#(excerpt about her at least)

[wonder-worker]

"Administratively, too, [...] queens were considered the legal lords of their landholdings. [...] Grants noted that the queen's officials had administrative autonomy without being subject to the king or anyone else, and evidence of the same assumption can be gleaned from court rolls that were recorded with headings indicating the lord of the manor whose court proceedings were being enrolled. As an example, some court rolls for the manor of Haveringatte-Bower specified that it was the court of [Margaret of Anjou] that was in session, while later rolls recorded Elizabeth Woodville as the lord of the manor court."

— Michele Seah, "My Lady Queen, the Lord of the Manor': The Economic Roles of Late Medieval Queens", Parergon, Volume 37, Number 2, 2020.

[sergeantpixie]

The Fool in her Wedding Gown; and

I am teaching myself to be free, please!

I am genuinely in awe at how tonally different the two stories you picked are, Gabby!

The Fool in Her Wedding Gown:

Vibes, just vibes, nothing but vibes. This is the demonic possession story I mentioned to you! We've got demonic possession and vampire hunting and lots of moody vibes. Bella Swan is the main character very weird to write a character with the same name as me because I'm chronically addicted to ruining defining characteristics. And man, did I ruin her.

And also because I listened to this version of Where Did You Sleep Last Night/In The Pines too many times. However, the story title comes from the Crane Wives album!

It's five years post Bella and Edward's wedding, and she returns to Forks, Washington for the first time, alone. The Forks Police Department has been dealing with a string of unusual deaths - all caused by sulfur poisoning.

an excerpt:

All rational thought has abandoned her, she only knows she does not want it to happen like this; this is not how she wants to become a vampire. Bella will not be like Rosalie Hale.

I am teaching myself how to be free:

A Rory-centric fic titled after Various Storms and Saints by Florence + The Machine!

Rory’s Wild moment takes decidedly more effort. And blood and sweat and tears and really gross camp meals. And not to mention bugs, can’t forget the bugs. All Rory wants is one moment of fucking clarity, is that too much to ask? Apparently so because all she has are blisters, chapped lips, a sunburn, and a cut that she’s starting to worry is infected.

Nine years post the Revival, Rory Gilmore takes another page out of her mother's book. Clarity doesn't come quite as easily to her.

"Of course we're all worried, Rory," Paris is saying. "You showered in the boys' shower for a month when you found a spider in the girls' room at Branford! Why would you decide to go camping?" "I don't know," Rory admits. "I think I'm having some kind of personality breakdown, is that a thing?" She sniffles pathetically. "I can smell myself!" "Yeah, you're singlehandedly diminishing the skunk population of California."

ask me about my WIPs!

@randomestfandoms

[fictionadventurer]

Me, constantly: We have books about the presidents at home.

The History Hyperfixation (HH) in my brain, digging in its feet and desperately resisting being dragged away: But you left the McCullough John Adams biography just sitting there at Goodwill. It was only like two bucks!

Me: It was also a jillion pages long.

HH: I know! What a bargain!

Me: You would never actually read it. It would just sit there and stress you out.

HH: You underestimate my obsession.

Me: We can't afford another long book. We've still got Grant's memoirs to finish.

HH: And the Chernow biography of him.

Me: No.

HH: We already read the Kindle preview!

Me: We can't get any other library books until we finish the ones we have.

HH: But Gideon Welles wrote a diary! A primary source right from the center of Lincoln's Cabinet! We can spend more time with our boys!

Me: That library book excerpting Civil War primary sources was a mistake, wasn't it?

HH: What do you mean? Sitting up at 3 am reading the Crittenden Compromise was an excellent life choice!

Me: Interesting, yes. Excellent, no.

HH: Each section only takes a few minutes! You like short things!

Me: All that book will do is inflate our reading list.

HH: I fail to see how that's a problem.

Me, sighing: I need a nap.

[you-are-my-neverland]

guess who actually finished the prologue!

[firstroseofspring]

face down on the ground i finished the final reflection it was excellent.

[laundrycolour]

aruno flash excerpt about kubo

"right before going on stage, i always lose my composure and think 'what do i do, what do i do'. even so, during this year's summer tour, whenever kubo shiori-san saw me like that, she'd laugh my worries away and tell me 'you've got this!'. that cheerfulness really saved me.

i have a lot of respect for kubo-san. the way she puts her goals into words, in blogs and the like - (with her going) 'i'd like to appear in such works' - and then goes on to actually achieve them, is really cool to me. i'm sure she must be very busy, and yet, she doesn't show any signs of it; she's considerate and looks after those around her - even me - and for that, i truly am grateful."

[dostoyevsky-official]

The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books

Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University’s required great-books course, since 1998. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading. College kids have never read everything they’re assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames’s students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem. Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.

This development puzzled Dames until one day during the fall 2022 semester, when a first-year student came to his office hours to share how challenging she had found the early assignments. Lit Hum often requires students to read a book, sometimes a very long and dense one, in just a week or two. But the student told Dames that, at her public high school, she had never been required to read an entire book. She had been assigned excerpts, poetry, and news articles, but not a single book cover to cover.

[...] Twenty years ago, Dames’s classes had no problem engaging in sophisticated discussions of Pride and Prejudice one week and Crime and Punishment the next. Now his students tell him up front that the reading load feels impossible. It’s not just the frenetic pace; they struggle to attend to small details while keeping track of the overall plot.

No comprehensive data exist on this trend, but the majority of the 33 professors I spoke with relayed similar experiences. Many had discussed the change at faculty meetings and in conversations with fellow instructors. [...] Daniel Shore, the chair of Georgetown’s English department, told me that his students have trouble staying focused on even a sonnet.

Failing to complete a 14-line poem without succumbing to distraction suggests one familiar explanation for the decline in reading aptitude: smartphones. Teenagers are constantly tempted by their devices, which inhibits their preparation for the rigors of college coursework—then they get to college, and the distractions keep flowing. “It’s changed expectations about what’s worthy of attention,” Daniel Willingham, a psychologist at UVA, told me. “Being bored has become unnatural.” Reading books, even for pleasure, can’t compete with TikTok, Instagram, YouTube. In 1976, about 40 percent of high-school seniors said they had read at least six books for fun in the previous year, compared with 11.5 percent who hadn’t read any. By 2022, those percentages had flipped.

[...] Mike Szkolka, a teacher and an administrator who has spent almost two decades in Boston and New York schools, told me that excerpts have replaced books across grade levels. “There’s no testing skill that can be related to … Can you sit down and read Tolstoy? ” he said. And if a skill is not easily measured, instructors and district leaders have little incentive to teach it. [...] The pandemic, which scrambled syllabi and moved coursework online, accelerated the shift away from teaching complete works.

[...] But it’s not clear that instructors can foster a love of reading by thinning out the syllabus. Some experts I spoke with attributed the decline of book reading to a shift in values rather than in skill sets. Students can still read books, they argue—they’re just choosing not to. Students today are far more concerned about their job prospects than they were in the past. Every year, they tell Howley that, despite enjoying what they learned in Lit Hum, they plan to instead get a degree in something more useful for their career.

[...] For years, Dames has asked his first-years about their favorite book. In the past, they cited books such as Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. Now, he says, almost half of them cite young-adult books. Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series seems to be a particular favorite.

[fatehbaz]

Good question:

In the United States, many jails and prisons can and will charge you money for every single night that you spend imprisoned, for the entire duration of your incarceration, as if you were being billed for staying at a hotel. Even if you are incarcerated for years. Adding up to tens of thousands of dollars. What happens when you’re released?

In response to this:

---

So.

You’re getting charged, like, ten dollars every time you even submit a request form to possibly be seen by a doctor or dentist.

You’re getting charged maybe five dollars for ten minutes on the phone.

Any time a friend or family tries to send you like five dollars so that you can buy some toothpaste or lotion, or maybe a snack from the commissary since you’re diabetic and the “meals” have left you malnourished, maybe half of that money gets taken as a “service fee” by the corporate contractor that the prison uses to manage your pre-paid debit card. So you’re already losing money every day just by being there.

What happens if you can’t pay?

In some places, after serving just a couple of years for drugs charges, almost 20 years after being released, the state can still hunt you down for over $80,000 that you “owe” as if it were a per-night room-and-board accommodations charge, like this recent highly-publicized case in Connecticut:

Excerpt:

Two decades after her release from prison, [TB] feels she is still being punished. When her mother died two years ago, the state of Connecticut put a lien on the Stamford home she and her siblings inherited. It said she owed $83,762 to cover the cost of her 2 1/2 year imprisonment for drug crimes. [...] “I’m about to be homeless,” said [TB], 58, who in March [2022] became the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the state law that charges prisoners $249 a day for the cost of their incarceration. [...] All but two states have so-called “pay-to-stay” laws that make prisoners pay for their time behind bars [...]. Critics say it’s an unfair second penalty that hinders rehabilitation by putting former inmates in debt for life. Efforts have been underway in some places to scale back or eliminate such policies. Two states — Illinois and New Hampshire — have repealed their laws since 2019. [...] Pay-to-stay laws were put into place in many areas during the tough-on-crime era of the 1980s and ’90s, said Brittany Friedman, an assistant professor of sociology at University of Southern California who is leading a study of the practice. [...] Connecticut used to collect prison debt by attaching an automatic lien to every inmate, claiming half of any financial windfall they might receive for up to 20 years after they are released from prison [...].

Text by: Pat Eaton-Robb. “At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt.” AP News / The Associated Press. 27 August 2022.

---

---

Look at this:

To help her son, Cindy started depositing between $50 to $100 a week into Matthew’s account, money he could use to buy food from the prison commissary, such as packaged ramen noodles, cookies, or peanut butter and jelly to make sandwiches. Cindy said sending that money wasn’t necessarily an expense she could afford. “No one can,” she said. So far in the past month, she estimates she sent Matthew close to $300. But in reality, he only received half of that amount. The balance goes straight to the prison to pay off the $1,000 in “rent” that the prison charged Matthew for his prior incarceration. [...] A PA Post examination of six county budgets (Crawford, Dauphin, Lebanon, Lehigh, Venango and Indiana) showed that those counties’ prisons have collected more than $15 million from inmates — almost half is for daily room and board fees that are meant to cover at least a portion of the costs with housing and food. Prisoners who don’t work are still expected to pay. If they don’t, their bills are sent to collections agencies, which can report the debts to credit bureaus. [...] Between 2014 and 2017, the Indiana County Prison — which has an average inmate population of 87 people — collected nearly $3 million from its prisoners. In the past five years, Lebanon’s jail collected just over $2 million in housing and processing fees.

Text by: Joseph Darius Jaafari. “Paying rent to your jailers: Inmates are billed millions of dollars for their stays in Pa. prisons.” WHYY (PBS). 10 December 2019. Originally published at PA Post.

---

Pay-to-stay, the practice of charging people to pay for their own jail or prison confinement, is being enforced unfairly by using criminal, civil and administrative law, according to a new Rutgers University-New Brunswick led study. The study [...] finds that charging pay-to-stay fees is triggered by criminal justice contact but possible due to the co-opting of civil and administrative institutions, like social service agencies and state treasuries that oversee benefits, which are outside the realm of criminal justice. “A person can be charged $20 to $80 a day for their incarceration,” said author Brittany Friedman, an assistant professor of sociology and a faculty affiliate of Rutgers' criminal justice program. “That per diem rate can lead to hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees when a person gets out of prison. To recoup fees, states use civil means such as lawsuits and wage garnishment against currently and formerly incarcerated people, and regularly use administrative means such as seizing employment pensions, tax refunds and public benefits to satisfy the debt.” [...] Civil penalties are enacted on family members if the defendant cannot pay and in states such as Florida, Nevada and Idaho can occur even after the original defendant is deceased. [...]

Text by: Megan Schumann. “States Unfairly Burdening Incarcerated People With “Pay-to-Stay” Fees.” Rutgers press release. 20 November 2020.

---

So, to pay for your own imprisonment, states can:

-- hunt you down for decades (track you down 20 years later, charge you tens of thousands of dollars, and take your house away)

-- put a lien on your vehicle, house

-- garnish your paycheck/wages

-- seize your tax refund

-- send collections agencies after you

-- take your public assistance benefits

-- sue you in civil court

-- take money from your family even after you’re dead

[inarvii]

₊˚.- NEEDLES AND PINS

Patience breeds success. However, Dr. Veritas Ratio's patience has successfully run thin when it comes to the Intelligentsia Guild's new professor.

OR

Dr. Ratio hate reads about you.

wc - 3.4k

A/N - Basically a Dr. Ratio character study, inspired by the Deftones song Needles and Pins.

Veritas Ratio was a Needle. 

At least, that is what he saw himself as. He was sharp, precise, and calculated. One had to be in this world full of ignorant minds. 

His known prestige amongst scholars was by no accident. Every equation, formula, and theory engraved into his mind was nothing he didn’t want there. His reputation at the Intelligentsia Guild was by no fault other than his own. And he liked it this way. 

So when Dr. Veritas Ratio’s curiosity peaks, he will seek out information regardless of what stands in his way. It just so happens that the rumor of a Genius Society member abandoning their ranking to join the Intelligence Guild not only piques his interest but puzzles him quite a bit. 

Everything Veritas Ratio has ever done—ever accomplished was with intent. That’s just what a needle does. 

And as he reads the passage before him in the worn textbook he fished out of the bookshelves at his university, he intends to figure out your perplexing nature. 

“…and discovered five different constellations that are now crucial to Intercosmic Space Travel, earning the name of the ‘Star Lit Genius’ just after finishing her Associates.”

- Excerpt from Exploring the Starlit Genius

A fool. 

Ratio closes the bulky biography with a booming thud. The echo can be heard bouncing off the walls of his office. 

That is what you were. That is your nature. 

A fool is the only description he can think of as he sharply brings his fingers to his lips. Questions bubble inside him, but the one that escapes himself is, “Why?” 

Why would anyone do such a thing? The mere thought that someone could leave the Genius Society was baffling. Sure, there probably were some that had left, but that had to be Amber Eras in the past. 

It wasn’t ignorance it was foolishness. Perhaps he was right about Genius Society members having a rock up their asses. There was truly nothing that separated them from the mundane, such as himself. They were just as equally subjected to idiocy. 

But could you do such a thing?

You. A scholar blessed by Nous! Given a chance—an opportunity. 

He scoffs, his head jerking to the side as if catching himself in an act. 

He shouldn’t care. 

He doesn’t care. 

He’s over that. 

Ratio sighs and shakes his head. He doesn’t care. You were foolish, that’s all. It was nothing more. 

But who might this fool be? 

Ratio’s cold finger travels around the textbook's hardcover. He quickly flips through the pages. Frustration is evident on his face as his brows furrow the more pages he turns. 

Yet, there’s nothing. 

There’s not one picture of you—the fool—that perplexes his mind. Of course, there wouldn’t be. The Genius Society's “holy” standing wouldn’t allow that. So, he’ll just have to wait for the day he meets the deluded “genius.” 

“Immediately after finishing her Associates, the Star Lit Genius earned funds from the IPC for her findings, causing the young brilliant mind to venture more deeply into the cosmos.”

- Excerpt form Exploring the Starlit Genius

Time had passed and life went on. It had been a month since Veritas’ initial read of your biography. He had learned much. Such as your main fields of anatomy, pathology, chemistry and of course astronomy. Little details of your past are stored neatly in the back of the Doctor’s mind, but he has had no use for it. The new semester had started and as time went on he too started to carry on. Students plagued his mind instead, yet a star glittered somewhere near. 

“Dr. Ratio.”

It’s no voice he’s familiar with. Or maybe one he’s just not accustomed to yet. Most likely a new student in one of his classes.  

He doesn’t even bother to look up. Instead he continues to shuffle through his papers with equations and calculations of the new curriculum that he would soon ignore altogether in his lessons. 

He sighs. “Students are to ask questions during the appointed time.” His voice lacks any interest whatsoever. 

He was tired of students who seemed to think they were special. If anything, the unfamiliar voice is probably a student coming to butter him up before the semester starts to get on his good side. 

“Oh, I’m not a student.” Your voice isn’t familiar, but the syllables that roll off your tongue are ever engraved into his mind. His inner consciousness has read the name so much that he can envision the letters.  

Before he looks up, a smug grin shows on his face. Finally, he could put the foolish mind to the face. It was a gift, really. You, coming straight to his door. You had done all the work for him. 

But then he takes his first look at you. 

Veritas Ratio isn’t one to be rendered speechless, but his surprise is evident. His grin drops at the sight of you. Before, he had imagined that he should have put on his mask of marble to forbid his eyes from the sight of such a foolish person. But now his frustrations were fueled even more by the undeniable fact that a fool could look like…you. 

“Professor Alvarez said you would be the person to go to regarding any Physics textbooks,” you say, and Ratio comes back to reality as your voice vibrates around the large space. You stand in the wide door frame, hands held together in front of you. 

“Ah,” he chokes out. “Our new professor.” He quickly gets up to walk to the bookshelf behind him to rid the sight of you. His steps are light but eager; however, his back stands straight, and his head is held high. This was it? This was the fool he had read about? What a pity, he thinks as he climbs a few steps up the ladder of the bookshelf. Looks wasted on a simpleton. 

Ratio tries to change the topic of conversation while trying not to show his evident surprise. “Say, what does an astronomer have that warrants the need for physics?” He questions. 

You're quick to answer. “Well, the two are connected, I’m sure you’re aware.” 

He is aware—he’s well aware. But he’s also aware of his unwelcomed knowledge of your hatred for anything purely mathematical in any sense, especially physics, which you loathe the most. He even remembers the page clearly in chapter twenty-six, section fou—but that's beside the point. His ever-growing facts about you are a card he cannot yet play. He has only gazed at you for a mere eight seconds. So for now, he will keep his mouth shut. 

“I am,” he says confidently, a slight hint of offense in his voice. “Professors here, however usually tend to their specific fields rather than branching off.” His fingers trace the spine of the dusty books before carefully selecting one and then another. 

“One of my students is infatuated by the correlation of the two. It’s something that I had no interest in during my years of studying.” The sound of you shuffling your feet bounces off the walls. “I’m forced to learn now I suppose.”

“Whatever for? You’re no physicist,” he scoffs.  His hand lingers around a book as he debates himself in his mind. 

“To answer my students' questions, of course,” you answer without a second thought. 

A genius interested in the pursuit of other’s knowledge. Ratio’s frustrations physically manifest in the form of a silent sigh.  An anomaly you were. An Irritating one at that. 

He picks up the book.  

He doesn’t say anything as he descends the ladder—or when he walks to where you stand with an uninterested look on his face. He simply plops the books in your hands with a quick “Here.” Their weight jolts you down briefly. 

“Some of these are limited or editor's copies.” His eyes meet yours for the first time since you came in. “Do try not to dirty them.”

He turns to walk back to his desk, but the sound of your voice stops him. 

“Which is your favorite?”

Ratio turns to walk back to you as he looks you up and down. His fingers fish between the books in your arms, and he pulls out one. It’s encased in golden leather. He lifts it up to hold it out in front of you. 

Your hand grazes the hardcover. You look at it, eying the author. ‘Professor Emeritus.’ You look up at him with a hint of playfulness in your eyes. It makes him uneasy—like the breath has been sucked out of his lungs. But then you have the nerve to smile at him, and he can feel himself getting hot. 

“Thank you,” you say, and you turn away. 

His mind races. His heart beats a bit faster. It’s only when the click of your heels are out of earshot and when the doctor is trying to recover in his desk chair that he realizes he’s forgotten to tell you when to bring them back. 

“...the only way to transcend the limitations of the individual is to have an academic network of mutual learning.”

- Intelligentsia Guild 

He ignores you. 

That’s not to say he doesn't see you. Of course, he does. How could one not see you? It has turned into a game over the past two weeks. He must spot you first to make sure you do not spot him. 

So he does just that. 

He has no use conversing with a Genius Society member turned idiot. He simply gave you those books to help the students you were teaching, nothing more. 

So he carries on with his usual routine of avoiding you. Until, there’s a pile of books with ribbon wrapped around them at his office door. But there’s only three of them. 

Ratio quickly picks up the stack of books and unlocks his office door. When at his desk, he finally notices the note placed neatly between the book and ribbon.  

Thank you for letting me borrow these. They were very insightful. I have saved your recommendation for last. I will bring it back once I have finished it.  

He examines your handwriting—your signature—and how the way you write your A’s and H’s differ from him. 

As Ratio revels in the fact that you took his word at face value, he examines the books. His fingers caress the covers and flip through the pages.  

You made sure not to dirty them. 

“To grow and excel as a Scholar is to reconsider. A Hypothesis that is drawn due to stubbornness and ignorance is a hypothesis from no mind worth listening to.” 

- Professor Emeritus in “Attentive Beings” 

“Come in,” Ratio replies to the three knocks on his study door. This time, he looks up from his reading as soon as he hears the heels click on the polished wooden floor. 

You smile at him—book held in hand. 

He greets you with another disinterested look as he turns his head back to the papers in front of him. “Did you enjoy it?” 

“I certainly did,” you call out. Although he doesn’t look at you, he can hear you walk slowly around his office. He lets out a sigh as he writes down something. 

But then your heels click too close to the round table by the window in the corner of his study, and his mouth grows dry. He looks up as he watches you eye the books he had left open on the table, and put the book you had borrowed down. Your fingernails graze the papers slowly, and you turn the page. 

“You read about me?”

Ratio’s throat closes up at your question as he scurries to organize the files and loose sheets of paper before him just to occupy his hands. He puts a fist to his lips and clears his throat. “I simply wanted to know more about the new Professor who would teach some of my former students,” he affirms boldly. 

“It’s okay.” your eyes lift up from the pages and turn to him with a smile. “I read about you too.” 

He’s not surprised. He shouldn’t be surprised. Any good scholar would do that. But something stirs inside him still. His stomach flips from…excitement. This odd feeling goes unnoticed by you as the doctor quickly covers himself with his swift response “Is that so?” 

“Mhm,” you hum. You grab the book and slowly make your way closer and closer to his desk—to him. “You’re quite the mathematician,” you smile. “…and philosopher.” 

His arms fold and his eyes trail your figure as you approach. 

“So tell me, after reading this thing.” You hold up the book. “What’s your ‘philosophy’ on me?” 

He sits there in silence looking at you. 

“Please, Doctor,” you smirk. “Tell us your verdict on the new professor.” 

He’s still hesitant. But the look you give him is like fire on his skin, and he wants to rid of it. So he speaks. “Fine, if you must know.” He lets out an exasperated sigh. 

“You’re a fool. Through and through.”

“Is that so?”

“The evidence is clear.”

“Do elaborate, Doctor.” 

 He sighs again. What has he gotten himself into? “You’re an astronomer.” 

“That I am,” you smirk. Oh, he hates that smirk of yours. That smile of yours. That face of yours. 

“You’re an astronomer that hates physics.” Ratio stand subtly and makes his was round his desk to you. “Quite absurd actually.” He crosses his arms and you shift your body to look him in the eye. “You have no interest in anything mathematical when math is the foundation of all that ever was and will ever be.” 

“Mhmm.” And there’s that smirk again as you look up at him. 

“You’ve done mounds of research, and any organization would want you.” His voice is booming and stern as if he were lecturing one of his students. “Yet, you pick the IPC of all things to give your work to.” 

You're a star, you blaze. Yet you choose to be mediocre like him. It's infuriating.

You nod, and he takes a step closer to you. His brows furrow in frustration, and his finger points down at you. 

“And the cherry on top is that you’ve chosen to stray from the Erudition and-“

“Leave the genius Society,” you finish. 

Your voice strikes him. He flinches backward and his back stiffens. You’re toying with him. He wonders if it is something he’s opposed to. 

“Is that why you dislike me, Veritas?”

He’s opposed to it, he concludes. He steps back, and his arms go to his chest once more. “Dislike?” He lets out an exclaimed scoff. “I barely know you, Professor.” He lets the last word roll off his tongue like an insult. 

You hold up the book in your hands and read the title to yourself. ‘Exploring the Starlit Genius’ 

“Barely?” You ask. 

“Nonsense,” is all he can claim as he returns to his desk. 

You lean over it, your spread out hands creating a mess of his once neatly placed papers. “You make a conscious effort not to meet my eyes around here.”

Ever the observant one you were. But he denies it. “Our paths must have never crossed,” he explains. 

You tilt your head with a knowing look as you cross your arms. “Don’t lie Veritas.” 

A shiver goes down his spine. He doesn’t know if it's because it’s the first time he’s ever been called a liar or because you’ve just said his first name. It’s been a while since someone called him something other than “Doctor” or “Professor.” At least that's the quick excuse he can come up with on the spot to ease his jittery mind. 

He’s caught. He’s finally caught. So he defends his hypothesis. 

“I don’t like fools,” he states matter-a-factly. “I tend to stay away from them.” 

“But not from me?” 

Oh your tongue is clever. Not as clever as his, he reassures himself. 

“You seem to know a lot about me.” 

He’s red. He knows it. But he cant seem to find something to throw back at you. His quick wit is anywhere but in the present. 

“Is it because deep down you know I’m right?” Your face softens. 

He stays silent. 

“Out of all the literature about me, you’ve chosen that which  is not written by me.” You run your hands across the book's cover and place it neatly before him. “You’ve been reading the books with my name on them but have never picked up the ones that I myself created. Why is that?” You smile, but your face shows genuine perplexity. 

If he has an answer, he doesn’t tell you. He keeps it to himself. However, the question he asks in response is an answer in itself.

“Why did you leave?” His voice is low—broken even. 

Your smile turns into an expression filled with a touch of sadness. “You ask questions you know the answer to?”

“Don't you dare mock me,” he snaps.

“What else are fools good for?”

He’s silent as his lips purse in anger. There are a few beats before he responds. “Teaching.”

Your face lightens in surprise, and your original charming smile returns. 

He wants to know. He yearns to know. But when you finally give him his answer, he knows it will burn like fire. He’ll finally have a reason why the thing he fought so much for was not all it was chopped up to be. The younger years of his life–wasted to appease THEM—all for nothing. Although he had reached a place of contentment, there was a little boy still in him who wanted to keep his former fantasy alive. 

“The Erudition is something that consumes people as do all Aeons. You know this, right Professor?” 

What you say is common sense. He gives you no answer or satisfaction. But he continues to listen attentively. 

“All intelligent minds are selfish to some extent. The genius society is filled with people who will pursue knowledge regardless of the people hurt. This includes themselves.In order to be a person of pure logic—a genius…” You pause for a second. “…you must lack empathy to some extent.”

You turn to meet him, and he swears he’s never seen any eyes more beautiful and full of honesty than yours. “And I have too much.”

And then, at your words, something clicks in his brain. 

Another smile takes over your lips as you face your body towards him. “And I believe you have more than you let on, Doctor.”

He’s in silence. 

He says nothing because he can’t say something. 

You walk around to the other side of his desk where he sits. His eyes follow your ever move while you do so. Your hand unlocks the clasp of your satchel and disappears inside. When it comes out, a book appears before him. 

He takes it in his hands tenderly and then looks at the title. ‘Philosophy of the Stars,’ he reads to himself. Then his eyes wander to the bottom of the cover, and there’s your name printed in gold. He looks up at you expectantly. 

Of course, when his eyes land on your face, your expression is full of glee. “If you wish to learn more about me, I hope you’ll do so through a book with all of my own words.”

You say nothing more as you turn on your heels and leave his office. Leaving Ratio with a feeling of shock and emptiness. 

His hand comes up to his face, and he lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He sits there in silence and realizes…

You are none of what he had made you out to be…

Not a fool. Not an idiot. Not a genius. 

But a kind soul. 

He realizes that he was good enough. That he was not a fool either. Just a young boy who cared. 

His eyes linger on the book you left him— the book that his hands refuse to put down. He opens it to the very first page, and he finds your writing in it and a note that slips out on his lap. 

For the mediocre Dr. Veritas Ratio. 

Your name is signed as elegantly as before. He puts down the book on his desk and picks up the folded note on his lap. 

Feel free to dirty this. But keep it clean if you wish to auction it. It will be worth more with both our names on it, so don’t undersell. It is yours to do with as you please.   

One thing Veritas knows for sure is that this book won’t leave his possession in all his years to come. 

“THEIR silence was deafening.”

- Genius Society–Erudition, Astral Express Data Bank

Dr. Ratio is sharp, precise, and calculated. He considers himself to be all those things; he is a needle. 

But if Dr. Veritas Ratio is a needle, then you are a pin. 

ty for reading. reblogs are appreciated <3

[r--kt]

Do you like Kakashi's dogs? Let's talk about why there are eight of them.

another example of naruto's ✨cultural code✨

contents | the eight dog warriors chronicles · legacy · eight confucian virtues. also look at the cuties love them sm

Naruto Vol. 10 CH 90

[ one dog is wonderful, I'm saying as the owner of a sweet little york terrier. two dogs are good, they won't be bored together. three dogs? yeah, cool! how are you going to walk them though? four? yes... look, maybe we have to draw the line h- wha- EIGHT? Excuse Me!? ]

surely, it's worth starting with the fact that eight is a lucky number in Japanese culture — everybody watched Hachi. of course, this is not the only cultural detail where the eight is mentioned. I want to pay special attention to a thing that I didn't know about until I googled it, and this is clearly what Kishimoto was doing homage to with Kakashi's eight ninken.

The Eight Dog Warriors Chronicles

Better known as Nansō Satomi Hakkenden. and it's not just some kind of book, it's a novel, consisting of 106 booklets written by Kyokutei Bakin in XIX century. Hakkenden is considered the largest novel in the history of Japanese Literature. this is one of the main representatives of the gesaku genre, which includes works of a frivolous, joking, silly nature. further I will emphasize a few more times how damn popular this work is and how often it is reflected in culture.

here are some illustrations for these books

now let's talk about the plot. It's weird, but it's weird at samurai-dogs-story level so stay here.

In brief, the story tells about the commander Satomi Yoshizane, whose native lands were attacked by the army of a man, whose forces surpassed those of Satomi, and the samurai in despair swore to a dog named Yatsufusa that the dog would get his beloved daughter Fuse as a wife if he chewed that man's throat. surprisingly, the dog not only understood the owner, but also fulfilled his wish! after that the commander refused to keep the promise. however, Fuse, true to her word of honor, went with Yatsufusa to the mountains and became his wife. upon learning that his daughter was pregnant, Satomi, in a rage, sent a samurai to kill Yatsufusa and bring Fuse home. she stood up for the dog anyways and died with him. at that moment, eight pearls with hieroglyphs that denoted the foundations of Confucian virtue burst out of her womb. (...cheers for mythology, I guess)

Soon, eight dog warriors who were Fuse's spiritual children were born in different parts of Awa province. after going through hardships, they got together and became vassals of the Satomi clan, then won the battle, and soon reached peace.

some more illustrations made by Utagawa Kuniyoshi. from left to right: Inukawa Sōsuke (the dog warrior), Inumura Daikaku (the dog warrior), Princess Fuse (their mother).

the novel mainly tells about each individual warrior dog and his shenanigans in a funny adventurous way. huge fame has led to excerpts from Hakkenden being staged at the Kabuki Theater and mentioned in the anime and manga, such as Inuyasha, Dragon Ball, as it turned out, Naruto and so on. there's also a lot of films and video games.

The eight virtues

these are loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, love, honesty, justice, harmony, and peace.

they relate more to Chinese culture, but basically Hakkenden was inspired by it too. since I did not read the whole novel, I would still like to mention at least the values on which it is based, and which were embedded in the symbolism of this story. It's quite interesting to apply this to Kakashi's dogs. gives them more weight and depth.

It is also interesting to note that the reason why Fuse gave birth to dogs was also that her father was cursed earlier in the story in a way that his descendants would become depraved like dogs. in Japanese culture, dogs embody the duality of character: the same mentioned filth and depravity, and devotion and bravery. so as samurai. but this is a different conversation, more related to Kakashi and his dog poetry.

Did you get here? Here's an additional discovery for you✨

Pakkun's name (パックン) is derived from the Japanese onomatopoeia “pakupaku” (パクパク) which reflects the sound of munching.

Kakashi, that's very sweet of you.

thank you for reading this to the end ♡

[crumbledcastle28]

Joel Miller: Stay Down

Pairing: Joel Miller x fem!reader (she/her; afab)

Word count: 3.2k

Summary: Joel thought he had grown accustomed to fear until he finds you covered in blood.

Excerpt: He swallowed, attempting to choose his words carefully. He had never been good with them, attributing his deficiency to a long line of likewise men before him. His brain poured for sonnets, poetry, prose that he had read in his insignificant time on this planet. Something to impress you, distract you, to take away that crestfallen look in your eye.

He couldn’t do it. He never would be. So, he used his mouth for something else.

Warnings: stitching of a wound, kissing, blood, blood loss, so much yearning, unestablished relationship, probably incorrect gun talk, Joel is scared of feelings.

A/N: This is me coping with the fact that we do not get more last of us in January. Also partially inspired by my favorite song maybe ever.

Pedro Masterlist

All my writing

Joel had found his hands becoming more and more susceptible to the cold as he got older.

They would crack and bleed, flaking dried skin within his decades-old gloves before November had even begun. This not only hurt like hell, but forced him to slow down and think about what he was doing to his body for once in his life. He had a harder time gripping the reins on a horse or fingering the trigger on a shotgun. Noticeably so. And living in a small town with a little brother foaming at the mouth to make old man jokes didn't help matters.

This is what led him to you.

He wouldn't call you a hoarder. Honestly, he would be the first to admit that you were one of the smartest people in Jackson. You had somehow become one of the most materialistically rich people in the town. You consistently managed to find the most randomly useful items on your patrols, things that people before the outbreak would never have even thought to miss.

Things like shoe insoles, ball point pens, Chapstick.

And luckily for him, lotion.

You never charged anyone for taking from what you had. Furthermore, you actively asked people if they needed anything. Even offering to scout around the area in search of specifics. Joel hadn't been around that kind of softness since...

Well, a long time.

This made him uncharacteristically nervous when he first approached your doorstep, but he knocked anyway. He had never in a million years expected to leave that house satisfied in more ways than one.

He blamed it on that stupid crinkle the skin underneath your eyes got whenever you smiled at him. He couldn't help but fall into your light.

This started a... friendship. Of sorts. He would come over when he needed you, and you would happily oblige. As time went on, the visits to yours became more and more frequent, frequent enough that the rest of the town seemed to be catching on. At least, that's what his brother had been hinting at through jabs and side comments.

"You smiled at me the other day, Joel," Tommy had said. "Actually smiled."

Joel responded with a gesture he was hoping Ellie would not pick up anytime soon.

Joel was...happy. Happy with the arrangement. He had a warm body – a fucking gorgeous warm body – to get his energy out with, and the woman inside the body seemingly had no issue with his lack of strings attached.

And yet, for some reason, this annoyed him.

There was some undetectable, bruised part of him that wanted you to…what exactly? Fight him on it? Confess your undying love for him? Pull him back into bed to cuddle?

There had to be either pheromones or crack cocaine in that honeyed floral perfume you always wore. You were beginning to drive him this insane. Unfortunately for him, the place he went when he was beginning to toe that line into insanity was always you.

Joel had checked the schedule posted in the main square, assigning every able-bodied person shifts of patrol. You had a shift earlier in the day, which usually kept you busy until noon. You would then shower, eat, and spend the rest of the afternoon doing whatever the hell you wanted.

Overtime, these mental gymnastics became muscle memory to Joel.

He huffed as he lugged his aching legs up your steps, their typical milk white now coated in an ugly muddy brown. Winter had begun, apparent by the puffs of Joel’s own breaths, and the snow in Jackson was trying desperately to keep up.

Joel balled his hands into fists as he planted both feet onto your porch, blowing into them quickly, before knocking three times. Spaced out enough, but not too much. He envisioned you smiling as you heard his signature knock, but cringed at himself internally, burying the thought instantly.

It fluttered back to the surface when he heard the pads of your footsteps somewhere in the house begin but extinguished itself when they dissipated.

He waited a few more seconds, the rational part of his brain saying that you must be in the middle of something, but the man part of his brain imagining you putting on your silky red robe he loved so much, only for him to take it off you so slowly it made his own fingers shake. He breathed in deep, the laundry detergent from his nylon coat mixed with the beginnings of December filling his nose, and cracked his neck while rocking back and forth on his heels.

His eyebrows came together when he heard another rustle, then nothing.

He knocked again.

Still, nothing,

He knew you were in there – he could hear you, clear as day, and he knew you could hear him – but for some reason, you weren’t coming to the door.

His much too weathered mind began to race, thinking of three possible explanations. One, you heard him knocking, and were ignoring him. Two, you somehow were not hearing him knock on the door. Or three, you for some reason were not able to get to the door.

Meaning, there was a possibility you weren’t alone in there, and not by choice.

“Y/N?” he asked loudly. “Y/N, are you in there?”

Nothing. A bit more rustling, maybe a slight groan, but nothing.

Joel’s fingers began to tingle, and it wasn’t from the cold. He knocked again, harder.

“Y/N, I know you’re in there,” he said loudly, “just…just tell me you’re okay.”

Silence.

He gripped the doorknob and jiggled it, hard enough for the wood to groan underneath his fingertips, but it was locked from the inside. He huffed, knocking again, his hot breaths now clouding his face. He felt an ache in his wrist.

He said your name one more time, hearing the beginnings of a voice he knew better than he should have muffled by the wood, and the door was flat in front of him before he could think twice.

He stomped his way inside, coating the ground with mud and snow, and his eyes darted around the familiar living room. His vision was tunneled, scrounging for the shape of you on the floor, draped over the couch, held at gunpoint. His heart pulsed in his ears.

You weren’t in the living room.

He stomped into the kitchen, the bathroom, the basement, nothing. All that was left was the bedroom.

There was no way in hell you were still asleep.

He practically sprinted to the room, preparing himself. He had seen what men did to women, the remnants of it anyway, and despite his state of denial, he could never in a million years handle the sight of you that way. In your own bed. In your own house. Likely one of your own friends.

He pulled open the door anyway, and was met with gold.

The room was dim except for the lamps you loved so dearly, spreading their warm, glowing, honeyed light across the room in streaks. He blinked his eyes to adjust, focusing in on your body on the bed. You were facing him, skin painted with similar golden streaks, highlighting the tears culminating under your eyes. You were sat crisscrossed, upper body totally bare, back slouched tightly, your body practically folded in on itself. Your right hand was pressed against your left shoulder blade, while your other was filled with wine-colored rags.

Blood-soaked rags.

His eyes met yours quickly, and despite their dampness, they still had that fucking crinkle.

You chuckled, your shoulders dropping up and down quickly as they always do.

“You know,” you said, voice curdled and tired, “if someone doesn’t answer the door, that’s usually them saying ‘leave me the hell alone.”

You chuckled again, this time finishing it off with a wince.

His hand slid slowly from the doorknob as he took a hesitant step towards you, his body tearing itself in half. One side begging to fold your body into him, bubbling you in a cocoon. The other, itching to tear whatever did this to you apart ligament by ligament.

Your eyes slowly drooped from humor to something like shame, like a kicked dog or a broken child, and he stepped forward again.

“Don’t,” you countered weakly. “Just…just don’t.”

You scooted away from him slightly, refusing to look at him, and applied more pressure to whatever was expelling that much blood from your shoulder. Pain was suddenly present in your face.

“You want me to leave?” he quickly countered.

You said nothing.

He walked to you, removing the hand you had pressed against your wound, and sucked in a quick breath.

“Probably the first time you’ve seen a revolver bullet in about twenty years, huh Joel?” you asked, chuckling once more.

He barely heard you.

You had gotten the bullet out, but it had sunken in deep. The skin around it was red and welting, so swollen that Joel had to guess you had already been working on it for at least an hour. He winced, imagining what kind of pain you were in, and the fact that you were dealing with it all yourself.

He swallowed grimly.

“Hand me that rag,” he said. He could tell how little strength you had left to fight him by how quickly the rag flopped into his hand.

He pressed it to the wound, and you hissed.

“Fuck Joel,” you whined, squeezing the covers of your bed so tightly your knuckles went white. He held his pressure, forcing himself to think straight.

He might as well have been feeling the pain in his own shoulder.

He finally eased his pressure, wiping away as much blood from the area as he could.

“You cleaned it pretty well,” he said softly, voice thick in his throat, so thick it was hard to speak. “But…it’s gonna need a stich or two.”

“Or seven,” you said, grabbing the first aid kit sat in the middle of the bed. You opened the bag with shaking hands, taking out the needle and thread. You attempted to begin threading the needle, but with your hands quaking so fiercely you only produced frustrated grunts and sighs. He moved to the front of the bed, the front of his body facing yours, and took the needle and thread from your hands, setting them to the side. He then held your hands in his, squeezing them slightly, before using one to tilt your chin up at him.

He sighed at the storm in your eyes.

“What happened?”

“Did you kick my fucking door down?”

“What happened?”

“I was stupid, that’s what happened.”

He sighed again. “You’ve never once been stupid.”

“Today I was.”

“How?”

“It’s how I always am.” Your voice cracked. “Thought I could pick some apples for Mrs. Lawrence down the street. She always talks about how much she loved that as a kid – a freshly picked apple. Went out too far. Felt a sudden burning in my shoulder and ended up having to take out six hunters all by myself. Six.”

A single tear dripped from your left eye, the gold from the lamps turning it to sunlight.

“I could’ve died. All for a fucking apple.”

You turned away from him again, and it took everything in him not to cup your face in his hands and turn you back to him. He had never seen you like this before. So… raw. Beaten. Trampled. Doused in self-hatred. He hated it.

And yet, he didn’t want to look away. He was slowly realizing that this was the part of you he had been desperate to see. Truth. Undercarriage. Weakness.

Human.

He swallowed, attempting to choose his words carefully. He had never been good with them, attributing his deficiency to a long line of likewise men before him. His brain poured for sonnets, poetry, prose that he had read in his insignificant time on this planet. Something to impress you, distract you, to take away that crestfallen look in your eye.

He couldn’t do it. He never would be. So, he used his mouth for something else.

Slowly, gentler than he ever had in his life, he brought his mouth to your cheekbone. You exhaled a prolonged breath, the heat of it cascading down the left side of his neck. It only prompted him to kiss you more, and more, and more. His lips traveling up into your hairline, across your forehead, down your nose, and finally onto your lips. His kiss there was tongueless, rather a soft press, and yet it meant more to him than any other one you had ever shared.

He could tell by your breathing that you agreed.

He pressed his forehead against yours, swallowing thickly. “I’m glad you didn’t. I don’t know…I don’t know what I would do if you did.”

Your stormy eyes turned into a sunrise, and Joel straightened his aching back to slowly remove his coat and boots. He placed them on the floor beside your bed, keeping his eyes on you the entire time. You watched him just the same, mouth propped open slightly.

He smirked as he set his things down. He then picked up the needle and thread while using his free hand to frame your face.

“I’ll be gentle,” he said, his thumb stroking your chin. “I promise.”

You nodded. “I know you will.”

His lips wanted to meet yours so badly it hurt, but he needed to stitch you. Quickly. For a wound as deep as the one you had, it should have been closed up hours ago.

He wouldn’t think about that now. He couldn’t.

He walked to the edge of the bed and turned you around, leaning you into him slightly to give your pretzeled back some support, and began.  

You were surprisingly unreactive when he first inserted the needle, taking it as delicately as he possibly could. It wasn’t until he began to tug the skin together that your body showed signs of pain.

“You’re going too slow,” you mumbled softly after he finished the second stitch. “Please go faster.”

His hands began to shake at your request. He didn’t blame you. Speed would make it hurt worse, but be over with quicker. He squeezed the top of your shoulder in response, threading the needle quickly and stitching over the center of the wound.

You let out a high-pitched whine, gripping onto the comforter at your side, and he couldn’t help but kiss the back of your neck.

He let your breathing steady, then stitched again, this time kissing your shoulder blade.

Another stitch, a kiss across your shoulders.

Another stitch, a kiss down your spine.

Another stitch, a kiss on your lower back.

After every stitch, he planted one. Something in him couldn’t help it.

He made his final stitch and cut the thread quickly, sealing it with a kiss on the side of your face. He tasted a mix of salty tears and heat from your skin. He watched your throat bobble as he moved away, finishing off the wound with a final cleaning. Alcohol and blood filled the air, along with undertones of sweat.

He had a feeling that last aroma came mostly from him.

He threw the needle and thread away into the small garbage can you kept near your bed before turning back to face you. You rested on the balls of your palms, leaning back to look at him as he walked back towards you. There was pain visible behind your eyes, he could see it, but they were coated in something else. Something somehow rawer than before.

“You should rest now,” he said, scruff evident in his voice from lack of use. He cleared it quickly. “You took a hell of a hit.”

You didn’t move. Joel moved to the first aid kit still sitting in the middle of the bed and used the (what had to be decades old) wet wipes on his hands. He tossed those as well, but you still hadn’t moved.

“There somethin’ on my face?”

You cracked a small smile. “Thank you, Joel,” you said quietly.

He hummed. “Don’t mention it.” He then leaned forward and scooped your body into his arms. You involuntarily rested against him, eyes fluttering already, but he set you down beneath your sheets and swiftly pulled them over you.

He laughed at your fight against your own exhaustion, pushing stray hairs away from your forehead. He pulled away from you, beginning to walk out of the room. A fierce grip pulled him backwards.

“Stay,” you mumbled weakly. “Please stay.”

He inhaled deeply. The sweet cocktail of your voice mixed with those words fucking inebriating him, so much so he was surprised he was still standing up straight. He felt physically winded.

He squeezed your hand. “I’ll be right back. Stay down.”

You smiled, loosening your grip, letting your hand fall back into the bed.

Joel walked quietly out of the room but would be the last to admit how he practically sprinted to your kitchen and scoured your cabinets like a man being chased. He found your pain meds, pouring two into his hand, and filling up a small glass of water. He gave a slow, silent jog back to your room.

He felt equally as winded when he caught the view of the setting sun between your windows, glazing over you like a statue in Rome he had once seen on a traveling magazine. The streaks of leftover tears were highlighted in the light, as well as a small crease in your brow.

That is what told him you were not quite yet out cold.

He brought the meds and water to you, tucking your hair behind your ear to alert you of his presence. You opened your eyes and practically inhaled the medicine before laying back down on your side.

Joel removed his shirt in a blink and tucked himself in behind you, ensuring your stitches were not firmly pressed against him, but pressed just enough to ease soreness. You curved into him perfectly, as he did to you. He wrapped his arm around your frame, taking your hands in his and massaging them gently.

You hummed. “Promise you’ll stay?”

He knew your voice like that better than any man in the world.

He pressed a final kiss to your shoulder. “I’m stayin.’”

Tag List: (if you would like to be added please let me know!)

@untitledarea @avengersfan25 @lexloon @daphne-turner @leeeesahhh

[blue-eyed-beastie]

A Closer Look at Belle's Book: Part II

In Part I, I went into some detail about the illustration inside Belle's book, but now I want to turn the page, so to speak.

Thanks to the magic of 4K, I was able to zoom in on some details in Beauty and the Beast that I had never noticed before, and this time I wanted to see what story Belle was reading. I've seen theories that it was either foreshadowing Aladdin or referencing Sleeping Beauty, and I myself noticed that it bears some artistic resemblance to Snow White... but it turns out that it has nothing to do with Disney, or its fairy tales.

It's something else entirely, and it's in French!

After zooming in and studying each frame, I managed to make out the following text:

une languissante sirene! Enfin, il sera bientôt heureux, si c'est là ce qui doit causer son bonheur. Je sais que je suis agréable à regarder, puisque j'y ai du plaisir moi-même, et de ce plaisir je ne priverai pas mon mari, au contraire. Je ne sais si je l'aimerai, je l'espère; mais je veux qu'il m'aime lui, et je ferai pour lui plaire tout ce qui lui plaira. Ah! chère Adélaïde, je suis pleine de rêves absurdes et de pensées contradictoires! Je songe à des choses qui me semblent à la fois douces et vilaines, et j'ai des imaginations qui me font rougir en même temps que pleurer! Au moins, je ne m'ennuie pas. Je vis plus en une heure de ces journées que l'an passé je ne vécus en toute l'année. Chaque heure me renouvelle, me grandit et m'épanouit. Je me semble un rosier qui fleur rirait à vue d’œil, je suis fraîche et parfumée; je suis légère et forte: j'attends le bonheur. Paul est plus beau que je ne l'avais encore jamais tu. Il est pâle avec de grands yeux pleins de fièvre et d'amour. Je le trouve sublime quand il s'agenouille près de moi pour me regarder comme en prière. J'ai envie de le prière aussi, parfois, et de coucher ma joue sur ses genoux, mais quand j'ai cette envie-la, je me fâché contre moi-meme et je boude Paul.

Which, roughly translated into English, means:

a languid siren! Finally, he will soon be happy, if that is what will make him happy. I know that I am pleasant to look at, since I take pleasure in it myself, and of this pleasure I will not deprive my husband, on the contrary. I do not know if I will love him, I hope so; but I want him to love me, and I will do whatever he pleases to please him. Ah! dear Adelaide, I am full of absurd dreams and contradictory thoughts! I think of things that seem to me both sweet and ugly, and I have fantasies that make me blush and cry at the same time! At least, I am not bored. I live more in one hour of these days than I lived in the whole year last year. Each hour renews me, makes me grow and blossom. I seem to myself a rosebush that blooms laughing before my eyes, I am fresh and fragrant; I am light and strong: I await happiness. Paul is more handsome than I have ever seen him before. He is pale with big eyes full of fever and love. I find him sublime when he kneels down next to me to look at me as if in prayer. I want to pray to him too, sometimes, and to lay my cheek on his knees, but when I have this desire, I get angry with myself and I sulk at Paul.

By the way, there is one more sentence (maybe even two) at the bottom of the page that is partially obscured by Belle's shoulder and right hand. It may or may not be important to the rest of the excerpt, but for completion's sake, I'll share it here:

Il est ... maintenir un homme dans les ...

Which translates to:

He is ... to keep a man in the ...

Intriguing, isn't it? What was she trying to say?

Overall, the author appears to be an unwed woman dreaming of her future marriage to a man named Paul. Her confidante is someone named Adelaide, but I suspect she is actually writing to herself. Regardless, she is either betrothed to Paul or she longs to be, since she calls him her husband. Perhaps it is an arranged marriage? She goes on to dwell upon his handsomeness, and how she longs to be close to him, but then she gets angry at herself for feeling this way. The last line of the passage is incomplete, but my best guess is that the author is saying that Paul is not to blame for her sulking, so it is not right to keep a man in the dark, i.e. ignorant. I could be wrong, though. In any case, she is conflicted about her feelings on the matter. You could even say that her feelings are "new, and a bit alarming".

I can see why the filmmakers chose this passage for Belle's book.

It may not be a fairy tale, but it certainly has elements from the film. There are references to beauty, roses, imagination, and eyes filled with love, and passion.

Belle:

"Oh, isn't this amazing? It's my favorite part because—you’ll see Here's where she meets Prince Charming But she won't discover that it's him 'til Chapter Three!"

Do the lyrics match the story hinted at on the page itself? No, but I really respect the filmmakers for going out of their way to include this kind of detail in the film. They could have taken the easy way out, by writing out something like "Once upon a time" to echo the opening narration, or used "Lorem ipsem" Latin filler, or even meaningless brush strokes just to fill the page... but they didn't. They chose something in French that Belle herself might have liked to read. And I think that's really cool.

[fideidefenswhore]

@hyacinths-cottage Interesting Your thesis suggests that Henry didn't loose his emotional viriginity throughout his lengthy marriage with Kathy of A? Explanation?

naur, i'm saying that was julia fox and john guy's thesis, in between the lines.

i'm definitely not saying (and i don't believe they were trying to, either, if you read julia fox's biography of coa, that's's especially clear), that he didn't love or have an emotional connection to his first wife. he chose her against the advice of (some) of his council, he chose her after he was at least somewhat (i mean, i do think it's interesting they weren't really overfamiliar with each other, she was far from a fixture at henry vii's court once widowed) familiar with her, and they married and were crowned together and had, and lost, children, together. they lived together, they shared their faith. this obviously all creates a bond, and they obviously had a bond, an emotional bond, a bond of intimacy, all that.

but his relationship with anne was ...something different. they definitely argue that what he had with anne, and felt for anne, doesn't really match what he had and felt for catherine, at any point (and, actually, they argue, that this did not match what he had with or felt for, any other woman he sought as a romantic partner, at any other point in his life). not to say that wasn't 'love'...but (and this does sound strange when you know the end, nonetheless:) rather that he seems to have esteemed anne's counsel far more, that he seems to have esteemed her as a partner far more, and that he envisioned something for her coronation and status as queen that surpassed that which he had for catherine.

the not directly articulated thesis of hunting the falcon is that while catherine of aragon took henry's literal virginity, anne boleyn took his emotional virginity.

[somewhereincairparavel]

my favourite character exchange of all time between the hoo gang will always be this particular line from jason to nico in house of hades.

“Nico, you do choose how to live your life. You want to trust somebody? Maybe take a risk that I'm really your friend and I'll accept you. It's better than hiding”

jason doesn't say something like 'i'll make sure to prove myself to you' or 'i'll do everything I can to make sure I earn your trust' because they are empty words. especially considering that this was before jason knew about nico's past, he can't exactly do anything to make nico trust him, apart from offering support, because in the end, it was nico's choice whether to trust him or not.

yeah, some people might think jason was being 'cold' and 'shallow' for saying this, but jason genuinely MEANT well. he told nico that he's WILLING to be his friend even before he knew nico's past. this was before jason knew an OUNCE of nico's backstory. he gave some slightly harsh but brotherly advice to him.

jason didn't deliver any false promise to nico that everyone will love him no matter what and that everyone will always be kind to him in camp half blood (this strangely parallels w percy deliberately choosing to NOT promise nico that he'll keep bianca safe because percy knew that death is a possibility and didn't want to make any fake promises just because nico is a kid, percy tried his hardest to be honest with nico, that certainly caused problems of course, but we can see the pattern between how percy and jason both hated fake promises.)

also, in boo, will says “Oh, please. Nobody at Camp Half-Blood ever pushed you away. You have friends or at least, people who would like to be your friend. You pushed yourself away. If you'd get your head out of that brooding cloud of yours for once”

i know I've seen alot of people use this excerpt as consensus of saying that will is super 'tone deaf' and 'insensitive'. but can you guys see the pattern here? will came off a lot more agressive bc of his romantic feelings, but we can see how will, jason and percy were sort of 'reality checks' that nico NEEDED. he had an inferiority and victim complex (which is very justifiable and valid considering how much trauma he faced, on the contrary i thought nico was being considerably calm with everything he's been through and deserved to yell way more. I quite related to nico a lot when it comes to the personality sometimes so jason's words definitely struck a nerve for me) but nico was always drawn to honesty.

nico had some of his earlier memories washed away by the river lethe to 'protect' him from more trauma, and nico was so attached to bianca that the thought of her leaving for the hunters of artemis felt like a personal betrayal. he was made to beleive that he and his sister were safe in camp half blood, and combining that w the whole lethe thing and hades generally trying to protect the di angelo family from the gods, you can see how much nico needed honesty and not coddling. because coddling and sheltering ruined his life and took away his light.

jason saying that nico needed to take risks as it comes with the package of love and friendship, and overall giving him authenticity, telling him that heartbreak and family can coexist, causes nico to be drawn to him and genuinely have him an eye opener.

jason knew what it was like to be held with fake promises his whole life, and even mentions it as a reason as to why he made sure he kept the promises he made. because he would never turn out to be like his two faces mother beryl.

I'll always believe that jason played a huge part in nico's overall character, and his death even more so.

[hinacu-arts]

Finally found a moment to work on FFPS. Heres a little excerpt

“Fenton.”

Both Dannies turned around. “Which one?” Tucker asked.

“Daniel.”

The Dannies looked at each other. “Which one?” they said in unison.

Damian was clearly getting frustrated. His face scrunched up and his voice tone was clearly annoyed, “How do you usually differentiate yourselves?”

The Dannies started listing off names as they counted on their fingers.

“Danny-with-a-Y,”

“Dani-with-a-I,”

“Boy-Danny,”

“Girl-Danny,”

“Him,”

“Her,”

“The tall one,”

“The shorter one,”

“The older one,”

“The younger one.”

Damian remained frustrated, “I am not calling either of you either of those names.”

“Well, we both respond to ‘Dannie’ or ‘Fenton’.”

“But that does not resolve the issue.”

Dani tilted her head, “Why do you not want to call us ‘Dannie’?”

“‘Dannie’ is a nickname, which would imply we have a closer relationship than we have.”

“What if you called one of them ‘Fenton’ and the other ‘Daniel’?” Steph suggested.

“Fair warning,” Tucker spoke up, “neither of them like to be called ‘Daniel’. Like they really don’t like it.”

“But that is their name, why would I call them anything else?” Damian looked genuinely confused.

“Call me by a name I don’t like and I’ll call you by a name you don’t like.”

“Ditto.”

Damian crossed his arms, “I insist you allow me to call at least one of you ‘Daniel’.”

Danny crossed his arms to mirror Damian, “Alright, Ian.”

Steph tried to smother her laughter. Damian was outraged. Tim had never seen his face that red before. Damian opened and shut his mouth a few times in shock before he found his words, “That is not my name.”

“Sure thing, Dames.” Danny was grinning.

Damian stood up, “I demand you call me by my proper name!”

“Hmmm… maybe we should call him ‘Dami’ instead?” Dani suggests.

“No!”

“How about ‘Day’?”

“No. ‘Amy’?”

“‘Dameron’?”

“You’ve started a war you cannot win,” Tucker sighed and slumped in his seat.

“‘Day-Way’? Because ‘day’ in Damian and the ‘way’ in Wayne.”

“Day-Way, Daway, D-Way- no. Dwight.”

Steph was howling with laughter now.

[hoseoksluna]

— WIP 𐙚 part 4 of wine

pairing: fuck buddy!jungkook x f. reader

about: the first time jungkook owns oc’s orgasm

word count: 0.417

note: because i started writing part four so late in the week (friday and i barely had time during this weekend to write) due to the fact i struggled hard, here i give you at least a little something on updating day. im really sorry its not the full thing yet, but i promise i'm working hard and i'll post it for you sometime next week. i'm really excited about what i've written and i can't wait to show you. please enjoy the little excerpt && keep your fingers crossed for me. love you all <;3

side note: happy belated birthday to my husband yoongi, the poetry to my words, the sanity to my mind. my anchor, my everything. i miss him terribly and i love him.

warnings: clit rubbing, shyness, riding fingers, jungkook penetrates her mid-climax and has a very tender reason for it

𐙚

He moans onto your neck, nose tracing the column on its way to your ear.  “How do you touch yourself?” 

A sudden shyness overtakes you and you turn your head, needing to hide in his neck this time. You remain silent, the words lodged in your throat. 

Jungkook sees you. 

“Do you rub your little clit from side to side or in circles?” he questions, helping you answer. 

“I—I like both,” you whisper onto his skin, moving your hips so his fingers slip to your clit, the sweet spot where you need him the most. He grabs the back of your thigh and lifts it, spreading you open, meanwhile you chase the firmness of his fingers.  

“Just like that, ride them,” he husks, eyes dazed, fixed on the roll of your pelvis. “Feels good, doesn’t it?” 

Head on top of yours, you nod, never ceasing your movement, transfixed, just like him, by the constant way the pads of his fingers fondle your clit before dipping between your lips. The heat of the summer tightens in your lower belly and it’s a desperate litany of begging what your mouth utters, despite the fact you’re really not sure what you’re asking for, but you let him hear it. You’re close, so unbelievably close, yet still have a road to walk on before you, and you close your eyes to feel the delight of his touch more deeply, only to find that you manage to do nothing of the kind. 

When you sense his eyes on you and by instinct you reciprocate his stare, that’s when you feel the depth you sought after. Mouth parted, pupils dilated, eyelashes a drowsy catastrophe, messy hair casting a soft shadow over the planes of his blissed-out face. You want to kiss him. You want to make him feel as good as he’s making you feel—

“Let me do it now,” Jungkook says hurriedly, sensing the nearness of your climax.

“Yes,” you croak out, halting the movement of your hips—and ‘yes’ is the word that ripples out of your mouth a hundred, a thousand more times when he spreads you wider and rubs his fingers on your clit from side to side. 

He feels the pleasure in sync with you, accepting all of your yes’, twisting his face the moment yours does, quickening the rapidness of his hand once he switches to circles to carry you to your summer-breathed paradise. 

And when you come all over his hand, he slips two fingers inside your hole.