Things... and Stuff @melanieescapes - Tumblr Blog

“The storm catches everyone, eventually. Does it matter?”

I frequently think about what matters to me the most: my kids, my family, my home. In my depression I wonder whether the work will really amount to anything, whether I’m ever doing enough. I’m tough, but life is tougher. The storm caught Fleet, in the story Kaladin tells to Wit, though he ran as fast and as hard as he could.

Like Kaladin, I focus on that part, weighing the meaning of the story against its outcome. Fleet could never outrun the storm. He wasn’t good enough, not fast enough.

Then, what was the point? Was any of it worth it?

What I think Wit is saying (as if it’s actually ever straightforward or simple, but let’s pretend for a moment) is that the end actually doesn’t matter. No one outruns death. As Death says in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, “You lived what anybody gets…You got a lifetime. No more. No less.”

We know what will happen. The storm comes. Death (or hardship, if you prefer) comes for everyone. But does that equal defeat?

I think Wit was trying to tell Kaladin what he knows but has not yet absorbed: Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.

Life is hard. Life kicks your butt. But life is about what you do, the experience of living it, not how it ends or that it ends. It’s made up of the journey and not the arrival. If Fleet had decided that he wouldn’t run unless he knew he could have everything he wanted by the end, he wouldn’t have started.

I realized recently that my all-or-nothing, black-and-white thinking defeats me in a different way than I had imagined: there is no achieving perfection - that’s a false ideal. I will never be able to make the perfect series of choices and enjoy a perfect life. But I am able to end up with the ‘nothing,’ if I despair enough and give up. Against my intuition, happiness is in the grey areas: not the white, which is impossible, or the black, which is failure. It’s in between. It’s being alright with not getting everything you want. That doesn’t mean that you don’t live or enjoy or use your strengths. You fling yourself against the rocks of life and you don’t ask the cost.

The point of Fleet’s race was not to win; the point was to RUN.

Journey before destination.

Keep running.

hannaheadfish

Soooo much love for Sazed.

(Fullview or blog-view for less fuzziness tumblr’s just bad)

Fanart of the fantastic Mistborn Trilogy (well, one of them :P) by Brandon Sanderson.

aplpaca

What the Signs are Excited About

Aries: Oathbringer Taurus: Oathbringer Gemini: Oathbringer Cancer: Oathbringer Leo: Oathbringer Virgo: Oathbringer Libra: Oathbringer Scorpio: Oathbringer Sagittarius: Oathbringer Capricorn: Oathbeinger Aquarius: Oathbringer Pisces: Oathbringer

wheelchair-warrior

i am the most obnoxious person i know

heychessikuh

no you are a saint for making this thank you

matrim-cauthons-hat

i don’t know what we did to deserve Lift but i am glad she exists

faheys

We all talk about the mother-son relationship between Molly and Harry but barely of McGonagall and Harry

McGonagall spent hours spying on the Dursley’s and didn’t want Harry to be put in their care

she bought him a Nimbus 2000 with her own money and since it was new at the time, it must’ve cost a lot

she put Harry on the quidditch team without checking with Oliver Wood and if it had been another student who was caught flying, they would have been expelled on the spot

she defended Harry in front of Umbridge “He has achieved high marks in all Defence Against the Dark Arts tests set by a competent teacher”

“Potter. I will assist you to become an Auror if it is the last thing I do! If I have to coach you nightly I will make sure you achieve the required results!”

when Amycus spat at McGonagall, Harry cast the cruciatus curse on him which worked meaning Harry truly meant it, and when McGonagall called him foolish, Harry replied as if his actions didn’t need explanation

“The scream was the more terrible because he had never expected or dreamed that Professor McGonagall could make such a sound” when McGonagall thought Harry was dead

she was one of the first to reach Harry when he defeated Voldemort

wnq-anonymous

It’s not really letting go of the past that is the problem. It is coming to terms with letting go of a possible future that will never be. That is the struggle. The mind wants to keep its fantasies. Even when they are wrong, unhealthy, dangerous, or even cruel. To let go of the past you must let go of the future and live in the present.

Anonymous (via wnq-anonymous)

aristiotles

you know what annoys me the most? when some people get attacked for liking a book that isn’t seen as ‘popular’ or ‘good’ by everyone else, like how about no, everyone has different tastes when it comes to reading, that’s exactly why there’s so many genres / authors to choose from so how about instead of hating on someone for liking a book you didn’t / don’t, how about you keep those opinions to yourself and just let others enjoy whatever the hell they want to enjoy?

wnq-anonymous

I’m a very private person. You don’t ask, I don’t tell.

Anonymous (via wnq-anonymous)

magicqueers

ok but ace Neville and ace Hannah supporting each other and choosing not to sleep together, but still cuddling sometimes by the fire at the leaky cauldron and they help queer students by answering questions and giving them contact info of famous queer witches/wizards/wizzes uwu

driflloon

ppl who send nice messages on anon go straight to heaven

aristiotles

if your feelings are still what they were last april, tell me so at once. my affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.

wordsnquotes

You were born with potential. You were born with goodness and trust. You were born with ideals and dreams. You were born with greatness. You were born with wings. You are not meant for crawling, so don’t. You have wings. Learn to use them and fly.

Rumi (via wordsnquotes)

wnq-anonymous

The moral of this story is that no matter how much we try, no matter how much we want it.. some stories just don’t have a happy ending.

Anonymous (via wnq-anonymous)

iamastick

By reblogging this stick you confirm that you are not Shallan Davar, you are in no way affiliated to Shallan Davar , you are not reblogging this stick on behalf of Shallan Davar or an associate of Shallan Davar. To the best of your knowledge, information and belief this stick will not make its way into the hands of Shallan Davar.

#lol

amazonpoodle

what if the reason nobody can tell fred and george apart is because they really are interchangeable

not in a ~it doesn’t matter~ way but like. molly and arthur used to worry that fred and george might turn out to be squibs because they weren’t doing any accidental magic as children, but they were, THEY TOTALLY WERE, it just wasn’t anything flashy, instead they were just like idly switching bodies all the time

and like sometimes it doesn’t make much of a difference, whatever, wake up in the opposite bed you went to sleep in, but it gets like dangerous and weird if you’re on a broom or in the pond or letting your mum teach you to cook or trying to be mad stealth, so for a long long time everybody presumes they’re clumsy maybe-squibs and that they’re doing their twin lying thing when they try to explain what’s going on, so they learn to handle the issue their ownselves

they just. don’t go anywhere without the other. they start each day deciding which body is going to be which (because at this point they really don’t know which body is technically fred and which is technically george), and they learn to reorient FAST when they switch, and what things set them off, and eventually they learn how to act like nothing’s up even when one of them’s in the air and one’s on the ground or whatever, and then they burn past that til they can finish each other’s sentences — til they can switch midsentence — til they can play beater together — til they can switch in a split second in the middle of a game — til there’s room for other kinds of accidental magic to start showing up

at hogwarts they keep each other awake in history of magic by switching back and forth. in potions they take turns brewing and keeping lookout for the slytherins. in transfiguration and charms they keep their grades up because one of them will always get a spell right on the first try so they switch and make it look like both of them do and then they practice on their own later in private. it keeps the mystery alive.

at first they thought lee was just a lucky guesser but no, lee can always tell one twin from another twin — it’s not exactly telling fred from george, because while they are definitely two distinct personalities neither one of them feels like fred all the time or george all the time — but lee knows who he argued with yesterday or who he lent his notes to or who’s best to ask for help in astronomy and who’s best at runes.

the weasleys are pretty bad at it for the longest time, but then bill comes home from his first year cursebreaking and he can tell, and over a holiday he teaches his trick to charlie so charlie can tell. alicia and katie and angelina can tell. the twins honestly don’t know if oliver can tell or not; so long as they’re doing what they’re supposed to on the quidditch pitch he doesn’t really care about much else. harry can tell. luna can tell. tonks can tell.

the problem is there’s no way for this to end happily

peppermintfeminist

YES THERE IS

THERE IS INDEED A WAY FOR THIS TO END HAPPILY LISTEN UP

so after fred dies, george hates being trapped in one body, feels claustrophobic, misses fred so much he thinks it might drive him insane

but then one day

george blinks and he’s somewhere he wasn’t a second ago, he’s in a place full of white light and he can’t orient himself, can’t ground himself, feels dizzy and sick and overwhelmed but it only lasts for about thirty seconds.

then he’s back in his own body.

and he looks down at his chest, his legs, his arms, there’s an ear missing so it’s definitely still his living body, but there’s something written on his arm, scrawled in messy quill ink.

“i love you. i miss you.”

george flips out, washes off the ink and immediately writes a message in reply— “how’s death going?”

he walks around with that message written on his arm for weeks, always keeping a quill pen somewhere nearby, waiting, waiting, before it finally happens again. the switch. george is alive, so he can’t handle being in the afterlife, he feels dizzy and sick and it’s the worst feeling in the world, but it doesn’t last long, and when he gets back to his living body, there’s a long message from fred waiting on his right thigh, the ink still drying.

this goes on for years, never as often as either twin would like, but it’s enough. fred helps george figure out how to propose to angelina, fred helps plan the wedding. sometimes it’s fred in george’s body when angelina kisses her husband. sometimes she suspects, but she doesn’t mind in the slightest.

it gets easier as george gets older. the times when he switches into fred’s afterlife don’t hurt as much. he almost feels comfortable there, almost feels oriented. he knows he’s getting closer to dying.

then when george is past ninety, lying on his deathbed, he writes a careful message on his palm. “i’m coming soon. where are you?”

they switch, it lasts for almost five minutes this time, and when george gets back into his own body, he sees the instructions fred wrote over his heart.

“you’ll wake up in king’s cross station. take the second train and get off at the third stop. i’ll be waiting.”