#Dr. Terrible’s House of Horrible

[transgendz]

I live with two roommates, one of whom has cancer and an appt with a surgeon today, and the other one and I have been too sick to leave the house for about a week now. Covid tests have been negative. Ig it's the flu, but also our tests are old and getting seen by a Dr is out of budget rn so who knows.

I messed up and paid my storage bill when I needed to pay my phone bill first, the storage could've waited but now I am $100 short on a very urgent phone bill, made more urgent by the fact that I need my line available for surgery related calls soon.

Dm me for proof or details. Anything extra received will go to maintaining the current nightmare. More details on our situation below the cut.

V--$C--kofi

$0/$100

My roommate has to fly across the country and back this past month for treatment she was denied here, and she's only back now because her surgery got denied by insurance up there. She's getting surgery here, and maybe needing to go back up there after, we domt know yet.

We were all immunocompromised to start with, so this whole cancer and also getting sick thing is really bad and had been terrible timing. It feels like it happened as I started to make more money and get us stable. It's been right back to just barely getting by and I am very much at my fucking limit.

Neither of my roommates are able to work right now, my job has been slow just really horribly slow all through the holidays. And I've not been able to work this week because I've been too sick to do quality work, which Will get me fired, whereas time off Won't but doesn't pay. The only reason we have been eating is because of someone bringing by food consistently in appreciation of some community work I've been doing for them that got more complicated than anticipated.

[katakaluptastrophy]

Masterpost of TLT metas

This is mostly for my own reference, as tagging doesn't seem to guarantee something being findable on Tumblr...but if you like wildly overthinking lesbian necromancers in space, enjoy!

Overthinking the Fifth House:

What is a "Speaker to the Dead"?

Actually, Magnus Quinn isn't terrible at sword fighting

Imperial complicity: Abigail the First

Pyschopomp: Abigail Pent and Hecate

Did Teacher conspire with Cytherea to kill the Fifth?

What does the Fifth House actually do?

The Fourth and the Fifth can never just be family

Cytherea's political observations at the anniversary dinner

Abigail Pent's affect: ghosts and autism

Were the Fourth wards of the Fifth?

Abigail probably knew most of the scions as children

Magnus Quinn's very understandable anger

Fifth House necromancy is not neat and tidy

Are Abigail and Magnus an exception to the exploitative nature of cavaliership?

"Abigail Pent literally brought her husband and look where that got her" (the Fifth in TUG)

The Fifth's relationship dynamic

The Fifth's relationship is unconventional in a number of ways

The queer-coding of Abigail and Magnus' relationship

Abigail and Palamedes, and knowing in the River

Was Isaac the ward of the Fifth?

Did Magnus manage to draw his sword before Cytherea killed him? (and why he probably had to watch his wife die)

How did Abigail know she was murdered by a Lyctor?

Fifth House necromancy is straight out of the Odyssey

The politics of the anniversary dinner

Was Magnus born outside of the Dominicus system?

Overthinking John Gaius:

The one time John was happy was playing Jesus

Is Alecto's body made from John's?

Are there atheists in the Nine Houses?

Why isn't John's daughter a necromancer?

The horrors of love go both ways: why John could have asked Alecto 'what have you done to me?'

Why M- may have really hoped John was on drugs

What is it with guys called Jo(h)n and getting disintegrated? (John and Dr Manhattan)

John's conference call with his CIA handlers

Watching your friend turn into an eldritch horror

Why does G1deon look so weird? (Jod regrew him from an arm)

When is a friendship bracelet not a friendship bracelet?

Why did John have G1deon hunt Harrow? (with bonus update)

The 'indelible' sin of Lyctorhood and John's shoddy plagiarism of Catholicism

Are John Gaius and Abigail Pent so different?

What was Jod's plan at Canaan House?

John and Ianthe tread the Eightfold path

The Mithraeum is more than a joke about cows

When was John Gaius born? (And another)

John Gaius and the tragic Orestes

John and Jesus writing sins in the sand

John and Nona's echoing chapters

John's motivations

Overthinking the Nine Houses:

'No retainers, no attendants, no domestics'

Funerary customs and the violence of John's silence

Juno Zeta and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad time

The horror of the River bubble

Every instance of 'is this how it happens' in HTN

Feudalism is still shitty even if you make it queer and sex positive

How do stele work?

Thought crime in the Nine Houses

The Houses have a population the size of Canada

What must it be like to fight the Houses?

You know what can't have been fun? Merv wing's megatruck on Varun day...

Augustine's very Catholic hobby (decorating skeletons)

Necromancers are not thin in a conventionally attractive way

Matching the Houses with the planets of the solar system

Why don't the Nine Houses have (consistent) vaccination or varifocals?

How would the Houses react to the deaths at Canaan House?

How does Wake understand her own name (languages over 10,000 years)

What pre-resurrection texts are known in the Houses?

Camilla and Palamedes very Platonic relationship

The horrors the Cohort found at Canaan House

Do the Houses understand the tech keeping them alive?

Overthinking House religion:

What do the Houses believe about death?

Was M's nun a Franciscan?

Cavaliership and arbitrary socio-religious structures

Ritual scarification

Sacraments and sacramentals

What did Silas think god wanted at Canaan House?

In defense of Silas

There's no such thing as a 'good' necro/cav relationship

Veiling and shaving in Ninth House cult practice

Tongue-in-cheek thoughts on Eighth and Sixth religion

A very long deep-dive on House belief and practice

Overthinking Harrowhark Nonagesimus:

'The meat of your meat...belonged to god' and 'that is how meat loves meat'

The horror of parental touch: Harrow, John Gaius, and Abigail Pent

Why is Harrow so obsessed with Abigail's hands?

Frontline Titties of the Fifth and transgressive necro/cav relationships

Harrow, Wake, and permeability of the soul in HTN

Bible studies for weird queer necromancers:

Epiphany: revealing god's child to the wider world

The Holy Innocents and the creche massacre

The Virgin Mary and Commander Wake

John Gaius and John the Baptist

Instantiating the Trinity and the Second Resurrection

What's the significance of Paul?

St Paul's theology of gender and sexuality and the House theology of cavaliership

Maundy Thursday: consuming another for eternal life

Harrow and the Harrowing of Hell

[silens-oro]

You Know Where You Are: Part II

Not all fics have adult content, but this blog is 18+. Dr. Michael "Robby" Robinavitch x f!Musician!Reader Angst/Established Relationship Part I | Part III

The Pitt Playlist located here The Pitt Masterlist

Synopsis: Dr. Robby's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Morning bleeds into an Even Worse Afternoon. Word Count: 3,579 Content Warning: Reader is in her 30's; mass shooting; death; blood; gunshot injuries; angst - if I've missed any, please let me know. A/N: Just know my rubbing my lil fly hands together nefariously. Thank you for all of the love on the first part!

Robby was relatively good at schooling his emotions at work, locking them away so as to not let them cloud his judgement when dealing with patients. They deserved his full attention, no matter who they were. The med students and residents deserved to learn from him in an appropriate setting. That’s not to say that Dana didn’t clock the black cloud that clung to him the second he walked into the ED, because that’s exactly what she did. That and she knew Robby like the back of her hand.

“Good morning. Surprised to see you today,” Dana greeted, a knowing smile gracing her features. Robby just grunted his greeting, confirming her suspicions. “Hate to make your questionable morning worse, but Gloria is looking for you.” 

He couldn’t wait for this day to end.

The cold water from the bathroom sink hit Robby’s face with a jolt. He brought another handful up to follow the first for good measure. This day just kept derailing in one way or another -more than an ED usually derails in a day. He dried his face and pulled his phone out.

He sent you a text just after Jake came to pick up the backstage passes from him and sighed when he saw the ‘Read 11:26 AM’ under his message, then looked at the clock -12:51 PM. You were busy, he told himself. He was lying to himself, but with the day that he already had, it was the only thing allowing him to tread water.  

Between the fight with you, the anniversary of losing Adamson, the patients lost, and the hysterical families he’s dealt with today -add on the possibility of a future school shooter on the loose, Robby was heavily regretting his stupid decision to ask for this shift. 

And it was only one in the afternoon. 

This was his punishment from the universe. 

“You good?” Dana had asked as Robby stopped across from her at the nurses station and set down a tablet. He had pushed his glasses up to squeeze the bridge of his nose, scrunching his eyes closed. Try as he might, he couldn’t stop the migraine that was edging at the corners of his eyes. Robby let out the deepest sigh before letting his glasses fall back down. 

“Define good.” His face was still pinched as he looked down to Dana.

“That bad?”

“You don’t know half of it.” Dana walked around the station and gently grabbed Robby’s arm to lead him to the breakroom. 

“Perlah, can you handle this for a few? I’ll be right back.” Perlah nodded as Princess tried not to obviously crane her neck behind Perlah to listen in as well.

“I don’t know what he did, but I’m on her side.” Princess said to Perlah in Tagalong, referring to you. Perlah nodded with an “mhm” before going back to her computer. 

“This have anything to do with why you’re here and not at PittFest?” Dana asked with an eyebrow raised as they got to the breakroom. She closed the door as Robby leaned against the counter, arms crossed, and guarded. Dana came to stand next to him, busying herself with making two cups of coffee to give him room. He’d open up if she did this right, otherwise she’d be adding to the natural disaster of a cloud that followed him during their shift and that’s the opposite of what she wanted to do. They still had four hours of their left before they could call it quits and he needed to let some of that steam out before whatever was inside boiled over.  

The last time you spoke to Dana over coffee, you told her how excited you were to get Mike out of the house -out of the hospital. She couldn’t agree with you more that the man needed a break. Robby needed to experience things that weren’t the ED and anything within a five block radius of the hospital. Sure you got him out of the house on the occasion that he was up for going somewhere further, but he needed joy, and hanging with you and Jake outside in the sun, fresh air, music and food would do just that. That was the plan, anyway. Dana just needed to piece together where the plan that was set in stone went sideways.

Robby pins Dana with a look and she knows she’s at least hit that nail on the head.

“What happened?” She asked softly, leaving the question open so Robby could respond in a way that didn’t corner him. Placing the cup of coffee she made for him on the counter, she held hers nestled between both of her hands. 

“I happened.” He rubbed his face with both hands. “I didn’t tell her I wasn’t going until this morning.”

“Robby!” Dana whispered the exclamation, eyes wide. He held up a hand.

“I know, believe me, I know. It was stupid.”  

“Stupid is an understatement, doc. Listen, I know why you did it. I get it. Today is heavy -emotionally and mentally. You need to stay busy and any downtime leaves room for too much thinking. Working does that for you.”

“Yeah.” Robby sighed, tapping his fingers on the counter. At least his arms had left their defensive position crossed over his chest. That was a win in Dana’s book. 

“But that doesn't mean it’s right. You can’t hide yourself away here when you’re going through something, Robby, not when you have someone who is willing to shoulder that burden with you.” Dana corrected him gently, placing her hand over his bicep. The worst part about this conversation was that Robby knew Dana was right. He knew he went about this the wrong way entirely, but he can’t seem to get out of his own goddamn way sometimes. You would’ve understood, even encouraged him to do what he needed to- “Communication is important, you know this. It’s nothing I haven’t said to you before.” Dana finished softly. Goddamn communication. If only it was that easy, that simple. 

“God, you’d think I’d understand that by now.” He chuckled sardonically. 

“There’s always time to learn.” She encouraged Robby. “She loves you -I know that for a fact. Reach out, leave the ball in her court. Let her know you understand.” He was already ahead of her on that suggestion, and it felt like he was stranded at sea with a single life preserver and no rescue ship in sight. 

“No luck?” Dana asked when she saw Robby looking down at his cell in the few spare minutes he had just after a particularly unruly patient in South 15. He shook his head and pocketed it, departing to meet Langdon so Dana couldn’t dig further. She meant well, but it was starting to grate on his nerves and the last thing he wanted to do was snap at Dana. Because that would be the last thing he ever did once she got through with him. 

Robby had been off and everyone who worked with him on the daily took notice -outside of Dana who clocked him the second he came through the doors. The glances from the residents and nurses said as much. The new interns and residents didn’t know anything was off until Whitaker overheard Langdon talking to Mohan about it. Gossip spread like the wildfire in the ED. The second it was out, there was no reeling it back in. 

Robby knew he was cutting it close, that your band’s set was scheduled for a 5 PM start, but he texts you again around 4 PM to ask you to please call him when you had a few minutes -that he loved you and just needed to talk. You replied with a simple ‘busy’ and that was somehow worse than no response at all. Robby knew he was in the doghouse when they both got home -if you even decided to come back to his place that night. “You know what, Mike…probably not” Robby winced at the memory and carried on with his neverending shift. 

The exasperation that laced your voice and the frustration that shined in your eyes this morning made Robby bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself present. He would apologize, genuinely -profusely-, when you decided to speak to him again. He would listen. He would communicate. He couldn’t risk this driving a wedge between you like it had in his past relationships. He’d fix this. This was fixable, he told himself. He didn’t want to think of the alternative. That was the last thing he needed after the day he had, but he knew he was an asshole and you were generally too understanding of him and his quirks -today notwithstanding. 

At the 5:15 PM mark, he got a facetime call from Jake. Excusing himself from South 10, leaving the patient in Mohan’s hands, he quickly stepped into a more quiet hallway to answer. A smile lifted his lips for the first time all day when Jake’s beaming face came onto the screen.

“Robby!” Jake shouted over the festival noise.

“Hey, bud!” All of Robby’s emotions nearly broke through the dam he crafted at the beginning of the shift.

“Me and Leah just wanted to say thank you for the passes!” The phone panned down to a young blonde next to Jake. She beamed up at him, then down to the phone. 

“Thank you so much, Robby! This is incredible!” The phone twisted back up to Jake’s face. 

“You’re coming with us next time, Robby! This is insane! Look at this view,” Jake flipped the camera to capture what he saw from the back lens. Jake was backstage facing the crowd. You were the first thing Robby saw. He recognized the song and could hear the crowd singing along to it as you moved across the stage. 

Robby’s heart clenched. Seeing you in your element was mesmerizing no matter how many times he had seen it before. He met you well after your career was established, but he still felt pride nonetheless. You were successful, humble, and grateful above all else to do what you loved -and to make a generous living on top of it. 

You toured the world, saw everything there was to see, and sometimes Robby felt like an anchor in the worst way. It felt almost like an insecurity that he wouldn’t be the person to experience those things with you, but he had been warned before you both decided to try your unorthodox relationship out -just as you had been warned about his profession and what that entailed.

This was the first time in Robby’s life that he had ever been in a relationship with someone who had an equally, if not more demanding job when it came to sacrificing time at home. It worked for you both so far, to the surprise of everyone. 

Your band had taken this year off from touring to write and record a new album, and you had a tour across North America scheduled for the following spring once the album was released in February of next year. The thought of not seeing you for months at a time was anxiety inducing, he would admit. The last time you left was on a 3 month tour through Europe and Asia, and Robby didn’t realize he could miss someone as much as he missed you. 

On the flipside, you hadn’t ever had a partner who wasn’t in the industry, so leaving him behind was brutal in its own way knowing he couldn’t just hop on a plane to meet you for a few stops. You got homesick when you never got homesick before meeting Robby. He had become your home in the last three years and it was a welcomed adjustment. 

This year was a nice cushion of time to relax and play solitary shows at local festivals or secret shows in smaller venues around Pittsburgh and occasionally Philly. Sometimes Robby made it to them, sometimes he didn’t. Some of Robby’s coworkers that you had met would show after you’d extended an invitation to any of your home shows. Dana and her husband, surprisingly, were the first to take up the offer. No one in the ED would believe you when you said she was wild on a night out, her husband encouraging her to let loose. After that, you and Dana had been two peas in a pod. Langdon still could not believe that Robby was dating an actual rockstar and was a little starstruck every time you showed up. 

That being said, you had been home more often than Robby was as of recent (whether you both landed at your place or his) and you never complained about anything really. You were just happy with the time you got with Robby and you spent every second you were afforded with him together. You rolled with whatever each day brought you and it was a breath of fresh air for Robby. He didn’t have to walk on eggshells when things didn’t go as planned and maybe he had gotten too comfortable with that. 

Robby was going to be sick -physically, viscerally, all-consumingly ill. There’s an active shooter at PittFest -Robby could have collapsed in that ambulance bay the second those words left Dana’s mouth as his work phone beeped in unison with hers. He wasn’t afforded even a second to panic before he had to shift to Dr. Robby and get all hands on deck to prep the ED for what was sure to be a mass casualty event. 

Robby called Jake, then texted Jake, then called him again, then moved on to calling and texting you, begging both of you to contact him in any way you could to make sure you Jake was okay -that you were okay.

5:46 PM, you were supposed to be on stage until 6 -Robby made a mental note. He prayed to whoever was listening -if anyone was listening- that the three of you got to safety. He nearly loses it when he sees Jack walk through the doors with his backpack in tow, ready to take on whatever this event brought through their doors. 

Dana was on a rotating call between your phone and Jake’s to try to get through to either of you as she prepped the nurses, and every time Robby asked her if she had gotten through, it broke a piece of her soul when she had to shake her head. 

You were fine. Jake was fine. Those were the words repeating in his brain over and over as triaged patients started to flood the ED. These people needed him and they needed him present, so he shut himself down emotionally and did what he knew how to do -he gave the best possible care under the current circumstances.

It was a lull in between songs while you were talking to the crowd when you saw an unusual scatter of patrons in the back cluster of people on the east side of the festival. You pulled out your ear monitors and heard screaming -blood curdling screaming, not the type of screaming from a normal crowd. In a split second, Nick -your guitarist and lifelong friend- collapsed to the floor of the stage, the guitar emitting a horrific feedback over the amps. Gasps and screams erupted from the crowd and mass panic set in. People started trampling each other as shots started ringing out. 

Your first instinct was to drop the mic and run over to Nick and that’s exactly what you did. The people stuck at the barricade were horrified and scared beyond belief because they were pinned in the crowd with nowhere to go as people dropped like flies. Blood pooled around Nick where he lay crumpled when you reached him.

Then you felt it. The sheer power was enough to knock you off your feet and you heard your name as you tried to crawl to safety. Fire radiated through your torso as you tried to lift yourself enough to move, but when you tried to pull yourself forward, your hand slipped in the blood on the stage that was leaking from somewhere on your body. Every instinct in your brain shut off with the exception of fleeing. Your brain screamed at you, begged you to go, go, go somewhere, anywhere, but your brain and your body could not connect so you simply lay there on your stomach, your eyes catching the crowd dispersing in mass pandemonium, blood pooling around you just as it had with Nick with your last coherent thought being that of Jake. Was he safe? Losing Jake would kill Robby and you couldn’t protect him. 

Your hands were noticeably cold, your body shivering regardless of the end of summer heat. The warmth of your blood pooled against the side of your face that was resting against the stage felt warm, warmer than you did and it was oddly comforting. Buzzing from your back pocket kept you present, awake, and aware, but you couldn’t move -you could barely breathe. 

“Leah, stay!” Jake’s panicked voice cracked as he flipped you onto your back and grabbed one of your feet to try to pull you to the side of the stage. 

“I have her other leg, just pull-” Another shot and you heard someone drop. 

“Leah!” Matt, your bassist, and a couple of the roadies put themselves in danger to help Jake drag you and Leah off the stage while Casey, your drummer, pulled Nick off to the side.

“Pressure! Put pressure on them!” You screamed incoherently when someone pushed something onto your stomach -at least you thought it was your stomach- and pain radiated through every limb and up your neck shooting blinding white light through your brain. It was enough to leave you breathless, wheezing, and falling in and out of consciousness. 

“Help pick her up on my three -one, two, three,” Someone lifted you into their arms and you were moving. You didn’t recognize them, possibly one of the roadies who didn’t work with your band or possibly just a good samaritan, but his face blurred every time you tried to look at him. “Hey, hey, don’t close your eyes.” He said as he kept looking down between you and where he was going. “We’re getting you out of here, alright? Stay with me.” He tried to coax you, shaking you in his arms to keep you awake. You didn’t even realize your eyes had closed. Your head tilted back, resting against his arm as he ran with you.

The sky was clear, you noticed, clearer than it had been in the past couple of weeks. The periwinkles of dusk were settling into the violets of night and you were getting colder by the minute. 

“Jake,” You wheezed out, the teen coming to the forefront of your mind. You tried to move in the man’s arms, but he held tight. “Leah,” Your voice slurred.

“The kid is alright.” He reassured you, only half answering -not that you were coherent enough to notice. “Just hold on, alright?” The next thing you knew, you were pulled into the bed of a pickup truck. “We’re gonna sit you up, alright?” You grunted as your back hit the cab of the truck. “We need you up so you can keep track of Jake, right Jake? He needs you to talk to him, alright? Talk to him about anything, you hear me? Don’t stop talking. Keep pressure here,” Not questioning him, you nodded and held someone’s balled up shirt to your torso with the stranger’s help. You grasped his bloody hands with one of yours to stop him before he could take off.

“Thank…you.” He looked at you, an emotion you couldn’t pinpoint flooded into his eyes, and he nodded as he squeezed your hand. 

“Mac, ma’am. Wished we met under better circumstances.” You chuckled groggily. You gave him your name. “You got ‘em?” Mac asked Jake. Jake nodded and Mac smacked the side of the truck to let the driver know to get the hell out of there and to the nearest hospital. 

Once the truck got moving, things got incredibly fuzzy while it tore out of the lot of the backstage area. Jake called your name and your eyes refocused on him and Leah. He was covered in blood and holding another shirt over the wound on her chest. 

“I’m fine, Jake,” You wheezed out. “Focus on Leah. Is she talking? Are you okay?” 

“Yeah, she’s talking,” His eyes danced between you and Leah. “I’m fine.” 

“Good,” You nodded sloppily, “Good. Focus on her. I’m alright,” You tried to reassure the kid, but you could see that he did not believe you. You blinked and felt someone hitting your foot.

“Keep your eyes open,” Jake demanded. Your eyes felt like they were filled with sand, weights pulling each one down further and further. Your skin was losing its color, the tone turning gray as each minute ticked by.  

“Just blinking, kid.” Your eyes were closed much longer than a blink and Leah’s speech was starting to slur as she looked up at him. He finally let his tears fall, his lips quivering in pure helplessness as it engulfed him when your head started to nod to the left. Jake’s voice sounded like it was under a tidal wave when he said your name again before you were out.

Please reblog, like, and/or leave comments :)

[hometoursandotherstuff]

The last time I posted a cave house blasted thru a mountainside, it was ugly, unfinished, and expensive. This 2004 build in Festus, MO is modern, pretty nice, and only $282,500 for the 3bd, 1.5ba, 8,000 sq ft, (it's big!) single family home. It hasn't sold and has been removed from the market. Apparently, it was re-opened as an Airbnb and a venue called "Caveland" in Feb. 2024 but it failed.

And, this is what it originally looked like when it was a roller skating rink and the current owner bought it.

He put on the new facade and turned it into a home for the Airbnb part. It even has a 2nd fl. terrace.

And, look at how it lights up, too. This is a cool home for the price. Really.

The back chamber of the cave holds a 200-foot-long concrete rink surface. During the rink’s heyday, there were wooden guard rails along the walls and a stage at the far end, against the back wall of the cave. The stage is still there.

So, then they tried to sell it as a home. It's actually not bad for the price.

They decorated it for Xmas b/c they had a Xmas party and a raffle- the winner won a weekend stay in the house.

From the main living area on the first floor you can see the mezzanine.

It looks beautiful like this. They should re-list it with these photos and it might just sell.

I'd buy it.

This is cool- you can see the dynamite lines where they blasted the cave open.

The photographer took terrible photos, though.

I guess this is supposed to be the primary bedroom and ensuite.

One of the other bedrooms. These photos are much better.

Somewhere up on the mezzanine?

Those old listing photos are horrible. They have to go. This is lovely.

This is where the 8,000 sq ft come in. It's the now-defunct Caveland. All the furniture and equipment are piled up and stored here.

How Caveland looked- the food court is still here. And, you can see the unused vending machines and equipment in the above photo.

Look at this, though. They opened it for a Xmas celebration for family and friends.

They decorated it for the party.

There's the stage.

Tons of space.

2.91 acres.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/215-Cave-Dr-Festus-MO-63028/89064538_zpid/

[tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors]

you mentioned in the tags of that burnout post that its been 6 years and you still havent gotten to everything you wanted to in laoft, just out of curiosity are there any fics youve had in mind since the beginning/early on that youre still planning on writing but havent yet?

mostly prequels ive referenced but never gotten around to actually writing

the time as young teens/middle schoolers roman fell out of tree, hit his head and lost consciousness and logan had a week-long catastrophic meltdown about it (this is titled 'logan and the terrible horrible no good very bad week' in my documents)

a fic about very early LAMP dealing with/talking out romans habit of agreeing to or initiating things he doesnt actually want to do in order to protect himself from anything he perceives as them being mad at him

midquel during what you choose to put in the ground, were patton and logan discuss roman the day after meeting him and whether or not theyre going to try and be his friend

Virgil misunderstanding a human cultural thing because of movies/tv and assuming its like, Legally Required Of Him to ask permission of LMPs parents to marry them, so he goes to shelley first sweating bullets and shelleys like 'oh sweetheart' and we get a little bonding moment for them

more companions to Wit where i show all of the lamp combos moment of Realization when they fall in love

silly tea leaf reading fic that been languishing 3 sentences long for like 5 years

may and night!roman the first time she teaches him magic

logans flower shop opening

death threat jar.... TWO

gc goes camping

may and roman visiting abby's grave when he's a kid (9-10) and him feeling conflicted about it because he doesnt remember her/worrying he doesnt love her 'enough'

a more bittersweet companion to Requiem with Linda and Remus and their families

i really want to do more guidebook entries but i got a new computer and lost my copy of clipstudio and cant figure out how to get it back XD so i have to wait until i figure that out or buy a new copy

May + virgil hurt/comfort reminiscing about Greta and Trudi.

Dot and Larry romance fic featuring alternating cheerleader and heckler abby

analogical word association games (analogical because logan has a ginormous vocabulay and virgil is hundreds of years old, so the goal winds up being trying to say a word the other doesnt know or doesnt know enough words to play off of)

We've had badass protective LAM but i have one for Patton thats languishing as well

Virgil stumbling up on the Gage's hunting blind, which used to be Greta and Toby's house and is now derelict

fae specific idioms vs wickhills specific idioms

fire poker drama with roman and dot - he finds out about it and is uuuuuh. unhappy, to say the least

roman doing knot/weaving/braiding magic like his mom on his and linda's hair

a day in the life of dr. emile picani the only psychotherapist in a town full of magically traumatized people only he is qualified to treat (AKA So Much Pressure)

Dot and Larry with a very young Logan realizing that they have a child who physically can't lie and that it would therefore be extremely easy for them to violate his boundaries and privacy without even meaning to, and them talking about how to handle that

theres other stuff in the someday file, but these are the once ive had from or almost from the start

[darkcollectornerd]

Poll: Your favourite of these dark UK comedy shows?

I would have included Snuff Box too. But as we know only 12 choices are allowed. 😔

[thechy-fychannel]

researching (i gained research skills thru studying history at university, sue me) medical homophobia. Will send another ask later about hilson Repression and That. Terrible horrible depressing yet fascinating.

Anways, brain rotted with house md dr house,

I only recently discovered the popular Artic Monkeys song Do I Wanna Know? And the sad horny-romantic-depression haunts me. I found it out only recently via the much more hopeful Hozier cover of the same song. Totally different vibes but im focusing on the original and trying to organise my thoughts a little.

Great song, very emotion, my brain drifts to a sad house pining for like, romance and intimacy (with wilson, or anyone really. Bro is not good with letting himself do feelings, especailly with other people involved) and not really getting it or letting himself pine or like, fantasise in a non-loathing way.

What's cool/interesting about house is that he like, likes intimacy and romance as well as sex, but he doesn't let himself have the former. The latter we see all the time. All. The. Time. (Sexual harassment cringe, makes me pause the episode and cringe and groan in annoyance. Love house md but holy fucking shit)

Anyways, he's like that image. Two figures from the shoulders up, one is blushing and red and sweating, and thinking about hand holding and romance. The other figure has a chill, normal expression on their face and is thinking of blured out, obviously nsfw things. Thats house

(I also hc him as bi cause i hc characters i like as bi (im bi) but also that scene w/ that patiwnt and 13 being like "I'm as straight as any of you" and it changing to a confused 13 and house. Lol)

this + existing and growing up in a way more homophohic society than today + parental abuse fucks you up man.

I want to bundle house's bum leg in bubble wrap then shove him in a giant paint can mixing machine. Strange interesting "gentle"man

I leave you with that angst idea: pining while hating yourself for it, but in that special House way. Can work with any ship, but i like to imagine Hilson.

Oof oof owie my heart

-ramble anon

hi ramble anon! so sorry I forgot to answer this! I just got your other ask and then remembered this was in my ask box from last week and I never answered it eeekk!! I love your asks bc it rly feels like what is going on inside my head at any given time. Just. Rambling and rotating thoughts of those annoying old men in my mind alfklskf.

I loveeee that you brought up Do I Wanna Know by the Arctic Monkeys! I LOVE that song and I feel like it is a great song for House. Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High is another good one that fits him. I love the overall vibe of their music and I can definitely imagine house drunkenly sulking around and that song playing.

You made really great points about his issues with intimacy vs sex. I think about that allll the time and the way he removes all intimacy from sex by only sleeping with hookers so it's transactional rather than emotional. If he has sex with someone he actually likes, it's almost painfully intimate for him. Ie: having sex with Lydia in s6 and we literally see him in tears and when we see him and Cuddy stripping and kissing before they have sex it's so extremely intimate that it's heart wrenching, especially with the kissing his scar part.

I think there is some very interesting juxtaposition between the way House separates sex and intimacy and the way Wilson can't. Wilson is known for being a serial adulterer and there's this theme of "it always comes down to sex" when he's dealing with his marriage. But for Wilson, I think it's much less about the sex part and much more about the intimacy part. My main reasons for this is when House is giving Wilson a hard time about "looking pretty" at work (bc house thinks he's having an affair) House says "I'm sorry, I know you love your wife. You probably also loved all the women who weren't your wife." And then there's also the scene where Wilson is talking to Cameron about the emotional affair she had with her dead husband's best friend, Wilson says "I met someone who made me feel...funny." That was his reason for cheating. Not for the sex, for the way she (or he— very interesting to me that they went with "someone who made me feel funny" instead of "she made me feel funny") made him feel.

They both have some rly messed up feelings around sex and intimacy and I wish I could crack open their heads and see what's going on in there. (Lovingly ofc)

"Pining but hating yourself for it. But in that special House way" that's it, that's the show 😭😭😭 I love that so much and it makes me think of when House was working with Lucas in s5 to spy on Wilson and Lucas says "You want to know if he's pining [the way you are]" and House looks down and nods bc he just wants to know that Wilson is pining for him the way House was pining for him 😭❤️

[emblemxeno]

I saw this insane post on Twitter. Like is it weird that I think this post is weird?

https://x.com/VestraEnjoyer/status/1901785482691752126

As a disclaimer, I don't like posting directly about/to Twitter links because it's the same thing that's been done to me when a certain someone kept Tweeting screenshots of my Tumblr posts. I hope this isn't harsh, but (and I'm speaking to everyone who follows me) I'd prefer to not have links to anyone's specific account like this in the future, especially since I'm not on Twitter anymore anyway.

But yes, this take is deranged. Edelgard is not equivalent to civil rights activists, nor is Rhea and the church equivalent to Jim Crow era American political leaders.

Instead of minding her business, Edelgard decided to launch an entire imperialistic war to "correct" the "faulty nations" that "were under control of the church" (ignore how the Alliance and the Empire don't have church influence by her era whatsoever pls). She is not at all like the average Black person during Jim Crow, she is a princess-turned-emperor using her militaristic and political power to wage war on independent nations to enforce her views on an entire continent. Her motives are also not justified either, since meritocratic governance (aside from being a naive and delusional pipe dream that depends on every person not being discriminatory ever, which is impossible) is a CAPITALIST mindset, something that leaders like Dr. King and Malcolm X are, at best, vehemently opposed to.

This also is a fault of Three Houses' shitty writing too, since the first instances of "Church corruption and Crest abuse" is:

-the archbishop targeted for assassination by a team up between a deranged noble taking revenge for his son who tried to kill said archbishop and got caught (and the noble is willing to kill his adoptive son just to get to his target), and a subsect of the church who want to kill the archbishop because she's *NOT* racist enough

-a deposed former rich kid who abused his little brother until he was disinherited, and then became a criminal who burned towns, looted homes and kidnapped women.

IMO, Dimitri's "both sides" take *does* suck, but in the opposite direction, because it gives validity to objectively horrible people doing objectively horrible things, all because "oh but they were oppressed and hurt once :(((", ignoring the fact that for those specific instances, it doesn't matter systemically what fucked them up, they're doing shitty things that hurt a lot of people NOW.

Miklan and Lonato, of course, aren't equivalent to MLK or other civil rights activists either, because civil rights activists never initiated violence nor had any social/economic/political capital as a privilege to risk. They existed in a system that treated their very beings and bodies as criminal and violent, and rightfullu and righteously defended themselves in the name of justice and humanization. They also never risked putting their crosshairs on innocent, unrelated people, unlike the "victims of the system" in Three Houses.

TL;DR Edelgard is a privileged, naive idiot who started a militaristic war to correct and erase foreign nations, works with terrorists to do so, and the major canon/unavoidable examples that she uses to justify herself in 3H's story are two other objectively terrible groups. She is not a revolitionary, and she never will be, since royalty (no matter how sad the backstory) can never be revolutionaries by principle, and certainly not through the actions she takes.

[velvetjune]

replayed The Lake House dlc, so more of my thoughts under spoilers! (This is long)

I cannot believe how many things I missed during the first run of this game:

1. The whiteboard of the AI Alan Wake manuscript pages produced with evaluations. One repeating the word “scream” for half of a page gets praise for its wording and tone. “Pistol looked at flashlight in shock.” It must’ve been so much fun for the writers to make up all of these.

2. Jules Marmont has extra footage directly after the Dr. Darling video on the second floor if you go back. I don’t know what exactly triggers this video, but it was when I was doubling back to get the black rock weapon.

3. The research archives appear normally from above, then shift multiple times, before returning to normal (… as normal as the shelves infinitely repeating is). This happened in the first playthrough, but I was stressed over my survival and never noticed.

4. The research archives actually go through areas with different mediums/classifications. There’s tagged artifacts/photos, tapes, film, books, and it ends with paintings. It’s nothing mind bending, but the detail was nice to see.

5. Diana’s tape on the tortured artist and human experimentation. This, with Jules’ video, only added to their monstrosity.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Black Rock Launcher is used in a similar way in FBC Firebreak. It wouldn’t be the same, but this felt so much like a set up for the kind of strange and innovative tools that FBC employees experiment with, especially when trapped in a lockdown at the Oldest House with access to Black Rock Quarry. Maybe Emily can finally make her black rock knives!

It’s hard to not think of Alan and Alice when it comes to any other creative characters in relationships in this game and the hardships with balancing that sorta life. There’s the Bookers with Tammy, a successful true crime writer and attempted poet (!!!), and Ed, a playwright trying to get recognition and feel inspired. It feels right that he would end up taking Wake’s work to write the Marmonts (also with shades of Alan and Alice) into their own supernatural lakeside cabin, fit with a marriage that’s falling apart.

The actors for both Marmonts are incredible. They both perfectly portray their outrage, jealously, and stubbornness that’s consuming their relationship and work. This mad scientist drama could easily end up too cheesy, but they sell it. Love that these negative emotions and their attempt to enforce it on artists for their suffering lead to the crack in the lake house through them. There’s so many things to pick at in this dlc, whether for the relationships, work environments, ai, artists, etc.

Only for this bullet point, but Final Draft Spoilers: Diana thinking of Jules’ smile as her last moment before being taken, while Jules’ last moment (‘Breakthrough in the Lake House’ page) is feeling pride over his work…………

I want more office drama for horrible mad scientists for Control 2. Honestly I want anything Control 2

After briefly checking online, I’m proud of myself for quickly solving the calendar problems. I actually really liked this kind of simple task to find little clues and, by doing so, getting to know the people through their passwords. I’m terrible anything with puzzles, so very grateful to have this over something elaborate or. math.

The Dylan scene is also skippable, which is unthinkable (one of the best parts of the dlc!). There’s all this disgust and horror from Estevez towards the Marmonts’ control of the Lake House, only for it to reveal that Dylan was also trapped there and experimented on by Dr. Darling and the researchers there (all approved by Trench!). Estevez isn’t aware of this, but it was a cold reminder of how truly awful it was for Dylan and how fucked up Trench and Darling are for kidnapping a child…. And then abandoning him in a small prison cell.

The horror elements in this DLC were nice, although not extreme. Tbh I don’t consider any of Remedy’s games to be scary, even if they’re still horror, but this had good moments! The distortion of the environment and constant looping made me doubt myself. Jules’ death as a taken was violent (albeit obscured), to the level of Nightingale’s cult attack, if not worse. Loved the emotion from the Marmonts seeping into their taken personalities. Aw1 had more of this and it made the Taken far more upsetting and real.

Sometimes Alan is creepy and I enjoy seeing him through other characters’ eyes. Alan/the Dark Place manifesting manuscript pages that would perfectly dig under the Marmonts’ skins and infect them was unnerving and a little funny. shows they never had a chance. While it’s not physically like that, the words describing the Lake House slowly being sunken into Cauldron Lake and the water dripping in—Chef’s kiss

AWAN had a conversation between the scientist where she discussed fate and agency (…Alan’s indignation at her being remotely critical over her 😭 he’s such an asshole). It reminded me of Diana’s notes on whether Alan wrote and controlled her life. There’s some agency that Alan takes away just by guiding these events and trying to influence people through a story. How much is him actually controlling or changing things is another question, but having that kind of power is scary, especially from another’s POV (Saga, now Estevez and the Marmonts)

Estevez seeing Alan typing the later event of her meeting Saga and THIS being what led the FBC straight to her was a great scene of wrapping everything up. I liked the weird dark goo in the Dark Place. Fun stuff!

Poe <3 Loved this promo of her new song. 6 deep breaths coinciding with Estevez’ reassurance to herself, although the lyrics also could apply to others. Dylan trapped in his cage, yet able to connect to these worlds; Alan (+Alice) in the dark place, then post-game, ‘finding roads everywhere’. I’m playing the first Alan Wake, so the breathing made me immediately think of the deep breaths taken by Tom the Diver throughout that (+ the addition of another voice breathing near the end)

Clay Murphy wrote the screenplay to this and to Number One Fan (Night Springs), which means he might be the funniest person ever

[barschter000]

barok and 2, 9, and 25 for the character ask game :3

Yippie, I get to yap! Thank you :D!!

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

I love how self-sacrificial Barok is. It's tragic and terrible and I can't stop thinking about it because it says so much about how he sees himself. A vessel for "justice", for his brother, a tool protecting people who despise him and a scapegoat unworthy of justice for himself. He sees himself as so empty and devoid of value but is actually full of concern and care for others who won't (the people of London) or cannot (Klint) return his sentiment. He is so horrible to himself and he drives me so insane. Händel's He was despised is now playing in my head.

9. Could you be roommates with this character?

Ough, tough question... The problem is that 1) I have this weird thing where I am ashamed to face my favorite characters after I've become obsessed with them (one of the reasons why I haven't replayed TGAA yet and why I didn't replay Danganronpa for instance in my DR phase), so unless Barok was Just Some Guy at my uni and not Barok van Zieks from hit game The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles In Real Life, I would not be able to, and 2) I am not the greatest fan of People in My House... I already struggle sometimes with sharing the kitchen with the other students who live on my floor in my dorm, so I don't think I could share a whole apartment with someone whom I'm not very close to. But that's not exclusive to Barok. Ideally, if I had to be roommates with him, we'd barely talk to other and leave each other alone but still had a sort of mutual understanding where we'd go, "Hey man, I'm going to the opera, wanna come along?" "Oh sure," and nothing else.

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

I am very sorry to disappoint but I literally do not remember lmao. I played the game right after release in July 2021 during a time where Covid among other things had really fucked me up and I cannot remember much of that year in general. I didn't like him at first but I think (and hope) that's everyone's first impression of Barok because he does suck and is supposed to suck at the start. I got immediately attached to him after 2-3 though because I very easily fall for the "bad guy with a heart of gold" kinda trope. I needed some time to fully Get him consistently but I think now I have a pretty complete picture of him in my head (<- read: I have made up incredibly unnecessary details about him, my picture is more than complete.)

[themotherofhorses]

figures dancing gracefully (across my memory)

— simon "ghost" riley x oc!silentdove reyes.

setting: call of duty x marvel cinematic universe

summary: she’s much too damn young to be handling all of this trauma, this . . . baggage. everyone says that when they first meet her; nevertheless, Dove persists.

warnings: explicit language and mentions of previously experienced abuse (per the Red Room theme).

note: in conjunction with this specific post. the RedBack has been a personal OC WIP of mine for maybe four(ish) years. despite being an obvious OC-insert series, everyone is welcome to enjoy it.

It is snowing again. For the fifth night in a row. 

SilentDove tells herself that is why she cannot—for the ever life of her—find the comfort of sleep tonight; instead, she opts for a nice hot drink on the couch. Mint hot chocolate, to be exact, topped with four puffy white marshmallows. It tastes especially good with that particular combination. Natasha picked up a new packet of them the last time she went grocery shopping, saying something along the lines of how ‘every safe house needs to be well-stocked with good snacks!’

The black cat mug is cute too.

The truth is she cannot sleep — no matter how hard she tries, how absolutely fucking desperate she feels, or how many of those tiny blue melatonin pills she pops in her mouth. Nothing helps. God, it fucking sucks. 

Whenever she closes her eyes, the memory resurfaces. Empty, sometimes blurry, fuzzy, loud, absolutely unbearable, but at most times very specific childhood memories. 

Ballet. 

Schooling. 

Harsh, overwhelming, hardhearted training — the sort where you snap a poor sister’s neck within the first few hours of the morning before sinking to your feet to tend to an (almost) fractured ankle in the evening, swollen and bruised and agonizing to step on. Or sit at a school desk, dressed in a freshly-steamed schoolgirl uniform, forced to recite some classic Disney movie word-for-word….or until you are told to stop. 

(It is hell on Earth, hidden in Russia.) 

“Again.” 

She can still hear the coach, voice tinny, instructing them to repeat the dance. Again. Again. Again. That is perhaps one of the worst memories, in her opinion. Somewhere in the middle, or maybe towards the end, a dancer messed up and he noticed. That is not good, child, nor it is allowed to happen. Seated on the pretty polished floors are the baby spiders —the маленькие пауoки—watching every detail with big and hungry eyes.

No, the маленькие пауoки must never be introduced to such sloppiness, not at this age.

The Bolshoi Theatre demands only the finest ballerinas — girls that are light on their toes, beautiful in their face, with potential for stardom.

Dove takes another sip of her hot chocolate while remembering . . . remembering . . . remembering . . . dancing, dancing, dancing, again and again; all while ignoring the terrible ache burning through her poor feet, flaring up near the bone of her big toe before shooting up to her ankle, and the large soldier fixated near the door. 

(The thing about the soldier was that he never made a sound. Precise strikes, fatal slashes, heavy exhalation through his ebony mask he always wore, but never a sound from his mouth . . . if he even had one.)

From where she is hunkered down in her father’s ranchhouse, propped up against comfy pillows, she flattens both legs before gazing down at her feet. A beat. Then she curls her toes before wiggling them. Her nose scrunches. They’re horribly disfigured and knobby — and ugly if she is honest with herself. 

Bless her soul, Natasha had given her some of that fancy, high-tech medical cream (courtesy of Dr. Helen Cho); a week later, her toes are slowly beginning to appear better. Or, maybe, just normal, like how a young woman’s foot is supposed to look.

Her toenails are painted a soft white, much like the snow blanketing the Montanan plains; it makes her smile a little (she once heard that the color “white” represents a mix of purity, cleanliness, and freshness. Rebirth, the fourth word might’ve been. Well, that and the nail polish was displayed too prettily at the store to overlook, discounted too, and never before had she the privilege of painting her nails).

Dove wiggles her big toe again; beneath it, along the stretch of her right foot, is a long stripe of scar tissue. As much as she dreams, it will never fade away, regardless of the scrubbing in the shower or pretending it does not exist or using those fancy Stark creams.

One of the many scars from the Red Room.

She’s much too damn young to be handling all of this trauma, this . . . baggage. Everyone says that when they first meet her; nevertheless, Dove persists. Natasha knows that certain feeling all too well, and Yelena too. They are in the same busted-up boat, drifting down the same river.

However, the therapy sessions they both suggested are good — incredible, even; they allow her to voice her most inner and brutal thoughts while patching together bits and pieces of a long-forgotten identity. She was a ballerina, Dove tells herself; she had to have been one — there was the Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and A Midsummer’s Night Dreams. 

Her pointe shoes were a pretty pastel blue, the sort of color belonging to the summertime sky, while her favorite leotard was a deep navy. Natasha wore the same during her time there, she thinks. And Yelena, too. Maybe even their mother, Melina.

(Melina cycled through the Red Room four times — Dove couldn’t even imagine how that could’ve felt.) 

The two women are her family. 

Family. Such a . . . distant concept to Dove. She glances down at her feet again, sighing. Sometimes . . . Dove slips up and calls Natasha “momma” . . . and sometimes . . . Natasha will call her “my sweet маленький пауoк” in return; she’ll then remind her that she’s not alone. Not anymore. It is okay to weep…to scream and shout, and to come to her if need be.

Silence is no longer necessary.

Is it, though? Dove was born silent. At times, that is all she is capable of feeling. 

But, alas, it still makes Dove feel a bit better, even if the conversations consist of recycled words. She is not alone, not anymore. There is no more slipping stale bread for breakfast, no more being handcuffed to the bed, and no more being disciplined for sneezing a little too loudly.

No more being considered a weapon with a face — capable of nothing more but murder. Natasha is her family now, and maybe even Clint Barton and Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson too. 

Her hot chocolate is cold now — the marshmallows look kinda weird now, too, like drowned little white bodies, nothing like how they appear in those silly Hollywood movies. But drinking it makes her feel happier, a lot lighter, sleepier, and safer. Sometimes, Dove wonders if a different childhood may have had more steaming mugs of hot chocolate with all those different flavors Yelena once told her about.

(She had seen them in some grocery store in Manchester, England — an entire aisle jam-packed with hundreds of colorful flavors. It smelled good, too, Yelena had said.)

Melina claims she did not have a childhood.

Oh, but she did. 

It was sitting before computers, watching Russian propaganda before sipping on a random juice box (grape-flavored most of the time). It was hours upon hours of constant ballet practice, perfecting all those turns and leaps. It was standing before human-shaped shooting targets, a red hourglass centered in the middle where the human lungs exist.

It was the massive soldier in the backroom—the one with the two long, dark braids—teaching the widows how to place their victims in a tight headlock before demonstrating the move on them, snapping their tiny, skinny necks in one quick motion. Or how to silence a person with a blow to the kidney.

“Hey.”

“Hi, Nattie.”

“How are you feeling tonight?”

“Fine, I guess.”

“. . . Nightmares?”

Dove pauses. “Nah. It’s snowing over here; there is something therapeutic about watching it and—”

Natasha cuts her off. “Doesn’t work on me, kid. You should know that,” and there is a beat of silence, and Dove can already see the sad smile tugging at her lips, “—so, was it nightmares again?” 

“No. Not this time. Memories…of Dreykov, y’know, and the ballet and—” she takes a small sip of her cold drink, “—and just anything I can remember, really.  Sometimes, it is gun practice, something it’s combat. I’m getting better, actually, thanks to Bruce and Helen. It’s still kind of hazy, but now I can make out things. People. Places. Objects. Y’know, all that shit. I just can’t sleep because of it.” She places the phone on the coffee table before leaning back and inhaling deeply. “M’fine, Nat, really. Y’know, it is all part of the recovery process.”

"Yeah. No, yeah, I get it. But hey, just remember, I'm here. I know you have your therapy sessions, and I know it helps to some degree, but all that shit? I know it firsthand. Everything you've been through, Yelena and I have too, so you're not alone. Not in this lifetime anymore.” 

She smiles. It is times like this that SilentDove hates when she took assignments that sent her on the other side of the world. “Thanks. How’s it over there?” 

“Boring. Humid as fuck, and Clint is such a loud snorer. Hey, make sure all the doors are locked before you go to bed.”

Like clockwork, of course. 

“I will. Talk to you tomorrow?”

“Sure, kid. Get some rest. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

The call soon cuts after that, and Dove is left to her thoughts again. Her dark eyes drift across the living room, studying every little detail before her — from her grandmother's star blanket to the pretty picture of her mother hung above the fireplace.

She hums. There are ghosts in this house.

Ghosts.

Her own ghosts.

Oddly enough, that thought doesn't bother Dove at all. She’s always liked the idea of ghosts.

[katakaluptastrophy]

Masterpost of TLT metas

This is mostly for my own reference, as tagging doesn't seem to guarantee something being findable on Tumblr...but if you like wildly overthinking lesbian necromancers in space, enjoy!

Overthinking the Fifth House:

What is a "Speaker to the Dead"?

Actually, Magnus Quinn isn't terrible at sword fighting

Imperial complicity: Abigail the First

Pyschopomp: Abigail Pent and Hecate

Did Teacher conspire with Cytherea to kill the Fifth?

What does the Fifth House actually do?

The Fourth and the Fifth can never just be family

Cytherea's political observations at the anniversary dinner

Abigail Pent's affect: ghosts and autism

Were the Fourth wards of the Fifth?

Abigail probably knew most of the scions as children

Magnus Quinn's very understandable anger

Fifth House necromancy is not neat and tidy

Are Abigail and Magnus an exception to the exploitative nature of cavaliership?

"Abigail Pent literally brought her husband and look where that got her" (the Fifth in TUG)

The Fifth's relationship dynamic

The Fifth's relationship is unconventional in a number of ways

The queer-coding of Abigail and Magnus' relationship

Abigail and Palamedes, and knowing in the River

Was Isaac the ward of the Fifth?

Did Magnus manage to draw his sword before Cytherea killed him? (and why he probably had to watch his wife die)

How did Abigail know she was murdered by a Lyctor?

Fifth House necromancy is straight out of the Odyssey

The politics of the anniversary dinner (and further thoughts)

Was Magnus born outside of the Dominicus system?

Overthinking John Gaius:

The one time John was happy was playing Jesus

Is Alecto's body made from John's?

Are there atheists in the Nine Houses?

Why isn't John's daughter a necromancer?

The horrors of love go both ways: why John could have asked Alecto 'what have you done to me?'

Why M- may have really hoped John was on drugs

What is it with guys called Jo(h)n and getting disintegrated? (John and Dr Manhattan)

John's conference call with his CIA handlers

Watching your friend turn into an eldritch horror

Why does G1deon look so weird? (Jod regrew him from an arm)

When is a friendship bracelet not a friendship bracelet?

Why did John have G1deon hunt Harrow? (with bonus update)

The 'indelible' sin of Lyctorhood and John's shoddy plagiarism of Catholicism

Are John Gaius and Abigail Pent so different?

What was Jod's plan at Canaan House?

John and Ianthe tread the Eightfold path

The Mithraeum is more than a joke about cows

When was John Gaius born? (And another)

John Gaius and the tragic Orestes

John and Jesus writing sins in the sand

John and Nona's echoing chapters

John's motivations

Is Alecto just as guilty as John?

John's cult (and what he might have done to them)

The horror of Jod

Did John get bloodsweat before he became god?

Some very silly thoughts about John and Abigail arguing about academia

Overthinking the Nine Houses:

'No retainers, no attendants, no domestics'

Funerary customs and the violence of John's silence

Juno Zeta and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad time

The horror of the River bubble

Every instance of 'is this how it happens' in HTN

Feudalism is still shitty even if you make it queer and sex positive

How do stele work?

Thought crime in the Nine Houses

The Houses have a population the size of Canada

What must it be like to fight the Houses?

You know what can't have been fun? Merv wing's megatruck on Varun day...

Augustine's very Catholic hobby (decorating skeletons)

Necromancers are not thin in a conventionally attractive way

Matching the Houses with the planets of the solar system (though perhaps the Fourth *is* on Saturn)

Why don't the Nine Houses have (consistent) vaccination or varifocals?

How would the Houses react to the deaths at Canaan House?

How does Wake understand her own name (languages over 10,000 years)

What pre-resurrection texts are known in the Houses?

Camilla and Palamedes very Platonic relationship (further thoughts)

The horrors the Cohort found at Canaan House

Do the Houses understand the tech keeping them alive?

The scions from an external perspective (sci fi baddies)

Cav cots

The Nine Houses and feudalism

The horrors of early necromantic education

[silens-oro]

You Know Where You Are: Part I

Not all fics have adult content, but this blog is 18+. Dr. Michael "Robby" Robinavitch x f!Musician!Reader Angst/Established Relationship Part II | Part III

The Pitt Playlist located here The Pitt Masterlist

Synopsis: Dr. Robby's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day started before he even made it to PTMC. He was supposed to go to Pittfest to support his girlfriend's band with Jake, but decided to flake and give his ticket to Jake's girlfriend. You are less than thrilled with his lack of communication. Word Count: 965 Content Warning: Arguing; Reader is in her 30's A/N: This will be a three-parter.

“Why is an alarm going off?” You grumbled into Robby’s warm chest as the jingle from his phone repeated itself. Robby groaned as he reached over to the nightstand to turn it off. He was silent for a few beats, his other hand coming up to rub your back gently. “Mikey?”

“I’m goin’ in today.” He mumbled into the crown of your head. 

“You’re what?” Sitting up in a hurry, you pushed yourself off him, but kept your eyes pinpointed on his. Michael was looking anywhere else in the room but at you. “No. No, Mike! You said you weren’t going to do this.”

“I know.” He responded gently, his eyes breaking from yours. 

“You know.” Scoffing, you started to get off the bed, but was stopped by his hand gently grabbing your thigh, squeezing it in a way that told you he did not want this to get blown into an argument. Not today. “What about Jake? You can’t just ditch him.”

“Giving him my pass for his girlfriend. They’ll have a blast and apparently she’s a huge fan of you guys.” He tried to soften the blow. All it did was build the irritation that was growing inside of you. 

“And me?” Your question hung in the air.

“I’m sorry.” 

“Absolutely not.” Gently prying his hand off your leg, you stood and threw on some random clothes he had in the second drawer that housed various t-shirts, jeans and leggings that you’d left over time. “Genuinely don’t know what I was expecting.” You muttered under your breath as you pulled a t-shirt over your head.  

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He had the nerve to sound indignant.

“It means that I am a very reasonable person who rolls with the punches when it comes to you, but god forbid something on my end -pre planned well in advance, mind you- is important to me and it gets thrown by the wayside.”

“Today is-” You held up your hand to stop him. 

“-I know what today is.” Your voice took on a somber tone. “And I am so incredibly sorry that you have to carry this with you, Mike. I am. I love you and I support you wholeheartedly, but you obviously knew you were going to do this well before this morning and you chose not to tell me. A heads up is all that I’m asking for here.”

“Had I known missing this set was going to be a huge deal-”

“It’s not about the set!” Your voice rose. “I don’t care about the set, Mike! My life is set after set. I cared about spending time with you and Jake. The set is an hour out of my day. Both of us are stupidly busy people with demanding careers who don’t get to see a whole lot of each other outside of some quick takeout and going to bed -if we’re even in the same state!” It wasn’t meant to be a jab, but Robby felt it all the same. 

“You’ve never had a problem with me having to cancel for work.” His voice was starting to get an irritated tone to it, one that you knew he knew he was wrong, but was doubling down. 

“That’s not what this is!” You snapped, “I’m not mad because you get called in to work, Mike! You did this on purpose. They didn’t call you in, you are choosing to go in on a day that you already arranged to have off for no other reason than you won’t communicate!” He winced -you don’t communicate was repeated like a broken record through just about every failed relationship he had. “I don’t understand how you don’t see why I’m frustrated with this and, quite frankly, it’s pissing me off even more than I was to begin with because I can’t tell if you know what you’re doing or if this is just a defensive reflex!”

Grabbing your phone off the nightstand on your side, you sighed when you saw how early it actually was. Deciding that removing yourself from Mike’s townhouse was the best option so you could cool off without figuratively ripping his head from his body, you grabbed your purse off his dresser. 

“Where are you going?” Mike stood from the bed, pajama pants hanging low in his hips. There was clear panic in his eyes, but he couldn’t navigate himself out of the hole he had dug himself. 

“Back to my place.” You didn’t bother to untie your sneakers as you shoved your feet into them, pulling roughly until they popped on. 

“Come on,” He said your name softly, “-please just get back into bed-”

“Why?” You snapped, “You’re getting ready for work and I don’t have a reason to be here right now.” Mike winced, then inhaled deeply before nodding -not to agree with you, but to process the words that you just said to him. 

“You don’t need a reason to be here.” He was nearly begging. You bit your bottom lip to keep yourself from going off the deep end. 

“Fine, I don’t want to be here.” You ground out. And truthfully, you didn’t. Anger was a rarity coming from you -life happens- but this wasn’t “life happens”. This was “Robby happens” and when Robby happens...you shook your head. 

“You coming back here tonight?” He knew it was a long shot, but he asked anyway. 

“You know, Mike…” You shrugged, exasperated, arms swinging out from your sides, “-probably not.” Done with the conversation you left the bedroom, angry that this was how the day -a day that was supposed to be fun and a distraction from the shit Mike deals with- started in a fiery blaze. 

“Don’t-” Not bothering to hear his response as you fled through the townhouse, you let the door slam closed behind you. 

Part II

Please reblog, like and/or comment :)

[myhauntedsalem]

Lalaurie Mansion

New Orleans, LA

Dr. Louis Lalaurie and his wife, Delphine moved into their fancy new mansion in New Orleans. They were respected by everyone. They had a lot of money, power and influence. Ms. Delphine was greatly admired for her beauty.

They threw lavish social parties that would be the talk of the town for weeks to come.

Their house was extravagant and they had dozens of slaves to take care of it.

It was the neighbors who first began to suspect that something was not right.

There were whispered conversations about how the Lalaurie slaves seemed to come and go quite often. Parlor maids would be replaced with no explanation or the stable boy was suddenly just disappear… never to be seen again.

Then, one day a neighbor was climbing her own stairs when she heard a scream and saw Madame Lalaurie chasing a little girl, the Madame’s personal servant, with a whip. She pursued the girl onto the roof of the house, where the child jumped to her death. The neighbor later saw the small slave girl buried in a shallow grave beneath the cypress trees in the yard.

It was rumored that she treated the slaves horribly. But how horribly exactly, no one knew.

A terrible fire broke out in the Lalaurie kitchen. Legend has it that it was set by the cook, who could endure no more of the Madame’s tortures. Regardless of how it started, the fire swept through the house.

After the blaze was put out, the fire fighters discovered a horrible sight behind a secret, barred door in the attic.

The information you are about to read is from the embellished part of the event. The authors who wrote about it in the book didn’t source these events:

They found more than a dozen slaves here, chained to the wall in a horrible state. They were both male and female…. some were strapped to makeshift operating tables… some were confined in cages made for dogs…. human body parts were scattered around and heads and human organs were placed haphazardly in buckets…. grisly souvenirs were stacked on shelves and next to them a collection of whips and paddles.

It was more horrible that anything created in man’s imagination.

According to the newspaper, the New Orleans Bee, all of the victims were naked and the ones not on tables were chained to the wall. Some of the women had their stomachs sliced open and their insides wrapped about their waists.

One woman had her mouth stuffed with animal excrement and then her lips were sewn shut. The men were in even more horrible states. Fingernails had been ripped off, eyes poked out, and private parts sliced away.

One man hung in shackles with a stick protruding from a hole that had been drilled in the top of his head. It had been used to “stir” his brains.

The tortures had been administered so as to not bring quick death. Mouths had been pinned shut and hands had been sewn to various parts of the body.

Regardless, many of them had been dead for quite some time. Others were unconscious and some cried in pain, begging to be killed and put out of their misery.

The fire fighters fled the scene in disgust and doctors were summoned from a nearby hospital.

There were a few who still clung to life…. like a woman whose arms and legs had been removed and another who had been forced into a tiny cage with all of her limbs broken than set again at odd angles.

Madame Lalaurie and her family were never seen again.

______________________________________________________________

The house remained vacant for many years after that. It then became an all girls school and then apartment buildings.

During the time when the mansion was an apartment house, a number of strange events were recorded. Among them was an encounter between a occupant and a naked black man in chains who attacked him. The black man abruptly vanished.

Others claimed to have animals butchered in the house; children were attacked by a phantom with a whip; strange figures appeared wrapped in shrouds; a young mother was terrified to find a woman in elegant evening clothes bending over her sleeping infant; and of course, the ever-present sounds of screams, groans and cries that would reverberate through the house at night.

Today the house has been renovated again and serves as luxury apartments.

[cipheramnesia]

The Rob Zombie Halloween movies are not exactly good, but they have this little chestnut of an idea that's intriguing.

The original two Halloween movies hinge on the core premise that Michael Meyers is a kind of empty vessel which embodies evil. You have to buy into the idea a little, because if you don't, not only do the movies not work as well, but also the character of Dr. Loomis comes of as an unhinged, abusive monster of a doctor. Which feels like something Rob Zombie intentionally wanted his version to consider. Ultimately the movies are not successful, likely in some measure through studio interference, but this explains a good deal of decisions which put Zombie's Halloween at loggerheads with the original movies and the fandom.

The thing about Rob Zombie is that his fans are his worst critics, in that they don't want him to make anything except a carbon copy of House of 1000 Corpses or Devil's Rejects, and when he tries to do more interesting (and in the case of Lords of Salem, significantly better) movies, they piss all over themselves in outrage. When you combine his unusual take on Halloween with a stylistic departure as well, the movies has no chance.

The funny thing is, in retrospect, Zombie's changes are actually the better choice compared to the slavishly accurate recent Halloweens, or any of the sequels following Halloween 2. He gave Michael Meyers a voice, and a more complex history, and a human connection, and all these details which fans mostly hated, but which repositioned Michael from hollow monster to a person who was deeply failed by the world. And the thing of it is, there's nothing left to explore after Halloween 2, which means the only place to go if you want to be interesting about the character is a radically different direction.

That's what Rob Zombie did, his version wasn't supposed to be scary as a remorseless killing machine, but scary as someone who was formed into a terrible creature by the world deciding for him that he is a monster. You can see this most of all with how Malcolm McDowell portrays his version of Loomis as self centered, malicious, and incompetent by varying degrees. It's stating as loudly as possible to the audience hey, this person is terrible at helping people, he is awful and his characterization of Michael Meyers as "evil" is self serving and horrible. It's meant to make the audience step back and realize, no matter how terrible the things Michael does, he's a child and locking him up for his entire life is a fucked up thing to do.

Now, ultimately the films are a mess, and this little idea doesn't really hold together or develop. I believe it's intentional still, but winds up being incompatible with what, I assume through studio pressure, is a movie too close to the original Halloween to make room for a different approach. I couldn't necessarily recommend watching them, but as failures they're still interesting.

[maleyanderecafe]

Hello, hello! I'm not sure if you take movies but would you count Corlianlus (I can't spell his first name) Snow from the latest Hunger Games mlvie to be a yandere for Lucy Gray? I just watched the movie last night and he was giving me big obsessive vibes.

Phew okay, it took me like three times to watch the entire movie in full and I still didn't understand of the context for it, at least initially. I think I've only read maybe the first two Hunger Games books, but I was able to watch a couple of analysis videos that explain more of the story. I will also go over some basic differences from the movie to the book. I do think that Cornball (sorry, Coriolanus Snow) is a yandere, but more in the selfish, views Lucy as more of an object kind of way. Cherry and I were making fun of him the entire movie though, I will say that.

The movie starts out with Coriolaus and his cousin Tigris escaping from their house during a revolution that has caused a famine. The two run into a rich man cutting off meat from a dead maid in order to sustain him and his family. We cut to ten years later when Coriolaus has turned 18 and is now living with Tigris and her grandmother. It's shown that their family is facing bankruptcy and is quite poor, but Coriolaus must pretend to be just as rich as the others in the capital. During the party he attends, we se that all the Capital members are rich and are constnatly tearing each other down. However, we also get to see Corionlaus's friend, Sejanus Flint there at the party as well. His family was originally from District 2 but because his father was able to sell guns during the revolution, his family was able to get enough money to live in the capital. Despite this, the people in the Capital still look down on them given that they were from the district (and in the books, state they view them more as animals). During the party, the 10th annual hunger games is announced by one of the creators of the Hunger Games, Dean Casca, who reveals that they will all becoming mentors for one of the tributes for the Hunger Games. Dean seems to have a great disdain for the Snow family, given that Coriolanus's father was actually the other creator for the game, and is given District 12's Lucy Grey, the district that has the least amount of resources and thus the least likely chance of winning. We see that Lucy's picking was rigged by the mayor, as the mayor's daughter basically stole her boyfriend and wanted her dead. While heading up to the podium, she puts a snake down her blouse as revenge. Sejanus's father also rigged the picking process where he let Sejanus be the mentor for one of his friends from District 2 who was chosen as tribute. This leads Sejanus to call out how horrible and inhumane the Hunger Games are.

Back at home, Coriolanus gets annoyed that he had such a terrible tribute to use, those Tigris recommends that he try to see things from her point of view and to show her empathy, even giving him a new dress for her to wear. At the train station, Coriolanus gives Lucy a rose and even rides on the train with the rest of the tributes, even when he gets hurled into an animal zoo with them all. After getting out, one of the scientists of the Hunger Games, Dr. Volumnia Gaul invites Coriolanus and another classmate over to see the snakes she's bred to be released in this year's game. She states she is impressed with the idea that was submitted, though Coriolanus's classmate jumps in to take the credit. As a test, Dr. Gaul makes her pick up the report from the snakes, stating that since she was the one who wrote it, the snakes wouldn't attack her, since they would've been used to her scent. She gets bitten and dragged away soon after with Dr. Gaul praising Coriolanus for his report. Coriolanus goes back to the animal zoo to give Lucy some food and to help prep for the games, giving her his mother's makeup kit where he snuck rat poison in it for her to use. During this time, one of the other mentors starts to mess with the tributes causing one of them to kill her with a broken bottle. The tribute is shot and Coriolanus pretends to attempt to resuscitate her but fails.

The Hunger Games happen inside of an arena where Coriolanus does a lot of cheating like sending broken drones to deliver water (and smash into tributes to protect Lucy Grey). When Sejauns's tribute dies, he actually breaks into the arena to give him a proper send off, and Coriolanus is tasked to drag him out of there. The tributes are of course, not happy about this and attempt to kill the two, only for Coriolanus to send up killing one of them in self-defense. After most of the tributes die, Coriolanus cheats once more by sneaking his mother's handkerchief that he used to wipe Lucy's tears into the snake tank so that they wouldn't eat her when they are released into the arena. In the end, she wins and is sent back to District 12, however, Coriolanus gets caught cheating and is sent to 20 years away from home to go guard the other districts. He is able to convince one of the officers to direct him to District 12, where he sees that Sejauns's is there too because of what he did in the arena. He is able to see Lucy once more in her traveling musical family and forms a romantic relationship with her. He then finds out that the mayor's daughter and Lucy's ex are trying to start a rebellion and shoots them, then blames it on Sejauns and watches him get hanged. Coriolanus wants to run away with Lucy and as he gets guns to protect the two, he lets slip that he killed his friend Sejaun's instead. Lucy's one deal breaker was Coriolanus lying and she is able to run away, leading to Coriolanus chasing after her. He finds the handkerchief that he used to wipe her tears, but when picking it up finds that it's a snake trap and gets bitten. Betrayed he starts shooting at the jabberjays as they sing the hanging tree song and seemingly ends up shooting Lucy as well, though it is unclear if she lived or died. Because of his service, he is eventually able to go back to the capital. He ends up talking to Dean who revealed that he was the one who originally came up with the Hunger Games and that his father stole it from him. He didn't want the Hunger Games to become reality, but it was too late, which is why he's constantly drinking. Coriolanus poisons him, lies to Sejaun's family about his fate, and his family is so impressed that they essentially adopt Coriolanus and save his family from debt. At the end, we see him making more modifications for the rest of the Hunger Games.

So I will be honest, I was very confused by this movie, partially because it took me three different sessions to watch the entire thing and also because I don't remember a lot of the context of the original Hunger Games. There is a lot of things that are missing from the movie since a huge portion of the story is done in Coriolanus's point of view including his thoughts, which showcases his thinking a lot better than in the movie. We also get a bit more depth into certain aspects, such as Coriolanus's father and the death of his classmate. In the books, it's stated that he, as well as most of the capital, look down on the districts, almost like animals. Part of this is instilled by the capital itself, but much of it also comes from his grandmother, who listens to the propaganda of the capital. On the other hand though he has his cousin, Tigris, who seems to have more empathy for the tributes, as she also made Lucy her dress, which later went into the tradition of "dressing up" tributes to make them more marketable and also gave up her education to make sure that Coriolanus has a chance at greatness. There's also Sejaun, which in the books, its shown that Coriolanus doesn't even like him, views him as lower (as he's in the district) and is shown to be jealous that he has so much money despite being district. It's pretty sad because I think that Sejaun does actually see Coriolanus as his friend, which is why his betrayal is so much worse when he gets hanged and when Coriolanus takes all of his money. We also see that in the books, he often will play up certain things to make himself look better, like for instance he pretends to resuscitate the attacked classmate as she dies and in the book we actually see him attend her funeral. There's also more context on Coriolanus's father, whom he loathes but eventually becomes like, given that he lost most of the money after revolution and he idolizes his mother, whom he never knew as she died giving birth to him and only has the handkerchief (which has a perfume his mother wears) and the makeup kit.

Now in terms of yandere behavior, Coriolanus is shown to be on the more controlling end, probably one of those ones that are more debatable like Mejojo from Black Wolves Saga. Personally, I do think that even if Coriolanus saw Lucy as "his", he does have feelings for her, seeing that the two were in a relationship for a bit. It's also pretty obvious that Lucy's betrayal cut very deeply to him, seeing that the handkerchief he gave to Lucy was his mother's and was used to trick him. After using the trap, he can no longer smell his mother's perfume on it, and that was the last straw for him, causing him to shoot everywhere. There are moments in the book where when talking about Lucy, he describes her less as a person and more as something he owns, calling her "his" tribute and even expecting Lucy to stay in the capital with him, not thinking that Lucy might not want to stay in a place that killed off so many from the district. He also tries to downplay the idea that Lucy is from the district in his head. Lucy herself is technically not from District 12, being part of a traveling performance with her family that just so happened to be in the District at the time, yet still thinks of her lower than him as she still resides within the district. Coriolanus sacrifices a lot so that she will win, such as cheating and moving himself to District 12 just to meet her, yet kind of expect Lucy to be with him always, even though there is a sense of power dynamic going on, as he is still from the richer part of the society. Lucy's betrayal cuts incredibly deep for him as after this he vows to never fall in love again and even decides to marry someone he hates so that he could never feel vulnerable again. This is also why Katniss's win in the Hunger Games is extremely painful to him, given that she brings back so much of what reminds him of Lucy. It's hard to say whether or not Lucy actually lived as we never see her body both in the movie and the books, but it's clear that Lucy's relationship did mean a great deal to Coriolanus. He is very possessive over her, both seeing her as a tool to win and also as someone he owns, though you can argue since at the end he never actually goes to check if Lucy lived or not that he could have made an effort there as a yandere.

Overall though, I do think that this is a really good showcasing on how to write a villain's backstory as we do see the choices he made to get into the way he is but also the more human side to it as well. Knowing how President Snow is in the current movie really shines on a lot of his actions and reactions to Katniss.