#petunia against the real world

[pettyverse]

Earth etiquette

#petunia against the real world #princess petunia #maria #queenie draws

[yagirlqueenie]

Not just a princess, she’s THE princess!

#queenie draws #petunia against the real world #dandy-lion #princess petunia

[fairykazu]

hi pookie !!!!!!! congrats on 500 u deserve it frfr 🫶 for the event, can u have a bouquet of petunias with dan heng? thank you and congratulations again teehee :3

petunias with dan heng prompt: realizing feelings side note: oh mu god i think i brainrotted and then forgot my train of thought. this isn't exactly the prompt but he does realize it i swear. i might write a follow up afterwards because i hate the way i ended this. event masterlist 𝜗𝜚 hsr masterlist

nervous was a feeling that dan heng never allowed himself to feel, he only let it fleetingly pass by like the winter breeze. but he doesn’t understand how he began to feel anxious around you, just simply on edge just by being near you. he could just sweat pure bullets from the amount of sweat he could feel, making his palms sweaty. 

when the both of you went on an assignment for collecting extinguished cores, he nearly left mid-fight, not that he’d leave you in the middle of a fight, but your hand briefly touched his and he died within that moment. after that, he zoned out the entire mission, just focusing on the touch between his thumb and your index finger. his and yours, and his and yours- 

frankly, he doesn’t understand this feeling. if he asked someone on the express, surely, they would know why he’s acting this way. but he doesn’t want to seem like a bother to them. maybe he’d resort to them after a good dive into the archives. 

there was a gentle knock against his door but he didn’t hear it, head too deep in various books that were wide open. stacks of books and stacks of books littered the archives’ floors, it was like a maze to even just travel to dan heng. there were books like feelings and how to understand them and are you anxious? there are reasons why in the shelves. although, he was confused how they got there, maybe when march got them to read for fun, he was thankful. 

did he get the answers he needed? no. but they were helpful regardless yet he was in a dead end. well, it’s time to ask the express, maybe they’d know and surely, they would tell him. but when he tried to seek out answers from himeko and welt, they exchanged a look and laughed with each other. 

welt cleared his throat. “okay, himeko, let’s not laugh too much, maybe he knows why.” 

himeko wiped a tear from her face from laughing too much, catching her breath, “welt, c’mon, just look at him. he doesn’t know anything!” 

“dan heng isn’t clueless.” they were talking about him as if he didn’t even exist. until both of them looked at dan heng as if there was something he was supposed to know.  “is there something im missing?” dan heng asked, confused. 

“no…” 

“okay?” 

. ❀

back to the drawing board, he walked into his room, seeing march and stelle sitting in there. march raised a brow, “dan heng, your room’s a mess, even messier than stelle’s!” it was true, despite the silver haired girl protesting against the so-called “allegations” march is painting on her, his room was messy. there was post it notes on the walls, books on the floor, mattress and even the fan? was he really that deep into researching this feeling, if it is even real? 

“i was curious about something, that’s all.” 

“about what?” 

“name, something about name. they’re confusing me.” 

stelle quipped back, “what? that you like them?” the girl in pink gasped, march slapped stelle’s shoulder, “stelle!” she continued in a whisper-yell, “you weren’t supposed to tell him, he was supposed to figure this out himself.”  

dan heng tilted his head, deep in thought, ignoring the commotion the couple was making in front of him. 

what? no, no, he doesn’t like name like that. 

“look what you did, stelle! you broke him.”  march said, tapping on dan heng’s shoulder as if he was a buzzer in a game show. 

sure, sometimes, dan heng imagines a world where the two of you are together. tranquil hours spent in the park, just looking at each other. or cooking with each other, have a cat or a dog and rest together until the end of time or he’d pray to an aeon for eternity to exist forever just to see you as you both grow old.

but that’s because this is how friends act, right? 

#love language of flowers 𝜗𝜚 vidia's 500 event #hsr x reader #gen #gender neutral reader #gend #gender neutral terms #gender neutral insert #dan heng x reader #dan heng x you #dan heng #dan heng hsr x reader #hsr fluff #hsr dan heng

[atyd1960]

The more I think about it the more I'm confused about Snape's so called "redemption arc".

We don't know much about his years at Hogwarts outside of the time James hanged him from his underwear and he called Lily a Mudblood, but we know that:

1. He had a disdain for Muggles ever since he was born or at least ever since he was 10 y/o bc that's when he meets Lily and Petunia and treats the latter like garbage.

2. He was friends with Mulciber and Avery- known death eaters, especially Mulciber who we know was particularly close with Baldy due to the time he came to Hogsmede with him for his job interview with dummydore.

From that we can assume that he was a witness and a participant in A Lot of hate crimes against Muggle Borns ever since he was a minor. One of which was the time Mary was the victim.

3. We know HE invented the spell James used to hang him from his panties, which must mean that he used it against others, probably muggle borns, and his DE friends must've used it as well.

4. We know he invented the spell Sectumsempra to use against his enemies?? (Sorry it's been a while since I read the books I don't remember the exact quote.) and his enemies are almost certainly the Marauders. Also maybe his dad but that's a discussion for another day.

5. We know he was one of Baldy's dearest death eaters, even tho he was a Half-Blood with no status and no connections, which means he definitely did a lot of horrific things to Muggles and Muggle borns and the members of the Order of Phoenix.

6. We know he heard Trelawney's prophesy after eavesdropping in a bar, and immediately ran to Baldy with it. He knew that by telling Baldy about the prophecy an innocent baby will be killed, and he didn't give a shit. I cannot stress enough how much that information in vital for his character. Taking a baby's life so that Baldy might give him a sit closer to him by the table. And nothing would've happened to him if he shut his mouth and didn't go to Baldy. He didn't have his life or even his status\loyalty on the line. He just sacrificed this anonymous innocent baby for kicks and giggles.

7. The only point in which he cared about his actions was when Lily's life was on the line. This wanker really didn't care that he just gave Baldy (a man who made it his life' mission to kill Lily and the likes of her) a reason to kill Lily's son and husband, who were practically her only source of joy while she fought against his people in the war. He just wanted the girl he slurred and stalked and mistreated in high-school to live with all her friends and family dead. And thought he was doing something good. I don't even know how to begin to describe how fucked up that is.

8. He went to Dummydore and asked him to save her. After he got her, her husband and her kid to be under an even worse constant death threat than they were before because of Lily's blood status and their participant in the order. And after he spent the last 3-4 years killing Lily’s friends and the people who share her blood status.

9. That was also the point in which he offered himself to be a double spy right?? Again real heroic of him to risk his life after all the shit he did because he was in love with a girl whose life he ruined. He never cared about all the shit he did and all the people he murdered and he never actually wanted to help innocent people or do good by the world or even by Lily.

10. After Baldy died for the first time and the first war ended, Harry had nobody left, and Dummydore put him with Petunia and Vernon. Snape knew better than anyone else what the Dursleys will do to Harry. He knew everything, and he didn't do shit. Not only did he not do shit, but he also made things worse for Harry by bullying and harassing him since the moment he stepped foot in the castle.

11. Extending on the last point- Snape bullied, harassed, abused, mistreated and discriminated against students at Hogwarts ever since he started teaching there, I'm not gonna start elaborating on all the times he did those things because that would take a different essay of similar length.

12. Yeah I don't really know what to add here? That's pretty much it I think.

So to conclude: am I really expected to forgive him because he loved Lily and had a hard time with James when they were 16 and he spied for Dummydore for a bit?? Being a looser in middle school and then becoming a double spy doesn’t make up for… anything. Especially since he never stopped being a terrible person.

#stan bambi #Stan Lily Evans #Snape slander #redemption arc #marauders era #first Wizarding war #severus snape #Harry Potter #Slytherin #Snape hate #death eaters #character analysis #stan james potter #order of phoenix #Voldemort #Dumbledore

[saintsenara]

More ships! Severus Snape/Charity Burbage, Severus Snape/Petunia Dursley, Narcissa Black/Lily Evans, Narcissa Black/Remus Lupin

thank you very much for the ask, anon! lots of delicious ships here to get into...

charity burbage/severus snape

i'm going to start this one by pointing out something which features a lot in discussions of snape's relationship with dear old chazza b, and which i have elected to find annoying even though it's spectacularly minor:

in the book [or - certainly - in the original edition, which is what i have] of deathly hallows, charity does not say that she and snape are friends while pleading for her life. this is an invention of the films, which are rather more heavy-handed at hinting that snape isn't really a loyal death eater with blood-supremacist views than the text is.

but, nonetheless, she does still beg him to spare her... and so she must retain some belief in snape's capacity for goodness even though she must be aware, as a hogwarts teacher, that he murdered dumbledore only days beforehand...

which is to say that i love the idea of a bit of snarity [snurbage? burbape?] in a story which didn't deviate from the canon timeline. it is just exquisitely nasty to imagine the two coming together during the goblet of fire to half-blood prince period, initially just for something casual - since snape knows he can't commit to anything given his role as a spy - which then turned into something deeper he was occasionally driven to allow himself to imagine might be able to become a real relationship after the war...

...and then him having to look a woman he's fallen in love with in the eyes and arrange his features into a malevolent smirk while this is happening:

Voldemort raised Lucius Malfoy’s wand, pointed it directly at the slowly revolving figure suspended over the table, and gave it a tiny flick. The figure came to life with a groan and began to struggle against invisible bonds.   “Do you recognize our guest, Severus?” asked Voldemort.  Snape raised his eyes to the upside-down face. All of the Death Eaters were looking up at the captive now, as though they had been given permission to show curiosity. As she revolved to face the firelight, the woman said in a cracked and terrified voice, “Severus! Help me!” “Ah, yes,” said Snape as the prisoner turned slowly away again.

and then to have to pretend to be completely unruffled as voldemort kills her in front of him.

delicious.

petunia dursley/severus snape

this is one i really, really back.

i’m fond of petunia, who i think is one of the most interesting characters in the series because of how full of contradictions she is.

and who i think is also a victim in fandom spaces of how the adult cast was aged up for the films [in canon, she’s only in her early twenties when lily dies, and the implication is that vernon is a good deal older than her]. her inadequacies, such as her inability to truly care for either child in the household, seem much more nuanced in a woman of twenty-three, who has a toddler and whose entire family is dead, than they do if she’s pictured as a middle-aged woman with considerable life experience.

and like snape, petunia teeters on a knife edge between various chasms: she's a working-class girl from the midlands made good in middle-class surrey, he's a working-class half-blood boy who spends most of his life in pureblood circles; she ends up with her whole life wrapped up in a square little house when she’s barely out of her teens, he ends up with his whole life wrapped up in spying at the same age; she hates the wizarding world and yet covets it, he hates the muggle world and yet cannot escape it; she loves lily and she hates her and she loathes her for dying, he… well, you know the rest.

all of these similarities - especially when combined with the long history of resentment between snape and petunia [she thinks he stole lily from her! he thinks she was the first person to try and keep lily from him!] - makes snetunia just so compelling.

and if you're convinced and desperate to really get into the mess, you're in luck - because you can read the magnificent regretfully, yours by @maria-de-salinas, which takes snape and petunia's bitterness and awkwardness and grief and guilt and remorse and turns it into something really quite beautiful...

narcissa black/lily evans

ok, so i'm afraid to say that narlily is one of those marauders-era ships which i don't fully get the increasingly popularity of - and so, if you do ship it i would be thrilled to get your recs and manifestos as to why.

my objection doesn't actually have anything to do with narcissa being a blood-supremacist [although i don't think i'd vibe with a story which didn't address this at all - and i'm not compelled by a common version of fanon!narcissa which has her as not sincerely holding these beliefs: she is just as much of a bigot as lucius] - i think something quite interesting could be done with narlily [as in all death-eater-with-a-non-pureblood ships] as a vehicle for an examination of the hypocrisy of blood-supremacy; and with narlily as a femslash ship specifically as a vehicle for an examination of how sex with a non-pureblood which has no chance of resulting in pregnancy would be more acceptable in a culture which is so obsessed with heritage and lineage than sex which could.

why i don't really think it would slap for me, though, is that narcissa always comes across in canon as someone who is conformist and a bit staid - largely, as i've written about elsewhere, because she feels a desire to perform according to the gendered conventions expected of a woman of her class background as a way of deflecting the shame brought upon her family's standing in polite society by bellatrix and andromeda's behaviour. lily - on the other hand - is famously a bit bolshy - cheeky and adventurous and argumentative and stubborn.

and so i simply do not imagine their personalities either working well together in any meaningful way or clashing spicily [they'd clearly both regard the other as not worth their time popping off at].

please change my mind!

narcissa black/remus lupin

this, on the other hand... yes. hook it into my veins.

they both live behind masks - hers of gendered social convention, his of self-loathing - which have, at their core, the idea that a proper witch and wizard must be "civilised". and while they both seem to prefer to embrace these masks, there is the potential lurking beneath them for both of them to break free and be wild and raw in the realities of themselves.

plus... imagine if you've also got the post-1981 context of lupin trying desperately to understand how sirius could have become the death eater who would betray james to voldemort and narcissa and lucius trying to establish the fiction that he was under the imperius curse during the first war with the ministry, well before they feel comfortable becoming as complacent in their conviction that voldemort's not about to return as they are at the start of the canon narrative.

lovely misery.

#asks answered #asenora's opinions on ships #unhinged and deranged ships #including... #snetunia #petunia dursley #severus snape #narlily #narcissa malfoy #lily evans

[sybill-the-seer]

Loved

Read on AO3

Summary: Harry didn’t know much about his parents growing up, but in the wizarding world he learns something very important about them.

Note: Not my best writing imo, but it was a slow day at work today, so I whipped up this little thing. @hinnyfied’s fic “Fireside” has me all in the feels thinking about Harry getting to know his parents.

Disclaimer: I have used some direct lines and quotes from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

Prompt: hate/love

His parents hated him.

Harry was sure of it. If they hadn’t hated him, why would they have left him here? He had never known his mum and dad, but Aunt Petunia had.

Aunt Petunia said they were irresponsible.

Aunt Petunia said they were drunks.

Aunt Petunia said that if they had loved him, they wouldn’t have driven while drunk with him, a baby, in the car.

Harry had no proof to the contrary, so it must be true. Aunt Petunia had known them after all. Uncle Vernon too. Harry didn’t know anyone else who had known his parents. Perhaps they hadn’t had any friends — he certainly didn’t.

Sometimes Harry liked to think that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were liars. They lied to Dudley sometimes, after all. They told him all sorts of things that Harry knew weren’t true: that Father Christmas was real, that Dudley was a sweet angelic little boy, that Dudley’s school teachers had nice things to say about him, that Harry was a freak…

Well, Harry wasn’t so sure about the last one, but he liked to hope it was a lie. Strange things did tend to happen around him, but perhaps it was just coincidence. Perhaps Harry just had very, very bad luck.

His entire existence at Privet Drive was bad luck after all.

Yes, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon lied about some things, but it was hard to believe the things they said about his mum and dad weren’t true. Not when they had known them and Harry hadn’t. Not when Harry couldn’t think of any reason for them to lie about them. And especially not when Harry couldn’t think of any other reason for why they seemed to hate him so much.

His parents had been terrible people.

His aunt and uncle hated them, and hated him too.

His parents had never loved him.

And if they hadn’t loved him, who else possibly could?

Harry felt the familiar ache in his chest, the cold sensation that seemed to creep up on him, enveloping him completely whenever he came to this conclusion. He wrapped his arms tighter around himself and stared harder at the spider creeping up the cupboard wall, wishing for sleep to claim him. ____________________

His parents hadn’t died in a car crash. At least, that’s what Hagrid told him. Being murdered by a dark wizard was terrible, but he supposed it was still better than what Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had told him. At least now he knew for sure that they had lied — and that meant they might have also lied about his parents not caring about him.

Harry had started to come to terms with the fact that he might never know for sure how his mum and dad had felt about him, but was content with what Hagrid had told him. Until he found the mirror.

Green eyes looking back into his with the most tender expression Harry had ever seen. Brown eyes and dark hair, a broad smile. Tears of happiness leaking from his mother’s eyes as both his mum and dad looked at him with pride and joy in their faces.

They loved him.

Harry pressed himself against the mirror, staring at them hungrily, wishing he could fall through the glass and into their open arms. He would live with them in the mirror forever if he could. ____________________

The Philosopher’s Stone was safe, and he was alive. Professor Dumbledore was talking to him in the hospital wing. Dumbledore was answering his questions good-naturedly, and Harry was determined to ask him everything.

“But why couldn’t Quirrell touch me?”

“Your mother died to save you,” Dumbledore said, as if it were the most simple thing in the world. “If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn’t realize that love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign...to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin.”

Harry could hardly breathe. The ache in his chest was back, but this time it was different. A powerful mixture of grief and love as he had never felt it before seemed to have gripped him, and he couldn’t seem to look Dumbledore in the eye.

They loved him.

The mirror had been one thing, but hearing Dumbledore confirm it out loud was certainly another. Nearly eleven years of doubt and hurt couldn’t be vanquished with a few simple words, but in that moment Harry could almost feel it leaking out of him, the remains of some toxin that had lived within him for so long, invisibly eating him up from the inside.

Dumbledore’s simple words were hardly simple at all, Harry thought, if they changed everything. He was glad Dumbledore looked away as he dried his eyes on the crisp hospital sheets.

Later, when Hagrid handed him a handsome, leather-covered photo album, Harry became overwhelmed once again.

“Sent owls off ter all yer parents’ old school friends, askin’ fer photos ... knew yeh didn’ have any...d’yeh like it?”

Harry couldn’t speak, but Hagrid seemed to understand.

Note: The fact that it's canon that little 11 y/o Harry gets emotional hearing his parents loved him always gets me in the feels. Someone give that baby a hug <3

#harry james potter #jily #dursleys #fanfic #sorcerer's stone #philosopher's stone #hp book 1 #canon compliant #hogwarts #angst #hurt/comfort #dumbledore #hagrid

[360degreesasthecrowflies]

I sometimes think in a stronger author’s hands, it would have been more thematic for Ron to be muggleborn and Hermione to be pureblood wizard-raised

In terms of their character arcs and what they teach Harry about wizarding society in many ways this might have been a more impactful story.

Harry is raised by abusive Muggle relatives and at least supposedly, one of the series’ core themes is anti-prejudice and pro-equality. However despite this, we never get a portrait or focus on kind, genuine, well-meaning Muggle characters. We get canon Hermione’s parents, once, for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene, and they don’t even canonically have first names. Petunia, Marge and Vernon Dursley and Dudley are cruel, and the other Muggles Harry meets at home range from actively cruel to passively oblivious to his struggles and mistreatment at his relatives’ hands.

Enter the muggle!Weasley family. Muggle!Molly is a stay at home mother doing her best. She doesn’t have magical means of helping herself, so she just has to work hard to put her kids through school and keep the house in order by hand. Older sons Bill and Charlie are non magical and already moved out - and they might as well be for all the impact they have on the story in canon. The muggleborn!Weasleys comprise five magical children: Percy, dedicated to learning as much magic as possible to help his mum and dad, from fixing up their house to improving their healthcare and Arthur’s chronic conditions from work as a labourer for years. Wizards may want to hoard their magic - but Percy has practical reasons to go against that to protect his family.

Fred and George are experimenting to push the boundaries of magic. They have ambitions to make a name for themselves in this world despite the prejudices against muggleborns, and to support their mum and dad as they approach retirement.

Ron and Ginny don’t know much about Harry Potter, except the stories Percy and the twins have told them. They’ll act as the supplementary audience surrogate characters; both new to the Harry Potter world and the Harry Potter mythos, while also striking up a friendship with the boy himself when they bonded over being new to the wizarding world and finding out that Harry too was from a difficult home background and a mixed family like them.

Meanwhile, wizard-raised!Hermione Granger is a know-it-all. She thinks she’s above everyone because she’s read all the school textbooks, not that she even needed to, growing up in this world with the connections to know many of the authors anyway through her family. She has a healthy respect for the rules, after all, they safeguard people like her from undesirables. As the books continue she’ll learn to question her assumptions and prejudices, and become a revolutionary figure in the wizarding world and great ally to non-human beings and non-wizard-raised humans alike. Finding out that the real Harry Potter is nothing like all the books she read said is only the start of her journey.

I think the dynamics between Draco and Ron, Draco and Hermione, Hermione and the teachers and Ron and the teachers would also be more impactful this way around without conflicting with the world originally set up in which Rowling expects us to believe simultaneously that a plurality of wizards are opposed to muggleborn equality: yet Hermione is most of her teachers’ favourite student by far, children with a vested interest in improving their family’s circumstances have no interest in studying and learning skills and practical methods to put that into action, and various other thematic inconsistencies as the books continue.

#harry potter meta #text post #ron and hermione #writing #storywriting #tw harry potter #hp meta #hp #fic prompt #flash fiction

[rruhlauthor]

Book Review - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is about the answer to life, the universe, and everything—yet it’s also about nothing. The earth isn’t saved at the end; in fact, no one really makes an effort to save it. There is no immediately discernible plot structure. More or less, it’s around 190 pages of describing this unique setting and its inhabitants, which is something I’ve always heard contemporary speculative fiction writers warned against: “do you have a plot or do you just have a worldbuilding bible?” The goal of every character is summarized by the cover of the Hitchhiker’s Guide: DON’T PANIC. No character has particularly strong motivation to do anything but survive and explore. So why has The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy endured as a blockbuster? The book is quotable, clever, and at its core is satirical yet heartfelt, which makes it still relevant over forty-two years later.

Without Adams’ writing style, The Hitchhiker’s Guide would not have worked. It’s witty, romping, and never loses the reader despite using complicated conlang terms and having a somewhat meandering plot. Each word, even word repetitions and one-word questions, is chosen with purpose. Beautiful prose describing binary star sunrises is juxtaposed against alien poetry so bad it kills you. Omniscient point of view made it feel like my brain was being bounced through hyperspace at times, yet all the seemingly unrelated paragraphs and guide entries came together at the end. Deus ex Machina can be a sloppy literary device in other cases, but it is quite literally the entire plot of The Hitchhiker's Guide, with the characters being improbably saved again and again. Suspense was generated not through fear for the characters’ survival—at one point, the reader is even told that no one will be hurt except “a bowl of petunias and an innocent sperm whale” (109). Suspense comes from having zero clue what’s going to be on the next page. It's delightful. This chaotic structure is proof that any high concept can be pulled off by a skilled author. The concept isn’t a man who isn’t seeking to save his world, find himself, defeat the President of the Galaxy, or even find love with the one other earthling left. It’s about a man who really just wants a good cup of tea—seeking normalcy in a topsy-turvy world of uncontrollable forces.  

Science fiction and social commentary have been inherently linked since Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein questioned where the limits of science should be. I would argue science fiction is also closely intertwined with horror. Bradbury and Serling in the mid 20th century explored radiation fears, technology, and the Red Scare, amongst other things. 21st century sci-fi like Murderbot and Ready Player One criticize unfettered capitalism. Here, in The Hitchhiker’s Guide from 1979, we have a galaxy of civilizations who have achieved escape velocity but have not escaped bureaucracy. The undercurrent of the narrative is a fear that we and our stubbornness and politics will be our own undoing. The entire earth is destroyed within the first few pages of the book—but the reader feels safe in knowing this is more of a comedy than horror, because of the absurdity of the Vogon fleet using the exact same language as the council destroying Arthur’s house. The incompetent politician was chosen specifically for his incompetence. The scene towards the end with the “progressive cops” was hilarious in that painful way of knowing it’s just as relevant in 2024 as it was then. What if the earth was created as part of a computer program? The beings who created the program would still be scrambling to cobble together an embellished story that sounded good for the news and made them lots of money. “If there’s any real truth, it’s that the entire multidimensional infinity of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs.” (179) This observation is not a cold comfort. The theme is not the vast uncaringness of the void. Acknowledging this madness we all live in is what makes the story sincere and heartfelt. Despite the tone, never once does it stop taking itself seriously, or stop being hopeful. Who would bear the whips and scorns of time? Someone who knows where their towel is.

I saw the movie almost ten years ago, after which I purchased a copy of the book but never got around to reading it. I was delighted to pick it up and enter this interstellar world which is so different, yet not different at all from the problems and idiosyncrasies of Earthlings. As below, so above. None of the characters are larger than life or even have strong goals, but that's the idea of the book: no one is important in a vast and improbable galaxy, and so everyone is important. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is timeless. As long as there is civilization, it will be plagued by the absurdities that populate the book.

As this review comes to an end, I can think of no better closing line. “So long and thanks for all the fish.”

Version referenced:

Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. 1979. Del Rey, 2009.

#book review #the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy #science fiction

[pettyverse]

Perk up, Petunia, it’s Saturday!

#princess petunia #queenie draws #petunia against the real world

[roman0writes]

𝒞𝑜𝓂𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒪𝓊𝓉

Bellamy x fem!reader

A/N: I wrote this as a commission for someone who tumblr is being glitchy and won’t let me tag rn. The original post is up on my old blog @rowan-sins but I figured I’d post it here too

Content warnings: fem!reader, coming out

In order to feel the joy of being loved you must face the horrifying ordeal of being known. Or the time the sea salt breeze on Dressarosa shores eases you into confessing your deepest secret.

You can taste the salt on your tongue, from the balcony overlooking the streets of the small trading port you called home. The balcony is small, barely enough room for two people to stand next to the potted plant you put petunias in it.

Enough room for you to stand shoulder to shoulder with someone you love far more than a friend. Enough room for you to justify encroaching in Bellamy’s personal space. He hardly seems to mind, if the way he scooches away from the side railing and presses his bicep into your shoulder, letting your head rest against the hard muscle of his arm.

You can taste the salt on your tongue, heavy like the ocean just behind your house. You can taste the truth on your tongue, light like the sea breeze the tickles your nose. It’s a confession you owe to no-one that falls off your tongue.

“I’m bisexual,” you say. It breaks the peaceful silence. And the air feels tenser now that your truth has been spoken. You don’t know why you said it. Or what compelled you to do so. This was very much your business and not his, but it still sat in the open air, light and frothy like sea foam stuck in sand of shore.

“Is that so?” He responds. “I’m glad you’re finally honest with yourself.”

Shock colors your expression, and you look at him incredulously. He turns to look at your expression, and smiles at the blatant shock on your face.

“How the fuck did you figure it out before I did?” You exclaim.

The wind ruffles his blonde hair, and if you weren’t mad at him, you’d reach up and fix his hair himself. But he’s being stupid, so his stupid blond hair can be as messy as the higher powers deem necessary.

“With that haircut…” He grins even wider, his fake teeth almost indistinguishable from the real ones “… I’m surprised you didn’t come out as a lesbian!”

“Bellamy!” You punch him in the shoulder when he starts laughing.

“Also, you’re not as slick as you think you are staring at Baby 5’s boobs.”

The second time you punch him you aim for the face.

You could probably hear his yell from the streets of freshly liberated Dressarosa. “Hey! What was that for!”

“Being a jerk!”

“Oh so I’m jerk now!”

“Yeah a big old meanie!”

“I’ll remember that the next you ask me for help when you fall out of a chair!”

You laugh and roll your eyes when he pushes you into the side railing on your side of the tiny balcony. “Like I’ll need your help when I get a pretty butch girlfriend.”

“Like you need a pretty butch girlfriend when you have me.”

The world gets quiet again. Birds chirping drowned out by the silence between you two.

“That’s the lamest way to ask someone out. Ever.”

“But did it work?”

“You free Wednesday evening?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Then it’s a date!”

“That was even lamer than what I said!” He exclaims.

You roll your eyes and lean closer to him. “But did it work?”

He groans and leans down, closer to you. “Just shut up and kiss me.”

And well, who were you to deny such a lovely request from such a lovely friend.

#one piece #bellamy #bellamy x reader #one piece x reader #Roman during daylight

[5sosfanfictioncatalogue]

Outside POV Masterlist

Anthology (ao3) - paperstorm michael/luke T, 5k

Summary: Michael's mum watches him fall in love with Luke, like in a John Green novel - slowly and then all at once.

Camaraderie (ao3) - paperstorm ot4 E, 12k

Summary: Ashton is really, really happy when Luke and Michael finally stop being dumb and get together for real. But there’s a thing, because nothing like this ever fits perfectly into the box it came in, and the thing is this. They have sex, like, a lot. Like all the time. At first, all four of them were super awkward about it. And then Luke and Michael got too comfortable. They stopped being quiet, they stopped saving it for hotel rooms. And now it’s morphed into a situation.

Craft Club - @daydadahlias (cornflowerblue (daydadahlias)) T, 6k

Summary: They have six Craft Club meetings on six different Sundays before Ashton shows up.

Drum Drum - @daydadahlias (cornflowerblue (daydadahlias)) T, 3k

Summary: Debbie, Arlette, and Lisa watch drumming videos of their friend, Ashton, from Craft Club.

Kisses For Everyone (ao3) - The_Lady ot4 T, 1k

Summary: That blonde boy keeps kissing a bunch of different guys. Hallie's getting a little worried for his boyfriend.

or ot4 from the pov of a girl who does not know they're a polycule.

Off-Screen (ao3) - allsassnoclass (brightblackholes) luke/ashton G, 3k

Summary: Now that classes are being taught from home due to the pandemic, students are getting a glimpse into Professor Irwin's home life, especially when his mysterious husband keeps interrupting class.

Shades of Blue (ao3) - paperstorm michael/luke M, 6k

Summary: Luke and Michael fall in love - Ashton watches it happen.

When I'm with you (ao3) - lourrygum michael/luke G, 1k

Summary: Michael and Luke's relationship through the eyes of Calum and Ashton.

you can hear it in the silence (ao3) - fakecharliebrown luke/ashton T, 23k

Summary: Ashton turns to look at Luke then. He doesn’t speak right away, appearing to consider his next words very carefully. He opens and closes his mouth several times, before finally, he says, “Do you think it’ll all work out for us?”

Luke hums softly. His head is angled in such a way that Petunia imagines he’s looking at their intertwined hands behind his dark sunglasses when he admits in a quiet voice, “I think it already has, Ash.”

Ashton squints at him for less than a second before he turns to face forward, closing his eyes against the bright afternoon sun, and says, “Yeah. I think you’re probably right.”

or; Petunia loves her boy more than anything in the world. When the world shuts down, she realizes that she might not be the only one.

#5sosfanfictioncatalogue #5sos fanfic #masterlists #outsidepov #outsidepov masterlist

[saintsenara]

what is your opinion about snarry?

thank you for the ask, anon - and thank you for the almost identical ask anon 2.0!

i have always been someone who dabbles in snarry, and it is certainly a ship with some astonishingly talented writers. most of the stories which have prompted me to cry and stare blankly into the middle distance have been snarry, and the ship also produces some really top-tier filth when it comes to smut. as someone who herself contains multitudes, i like that.

and i think it has a pretty solid justification in both harry and snape’s canon characters - although i’m certainly not trying to claim it’s canon-compliant as a relationship. harry adores the half-blood prince because they are sincerely intellectually compatible, because they have a similar sense of humour, and because they have a shared reactivity and emotional volatility. harry empathises with - and even respects, on some occasions - snape well before the conclusion of deathly hallows and, since one of the things which makes me a tomarry girly is harry’s instinctive understanding of how voldemort’s childhood affected him, that’s a trope i love in snarry too. post-war, i think they are one of the pairings best equipped to help each other deal with the trauma of having been - in many senses - a pawn, and i think that snape is, really, the only person in harry’s life who could ever come close to appreciating what it means to have dumbledore send you out to your near-death.

and i have no objection to any of the common criticisms which one might hear against snarry. i literally don’t care about the student/teacher dynamic or the age difference - both because these aren’t real people, because taboos are hot, and because the complexity of the relationship provides a really interesting look at the power differential in and of itself. i am often struck by a trope i find in snarry in which snape’s feelings for harry are accompanied by so much self-loathing that he offers harry the upper hand in their power dynamic despite the fact that he is the younger partner. as someone regrettably committed to student/teacher riddledore - in which the age-gap-related power dynamic is generally not reversed - i find this a fascinating way of exploring the characters both within and outside of a romantic context. after all, the canonical snape is also someone whose relationships with the main men in his life - dumbledore and voldemort - is defined by subordination, and, in dumbledore’s case, outright humiliation and shame. that the snape of canon regards harry as someone who possesses power over him - his complaints about harry being rich and spoiled and arrogant not only make clear that he considers harry to have inherited the dynamic he had with james, but also that harry is inherently an insider (financially, in terms of having a pureblood name, etc.) to the wizarding world while he is an outcast. that can cause some exquisite toxicity - especially when the wizarding world finds out its golden hero is getting railed by a tenuously-acquitted death eater - but it can also result in a partnership which is surprisingly beautiful. after all, harry likes to save people, snape would like to be looked after, they make it work.

i also don’t object to the lily thing, largely because - as someone who writes harry regularly fucking his parents’ murderer - it seems quite tame in comparison. but also, it draws out a fanfiction theme which i am obsessed with - that there is a lost generation, of which snape (and sometimes sirius and lupin) is the only survivor. this is something i prefer in snack - and in post-1981 snily - but it’s there in snarry too. snape provides harry with a connection to a world he would be a stranger to otherwise. harry provides snape with a nostalgic mooring when he is buffeted by the grief of being the only one of his teenage acquaintances still alive.

i also like the idea of snape - as harry’s boyfriend - and petunia meeting. fucking your enemy’s nephew is iconic, there’s no two ways about it.

but, with this said, they can never be my otp. the man of snape’s dreams is, as we all know, lord voldemort. the man of harry’s dreams is the same. the destructive power of that triad has the potential to destroy the world.

#asks answered #asenora's opinions on ships #snarry

[starwrittenfates]

𝐋𝐢𝐥𝐲 & 𝐒𝐞𝐯

So when it comes to Lily and Sev, I actually have a lot of feelings. This is me shedding some light on my Snily thoughts. I’ll of course do one of these for my Severus blog, but for now, this is about their friendship/relationship from Lily’s POV: When Lily first met Severus, obviously she misunderstood him when he said she was a witch. However, she was also intrigued by him and what he said and wanted to learn more. Unlike Petunia, Lily treated him with kindness and didn’t care about where he came from or how he dressed. To her, they were the same. He was someone she could relate with when it came to talking about all the strange things she could do. Severus was intelligent and would explain it all to her and would not criticize her like Petunia did. He didn’t treat her like an abnormality. He treated her like a person, just as she did with him. (It is real, isn’t it? It’s not a joke? Petunia says you’re lying to me. Petunia says there isn’t a Hogwarts. It is real, isn’t it? – It’s real for us.) Their friendship only grows from there with both knowing about each other’s family and home lives. Cue Hogwarts – despite her sister drama, Lily is excited to be going to Hogwarts. However, they are sorted into different houses, something Lily was sad about, but also accepted (…She glanced back at Snape, and there was a sad little smile on her face.) She knew it would be difficult, but wanted to make it work because Severus was still her friend. And as the years went by, and he started showing an interest in the Dark Arts and having an association with questionable Slytherins who were clearly against her, Lily still tried to say he was her friend despite feeling he was slipping away from her. They would start breaking out into arguments here and there. What was happening to that sweet boy she once knew? Weren’t they still the same? But as she started to develop new friends and got to know her fellow Gryffindor’s better…it was only a matter of time. And the breaking point was officially when he called her a Mudblood, confirming her fears and insecurities… (Does it make a difference, being Muggle-Born?) Even if Lily didn’t show it, what he said had hurt. But what was even harder was cutting herself off from him completely. Because while she wanted to forgive him, Lily knew there was no going back now. It was best to cut ties. They were no longer the same. They had been going separate ways for awhile, and that boy she once knew was gone… (I can’t pretend anymore. You’ve chosen your way, I’ve chosen mine.) Now, I am in agreement that if that didn’t happen that Lily would have eventually returned Severus’ feelings and it would have become romantic. But because of the fact she pretty much saw what he had said and done as thinking of her as ‘lowly’ and 'unworthy of magic’, it really stung. Especially because he was her best friend and had introduced her into the Wizarding World to begin with, telling Lily she was special, only to have that happen. It’s something that still haunts Lily at times. If she sees Severus in the halls or a class after that, she has to avoid his gaze and remind herself he isn’t the same anymore. However, once they are adults (and depending on the verse obviously), I think once Lily sees how Severus has realized his wrongs, is working hard and literally risking his life in order to do better, she can eventually forgive him. They just both have to work through it, talk it out, admit their mistakes, and take action to mend their friendship together.

#starwrittenfates headcanons ;; #about ;; lily evans #ABOUT ;; Severus Snape #RELATIONSHIPS ;; Snily (Lily & Severus) #queue

[kmackatie]

Hallo! 4 (but tell us about Lythir 💜), 8 and 19 for the writer asks!

ahhhahha I will gladly talk about Lythir with very little prompting 💜

(ask me a question from yet another writer ask game)

4. Do you have any OCs? Do you have a story for them?

Oh, I wonder who I could talk about here?? Lythir is not technically an OC since they are an NPC in the campaign, but, we know nothing about them other than they were a mage. It's pretty much free real estate, and I used that to my advantage in the musicians fic. The Lythir I built is one that is frank, has humour, and cares about his people deeply. He's one that is comfortable in himself, and does what he can to make others comfortable too, growing up with loving parents and a younger sister. Lythir was in the same cohort at the Conservatory, and worked his way into Essek's circle but just being there regardless of what Essek did to dissuade company, dragging Essek to social gatherings, knocking sense into him when needed, and essentially laying the foundation for him to realise he doesn't have to do everything alone and that connection can be good, actually. He's not bothered by Essek's status, and often uses it to remind Essek of what the real world is like. He's a person Essek trusts completely as evidenced by the fact they are involved at the start of the fic, and I have just started working on the backstory of how that exactly came to happen and what events would have led them to being who they are at the start of the musicians fic. I'm keen to write in this world again and get a little more into who Lythir is!

8. How slow is a slow burn?

Well. It took 80k of text for them to kiss in the breath before the phrase which I think makes it count. 🤣 But, slow burns are more about how it is structured and written rather than the actual word count it took to get them there. You can write a slow burn in 10k words, and you can make it take 100k, I think it is much more how the relationship develops from initial meeting to that initial get together point.

19. Share a snippet from a wip without giving any context for it.

Below the cut due to length!

He looks up to find Caleb Widogast smiling down at him, a green linen shirt with sleeves rolled up and tucked into comfortable-looking brown pants with dual button closure up the front, his own sunhat held loosely in his hands. His customary book holsters are still at his side, the left one holding the new, leatherbound notebook Essek had asked him to hold onto, found in the bazaars of Ank'harel. Essek's breath catches, and he has to look away as his heart makes a weird flip-flop sensation in his chest. Caleb looks in one piece, though there are chalk stains down his pants and ink across one cheek. Is Caleb even aware of it? Probably not, knowing him. "How were the students?" "Good. Causing trouble. Wanting to fly before they can run." Essek chuckles. "True arcanists in the making." Caleb eases himself down to the ground next to him, groaning as he does, before he sets the sunhat aside and leans over to pull off his shoes and socks. He wiggles his toes, before stretching out, the edges of them catching at the dirt of Essek's flower patch. "Don't you dare damage my petunias, Caleb Widogast," says Essek in warning, flicking his fingers in a practised motion that blows a puff of air against Caleb's feet, "or you'll be the one replacing them next time."

#another writer ask game #shadowgast #critical role #the mighty nein #cr: fanfic #my writing #ask katie #katie replies #mllekurtz

[awkwardturtletrash]

An egregious rant about celebrity culture and I am not even sorry

I feel like I'm going insane, I want to claw my eyes out and eat my phone and burn every cord I have in my house. How is everyone okay with celebrities? The concept? The payoff? The whole fucking charade of these people? They're not real anymore, these aren't genuine connections, this is the most dystopian existence I can imagine and you're all just fucking eating it up???

There is not fucking benefit to these people being in my face 24/7 ??? I cannot find a single piece of genuine emotion besides annoyance and anger whenever I see the same fucking picture of Kim Kardashian (I had to fucking google the spelling) in that dumb pink shirt and everyone losing their mind that she incorrectly styled a piece of clothing that they will never touch in their god damn lives. It's the most insane, mindless, pointless use of an existence I've ever seen. Why are you all so fucking obsessed with the CONCEPT of people? She has a stylist. She has a whole team. She doesn't do her makeup or hair or outfits or accessories. You are following this handcrafted existence, this portfolio of makeup and cloth and you just??? (This is not a personal attack on Kim Kardashian, as much as I do not care about her life this is not her fault and I do not want it to seem this is a rant against any specific human, they are still people and cannot control society as a whole.) Fucking do it day in and day out? You genuinely care about who Taylor Swift is dating or if John Mulaney got Petunia in the divorce or if Zendaya is engaged or if Henry Cavil's hairline is bad now or if Kendal Jenner can walk well or if Jenner Lawerence got face work done???

(And don't say you don't "genuinely" care when you spend HOURS online tweeting about it and talking about it to your friends in person and 'finally getting into football lol' over a single woman who went to a single game and hung out with a single guy. You put in the hours, you are pathetically genuine.)

What fucking purpose is there? What benefit? The world is in fucking shambles and you bitches have stan accounts dedicated to an actor??? Where does the self come in? Your own life? I cannot pity anyone more than someone who so desperately needs to know Ryan Reynolds's favorite color or what Bella Hadid eats in a day. Did I sometimes watch these kinds of videos, seeing famous people describe mundane stories or do the most boring secret talent? Yes...In middle school. Something clicked one day that every interview is a job, that this is an advertisement, that they are selling themselves as a byproduct of a film or show or whatever they were up to. I am being sold human beings as a product for a temproary creation.

How are none of you ripping your hair out everyday over this? That cute little game on Jimmy Fallon? An ad. Oh she's doing a panel? An ad. Oh they're doing a Reddit AMA? An ad. Literally at this point their whole social media accounts are ads. Their appearances are ads. Everything is a fucking ad. Their existence at this point is an ad. Oh she's the face of Prada, oh he's the face of Gucci. THESE ARE WALKING ADVERTISEMENTS FOR LIFE NOW. The amount of people who keep track of who works for who and which dresses they're allowed to wear make me nauseous. Do you care about your friends as much? Do you notice your family as much? Do you care about your health as much as you care about a Met Gala look from 2013?

And again, I used to do this all the time. I still do! I'm forced to have an opinion on who Ariana Grande is dating. I'm forced to have an opinion on an Andrew Garfield interview. It's absolutely impossible to not have celebrities in your face. Everywhere is merch of their face and photos of their face and quotes from their work with their face tied to it. They are ads. We are paying for people. You pay to meet them. Pay for a photo. Pay for their signature. Pay to see them naked. Pay to see behind the scenes. Pay to see them on a panel. Pay for them. Pay. Pay. pay. pay pay paypaypaypaypay.......

And yet. Here we are. "Anne Hathaway looks so gorgeous for her age because she's unproblematic." "Elon Musk looks hideous and malformed and terrible." Assigning moral value to appearance. Caring about their outfits and hair and "face card" and whatever the fuck else we are cursed to think and see and hear and PAY.

My theory is that everyone hates themselves. Everyone, everyone not on a red carpet or famous on TikTok or not in an ad resents that fact. Everyone wants to be seen, famous, loved, beautiful, attractive, followed. Everyone feels so fucking ugly that they retweet random screenshots from a movie of an actor purely because they're attractive. That looking at someone else, praising them being beautiful is some form of twisted wish fulfillment. And it's sad and it's weird and most importantly it's always turns sexual. It's always "this actor is secretly a bottom" or "this actor could spit in my mouth."

It's the most obscene shit. Imagine a classmate showing you a photo of another classmate and saying the most raunchy, salacious comments. Imagine your uncle showing a photo of a shirtless teenage boy and saying how submissive and breedable he is. Imagine standing in a coffee shop and a barista starts loudly exclaiming how wet they are over a customer. How is it being twitter and a famous person better? Less insane? I find celebrities attractive, but I am not going to make a fucking twitter account roleplaying as a character they played, use only photos of them, and INTERACT PUBLICALLY. Y'all are fucking insane. Absolutely disgusting.

And this doesn't just apply to fucking Twitter trending whoever is hot this week or putting down anyone in a bad pair of jeans. Tumblr sucks too! It's obsessed with actors! Misha Collins???? Why the fuck am I supposed to care about his opinion??? Did I like his performance? Yes. Is his life interesting? Sure. Do I need daily updates about him? What the fuck are y'all on? Reblogging just pictures from magazine shoots? Having entire gifs dedicated to someone just being hot. At what point is it not unhealthy? At wha tpoint are you not feeding a machine of self-hatred and devotion to pixels on a screen that you can only see in person because you fucking paid for it? At what point do you lose yourself?

This is horrible written, doesn't make sense, and is definitely out of order. But I don't care. I'm tired and upset and done with parasocial relationships. Everyone always complains "now is NOT the time to say 'this is why you dont praise people'" YES THE FUCK IT IS YOU ARE A FUCKING IDIOT WHO NEEDS RESTRICTED INTERACT ACCESS

You don't know these people. They have entire TEAMS dedicated to their image and their interviews and their social media and their entire fucking personas. You are getting fed a product and you stupidly fell in love or trusted it or even gaslit yourself into thinking it saw you back. A product cannot love you back, what makes you think it even notices you?

Markiplier could come out as a horrible person tomorrow and as a longtime fan of his channel and an active watcher/listener of his podcast I would stop watching and I would have negative feelings but not a single one would be disappointment. Because I never once assumed I was his friend who knew him. This is a stranger. It's the same feeling if a stranger on the street said something horrible. It's the thought "well I'm not associating with that" and that's the only correct one.

Get a life! Become someone! Who the fuck are you if you exist to talk about someone else? What is your purpose? They already exist, they don't need you, you need you, please for the love of god get off Instagram and find a passion that isn't someone else's success.

and yes I am certain I have evidence of the above in my tumblr blog. I am not different I am not some special little person. I am simply insane and angry and tired. So deeply tired of society.

#again this is in fact a very mean spirited passionate rant #but if you fuckers want to say they're not real people them my opinion of them shouldnt matter anyways #you can still follow these people despite me thinking you're dumb #celebrity culture #stan culture #stan #parasocial #parasocial relationships #twitter #tumblr #social media #instagram #taylor swift #markiplier #Kim Kardashian #society #social commentary #idk if there should be any tw? sorry

[pet-genius]

Given how delusional Petunia can be, I always interpreted the Evans "favoring Lily" as just clumsy parenting caused by the fact Lily: went to boarding school most of the year (boarding school were not so long ago from the 90s, day-long sessions of torture weren't uncommon if Filch is to be believed, and the fact the torture instruments are still in working condition do nothing to suggest otherwise, and is a hot-bed of anti-muggle "racism" for lack of a better word) just wanted the few moments they spent with their youngest daughter to be extra special, and had nothing against Petunia.

It's possible, but I don't see how she could have turned out this awful without some kind of very poor modeling. I had an idea the other day that Petunia agreed to keep Harry around because it helped her settle a cognitive dissonance, you know, between her envy of Lily and whatever love she had for her, plus she probably felt very special as the only person with the blood that could save the world, and being special with no real effort (while still feeling herself the victim) is what she always wanted.