#i haven't written an essay in a while why did i just write one for no reason

[mystcldydrms]

LIBRARY ADORATION - FRED WEASLEY

summary: a book isn't the only thing fred weasley wants you to have

pairing: fred weasley x fem!reader

word count: 1.5k

warnings: fluff

notes: you know how much I love books and libraries. I just had to write this one. also please be aware that I haven't written anything for probably 6 months. I'm slowly getting back into it.

You stood in front of one of the many bookshelves of the Hogwarts library, your eyes scanning the spines of the books. The words already started to blur; however, you shook your head lightly, focusing on the titles as best as possible.

You had abandoned your essay, which was due in two days, on a table, alongside two books that had helped you tremendously while writing it, however, you still needed one more that could help you while writing your essay.

For a few more minutes, you kept looking everywhere. You knew exactly which book you needed. One of your fellow students had told you about it. Unfortunately for you, she had forgotten in which section she had found it, hence, here you were, looking at every shelf that was dedicated to the history of magic.

“Where are you?” you whispered to yourself, rounding yet another corner to go and look at yet another shelf. This time, you weren’t alone.

In the corner sat Fred and George Weasley with their friend Lee Jordan. They had noticed your presence right away. You saw them quickly shielding their notes from you. You couldn’t help but roll your eyes slightly. You didn’t feel the need to know what they were whispering about. You didn’t care about their schemes or plans. Well, you did, but not at that moment. You just wanted to grab your book and finish your essay.

Your eyes looked at yet another couple of books until they finally landed on the one you needed the most. You took one more step towards the shelf and tried to grab the book, which, unfortunately, was almost at the top. You let out an almost inaudible sigh. Although you tried to stand on your tiptoes, you couldn’t reach the book with your hand.

You weren’t small. You had an average height for a girl your age. But why couldn’t you reach the book? Of course, you could use your wand and get it, however, your wand was in the pocket of your robe. And that robe was almost all the way across the library.

“Do you need a hand?”

You jumped lightly, and although that voice had talked to you in a whisper, you were surprised to hear it. You turned your head to the right and noticed Fred Weasley standing right next to you, a teasing smile on his lips.

The three Gryffindors must have watched you while you struggled to grab the book. You immediately felt the embarrassment and the heat that was starting to make its way up to your face, turning your cheeks a light shade of red. Another sigh escaped your lips as you nodded your head.

“Which one is it?”

“The one with the brown spine. Magic Mysteries.”

Fred nodded his head before he easily extended his arm and grabbed the book you needed. A proud smile graced his lips as he handed it to you, your fingertips lightly brushing his.

“Thank you.”, you whispered as you pressed the book against your chest, looking up into his eyes.

“No problem. Why did you need this one?”

You caught a glimpse of Lee and George, who slightly snickered behind Fred until they noticed you looking at them. They quickly looked at their notes again, pretending to write something down. You giggled lightly, shaking your head before you looked into Fred’s eyes again, a smile already on his lips. Did it even leave? You didn’t know, but you liked it that way.

“I have an essay due in two days. I’m almost done, but I still need a few more details. What about you? What are you doing?” you asked curiously.

Yes, you didn’t really care about it when you first saw them scheming something in their little corner, but you didn’t want your conversation with Fred to end so soon. You liked talking to him, always have. It was easy. You couldn’t call yourself friends, however, you were in the same house, and you greeted each other whenever you saw one another in the castle. And sometimes, you even had a conversation.

Did you have a crush on the ginger-haired boy? Yes. But who wouldn’t? Every girl in their right mind could see that the twins were two good-looking boys.

“Oh, nothing important. Just a few notes for a future project.”, Fred explained, snapping you out of your little daydream about him.

“Sounds fun?” you said, grinning up at him.

“Well, I better get back and finish my essay. Have fun. I’ll see you around.”

Before you rounded the corner, you stole one last glance at Fred, who hadn’t turned around yet, but rather stayed where he was, locking eyes with you. You could swear you saw a shimmer of red on his cheeks, however, after looking at books for such a long time, you weren’t so sure of your focus anymore.

After another hour of reading and writing, you had finally finished your essay, but before you could get up and pack everything away, you noticed someone sitting down next to you.

“Fancy seeing you here.”, you heard a male voice say.

A bright smile immediately graced your lips as you turned your head and, once again, looked into the eyes of Fred Weasley.

“I know. I swear I saw you an hour ago just behind that bookshelf over there.”, you said, both of you laughing lightly.

“Have you finished your essay yet?”

“Yes, finally. I can’t write another one for at least a week now. I can’t even focus on words anymore.”

Fred couldn’t help but laugh again. You had that effect on him. You were funny, you knew how to hold a conversation, and you laughed about all his jokes, which was one of the reasons he had started to fall for you. Of course, you were also a beautiful girl.

You saw one another in the castle every day and talked every other day, but for him, it wasn’t enough. He wanted to spend as much time with you as possible. He needed to talk to you every day, laugh with you, hold you … and finally find out how your lips felt on his.

“Can I ask you something?” Fred blurted out, a bit louder than intended. Madame Pince was instantly by your side, staring angrily down at the ginger-haired boy who only shrugged and mumbled ‘sorry’.

You giggled quietly, watching how Madame Pince walked away before your eyes landed on Fred again, who was already watching you, a dreamy smile gracing his lips.

“Go ahead. What do you want to ask me?”

To say that you were curious was an understatement. You were nervous. What could Fred Weasley ask you? Did he need help with an essay? Did he need help with his future project?

“Would you like to go to Hogsmeade with me this Saturday? Just the two of us, I mean.”

Your eyes widened; your mouth lightly opened as you tried to process his words. Fred just asked you out on a date. And he wanted it to happen this Saturday.

‘Wow’, you thought to yourself, as you nervously started to play with your fingers.

You had no idea how long you were quiet, but you could see the way Fred started to fidget. He kept staring at you, waiting for an answer.

“Yes.”, you whispered. “Yes, of course. I would love to go to Hogsmeade with you.”

The young man that sat next to you couldn’t help but clap his hands together before he stood up and triumphantly put his hands in the air.

“Fred. Stop.”, you said, giggling, taking his robe in your hands, trying to pull him down onto his chair again, but he didn’t bother. He just stood there and looked at you with the brightest smile you had ever seen on his face.

“You just made my day so much better.”, he confessed, leaning down until he was face to face with you, your eyes on one level.

You studied his face, first his eyes, then his lips, the freckles on his cheeks, until your eyes landed on his again. You knew that you were blushing again, but you didn’t care. You were beyond happy.

“I have to get going now. George and Lee are probably already wondering where I am, but I will see you later in the common room. We could discuss our date.”

The only thing you could do was nod your head while Fred sent you a small wink before he turned around and made his way out of the library.

Your heart was pounding like crazy in your chest. You felt the butterflies flying around in your stomach. You and Fred. You and Fred on a date.

Too stunned to do anything else, you just sat in the library for a few more minutes until you regained your strength and started packing up your things, already looking forward to seeing Fred in the common room.

#fred weasley x reader #fred weasley imagine #fred weasley fluff #fred weasly x you #fred weasley x fem!reader #fred weasley fanfiction #fred weasley fic #fred weasley one shot #weasley twins imagines #harry potter imagines

[cherry-muses]

tom riddle x gn! reader: oneshot

<a/n: oneshot after the image! haven't written in a while so i lowkey feel like this sucks. ps: sorry i disappeared for like 5 months lol i had to graduate. >

tags: mentions of a difficult childhood, orphanage, bullying, hurt/comfort, fluff

He was sat across you, writing his History of Magic essay with his ever-so-neat handwriting. The only sounds you could hear were those of his quill scratching the parchment and of you turning the pages of your Potions textbook.

As Riddle wrote, his other free hand rested on the table, and you couldn’t help but appreciate the fact that he had really pretty hands. Your eyes subtly scanned them and eventually landed on the sleeve of his robes… which seemed to be a little torn and frayed at the edges.

You smiled to yourself, knowing the exact spell required to make the sleeve good as new… secretly hoping that Riddle would give you one of his rare smiles when you did. Perhaps it’d make the boring study session slightly more entertaining, and the rather bleak winter evening more colourful.

You tentatively reached your hand to gently hold his wrist, and gave him a soft smile. “I could fix that… may I?” You asked, gesturing to the torn sleeve.

To your surprise, Tom did not give you even the smallest smile. In fact, he flinched and harshly pulled his hand away, giving you an accusatory glare at the same time. “I’d much appreciate if you wouldn’t disturb me when I’m trying to work. And I know perfectly well to take care of my own clothing, thank you.”, he snapped. “I think I’d much rather spend my evening with someone who isn’t so dull and irritating to the core.”

“I didn’t mean-”, but you were rudely cut off mid-sentence by Riddle slamming his textbook shut, stuffing it into his satchel and storming off, out of the library.

You were left sitting alone in the library, feeling an odd mixture of guilt, anger, and confusion, holding back tears.

It was the next evening, when you were approached by the dark-haired prefect again. You had been reading by the fireplace in the Slytherin common room when he came up to you, fists clenched at his sides in nervousness. “What do you want, Riddle?”, you spoke, rather harshly, as you sat up straight to face him.

“I am… sorry.”, he replied, voice strained as if it was taking him a great deal of effort to get the words out.

You slammed your book shut, tossing it aside on the couch in annoyance. “I am sorry too.”, you replied, not a hint of emotion in your voice.

“You’re sorry?”, he asked, frowning in confusion.

“For assuming we're friends.”

For a split second a look of hurt flashed across his sharp features, until, ever the Slytherin, Riddle schooled his expression to appear vaguely sad.

“I should not have spoken in that way to you.”, he begins.

“No, you shouldn’t have.”, you retort.

You are both silent for a few moments, and the air has a sort of charged tension which makes you feel like either one of you would be storming off at any moment.

It comes as a bit of a surprise, then, when he instead chooses to sit close to you on the black couch, the water from the Great Lake casting a greenish glow upon the two of you.

“I really am sorry. I must admit, out of sheer habit I had assumed the worst intentions out of you.”

Those deep brown irises of his conveyed a kind of sincerity you had never before seen in him. You hoped to Merlin it was genuine.

“It is no excuse but I’d like to…er, explain why I behaved in such a way. Not justify, just explain.”, he said, a request for you to kindly hear him out implicit in his words. You somehow found yourself nodding, silently urging him to continue.

“You know where I grew up. I much prefer to hide it, but somehow your… constant affection has gently coerced me into entrusting to you the things I wish I could hide even from myself. ” He pauses, sighing and staring outside the dungeon windows, into the depths of the Great Lake.

“As would be expected, the orphanage wasn’t made of money. They could hardly feed us twice a day.” He was practically avoiding your eyes now. “My wardrobe essentially consisted of the worn clothes people donated. And, well.” A pause. “My first time on the Hogwarts express, a group of Ravenclaws found it a good enough excuse to remind me of my inferiority… and throw a couple of assorted hexes my way.”

Realization dawned on you, and at once you took his hand in yours, gently caressing his skin with your thumb. “Oh…”

“Well, since then I’ve managed to handle such issues with reparation spells, but I suppose I missed my robe’s sleeve. Which caught your attention yesterday. And… and when you tried to fix it, I just...”

You could bear it no more, and without any warning he was engulfed in a hug. “Tom, I’m so so sorry. I should’ve known.”

“No, it is my fault, for comparing you to someone who was been cruel to me, when you’ve always shown me nothing but the complete opposite.”, he breathed out softly.

There was a look of steely determination on your face now. “Promise me one thing, Riddle.”

“Hmm?”, he inquired, far too occupied with staring into your eyes to bother with actual words.

“Next time you feel like that, please… please just talk to me.”, you request. “I hate when we hurt each other in such a way.”

“Anything you ask.”, he says. You beam at him and gently kiss his forehead

The rest of the evening was spent cuddling on that couch, whispering sweet nothings to one another and watching the fish swim by in the lake.

#tom riddle #tom riddle x reader #slytherin #slytherin boys #tom marvolo riddle #tom riddle x you #tom riddle x oc #harry potter fandom #wizarding world

[beatingdrumspouringwine]

Dionysos Loves His Mom(s), a very long essay

Going to just preface this by saying that I may/may not have gone a bit overboard, but I hope everyone enjoys reading my rambles on how amazing it is that we still have this message even through to day, how important this is for our understanding of Dionysos, and also just a little bit of (what I hope will come across as) Semele appreciation :) Also, I did write this during finals week, so if it seems rambly, please bear with me ;-;

And for clarification, I'll be referring to Semele with capitalized pronouns because even though She was human, mythologically, while carrying Dionysos, She was also deified by Him after He brought Her up from the Underworld.

The first interesting thing is that we get our description of Dionysos, as well as the love he shows for His Mother, in Greek mythology. While myths are usually pretty good resources for understanding the Gods, they are also usually written by the people who are in power at the time - which would be specifically older men who were not slaves. Because of this, a lot of myths tend to trend towards the "male" perspective of the Athenians. Also because of this, women are frequently represented in a very negative light, or at least as being relatively unimportant.

There are no Gods who have quite a relationship with Their Mothers like Dionysos has of His. Some of the Gods technically have no mother, like Aphrodite and Athena, and others just... don't seem to have much of a relationship at all. And this isn't necessarily to say that the Gods that we worship don't love Their Mothers, but more that the popular attitude of Greek society was simply to push women off to the side, and let the men take the glory.

And then, strangely, we have Dionysos, He Who Takes No Shit When It Comes to Women, as well as Him Who Has Two Moms. He's already something of an anti-Athena in Greek mythology, for while She was born of Zeus's head, and Metis was a sort of mother-base, Dionysos was born of two mothers, and from Zeus, in a way that echoes an intimate, "maternal" sort of birth, instead of the detached birth of Athena. And we know full well that Dionysos did not forget about either of His first two mothers. Persephone and Him famously get along well enough that they shared a rite in the form of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and it is to Persephone that initiates go, telling Her that the Bakkhic One Himself has freed us!

And we haven't even touched on Semele! It's one thing to have a divine Mother to welcome us to the afterlife. It's another thing to have a once-human-become-Goddess Mother in the form of Semele-Thyone. And Dionysos loves Her as well, very much so as well! Even though He never met Her as a child, He still very clearly has a lot of love for Her. At the start of the Bacchae, when Dionysos first arrives in Thebes, you will notice that one of the very first things He mentions in His monologue is that His mother is being disrespected by King Pentheus, and that this disrespect is part of the reason why He has driven the women of the city mad, as well as the sisters of Semele, who also were disrespecting Her.

This loyalty is only further emphasized by the fact that even though Semele is dead at the time of the Bacchae (and obviously after it as well, as the myth of Dionysos traveling to the underworld is an entirely separate story). And yet we must once again emphasize that this was written in a time where mothers were so often thrown under the bus (or horse-drawn chariot), and all of these myths were notably written by men, as far as we know. It seems that there is an inherent thread which ties Dionysos to the world of women, or at least has Him incredibly sympathetic to it, and one which could not be broken with all of the hyper-patriarchal nonsense that was woven deep into the cultural fabric of ancient Greece, especially Athens.

And to finish this fun little rant off, I want to offer two significantly longer ideas than the initial thing that I wrote! One for reflection on how we relate to Dionysos (and how He relates to us), and another as a reflection on Semele-Thyone and how She relates to us, and how we should relate to Her.

To start, this sympathy that Dionysos shows with women does, in some ways, hits culturally closer to a sisterhood than to the way that a man would have been encouraged to act towards women in ancient Greece. Dionysos as God understands His band of madwomen's own self-worth, and does not question their autonomy. Instead, he seems to encourage it, especially with all of the sassing he gives Pentheus while being grilled by him. This is such a good thing for all of us. Not only is Dionysos a friend of humanity, but He is specifically a friend for the marginalized. Whoever finds themselves marginalized in society will be His "favorites", so to speak, because that is where He truly finds His followers. It's almost as if He naturally finds where there is a power imbalance, and jumps on the other side to even things out, even if it is a little bit. I also think that this same "purposeful marginalization" is something which adds further theological credence to Dionysos being also validly a trans woman and nonbinary, as He does not sit within a patriarchal "Him"-ness, but rather within a "Him"-ness that refers to a more equal world.

Moving on to Semele-Thyone, we have a wonderful ally in a divine woman, sympathetic to humans, who knows full well not only the sufferings of humanity, and the pain in disrespect, but also the importance of kindness and respect towards others. In Greek mythological and religious canon, Semele-Thyone became the Goddess of the Bacchic revel, which, if you really think about it, isn't just about the Bacchic revel (it's never "just about the Bacchic revels"). This also tells us that Thyone, like Her Son, is also a God of the marginalized. Like Dionysos, She oversees the safety and wellbeing of the community which Her Son has founded. In some way, Thyone has become a Mom to all of us, through Her assistance with the divine inspiration that strikes frenzied devotees. It's a caring thing, too!

Anyways, the long and short of this is - Dionysos loves His Mom, Semele-Thyone is an incredibly underrated Goddess, and Mother's Day was yesterday. So hug your mom if you've got a good relationship with her, and if not, we can all borrow Dionysos' Mom :)

#finally graduated and i can start thinking about Other Things again #for the most part though it's just the Horrors #if anyone is particularly close to Hestia or Hermes #some prayers for me would be very much appreciated ;-; #dionysian #dionysos #dionysus #hellenic polytheism #hellenic polytheist #dionysos deity #dionysus deity #hellenic pagan #hellenic gods #hellenism #helpol #semele #thyone

[lavandaea]

*inhales deeply*

There's spoilers ahead so, yeah, be careful.

This weekend episodes have actually broken my soul.

He didn't even need his feelings to be reciprocate, HE JUST WANTED TO BE WITH HER.

Dear writers, some things to ask, why so much screen time to second male lead? Why create such chemistry? Such backstory? (Spoiler alert: that will make us sympathize with the supposed villain) To just fuck*ing rip his heart out and pulverize it like Grandma with the cow bones, yes, just like that.

Let me get this straight, after having been raised in an environment of violence, pain and God knows what else for God knows how long, he falls in love. He experiences ✨feelings✨ ,he puts all his trust in her like never before, he shares his past and then he gets betrayed.

I swear I never seen someone cry so with so much meaning, feeling, with so much back there.

We made progress for the last (at least) five episodes TO JUST END IT IN A SINGLE ONE.

This could have been handled a lot better in a lot of ways and about a lot of topics that I could actually write an essay.

Let's begin the the main leads.

So, in order to have some sort of feeling about ML and FL loving eachother you need to put screen time ON them. Yeah, they support eachother, they have known far before Si Oh, they are funny and a lot of things more. They even kissed and very passionately, wow.

Just one thing, Why didn't I even blink during that scene but found myself hitting the pillow and blushing when Si Oh did such mundane things as taking her home, opening doors for her, fixing her purse, hair, looking at her with those "I love you" eyes,👏feeling👏guilty👏about👏making👏her👏uncomfortable👏 with👏his👏feelings👏for👏her HELLO??, WAVING HER BACK WHILE HE WATCHED HER GO, SMILE EVERY DAMN TIME HE SAW HER?

I´ll tell you why. Because I know, thanks to you, that Si Oh was experiencing for the very first time what it's like to have human interaction that doesn't involve violence or having to be wary of everything and everyone all the time.

Even after having lived a life of shit, even after still living a life of absolute shit he still wanted to be connect, to be happy, to make her happy, to love and be loved. Moreover, I couldn't help just to feel happy for him, sad, angry, fucking rageous (not more than him, obviously).

Meanwhile, I barely know Hee Sik aka the male lead.

I remember seeing his mother once and I think that's what I understood about his private life. Sorry, I forgot about his deceased brother, that could have been a good topic to develop if it wasn't just mentioned once somewhere in the sixth chapter and left there to rot. Other than that, I know he is a cop, loves his cops friends and loves Nam Soon, also he is really loyal and good person.

Nice👍, very nice. But that's not personality or backstory, that's a job and some general traits everyone should have to live in a society and have a job where you usually do the teamwork thingy.

So, what else??

Or does the man just exist for his job and girlfriend? It is just I simply don't understand it, you create a seriously complex character that has any kind of potential and you want us cheer for...Yeah, no. He literally could be an extra with how little and simple information we receive about him.

Even Shi Oh had some time to box being a drug dealer and full time whipped for her.

I'm just saying that you want me to suddenly dislike someone you took a considerable amount of time explaining but I have to like this good guy because you just pointed at him 👉🧍, and said, "here's the good guy, love him".

Sorry, I cant do that.

If you haven't noticed, you just made a character I fell obliged to sympathize.

If you wanted to make him evil and hot you should have just made him evil and hot.

It worked just as well with Jang Han Seok from Vincenzo.

Not have him have "REDEMPTION" written all over his face just to go with "Actually, no. He has no chance. 😃". It's, for lack of a better term, frustrating. (Absurd)

Instead, maybe you should have dedicated that screen time for the construction of the main leads relationship.

Oh, yes. Another thing since we are talking about the matter.

ML and FL relationship progress got weaker and weaker since she had started to spy on Si Oh. And then one episode was like "Oh, yeah, forgot to tell you, they are actually dating by now" Bom, a kiss. If I need a kiss to know they are in love, there's something going on back there. Something lacking.

Scenes of them in love: well acted, nice, cute, cool, okay. But it is like picking a random romance book and start reading it ten chapters ahead, they are in love, but how this did happen??? Last time I saw them, they were in a friends-and-some-more zone.

Where's their development?

I know where is it. In the fake relationship, that it was being used just to turn Si Oh into a complete monster with probably not chance of going back.

"You have suffered a lot, yeah, I see. Anyway here's more pain. Suffer more and go cause some trouble because if not, there's, apparently, no plot"

Nice job.

I have been saying this and I will say it again, kdrama writers/directors are not ready for traumatized villains. They are afraid of them.

#strong girl nam soon #ryu shi oh #byun woo seok #gang nam soon #nam soon #kdrama #lee yoo mi #even hong seol and jeong had more chemistry and thats saying a lot

[artiststarme]

Shakespeare? Gay as hell

Based on this post about Eddie getting held back for writing about gay characters in Shakespeare. Thanks to @lunaraindrop for needing more of his essays! I hope you guys like it and please leave your thoughts in the comments!

~*~*~*~

Many relationships can be observed in William Shaksepeare’s Romeo and Juliet. However, the most important relationship is not between the famous star-crossed lovers. No, instead the most important relationship is between Tybalt and Mercutio, another pair of star-crossed lovers often overlooked by the conservative, religious audience of the play. This relationship highlights the struggles of the homosexual community in the fourteenth century as well as those that still exist today. By analyzing the tragic gay relationship between Tybalt of the Capulets and Mercutio of the Montague side, efforts can be made in the present day to prevent tragic endings to gay relationships in the 80s.  

Eddie didn’t know why he got called into the principal’s office. He was three weeks into the school year and he hadn’t even done anything yet. He’d been attending all of his classes despite how goddamn early they were and he’d been turning in all of his schoolwork. They had no reason to pull him from his lunch and tentative new Hellfire members. 

His confusion only grew when he saw Wayne sitting awkwardly in one of the office chairs. “Uncle Wayne? What are you doing here?”

“Hell if I know,” he grumbled. “They said it was important that I be here. Boy, I haven't been in the principal’s office in over thirty years. What the hell did you do?”

Eddie threw his hands up in defensive surrender. “I haven’t done anything! Whatever they say is lies and slander! I’m innocent!”

He heard a scoff behind him and turned around to see Mrs. O’Donnell, his senior English teacher. She was a rigid old woman that wore three too many layers and went home every night to her twenty-seven cats and no husband, or at least that’s what Eddie assumed. She was standing next to an unimpressed Principal Higgins that glared at Eddie when their eyes met. 

“Sit down, Mr. Munson. Now, we’ve called you both here today to discuss some concerns. It seems that Edward here has some… perversions that we are concerned about.”

“Perversions?!” Eddie shrieked. What the fuck?

Uncle Wayne sat up straighter in his seat. “No, that’s not Eddie. I don’t know what this is regardin’ but my Eddie is a good kid so you must be mistaken.”

Mrs. O’Donnell slapped his latest essay on Hamlet down on the desk in front of Wayne. “Read it! He’s disgraced one of the grandest plays of all time!”

Everyone sat in silence for a moment while Wayne read his paper. Both Principal Higgins and Mrs. O’Donnell looked almost giddy as they waited for Wayne to start yelling at him and his ‘perversions’. Instead though, Wayne just hummed and leaned back in his seat.

“I think it’s great, wonderfully written. The sex scene between Tybalt and Mercutio was a little graphic for my taste but it was beautifully written. Eddie always has had a gift for writing stories.”

Mrs. O’Donnell’s jaw dropped in the utmost offense. “Excuse me?! This is not ‘wonderfully written’, this is a travesty on Shakespeare’s good name!”

“You’re his teacher, ain’t you? You should be happy that your teaching is inspiring such creativity. Great job on your part,” Uncle Wayne told her. 

Principal Higgins dismissed them hurriedly and as they left, they could hear Mrs. O’Donnell’s shrill screeching from down the hall.

He didn’t pass her class that year.

~*~*~*~

In the play Hamlet written by William Shakespeare, the most important theme is love. The love between King Hamlet and his son allows his ghost to appear from beyond the grave to pass along important information to aid in revenge. The false love between Claudius and Gertrude causes revenge to spark and ultimately people to die. Perhaps most notably, the romantic relationship between Hamlet and Horatio proves the most important. It shows that love can persist beyond heterosexually bearded relationships, as Hamlet’s is with Ophelia. Furthermore, it shows that love can exceed death, as Horatio’s feelings continue even after Hamlet’s death when he kills Claudius in revenge. 

Honestly, the calls down to the principal’s office had become routine. Eddie was always being pulled out of class whether it was for goading on the basketball team, stealing Billy Hargrove’s clothes while he was in the shower, or allegedly selling marijuana to freshmen. It was always something. 

But when he walked in to find Wayne sitting uncomfortably in the office chair once again with Mrs. O’Donnell and Principal Higgins standing behind the desk, he let out a groan of annoyance. 

“Jesus Christ, can you not just let me live my life?”

“Eddie, don’t talk like that. Treat them with respect,” Wayne scolded him. 

“Mr. Munson, I don’t want you exposing my eyes to your homosexual writing urges. Unlike you, William Shakespeare was not a faggot!”

“Now you wait a damn minute,” Wayne said, whirling around to face Mrs. O’Donnell. “It ain’t my Eddie’s fault that this Shakespeare fellow was writing about gay characters in his plays. Just because Eddie is noticing them doesn’t give you the right to put him down or spread your lies. Grade his paper properly like you should be doing and stop trying to stomp all over my boy’s creativity!”

Uncle Wayne grabbed his arm and pulled him all the way out of the school to his truck. They drove to the diner a town over, the best place now that Benny’s was closed. He turned to Eddie in the cab of the truck and rested a calloused hand on his shoulder. 

“Look Eds, people are always gonna try and put you down but it’s your job never to stay there, alright? They don’t like your paper because it's too gay in their eyes? Write some more, do what makes you happy. And if you are gay, that’s okay too. I’ll always love you no matter what.”

By the time he’d finished, Eddie had tears dripping down his face. “I’m so sorry, Uncle Wayne. I didn’t want to be and I tried so hard-”

“Hey, stop that. There’s nothing wrong with being gay and you can’t believe anyone that says that there is, you hear me? Now c’mon, let’s get some burgers and you can tell me about any crushes you have at school. Any handsome fellas around here, you think?”

From that day forward, Eddie stops putting filters on his writing. Wayne told him that there was nothing wrong with him and he’d never lied to him before. He started making every character in his essays gay, he even added some gay characters to his campaigns and when no one questioned him, he centered the entire campaign around a lesbian elf saving her girlfriend from a horde of homophobic goblins. His friends didn’t so much as blink and Wayne beamed at him in pride when he told him about it later.

No, he didn’t pass his English class that year either but he remained true to himself and according to Wayne, that was the best thing he could do.

~*~*~*~

In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, the major theme of the play is homosexuality. This can be observed when Lady Macbeth convinces her husband to start killing all of the men that she thinks had a crush on him such as Duncan and Banquo. However, it can be seen most prominently when Lady Macbeth kills herself, may she rest in peace, because she realizes that despite all of her actions, Macbeth will remain fucking gay as hell. 

Eddie received a note from Mrs. O’Donnell the last class before Spring Break that summoned him to the Principal’s Office upon his return to school. However, with the murder accusations, earthquakes, and sheer amount of deaths, his summons was thrown to the back of everyone’s minds. 

Eddie graduated that year, passing Mrs. O’Donnell’s class with a pity A- but passing nonetheless. He walked across the stage with Uncle Wayne and the Party in the audience, ignoring the slurs and hate being screamed at him and focusing on Steve’s wolf whistling. Afterwards, everyone went back to the same diner that Wayne had taken him to a year prior and they celebrated the fact that he finally graduated. Who knew that all he had to do was remain true to himself and win over Mrs. O’Donnell?

(Or maybe it was the horrific events over Spring Break that allowed everyone to graduate despite how bad their grades were, but no one will ever know.)

My Permanent Tag List: @doubleb11 @nburkhardt @zerokrox-blog @newtstabber @i-less-than-three-you @straight4joekeery @carlyv @pyrohonk @ksherlock15 @conversesweetheart @estrellami-1 @suddenlyinlove @yikes-a-bee @swimmingbirdrunningrock @perseus-notjackson @anaibis @merricatty @maya-custodios-dionach @grtwdsmwhr @manda-panda-monium @lumoschild @goodolefashionedloverboi @mentallyundone @awkwardgravity1 @anzelsilver @jestyzesty @gregre369 @mysticcrownshipper @disasterlia @lillys-weird-world @messrs-weasley @gay-stranger-things @pnk-lemonades @coolestjoy30 @awkotaco24

@strangerthingfanfic @dangdirtydemons @bookworm0690 @hannahhook7744 @dreamlandforever @marsbars97 @precursorandthedragon @romanticdestruction @5ammi90 @death-thee-nervousqueer

#stranger things #fanfic #eddie munson #uncle wayne #wayne munson

[isalisewrites]

A ramble on writing where April broke my heart

Hooo boi.

March was a dream in comparison to April.

Emergency gallbladder surgery? Someone faking their death in my server? Good times. I wanna go back.

I have been through much in three short months. April has shown that it's taken a toll. I have missed many more days of writing. I'm still missing them in May. But I'm slowly gripping onto the last vestiges of my raw determination, all while in the face of so much.

I had a falling out with my closest family member that shook me to the core of my heart. I barely slept for most of the month again. Gallbladder surgery has proven to have some complications on my nervous system, making normal daily life difficult where it's hard to sit or lie down without experiencing full body numbness and tingling in various areas, including my hands and fingers. (No, not blood clots. 100% without a doubt it's my nerves.)

If you've followed me here (post one and two) and have read my author's on Terrible, But Great Chapter 30, then you know what went down with my family member. It took so much of my time and energy. I wrote well over 8,000 words trying to reason with this family member, only for all of it to be scorned and mocked. A part of me feels like that energy was wasted. I could have 8,000 more words in TBG, but I don't. This is all I have.

A part of me looks at it and says, "Give it back. Give me back my writing." What happened to January? Or even February? What happened to the girl who could wake up at 4am in the morning, an hour before she had to leave for her hysteroscopy, to power write 700 words?

Some days, I go up the stairs and I'm winded like I ran a marathon.

Some days, if I walk on the treadmill for more than 6 to 10 minutes, I feel like I'm dying.

It's been an uphill battle. The struggle is real, but so am I.

In the last week of December of 2023, when I realized how long it would take me to finish Terrible, But Great, I was overcome with what I call 'The Stirring.' I don't know what else to call it, but it always has an air of mystery and premonition for what it is to come. I thought at that time, "If I had limited time to live, what do I want to do?"

"I want to write."

So, I did.

In 2023, I published a total of 43,000 words in TBG. In 2024, from January to April, I've written 110,604 words and have published 35,000 words thus far. The year isn't even halfway over and I've done better this year than I have last year.

In spite of it all, I'm doing pretty damn good.

There's still hope. I'm not giving up. It might feel like morale is low, but it's not. I'm going to keep going as much as I can through all the hardships because writing is truly the one thing that breathes life into me.

By the end of April, I finished my business class with an essay about how the class shifted my beliefs. This class in combination with all of my health issues and social conflicts sparked an overwhelming revelation and a new rising determination within my soul.

You see, you all have witnessed my love and passion for writing Terrible, But Great, a Harry Potter fanfiction, but I also have original stories that I've wanted to write. Yet, I haven't been able to finish them because I'm always thinking about the market in the real world, instead of what I want and what the story wants. Fanfiction, I can do whatever the hell I want and yall are just gonna have to strap in and hold onto dear life cause it's gonna be a bumpy ride. Original novels, however, are done differently and I've often struggled due to so many factors.

I have ADHD. I am autistic. I have health issues which are rapidly piling up on top of each other. My career choice might not even be feasible for me in the long run, so why I am allowing myself to be pressured into doing more than I can handle with a class load?

I want to write. I want to write. I want to create.

Oh, how I want to create.

So, I will.

Two years ago, I gave up on my dream of writing original novels and earning a living through them. I've since repented of that notion. As I continue write Terrible, But Great, I'm also going to be working on my original novels on the side. Someday, perhaps, I'll be able to earn a living as a published author.

That's my realistic ideal.

I wrote 457 words today, May 9th. That's good enough. The goal this month is to write more than April. I can do that. On the days where prose is hard, I simply write my scene idea in a zero draft style. I don't worry about the prose; I'll fix it later. Every word counts. Every word can be changed. Every word can be made better.

Every word is good enough.

Until next month.

#mywriting #fanfic writer #fanfiction writer #writing #tomarry #hp #hp fanfic #harry potter #tom riddle #fanfiction #fanfic #terrible but great #2024 writing goal update #writer #2024 writing goals #isa's ramblings #isa's thoughts #isa's writing

[david-talks-sw]

any new Star Wars essays in the making, or are you moving on?

I don't know, honestly.

Part of it is "life gets in the way," I'm working a lot and so whatever time I have left is spent just messing around or meeting with my loved ones.

I've got a bunch of stuff in my drafts. I don't mind sharing it here, most recent to oldest:

Sort of a joke post of me pointing out how stressful being George Lucas' producer must've been, like this guy really DIDN'T WANT to write his fucking scripts, did he? Poor Rick McCallum. Abandoned because who gives a crap.

'Ask' reply on how EU-fueled fandom perception of the Jedi was flipped by the prequels.

'Ask' reply about the themes in Ahsoka and why the show doesn't know what it's about. Problem is, I go about it starting from the basics, so nobody's gonna sit through reading a tematic breakdown of the first Pirates of the Carribean movie, The Batman and the original six Star Wars films before I even get to the show at hand.

"Part II" post about what Ahsoka, Rebels and TCW get right about lightsaber duels, which the Prequels never did.

Quote collection & analysis on just how complex the Prequels were meant to be (in the late 80s, Lucas intimated that the Sequels were the story that was supposed to have gray morality, not the Prequels)

Quote collection on how the themes and principles of Star Wars align with Lucas' own opinions and philosophies.

Quote collection on Lucas defining Anakin's flaws.

Quote collection on Lucas talking about the fact that we need to be more proactive, which aligns with what Lumi points out sometimes about the Jedi: they should've been more politically engaged because we all should be.

Why I approach Lucas as "word of god".

Personal life/joke-y post dating from the time of the WGA strike about how Jack Black's School of Rock lyrics "In his heart he knew, the artist must be true, but the legend of the rent was way past due!" applied to me. Abandoned because I didn't wanna bum everyone out.

Correcting the notion that Dark Times-era Jedi such as Kanan or Ezra or Ahsoka represent what Jedi were supposed to be.

A comprehensive end-all outlook on how Anakin's flaws all tie together. I've written this one twice and I don't know how to differentiate it from my other posts.

A secret "Part 3" to my TLJ Luke post, in which I point out that RJ's being too "indie", while being a strong point for a big chunk of the film, hampers the film's ability to make Luke feel as badass as he does on paper. I want to illustrate a storyboard for this one, but that takes time.

The evolution of Star Wars' approach to transmedia.

Debunking Star Wars myths: a (very) comprehensive outlook on children in the Jedi Order.

Problem is that only like 2/3rds of these are fully-written... and I still need to find the relevant clips, turn them into GIFs, etc etc.

There's many other interesting Asks in my inbox btw. But I'm already behind on all these, so I haven't begun to touch them.

Then there's the drawings.

I wanna draw a comic of the meeting between Yoda and Dooku in Dark Rendezvous. I wanna finish the comic fight between Maul and Ben. I wanna draw Mace, Shaak Ti, I've got a Luminara fan-art that was supposed to be ready for Jedi June 2022 and an Anakin drawing that looks weird. No time, nor am I skilled enough. (Like, I trace, that's what I do, it's not a secret I've said so before... but it takes me a long while to do so. I'm not fast at drawing, let alone coloring.) I could commission some of these, but there are obvious obstacles there.

There's fun tidbits I've discovered here and there but nobody will care about them and I usually try to not drown my blog with bs posts.

Then there's the bigger problem.

All the things I've listed above? I'm not 100% motivated to finish. But a lot of the new stuff I wanna write about is hella negative.

I had a lot of stuff I wanted to say about Ahsoka. But it wasn't all good. It was mostly me bitching, be it about the show or the fandom's reactions to it.

I've also got more stuff to say about Filoni's take on Star Wars, but I've talked about why it's inaccurate like 8 times already, and I don't actually dislike the guy, like there's plenty of things he knows and does that I think are awesome but also people won't stop putting him and his takes on a pedestal and--

oh shit, there's Acolyte too, I forgot about that, gray morality galore, here we come. But here too, like... I've talked a couple of times about why this entire gray morality thing is actually just the gen X-ers trying to make the prequels "cool" and "complex". but I've never explored properly, with quotes and research and shit. but i've talked about it so many times that at this point it'd end up like the Filoni rants, redundant. "we get it already." as if this show didn't have haters lined round the block for absolutely sexist reasons.

Don't get me started on the mountain of lies and/or idiocy that is the YouTuber Star Wars Theory.

And yet he said one thing a few months ago which struck a chord within me and it's the fact that Andor is awesome, excels on all levels because it's treated seriously, like a proper show, not a Disney Plus one... why wasn't Obi-Wan Kenobi? Why wasn't Book of Boba Fett? And I've already established multiple times that I enjoyed Kenobi (yes, including the Reva parts) and I've established that I know what they were going for in Fett and I've established that this is mainly a "Disney Plus didn't know how to structure a fucking show pre-WGA strike" issue more than anything else... but when I think about how these could've been treated instead? When I look at the characterizations and emotional stakes of like Fargo Season 5? It's infuriating. Because it's not bad (talking about Kenobi, BOBF is awful)... but it could've been EXCELLENT and instead it was just "okay" to "good".

I just miss live action lightsaber duels, man. Like, good ones.

and i dunno. maybe I should just let it rip on all this. "go off, king!"

but I think there's so much negativity re: Star Wars that adding my thoughts on these subjects, no matter how structured and reason, will just blend into a wave of needless, un-constructive hate.

maybe I should finish the writings in the drafts and just post them with no gifs, maybe just still images?

but doing any of that feels like a step back.

So that's where I'm at right now.

#just noticed #started this post spelling it “I don't know” and ended it by spelling it “I dunno” #there's all you need to know about where i am right now #sw negativity #i guess? #bummed everyone out after all

[studentbyday]

my 🧠 feels like ✨cHaOs✨ and so this post will be ✨cHaOs✨

I went to the biochem Q&A sesh today

and OMG DID I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS I DID NOT EXPECT TO HAVE THAT MANY but I'm glad I attended, else it would've taken longer to get a response but now I have to revise (and by that I mean cut) a LOT from my paper and re-think how I'm doing it, if I'm doing it right or veering off topic (bc one thing when you're researching a disease new to you is that there's sm info out there and you're like 🙌🏻 EVERYTHING IS RELEVANT 🙌🏻 but no- only the biochem-related aspects of the disease are relevant for this assignment). idk how off-topic i actually am or if i'm pretty on the mark, but ngghhh tHe FiRsT dRaFt Is DuE On TuEsDaY *frantically waves arms, noodle-like* 🙌🏻 that doesn't feel like a lot of time to write the whole thing in all the detail i want so i can get useful feedback 😫

catching up on psyc notes (total ch finished this week: 2/5)

idk why but pomodoro and perky jazz music is the only thing keeping me focused for this.

fixing biochem paper

i read somewhere on here about having a document of your cuts in case you need it again later. useful advice, that. 👏🏻 also, i think what i should do first is make notes in a separate doc and THEN decide what to do with all that info...it might sound like it'll take longer but it's more efficient than writing a whole bunch and then realizing half of it is info you don't need. my stupid panicky brain couldn't realize that in the beginning (even tho that's what it had done b4 for other "essay-like" assignments) and was either stuck in analysis paralysis or just editing and re-editing, but better now than later (i haven't written THAT much beyond the intro anyway 😅)...

in other news, i got enough sleep for once bc i went to bed super early and ACTUALLY FELL ASLEEP BEFORE 12AM LIKE WHAT IS THIS MADNESS (ig i finally tired myself out enough these past few days 🤷🏻‍♀️) and despite waking up multiple times throughout the night bc i'm not used to the schedule, i am well-rested 😌 and my back is still being annoying but at least it's a little better than yesterday + i get to study while cozy in bed 🥰

#honestly taking pics of my 🧸 makes me so happy it's like YAY I CAN BE AESTHETIC AND ROMANTICIZE STUDYINGGG #(...but only when the stuff i'm taking pics of are already aesthetic XD) #dark academia #dark academia aesthetic #cozy academia #cozy academia aesthetic #gloomychallenge #cozy aesthetic #studyblr #stem studyblr #med studyblr #psych studyblr #student life #stemblr #stem academia #stem student #studyspo #study motivation #heyfrithams #heydilli #heyharri #mittonstudies #diaryofastemstudent #astudentslifebuoy #chaotic academia #100dop #100 days of self discipline #100 days of productivity #100 days of studying

[sixstepsaway]

A little while ago I wrote a thing about fandom purity culture and OFMD's fandom, where I mostly talked about how I think a lot of it boils down to cultural Christianity, but I also dipped briefly into the parts of it that I think are just... capitalism.

I want to go back to that for a moment because I have been witnessing the funniest shit over on Twitter the last few days and I want to talk about it because it absolutely highlights, circles and underlines the capitalism bit for me

[tw for talk of fictional incest]

I'm sure you all know that House of the Dragon is out. I haven't watched it personally, but I did watch a lot of Game of Thrones (and the gross finale) when that was airing, and so I know what to expect from House of the Dragon: Incest.

If you don't know, somehow, HotD is based on the Targaryen family but years before the timeline of Game of Thrones. GoT (and the books, of course) established that the Targaryen family were very incestuous. They'd been marrying sisters to brothers for generations to keep their bloodlines pure.

(Now, whether that's to do with the fact they had dragon blood and they needed to keep that in the family blah blah or something else I am not sure, but it's a fact of what the family did.)

It's canon that Daenerys Targaryen's parents are siblings. She pursues a relationship in the final season of GoT with a man who turns out to be her nephew, and this bothers him a little and her not a single jot because... it's just? What her family's always done? It's also what other families in GoT have always done, including the Lannisters. It's not out of the norm for any of them and is a huge part of the books and show. Arguably it's more of a concern for Jon just because he didn't know he was from an incestuous royal family, so it wasn't really something he expected or anticipated in his life, or had to think about all that much.

Fandom has latched onto a pairing in HotD that is written as explicitly romantic and leading to an endgame for them: Daemon and Rhaenyra. House of the Dragon is leading them up to this. The books go into a lot of detail about what their relationship was like, and thusly what to expect from HotD (you can read about it here if you want) but the basics are that they will have a steamy love affair, try to be with other people, but eventually end up together, get married and have multiple children together (in fact, I believe Daenerys is a descendant of theirs? But I'm not positive).

So, to recap: HBO is proudly airing a TV show full of incest which 16-million+ people are watching weekly, George R R Martin wrote incest-full books that millions of people read that lead to this, and Ryan J. Condal created this show to air on HBO and wrote all these incestuous storylines, including making the Rhaenyra and Daemon relationship enticing enough that fandom has latched onto it.

And somehow, despite all of this, there are antis over on Twitter (and, I can only imagine, here as well) who are watching this show and then yelling... at fans, for enjoying it, writing fic about it, and making fanart about it.

One person was even complaining they only had to scroll a little to find 'incest fanart' in the House of the Dragon hashtag on Twitter and asking why people can't just be normal and not ship an uncle and his underage niece!

(Who isn't even going to stay underage in the show, mind, they're aging her up in an episode or two I believe.)

To me, this absolutely epitomizes what I was saying about capitalism in my essay about purity culture. HBO is fine. GRRM is fine. Ryan J. Condal is fine. Matt Smith who willingly signed up to play Daemon - a character who will engage in a sexual relationship with his niece - is fine.

Every person working the show who is earning money for it, who is getting paid to put this show out there, is fine. They're not doing anything wrong, you see. It's the ones who aren't getting paid who deserve death threats and being told they're awful people and normalizing incest and whatever the heck else.

Capitalism absolves. Doing it for free for a much smaller audience is the wrong here.

Now, to be clear: I don't think HBO or the writers or the actors are doing anything wrong lmao. I don't think it normalizes anything to make fun TV that includes that thing. It requires a lot more nuance and planning to normalize a taboo this strong.

What I'm saying is that these people have drunk the capitalism koolaid so deeply that they think that money makes things okay, that they act like writing incest or an age gap like Rhaenyra and Daemon's makes you a variety of terrible buzzwords (including ones beginning with P) and someone who should be taken out and shot or hate crimed, but only if you're writing it for fun and posting it on AO3, or drawing it and posting it on Twitter.

And sure, maybe they'll come argue that no! They don't think that! God! They think it's bad to air on HBO too!

...but, uh, they're watching it, is the thing. Lots of them are watching it. They're either watching it legally and contributing to the 16 million+ viewers, or they're pirating it, then talking about it and drumming up even more interest online. Either way, they're participating in its success.

So, yeah. Capitalism. They think it's okay as long as it's done Professionally and makes the participants money (even those who already have loads of money).

It's the poor, broke writers who do it because it's fun that are wrong and normalizing and fetishizing and sexualizing here!

Makes sense and isn't at all concerning...

(Also funny is that somehow someone drawing the characters or writing them together is the worst evil but the person who hired people to act it out and will surely have multiple actors act it out in softcore porn scenes isn't bad at all.)

#fandom discourse #purity culture #capitalism

[hotdamnmadison]

Just some Tuesday thoughts...

I've had the pleasure of getting to know a lot of great people via the internet these past few years. Sites like Tumblr, Fet Life, Double List, etc. have connected me with some pretty neat individuals.

But what spurred this little write up is the life cycle of those relationships. When you meet someone on a sex based website (or run a sex based blog) you see a lot of faces come and go. So many of us are on the hunt for something so specific. Some want a "one and done" situation... while others (like myself) want a drawn out scenario (call it dating, call it a FWB, call it what you call it).

I hate the part of the life cycle when I notice the change - the inevitable moment when a potential candidate has lost interest. Long essays and paragraphs turn into two sentence interactions (if that). Friendly/flirtatious conversation turns into a slightly degrative or judgmental interaction. In other words, someone shows their true colors.

I wrote a story over a year ago -

https://hotdamnmadison.tumblr.com/post/698363090093375488/and-ashley

It details a fictional, mostly toxic yet romantic interaction I might've had with a real person - if they hadn't experienced the change. (FYI the toxicity wasn't fictional, the romance sure was though.)

A character starts so eager and responsive - he knows that he has one shot at making a first impression with me. And then slowly but surely his excitement, his effort, and his desire all disintegrate in the matter of a couple weeks.

It is this part of the life cycle that I start giving up. I know the ship has sailed. I haven't changed anything on my end, so the issue is on the other side. And the moment I start to notice the change I tend to back away slowly. I'm not trying to get hurt again.

What causes this? Why is it most of the online relationships deteriorate? Is it the "cum and done" bullshit I've already written about?

Or did someone's wife catch them in the act? Or did I simply not give them my flesh soon enough?

Regardless, it stings so fucking bad when you think you've found someone who is different, only for them to turn out EXACTLY like everyone else.

I'm finally getting to my point. I'm tired of "online dating" and hookups. People aren't consistent enough for me and I don't know why they change. Maybe it is me, and I just can't see it for myself. I wish people would just come out and be honest up front....

"I don't want to date, I want to fuck... here is a pic if you're interested."

That person might not be my thing, per say, but at least we didn't waste two months while they lied to me about romance and dating.

Maybe I'm the only one dealing with this. Idk. It's aggravating and I'm tired of having the same convos over and over again - just to be let down at the end of it all.

#need a consistent lover #need a guy #need a boytoy #need an honest person #femboy #cute crossdreser #gender fluid #hotdamnmadison

[aobawilliams]

20 questions for writers

I was tagged by @marcellebelle! Thanks for that!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

15!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

69,471 (eheh, nice)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

So on AO3 I got My Hero Academia, Detective Conan/Magic Kaito and Before the Coffee gets cold. Outside of AO3 I got some Naruto, FMA, One Piece, Bungo Stray Dogs, wips too (and there was that time I was writing crack fic about Mob Psycho here on tumblr with Panda, that was fun). There's probably some other I've forgotten too- oh yeah there was some Hetalia at some point.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Noisy as the dead (495)

Who The F- Is This (432)

Nothing Wants To Suffer (375)

Who am I beating up? (131)

What it takes to survive (72)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I tend to but lately, I haven't really kept up with it. I am sorry. I should get to it at some point soon, but be aware every comment is read and enjoyed.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Morituro, probably? Considering both All Might and Izuku died so, yeah.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I like to think it's Before The Coffee Gets Cold - The Sisters, since this fic is about closure after death.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Oh! I got once a hate comment on who the f- is this, to which i answered with an essay or two. I probably shouldn't have but also it was really fun at the time. Otherwise I don't believe I do.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I can barely write romance, smut is way out of my reach. I also don't really have any interest in writing any, to be honest.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Crossovers are probably right after Time Travel in term of things I love. Not one I've written but special mention to that one time I dream about Zabuza from naruto/Reigen from mob psycho as a ship.

Don't know if it's the craziest but I had a The Rising of the Shield Hero/Naruto one started once, there was also that Detective Conan/My Hero Academia one started with Panda that the idea was so good. We should get back to it, one day.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

*squint* I don't think so (unless it was done without my knowledge) but strong maybe back in my ff.net era. Though I did translate some fics myself before (it wasn't done very well, but I did try back then, and it did help me a lot learning english. Problem was I'm not good at grammar stuff.)

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Once again, there was that cracky Mob Psycho one here somewhere. Also, some projects with Panda that are really good except words hard for both of us.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

...yeah no idea right now, come ask me another time. (It tends to change on the day, but also right now I'm on a no-romance streak so, better luck next time)

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

*crying* all of them.

Okay so, first of all, a wip is never dead unless I decide to bury it. Which doesn't happens. I still have hope one day I'll get back to them.

Right now I really want to work on Dad For All and the DCMK NOC AU except, word hard and planning harder. But I'll get there, one day, even if it's in 10 years.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I honestly got no idea? I probably got some I'm just not sure what it could be.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

word hard. Also no idea how grammar works beyond "whatever feels right to me".

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Eeh, I probably wouldn't do it because it's bothersome having to look up a translation while you're reading a fic, unless it's something that fits with the context or just a few words here and there. Also switching languages in the middle of thinking is so hard to do, why would you do this to me.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Naruto, back in uuuhhhhhh probably middle school. It was a long time ago. Nothing is left of what I could have written then. (Also close to that time period was D.Gray-man).

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Huge huge huge fondness for Before The Coffee Gets Cold - The Sisters, probably because Im very fond of that universe and also when grief is explored and closure is sought. I also really like the flowers have water.

Who the f- is this and Noisy as the dead are my funny projects though, I have lot of fun working on them.

Tagging! @achairwithapandaonit @grolahvol @figurativepieceoftrash @bloustorm @fanfiction-artist-prototype @guesst and uuh really tbh anyone who sees this and feel like doing it! I just picked a few people off the top of my head but I know there's a lot more of you seeing this.

#tag game #sometimes i write

[knifedog-machina]

Gateway Operations: How My System Works

Written by Max on March 30, 2024.

I haven't seen many personal essays or in-depth posts by plurals that explain how their individual systems work and what their experiences are like, so I’m taking the alterhuman community mindset of Writing About My Personal Experiences as the host of a gateway system, just to archive my experiences in pen, since my memory isn't at all infallible.

I'm also posting on social media (instead of only a personal website) in hopes of seeing and being seen by other folks, people who have similar or different experiences! I like talking about myself, but not into a void, you know? I like it when people talk back! If you have replies, feel free to write them as a response! (If in a reblog, please put it under a cut if it's longer than a few paragraphs!)

Headmates and Visitors

First off, defining “gateway system.” I'm using the term to mean that the people in my system exist in an alternate universe - their version of a slightly futuristic Detroit, Michigan, in our case - and they walked into my brain as completely separate people from me.

My headmates are the people who I consider my brain roommates, the people who choose to live together with me in our daily life. So far this is a short list, just Jude and Gavin, because they like being here and I like having them around.

I've recently found that other people from their world can chime in from time to time - and they aren’t headmates, in my opinion, so much as visitors. They like talking to my headmates, and sometimes even to me, but they don’t want to live with me and just come and go as they please, usually just popping in when called (if they're free). So far, they’ve all been people who Jude and Gavin personally know, and people I know from their world and feel interested in. My working explanation for who can visit the system is that they’re all people in Detroit who we’re invested in, and if we want to talk to them enough, they can talk to us. Why? Who knows! What matters is that we can have a chat or two over lunch.

As the host, listening to my headmates talking to other people in their world really does remind me of listening in on a phone call - I’m not usually getting visuals from the other person, just their voice internalized in my mind. As far as I can tell, that's also how the whole thing gets filtered in-universe - for example, Gavin mentally called a friend from Detroit a couple nights ago, for the sake of trying to do so without expecting anything, and when she actually answered, it did solidify into a phone call, or at least she was talking into the phone on her end of the line.

The Back (and headspace, or lack thereof)

When I think about my headmates in the back, they’re in their apartment - which has mostly been Gavin’s apartment, historically, but Jude’s moved in. The impression I get in my mind’s eye when I’m visualizing the back is like that of a moving camera, seeing footage from a recording without being in the space myself. It’s very much their actual apartment, though - for instance, Gavin owns three cats, and if I focus on them, I can tell what they’re getting up to. As I’m writing this, I’m checking on the cats, and I get the impression that Lucy is taking a nap on one arm of the couch.

When Jude or Gavin check into the back, they tend to get impressions from their own points of view. For example, when Jude is laying on the couch and looking at Gavin in the kitchen, they’re using their own eyes for that, while if I’m the one watching him, I’m looking from a different viewpoint - it’s like my internal footage of them is being filmed on a security camera or using film shooting techniques, while they're just using their eyes like normal people.

This visualization is always very hazy and unfocused until I actually focus on what's going on, and then it clears up into a solid concept. It's a similar story for figuring out noemata or exomemory recall - from what I can tell, it all runs on a sort of Schrodinger's cat principle, where all the possibilities for what's happening are superimposed on one another until I'm actively thinking about it, and then it settles upon a single configuration and doesn't change again. For example, what the cats are doing. Jack is currently sitting on the windowsill, looking at the birds outside.

I used to think my internal camera was fixed to Gavin’s apartment, but since I've been able to look at other places, I think it's more likely that my headmates and visitors tend to talk to me when they're not busy, which tends to mean they're at home or otherwise unoccupied. A couple visitors were going on a walk in the park while talking to me, which was really quite nice. I've also found my point of view camera spinning over to watch them in their house, and that's quite different from Jude and Gavin’s place.

And because the back is their actual world instead of a mindscape that I made up, I don't actually exist in it. I can't project myself into my headmates’ apartment - I’m the host, so I live in this world, and I reside in my brain and body as thought patterns and self-perception. When I give up control of the front, I don't enter any specific headspace. If I'm co-conscious, I just exist as a disembodied voice, vaguely attached to my self-image and body, until I return to the front again. (It's not as disorienting as it sounds, I promise.)

Fronting and Co-Fronting

When my headmates are fronting, it's not like they blip back and forth between being in my world controlling my body, and being in their world controlling their bodies. They're actually in both places at once? I like to think of it like quantum superpositions, much like the memory and camera focus - if Jude is fronting and wants to hug Gavin back in their own bodies, they can do that! At the same time, they're still up here in my body. They can only fully focus on one or the other, though, so that's something that tends to happen more when I'm in co-front and can take over fronting.

Something that does happen for us, and happens so naturally that we didn't realize that other systems might not be able to do it, is partial possession. It's a new term for me, but it’s well-established in the tulpamancy community - basically, putting it into plural terminology, it's when one headmate takes control of some part of their shared body while co-fronting with someone else.

We do this voluntarily and semi-automatically, for a variety of reasons. When I’m suffering from sensory overload and don't want to eat despite being hungry, someone else might decide to take over eating while I keep using the spoon. If Jude wants to hold hands in co-front, they can take one hand and Gavin can have the other, and they can hold hands like that. If Gavin wants to walk while I listen to a podcast, he gets the legs and I keep the audio processing. It's a good thing for all of us!

Usually, when fronting, I can call someone's name to the back and get a response - this is how I know the difference between tuning in and out of headmate awareness throughout the day, where I can check in and get an immediate response if they're awake, and them walking out of the system for a time. When they leave, I call out and get no response whatsoever.

This gets distressing when someone other than myself gets stuck in the front, which happens when we're overloaded with stress, because that also makes it incredibly difficult or impossible to get responses from me or anyone else in the back, so it feels like the person in front is completely alone in there. For the record, this has always been a stress-induced communication breakdown for us, and we do always regain contact after calming down.

And I've found that our visitors also co-front sometimes, I think because they're used to having bodies and don't like being in the void in the way that we get when we aren't fronting or focusing on the back. (They don't usually care for it, which is part of why they aren't headmates - for example, Connor hates eating.)

I don't have a conclusion for this essay, really - it's a collection of observations, and might change or expand in the future. Who knows! It's nice to have it jotted down in one place, though.

#personal essay #plurality #gateway system #plural system #endogenic #max talks

[shimamitsu]

Hi sorry! I just wanted to say I love your hq oikawa post, and I think it rly hit the nail on the head wrt what I find really annoying about a lot of hq uhhhh popular takes? Idk how to put it because I think so many people forget how young the characters are? Which is odd because they are written exactly like 14-17 yr olds! Which is why people complain that characters like tsukishimas backstories are stupid (which yeah it is, but the point is it really affects HIM because he’s 14)…. Also why we see characters who are still very young get given the mom/dad role.

I think this treatment is part of the reason oikawa gets treated as some morally dubiously character and not. The guy in your bio class who comes in late every morning because he was practicing his triple homo spike pass for a game next week. Anyway there’s probably a deeper reason to why people do this, but idk!!!

Sorry for dropping this in your inbox and sry if it’s incoherent… I read hq a while ago in mostly one sitting and I also am a little out of it (cold medicine) hope you have a nice day!!!

hi hi!!! yes i totally agree. with oikawa especially some people feel so conflicted about him and i'm like ??? that's a teen... what did he ever do to give you a moral crisis... ofc oikawa is a complex character and all but i think it's pretty obvious that there's not like. evil intent behind his actions. i haven't been active in hq fandom circles for years so idk what's the general consensus on him now but back when i was some people would always bring up the fight with kageyama and act like it was unforgivable or something and it's like... that was a 13 y/o. anyway idc if people dislike oikawa or like him but after That poll i've seen people write entire essays about their contradictory oikawa feelings and maybe it's bc he's just a guy to me but i was perplexed. he's just some guy. the tsukishima thing is sooo true like yeah it wasn't all that but most things that made you feel like crazy frog was just a frog to you in your teens weren't all that, a little bit of sympathy for the guy pls. don't even wanna get into the mom/dad roles bc oh my god. wdym suga's "the mom" that guy was juggling his college entrance exams and the tournament just bc he wanted to play volleyball 😭 anyway yeah, you get it 🤝🤝🤝 and don't apologize! i love talking about hq, asks are always welcome. hope you're having an amazing day as well <3

#when i say oikawa's just a guy i say it in the most affectionate way possible btw #just in case people aren't familiar with my posts #oikawa's my favorite character of all time

[armed-saphire]

NOW ITS UR TURN WHO ARE YOUR MGS FAVS AND WHY!1!1?1!1?1!1?11!1! ٩( 'ω' )و

EHEHEEEE OK SO I'll say my fav from each game

Mgs1 is def Liquid he. He's so overdramatic it's really funny. He did so many backflips while explaining his tragic backstory 🥰 and then he just fucking died and turned into an arm which is the real tragedy (I have so many random HCs for him it's insane... I also rewrote his backstory a little...the recessive thing is so dumb)

Mgs2 I think it's a split between Raiden and Fortune. Raiden I really enjoyed playing as a character who is just... idk how to put it I just like that he's flawed and not some morally perfect charismatic guy. It feels like he's set up to be that way and then he whines about everything and is very dismissive at some points. It feels like he's a real person and not perfectly crafted to be the ultimate stereotypical good guy protagonist who can stay cool and collected in every situation. He has his moments where he lets emotion get the better of him and I like it a lot.

Fortune I have less to say about her but it doesn't mean I like her less. I think she's a really tragic character backstory wise but I also like how she sort of "plays into it" I guess? Ocelot points it out himself near the end of the game ("you couldn't get enough of the drama"). I thought the ending where she found out she could've died any time and she didn't have some magic ability was sad too and I lowkey wish she didn't die and was like redeemed somehow (imagine she comes back in mgs4 and has to go against Vamp or something that would've been so cool)..anyway I guess I didn't actually have less to say I like Fortune a lot blehhh😋

mgs3 AGH.. EVA ILY she is such a well written character and I love her so much I could write an essay on her if I wanted but I'll keep it more brief here. She's like a perfect subversion of the typical sexualized woman in video game thing...it's what she's doing as a spy for the mission and the best part is it doesn't even really work lol nice job snake. The game itself even adheres to whether Eva is in her Eva persona or her Tatyana one. It's....aghhhhghhh so great. (I have so many thoughts about her and Liquid btw)

Mgs4...difficult but probably Screaming Mantis. For real this time not a lot to say about her but I do like her a lot more since playing the game she went from my least fav B&B unit member to my fav one. She was really fun to watch in all her cutscenes and her boss fight was one of the best MGS boss fights I've ever done tbh. The callbacks and references to the first game were so good I won't lie I was giggling kicking my feet a lil bit. Screaming Mantis ily I have so many thoughts <333

Peace Walker ermmm Kaz and Paz equal I can't decide..also maybe Amanda. Yeah I like everyone a lot 😭 and Cécile....not Snake tho sorry lol. I haven't finished the game so I haven't gotten the full character arcs of everyone so it's hard to pinpoint exact explanations but you know I love Kaz forever and ever mwah mwah (I'm also a transfem Kaz truther and I'm RIGHT!!!). Amanda has a lot of really cool tapes explaining a lot of...not really exposition but it gives a lot of great context to her character. And her voice acting especially in cutscenes is some of the best voice acting I've seen in an mgs game so it adds a lot. Paz I need to learn more about her. I know basic plot points but not the inbetween stuff that really lets you get to know her. I do feel really sad for her though, Kojima decided he wanted shock value instead of a female character having a nice ending 🤷‍♀️ Sucks.

Mgsv QUIET!!!! QUIET ILY!!! she's soooooo OUGH. I'm glad a lot of the fandom has fixed her from her extremely flawed portrayal in the game because it shows what really could've been and I think I latch more onto that than the version of her in the game just a little. The foundation they were working with was still really good. The way they show her and venom building such a strong bond despite never having a single conversation is really well done and I like it a lot. Quiet ily my favourite creaturething killgirl my favourite ear biter offer...

#Ty for asking mwah mwah mwah <333 #Mgs #Asks #fenix dont look

[lollytea]

4.) I'll never get over how much thought and care you've put into making Shagheera not just passable, but fantastic. Like you went from complaining about there being no good Shagheera fics in 2020 to being responsible for a bunch of Shagheera content in 2021. Magnificent. Hyperfixated Queen.

5.) It feels like a crime that I haven't read your Huntlow fics yet, I swear I'll fix what the moment I am able.

6.) The ending of A Little Change Chapter 21 is always gonna stick with me as like. Such a vibe. It paints the entire fic's vibes to me tbh. I think it's why it took me so long to really get into illustrating that moment. It just sticks. In a good way.

7.) Not entirely a fic (yet?) but I wasn't lying when I said the bit you wrote about Ty making peace with his bisexuality actually made me cry. Again why I was just so eager to illustrate it.

8.) PERSONALITY!!!! Oh my gods, like, your fics have SUCH personality. Whether it be through dialogue or narration or even dramatic irony, there's just like. So MUCH in your fics. So much you. And I love you. And so I love your writing ejhfkgjs. There are scenes I so desperately want to animate because the dialogues you write just FEEL like they have such good motion to them!!

12.) I... I re-read Penniless Promises and Undocumented Events so often it's almost embarrassing QwQ;;;

14.) I was extremely fresh off of catching up to the Owl House when I read Exercise in Understanding, so I wasn't expecting it to hit me as hard as it did (sometimes something has to sink in first before it can mean so much) but it DID and I'm so glad it did.

15.) I love hearing you talk about your writing process - Since Swindle is as much a visual piece as it is a written one, how much do you visualize as you're writing the script? You give so me many directions that I can't consider there's nothing happening, but I'm curious about just how much you write with visuals in mind!

I looooooooooooove youuuuuuuu 💕

4.) My Shagheera. My beloved. My beloathed. They are good for my mental health. They make it a billion times worse. Miserable horrible old kitty men that drive me fucking ballistic. Shagheera will ways be there for me to focus on if I run out of other hyperfixations. Who would I BE if I didn't have them?

5.) If it helps I can summarise my huntlow fics for you so it feels like you've read them. Okay so I've written two big ones. Sunshine and Atlas. In Sunshine, Hunter and Willow take turns having mental breakdowns while sitting in Willow's backyard. In Atlas, Hunter and Willow take turns having mental breakdowns but with a twist! They're in Luz's house this time!

Actually you need to read them to understand what I'm currently about. It's like me taking you by the hand and explaining my current brainrot step by step. I consider Sunshine to be like. My huntlow essay. Like how I made a shagheera essay to pitch why its Good, I actually made this essay into a fic. It is still entirely a pitch. Tryna get people on board with my agenda.

6.) It's been SO FUCKING LONG that I was wracking my brain trying to remember what in God's name happened in chapter 21. I had to check. I remember knowing that entire fic off by heart back then. Like if you dropped a chapter number, I'd immediately know what that chapter was about. Now it's all just a blur. A Little Change is nowhere close to my pride and joy anymore that I'm glad it's just a blur.

But ya okay 19 year old me really snapped with chapter 21. Can't believe she wrote that. I'm proud of her. Silly and cringy as it was I'm glad she had fun. Glad other people had fun too.

7.) *bonks my little OC on the head* this bad boy can fit so much of the bisexual experience in it*

8.) This is why I can only write anything once every thirty years or so. I put all my personality into it and then I am left without a personality for ten to twelve business days. Just a husk. But people are getting a giggle out of my silly little stories so who's the real winner here.

But God do I love making fics that are alive. Its like making my own little frankensteins monster. If its not breathing, I'm never satisfied.

12.) I appreciate that you reas Undocumented Events so much because that's my BABY. It's everything to me. I have no idea when I'm ever gonna touch it again but I love what it currently is. And nobody else reads it so LIKE. Thank you for keeping it in your memory.

I have no special attachment to Penniless Promises so it doesn't bother me that nobody ever reads it. But I'm always like "at least Artsy that wild son of a gun is having fun and milking it for everything it's worth." That's what it's all about.

14.) Excercise in Understanding how I love that little guy. Constant reminder that has me like "Look at me!! Writing short things!!! Look what I'm capable of!!!" Delighted that one of the first owl house fics was Hunter being gross and Darius being disgusted. What an excellent place to start.

15.) I visualise facial expressions and gestures and non vocal character interactions. I'm really bad at like painting pictures in my head of backgrounds and layouts and whatever but I'm always character oriented. I think there's a lot of writing between the lines when it comes to the little details of smiles and troubled looks and comfortable touching and flinching so my brain really zeros in on how they would look. But when it comes to whatever in God's name is going on around them. Settings and shit? Brain empty.

Thank you!!! You are my friend!!! I love you!!!!!

[lemistired]

When Spring Comes

I haven't posted in a while. I haven't written in a while. I've been rather swamped with college, home circumstances, and relationships. I realised i never did post my essay "When Spring Comes", my first post was quotes from this essay, and the drafts. It was my folio piece for my english course in 2021, I was so incredibly proud of it. This is a reflective piece about my friend moving away, he meant, and still does mean the world to me, this essay is more a love letter, not romantic though. When he left, I couldn't cope, it did nothing less than destroy me, I think you can tell based on my writing here.

My goal with this one was to make my friend cry, I succeeded, bonus points for making my mother cry when she read it too. This friend moving to uni was going to be everyone's problem.

When Spring Comes

Time doesn’t wait for anyone. That is a lesson everyone learns fairly young, what you don’t learn is that one day someone will come along into your life, and suddenly make it go so much faster than you were ready for, and as quickly as they came, they will leave.

Two years can pass in the blink of an eye.

He’s been gone for weeks now; I can only reach his world through a phoneline.

I met him early in the year. The air still nipping at your skin, I’m sure if you were out there for long enough you could start to see icy bite marks forming on unprotected skin. A mutual friend introduced us. We got along fairly easily, our personalities clashed, it was almost complementary. We brought out the best in each other from the start to the bitter end. Our friendship budding with the flowers coming in spring.

He was persistent, ever so persistent to stay by my side; My walls came crashing and burning down in an instant.

The friendship was something you saw only in coming-of-age movies. Always together, hands intertwined, joined at the hip. The moments we shared were all something you would see in a fairy-tale. I wanted those moments to last forever, but then I guess they wouldn’t be moments anymore, would they?

I blinked.

One of the worst things about having friends who are older than you is that they have to move on without you.

He turned eighteen. He has six months left. Every so often a thought would pass by, reminding me of his soon departure, I would always brush it off, after all, six months was a long time, right?

Six months could never have been enough time.

The air started getting warmer as summer started drawing in. The atmosphere hot and heavy. Before we knew it, he was leaving in two months’ time. I started looking for parting gifts subconsciously. Does he prefer the smell of summer fruits or fresh linen candles? Maybe some notebooks and pens would be a better gift, he’s always been a practical person. Did he even care for gifts? He was always so easy to please, I once gave him my second-hand Pokémon game and his face lit up, you could almost see waterfalls down his cheeks. Why was he suddenly someone who was so hard to find a gift for?

When we were around each other it felt like we were floating. Nothing else mattered. If both of us were together, no harm could come to us.

One month until he left.

Everything started to become so much more real in those moments, the weight became overwhelming, so I stopped floating and started falling. Falling was so easy for me because I was so sure he would’ve caught me before it was too late, just as he always did. I was too blind to see he fell with me, hand still linked with mine. You’d imagine this is when I started to panic, but as long as he was there, nothing bad could possibly happen, or so I thought.

Over the next month every time I saw him, I felt the urge to study everything about him in hopes of remembering. I needed to remember his smile that was so wide it could take you to the moon and back, or his laugh that could shake the ground in which we stood, his skin texture and the tan that consumed him, or maybe it was the clean yet warm scent of his clothes. I had always noticed these little details, but suddenly the thought of not seeing them daily was unbearable.

The final days came faster than I had hoped.

We were in the garden messing around, laughing and dancing. We hardly ever stayed in the garden, and when we did, it would only be for a short time just to talk, although this didn’t feel abnormal. Unwanted thoughts crept in through a backdoor. What if this is the last time you’re able to just exist like this together. I didn’t want to think about it.

Hours later we were outside his house. The whole day for the most part had felt natural and somewhat peaceful;

The calm before the storm.

Perhaps time has some exceptions in which it will stop. We stood there in silence, the birds, cars, and wind suddenly halted all at once. All my words were getting choked up in my throat making it hard to breathe. My senses started shutting down, my mind got hazy. I’ve never been good at communicating, but this was bad, even for me. Eventually I managed to get some words out, my teeth clenched and my breath gone, how would I deal with seeing this man leave me tomorrow?

His three words started the clock again.

I love you.

He said it in a tone you couldn’t help but believe, although these words no longer just meant ‘I love you’ as they would suggest, no. This time these three measly words meant goodbye, they meant I’ll miss you, they meant thousands of words that would never be spoken.

His door closed for the night. The final night.

I started walking towards my house. My throat was painful. Tight. My eyes burned. I couldn’t breathe. Someone was crying, you could hear their sobs echo through the streets. It just hit me that I was the one crying on the side of the road. My body seemed to be reacting to the pain before I could even feel it. I wasn’t in that body. I was watching the protagonist in a movie have their breaking point before a major character arc, right? There was no way this could be my life anymore.

I watched the stranger walk into my house, they cried for a while longer, screaming to anyone who would listen before giving up for the night.

Time’s up.

It’s an autumn morning. It wasn’t cold, yet it wasn’t particularly warm either. We spoke and joked like we always did, that is until that blue car came. Boxes and bags were thrown into the car, filling it to its top.

That is the moment I stopped falling, the shock wore off.

Tears started to fill my eyes. Seeing tears in my eyes was as promised as seeing stars in the night sky. He called out that childish name he had given me an eternity ago and started walking over. Don’t come over, don’t say my name. I’m not ready.

Those stars in my eyes started shooting down my cheeks. He pulled me into a tight embrace, it was warm, safe, home. I always made sure he was first to let go of a hug this time was no different;

He let go too soon, just like he always did. I wanted to keep him longer, but that was too selfish. My hands went cold, I had only just realised, he let me go. I watched him get into that car, and look back with glassy eyes, tears burning flames down his cheeks. He was still as breath-taking as he always was, even in the state he was now. The car started moving, before I noticed he was leaving, he was gone.

I tasted the bitter taste of triumph. Pride. I was so proud of him, he got what he wanted, but why did it hurt so much.

I had always found myself in him, when he left, I followed. 

The air is cold now, unlike it was when he moved away, its breath lingering on your skin. The nights are coming in earlier. Your fingers numb at an instant.

Weeks have passed without him.

Soon a spring without you will come. I wonder if there will be flowers.

━  S

#essay #personal essay #literature