am I interrupting something??”. At times you’d see them in the background and they’d be doing their own little thing. I can’t even describe it, but the way they look at and naturally gravitate towards each other is something else (there's an insane amount of this during the Maniac tour). They have so much fun with each other.

I think at this point, most of the self-consciousness has dwindled away. They are older, more experienced, and they are probably more than aware of what they can or can’t get away with on camera at this point.

I’ve also said before in my 2018 video that Lee Know was easy to read, but that kind of tapered off in subsequent years. However, I think “open-book” Lee Know makes a swift return this year. He has the worst poker face when it comes to Han lmfao. LK is as “cat” as a human can get, but he has such puppy/golden-retriever energy around Han.

There’s so many moments throughout this year where he’s like 😊 🥰. I can’t possibly talk about all of them. If I took a shot every time it happened, I wouldn’t be here to type this out. The man is so bad at hiding it. The SKZ Talker where Han sings with the flower in his hair and the way LK is caught staring at him as he sings along gets me in shambles.

Lee Know is also caught "slipping up". A moment that comes to mind is when he stuttered out “sexy” as Han was fighting the back pain demons on the concert floor. Yay intrusive thoughts.

Also, the SKZ talker episode with the MAMA awards. THE FACE LK makes for a split second when he finds out Han is rooming with Felix before he basically “interrogates” him about it during the “interview” they have.

Han is caught "slipping up" too. I've noticed he doesn't do it as much. He seems more careful and harder to read, while Lee "Your Body Moves First Before You Think" Know is more (carefree?) about things.

The “In Your eyes” POV video and the Studio Choom behind from Maxident era come to mind.

Then in one of their step-out videos (LK had the pink/light purple hair and they were announcing the world tour). Han places his hand on LK’s butt and starts doing…something to it (that’s between him and God). LK starts smiling for a bit before forcefully removing Han’s arm. Then Han literally bites his lip. IN A STEP OUT VIDEO??? They’re so shameless dskjhskdjfhk

Subtle moments like these are the most telling and eyebrow raising things in my opinion, cause you can’t really explain them away. And these are just a few of them. There’s a lot more this year, but I’d be writing this forever if I mentioned them all.

My personal opinion:

I think they became more than platonic this year, post-Oddinary era and pre-Maniac tour (the beginning of it at latest). If someone asked me to guess a specific time, it would probably be April to May-ish. There’s a noticeable shift in their behavior from then on if you watch everything sequentially.

As for their two-kids room. I have a lot of opinions on that.

They are soooo much more confident here than in their 2018 one.

Like…watch them back-to-back. They’ve come so far.

Imagine “Feelings” Lee Know from 2018 getting to see his 2022 self and 2022 Han interact.

This might be reaching, but I think the other members (and themselves) sometimes allude to these two having feelings that go beyond platonic without having to explicitly state it for obvious reasons. Like they are trying to skirt around that, but at the same time imply that “yes, these two are very special to each other”. The language and analogies they use throughout the 2KR episode really make me raise my eyebrows.

As I’ve learned more about Minsung’s dynamic/as well as making this video, I think these two have a lot of parallels to MeI B and Geri from the Spice GirIs. If you know, you know. I vaguely remember someone (who personally knew the group) implying almost the same type of thing about them years ago (something along the lines of them having a very "interesting"/special bond).

I’ve also found it interesting how they mention (multiple times!) although LK is the Hyung, Han is able to rein him back in. Whenever that happens, LK immediately just…becomes pliant?? Like???? What????

You can actually see some instances of that in previous years (the 2021 car Vlive where LK has the napkin on his face comes to mind. He immediately takes it off after Han tells him to), but it's more noticeable this year. (I.e: LK immediately wanting to let go of Changbin’s hand as soon as Han expresses his displeasure when before LK was perfectly okay doing it?? ????? Another actual eyebrow raising moment for me.) This is a guy who comes across as a more dominant type of personality so this really threw me off lmfaooo. This is one of the reasons why I find their dynamic so interesting, but I feel like it’s not talked about enough????

Plus, LK looking at Han like he grew two heads before Han has to specifically clarify that he sees him as an “older person” rather than an “older brother”. LK has absolutely no problem with other members (i.e: Felix) seeing him as an older brother figure (in fact he welcomes it), but God forbid Han does. Interesting. 😉

(accidental parallel to 2018 LK saying “where?” when 2018 Han says “you have one right here”)

And Seungmin saying “They’re both free spirited. They have to do what they want to do.” is kinda 💡 💡 💡. It kind of goes back to Han and LK in their 2019 2KR: them saying that they both don’t care about what others think. Thinking about that, their behavior this year doesn’t surprise me one bit and almost everything else in prior years leading up to it.

2023 is where things get more blatant. I feel like that’s the year where the two want to tell us that “Hey, you guys are right. There is something going on between us.” I feel like they are taking full advantage of the shipping culture that’s abundant in K pop and FS to a smaller degree to say as much as they can possibly say without compromising their careers. As someone who’s been into K pop since 2nd gen, I’ll explain why I think this in the 2023 video.

#minsung

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because-its-eurovision · 1 year

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I did not forget that I was supposed to write some kind of concert report thingy @another-sun asked for, but I've just been so overwhelmed

anyway, here are some of the things I can remember from seeing Blind Channel's secret show with @thisisntaparty who I now own my life to 🖤

- the tickets stated that you are not allowed to camp out in front of Tavastia, so we were there maybe one hour before the doors were supposed to open and there was only ten or twelve people before us

- at the door they checked our ids and took signed NDAs that we wouldn't record during Flatline

- there were free water bottles and soda cans available, they also sold merch and I got the new Flatline shirt after the show, no other new merch items

- we just. walked. to the stage. no fence. nothing. like literally Olli's platform was maybe 20 cm in front of us (already started to lose our minds because they would be SO CLOSE to us) 😶😶

- Santeri came to stage and reminded us of the not filming part, and told us that the gig would last around 30 mins

- thisisntaparty was checking her phone and we were wondering if the show would start in half an hour and AT THE SAME MOMENT the intro started playing and Tommi stepped on stage, and then Aleksi and Joonas and Olli RIGHT IN FRONT OF US and then Niko & Joel and I just started screaming and screeching so hard I had to press both palms in front of my mouth to muffle it because it was just too much 😭😭

- they played Over My Dead Body, We Are No Saints, Balboa, Bad Idea, Flatline and Dark Side, in that order

- all of them wore the Flatline promo clothes which I loved because I'm so used to seeing them in same black stage clothes. special shout out Joonas's shiny overalls and Olli's boots ✨️

- I was headbanging ridiculously hard during the first two songs, OMDB still has that great EDM drop with all of them dancing and spinning around the stage and WANS is just SO good and epic live and I love it aaaarrrrrrrr 🖤🖤🖤

- at some point we were just grabbing each other for support because everything felt so overwhelming 🥹

- Olli & Joonas switched places more often than I think they usually do so we got great uhhh close-ups of them both

- almost got hit in the head multiple times by the bass neck because Olli still doesn't know how to handle his instrument responsibly 😅

- Balboa works live like a charm but of course we all knew that, and everyone around me was singing to Bad Idea from the bottom of their lungs, and I'm getting welled up right now because that song has meant SO MUCH to me and made me feel less alone during the last year and just hearing the crowd singing in unison there's darkness and it follows me --ok moving on before I'll start crying again

- I was asked to hide all spoilers and opinions about Flatline, so those are under the read more 👇

- Joel called Dark Side an "old classic" that they "have to play so they won't forget it" 🖤

- when the show was over Joel started giving fistbumps to the first row and at first he couldn't reach us because we were too far, but then he climbed on the platform and gave thisisntaparty a triplebump as if to apologise 😄 and I got one too 🥰 and Joonas gave us highfives as well and I still can't believe they are real people and I saw them up close and touched them and are we still sure that wasn't just a dream or some kind of croup hallucination 🥲

Disclaimer: I heard the live version, wasn't wearing any earplugs so the sound wasn't very clear, and I was also out of my mind 🥲

the beginning/intro is the English version of what Käärijä read from the card in his ig story. it's like an infomercial sales pitch: are you tired of ups and downs, do you feel like you can separate music from your thoughts? or something along those lines. my guess is that it won't be a part of the actual song, but rather a separate intro they are going to use in shows and eventually it will end up on the album, similarly to National Heroes/We Are No Saints. I like it, it's funny.

we've heard the chorus in the preview clips, and melodically it's the part I can remember. as in many other BC songs and especially singles, the chorus is the catchiest part and repeats three times growing bigger and getting more massive sound every time (think Dark Side, Bad Idea, Over My Dead Body, WANS, you get the idea). most of their songs use the same structure and why fix it if it ain't broken.

there are also three or four instrumental parts, one right at the beginning, when they do the stupid boyband dance move <3

Joel said on stage that he was very nervous before the song, and they've said that their music style is changing, but for me it didn't sound that different to their earlier stuff. compared to BB or VP LotSaD has much more variety and experimentation of different styles and sounds, even genres (like Don't Fix Me vs Autopsy or Bad Idea vs Glory For the Greedy), and in my opinion Flatline wouldn't have been the odd one out if it was on their fourth album.

it does sound bigger, heavier, more massive, yes, but otherwise it's a very standard BC single, compared to for example We Are No Saints which has the epic choir and guitar solo we don't have in ANY of their other songs. but of course I neither can remember everything that happened in the song nor did I hear all the nuances and instruments in the live performance, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.

I'm in love of the lyrics and the guitar riff and can't wait to hear to studio version on Friday 🖤

#blind channel #flatline spoilers

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kinokoapologist · 2 years

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Hey, have you seen the villain SMP on gumi yumi's YouTube channel? I'd be curious to hear what you have to say about it!

-⭐

Thank you for asking! I hadn't heard of it before getting this ask, but I went and watched the first chunk of it on YouTube! I'd intended to watch the entire thing before I answered this but uhhh we will get into why I didn't end up doing that

*I wanna start off with a disclaimer that this is in no way meant to be mean/hate to the creator of this AU, who I think is a very talented artist and clearly has a lot of cool concepts they are excited to share with an audience, which is incredibly awesome! We just have some different interpretations on certain characters, which is totally fine! But since my opinion was asked for, I want to give it honestly*

��they really had me in the first half, ngl

Like. I love the initial concept. And the character designs slap. They're very well done animatics, clearly made by someone with a lot of talent! Those first few videos are such an effective balance of Fun Villain Vibes and Unsettling Atmosphere

But boy does it lose me with the way c!Quackity and c!Wilbur are framed. Which sucks, because I actually liked Wilbur's initial appearance in the AU a lot. The "Duobur" videos are great as an isolated horror scene: the way that Wilbur's loss of autonomy is framed in those animatics, with Redza and the Villain!Bench Trio basically forcing Wilbur out of control of his own body/mind because they think Ghostbur is the "better" (or, more accurately I'd thought, more passive) version could go down some really interesting routes that I thought were being set up given the initial tone the series seemed to have. The pitch here was "what if these characters were villains?" and here they were doing A Bad Thing That Would Cause Conflict.

Like, I could be totally interpreting it wrong, but those first three videos in the series seemed to me like they were implying that Bench Trio had themselves been victim to something of a hostile mental takeover, Tubbo and Tommy especially. I thought we were setting up some creepy supernatural possession shit! I thought we’d see some Jekyll and Hyde style mental confrontations and battles for control! And I was about that shit! Let's go full horror! But then when I got to the "Fracture" animatic the creator straight up said in the caption (which also... not how you should be using captions) that they don't like c!Wilbur and came up with the entire "duo" concept out of spite.

They also straight up said they hate c!Quackity in that video, so that's where I stopped watching.

Which sucks, because I also really liked c!Quackity's initial appearance. 1. Because the song Devil's Train slaps, and 2. because it told us right off the bat that this AU's Q still cares so much about Karl and Sapnap, to the point that he's still going to check on them even when he's angry at them. And like, the concept of Quackity giving away Las Nevadas to save their lives??? That shit is some fun character-specific tragedy and I'm all over it for an AU of this concept. Plus like, the fucking symbolism/imagery of "Casinoboo" trapping them in playing cards?? Iconic.

BUT the scene around that moment... rubs me the wrong way to put it lightly. I simply do not fuck with "ohhh nooo, Quackity has become the new Dream!" in any capacity. It makes me annoyed at best and deeply uncomfortable at worst. Especially when Casinoboo kidnapping Karl and Sapnap and turning them into literal game pieces to manipulate Quackity in turn is framed as a #girboss moment, and Dream's carefully planned abuse of one of Ranboo's closest friends is given a dismissive handwave as he's let out of Pandora's Box. Which I also have beef with. Why are we letting Dream out of Pandora's Box. Why are we acting like he's part of the quirky little villain family. The Man Is A Serial Killer. Why is DNF driving the season finale bus all of a sudden–

Ranboo letting Dream out with the justification that Quackity had become a bigger threat was the first moment that started making me go "eh" with the AU, but there had still been a lot of stuff in the early animatics that I'd liked, so I'd wanted to keep watching through to the end. But as I said, I really Was Not Having A Fun Time Anymore when the person making the AU straight up said they hated my favorite character. At the end of the day I simply am not going to connect with any AU pushing the idea that "oh the smp would be so much better if everyone tried to get that silly Quackity to stop fighting back when he gets knocked down, can't he just roll over and take it like he's supposed to?"

All of this with the massive disclaimer that, again, I didn't watch the last 10 or so videos in the playlist. Maybe everything took a massive turnaround and there were some great fiance moments I missed. Maybe Wilbur gets some self-affirming moment where he gets valued as an individual outside of being the vessel for the smoothed over, "easier to manage" version of himself. I know that Glatt showing up was being teased before I clicked off, maybe he got some scenes with Quackity (or Tubbo) that brought back that unsettling/horror tone I liked in the first half. I also didn't see any of the potential follow up on whatever the mystery with Ranboo was "seeking guidance" on in the season 1 finale video, so I can't really give thoughts on wherever his arc was going. But that's my thoughts on what I saw! This is probably way too long of an answer, but as you can tell I like talking character analysis and narrative framing. I know post is mostly me discussing issues I had but I had a lot of fun with this! Like I said, gumi yumi is very talented and I admire the amount of work they’ve clearly put into this AU. Just not my personal cup of tea

#this was very fun to answer and I am honored that anyone would be interested in my opinions on something lol #looking at this AU also has me in the mood to look at more horror adjacent AUs (and more AUs in general) so if anyone has recommendations #send them my way!#also if anyone wanted to send more asks my way in general... I would not complain I like chatting about stuff #mage answers #(...I meant to post this several days ago WHOOPS I am sorry)

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whatgoesthroughmyhead · 8 months

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Sooooo I just bought myself a fancy-ass (and in my opinion quite feminine) watch, and this is not a normal thing at all for me (it is my first time buying a watch that's over 40 bucks & not purely about function) and I'm excited!! Like, it's functional jewelry I can wear all the time and it's actually gonna provide me with legit useful information! Wow!! (It even has a lil crescent moon hand that points at the day of the month for Pete's sake. UGH!)

I... also have some mixed feelings (lol) because the world of watches can be so goddamned ridiculous (see: exorbitant prices) and it seems like it's some Deep Capitalism shit a lot of the time.. and I suppose I'm buying into that? But it ain't like this is a six-figure ~TiMePiEcE~ or anything extreme like that... I suppose "extreme" is relative, but this is a battery-powered quartz watch that barely has any precious materials in its construction: just stainless steel, and eleven(? nine?) little bitty probably-lab-grown diamonds on the face. It's fairly chill.

But it's so prettyyy! And it's a quality unit so it will likely be with me for decades. The MSRP for this one is $625 CAD (omg) (I say omg, but the company can decide on whatever freakin' price they want, can't they? It's not like that reflects how much the thing is actually worth, which is about to become evident). With discounts I was able to get it for $422 plus tax {$472.49 all in), which is a lot of money for a watch, considering that a sub-50 dollar watch tells the time and date just fine.

But now we get to what this is really about. It's about feeling special. It's about owning things that spark joy. And it's about celebration, too. I've bought this watch to celebrate my coming out as a feminine person (hard femme, specifically). I'm a goddess, really, and I deserve to adorn myself with items that are lovely if I so choose, y'know?! (Disclaimer: being a goddess is by no means exclusive to me. Anyone can be a goddess!)

Ehem... real talk though, I get BIG autism energy from watches and watchmakers and watch collectors. Watches are so... THING. They are such object, undeniably. "DON'T TALK TO ME I AM LOOKING VERY CLOSELY AT THIS LITTLE PIECE OF METAL," said the watchmaker, a totally normal person who would fit in with zero issues at any party...

Expensive watches are all about the attention to detail (my experience as an autist is so detail-heavy it's not even funny). And honestly I am here for it. If you can afford to buy a mighty fine watch and it makes you feel good, freakin' buy that shit and enjoy it, and thank a watchmaker for its existence maybe.

Once this lil moon-goddess accessory arrives at my home I am gonna spend so much time looking at it and obsessing over its details. I'm stoked. It's a special thingy just for ME! Plus low key I feel like it gives off lesbian / witchy vibes (depending on how you style the rest of your look) and just, yas.

P.S. - The first image is from Citizen's website (they're a Japanese company by the way eh! As an otaku/weeb [depending on who you ask], I dig). The second image is also from their site but was posted in the review section by a person who only put down "Picky" as their name. Thank you Picky, it's a nice shot.

P.P.S. - Let me be clear: Japanese culture is rad because there really seems to be an emphasis on pouring your heart into your craft or whatever it is you do, hence Japan producing so much high-quality stuff (cars are a big one; like goddamn). I will say though, from what I've seen, they've got a long ways to go when it comes to work-life-balance, and like... uhhh sex positivity and queer rights, and drinking Respect Women Juice. Anyway I'd rather my money go to Japan's economy vs. that of the USA (for the record I was considering buying a Timex watch).

#watches #watch #Citizen #treat yourself #celebratory gifts #femme #thoughts #running my mouth or rather my fingers #gifts

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captnjacksparrow · 2 years

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hiii! in your blog title/description you say that the only characters you hate are danzo, sakura and hinata. & i was wondering if you could maybe show the differences and similarities between hinata & sakura? disclaimer: i don’t like either of them, but i always see fans argue over who is better, while im in the back watching them, thinking, that neither is better and that they’re both bad. i see people defend hinata by pointing out sakuras mistakes and flaws and then i laugh cause i can’t take it seriously since hinata has done the exact same thing. or sakura fans try to defend sakura by calling hinata a creep who’s whole world revolves around naruto while sakura is the same way too 😩 i think it’s funny how some fans fight with each other about these BOTH useless characters. at the end of the day neither of them had little to no impact to the story but they will fight with their life to “debunk” the other persons arguments, while in reality they’re both just as bad. they have more in common than they think they do but they will act as if their favorite character is so much better and so different, when in fact, they’re both the same.

An Ask full of frustrations😄 and I totally get it....

DIFFERENCE AND SIMILARITIES BETWEEN HINATA AND SAKURA

***Rolling up my Sleeves**** Let’s see the difference first... (I didn’t attach any panels for differences... but for Similarities I did though)

Hinata is Shy whereas Sakura is Brash.

Hinata has no opinions or shown to have any intelligence whereas Sakura has opinions (not in front of Sasuke) and has shown some intelligence.

Hinata is not Abusive whereas Sakura is totally Abusive as fuck.

Hinata is not someone to display Jealousy if girls show any interest in Naruto whereas Sakura would burn everyone...

Hinata is a silent Stalker and Sakura openly chased Sasuke to no end.

Hinata was never shown to be appreciated by other Characters for her skills whereas Sakura was appreciated by Kakashi for her Chakra Control & Granny Chiyo for her Medical Skills. [[Naruto’s appreciation doesn’t count...]]

Hinata has a Backstory whereas Sakura’s parents were not even drawn.

Hinata never had any confident on herself whereas Sakura was an Over-Confident buffoon who thinks that she could influence N and S with her feelings...

Hinata is not a Blushing Mess around Naruto in Next Generation shit but Sakura still is...

Probably, that’s all, I think???

And the Similarities are....

Both of these Wonderful Ladies lustfully wet for their Man’s Part.....

If anyone who don’t know.... Big and Strong hands of a man is an indicative of the size of a Man’s ‘part’.... And this shit happens right under Neji’s fresh corpse... Geez!!!!!

Both would throw their own teammate under the Bus if that would fetch her Man..

Hinata planning to help Naruto in Chunin Exams at the expense of getting disqualified along with her teammates....

Sakura willing to offer up Naruto in a silver plate to Akatsuki if that would fetch her Sasuke-kun...

Both would shit on everyone’s advice and try to do some Warrior-Type shit but ends up like some silly Buffoons...

Naruto and that other Byakugan guy told her clearly to not participate in the battle... She even boldly claimed that, ‘I won’t let you lay another finger on Naruto...”.... But he ended up capturing Naruto anyway....

This Buffoon claimed that she could kill Sasuke and ended up getting her ass saved by Naruto.... What a wastrels!!!!!

Both irritated my ears by relentlessly yapping... ‘Naruto-Kun’ and ‘Sasuke-Kun’ like an ear-bleeding Screeching noise....

Both are thoroughly insensitive S-Class Assholes who are ready to shit on their Families...

This Tsukuyomi dreams are something what they deeply desired, right???? So, this is how she pictured her Family members to be... Some fucking Love cupids... Hmmmphhh

Uhhh???

Both would shit on Konoha if their buffoonery would fetch their Man....

Hinata-Sama.... Look around you.... The Village was obliterated... Thanks to your brave act and yet you could only worry about your Naruto-kun, eh????

So, For you.... You friend Ino, lost her Father and she might need your support... But It doesn’t matter.... The was was just over and the village might need your great Medical Skills... But it also doesn’t matter... All you need is Sasuke’s dick, eh????

Both said, ‘I want to become Stronger’ but never put any serious effort towards their Words...

Obviously they had improved their skills to some extent.... But skilled enough to save their Man???? Well, they only have time to wet over their man.... How could they get serious about becoming stronger... It’s all just some BS to impress their man....anyways.

Both wanted to impress their Man by doing Clown shit in front of N and S but ended up getting One-Paneled in an Hilarious way...

Both are sprinting like some marathon runners.... But one got Yeeted out and the Other became the Selfie Stick....

What a Clown Show!!!!

Both of their Love Confessions towards their Man was never acknowledged or reciprocated... One was rejected brutally twice and another was ignored mercilessly...

So, Naruto dis remember that moment. eh????

Both confess at Inappropriate places/times....

Both loves to Guilt Trip their Boys to no end... And that’s how they got them...

“Watch me, Naruto-kun.... I am going to die for you.... Remember this...”

“Even though you treaded in a dark path... I never stopped loving you... Look how Disgraceful and Pathetic I am...It’s all for you....”

Both would think only about Romance.... Even in the Battlefield...

Of course... When Shikaku and Inoichi were asking you all to go help Naruto in the Battlefield... You are the only person who has such wet thoughts in these situations... Whereas Ino wanted to do her Job, Your teammates Kiba and Shino wanted to help him however they can.... And yet here you are foreshadowing your disgusting thoughts about ‘Naruto-kun’s’ Big manly hands....

Yeah.... Rather than killing Madara... Sasuke’s validation was more important for you, eh???? Fuck Naruto, Fuck Kakashi and Fuck all the Shinobis who were fighting to save the world....

Both used a third person to get their man and threw them like a Toilet Brush...

For NH, it’s Neji....

For SS, it’s Naruto....

These assholes didn’t even put any effort on helping their Man and let the others handle the difficult part and got the prized trophy who is ready for Breeding Mode.... Nice play!!!

Both wetted over their Man endlessly but ended up not having any effect on them emotionally or physically...

Naruto shitting on Hinata’s confession by acknowledging Iruka and Sasuke being his 2 most important people....

Sasuke shitting on SS peeps by openly acknowledging that Naruto was the one who saved him....

Both became ‘Terrible Housewives’ who can’t even able raise their kids with proper values regarding their Father... But ended up watching TV dramas and manicuring their Nails....

“Okay, You Little piece of shit.... When Naruto was your Age.... He went through far more difficult life than you ever were.. You don’t know anything about your Father.... So, Shut the Efff up...”

Atleast this is what Hinata should have said to him and reprimanded this Mophead....

I wonder what was Sakura teaching her kid???? Other than Ino was interested in Sasuke????

And as a result of these Girl’s relentless Guilt-tripping and annoyance...

Naruto was feeling like he messed up again with such regretful face....

Sasuke looks even more pathetic....

I never liked people making comparing comparisons between Naruto and Sasuke as to who is better.... Because it was clearly established that both are Equal and complement each other....

At the End of the Day.... Naruto wanted to be needed by everyone and ended up as such... Whereas Sakura became unneeded & useless.... Sasuke lost his control and went into further Darkness because he couldn’t tolerate his Beloved Brother was being used and thrown away like a Tool.... Whereas Hinata was wanking about Naruto’s Hands while standing on his Beloved Brother’s corpse....

Sakura is the repulsive version of Naruto.... And Hinata is the disgusting version of Sasuke.... I seriously don’t understand why they fight over these kind of Wastrel characters.

#antisakura #anti sakura #anti hinata #antihinata #16 similarities and 9 differences!!!

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im-the-punk-who · 3 years

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Can you explain how a slave revolt in the Bahamas could have changed the history of America?

HELLO ANON FROM LIKE FOUR MONTHS AGO! I kept meaning to go back to this and then uhhh forgetting to do that. (Also thank you for indulging me and sending this sort-of-directly-asked-for-question lmao)

So. Here’s a brief overview of how a successful slave revolt like in Black Sails could have changed the history of not just America, but the entire world. And quite, well - easily - had the circumstances in Black Sails presented themselves.

First off, standard disclaimer that this is all conjecture based on my own research and knowledge of both history and Black Sails. It isn’t meant as a takedown of anyone else’s views, or the character’s actions. The strongest I would call this is a wishful critique of the choices the writers made to include the things they did in the way they were included, and the way those same writers chose to end the story they chose to tell. And maybe, a little bit, a frustration of how the inevitability of american history is used as a given in fandom to defend certain character’s actions - but it is not meant to invalidate the reasons behind those actions. Just to point out that those reasons were more emotionally than factually driven (Which is cool! And very real to the kinds of tragedies that play out in real life revolutions! Vive le realismé!)

Also quite obviously I’m not a professional in any way. I was eating soup from a can as I wrote this. I am now eating cookies for dinner. I am writing this because it’s fun for me. It’s fun!! If deep thought-experiment type analysis of media isn’t your cuppa, that’s fine - you can keep scrolling.

I’ve included major historical events from 1700-1740 since that is the general time period that Black Sails draws its history from. In particular, most of the later seasons’ historical references come from the 1730s. While I’ve tried to be as thorough as possible...there are so many ways history could have been changed by a tiny action that it would be impossible to cover them all. For brevity, I’m focusing on the history of the Bahamas, the Caribbean, and Colonial America. I’ll touch on other places as is relevant but like......it’s world history for a reason.

Okay, here goes.

So first and foremost, to understand how it’s destruction could have changed America, you really need to understand just how much economic power chattel slavery gave colonial empires and England in particular.

Slavery was the most important economic force in Colonial England, and not just in what the slaves produced. The slave trade itself was the most lucrative business in existence at the time. If you want to learn more about that, I highly recommend listening to this podcast, which does an excellent job of explaining how the economic buying and selling and bonding of slaves was of such value to colonial empires. This is important because the most powerful contemporary argument for the continuation of slavery was that it “could not be ended in the Americas until there was certainty that it wouldn’t create social or economic irritation.” (Thomas Jefferson, 1783.)

(Slavery in itself is not something that was unique to the british empire or even the Imperialist governments that created it. Most cultures have had some form of slavery. However, this was not the type of generational slavery that colonial empires employed. In most cases before the 1400s, slaves were not kept slaves solely based on the color of their skin - they were war prisoners, criminals, or debtors. In most cases, slaves could work to buy their freedom, and most importantly, slavery was not an inherited state that passed from parent to child.

What we think of in terms of colonial slavery is chattel slavery - which is the kind of slavery Europeans imposed on Africans starting in the fifteenth century. These slaves could not buy their freedom. They were viewed as property instead of human beings based on their race and their children were automatically enslaved in the same way they were. They were mistreated, and viewed as subhuman, without any chance of escaping the bonds which had been forced upon them.

Because of this new type of slavery that started in the colonial era, Europeans needed to justify why they were entitled to own other people as slaves. They needed to convince themselves and other people that there was some moral justification for chattel slavery. This is what led to all the myths of ‘happy’ servitude, racial inferiority, and any ‘benefits’ slavery imparted to slaves. These were all lies created by philosophical thinkers and plantation owners and politicians that let settlers convince themselves they were not committing crimes of immense magnitude against other human beings. For much of the colonial era, these were the norm in thinking and their vestiges still linger today. But these were used to justify slavery because of how important it was economically.

And of course there were always dissenters. Since slavery was first introduced to the colonies there were people who knew that this sort of treatment was just not very gucci. These people argued that slavery went against the very nature of a ‘just’ society. That benefitting off the mistreatment of other human beings was akin to spiritual robbery, and that “European colonies should be destroyed rather than create so many unfortunates!” (Louis Jaucourt, 1754). With your goddamn motherfucking chest Jaucourt. The Quakers of Pennsylvania were strong proponents of abolition since the 1670’s! James Oglethorpe(yes, that Oglethorpe) himself was a staunch abolitionist who went as far as to make slavery illegal in Georgia when he formed the colony in 1733.

The economic power of slavery was used as a justification to keep it intact for hundreds of years and many colonists were happy with this, but it’s important to remember that not everyone was. England and the colonists were far from unanimously in support of the practice. This becomes important later! Like, this is the basis for the whole argument of how a drawn out war in the Bahamas could have ended slavery and changed colonial imperialism.)

OKAY NOW THAT WE’VE GOT THAT COVERED.

Now let’s go to the people it affected. Enslaved black people have been fighting against their enslavement since they were taken from their homes and brought across the Atlantic in the 15th century. Starting in the 1700s, slave revolts started to see more and more success in these efforts, until in the late 1700s and early 1800s public opinion of slavery finally dropped enough that it was outlawed in the colonial empires of England and France. In the years of 1700-1740, there were several rebellions in the North American area including:

1712 New York Slave Revolt (British Province of New York)

1730 Chesapeake rebellion (British Chesapeake Colonies)

1733 St. John Slave Revolt (Danish Saint John)

1739 Stono Rebellion ((British Province of South Carolina)

1741 New York Conspiracy (British Province of New York)

And of course,

1728-1739 First Maroon War (British Jamaica)

This is the war which the war in Black Sails is based on. The treaty that was offered by Woodes Rogers in Black Sails is almost word for word(minus the pirates bit) the treaty offered to the Leeward Maroons in this war. There are references to the factions in this war and even some of the historical people involved in it. The major difference? The Maroon war was successful. The Maroons were so good at warfare on their turf that the British were unable to sustain any major victories against them. After ten years they offered the Maroons a treaty granting them governmental agency(although not independence). In return, the Maroons agreed to return any escaped slaves back to the British, and to help the British fight off “invaders”. The Leeward maroons led by Cudjoe(Julius, in Black Sails) took this offer to avoid more fighting because he believed in an honorable peace with the enemy. Queen Nanny and her Windward Maroons(The Maroon Queen and Madi in Black Sails) refused because like....bruh those terms suck. After a year she was pressured into relenting by Cudjoe, but within thirty years the Maroons had started another war, dissatisfied with how the treaty was being carried out.

(This is Queen Nanny. And yes, she is better than you.)

I also need to mention that Africans were not the only ones in North America hurt by British Colonialism, nor the only ones for whom abolition and an end to colonial empire was attractive. The Native Americans were also a constant frustration to the colonies, and, because it’s relevant to later things, I want to mention one incident in particular:

The Yamasee War (1715-1717)

The Yamasee were a Lower Creek tribe that lived in what is today Georgia/Florida. The war was fought over a bunch of different things, including trading systems and colonists depleting the game in the area, but also because of the colonists’ nasty habit of trying to enslave Native American people. Bummer. So a bunch of tribes(and I mean a bunch - there were Shawnee and Cherokee factions, as well as about half a dozen other distinct nations that joined in the fight in sort of that loose ‘hey you hate these guys? we hate these guys!’ way.)

Long story short, this war was a pretty significant factor in the colonists in the South not enslaving(outright) Native Americans anymore, and instead increasing the import of African slaves to the south. After this war the Yamasee split into two factions, one anti-colonist and one pro-colonist. The pro-colonist people called themselves the Yamacraw, and it was these people who granted Oglethorpe(yes, that Oglethorpe) the land which he used to found Georgia. Moral of the story, alliances between abolitionists and indigenous tribes were already in place in the colonies. Just waiting for a chance to be used.

(Tomochichi, the leader of the Yamacraw and very cool accessorizor)

(Yet ANOTHER thing to keep in mind is that before the end of the 18th century, both Haiti and Grenada would see major revolutions against their colonial empires. Slaves in all provinces and colonies were continually fighting for their freedom. What they lacked was a unifying force that supplied them enough power and cohesion to fight the empire man-to-man, so to speak.)

SO. INTO THIS SCENE, ENTER JAMES FLINT - ANGRIEST OF MLM SCALLYWAGS AND TACTICIAN EXTRAORDINAIRE.

(So cute.)

Anyway, the Golden Age of Piracy was largely over by the early 1720 - most of the pirates of Nassau took Rogers’ pardon and reintegrated as citizens of society. That or they like....died. A lot of them died. Gruesomely. Nasty business, piratry. So, if we assume that in Black Sails’ history that Flint and Silver managed to convince the Maroons to rebel ten years earlier, join with the pirates who did not want to assimilate, and start a revolution; now instead of two separate wars Britain is now fighting one much bigger, nastier, more expensive one.

Backed by people with a good deal of money at their disposal. Cha-ching.

Keep in mind that Britain had already been at war for almost thirty years with first the Glorious Revolution and the Jacobite risings(1688-forever) and the War of Spanish Succession(1701-1714). Their resources had already been depleted. And this was why the American colonies(and India) had become so important to them. Remember what I said about the economic importance of slavery? It’s because Brtitain was using the slave trade to refill its coffers after an extensive and costly military campaign.

So now, this new war is not only putting an additional drain on the empire’s resources before Britain has had a chance to replenish itself but it is also taking away the very source of income needed to replenish itself. (Since the war would target places heavy with slave trading.) In addition, the pirates handed a significant defeat to the British Navy that ended with the Navy retreating - turning tail and running from the island. This was actually a huge victory and one that was sort of downplayed in the show but would be incredibly significant in the event of a long campaign.

Rogers is not taking Nassau with the full support of Britain. He is only fighting with the traitors who did not return when the Navy withdrew. That is why he has to go to Spain in the first place.

The show has also told us that this rebellion is already starting to be widely known - pirates and slaves from Barbados, the Bahamas, as far as Massachusetts are coming to aid the rebellion in the hopes of freedom. This is not a small thing.

Even with the loss of the Walrus and most of the Walrus crew, there are still thousands of fighters on the Maroon Island. Slaves, mainland pirates - the defeat of the Walrus was a personal defeat but in the grand scheme of a larger war it was a small loss in what was ultimately a huge victory.

Rogers has been squarely defeated. Because of that, they now have Nassau as a base. The war now has two strongholds - one protected by the forest and one protected by a fort - into which they can store supplies, retreat, and organize attacks from. If they can free the rest of the slaves on the island of Nassau and either oust or convert the puritans, all the better.

The war at the point Rogers is defeated was far from a never-ending thing. In fact I would say that Flint is absolutely right - they are incredibly close to a decisive victory. England cannot afford to muster a large enough force to defeat two entrenched enemies working together - especially ones as well financed as we’re led to believe the chest would make the Maroons and Pirates. Even if Britain could somehow convince Spain and/or France to join them, both of those nations have also been severely depleted by wars of their own. And again, the more nations that Britain brings in, the more potentially disaffected people could be brought in to join the pirates(see, Haiti and Grenada specifically, both of which were French colonies at the time, and the Spanish colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, etc).

So from here, the smartest thing for the rebellion to do would be to hit large plantations: to both free the slaves and cripple Britain’s economy. Make slavery more costly to enforce than it is profitable to sustain, and build their numbers for the war as well, as well as like, you know, freeing slaves. Make it so that Britain could not sustain the cost of trying to fight it - as James said all the way back in 1705. Force a surrender on economic grounds.

So now, the power behind the empire has been broken. Even assuming a modest victory, the course of the entire world - not just the Americas - has changed. In victory, let’s say the Bahama/Caribbean islands are freed from British rule. Slavery in the americas will also never be able to get the foothold it does, historically.

With a free nation actively willing to target slave plantations and ships sitting between it and Africa, the colonial slave trade is finished. Now sure, they could use the existing slaves, but it would be oh-so-easy for the Pirates and Maroons, alongside their hopeful new Native and abolitionist allies, to target large plantations and cripple them.

If slavery never gets a foothold in the south, northern colonies never build the banks and mills and economic powerhouses that profit from the cheap produce, and most find another way to survive. Perhaps, if we’re going really all out, they start working with the native americans - learning ways to cultivate and grow crops with the land and in balance, rather than clearing thousands of acres for damaging cash crops.

I want to be really, really clear about this because it is incredibly important. Without slavery, the British empire would not have bee able to sustain itself. It would not have the power. And the more it tried to tax the colonists to recoup its losses, the angrier those people were likely to get, and perhaps join the Maroons and Pirates, or perhaps evens start the american revolution early - maybe even with the help of the newly independent Jamaican/Bahaman island nations.

This break in the power of colonial empires would shift world history into something unrecognizable as we know it. The empires would still exist, of course, but they would be set on their heels - France and Spain would see what happened to Britain and be less inclined to keep slavery legal in their own colonies. Power is split more evenly among the world, and indigenous and black/African nations are not wiped out in genocidal bids for power.

Which brings me to India. If the Indian rebellions learned of what happened in America and the Bahamas, or if america had drained enough of britain’s resources that the British East India Trading Company was not able to be as controlling of the area, this could have meant independence centuries earlier, as well as a much easier path to independence. Think about what could have been if the Indian people had been able to oust a struggling empire from its shores an entire century before it historically did.

(This bad boy is Mangal Pandey, who led the first major Indian revolution in the mid 1800s. In the movie adaptation his boyfriend best friend is played by Toby Stephens so I’m connecting the dots.)

Once the colonies of America and India are gone, Britain loses almost the entirety of its colonial power. (And this isn’t even including all the smaller colonies which could cloak their own independence in these big revolutions and the lack of (as much) of an indigenous genocide in many of these places. The economic disparity that defines Black experience in places that the British colonial system touched never gets a hold, and they are able to build their own economies in ways that benefit them and the places they live.

Think about the wealth of culture in ALL nations that would not have been destroyed, had Britain not been allowed to swallow whole swaths of land whole.

And, look. I know this is fiction. I know that of course, none of this happened, and that Black Sails is a fictional landscape. I know that so many things could go differently than I imagine them. I know that to extrapolate like this relies heavily on actually caring about a world that is completely different from ours and envisioning how that could come about.

I also know, that it is just as important to tell these sorts of stories as telling stories about how small acts could have changed things immensely, as it is to tell them about how society must stay the same. It is just as important to tell stories about ‘what if colonialism were able to be stopped’ as it is to tell dystopian stories about the end of the world. It may not be as much fun, but it is important to remember that our power doesn’t lie an indiscernible amount of time in the future, after the world has already gone to shit. It lies with us, right now. And that even if it is hard to see, our actions have the power to shape history.

#annyway have a BUNCH OF FEELINGS AND HISTORICAL FACTS BUNDLED TOGETHER AS FANDOM META #black sails #milos black sails meta #black sails and colonialism #james mcgraw #madi scott #uhhhhhhhh #historical meta #IDK MAN WHAT TO TAG THIS JUST INDULGE ME AND READ IT LMAO #long post #god i hope the readmore works lmao #Anonymous #black sails meta

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janaikam · 3 years

Text

JATP Song Ranking

I’m in a JATP mood and I have listened to the album for the uhhh 121st? time (it’s probably more) and I was curious on people’s opinions on which songs are the best. Plus I wanted to share my own personal list.

Also disclaimer this is my preference and I love all the songs from the show.

Edge of Great This song is most likely the one I’m thinking of when I want to listen to the album again. It’s just so boppin and energetic I love it’s nrg

Wake Up I’m a big fan of songs with messages and wake up is just so powerful and Madison’s voice is just so amazing that I am absolutely in love with this song

Stand Tall i get emotional just thinking about this song. like when the guys start appearing one by one 🥺🥺🥺

Unsaid Emily i think this one speaks for itself

Perfect Harmony I’m constantly thinking about Juke whenever this song play and I absolutely love them

Flying Solo “i know all your secrets. you know all my deep-dish” 🍕

This Band is Back (Reggie’s Jam) this one is just so happy and uplifting and honestly such a jam. really showed the guys’ friendship

The Other Side of Hollywood for a villains song caleb goes off

Now Or Never points off for bobby, v rockin song that just makes me want to grab an electric hammer

You Got Nothing to Lose caleb peaked with other side of hollywood. KIDDING i just dont vibe with this song as much

Finally Free this would probably be higher up on the list if i listened to it more

All Eyes on Me i love savannah’s voice and this song is just so carrie that im like yessss

Bright in comparison to all the other phantoms’ songs it just isn’t as high

I Got the Music flynn needs more lines.

Wow only reason its at the bottom is cause i’m not the biggest fan. this would be one song i might skip if im just in the mood for something else

Edit: Someone pointed out to me that I missed a song (Perfect Harmony) so updated the list with that. (I blame itunes stupid organizing of the songs/album for why I messed up)

#julie and the phantoms #jatp #jatp songs #julie and the phantoms songs #julie molina #luke patterson #reggie peters #alex mercer #carrie wilson #caleb covington #flynn

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arofili · 4 years

Note

how’d u get into writing? like, writing fic and being part of the silm community, being Known, that stuff? i’m really new to being a silm cc and i’d love to know ur advice! also: how’d u build up the confidence to start posting meta/hcs? bc i have a Lot of hcs and meta ideas but also i’m really anxious abt posting them bc yknow anxiety is like that

these are some great questions, anon! I’m gonna go through them one by one :)

how’d u get into writing?

not to be like, super cliche, but I’ve...kind of always been a writer? as long as I can remember I’ve been telling stories, and when I was too young to read or write I would dictate them to my mom, who would type them up for me and help me choose clipart illustrations to accompany them. when I got old enough I would always be writing; I attempted my first novel at age 9, and while that never really went anywhere I did finish the darn thing and it had some pretty sophisticated plot twists for a 9-year-old!

like, writing fic

around the same time I got into fandom! I was deep into Warrior cats (like. really deep) and I believe I started writing my first fics when I was like? 10 or 11? my memory is kind of fuzzy on the order of things, but I know I got an account on the Warriors forums when I was 9, and that I was already posting my fic there when I made my FFN account. I believe I was 12 when that happened, but who knows. I haven’t the faintest idea of what happened with those forums, but uhhh pretty much all of my Warriors fic is still up on FFN lmao. you could probably find that if you want to but um...maybe don’t?

my first Big Fic was a self-insert of...my entire 5th/6th grade class into the then-current timeline of the Warriors books...well. I honestly think that might still be my most popular fic of all time l m a o though I try not to think about it because Hashtag Cringe. though as much as I look back on that time with a “yikes,” I am very grateful for the Warriors fandom in a way? that place was so accepting and encouraging of OCs, of AUs, of completely disregarding canon, of worldbuilding that is completely alien from canon - it was a fantastic sandbox to begin with, there were so many ways to write stories and practically all of them were accepted and had fellow fans invested in them!

and being part of the silm community,

soooo I wrote Warriors fic until my freshman year of high school (wow sdjfhkdsjfh), which was when BOTFA came out, and I was absolutely wrecked by the ending and immediately started writing my own fixit fic. I was also super hooked on Kiliel! so that was my intro to the Tolkien fandom; and simultaneously, I joined tumblr, and, well, the rest is history tbh.

I honestly do not remember when I first read the Silm, but I kind of got into the more obscure parts of the Tolkien fandom through fandom osmosis, and I do have a vague memory of doodling the Finwean family tree in geometry class so it might have been later on in freshman year? that was also the same time I was having my Queer Awakening, and Russingon definitely contributed to me unlearning my internalized queerphobia, so probably around then.

anyway - queer awakening, tumblr, Tolkien, transitioning from FFN to AO3 - all of that was happening around the same time. I know I dipped my toes in the Silm fandom then, but I was still primarily a Hobbit fic writer focusing on Kiliel. toward the end of high school I kind of shifted to LOTR and (qp) Gigolas...but somehow the Silm fandom is the most active of the Big Three within the Tolkien fandom, and I was getting dragged further and further in.

it wasn’t until @backtomiddleearthmonth 2019, my freshman year of college, that I really dove into writing Silm fic! I picked some Silm-specific bingo cards and never looked back :D that was really not all that long ago but I am obsessed in a way I don’t really remember being even with TH/LOTR, I obviously cannot see the future but I anticipate hanging out here for a long time. the Silm fandom is great overall and there’s just so much material to work with!! <3

being Known, that stuff?

so I don’t really have a whole lot of context on how “well known” I am in the fandom?? definitely within the past year and a half or so I’ve noticed that I like, get asks like this, and get a significant amount of notes on my posts, and I’ve made a lot of fandom friends especially since I joined some Silm servers on Discord (hmu if you want invites; I’m on the SWG server and 2 general Silm servers and the Russingon server) this past year. and I have 3,000 followers as of this month - and while ever since I hit 1k I don’t particularly pay attention to my follower count I can definitely say that I have more engagement now than I used to! but it took me a long time to build this “audience,” I suppose; I’ve been around the Tolkien fandom since late 2014, so nearly 6 years of this, lol.

really the best way to build a following, in my experience, is to just post a lot of stuff. when I started making edits I got a lot more engagement, because for a long time I would post one every day! (I made them in batches and queued them; I didn’t actually make one every day lol...and now I’m too busy to do that, so I just make edits for events and whenever I feel like it) And I have [checks ao3] 145 works in the Silm fandom as of today - I’m fairly prolific! I’ve come to generally expect 3-10 comments on most of my oneshots, which is a lot more than I used to have back in the day. consistency and quantity are more likely to attract people to your work - and quality, of course.

also: how’d u build up the confidence to start posting meta/hcs?

I’ve been writing since I was very young, and I’ve been writing fic for like...11 years? I think? in that time I’ve produced a lot of garbage, but imo most of that was in my Warrior cats phase, so I came into the Tolkien fandom with confidence in myself and my writing. I’m also working on original fiction on the side (I hope to eventually become a published fantasy author, but right now school takes up most of my time that I don’t devote to fandom, which gives me more immediate gratification and also is just Very Fun) and I know I’m a good writer.

basically, I’ve been doing this for like...half my life, and I’m still fairly young, so I’ve had time to build up my skill and confidence and I know I’m only going to get better with time. you will get better with practice. like I said, I’ve written a lot of terrible stuff, and it’s only through sucking for a long time that I’ve gotten to the point I am now. and I am far from perfect; I know I still have lots of room to grow!

for meta and headcanons specifically, I started with writing fic, and then when I didn’t think I could stretch something into an entire fic I would just make a hc post. I have a vivid memory of writing my first meta in a notebook during driver’s ed because it was so goddamn boring and I had Thoughts about Tauriel and Thranduil!

in my experience, meta comes from having Opinions and wanting to share them and most importantly to back them up - you need to have sources! you need to have reasons! you need to have justification! otherwise it’s not meta, it’s a headcanon or an AU. which is fine!! I love hc/AU!!! but they are not the same as meta, and I’m a stickler for being accurate when it comes to meta. if you have sources and shit to back you up, that will help you build the confidence to share your meta.

sharing disinformation and passing it off as meta instead of just coming out and saying this is a headcanon/baseless theory/AU or whatever is such a fandom pet peeve of mine; it’s not bad for something to not be Accurate! you just have to have that disclaimer - and even when you’re writing meta, you’re offering an interpretation of the text, and you need to acknowledge that other interpretations also exist and are valid.

um. I hope this answers your questions? and sorry for basically word-vomiting my entire life story, lol. this post got long; the main reason I’ve written so much fic is because I really just cannot shut up for the life of me. sooo if you can tear of that filter of being shy and just. say shit. you can go so far~!

OH and one more thing - I can’t believe I almost forgot this - but part of being a writer is participating in the community. this is code for LEAVE A DAMN COMMENT IF YOU LIKE A FIC. that’s how I made most of my fandom friends before Discord! I follow @ao3feed-silmarillion and stalk that blog for new Silm fics; I read the ones that interest me and comment on them.

I know this is not really the most common way for folks to find fic but it’s so rewarding to interact with new fic, new writers, new commentors, new stories - you can find gems that don’t rise to the top of the kudos/bookmark lists; you become friends with your fellow writers; you can watch people grow and change; you support smaller content creators. yeah, you might not be getting Just The Best Stuff, but it’s so so so worth it!!

and if you make friends in the comment section of other people’s fic - I guarantee you some of them will go to your AO3 profile and check out your fic, too! and they’ll leave comments! this is a fic community, and that’s what I cherish about fandom most of all, tbh.

anyway - again - sorry for rambling so much, but I hoped this helped! feel free to send in another ask, or to come talk to me off anon if you’d like! and definitely send me your stuff if/when you decide to share it; I would love to support you!!! <3

#silm #silm fandom #silmarillion #fan culture #tmi anna #(for real this time sjdfhdkfh)#tefain nin #long post #anon #answers

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jacepi-time · 3 years

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For the music ask: the police, Switchfoot, jack stauber, the oh hellos, oingo boingo, josh garrels (trying to cover my bases/genres awhdkdnskdh)

Switchfoot

Ah Switchfoot my teen years and onward how they’ve followed me over the years

So apparently they JUST came out with new songs that I’ve never heard of so I’m judging this based on not those lkdjs

If I know them:

Favourite Song: Native Tongue

Least Favourite Song: I genuinely don’t remember it’s been a while since I’ve heard them enough times to have a least favorite

Favourite Album: Native Tongue and Fading West

Least Favourite Album: I don’t remeeeember probably their super older albums

Song that got me into them: UMMM It’s been YEARS they played on the radio forever probably Dare You To Move since it was played non stop but that wasnt my favorite, I remember listening to Stars on repeat and Oh Gravity

Seen Live?: Unfortunately not

Rate: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

jack stauber

okay i need to disclaimer that I’m not trying to be mean or rude but just for me his album covers/art content hits all of my squick levels lakdjd but I tried to not let that affect my opinion of his music

THAT BEING SAID Buttercup was the one introduced to me and thats actually one that was a meme and was hecking catchy its WEIRD its out there but I just vividly remember seeing this in all the Among Us memes

First song youtube took me to: Buttercup

First Impression: LIKE I SAID ABOVE it’s really BIZARRE I’m not sure if it would be my own choice to click on it but the beat is pretty good ???

Do I like it?: ??????????????????????????? I honestly don’t know I’m left in an alternate plane of existence after listening to this like I don’t hate it either it’s just ??????????????? -math meme-

Would I listen to more from them?: UHHH I think if the visuals and his art that he used if they didn’t give me such a squick I might dabble in it

Rate (from what I heard): 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | ?

The Oh Hellos

WWWWWWWWWEEELLL YESSSS

Favourite Song: SOLDIER POET KING (listen I know this is one of their most popular songs but you don't understand i have Listened to all of their albums I love all of their songs but this one I have a bias for in the sense I repeated this MULTIPLE TIMES in a row over a week and month I am obsessed with this song)

Least Favourite Song: LITERALLY NONE

Favourite Album: UMMDSKLJk I love them all, Their newer albums maybe I--cannot pick you can’t do this to me

Least Favourite Album: none dude

Song that got me into them: Soldier Poet King OK SO I did not know this song had Christian symbolism about the second coming of Christ I didn’t know that The Oh Hellos put a TON of Christian aspects into their songs But I remember hearing this song going “?? huh kinda sounds like symbolism but not sure so ??” So I looked up the lyrics and the band’s interpretation of it (since sometimes bands will use christian symbolism but its meant in a derogatory way or for the aesthetics which isnt really my thing) anyway I started looking into their other songs and then my bias grew when I started shoveling them into character playlists so sdlkjd

Seen Live?: No but I would like to

Rate: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 (yall dont know how much I love this band lkdsj)

Oingo Boingo (i could swear I’ve heard of this man but I do not know)

First song youtube took me to: Only A Lad/ Private Life

First Impression: This has very old song vibes it looks like he’s been having songs like? in the 80s??

Do I like it?: It’s so weird but I dig it man it sounds like something I’ve heard of before

Would I listen to more from them?: Yeah I’d look into more of his songs sldkj

Rate (from what I heard): 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Josh Garrels

HMMMMMMMZGMMGMG

First song youtube took me to: Fear Thou Not/Flood Waters

First Impression: Good intro good it gives me some retro soulful vibes / This ones more FOLKY he has a nice voice I enjoy

Do I like it?: Oh def I’m into this

Would I listen to more from them?: Oh hec yE

Rate (from what I heard): 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

ACTUALLY APPARENTLY I HAVE HEARD HIM BEFORE I THINK IN PASSING I just didn’t look further into him I like him dslkj SEND ME SONGS (please)

#THANK YOU!!!!!!!

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bulgariansumo · 3 years

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Galactimato Big Brother Week 1

Week 2 >

Yesterday, I plugged a bunch of my OCs into a Big Brother simulator. The link for my playthrough of the game will run out in 3 months, but the results were so funny that I wanted to archive them here and add some ~flavor~ with text and pictures!

The special thing about this simulator is that I could set how characters felt about themselves, others, and how well they do in certain challenges. Also, these relationships can change based on what happens in the game. This means everyone is surprisingly in-character.

Also, disclaimer, I've never actually watched Big Brother, so I'll be adding context for people like me who don't know what's going on.

Let the chaos begin!

Here's our beginning lineup. Say hi! There were only 14 slots, so I couldn't include everyone I wanted to, but with this format, I have a way to squeeze them in.

The premise of the game is that all the contestants live in a house together. I think they're competing for who gets to own it? I'm not entirely sure on the prize. The American audience gets one contestant to represent their choices (and I guess they can choose tasks?)

As you can see, the public chose Emil to represent them. And why wouldn't they? He's charming, down-to-Earth, and uniquely, he's mutually liked by all of the contestants. He's gonna to be something of a main character for this run.

This sounds all well and good, but in actuality, Emil's job is to vote off whoever America wants him to. He doesn't get a say in the matter. For better or worse, he's the audience's puppet.

...To be honest, I don't know what this means. It never comes up, but I wanted to put it here for completion's sake.

Every week, there is a challenge to decide who gets to be the Head of the Household (HoH.) This person decides the nominees for elimination and is immune from being eliminated.

I guess Emil's other job is to convince the HoH and other contestants who to get eliminated? I feel like the other contestants wouldn't be allowed to know that he's America's Player, either.

I imagine Nicky wouldn't have an easy time choosing who gets to go home. Let's see how he does it!

Nicky told everyone to get in a circle. He placed a bottle on the floor and spun it. The bottle landed on him.

"I guess I'm the first nominee."

"You're the HoH, kid," reminded the host, "you can't get eliminated."

"Ah, right!" Nicky spun again. It landed on a pair of contestants.

"Uhhh, I guess it's you two! Sorry!"

With that, Nicky chose the first two nominees, and America, its first target. While Nicky's choice was up to chance, Emil's first mission was a success.

Note: When I was running this simulation the first time, I got the choice to either pick who "America" wants to eliminate or let the AI decide that. I picked Aiden first by accident, but I feel like an audience would be against him anyway. He's grouchy and comes off as kind of a jerk ^^;

After the nominees are selected, they, the HoH, and three others (if available) compete get a chance to obtain the Power of Veto. The Power of Veto allows whoever has it to make the HoH replace one nominee with someone else. For this challenge, Roxie, Leon, and Maxy are the other three competitors.

Let's see how this comes into play in the Veto Ceremony!

"Why do you think you should be saved?" asked the host. "You. With the big 'ol eyes! Go first!"

"Me? Uhhh.. t-to be honest, I'm not really sure I have a good reason..." Angelo trailed off.

"...You sure about this?"

"I-I really can't think of anything. I'm sorry!"

The host scratched his stubble, turning to Aiden. "What about you, big guy?"

Aiden shrugged.

Tilting down his glasses, the host stared into the camera. "Kenji, are ya seein' this? Nobody's makin' any decisions! How's this gonna make the ratings?"

"Mr. Benji, we're on air."

"Right, right. Cut that in post." Benji adjusted his glasses. He slumped toward Roxie. "You. Pleeease tell me you have an opinion on something."

Roxie lifted a hand. "I choose to deliver salvation onto Muffinhead!"

"Wow, really?" This surprised Angelo. "Wait, aren't we nemeses?"

Roxie turned to Benji. "...Are we?"

"Not if it gets this show on the road!" Benji threw his cards in the air, ignoring the cameraman's pleads. "Nick. Choose someone to go in that kid's place!"

"Okay!" Nicky lifted his bottle. "Who's ready for another round of spin the bottle?"

Angelo is saved, and the final first nominees are chosen. Now it's Aiden vs. Lorenzo, which should be an interesting choice for Emil. Will he vote against his role model or his older brother? America will decide! Onto the votes!

The contestants decided and so did America. America wanted drama! Let's hear from some of the others before we check in with Emil!

The contestants sat in soundproof rooms to be interviewed.

Toni pressed his hands into his knees, straightening his posture. "Both of them scare me, but Aiden scares me more."

"I felt bad for not vetoing Aiden, so I voted for the captain!" explained a cheerful Roxie. "But now I feel bad for him toooo."

Jun fixed the bangs over their eye. "Sorry captain, but it'd be boring without Aiden."

"I'd like a roommate who doesn't sleep naked!" Leon laughed at his own statement.

Benji addressed the camera in another room. "Now let's check in with Emil! How ya doin', buddy?"

"Not good!" Emil answered, a strained smile on his face. "I do not wanna hafta explain this to Lorie."

"Hang in there, kid. It's just week one!"

Aiden is the first to be evicted. The audience wanted Lorenzo out, but sometimes things don't go as planned. Emil's probably simultaneously happy that his brother is still there while dreading what he must feel about this. But let's hear from Aiden for now!

"Aiden, any words you'd like to say to the audience? How do ya feel about bein' evicted first?" Benji offered the microphone to Aiden.

Aiden glared into the camera. "...I don't care."

"Haha, always good to keep on a tough face!"

And that concludes Week 1 of Galactimato Big Brother! If you read this, thank you! This is mostly entertaining to myself and I'd be surprised if more than two other people read down this far, but I'm having fun and that's what matters! I'll probably do one a day maybe? This is an experiment. We'll see how this goes.

#galactiquest #hinimato #ocs #galactimato big brother #bsumowriting #bsumodoodles #big brother simulator #i managed to post exactly 10 images for this one wow!

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randomfandomblabdom · 4 years

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I already posted this as a response to someone else’s post which I’ll link right here but I wanted to put it in my own post about the Outlander Season 5 Finale which, for all intents and purposes, was fairly well done in my opinion. I still love the show, I’ll still watch it, and still think it’s one of the better, most underrated pieces of television out there right now and I know everyone and their mother has made a post on this but...

As a small disclaimer: I’ve never read the books, so I can only make judgments based off the show.

I always say that the first book/season of Outlander uses rape in a really interesting way story-wise. People are always kind of put off when I say that and I understand why. Using rape as a plot device is an extremely touchy, controversial subject but I genuinely don’t mind as long as it’s handled delicately. Season 1’s was foreshadowed and built up extremely well, it made sense within the context of the narrative as well as character traits previously set up earlier in the season, and it progressed the story forward in a way that felt natural. Was it necessary? No, not really but it didn’t come out of nowhere and the healing process - though somewhat sped up at the end - was handled with care. (It also brought up some really interesting discussions about male rape in general). Unpopular opinion but I’m also a really big fan of the change that they made in Season 2 regarding Jamie’s trauma. Apparently he experiences little to no mental/emotional damage in the 2nd book. Kudos to the writers for that one regardless of how well it was handled, that was the right decision to make in my opinion. As someone with a degree in psychology, I would have been pissed if Jamie didn’t feel any sort of repercussions after such a traumatic event.

That being said, most of the other rapes on this show could have easily been written around.

Mary’s was completely unnecessary to the plot aside from giving a kind of stupid reason that Claire could use to convince Alex (that’s his name right?) not to marry her. Well…no, that’s not true. It did put even more doubt on St. Germain and it’s basically the reason the Duke gets killed later, so I guess there’s soooome payoff there but again, it didn’t have to be rape for it to cause drama and tension.

Fergus is a bit iffy as it’s basically the definition of a plot device. It’s what brings about an entire chain of events that need to happen in order to get to the next chapter of the story. That being said, if the writers were hell-bent on keeping the assault, he didn’t have to be raped. It could have been a close call. A near-rape would have been plenty to anger Jamie enough to break his promise to Claire. Not to mention, it’s only brought up once after that when it’s convenient to the plot and then never mentioned again which is a bit absurd because uhhh… he’s literally a child.

Ian was just…okay, I’m not the biggest fan of the latter half of Season 3 in general but again, that really served little to no narrative purpose. Geillis being alive and covered in blood was enough shock value as it was. Just allude to it at the beginning of Season 4 when him and Jamie are digging the grave, that would have been absolutely fine but again, it never comes up again after that scene.

Bree’s I’m somewhat okay with considering who Stephen Bonnet is as a character. It makes sense for him to do it within the context of the story. However, why not allow Bree some agency in that moment and choose to sleep with him in exchange for her mother’s ring? It still could have brought about the debate regarding Jemmy’s parentage and could have dealt with things like shame and guilt over making that choice. Sure, it would be a change from the books but it’s not like the writers have never changed anything before. I get that it gave Jamie and Brianna something but bond over but did it have to be that of all things? At the very least, maybe have Bree’s happen and not Claire’s? Or visa versa?

Having this happen to Claire would have been far more impactful had all of the previous ones either not happened at all or were not shown on screen - explicit or not. While I’m curious to see how this will impact her and their relationship in the next season (whenever the heck we’ll be getting that), all of this deserves to be called out. They could have easily changed it to Claire only being beaten or abused but once again, the writers chose not to. Not to mention, it felt completely out of the blue to me. It was beautifully filmed and well acted and I understand that they probably need to create tension between the Browns and the Frasers for whatever’s to come but...why this way?

I’m not trying to desensitize rape nor am I saying that it shouldn’t be shown in media. These things do happen in real life, awful things that warrant discussion and having it in stories or media is a good way of starting said-discussions but when it’s being used as nothing more then a plot device that only impacts the characters for as long as is narratively necessary and is treated as really nothing more then lazy character development…that’s a problem. Again, I’ll continue watching the show cause I still enjoy it and I’ll continue to rewatch my favorite parts but this is getting ridiculous.

(Jesus, I just realized that a character has been raped in every season of Outlander…how is this one of my favorite shows right now?? Oh yeah, cause Season 1 is really fucking good and Jamie and Claire are literally the best pairing on tv lol)

*this doesn’t even include Claire sleeping with the King or any other attempted rape that has taken place on the show*

#mine #outlander #jamie fraser #claire fraser #black jack randall #mary hawkins #fergus fraser #ian fraser murray #young ian #geillis duncan #brianna randall #brianna fraser #brianna mackenzie #stephen bonnet #jammf #starz #outlander spoilers

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lokemikaze · 4 years

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Zuka Rant: Part 2 (2016 Yuki - Don Juan)

okay so. for some reason, the gang in the zuka server decided they wanted to torture me, and introduced me to the 2016 yukigumi don juan. i thought i was prepared, but uhhh apparently not - i didn’t expect this amount of pAIN D: i’m legit gonna spend the next week crying about this

if you don’t already know, don juan is a “womanizer” trash man who brings shame upon his family and doesn’t appreciate the people who love him - until he meets maria, who he for some reason falls head over heels for and ends up dying for. that is not the main focus of this essay, though; my wish is to expand upon my thoughts about don juan’s relation to mental illness. please note that this will touch upon heavy themes, including Bad Coping Mechanisms. i’ll say it again:

TRIGGER WARNING FOR DARK THEMES LIKE alcoholism and self-harm

so. where to start. perhaps i should first make a disclaimer and say that while i am quite Experienced with mental illness, i am by no means an expert, and everything i write here will be my own personal opinions and over-analysis. i also know nothing about the history of this musical etc., i went into this blindly and got punched by the pain

when we first meet juan (played by the amazing daimon, who does such a good job), he is at a bar, surrounded by women. he smiles his gorgeous little smile, and dear gods we’re all taken by this utter trash man. he pushes the ones who love him away in favour of having yet another fling as he empties another bottle. does this seem healthy? nah fam, this is a textbook example of actual self-harm - he may not even realise it himself, but the way he is dealing with his inner struggles is to drown it in alcohol and s*x. it is harmful to both body and mind, yet he uses it to push away the harsh reality and ignore his own emotions

there’s a very touching scene where we get to see young don juan with his mother as she dies. i think this is perhaps where some of his struggles started - he seemed to be struggling slightly even before this, but this is of course a moment that deeply affects him. he throws away his cross necklace, cursing god, and from then we can only imagine the path he took to get to the present. there is a very big chance he hasn’t actually dealt with the grief and trauma from seeing his mother die, and has instead repressed it. for years. and you know what we say about repressing emotions? uhh yeah it’s not good

so as i see it, the juan we meet at the beginning of this musical is a broken man who does not want to acknowledge that he is broken. he shows obvious signs of depression (i.e. pushing people away, losing interest in i.e. the women he desire), and he spends his days (unconsciously?) self-harming. he hides behind a smiling mask, when in reality he is filled with so much anger and grief, and probably - judging by his reactions later - is really out of touch with his emotions, unable to grasp any of them. it is, in fact, Sad Boie Hours

then, the ghost appears. or is it a ghost? i see this as a figment of juan’s mind - perhaps a hallucination? he clearly believes what he’s seeing is real, but nobody else can see what he sees. he is distressed by this (obviously), and reacts violently bc that’s the only way he knows to act. we can see him slowly losing his grip on reality, unable to make out the difference. as someone who has at several points in my life had hallucinations, i can confirm that the way he is acting is indeed very realistic for someone in that situation. not to mention that he’s haunted by guilt and trauma and all those emotions he has pushed down for so long. he loses some of the control he has over himself due to the extreme mental anguish he is going through.

then, he meets maria. it is love at first sight. he sees her, and talks to her, and cannot grasp - what is this feeling? why does it hurt, why does it feel like everything is changing? he finally has something that feels light in his life, something that ‘sparks joy’. maria gives him what no one else have been able to - a positive feeling that shines through the darkness of his struggles. he swears to change for her, to abandon his old ways and start a new and better life, and this is where i need to rant a bit about the costumes

as i said in my previous essay, i am a Costume Nerd, and i was a lot more pleased with the costumes of this production than in 2009 zukabeth (still salty). there aren’t many costume changes, but there doesn’t need to be. juan’s first outfit is such a Vibe, and i absolutely love it - and it’s completely full-on black. only black. however, after he meets maria and pledges to change, his costume also changes. he now has not only really pretty sparkle, but *white*. his all-black has adapted to include touches of white. there are of course multiple meanings that could be read into this, but what does it mean judging from the mental health viewpoint? well, black is often associated with depression and dark thoughts (hence the name *dark* thoughts), while white is associated with purity, joy and hope. my theory is that juan’s previously hopeless existence now has hope, something he wants to live for, someone he loves and cherishes and who keeps him going. there is light at the end of the dark tunnel, so to say.

then, maria’s fiance comes back from war and confronts juan. they agree upon a duel, and juan has what seems to be a panic attack. all of a sudden, the fragile happiness he created with maria is broken, and everything comes flooding back - including his hallucination ghost. in a following scene, he is seen with his (absolutely gay) friend, who tries to convince him to Not Do This. the ghost follows, and we see that juan is once again losing his grip on reality, lashing out and refusing to listen to reason. when the duel scene arrives, juan’s costume is back to the full black. his hope is gone, and he has reverted back into the anguished man he was.

in the beginning of the duel, juan fights mercilessly, wounding his enemy several times, each time getting more and more out of control. he sees this man as the obstacle between himself and the hope he tried to cling on to, and now that he has had a taste of happiness, he wants it back. he aims to kill, and gets angry when his target won’t. stop. getting. up!! this is when the good old hallucination ghost once again appears, telling him that he is only procrastinating the inevitable, that if he wins, he will lose anyway due to the sin of killing another man. you can *see* the moment when juan’s last grip on reality shatters, and from then on out there’s no hope of it ending well. he has given up hope, he has given in to the darkness, he has accepted as a fact that there is no good outcome for him. if he lives on, he will be plagued by his own struggles, unable to find a way out of the deep dark hole his mind has plunged him into. and so, he does the only thing that seems logical, and basically throws himself at his enemy’s blade. he states that this way, maybe he can live on in the love between himself and maria. my belief is that it was a simple way to commit s*icide that didn’t involve him having to actually do it himself. it makes it seem ‘accidental’, and lays the blame on someone else.

and so, don juan dies. a painful, harsh death that absolutely punched my heart and wrenched the sobs from my throat (thanks for enabling my hyper empathy, daimon, well done). he dies with little else than the vague hope that maybe, he can die with love, and that something good will come from it all. a man who got too little time, made too many bad decisions, and had too many issues that he should’ve gotten help with ages ago goddammit. it is questionable if he was fully aware of his decision, being fully lost to his own mind by then, but what is unquestionable is that he suffered a lot. his entire life was filled with suffering, hidden behind a cocky smile.

if you’ve read all the way here, thank you for considering what i had to say. i hope i remembered everything i wanted to say. i have no way to conclude this, other than to say “thanks, i hate this” to the sadists who threw me into this. it is a heartwrenching story that i honestly can relate to a little too much to (no, i am not a murderer nor a womanizer), and i felt don juan’s pain on a deep level. have i read way too much into it all? probably. then again, that’s the beauty of fiction - we all have our own experiences which affect the impression it leaves us with. and to me, takarazuka’s don juan isn’t about a cocky bastard who got too full of himself - it’s about a young man so filled with pain that it led to his demise.

#long post #zuka #takarazuka #don juan #tw: mental health #tw: dark themes #another essay #bc i cannot control myself #this show absolutely ended me #so much pain

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reroseshi · 4 years

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🦇Psychological Analysis of Diabolik Lovers❤:

Hi! I've decided for my first own Tumblr post that I should talk about the franchise that I have been a fan of for 6 years: Diabolik Lovers. After being in this fandom for so long I felt personally kinda cheap for me to just do a short funny post about DL

… sooo~~~ i've decided to share my personal psychological analysis on all the diaboys! Disclaimer:

1-My memory is quite short and trying to analyse 13 fictional mentally ill boys is quite tricky so please be easy on me.^^

2- English isn't my first language so there might be some mistakes so please pardon me for that!

3- I am currently still working on the Mukami's, the Tsukinami's and Kino so they aren't gonna be in this post!

4- I based myself on the manga and MAINLY HDB and MB for my analysis.

Thank you and have a good reading!^^~ <3

-Rero

Sakamaki's:________________________________

-Shu Sakamaki:

Shu is the first born and the heir of the Sakamaki family. Thus, whether he wants it or not, it was decided even before he was born that he will be the victim of a lot of pressure. That pressure to become worthy of being the heir not only came from both of his parents but the servants as well. He couldn’t be free for two seconds. He was obliged to stay inside the castle/mansion (sometimes in the garden with his mom) to study and train, but he wasn’t allowed to go somewhere else. As he lived in a strict environnement, he wasn't happy as a kid and wanted to escape from that life. Meeting Edgar gave him true happiness. He was his first real best friend and he eventually lost him in the flames of his village. Imagine the thing or person who made you discover true happiness burning in front of your own very eyes. You will most likely lose hope in making other close relationship with anything or anyone. That's how Shu is. A depressed, borderline suicidal man who doesn't have any hope anymore and thinks that it is all his fault. Refusing anyone close to him and empty on a daily basis, he uses music as a way to cope with everything. If you think that Shu is easier to love because "he is less harsh than the other brothers" then you are wrong. Shu doesn't want to be involved with anything or anyone. If you try to get close to him, then get ready to be hurt because he is a sadist like his brothers and can hurt you if he doesn't want you near him.

-Reiji Sakamaki:

(If you want a more detailed and a well done analysis, please go check this one:

Reiji was severely neglected as a child by both of his parents. He basically spent his entire childhood trying to get their attention or at least some recognition from them, especially his mom’s, but never got any or if he did it was to remind him that he should be a good younger/brother/servant/right-hand man for his older brother, the next heir of the Sakamaki family Shu. Thus, as he grew up he developed a strong feeling of jealousy for his brother to the point of having a severe inferiority complex. In addition to that, the bitterness that he has for ages inside of him about his mother still resides in him and as we know he is still trying to revive her. Reiji is a man who holds grudges from his past and seeks revenge. He is also someone who loves attention (maybe not as much as Kanato) and wants to be recognized as superior to his brother whom he despises so much to the point that you cannot even talk about Shu around him without having either a death glare or a ass whooping. By putting high standards on to himself, not only in the present but also in his past, he’s become a perfectionist who cares a lot about image and manners. He even forces Yui in his route to learn the perfect lady etiquette. Why does he act this way? Simple, in my opinion it is because he likes to keep a perfect image of himself in a way to detach himself from his brothers whom he despises a lot. You might also ask: if he hates his brothers, then why didn’t he kill them yet? Well, Reiji in one interview (https://prevolt.tumblr.com/post/103068375676/diabolik-lovers-dark-fate-stellaworth-complete )admits that he doesn’t completely hate living with his bros, also if he would’ve killed them, his father would’ve punished him. Even if he seems not that bad with his gentleman personality, Reiji isn’t a kind man. Reiji can easily kill someone. To end this, to go back to the butler-like image he gives himself, I think it could be a mask to hide the insecurities he has. I also believe that he constantly lies to himself and that he doesn’t truly understand his own emotions or even himself has seen many times in his HDB route and in the manga.

-Ayato Sakamaki:

(For Ayato I fell upon this really interesting analysis if you are interested )

Ayato, in his childhood, like all of his brothers, was not treated well by his father but he , most importantly, got overpressured by Cordelia to be number one. He couldn’t get out and play freely like any normal child can do because when he would sneak out, he got punished and got slapped in the face by his own mother telling him that if he cannot be number one, he is not allowed to call her “mother” again.(Also, do I need to remind you all the lake scene from his childhood… )For him, you cannot be loved and/or appreciated if you’re not number one. Because he had to live such a childhood, he developed a severe narcissistic personality. Narcissists are not born, they are made, and they are made by being over praised as a kid for their success (such as having a good grade at school, winning a competition or an award, being the best in what they are doing) and by being emotionally neglected. (Ex: throughout the day the child is getting good compliments from their parents by being the number one at school but when the kid will start crying, the parents will ignore or punish him for it. Not giving him any love or support. Which will lead the kid to build himself an ego higher than Yūma’s height and rejecting his own emotions.) I think it describes Ayato’s behaviour and his past pretty well. Another thing that is important to consider about Ayato is that he looks as if he is frozen in time. (Which is a trait that can also be found in any real life narcissists) Even if his mother is dead and that he has nothing to prove anymore, he is still stuck in the “I need to be number one” as if his brain didn’t move on to the present. In addition to that, Ayato is a really childish man. I mean: he needs Yui’s attention and approval all the time, pouts like a kid, acts like a kid (when he asked Yui to stroke his hair in a childish way, plays pranks on Reiji, …) and sometimes speaks like a kid when things are not going the way he wants them to go. Also, once states that he doesn’t wish to have someone special in his life again because the last one who was special (his mom) broke his heart. Ayato himself and himself only and the only goal in his life is to prove that he is the best. To do that, he will use ANY sadistic method and won’t stop even if you beg. Heck, it’ll only excite him more. He is a narcissistic sadist who keeps his emotions far away from him.

-Kanato Sakamaki:

(For this character I highly suggest that you take a good look a this psychological analysis since in my opinion really detailed and the author made a really good job making it: . Thank you~)

Just like his brother Laito, Kanato throughout his childhood was severely neglected and treated very harshly by both of his parents. The only thing that was valuable to his mother’s eyes was his beautiful voice and literally made him sing until his vocal cords bled. I suspect that Kanato probably suffers from Asperger syndrome from how he acts when he is mad, the fact that he doesn’t understand his or the emotions of others and his overall behaviour. In the present we can all see that he is almost, if not, the scariest of all sakamaki brothers and I think that it is mainly due to the lack of attention and support from his parents. Of all the Sakamaki’s, Kanato is the one who, from very early in his childhood, needed attention and support the most. Why do you think he always has a teddy in his arms (with his mother’s ashes in it must I remind you..)and makes his own doll made out of the body of dead women? Kanato simply cannot stand being alone. He would rather have you dead by his side for all eternity than being rejected or even worse, ignored.(I really recommend to read Kanato’s analysis since it really explains well his behaviour on that aspect^^)

He is maybe cute, remember that he is unable to understand your emotions and that he has no problem killing you. Also to be able to survive with him, you will have to abandon your logic and read in between the lines which isn’t an easy task..(This one is shorter because I think that Kanato isn’t that complex. He is just really different but still stays, in my opinion, pretty simple and easy to understand)

-Laito Sakamaki:

Laito is what I would call an empty pervert who uses sex as a coping mechanism. He believes that there’s nothing more real than pleasure. He even goes further in his “crazy” beliefs that “even the sweetest pain can become the greatest pleasure”. Behind his playful, sociable, perverted personality is a really cruel, cunning and manipulator expert who knows the best tricks to manipulate someone since his mother uses those on him in his “young adulthood” to have sexual intercourses with him. Only used as a sex partner by his mom as a child and never received any unconditional love from his parents, he has a bad definition of love. For him love=lust, real love (true love or even unconditional love) doesn’t exist and that it is all fake. He spends his time having sex to forget about the women that broke him and would even go as far as threatening Yui to death if she resist him when she doesn’t want to get involve in his “activities” or “little games”. But even after all that he can’t forget her and still is captive of her “love”, still feeling her, remembering her scent and everything about her. He can’t escape from that jail. Finally, it’s important to remember that Laito is a sadist who takes an amount of pleasure by having someone succumbing to him in a mental and sexual way. He is not someone to be taken lightly. You might not see the danger totally at first by that’s just how Laito is. He even says it himself in his HDB route, he is the type of man who will follow his prey in an alley before attacking it. Therefore, he is not like most of his brothers, he is not going to attack fully. He’s slowly going to take little bites of you and before you even realize it, you won’t be able to escape from him anymore.

-Subaru Sakamaki:

First of all, we need to know that Subaru was born (just like almost all of his brothers) just for the sake of Karl’s plan. What is different about Subaru is that his mother became crazy when she had her child. (I just want to state that she did want the child and Karlheinz did not totally raped her since it is stated that she accepted but we also all know that she was being manipulated. Since for the moment I want to concentrate more on Subaru I will not spend too much time explaining his parents relationship but it is something that we should definitely analyse as well in my opinion) Subaru was severely neglected by his father and he never knew what it was to have a normal mother. Throughout his entire childhood, he’s witnessed his mother’s unstable mind, bipolarity, her tantrums episodes and even worse, not only her insults being thrown directly at him but her literally asking him to kill both her and Karl. Because of that, he’s developed anger issues, a lack of trust with women, a severe depression and he is, if not, borderline suicidal. I also want to state that (He even states in his route in HDB that the two people he hates the most in “this world” is 1) Karlheinz 2)himself)Subaru is one if not the most sensible emotionally. So that means he feels harder than the others. You can also see that he has developed similar traits has his mother has you get to know him more in his route such as: bipolarity (when he orders Yui to always come and tell him where she’s going and then get mad when she does so telling her that he doesn’t care) and random tantrums. (when he gets mad à Yui for no good reason and even makes false assumptions) Not only does he usuels violence as a coping mechanism but he also always isolates himself, not letting anyone in his hard shell because he believes that he can’t do any good and that he is useless. In his presents, he still believes in his mother’s insults and thinks of him as someone filthy, disgusting, weak, a monster who can’t do anything to help the person he loved, his mother. He hates himself. He is constantly irritated by everything. If you want to love him you will have to endure the violence that he’s going to give to you and live with his confusion and irritation against not only everything that surrounds him but also against himself and you, and you will have to give up your life to make him trust you entirely.

#Tried to put some pics but it didn't worked...fml #I swear in this game you don't date boys #you date mental problems #when you meet people and star analysing them but then you get these DL vietnam flashbacks #going through HDB made me feel so bad #HDB is the worst #Recent DL games are much softer imo #Diabolik Lovers #Psychological analysis #Sakamaki #Shu #Reiji #Ayato #Kanato #Laito #Subaru

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feed-the-birdss · 4 years

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The Promise

Author’s Note: I know it’s been awhile since I’ve been active, but life has been so busy, that I took a mini impromptu hiatus. That being said, things are starting to calm down now that I am more used to NYC life, and I am so excited to catch up on everything I’ve missed--especially @petals-to-fish story Fearlessly Red and @blitheringmcgonagall story We Can Be Heroes. Nonetheless, here is something I’ve finally had time to finish today!! I really hope you enjoy, and please let me know what you think. I love all kinds of reviews!!

Read it here on fanfic

Disclaimer: Anything you recognize isn’t mine.

“Daddy?” twelve-year-old Lily asked quietly.

“Yes sweetheart?” responded Mr. Evans not looking up from his newspaper.

“Daddy, you need to promise me, from the bottom of your heart, that you will never let me marry James Potter, and I mean never, can you do that?” declared Lily.

Mr. Evans just chuckled, “Sure thing darling,” he said somewhat absentmindedly as his eyes still moved across the page of his paper.

Lily got up, walked around the kitchen table, and ripped the paper right out of his hands. “Daddy this is serious! PROMISE me, you will never let me marry him. I mean it. It can never happen. If I wanted to marry him, it would mean I’ve gone crazy!!” Mr. Evans stared at his youngest daughter with wide-eyed concern over her absolute resolve. Her bright green eyes, so much like his own, were piercing his soul, begging for his help, and he could never refuse his little girl when she was looking at him like such. “Promise me,” she repeated.

“I promise.”

As a Gryffindor, James Potter was rarely nervous even though there was plenty in his life he should be nervous about. Fighting in a deadly war with his girlfriend and best friends—easy—the other side were a pack of idiots. Telling Sirius that he damaged his bike snogging Lily up against it and knocking it over—please—that would be more funny than anything. Running around with a werewolf every month as an illegal Animagus—don’t make him laugh—a child could do that—heck—he did it as a child. Disobeying Alastor Moody—if he can handle an angry McGonagall, Moody looks like a teacup pig next to her.

However, it was one of those rare times that James Potter was nervous. After apparating from his flat, he walked up to a simple looking house in Cokeworth. It was dark out, so he could only just make out the shadows of the perfectly manicured shrubbery out front. Stuffing his wand in his pocket, and using his hand to, once more, attempt to tame his hair a bit more, he held a knuckle up to the door, knocked, and then took a deep breath.

You see, there was only one thing in his life that ever made James Potter nervous: Lily Evans. He’d gotten past the nerves for, you know, just generally being in her presence after a year of dating, and this year has made him realize that he always wanted to be in her general presence—for the rest of his life if he could help it. So that’s why he’s here, outside the Evans’ house, with a speech in his head, and butterflies in his stomach. He was going to ask for Mr. and Mrs. Evans’ blessing to marry their youngest daughter.

After a few agonizingly silent seconds, James heard some shuffling behind the door followed by the knob turning and the door opening to reveal Mr. Evans.

“James? What are you doing here? Is Lily okay?” Asked Mr. Evans eyebrows scrunched together in confusion.

“Lily’s perfect sir, but she is the reason why I’m here. Would it be alright if I came in to speak to you and Mrs. Evans?” James was surprised with the steadiness of his voice given the fact that the butterflies in his stomach turned to bludgers the second the door opened.

Mr. Evans’ eyes widened slightly. James was pretty sure he was catching on. “Uh…sure son, let me just find her. Make yourself comfortable in the living room in the meantime.”

James nodded and made the familiar walk to the living room while Mr. Evans scurried upstairs to find his wife. Sitting down on the plushy floral patterned couch, James tried to control his racing heart by taking deep breaths. He couldn’t help but crave a shot or two of fire whiskey to take the edge off, but Sirius refused to let him even look at alcohol before coming here citing his so-called low tolerance. Sure one shot in the past has made James do and say incredibly stupid things, but at least he was able to do those stupid things without bludgers pummelling around inside his stomach.

He was starting to wonder if what he was about to do was another stupid thing in the long list of stupid things he’s done in his life. Now he’s back to having the same argument with himself that he’s been having for the last seven weeks—should he be asking for the Evans’ blessing? For one, Lily does what she wants regardless of what anyone else thinks. Two, she does not like aspects of her life being discussed without her. James loves these things about Lily. Her fierce independence is her sexiest quality in his opinion.

However, James also knows that while as much as Lily epitomizes a modern independent woman, she also values tradition. While she would never openly admit it, James knows that Lily loves it when he takes charge of a situation, how he always puts her first, how he’s protective of her, and how he loves to take care of her. She can do all of this for herself by herself, but James’ heart always soars at the small tug at the corner of her lips whenever he does one of those things. So, in that regard, the traditionalist in him, and the secret traditionalist in Lily, can’t help but feel that Lily’s parents, as the people she loves most in the world next to James, would want to be in the know about the biggest question their daughter will be asked in her life.

Fuck, mentally exasperated James. Lily could still get pissed about this. He then shot up his hand at an attempt to stress-grab his unruly hair, but in the process of grabbing his hair, he knocked over a photo frame standing on the side table next to the couch he was sitting on. Quickly scrambling to right the photo before the Evans’ came down, he picked it up. However, he paused before setting it back down. The photo was of Lily.

It must have been taken last summer because she doesn’t look much younger than she is now. It was of her curled up with a book under the tree in the Evans’ backyard. Such an image was so familiar to James. He can’t count the number of times he stumbled upon Lily reading a book under the tree by the Black lake when they were still in school. It was like she couldn’t read for pleasure unless she was under a tree given the amount of times he caught her there. With a small smile now gracing his face, James set the photo back on the side table with a steady hand and a calm stomach. Even just a picture of Lily could do that for James.

At that moment, he could hear the unmistakable soft thuds of socked feet coming down carpeted stairs. Turning his head, he saw Mr. Evans returning with his wife in tow.

“Hello James, dear. Lovely to see you,” she said kindly giving him a peck on the cheek as she approached him.

“It’s good to see you too Mrs. Evans,” blushed James in response to her greeting.

Mr. Evans did not make eye contact with him as he made his way over to the couch across from the one James was sitting on making James more sure that he knew what this was about.

“What can we do for you sweetheart?” inquired Mrs. Evans with a sweet smile.

Mr. Evans was still avoiding his eyes and was instead fixated on the carpet, making James’ stomach butterflies slowly begin to flutter again.

With a deep breath, James spoke, “As much as I respect and cherish Lily’s independence and ability to make her own choices, you are both the two people she loves most in the world…Other than me of course,” James added with a cocky smirk to Mrs. Evans, who chuckled in response to his joke. Mr. Evans was now glaring at the carpet.

James cleared his throat nervously once he saw that glare, and decided to switch gears back to seriousness and to stay on seriousness, “uhhh…right…now that being said, again Lily makes her own choices about her life, but because she loves you both so much, your opinions about her choices matter to her. So while she doesn’t yet know that this choice is available to her, I want her to know that you both approve of it before I offer her this choice.” Mr. Evans’ glare was only sharpening, so screw the butterflies and the bludgers—a hoard of angry Hungarian horntails were now taking residence in his stomach.

James took another deep breath to try and calm his thundering heart which he was quite sure could be heard all the way over in America, “So, with that, I hope I can get your blessings…um from both of you…in asking Lily to marry me,” James sucked in another breath as he finished his statement, and held it as he waited for their response.

Mrs. Evans responded almost right away, “Oh James! This is so exciting! Of course we would love it if you and Lily got married. I mean, you’re bit a young, but you’ve known each other so long, and you make each other happy.”

James just smiled back at her with glassy eyes behind his glasses. He didn’t realize how much he needed the approval not just for Lily, but for himself as well until he heard it from her.

Then his heart stopped as Mr. Evans started speaking—looking James straight in the eye.

“Darling, please don’t speak for both of us. I’m sorry James, but I’ve made a promise to my daughter, and it is for that reason that you can never have my blessing to marry her.”

James’ shock was consuming. He knew Mr. Evans wasn’t particularly fond of him, but he believed it was just because he was sleeping with his youngest daughter, not because he actually disapproved of him. Adrenaline started coursing through James’ body, but despite the heart-aching rush that was practically paralyzing him, he responded calmly, “Sir, if this is about you, as her father, promising to protect her, I assure you, that not only would I never get in the way of that, but I will protect her too just as she protects me.” James’ tone became increasingly desperate, ”Please Mr. Evans, I only want to make her happy, and I know I can do just that.”

“I know, but protecting her is not the promise I am speaking of here.”

“What promise are you talking about? Don’t let the poor boy suffer for your stubbornness. If you won’t give him your blessing, you better give him a damn good reason,” protested Mrs. Evans.

Mr. Evans bowed his head, rubbed a hand over his face, and let it out with a heavy sigh, “The summer after Lily’s first year at Hogwarts she begged me to promise her to never let you marry her. No matter what,” he finished in a tired voice.

James just sat there. The only indication that he gave to show that he had actually heard what Mr. Evans said was that his eyes were as wide as saucers. Is this guy fucking kidding me? James thought to himself. Lily was fucking twelve! If his parents still held things he said when he was twelve against him, he was pretty sure James would have his broomstick destroyed for finally cleaning up his act and becoming head boy.

Mrs. Evans, however, after her momentary shock at her husband’s admission began to laugh.

Mr. Evans glared at his wife, “What on earth could be funny to you? This is no laughing matter.”

The laughing abruptly stopped. Mrs. Evans stared at her husband in utter disbelief. “Please tell me you’re joking,” she practically begged.

“Of course not! I would never joke about a promise made to either of my daughters!” bellowed Mr. Evans.

“Not about the promise you daft fool!” yelled back Mrs. Evans, and with that yell, James had never before been so reminded of Lily by another person. Mrs. Evans continued, “Tell me that you’re not actually serious about keeping a promise made to a twelve-year-old.”

“Again, I would never joke about a promise made to my daughter.”

“Oh dear lord!” Mrs. Evans exasperated with rolling eyes, “You do realize that if I had known you when I was twelve then I probably would’ve asked my father to promise me to the same thing. And let’s not forget that you once also promised Lily that you would sleep in her closet every night until the monsters went away, but we both know that you snuck away after she fell asleep each night.”

“Well that’s because the monsters went away by the time I left,” replied Mr. Evans stubbornly.

“My point still stands darling, you can’t hold the requests of a twelve-year-old against the young man sitting in front of you here today.”

It was as if Mr. Evans was reminded of James’ presence, as he returned his glare back at the boy that sought to break a promise.

James took this as his cue to chime in, “If I may sir, I…uuhh…respect your…um…determination on keeping your promise to Lily, but I think…no…I know Lily sees things differently now. Also, we both know that, promise or not, Lily will marry me if she wants to, and I am pretty sure she does otherwise I wouldn’t be asking.”

“And what makes you think that my daughter, the girl who once claimed that she’d have to have gone crazy to ever want to you, wants to marry you boy?” inquired Mr. Evans menacingly.

James laughed. That sounded like something Lily would say. He paused before answering the question, thinking carefully about his words. While he knew he didn’t need it, he still wanted Mr. Evans’ blessing. He wanted his future father-in-law to know, that the man that he is today, is worthy, as anyone could ever be, for Lily.

“We’re in love, and there’s a war going on.” James’s shoulders stooped with a heavy sigh at this knowledge, “this war has put everything into perspective for the both of us in terms of what matters most, and that’s each other. You both know Lily,” James smiled fondly, “she doesn’t do anything half-assed. She loves with everything she has, and we’ve both been looking for ways to show that our love for one another is certain when the war has made everything else uncertain, and I believe one way to do that is marriage, and I think she would agree with me there.”

Mr. Evans’ shoulders too stooped with the heavy burden of war. He looked at the boy who so clearly loved his love his daughter, and thought about his promise to Lily.

When Lily first told him in a letter from Hogwarts just last October that she was dating the infamous James Potter, he spit out his morning coffee in shock much to Petunia’s utter disgust. However, he kept quiet thinking that Lily would come to her senses and remember what she once begged of him. Yet Lily’s genuine feelings for James became harder and harder to deny as the days of then dating him turned from days, to weeks, to months to now a year. Clearly, Lily either didn’t even remember the promise or just simply didn’t care about it. Whenever she spoke about James on the phone or at one of their afternoon teas, her love for James permeated every aspect of her being. She couldn’t contain it if she tried. It was in the way her eyes lit up as she spoke his name, or the way her voice would always have a hint of mirth in it as she told him stories about their time together.

James was right, Lily does love with everything she has. And his Lily wouldn’t love just anyone, it was clear that James had grown up alongside with Lily’s opinion of him. So deep down, Mr. Evans knew the promise was moot early on in their relationship. Nonetheless, like any loving father with a daughter, he stubbornly held on to any somewhat valid excuse he had to stop his little girl from becoming a woman. Lily would be so mad at him if she ever found out about this. As she should, his conscious spat at him.

Not wanting to disappoint his daughter by denying her something she possibly wants, Mr. Evans looked back up to James with a heavy heart, “You’re a good man James. A better man than the one it seemed you might’ve become given the type of boy you were.” James held his head down as a shameful blush colored his cheeks, “So,” Mr. Evans cleared his throat conspicuously to get James to look him in the eye as he said this, “I guess if Lily’s okay with me breaking the promise, I can make this one exception for her. So you have my blessing, but only if she says yes to marrying you.”

James just nodded in complete shock with the turn events. To him, it just looked like Mr. Evans went from hating him to grudgingly accepting him all in the span of a few minutes.

Mrs. Evans, at an attempt to diffuse the lingering tension, clapped her hands in excitement, “Wonderful! How and when are you going to ask James dear?”

_____________________________________________________________________

“James! You didn’t actually believe him did you!?” Lily barked with absolute mirth in her eyes.

“He can be so bloody convincing when he wants to! You of all people know that!”

Lily guffawed. James usually would’ve been annoyed that she was laughing at him, but when she laughed like that, he couldn’t help but laugh with her.

As soon as Lily’s laughter subsided to the point where she was no longer in danger of laughing off the cliff, she and James continued their walk along the Cliffs of Cornwall hand in hand.

It was a rare sunny English day, so James suggested that they apparate to Cornwall, just the two of the them, and enjoy a walk together. It reminded Lily of when they first started dating, and they would just walk around the Hogwarts grounds talking, teasing and laughing for hours. It’s how she fell in love with him.

“Do you think Dumbledore ever trims his beard, or is that tip at the end of it, his virgin stubble from when he was a tween?” questioned Lily seriously.

James eyebrows scrunched together in thought, “I mean the ends of his beard are quite brittle. So I bet that his virgin stubble…like…crumbled off long ago maybe? Still, I doubt he’s ever trimmed. Grooming doesn’t seem to be high on the man’s list of priorities now, if ever.”

“See, that’s where I think you’re wrong!” exclaimed Lily. They’d had an argument about whether or not Dumbledore cares about his appearance only too many times before. “Look at the man’s robes James! They’re always so impeccably stylish. I bet Dumbledore takes great pride in his appearance. The man is a Gryffindor after all.”

“Gryffindor’s pride does not count pride in appearances Evans. Pride is much deeper than such shallow concerns.”

“Of course it does Potter,” scoffed Lily rolling her eyes up to the beautifully clear blue sky. “You, of all people, are telling me that Gryffindors don’t take pride in their appearance!? James, forget the fact that you’ve lived with Sirius for over seven years, but you used to purposefully mess up your hair to give it that tousled windswept look you used to think was soooo sexy,” declared Lily with a sarcastic tone towards the end of her sentence.

James put his hand to his heart in mock hurt, “Lily, love of my life, do you mean to tell me that after all these years of me purposefully and artfully messing up my hair, you don’t find it sexy?”

Lily’s eyes just twinkled back at him teasingly as she smirked at him.

“I beg to differ. I mean, Hell, you were messing it up yourself in bed just this morning,” argued James. He stopped walking and stopped Lily from walking forward herself by dragging her into his embrace. He then put his forehead against hers. Lily’s breath caught at the closeness, and she leaned further into his embrace, closing her eyes. His warm breath washed over her wind-chilled face as whispered, “Just admit it, you think me messing up my hair is unbearably sexy. You even thought that when you allegedly hated me back in the day.”

Lily’s eyes opened, and she leaned back slightly to look him in the eye and grin as she replied, “In your dreams Potter. You and I both know that something big would have to happen for me to admit that.” Lily then pecked James’ bewildered face on the lips, and started walking again, “C’mon James, we should probably apparate back soon.”

“Marry me.”

Lily then turned around with an expression that mimicked James’ bewildered one from moments ago. She wasn’t sure if what she heard was right. The volume of the blowing wind and wavy ocean could’ve muffled any sound. “What?” She asked James, carefully walking back to where he stood at the edge of the cliff with his hand in his pocket and a look of pure determination on his face.

It was then when James knelt down on one knee, and lovingly reached for Lily’s left hand to hold in both of his as soon as she reached him.

“Lily, there’s a lot of fucked up shit happening right now, and with this war, not much is certain. But I am certain that I love you, and that you make me happier than anyone ever should be in a war. So, Lily Marie Evans, will you marry me?” He then pulled a small red velvet box out of his pocket and opened it to reveal a ring.

Lily looked from him to the ring with tears in her eyes as she vigorously nodded her head, “Yes!” She screamed into the billowing winds and crashing waves. James chuckled in absolute glee as he shakily slid the ring on her third finger and stood up to pull her in for a celebratory kiss.

After a few blissful moments of heated kissing, Lily pulled back and breathlessly said, “Also, of course I thought you messing up your hair was sexy. I mean, annoying at times, but still, incredilby sexy,” she laughed.

“I fucking knew it Evans,” he chuckled before he went back to kissing her.

______________________________________________________________________

Mr. Evans quickly made his way over to the ringing telephone in the living room, “Hello?” he answered as he picked it up and held it to his ear.

“Hi Daddy,” replied his youngest daughter.

“Hello poppet! How are you my love?” he asked.

“Brilliant actually!” Lily continued, “I would have loved to tell you this in person, but since I have to work all week, and I want you and mum to know as soon as possible, I am settling for over the phone, but James and I are getting married!”

Mr. Evans sighed. Just as he was about to reply with his reluctant congratulations, Lily cut him off before he could.

“Also, James told me about what happened when he asked for yours and mums blessing.” She chuckled. “You didn’t really take my request seriously did you? I was honestly shocked you even remembered me asking you that!”

Mr. Evans spluttered, “Lily you were a very tenacious child; so we were forced to take everything you said seriously. Regardless, any request of my daughter’s is one I would go to any lengths to fulfill. You should know that darling.”

Lily was still chuckling, “Oh come on dad! You just wanted to give James trouble. While I appreciate you honoring years old requests, I will let you off the hook for any others you may still have up your sleeve. I have learned to settle my own issues by now.”

Mr. Evans smiled, “Okay, darling. Whatever you say.”

Lily laughed again.

“I am happy that you are happy my dear, and I am sure your mother will be thrilled when she gets home. Any thoughts on when you will have the wedding?” He asked.

Lily’s constant chuckles suddenly ceased making Mr. Evans nervous, “Actually…Daddy?”

“Yes sweetheart?”

“I do have one more thing for you to promise, and I will be holding you to this one for sure.”

Mr. Evans gulped anxiously, “What is it Lily?”

“Will you promise to walk me down the aisle?”

He couldn’t stop the tears forming in his eyes, “I promise.”

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