#I can’t get into the cultures of every single supernatural creature

[new-revenant]

I was reading on of your posts and I LOVE the idea of different Fenton families believe in different supernatural creatures but not others, like the guys we see in the show have ghosts but what about Fentons who live in the middle of the woods and believe in werewolves? What about Fentons who live on a boat and believe in Sirens?

What are the cultures of these other Supernaturals really like? Do they get along well with ghosts? Does Danny know they exist? Who told him or did he stumble upon them himself? What is his option on them?

IS WULF A DEAD WEREWOLF????

If you reply to this please tag me so I can see your ideas because I don’t know if people answering to your asks gives a notification.

thank you for loving my idea, I’ve been thinking about it for so long. I think I saw the idea somewhere and picked it up, but that was honestly years again haha. And yeah, getting asks answered-for me at least-doesn’t notify me unless I literally click on the Activity tab to see that’s it’s answered. Pretty weird.

So @lazerswordweilder, yeah, I do think that there would be different Fenton branches believing in different supernatural creatures, with their own reasoning as to why they think their own supernatural creatures exist. I’d like to think that some take the more scientific approach, like the branch that believes in aliens(and the Fentons we know and love), while others take the more “I believe that this real so it must be so” approach. The later is more rare, and even then they usually have their own explanations for why they believe, let’s say, sirens exist. They all are stubborn and steadfast with their beliefs.

Some Fentons might be open to believing in other supernatural creatures, like those believing in werewolves open to believing in other were-beasts. If it’s not too far fetched from what they originally believe in, there’s a good chance that they might incorporate it into their belief system.

Other Fentons, however, would likely not believe in ghosts if they believe in something like sirens. It’s too far removed from their original belief that unless they get real, concrete proof, that they couldn’t ever possibly deny, they won’t believe it. Only a siren’s ghost could make a siren believer believe in ghosts. And that doesn’t mean that the ghost believer would believe in sirens, because of their preexisting view on ghosts(like how the Fentons we know don’t really seem to think of ghosts as dead people), they would just think that it’s a ghost that just so happens to look like one of those sirens.

Also Wulf being a werewolf when alive is neat, I can see two different Fenton family arguing about him. With his power to open portals and his general, not really all that ghostly appearance, he looks more like a psychopomp, a being that guides souls to the underworld. So even if the werewolf believing Fentons have some belief in ghosts, they wouldn’t immediately think of Wulf as one, just think of his as this soul-guiding werewolf.

And I think almost any creature can become a ghost. No one has any real…prejudices against ghosts. Maybe annoyment or fear, but there are no wars or battles against ghosts unless they are the ones to start them, which is really rare since most ghosts just haunt the person/family/even small village they want to and pass on. Hatred towards ghosts is usually specific, but most people don’t really want to deal with them.

So, upon seeing Danny, a small ghost child who walking around in a hazmat suit, beating up annoying and dangerous ghosts, they would probably respect him. And pity him, he’s a child after all. And ghost minds typically don’t mature, so even if Danny acts more mature than he looks, it just garners more pity. Some supernatural creatures may seek him out if they have a nasty ghost problem, but I’d like to think that most ghosts aren’t like the ones in Amity Park, the really dangerous ones.

I think that’s all I have for now, thanks for the ask! Oh, and I think Danny would love aliens, obviously. He’d be nervous around other supernatural creatures, but may or may not warm up to them on an individual basis.

[therealvinelle]

what do you think of The Children of the Moon?

(I have not read the Twilight Guide so I have no clue whether we know much more about them from it than from the books)

How do you think they differ from the shapeshifters?

also, how do you think of the vampires of twilight? as some sort of other predatory species, or parasites, almost science-like or fully as just supernatural? sometimes I think that vampires are depicted just as an evolutionary phenomenon in canon... which makes me question how can the shapeshifters exist in the same universe as their legends telling how they came to be are so rooted in spirituality and supernatural, with the whole souls thing

The Children of the Moon are a very small, but all the more fascinating part of the Twilight worldbuilding.

They’re worse than vampires. They’re just as powerful if not more so (or they wouldn’t be able to kill a vampire singlehandedly), they’re feral, and they prey on humans. What is described in the wiki is essentially unusually powerful vampires without any control, and most of the time you can’t find them because they’re human.

I think the Children of the Moon are one of the reasons the Volturi are necessary. A creature with their powerlevel could easily level a entire village in one night, and that’s not to mention the fact that unlike vampires, who are largely detached from human society and have no interest in it, the Children of the Moon are still humans in the day, meaning they are a part (however fringe) of society and have human interests. And as being a lycanthrope would pretty easily fuck up their lives (good luck having any kind of home stability when you turn into a vampire-killing apex predator at night), which would make these people ripe for radicalization or being taken advantage of. What I’m saying is, they would become weapons of war. Get even just one of these people inside the enemy stronghold before a full moon, and bam. Your enemy has been decimated.

That was supposed to be a paragraph on the Volturi and the Children of the Moon, it went off-topic - what I planned to say is, these creatures are extremely dangerous, to humans, to themselves, and to society at large. And, as I explained in the linked meta about why the Volturi are necessary, the reason why the law exists in the first place is because saying “don’t hunt in excess” would have been too subjective to effectively enforce. Aro’s solution of making vampires a secret from the world is a sensible solution. And werewolves who ravage entire villages at full moon and threaten the food supply are very much not secret. They may not be vampires, but they’d still be a threat to the secret, and as such to vampires. 

The Volturi would, following the ethical standard laid down by their law, be as justified to take out a Child of the Moon as they are in taking out an immortal child.

And this is where we get into how the Children of the Moon imply some very exciting things about the Twilight worldbuilding.

Though, to answer your question about vampires being magical or biological before I go any further - I think it’s both. I think vampires are a species of their own, a sentient and cloned single-cell parasitical superorganism that converts the host body into an ideal climate. I also think they’re magical, or they wouldn’t have gifts. And there’s something magical about some of the more impossible things they do, like run across snow without leaving footprints. They’re the xenomorphs from Alien, with magic.

More, and this is where the exciting worldbuilding comes in, magic clearly does exist in the Twilight world. Shapeshifters exist, Children of the Moon exist, and gifted humans exist.

And this raises the question: why, in this fantastical world of magic and sci-fi, are these the only creatures we hear about? I’m sure there are more creatures Bella hasn’t heard of, Carlisle’s friends and the Volturi were unsurprised enough by the existence of the shapeshifters (if brand new supernatural creatures were unheard of, they would have made a much bigger deal out of these teens turning into werewolves. Their quick acceptance is telling) that non-vampire creatures are clearly a thing. And yet, the vampire community is just that, it’s a vampire community. We don’t hear a single word of any other creature, nothing. Carlisle has no mermaid friends. When the Volturi enforce their law, they speak only of humans and vampires, not humans and vampires, fairies, elves, and witches.

It seems that if these other types of creatures exist, and it is likely they do (or did), then by the time canon begins they’re either small minorities or straight up extinct.

And it just so happens that Twilight is a 'verse where we have an elite force of organized executioners who have devoted themselves to keeping the humans unaware of the existence of vampires, at any price necessary.

And we know, from the Volturi taking out the Children of the Moon, that this force already wiped one supernatural species.

There’s also the fact that while the Children of the Moon were more powerful than vampires, the reason why people speak of them might be because they were more powerful than vampires. I doubt this would apply to every supernatural species: if it did, vampires would not have risen to become the dominating species that they are in the present day.)

Then there’s the fact that so much real life myth and lore features things that go bump in the night as threatening to humans. Sirens, nøkker, nisser, huldre, trolls, so many creatures (I’ll admit I mostly used myths from my own culture’s folklore for this listing) are in some way sinister. They’ll trick us, damn us, or kill us, and within the Twilight world where these myths can be assumed to have a grain of truth in them, the Volturi might have a problem with these creatures.

I think, within Twilight canon, we have reason to believe that there used to be far more supernatural creatures around than there are now, and that these were driven extinct by the Volturi.

Depending on what these other creatures were and whether they too preyed on humans, or were in other way obstructions to vampires, or just fun to hunt, it is also likely that other, non-Volturi vampires helped drive them to extinction.

(On that note: I think the shapeshifters are safe from the Volturi. They’re not a threat to humans, on the contrary their raison d’être is to protect them. In one of their myths, their ancestor prevented the slaughter of their tribe. On top of this they even take secrecy seriously, Bella who already knew about vampires and Embry’s own mother weren’t allowed to know about the shapeshifters. The Volturi should have no quarrel with them.)

[ckneal]

So, up until the last year, I was not actively involved in fandom on tumblr. All of my fan theories and fic ideas were created for the sole purpose of entertaining me and me alone. And as such, when I happened upon the midam and angel communities, I did experience a certain amount of culture shock when I found that some of the things that I had just taken for granted from the very first viewing of the show—didn’t even need to think about it, it just seemed to be right there—were contrary to the beliefs of the overall fandom. And today, I feel like airing out one of these for fun of it.

(And warning, this might be an unpopular take.)

Before discovering the midam community, I believed that Kate Milligan was aware of the existence of the supernatural and complicit in keeping Adam in the dark.

To be clear right off the bat, I am not purposing a Mary Winchester situation. I do not think that Kate was a hunter. But I do think that the chain of events that led to Adam’s conception may have had more in common with what Sam laid out at the beginning of Jump the Shark. I have two main reasons in thinking this.

The first reason, is simply this: John gave Kate his cellphone number. She just had it on hand when Adam decided he wanted to meet his dad twelve years down the line. That just seemed really weird. John Winchester is not exactly the stay-for-breakfast type, let alone the type to stay in contact with a one night stand in a backwater town. But you know who he DOES give his phone number out to? People who know that he’s a hunter, and who might recognize the signs of the paranormal and give him a call in the future. People he expects might lead to further cases.

The second reason is pertaining to the ghoul children. How did they know about Kate and Adam? John had not been to see Adam in a couple of years by the time of Adam’s death, and is implied to have been an infrequent visitor before that. Would the ghoul children have really been staking out the town for over two years before making their move? That seemed so implausible to me, personally, upon the first viewing of the show that I dismissed it outright, and with subsequent rewatches it seems more clear—from the way that the ghoul seems to blink and search for the answers every time Sam and Dean ask about Adam’s history, and with Denise when she asks if “Adam” would like his usual order—that, no, the ghouls had not been watching Adam and Kate at length because clearly the ghoul’s impersonation of Adam was not polished. Kate and Adam were killed by amateurs.

And, to me, the fact that they knew to go after Kate only made sense because, somehow, she was part of the hunt. Not as some nurse who stitched John back together after he hauled himself away from the scene of the crime either.

What I think happened, was this. The ghoul children said that their father was not a monster, and they were telling the truth. A monster named John Winchester came to town with all the motivation of an exterminator coming to take care of a cockroach infestation. He heard about a creepy crawly feeding on the dead, and harmless though the creature was, he was there to kill it. But remember the ghoul we later met in season 13. Ghouls aren’t always just weirdos hiding in the shadows with gore crusted onto their faces. They are perfectly logical beings, capable of being functional members of society, and I think that when John showed up, the ghouls’ father was able to get by in society, maybe changing faces every now and then, but definitely capable of going undetected. I think the reason the ghoul attracted attention at all was because he had two (or three—I still like to think there might have been three) children to support. The father himself might have been able to get by sparingly by munching on the same bit of corpse for months to keep his appearance consistent, but you can’t expect that kind of restraint from children. And maybe, building off that, the ghoul kept his children hidden, because who knows how their shapeshifting abilities translate when they’re young?

But I digress. I think the ghoul found out that John was there—perhaps even met John Winchester and just barely managed to keep his cool—and decided to switch tactics, and switch faces. I think the ghoul moved from feeding out of a cemetery to a hospital morgue. The morgue, of course, is more dangerous. There are a lot more people milling around all day and night, not to mention the security cameras, but the ghoul gets a job as a janitor, using their new face and name, and reasons to himself that it was just temporary until John Winchester left.

However, things became complicated. The ghoul had planned to pull this off by switching back and forth between two different faces, by eating from two different corpses, but at some point John connected the ghoul’s older persona to the case, went to the house, and found the stash. The ghoul’s children had only just managed to escape, and the ghoul was put on edge. He started to get sloppy in his panic. With few options, he makes the decision that he and his children will have to flee—but the fact still remains that there are four of them, and this hunter is stubborn. The further they can go before stopping to feed, the better their chances of getting away unfollowed. So, the ghoul, in his hospital persona, goes back to the hospital for one last food run. He tells his kids to stay put in the car, and stay below the windows. They may look like any ordinary kids, but he doesn’t want to take any chances. 

When he goes inside though, the ghoul is finally caught in the act, stuffing body parts into a black trash bag—no one would have thought twice about him hauling things off to the dumpsters. He would have been homefree, if Kate hadn’t walked in.

Meanwhile in the parking garage, the worst happens: John Winchester arrives in the impala. The ghoul children see him in the rearview mirror, and they recognize the man who had broken into their home, and crouch down deeper into the backseat of their own car, even as they start frantically whispering. Their dad told them to stay put, but he was in danger and they needed to warn him!

Inside the hospital, the ghoul had Kate tied to a chair, and he’s stuck holding a scalpel in hand, fighting a battle on the inside, because he is not a violent man. He’s just a single dad trying to take care his kids, and he’s always been so, so careful, but now he’s been caught. Instinct says to kill Kate. If she’s dead, she wont be able to give out any details that might somehow help the hunter find him. But on the other hand, he had been working at the hospital for weeks now, and he liked Kate. She was friendly, nice. They talked a lot—but that’s why she might know something that could help John find him, some detail the ghoul wouldn’t even remember sharing, but that a lunatic like John Winchester could hyper fixate on. You never knew what might give you away with hunters. . .

John barges in and finds them while the ghoul’s still agonizing over the decision—Kate seemingly roughed up with the ghoul standing there, poised to cut her throat, and it’s all over for the ghoul. He fights John as best as he can, slashing with the scalpel and biting with a savagery that he had always thought himself above in the past, but his kids were waiting for him. . .

And unbeknownst to John Winchester and the ghoul, there his kids were, watching from the air vent overhead, out of sight, the way their dad had always urged them to move when they were in danger. They saw the murder, they saw Kate, and they saw the officer, Joe Barton, show up to sweep the whole mess under the rug, never knowing that two (or three) witnesses were huddled there, waiting for everyone to leave so they could crawl away, because if they moved any sooner they would have likely given themselves away, the way that they were shaking.

And that’s why I think Kate knew. I think that Kate was there at the final showdown, or at least present enough during the case that the ghoul children would have seen her, and would have known to look for her as well as Joe Barton when they decided to take revenge. I think that they saw Adam, and the pictures of John their house, and they did the math.

I think that Kate made a mistake in keeping Adam ignorant--regardless of whether it was her idea or John’s (though I’m gonna be real with you guys, I always thought it was Kate’s; I think John would have thrown Adam in the back of the impala and driven him off in to a life and guns, alcoholism, and bloodshed in a heartbeat if it weren’t for Kate)--because she made the same mistake that Mary would have with her children, in thinking that if you aren’t part of this life, it can’t hurt you. She was wrong. 

[fandom-space-princess]

fic writer interview

tagged by @sinaesthete - thanks boo 💕

How many works do you have on AO3?

18. Somehow. I only started posting them in January, which means I've been averaging more than 2 per month?! Granted, most of them are one-shots, but still. Bonkers.

What’s your total AO3 word count?

79,889. I have contributed one novel's worth of questionable fandom content to the greater ecosystem. Joy unbounded.

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

The only fics I've published where anyone else could see them (or finished, for that matter) are for Supernatural. Others exist. I may even dredge them out into the light one day. Especially the Dragon Age ones, when DA4 comes out and inflicts some inevitable violence upon my poor little heart.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

In descending order:

- Wayward Family: (T, 31589 words/26 chapters) Sitcomnatural, aka Seven Fools In A Bunker AU. Stream-of-consciousness first drafts from the beginning of the year, when I was starting to catch up on the show again after having dipped out sometime around season 6-7ish originally. I honestly expected zero readership for this, and was pleasantly surprised that so many people responded so well to it. Because I was definitely still knocking the dust off my writing skills at that point, lol. Maybe one day I'll go back to it and make it better - there's definitely stuff I'd do differently next time around.

- Some Live Like Orpheus: (T, 6193 words/1 chapter) Adam rescues Michael from the Empty, featuring Adam as Orpheus and Michael as Eurydice, with special appearances from Jack and the Shadow. The first thing I wrote that I was really, genuinely pleased with myself over.

- Vox Celeste: (E, 1909 words/1 chapter) Midam smut. PWP, in fact. Lyrical, pretty smut (or at least, that's what I was going for), but all the same.

- The First Day of the Rest of Your Afterlife: (T, 4558 words/1 chapter) Sequel to 'Orpheus'. Michael and Adam having their happily-ever-after together. This might be the most utterly self-indulgent fluff I have written. I love it.

- Two Weddings and an Engagement: (T, 7812 words/1 chapter) Written for the tumblr Midam wedding day. The Love Is Requited, They're Just Idiots - truly the most trope of all time. Featuring background sabrileena, because I am a joyful polyamorous disaster bisexual and I think they should all get to be, too.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Uh. To my great shame, I mostly don't. I always want to - the fact that people take time to comment on my writing is not lost on me as an act of love involving effort, and I can't express how much it means to me. I read and cherish every single comment I get. But interacting on AO3 takes a lot of spoons for me for some reason - and usually I just. Don't have it in me.

I'm working on it.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I don't write much angst, because I am first and foremost a cinnamon roll in need of fluff and comfort. But it does happen occasionally. I think the angstiest fic is Reliquary - more of a ficlet, really, since it's only about 600 words. But they're 600 words of Major Character Death, and I made myself cry writing it, so probably that one.

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Nah. Not really my jam.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

No direct hate! The closest I've gotten was someone getting rude about characterization, which was more funny than anything else. What a strange thing to pick a fight over.

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Quite happily, yes. I find physical intimacy to be very fulfilling, personally, and writing about my characters having those experiences themselves is fun.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge...?

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Also not that I'm aware of.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have not. I kind of suspect I'd be a nightmare to co-write anything with. My writing brain works when it wants to work, not when I want it to work necessarily. And I have no way of predicting when that will be.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

I have a terrible time choosing favorites of anything, so I aggressively multiship. That said, in spn? Michael/Adam. Very closely followed by (exclusively S5 & earlier) Lucifer/Sam.

Outside of Supernatural, it's kind of a tossup. Probably the DA2 OT5 polycule (Hawke/Anders/Fenris/Isabela/Merrill). I'm aware this is a ship for insane people; I will not be accepting criticism at this time 💀

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

As of now, I actually plan to finish all my current WIPs! Pyrphoros was in very real danger of ending up in WIP purgatory for a while, but fortunately or unfortunately for everyone involved, Sin read the first chapter and gave me a pile of compliments. So now I am honor-bound to finish it (<creature brain> Friend liked fic must write more fic must please the Friend </creature brain>). It's getting worked on, bit by bit around my other projects, but still. It's happening.

What are your writing strengths?

I think I'm decent at getting emotions across? I'm also good at vivid visualization - in my head, I can usually see very clearly what I'm trying to describe, and I feel like that's helpful in getting it down effectively. Beyond that, I'm honestly not sure what you'd call my strengths.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I have close to zero control over when I'll have both time and motivation to write. Some of that is just the reality of balancing a more-than-full-time job with my hobby. Some of it is the executive dysfunction. But it does mean that when I'll finish anything can be... unpredictable.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I can't do it, and I don't love reading it. If I have to go looking for a translation somewhere in the notes, it wrecks my immersion in the story. No shade to people who do enjoy it; languages are gorgeous, and translations are imperfect at the best of times. Often the language something is written in is inseparable from the tone and cultural context it is meant to convey. But if given the choice, I don't seek it out.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Like I said, Supernatural is the only fandom with anything published. I think the first fandom I ever actually created anything for was Buffy. (Is that cringe? Yes. But consider: I live free of the shackles of shame. I am cringe, and I am happy).

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Probably one of the mini Midam week ones from earlier this year. Tie between Radio Silence and Every Day's Most Quiet Need, both of which turned out much better than I expected.

Not tagging anybody this time because my brain is currently scrambled eggs, although if anyone wants to do this please consider yourself tagged and feel free!

[dioptre-hertz]

Pathologic 2 ending thoughts

i don’t really use tumblr much anymore, but i recently finished Pathologic 2 and i have thoughts on the ending, which i felt was somewhat incongruous with the rest of the game’s themes and ideas. and tumblr felt like the right place to put a long-form post about it. so, here i am, haha!

MAJOR spoilers for Pathologic 2 below, obviously. this post will probably only be interesting to you if you’ve already played the game, so if you haven’t, be warned! hehehe!

okay, so. i have a lot of thoughts about the ending stuff, but basically it boils down to: i think the ending as presented would have been a good ending for a different game.

quick summary: towards the end of the game, Artemy learns that the Polyhedron, a physics-defying tower and architectural wonder, is rooted into the ground with a long metal spike that pierces the Living Earth. destroying the Polyhedron would therefore open a gaping wound in the Earth, spilling rivers of blood that could be used to mass-produce a cure for the plague. however, doing so would not only destroy the Polyhedron, but also kill the Living Earth, and by extension the Kin. alternately, Artemy can choose to preserve the Polyhedron, which would prevent the Living Earth from bleeding out and dying; but it would come at the cost of the lives of everyone in the town, since the plague would then be unstoppable.

so, the ending choice is principally about this: you have to choose between preserving the magical wonders of the world, the Kin and the Polyhedron and the Living Earth, but at the expense of the actual living humans of the town; or, you save the town and all its mundanities and its ordinary people you've worked so hard to protect, but at the expense of your cultural heritage and all the magical, impossible things of the Steppe. do you choose a world that is dreamlike, enchanted and strange, even if there is no place for regular humans in that world; or do you choose an ordinary, realistic world, one in which there is life for common folk but not for magic and fairy tales?

here’s what irks me though: this dichotomy is not at all what the game is about. or, to be more precise, it never felt to me personally like this was what the narrative was setting up. the choice as presented is fine in a vacuum! there’s nothing wrong with telling a story that creates this kind of clash between magic and realism, and asks you to choose between them. but it doesn’t feel congruous with the rest of the game’s story. let me elaborate.

so, part of what’s going on here is that the game is asking you to make a sacrifice. as the game itself repeatedly tells you: “you can’t save everyone”. either the Kin, the magical steppe creatures, and the Polyhedron are destroyed; or, the ordinary humans of the town are destroyed. you can’t protect both. Pathologic 2 goes to great lengths to show you that you are not a magical fantasy RPG hero who can complete every quest, rescue every NPC, overcome any obstacle and get the Perfect Ending. that’s the whole point of the overly punishing hunger and exhaustion mechanics; that’s why you die so easily in combat, why you’re always running out of time, and why the game is perfectly willing to punish you for every single mistake you make. it’s not a game about being the chosen one, who has magic powers and is uniquely capable of saving the day. right?

except... it kind of is precisely that, if you think about it. Artemy’s story is very clearly a traditional “chosen one” narrative! he is the sole inheritor of his father’s legacy, he is the town’s only menkhu, and so much of the story revolves around his spiritual journey. over the course of the game, Artemy undergoes a coming-of-age of sorts, reconnecting with his heritage, unlocking the secrets of being a menkhu, brewing magical tinctures that slow down and ultimately cure the plague. multiple characters make it explicit that Artemy is important - Foreman Oyun, Aspity, Isidor, and various minor characters of the Kin (like Nara) all talk at length about how Artemy is special, and his role (should he embrace it) is to lead the Kin once he is ready. and the entire conflict with Rubin revolves around the fact that Rubin isn’t the “chosen one” the way Artemy is!

this whole plot thread reaches its climax when Artemy ventures into the Abattoir to seek answers. there, he undergoes a series of harrowing spiritual experiences. several really important things happen here, and i want to focus on two of them.

firstly: upon reaching the central chamber of the Abattoir, Artemy is tasked with performing “surgery” on three seemingly random objects: a candlestick, a fingernail coin, and a spindle of thread. he has a metaphysical conversation with the odongh he meets there and then “connects” these objects into a living, beating heart, and the heart speaks to him. this scene is either hallucinatory or supernatural (or both), but it doesn’t matter which; the point of the scene is that Artemy has finally learned to read the Lines, learned to see how seemingly disparate objects can be spiritually connected into a singular whole. he takes three items that appear to have nothing in common, and he forges a beating heart out of them, a living thing. as Artemy himself learns:

This system isn't symmetrical. It's not just "Nerves, Bones, Skin." Or "Nerves, Bones, Flesh." Or "Spirit, Hair, Blood." Any triad is correct.

Truth is not a set point, but an intersection and confluence of many small truths. Knowing this, I can match and connect anything.

furthermore, shortly after leaving the Abattoir, Artemy has a dream in which he returns there and speaks to the ghost of Isidor, his father. here, he learns a difficult truth: that Isidor intentionally brought the plague back to the town, believing - essentially - that it was necessary for the town’s growth. the decision seems monstrous. Isidor justifies it thus:

This town was… connected wrong. Its parts were tied with artificial seams—so different, so awkward. One could say that Simon, the Mistresses, and I held it all together by force.

So I tore it apart, so you can sew it all back, better than before. Because you're better, and smarter, than I am.

so here we have the high point of Artemy’s spiritual journey, the part of the story where he finally understands why things are the way they are, and what it is he must do.

and this is where things start going wrong, in my opinion.

because all of this, all of what we’ve seen, seems to point in one very clear direction: Artemy will find a way to connect the Kin, the Town, and the Polyhedron into a single coherent whole. it fits so perfectly! Artemy learns that there is a way to mass-produce a cure, but doing so would require him to destroy the Polyhedron and the Living Earth. it appears as though the Polyhedron, the Living Earth, and the Town cannot all coexist; something must be sacrificed. but this choice is presented right after we’re told that Artemy’s destiny is to “sew it all back, better than before”. it is presented once we’ve seen that Artemy can connect a coin, a candlestick, and a spindle of thread into a living, beating heart, no matter how impossible that may sound. knowing this, he can match and connect anything.

and yet, he... doesn’t. the game does not end with a solution that connects the Kin, the Polyhedron and the Town. ultimately, Artemy fails to sew it all back together - and it’s not just that he fails, it’s that the game itself seems utterly unconcerned with that possibility once it heads into its final act. the mere idea that there could be a solution that “connects things right“ goes unexplored. even if the game wanted to be pessimistic and suggest that it can’t be done after all, it should at least acknowledge the thought! the game does admittedly have a focus on the idea that “you can’t save everyone”; this is one of its core motifs. so, fair enough! but since it fails to address that cynicism, it feels less like a statement on the game’s part and more like a lack of awareness.

but that’s not all! there’s a second thing that really bugs me. see, there’s another major event that takes place in the Abattoir: Artemy finally has his fateful encounter with Nara, the Herb Bride who has haunted him throughout the game, insisting that their destinies are intertwined and that he will one day kill her. here, Artemy finally comes to understand what it all means. in the depths of the Abattoir, Nara is waiting for him; the other Herb Brides give Artemy a menkhu’s knife, and they task him with cutting open Nara’s body without killing her:

We know how to open things up. Our way. You know how to open things up. Your way. Do you want to know why the sand pest passes us by? Show yourself.

Cut a living sister in such a way that she stays living. You can do it, if you know the Lines.

Artemy follows through, and he converses with Nara even as he cuts into her flesh; they talk to each other right until the end, when Artemy retrieves a spindle of thread from her body, and she dies.

now, this scene is somewhat tricky to interpret; Artemy must show that he can “cut a living sister in such a way that she stays living”, but in the end, Nara does die. so was he successful or not? well, i would argue that he is; even though Nara dies, he proves that he is able to read the Lines with such precision that she can speak calmly with him until the very end.

more importantly, this scene is the high point of a recurring theme in the game: Artemy’s skill as surgeon.

on Day 1, the very first part of the game, Artemy is sent by his old friend Bad Grief to perform surgery on Piecework, one of the thugs in Bad Grief’s gang. Piecework has gotten in a fight and been stabbed in the gut with a lockpick; without Artemy’s intervention, he will die. you can choose to save him, flub the surgery and kill him, or ignore the sidequest altogether; in any case, this early quest introduces the player to the surgery mechanic and serves to establish Artemy’s unique skills as a surgeon.

on Day 11, the last day of proper gameplay, you have a repeat of this encounter. while pursuing the main quest for the day, you wind up in a pub, where a gang of local bandits have set up shop. they threaten you and order you to rescue one of their pals, who has been shot in the stomach and is about to die. here you again perform surgery to save a man’s life, but this time you don’t do it through the usual surgery minigame - it happens entirely through dialogue choices, and i’m actually not even sure if it’s possible to fail this interaction. in any case, you retrieve the bullet from the man’s stomach and inform his friends that he’ll live.

so what’s the point of all that then? well, the way i see it, the point of all this is to foreshadow a climactic conclusion: Artemy will remove the Polyhedron without killing the Living Earth.

the game spends a lot of time setting this up! on Day 1, Artemy saves a man by removing a long metal spike from his gut non-lethally; in the Abattoir, Artemy proves his spiritual growth by demonstrating that he can “cut a living sister in such a way that she stays living”; and on Day 11, the game throws yet another surgery vignette at you in a scene that frankly feels a bit out of place otherwise.

all of this feels, to me, like it's foreshadowing and setting up one very obvious result: Artemy, having mastered not only practical surgery but also the art of reading the Lines, of being a menkhu, is the one person who can remove the Polyhedron without killing the Living Earth! the game spends all this time explaining that in the Steppe culture, cutting open flesh, or the earth itself, is taboo: only a menkhu is allowed to do so, because a menkhu is someone who knows how to read the Lines, who knows how to cut in a way that will not harm the Living Earth. the culmination of the story, therefore, needs to be that Artemy puts this exact skill to use. that was the point of his character arc, right?

except... no, it isn’t. in the end, there is no way to surgically extract the metal spike from the Living Earth. the only two choices we are presented with are: botch the surgery, or leave it be.

...

in the end, i feel that the ending(s) of Pathologic 2 aren’t appropriate conclusions to the ideas, motifs, and overall narrative progression we’re shown throughout the earlier parts of the game. Pathologic 2 is in many ways brilliant, and i do not hesitate to call it a masterpiece, aforementioned criticisms notwithstanding - but that’s precisely why i cared enough to write all this down! it’s a story that gets into your head, really stays with you, and maybe that’s the reason why i have such strong feelings about the direction the story takes in its final act.

if you reached the end of this post: thank you so much for reading it! i hope you enjoyed my thoughts, and i hope you have a great day!

[rueren]

Haikyuu boys who believe in the supernatural.

There was literally no need to make this but here you go anyways. In honor of spooky szn.

NISHINOYA

No need for explanation honestly. Believes in everything. I’m pretty sure he had like no restricted internet time as a kid, so he knows everything that he shouldn't.  Found out about Mothman pretty young.  More interested in them than scared.  He really just wants confirmation that they really do exist, as much as he already believes that they do.  He’s really only scared of  Bigfoot because he could easily pick him up and just *yeet* him and he’d die.  He says he’d rolling thunder his way to a safe landing but even he knows he can’t do that.  

TANAKA

He always particularly liked the idea of sirens, after Saeko showed it to him  She made him watch Monster High, fight me.  He's a cultured boy.  Noya mentioned Mothman to him at a sleepover.  He’s been hooked on the supernatural ever since.  Every away game / training camp they get, him and Noya look up what kind of supernatural stuff is in the area and go ghost hunting.  Asahi is sick of them thinking he is Frankenstein Every. Single. Time.

KAGEYAMA

Not a believer at first, but he caught Tanaka and Noya sneaking out of the room one day at training camp.  They asked if he wanted to come, because 1) the other second and third years never want to come and 2) all the other first years are too scared.  Tsukii pretended to be asleep, and he’s lowkey terrified of supernatural, but he’d never let anyone know that.  He eventually goes with them, and they tell him the whole story about Mothman, and he swears he saw something it was a bush and now he's a fanatic.  . He believes in the wackest theories. Bigfoot?  Yes.  Abominable snowman? Yes.  Cyclops?  Yes.  Mummies?  Yes.  Give it all to him.  BUT, he’s terrified of zombies.  How do dead people even come back to life?  That’s not possible.  And their nails are all gross, and we already know this boy keeps his nails clean so that just grosses him out.  

KEISHIN UKAI

After hearing Noya and Tanaka talking about some sort of supernatural creature at practice so many times he’s like there's no way this is real, it was just stories ... right ??  So, after many days of just being like ugh whatever, kids these days, he's like okay fine, I’ll just look at it for 5 minutes.  “5 mins won't hurt right ??”   Very much wrong sir.  3 days later, he hasn’t slept, cans of red bull everywhere around his room, his ashtray is overflowing. He swears that he heard rustling noises outside his window, and his moms been yelling at him to stop talking to himself at like 4 am.  Takeda is very much concerned as well, since Keishin is now mumbling to himself about moth...sightings?  What is going on??

One day at practice he just joins in conversation about sasquatch randomly, and Noya and Tanaka are like “oh my god Ukai-sensei is so cool what the hell.”

*Ukai goes with them on the next supernatural creature hunt at a training camp, but they have to swear up and down not to tell Takeda, or he’d kill him for feeding the kids heads with nonsense.*

You can never convince him that vampires don’t exist.  Or werewolves.  He watched teen wolf, and now he wants to be a werewolf more than anything

OIKAWA

Believes in aliens and aliens only.  No other supernatural things exist.  Maybe ghosts, but that's cutting it. Literally wants to get abducted.  But then Iwaizumi is like “you know they're gonna probe your ass with their alien dicks and shit right?” And this boy’s like fine by me  NO. So now he's scared, but still refuses to accept that there aren't aliens.  

IWAIZUMI

Doesn't believe in anything, but he wants more than anything for Godzilla to be real.  Like, that's so cool to him. A giant monster dinosaur… thing? Sign him the hell up.  He also has an irrational fear of goblins.  Like, what the hell, why are they so tiny, and green, and just so creepy with their beady eyes.  He gets the creeps just thinking about it. 

MATSUWAKA

I don’t really have an explanation for this one.  He definitely had complete access to the internet 24/7 as a kid.  Knows literally every and anything that he shouldn't.  He really likes dragons and shit though.  Definitely believes that there used to be dragons when dinosaurs were around cause why wouldn't there be.   He had a “How To Train Your Dragon” phase, FIGHT ME.  Also really likes vampires.  But as far as creepy supernatural beings go, he’s scared to death of Slenderman.  

KYOTANI

Give him werewolves and he is happy.  He has watched every werewolf show/movie  in existence.  He loves it, it's not too scary but still eerie.  Not really scared of anything, but he hates spiders.  Not the point, but you deserve to know.  The only thing that sort of gets to him is the Headless Horseman.  Like….no head? How does that even work???  Confuses him more than scares him, but its a good 51/49 confusion to scare ratio.

BOKUTO

Always believed in ghosts, but doesn’t want to.  Heard Kuroo talking about Mothman at one point, and is now terrified.  Swears on any and everything he can think of that he knOWS he saw him outside the gym window.  Is now deathly terrified of the idea of Mothman. 

“I saw it! He was staring at me, I swear.”

“Bokuto-san, Mothman doesn’t exist.”

“But Akaashi!!!! He was right there!  I swear to you. On my jersey, on your jersey, on my spikes, on everything!  You know I would ever lie to you.”

“Jfc I know you wouldn’t, Bokuto-san, but it's dark.  Your eyes are playing tricks on you.”

“But Akaashi, that’s what he wants me to think! His eyes were so creepy.  Staring into my soul, it was like … *GASP* He's gonna steal my brain!! Akaashi, you can’t let him get me please.”

“Bokuto-san, nobody wants your brain, okay, get out from under there.”

“But AKAASHI!!!! He’s gonna steal my brain and I’m gonna forget how to play volleyball!  How am I supposed to be the ace after that?  How am I supposed to teach Hinata???” 

“You forget how to play volleyball while you still have your brain.  I promise you Bokuto-san, he’s not doing that.  Even if he did exist-”

“Akaashi, Kuroo told me he’s real.  He’s like, super smart and stuff.  Don’t tell him I said that...”

“In chemistry, that's it. Okay, even if he's real, he’s not going to come to Japan...”

“... Okay, maybe you’re right…”

“Yes, I am.  Now please come out from under there. Go brush your teeth, we still have practice tomorrow and our ace needs sleep.”

“Okay, I’m coming.  But I’m sleeping beside you.  You can’t let him get me, cause then, like, how am I supposed to be the ace?  The team needs me, Akaashi.  Hinata needs me.”

“You sleep beside me anyways, but of course Bokuto-san, let's just go to sleep please.”

*all of this could have been avoided if Kuroo flattened his hair after his shower, and maybe didn’t walk really weirdly in front of the gym window rIGHT after telling Bokuto about Mothman*

TENDOU

Another psycho who had zero limit to internet access as a kid.  Basically the same as Noya, he just thinks it's so cool.  Monsters?  Supernatural?  Hell freaking yeah, lemme meet him.  Has posters of every .  Probably has a hat that he wears religiously.  The hat is so worn out its got holes but he refuses to throw it out.  Zero fear of the supernatural.  He’s probably been possessed by a demon at one point but was just like, “Oh. Sick”.  

“So like, do monsters - is that derogatory?  I apologize I just don’t many people like you - have special conditioners.  I use this one that’s supposed to keep my hair all shiny, and it works really well.  What do you use on your fur...fuzz?  I don’t know what it is, but it's pretty cool?”

*confused moth noises*

“Oh my god, this is great stuff, lemme just write it down.  Ushiwaka is gonna be so stoked!”

*scared moth noises*

GOSHIKI

Tendou has convinced him. “Senpai wouldn’t lie to me, so it has to be true….But a moth... Person? Maybe I should ask Semi-senpai ?  NO, senpai wouldn’t lie to me.”

SEMI

Closeted Sasquatch and Mothman believer.  Tendou finds out after going into his dorm to find a spare pair shirt.  He had a poster under all his clothes, and sightings open on his laptop. 12345setter isn't a very good password bubs.  Threatens to cut out Tendous tongue while he sleeps if he breathes a word about it to anyone.

KUROO

A  true fan.  Probably has posters.  This man has no fear.  Has a notebook/scrapbook thing with a bunch of newspaper clippings. His most prized possession.  All his free time is either volleyball, babysitting Kenma, reciting the periodic table, or pouring over Bigfoot info. Another one who is really into Mothman

YAMAMOTO

Convinced by Kuroo that it is real.  He was in denial for so long, but then he finally caved after the sheer amount of info that Kuroo has collected.  It can’t be fake, just look at how many pictures there are. Him and Kuroo have frequent hunts for supernatural beings, and convince Kenma (who has nerves of steel after being scared by Kuroo a thousand times already) to record for them, like they’re BuzzFeed unsolved. They promise to get him out of practice for 3 days in a row after the training camp is over so he can play his games and his like meh fine. They all ran into the Karasuno hunters once. Both agree to pretend it never happened, but secretly compare potential sightings the next day.

________________________________________________________________

The Bonus Everybody Needs

________________________________________________________________

KIYOKO

Nerves of steel.  This woman is scared of nothing.  She loves Halloween, and everything scary. Will watch a scary movie to help her go to sleep.  Loves every type of supernatural creature.  Sirens, Banshees, Mermaids, Medusa, Witches…. You get my drift. She also really loves the Lock Ness monster.  Aquatic supernatural creatures hold a special place in her heart.   She loves it all.  

*Plays Halloween pranks on the boys every year, and without fail never gets caught.  Takeda helps her, but for only the harmless pranks.  They even got Ukai once.  She revels in watching them accuse each other, while she watches on the sidelines.  Yams is the only one who caught her, and helps her with the rest of the pranks.*

She steps outside the gym to go and fill up the water tank for the boys next match.  Turning on the tap and letting the water fall into the bucket, she rests her head on the brick wall behind her. It was hot.  Overwhelmingly so.  She wanted nothing more than to go and take a nice cool shower, and could only imagine how much more the boys wanted it, after practicing for so long today.  This training camp was particularly brutal, all the teams trying to amp up their skills as quickly as possible.

The sound of the water falling into the bucket was loud, almost drowning out the sound of sneakers screeching and balls slamming onto the floor. Picking at her nails - clear coat, but the ring fingers have a small, inconspicuous bat designs - she heard voices. 

“..., No, okay , I get what you're saying, but like, how can we be sure that it wasn’t just another fake sighting?  People are always saying that they see aliens, and UFO’s, but it's all bogus.” Nishinoya’s came drifting from around the corner of the wall.  

“Yeah, but I saw Oikawa-san’s page, and I know that he only posts stuff that he fact checks.  You know that guy is a perfectionist, and an E.T fanatic.  It has to be true.” Tanaka’s voice.  

She always overheard them.  And almost always wanted to chime in with some small bit of information herself.  She was nowhere near the level of investment that they were, but she could hold her own. If she wasn’t so shy, she probably would have joined a few conversations.   Being a third year and their manager took up most of her time, but she still really was into the supernatural world.  Not that aliens technically counted.  Or did they?

“Okay, forget about Oikawa-san. Did you see that link I sent you?  About the Merman thing?” Noya said, and she could practically hear him jumping.  She shook her head, laughing quietly.  The jug started to sound like the water was ready to spill out of the bucket, and she turned off the tap.  

“Yeah, dude.  That looked really cool actually,” Twisting the lid on, she weighed what she should do in her head.  “But I don’t know.  Does Japan even have mermaids and shit?”

“I’m not sure honestly. You should ask Saeko-san, she'd probably know.”

“Yeah, I’ll call her later, she’s probably out right now-”

“Ningyo.” She mumbled as she quickly walked past them, into the gym doors. “There’s something similar to mermaids in Japanese lore called Ningyo.”  

It took her a solid 10 more seconds to even reach the gym doors, let alone get them open, but by the time they almost closed, the sound of exasperated squealing was heard from behind her.  

*They tried telling the team that Kiyoko-san was so cool and was like them and believed in the supernatural too but nobody believed them*

________________________________________________________________

The Other Bonus Nobody Everybody Needs 

________________________________________________________________TANJI WASHIJO

... Don't ask me about this one I don't know either ... He believes his garden gnomes are alive.  Swears on Ushijima that they aren't where he left them the day before. Gets nightmares about them too.

*gets the team to stand lookout one night a week incase they move, and nobody has the guts to tell him that his gardener probably moves them when he comes to cut his grass*

*every now and then he’ll forget about it and then Tendou will sneak out and go more only one gnome, and the whole things starts up again.  sneaky lil shit thinks hes so funny*

[strangertheory]

How do you think people in Stranger Things would react to Will being THAT powerful??? His allies (friends, family), his enemies (Lonnie, Dr. Brenner...), other psychics (would they be jealous?) MIKE??? Would he still want to be with him? (I know he's been with Ell, but wouldn't he be too scared to be with someone THAT powerful?) And finally WILL HIMSELF?

Hello there! Thanks for Asking! ^_^

So - I believe that the context of your question is that you are assuming that my understanding of the Stranger Things universe is that Will Byers’s mind created the Upside Down and the monsters and the “Russians” and that in this sense he has “god-like” psychic powers just like @kaypeace21 explains in many of her blogposts. Correct?

Yes. I believe that Mike and Joyce and Jonathan would still want to stay with Will. I believe that his friends will ultimately choose to stay with him, too. I personally believe that El will also ultimately be an ally to him just as she always has been since season 1.

Jealousy, in my opinion, would be inappropriate and ignorant. Will’s powers are nothing to be jealous of since they stem directly from the abuse and trauma that he has been through and they are fantastical manifestations of his mind attempting to do everything it can to protect itself. But I suppose it's always possible someone would be jealous and ignorant about his powers nonetheless.

Currently Will does not have conscious control over these events. Not that we know of yet, at least. They also appear to be tied to his anxiety, his emotions, and his trauma that is buried in his mind. Of course people in Hawkins would be intimidated and afraid of Will if and when they figure out that his feelings and traumas are manifesting themselves in their world and are creating dangerous circumstances for everyone in Hawkins and the world-at-large. Of course. But it’s important to remember that he is not choosing to cause any of it, and it is not his actions but the actions of those who hurt him that are reaching out and spreading and incidentally harming the town as his mind tries to process what has happened and deal with everything and, ultimately, protect him.

However. I want to also add a tiny bit of my own speculation regarding what these supernatural and fantastical occurrences could represent within the theory that Will has dissociative identity disorder:

As you have probably noticed - I am a huge fan of @kaypeace21‘s theories and I agree with her on many, many observations and ideas about what is going on in the Stranger Things universe. But sometimes I might have slightly different ideas of my own here and there. I go back-and-forth on many of them. They tend to not be as well-organized or cohesive as @kaypeace21 ‘s interpretations, but I do have a collection of “maybes” floating around my mind most days.  I’m not committed to any of these rogue thoughts, and I change how I feel about them every single day and so I haven’t wanted to share them. But I will mention one of those thoughts in this answer to your Ask:

I continue to go back-and-forth between whether or not I see this story as one about literal monsters attacking a very real town and creatures that have emerged from Will’s mind in the flesh, or whether this entire story could be a story-within-a-story. Might there be a real-world, realistic-fiction version of everything happening that is hidden behind this curtain of fantasy? Could there be a version of Hawkins itself that is an internal world with alters and introjects and NPCs living in it? Was Will “going missing” really El fronting in a DID System for a few weeks because Will was afraid and “hiding”? Did Mike yell at Max for allowing El to show up at the Mall and say “You know she’s not allowed to be here!” because he’s worried it’s not safe for her at the mall for reasons that don’t involve the Lab or Evil Russians? Were we supposed to pick up on Will tapping out Morse Code to Hopper and saying “Close the Gate” in season 2 as being a method of communication that Hopper had taught to El for when she needed to reach him? I don’t know. I do think about these details and these possible hidden layers sometimes, though. These are just some thoughts that nag at the corners of my thoughts some days.

But whether Stranger Things is a fantastical retelling of “What Happened to Will Byers and How His Friends Helped Him Defeat the Monsters” written by author Michael Wheeler or not, I think that much of the conflict with supernatural elements in Stranger Things is still functioning on a very metaphorical level and will be resolved within the emotional and psychological aspects of the story getting resolved.

To return to the heart of your question and how his friends and family might feel about him being “so powerful” :

Yes. Will’s friends and family and all of Hawkins will probably be afraid of him at first just like (sadly) people in the real world are often afraid of those that are dealing with trauma and mental illness and those that behave “strangely” and are different compared to others that they are used to understanding. I think that their reactions will probably be analogous. We have already seen how Will (and El!) is treated as different and ostracized socially in many ways, both intentional and unintentional. Will is known to be not like other kids. (”He’s not like you, Hopper! He’s not like... most.”) Will is anxious about being treated like a baby and like he can’t handle things on his own by even his friends. Will is bullied. Everyone at school, even high schoolers that aren’t Will’s classmates, refer to him as a “freak.” Jonathan was referred to as “the freak’s brother” at one point. Can you imagine? Will is mocked so widely by the town that even high school bullies take jabs at him in casual conversation when insulting someone else: his older brother. He’s mocked. He’s bullied. He’s ignored. Will is already treated as someone different that the town is uncomfortable with and doesn’t respect. His “powers” growing or Will suddenly becoming more aware of his situation as someone that is different and called a “freak” will surely be a very hard thing for him to deal with while he is also met with increased ostracization by the people he knows and loves.

Hopefully those that love Will are going to ultimately realize that his “powers” and his condition are not a threat to their safety, and that the true danger and evil stems from the person (or people) who have hurt Will and who need to be brought to justice. Helping Will heal from everything that he has been through will surely be the key to banishing the monsters from Hawkins and allowing Will himself to realize that he doesn’t have to see his life as ruined by his condition or his “powers” and that he can truly have a happy, fulfilling life with those he loves. On that note: I highly recommend @kaypeace21‘s response to this blogpost (click here to read the thread) in which she discusses how important it is that storytellers create narratives in which survivors find happiness and love in spite of everything that they have been through because too often the lie and the damaging trope that mental illness inevitably condemns people to misery and death shows up again and again in pop culture. It’s important that we reject the lie told to us by society that the mentally ill are incapable of having happy lives.

(Thank you for Asking!)

[laufire]

Supernatural s2

I’m halfway through s3 already (technically a rewatch, but there were episodes I didn’t watch the first time around), so this post is a little overdue lol. At this rhythim the posts will overlap. Plus I’m hoping I can finish s4-5 during the holidays to see the ~intended ending~ before I have to slow down on the binge-watch. After that, a season a month sounds achievable AND won’t take longer than 2021 xD

ANYWAY.

-Overall, I’ve enjoyed it more than the first one, but at the same time I’ve found myself missing how... claustrophobic? Insular? Compact? That one was. s2 was about the world opening up just a little bit more, introducing new characters to the brothers’ life, etc. I do love the detail that this is something that can only have, narratively speaking, once John is dead. Again: this show gets abusive families, consciously or not.

-The foreshadowing is beautifully done. 15 seasons make for a lot of unintentional and ironic foreshadowing later on, I’m sure, but the purposeful foreshadowing is superb this season. About the crossroads deals, of course, but especially about John’s last words. I already knew he’d told Dean he might have to kill Sam (father of the year, seriously. Though I side-eye the fandom even more for always having acted as if this is only awful for Dean lol), so I was hyperaware of every single detail. My favourite moment was the absolute horror of hearing Gordon proudly, cheerfully relate how he murdered his sister when she became a vampire (which, btw, as someone that’s still bitter about what went down with the Gunn siblings on Angel, I found it healing to see something like that treated as a horror story).

-Speaking of Gordon: I unashamedly love his character lmfao. Sterling K. Brown is mesmerizing, always. At the same time, I have serious mixed feelings (especially after seeing his arc in full in s3) because man, if it isn’t a racist mess. I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s not exactly revolutionary that the first time we see the story from the monster’s POV (something I want the show to do! Often!), it’s when white monsters are stalked and brutalized by our first black hunter. Especifically a white woman, btw (although I’m happy to see Tara Maclay as a brunette vampire. I didn’t know I needed that in my life, but I did). And you can tell that the show thinks it’s just so SMART and FUNNY to have a ~racist black hunter!! I mean, the comment about how psychic kids would be “betraying their race” if they allied with demons?? FFS.

And ofc there’s the fact that he’s condemned for the exact same type of stuff that makes Dean be hailed as a hero lmfao. Though I won’t like, I love the moment where, faced with the comparison, Dean’s response is “I might be like you, I might not. But you’re the one tied up.” I love those kinds of character moments. As of s2 I officially have a love-hate relationship with Dean Winchester, I hate it here xDD

But still, on his own, Gordon is an amazing character (it’s one of the most frustrating things about the show, the greatness tainted by the bigotry :))). Charismatic, terrifying, and ofc superbly acted. Also, I love that the fact that he praised John (as opposed to every other hunter having a rockier relationship with him) is clearly supposed to be a red flag LMFAO.

-I enjoy how the seasons delves more deeply into Sam’s ~~dark origins, since it was my fave thing about him way back when. I’m already mourning the (as I suspect) lost of his powers, ngl. There’s a little more attention in how he tends to over-identify with supernatural creatures struggling with their ~dark sides too (bitch me too, the fuck xD), which I LOVE to see (among other reasons because at least in that way we get a little of their POV in the forefront lol). One of my favourites in that sense was the episode centered around the ghost-who-didn’t-know-she-was-ghost, played by Tricia Helfer. I clocked early one what was going on, but it was still very enjoyable, especially with Sam’s empathy with her (contrasted by Dean being a total bitch about it, btw. I can’t believe I still see post about how Dean is all heart/kindness/compassion/whatever the fuck. Dean is all about selective empathy and only when it conveniences him, pls).

I was more divided on the episode with Madison the werewolf, tbh. OTOH it put Sam in a better position, for a change xD. As the one willing to make The Hard Choices by fulfilling his promise to kill her because she was dangerous, even when Dean offered to ~take the burden from him. OTOH I hate that kind of thing lol. YOU GUYS KNOW A HUNTER PRO LIKE BOBBY, I BET HE COULD’VE FIGURED OUT SOMETHING TO CONTAIN HER A FEW NIGHTS A MONTH. Also, my immediate reaction was to compare this to when my man Angel had a crush on a werelady and helped her every month lmfao. But then, very few characters can withstand a comparison with Angel, in any sense :P

I also liked Sam’s subplot with his fellow demon-psychic kids, though I wish it’d lasted longer :/ (also: RME at the queer girl dying almost immediately AND her power being killing people, her girlfriend first of all, with her touch. The black guy was the last one to die at least...?). My fave was Ava, by far. I loved her since her reaction to helping Sam stealing a psychiatrist’s records was yelling “I’M AWESOME!!”. It made it easy to buy that someone that appeared so mundane, with her easy life and her fiance and whatnot, would become so power hungry and go off the rails, IMO.

BTW: RME at Dean being all “oh Sam is going too dark/becoming to cold” when Sam kills Jake. Jake ripped off his spine and killed him first!! It both amuses me and infuriates me all the times Dean tries to push Sam to be more like himself and then freaks out whenever Sam is not all sunshine and rainbows (while still remaining, IMO, far less cold than Dean himself. Besides, it’s not easy to be colder than Dean, lol).

Lastly, a little character detail I loved was when Sam was jealous about Dean being in the federal database but not himself lmfao. 

-I loved the new foreshadowing crumb with Sam finding out Mary knew the demon, too (information he’ll withhold from Dean, which I approve of LOL). I mean, I know exactly what’s up, I’ve watched most of s4 xD (also, what is UP with this family and making deals with demons. Everyone but Sam so far!! And then HE gets dragged for ~getting too close to one smh. Maybe lead by example!! Also also: yes, it was meant to be ambiguous, but I can’t help but notice the only kiss-pact -or further, depending to how close YED was to Lilith’s levels, since to make a deal with her you have to fuck xD- we didn’t see was the one that must’ve happened between John and YED. Cowards!! xD). Still. I’m so curious about her. Her resurrection is one of the main reasons I’m determined to make it to the later seasons, ngl.

-Another thing I LOVED about this season is how they used sibling relationships to parallel/foreshadow stuff about the brothers, the way s1 did often with fathers. I’ve already mentioned Gordon and his sister, but the others are not less brutal imo: Andy having to kill his evil twin, who wanted him all for himself (... Dean is that you xD); the little girl’s ghost who wanted her grand-niece to commit suicide to stay with her, and didn’t give in until her old sister agreed to die in her place. It was chilling. Also, at one point the parallel was between the brothers and a married couple (the ghost-who-didn’t-know-she-was-a-ghost) and asñdlfkajsf. I’m guessing they had fun with the shippers lol.

Speaking of the brothers’ relationship, this season also goes a little further in escalating the violence between them, when Dean punches Sam in the face and he refuses to respond (“you can hit me all you want, it won’t change anything”. Fuck), or when Dean again punches Sam after Sam was possessed by Meg ¬¬

-Going back to my love-hate relationship with Dean, lmfao. My biggest beef remains how much validation his POV gets from the narrative, granted or not; he’s one of the most irritating cases of protagonist-centered morality and I know it’s only going to get worse smh. At least this season it feels a little more balanced than in s1, with episodes like the one where the civilian Sam had tried to keep away dies halfway through the ep because Dean allowed him to get involved, for example. Still, it grates on me xD. The continuing prison rape jokes/demonic possession rape jokes (with Meg and Sam), his general grossness with women and his lack of sympathy for non-humans even when they’re not trying to hurt anyone don’t exactly help. Also, I often see him praised for some of his political views, a lot of which I agree with (his mistrust of cops, saying convicts don’t deserve to die no matter what they do), but when contrasted with his general attitude across the show it’s really grating ngl.

But then he has such AMAZING character details thrown in, that make me appreciate him as a POV character nonetheless, as much as I often want to curb stomp the guy xD. I loved his speech about how there’s no such thing as a dignified death. I love how he refused to come near his mother’s grave, both at the beginning and at the end of the episode (this show is like, the cure to DCCW’s shows false fuzzy sentimentality istg). I love his pop-culture references, like when Sam mentions Dean always thought OJ was the murderer or Dean jokes about freeing Katie Holmes from Scientology’s cult xD (sometimes it really hits you how old this show is lol). I enjoyed his Wishverse episode, and his lines after Sam dies/he sells his soul to save him (“I had one job”, “my life can mean something”) hit HARD.

But most of all? I LOVE how and why he starts losing respect for John. It’s so fucking cold and abrupt and makes so much sense!! Like, yes, part of it is John’s message about killing Sam (... again, father of the year!), but most of all it’s about John making a pact with a demon and dying TO SAVE DEAN (and probably, simply that he died at all. That shit de-mystifies anyone). IT’S SO FUCKING GREAT TO WATCH. “He spent his life chasing that demon. He was supposed to die fighting, not making a deal with the damn thing. That was supposed to be his legacy, not this." Damn, Dean xDD. The *contempt* with which he said that killed me.

I also love his inherently atheist vision of the world (even if yes, it’s extremely funny knowing this show has canon God and angels and shit -no Jesus Christ though, which I find endlessly funny-, or that they actually meet the archangel Gabriel in disguise xD. Either way, the episode with the fake angel and its foreshadowing was hilarious), his anti-destiny stance, and that it’s him and not John who gets to kill YED.

-I liked Ellen and Jo. Not LOVED, but I liked them. I keep fearing that secondary (especially female) characters will feel empty/shallow but the show keeps proving me wrong, even with one-episode wonders, and at first I wasn’t sure about them, but I was sold quickly. Partially because of the actresses, they both had this... humanizing, endearing quality? It worked really well.  I also loved the explicit contrast between John and Ellen’s parenting styles, with Ellen wanting Jo to return to school and be safe from the hunt, and Jo wanting something different. Also, I wouldn’t ship it if you paid me, but LOL at anyone who actually buys Dean sees Jo as a ~little sister just because MEG said that rme.

This show is just REALLY good when it comes to giving depth to a character with only a couple of brush strokes, which makes it all the more frustrating when they abruptly die or disappear to never be seen again/only once more (to abruptly die!) :)))

I was less sold on Ash; he was amusing, but having a Genius Hacker TM helping them out seemed like the beginning of increasingly giving the brothers ways of deux ex machina-ing them out of problems, when one of my favourite things about the show is seeing them creatively find ways out themselves. I like when they’re competent! Like with the multitude of codes they have to improvise plans, like in the episode where with two words through a lawyer they implemented a quick scheme so that Sam would escape from a police precinct. I like that stuff.

-I’m still so bitterly jealous about the dead man’s blood hurting vampires detail. SO BITTERLY JEALOUS. I love a lot of what this show does with its lore but that little bit is the worst offender. I want it so bad xD

[kiatheinsomniac]

Huntress III

[ I ]  [ II ]  [ III ]  [ IV ]

(Y/n) groggily arose from her bed, the sunlight of a late morning pouring in through the leaded windows, covering her in a blanket of diamond-shaped shadows. Beside her was the book which she had fallen asleep while reading. The thick pillar candle resting on the bedside had melted down three inches, wax pouring down its sides and melting in little dribbles, some of it pooling on the wood of the table.

Licking her thumb and index finger, (Y/n) quickly squeezed the wick to extinguish the flame that had been dancing all night, illuminating the room while she had slept.

She rubbed her (e/c) eyes and pushed back the locks of hair that had escaped her twin faux braids. Sitting up and dangling her legs off the side of the bed, she reached back to begin unweaving her hair, letting the river of (h/c) locks cascade behind her. She dropped all the little pins and bands onto the crumpled crimson sheets under her as she took her hair and began weaving it into dutch braids and winding it around the back of her neck, creating a crown from her own hair.

She stood to discard her clothes, folding them and placing them neatly into the trunk at the end of the bed before pulling out a black pair of trousers, a white blouse and some arm guards.

(Y/n) slid the blouse on first. It had billowing sleeves and turned to lace over the top of her chest, the woven pattern climbing up high on her neck, secured with a bow at her nape. Next, she tugged on the leg-hugging black trousers, tucking the blouse in as she tied up the front of the trousers, pulling the crisscrossing cords into a tight double bow. The (e/c)-eyed female then used her teeth to tighten her ebony arm guards. They made the lace cuffs of the blouse stand out more while the rest of the shirt puffed out against her upper arms. She then pulled on her boots and slung a bag over her shoulder.

Her eyes drifted back to the book.

In her profession, the knew better than to doubt the powers which she had read about on those pages. A previous civilisation, more advanced than our own, sounded ridiculous yet. . . The vampire wouldn't have taken the pages if he didn't believe in it himself or if he hadn't been exposed to one of those 'Pieces of Eden' at some point in his immortal life.

She picked it up and tossed it into her bag. She knew that she couldn't ask the Doge about it because she had stolen it from him and it was something which he was clearly trying to cover up. Her mind wandered for answers. Who in Venice would be about to help her decipher the coded parts of the text without the Doge knowing? The culture was changing, there were so many beautiful and bright minds nowadays.

An alchemist perhaps? A poet? An artist? An engineer? Of course! She knew exactly who to find as she turned the key in the lock and ran out of the mansion in search of the man whom she had just recalled. All she had was a name but with enough asking, she would be able to find him.

♰♰♰

It was a few hours later and (Y/n) found herself rather hungry, having left her room in the Doge's mansion without anything to eat. But eventually, she found herself knocking on the sheltered door of a studio. She pummelled her first insistently against the thick wood until a fairly young boy opened it.

"Hello, I'm looking for Leonardo? Da Vinci?" She peeked inside, attempting to get a better look into the building in order to spot the man himself.

"What for?" The young boy, clearly an apprentice, asked.

"I was told that he could help me to decode an old book that I found." She replied.

"Send her in!" A man called from somewhere inside. The young boy stood aside to allow (Y/n) to enter.

When she walked inside, there were odd contraptions hanging from the ceiling. Architectural drawings were sprawled out across tables and pinned to walls. There were half-finished paintings on easels and jars of murky paint water on stools. Sketches of anatomy were all pinned to the wall above a desk with very detailed charcoal drawings on it. Though, the windows were covered by sheets and it was oddly dark, candles lighting the place.

She was met by a blonde man with blue eyes who was rather short and wore a large hat.

But he wasn't the only person in the room.

Instantly, (Y/n) knew what this other man was. Whether he was the vampire she was searching for or a much more discreet one whom she didn't know of, she was unsure.

He was gorgeous. Flawless olive skin, glimmering brown eyes like polished smokey quartz, dark hair that shone healthily and was tied back. His odd white and red robes hugged his muscular arms, leading you to the conclusion that the rest of his body was very toned too.

When their eyes met, there was a mutual understanding that she knew what he was and he knew that she was the witch hunter.

He seemed caught off guard for a moment before his brows furrowed as he examined her, eyes widening with surprise when he picked up something about her — the last thing he ever would have expected from such a woman.

"Hello Leonardo," she turned to the artist, "My name's (Y/n) (L/n). I know that you don't know me but I've been told that you could help me decipher this book and I could really do with some help. It's for a case I'm working on and it would mean a lot to me. I can pay you however much you want." It was a risk to work right in front of the creature whom she needed to hunt down but she simply had to understand what was going on.

"Leonardo," Ezio spoke up, "Could you leave us alone for a moment please?"

The artist shot a glance of confusion in the direction of his friend. What was he playing at? Was it to do with the brotherhood? Or was he simply trying to charm the woman? Either way, he nodded and made his way to the garden.

(Y/n)'s hand snaked to the dagger at her hip. She was poorly prepared for a vampire attack, she had not been expecting him to be there — in broad daylight no less!

"You're in over your head." The vampire spoke simply, "I have work I need to do and I don't want you getting in the way. You don't need to die in this. Leave now. Go home and find work elsewhere." He truly did want peace. After all, his goal was to stop the unnecessary killing. He didn't want to kill her but he couldn't have her in the way of his plans either.

"You're right. There are people in this world who don't have to get caught in the crossfire. There are graves belonging to the people who didn't have to die." She lunged towards him and unsheathed her blade, though it was quickly deflected with his hidden blade which shot out from his sleeve. The point of her blade was poised at his chest, hovering over his heart. "And those people will only be avenged once blood has been paid for with blood." Her (e/c) eyes were a maelstrom of anguish and rage, tearing apart cliffs and commanding tidal waves.

"Who hurt you?" The vampire spoke with a gentle voice. But she knew better than to trust the creature's charms. She pulled back and held her dagger in a tight grip, ready to strike at the best moment.

"You. Your kind. Every single one of you." Her brows hung low over her eyes and she shook with adrenaline. "And I won't stop. Not until the price has been paid."

The olive-skinned man let out a sigh as his blade retracted and he raised a hand into the air. (Y/n) suddenly found herself unable to move, frozen in place. The panic was evident on her face.

"Don't worry. I won't hurt you." He spoke in a soothing tone, his voice was like thick honey and blackberries with a sweet, fruity wine. But she knew that all those luxuries in his tone were laced with cantarella.

"You haven't hypnotised me. Why can't I move?"

"It's my unique ability — I can control living things' ability to move. I thought I could control objects at first but it turned out that what I can control is muscle tissue. I could make you do whatever I wanted right now but I think I need you to stay still so that you don't try to kill me." There was a hint of humour in his tone at the end. "I want to understand you. Tell me: why is a witch hunting the supernatural?" His hand caressed the side of her face, brushing the stray lock of hair behind her ear as her body was moved to a more neutral position where she was not poised with a dagger in her clutch.

"Lower your voice!" She hissed. She scrunched her eyes shut as he ran a hand down the artery of her neck. She didn't feel safe. He said that he needed her out of the way earlier and he could very well just drink her blood there and have it over with.

She had never encountered a vampire with such a dangerous ability before. Fire and reading thoughts were worrisome, yes, but to control another person's body? That was deadly on an entirely new level. At the back of her mind, she willed for a spirit to protect her, to wrap its arms around her and repel the vampire who caressed her cheek ever so softly. But no spirit nor fae rushed to her aid.

"There's no need for that." He spoke up, knowing full well what she was trying to do, "Even they know that I won't hurt you." He retracted this hand to let it fall to his side. "Who was taken from you? Why do you blame my kind? Why must this blood price be paid?"

Silence.

"(Y/n), come on, carissima, I won't let you go until I have answers. Are you a solitary witch?"

"I wasn't always solitary." She replied, her walls fracturing, the thought of finally being able to speak too irresistible, "I. . . I lost my sisters. All twelve." His lips parted in sorrow and he reached up to brush a tear that rolled down her cheek. The witch hunter would have pushed his hand away if only she had control over her body. Ezio knew what witches meant by 'sisters'.

"Your coven. . . I know what that's like. I watched my father and brothers be hanged. They didn't deserve it either, they were innocents. My father fought for freedom and my brothers were still boys. I was still a boy. . ." His natural charms were working on her, luring her into safety without him even needing to try.

"I watched them burn and I hid. I was the only one who made it out and I watched every single one of them go up in flames." A sob shook her chest, "And it's the vampires' fault! If they had only kept away from the town then witchcraft would not have been suspected! We never hurt the people! Never! And they turned on us all because a vampire had taken to killing men in the village! They were all innocent! I was innocent!" A long silence followed. ". . . They didn't need to die. . ."

She felt herself crumple to the floor, Ezio no longer needing to control her into their unspoken truce. Instead, he crouched down beside her and held her as she cried. She cried out all of the pain that she had pent up over six years until she dissolved to a hiccuping mess.

All the while, Ezio ran his hand up and down her back and let her press her face into his shoulder. Every part of her screamed to get away from him and yet. . .

She had never felt so right.

No one - no one - had given her any affection in years; no one could hear her story lest she be burned too; no one had held her and told her it was ok and that she didn't need to fight anymore; no one had touched her in so long and, gods, she was so touch-starved that it made her light up and feel alive, like a warm blanket of magma was slipping over her (s/t) skin that had been encased in a glacier for far too long.

She had kept such intense emotions secret for so many years. They were never spoken aloud, never put to paper. Perhaps it was because she was so close to the end of this long journey that she had put herself on. Perhaps she was just so vulnerable in that respect that she fell right into the arms of the creature who she swore she would kill.

Ezio's hand cradled the back of her neck while she calmed down, fingers caressing her silky (h/c) hair while she gripped onto his robes. He hadn't expected it to be quite this easy, hadn't expected their views to be quite so aligned. His lips pressed against the side of her head where her hairline began, pointed canines running over the skin there as his lips went to hover over her ear.

"We're a lot more alike than you think." He whispered, "I want to stop people from dying in other people's battles just as much as you do. I want freedom for people like you — how frustrating must it be to be human and told you're not? To be made to think you're the supernatural because you're gifted? To fear execution for merely existing?" She sniffled and nuzzled her head into his shoulder where his robes were now tear-stained.

"But if we both want to get what we want, you have to stop helping the Doge. He is a Templar: a man who will stop at nothing for absolute control, slavery of the human race and for freedom of will to be stripped from each and every individual. I am an Assassin: a man who protects freedom, no matter how chaotic it may seem. People like you and I will disappear if the Templars get their way. People like your sisters will die for a cause that they do not know of. People like my family will be killed for standing up for what's right. They will all be killed without a second thought."

(Y/n), beginning to quickly pile up her cold walls again, drew back from him, moving to sit on the floor a little distance from him instead.

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" She narrowed her eyes at him, eyeing up all the various weapons that were strapped all over his body.

"Because if I truly wanted you dead, I would have just killed you. You are a witch, no? Why not consult your cards and your spirits then decide?" She thought over his story once more.

"If you don't want innocents to die then why did you kill Elizabetta?" She interrogated, what she knew didn't seem to match with what he was telling her.

"She was a Templar also. Did they take down the red cross in her room before you arrived or not?"

"Red cross? Is that the insignia of the Templars?" She furrowed her brows, getting a much clearer view of what was at play.

"Yes. The one of the assassins is the symbol on my belt." (Y/n) found her eyes wandering down at this, seeing what Lucia had described as an arrow.

"So. . . What happens if I go back to the Doge and I interrogate him about all this?" She pressed.

"Most likely: he'd kill you. They don't like their secrets getting out." Ezio explained.

"And how. . . How do I know I'm safe with you?" She pressed, leaning forwards slightly.

"Because I see so much of myself in you. We're like-minded people, (Y/n). We want freedom, to feel safe in this world and to know that we won't be enslaved or killed for our differences. I know that justice is important to you and in the world the Templars want, justice will cease to exist." He paused, "You're tired of travelling and killing and not having a home, I can tell. You're tired of feeling like you shouldn't have been the one to survive and you have to pay for that privilege with blood. You can rest now. Come with me and you'll have everything you want and so much more." He was so close.

He couldn't tell if he was manipulating her anymore. When she walked in the room, he expected to have to jump into action and fight for his life, to reveal himself to his friend and his friend's apprentices who stood by outside. But when he sensed what she truly was — a witch —, he knew that there was so much more to her cold reputation.

She looked up at him with big glassy eyes, shimmering and dancing with tears that were just about to overspill.

"I just want my life back." She whispered, face crumpling in pain.

"I can't give you your old life back but I can make you a new one. One with a home and no more guilt. One where you can sleep knowing your people will never be wronged again."

She bit down on her lip as she thought over the tough decision. How did he know exactly what she wanted? Exactly what to say? Why had she opened up to a creature that she despised? She stopped thinking about it. All she wanted was an easy life and someone to care for her.

She looked up and nodded her head.

"What do I need to do?"

[pellicano-sanguino]

A while ago I wrote that I was reading through an anthology of lesbian vampire stories to find a good one to read to White Rabbit, and that I was disappointment in the lack of lesbians and the amount of het sex and rape forced into the stories. I was especially disappointed because the authors of the anthology were women and they should know better. 

Well, I have now finished the anthology and the rest of the stories....   kept disappointing in one way or the other.

One story told of a woman who gets lost in the Amazon rainforest and is hunted and seduced by a vampire that lives there. The concept is good, a fascinating and a rather unusual setting for a vampire story. But the writing is very confusing and kinda pretentious and the sort of realism that thinks in order to captivate the true reality one must focus on all the disgusting things and describe them in great detail. Like, I feel every other sentence is TMI fest of going into the condition of the blisters in the main character’s feet or of all the bugs scampering over her when she stumbles and falls. And when we finally do get into the vampire bit, it’s just vaguely described and kinda weird and surreal and...   I don’t know, like from a completely different story. I suppose the change in writing style is supposed to symbolize the main character being under the vampire’s hypnosis or something? 

The odd writing style makes this a very tedious read for someone whose native language isn’t English, because most of the I sure am reading words but fuck if they make any sense. For example, the author talks about a person as if she’s there and it took me a long time to realize this person is NOT there, but is...   a ghost? A memory? A flashback into past or future? The main character’s imaginary friend/named sense of purity or some other symbolic shit? The author clearly intended this to be a story that you need to read several times to understand what happens and piece together the cryptic text. Hahaha nope. I am done with this pretentious fuckery.

Next story is...   sigh...   taking place in a gay club that is also into heavy BDSM. Because of fucking course that is how the hets see lesbians, to them homosexuality is a just a kink. Not only do we get descriptions of very brutal, bloody non-con sadism, we also have to read about men doing it (with women, of course. What, were you expecting gay men in this gay club? Or lesbians in your lesbian vampire anthology?). I know not all lesbians are actively grossed out by dicks but rather just completely disinterested in them, but still...   why would you write a story about a lesbian vampire and force the reader to read three - three! - detailed descriptions of a mens’ erections.

Boy, are the writers of this anthology pissed that they did not write their lesbian masterpieces in our modern times when identity havers are vigorously attempting to redefine lesbianism as “non-men being attracted to non-men.” Today, the authors could write all the dick sucking, male orgasm centered het sex they want and still call it lesbian sex as long as the penis-bearer doesn’t identify as a man. They no longer need to try to sneak in the het sex and then write some half-assed plot about them disgusting gay women.

Though, to be fair, I don’t think it’s just the het sex these writers want to force in their lesbian stories. They specificly want to write about rape, questionable consent and painful sex. And I have a theory on why.

When analyzing why some people are hell bent on putting certain elements in their vampire story, one needs to figure out why they were originally drawn into writing a vampire story in the first place. What is it about the vampire as a creature that fascinates them? What sets the vampire apart from other supernatural creatures is their parasitic nature. You take away the blood drinking and you could replace the vampire character with something else and not have it affect the plot in any way. However, surprisingly many people who write vampire stories aren’t that interested in the blood drinking (much to my disappointment) and more into the power imbalance this diet creates between vampires and humans.

Relationships between a vampire and a human have a massive power imbalance, even when the vampire isn’t the kind that has super human strength and other special powers. If a vampire does not drink blood, they will perish. This simple fact forces them to be at best harmless parasites, at worst dangerous predators. Even with civilized vampires who get their blood from butchers, blood banks or who use synthetic blood substitutes, the special diet of a vampire cannot be ignored when they interact with humans. Imagine a civilized vampire like this stranded on an island with some humans - no one can blame them for stealing blood from the humans for survival in such a scenario. No matter how kind, how sworn to be friendly to humankind, the very nature of vampirism makes it so that humans and vampires can’t coexist together as if there is not a power imbalance in place.

Some writers are very into this power imbalance. The act of drinking someone’s blood, even from a willing donor, is an act of parasitism. The human is harmed, their skin is pierced, their blood is drawn and their body will suffer consequences for it, even if for some donors those are mild. The only one walking away from the act having benefited from it is the vampire. You can romanticize the act, you can give the vampire powers to make their bite painless, you can make the human the one who asks for it, but the act remains the same. A human is wounded and will suffer from minor blood loss, the vampire takes from them and gives nothing in return.

I admit, the blood drinking is what draws me to vampire stories. I am fascinated by the concept of a creature that is by its nature forced to become parasitic. But unlike creatures that eat actual human flesh, the vampire has the option to choose between becoming a predator or becoming a parasite. The ability to be civilized, or pretend to be civilized, with humankind creates interesting emotional bonds between a vampire and their victim/host/donor. 

However, I am not interested in making blood drinking a metaphor for sex. It just does not work. 

A vampire’s very survival is depending on them securing a bloody meal regularly. No one’s survival is depending on them getting laid regularly, no matter what rape culture advocating men crying about sex being a basic need and a human right want you to believe. No one has ever dropped dead because they didn’t have sex. And that’s why the blood drinking as metaphor for sex is flawed. 

So, because the nature of vampirism demands that there must be blood drinking, that there must be harming of another living creature and stealing away a part of their body (blood is a liquid organ, consisting of living cells, drinking blood is an act of consuming living tissue), naturally people who are turned on by the idea of harming others or of being harmed and who are into non-con, would find the vampire as a concept fascinating. To them, a vampire attacking a human is equally arousing as fantasizing about rape, the idea of being bitten so deep that your blood is spilled as exciting as their other sadomasochistic kinks.

Bottom line: I get why people want to put so much sexual violence in their vampire stories. I hate it and wish they didn’t, but at least I see what motivates them to do so. 

Ahem. Back to the anthology.

The only good thing about the gross BDSM story is that there is an actual lesbian sex scene in it and that it makes blood into a plot point. Too many vampire stories just ignore the blood drinking and do it off screen, or have it be completely meaningless to the characters and story. Admittedly, the way blood is used in this story isn’t anything new or super interesting but at least they remembered to put some actual real blood drinking lesbian vampires in their lesbian vampire story. * sarcastically side-eyes the other stories*

After this we get what I consider the strongest story in the anthology. It’s still not particularly good, but the bar is set low, so yeah. This is a rather long short story, a scifi one, about a vampire and a single human sharing a space ship for a long journey, during which they start having casual sex and the human eventually learns about the vampire’s real nature. The characters aren’t that interesting, but the concept of a vampire in space is a fascinating one. I was disappointed that the writer didn’t make the endless darkness of space a place for the vampire to be free from the fear of the sun and instead still makes her react badly to some kind of day to night cycle (it’s space! There is no sun in immediate vicinity! Why would you react badly to “oh well, back in Earth it’s sun time by now”?). Another fascinating part is that this vampire doesn’t steal blood from the human in the traditional method, but instead, um...   performs certain sex act to her when she’s on her period. And this is the reason why she always insists on a female crew member.

Unfortunately not even this story is free from rape. The vampire tells her backstory, about how the man who turned her also raped her. Fortunately she does not describe it in detail but....   why must there be a rape in every single lesbian vampire story? Also, the sex scenes were a bit underwhelming, the vampire being very strictly stone butching the whole thing and not letting the human touch or pleasure her in any manner. Sigh. I know there are lesbians like this, but I can’t help but be reminded of the hets asking “so which one of you is the man?” Also, I wish I could read more lesbian romance, more flirting, more seducing and less of this no-emotional-bonds meaningless-fucking casual sex.

The last story is another pretentious one, this one even worse that the Amazon rainforest story. I...  think it’s about a vampire...   chatting with her parrot that has human-like intellect? I have no fucking idea what is going on. The writing is filled with snooty people talk and fancy words that no one uses in real life and it pisses me off.

“The parrot stuck its head on one side, began its swaying little dance shuffle, and gave a convincing rendition of “Viens poupoule.” It had nothing against lesbians and had been an admirer of Natalie Barney’s ever since a migrating cuckoo told it of the time Natalie, dressed only in a white nightgown, had herself delivered on Renée in a coffin full of enormous lilies. In its decadent period, when it has insisted on dyeing its feathers black and wearing World War Two dog tags round its neck, the parrot had even fancied itself Natalie’s ornithological opposite number, but John’s new slide rule, whom it was courting at the time, refused to attempt a Renée Vivien impersonation. That sour, unimaginative instrument had declared it had nothing whatever in common with the young, blond-haired poet, that anyone who could discern any points of comparison between any mathematical instrument and a blond-haired poet was certainly a surrealist, if not worse. The parrot had got a lot of satisfaction the day John came home from the university and declared, “With the mass production of the pocket calculator, the slide rule is dead.”

I’m gonna make a guess and say that the chances of an audience that enjoys this kind of pretentious fuckness aren’t going to be the target audience to look for their fancy-ass prose in a lesbian vampire story anthology. Just a guess.

I did find this bit funny, though:

“- - - Renée died in 1909, Natalie in 1972, but you have recently received messages from each. How is this possible?”

“Post took a long time,” suggested the parrot, ignored as usual.

You know, I could get behind the idea of a story where a lesbian vampire confides her adventures to a smartass parrot with a human intelligence. You know, if it was an actual story with actual plot and not this fake deep stream of consciousness word diarrhea “ask me what it means, ask me what it all means” garbage.

Well, if nothing else, reading the anthology through reminded me why I had forgotten most of these stories. 

[anxiousmoodlet]

𝕎𝕪𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕟 𝔹𝕦𝕣𝕣𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕤 for @eeriesims‘ The Many Suitors of One Clary Wiggins

The world isn’t kind to demons. Wyvern grew up being called all sorts of names: Devil-spawn, son of Hell, Infernal fiend, the fruit of Lilith’s rotten womb... you know, the usual stuff. Only his mother possessed horns and leathery wings however, his father was perfectly human. A Daughter of Torment wandered free from the bowels of Hell, so that little Wyvern might be born upon the shores of Glimmerbrook. Though his mother now frequents Eternal Damnation more than she does the Living Realm, and his father is nowhere to be seen, Wyvern has done all he can to build and maintain a life in the only place he’s ever known.

Read more for Wyvern’s full biography!

ℕ𝕒𝕞𝕖: Wyvern Burroughs 𝔹𝕚𝕣𝕥𝕙𝕕𝕒𝕪/𝔸𝕘𝕖: 18/10/1991 — 28 years old 𝕊𝕡𝕖𝕔𝕚𝕖𝕤: Demonspawn (he’s essentially a tiefling ok) ℍ𝕖𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥: 6′1  𝕊𝕖𝕩𝕦𝕒𝕝 𝕆𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟: Pansexual 𝔾𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣/ℙ𝕣𝕠𝕟𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕤: Male — He/him 𝕆𝕔𝕔𝕦𝕡𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝕚𝕟 𝔾𝕝𝕚𝕞𝕞𝕖𝕣𝕓𝕣𝕠𝕠𝕜: GBPD Detective

ℕ𝕚𝕔𝕜𝕟𝕒𝕞𝕖𝕤:

𝕎𝕪𝕝𝕚𝕖 — A shortened version of Wyvern he adopted very early on, introduces himself as this.

𝕃𝕚𝕥𝕥𝕝𝕖 𝕎𝕪𝕣𝕞 — His mother’s pet name for him.

𝔻𝕠𝕦𝕓𝕝𝕖 𝔻. — Stands for “Devil Detective”, his GBPD partner calls him this.

𝔽𝕦𝕟 𝕃𝕚𝕥𝕥𝕝𝕖 𝕋𝕚𝕕𝕓𝕚𝕥𝕤:

1. “No one can ever know I play the violin, all right?” — Wyvern plays the violin. In fact, he plays the violin quite well. His mother always had a fondness for human music, it was one of the only aspects of their culture she could appreciate. After trialling piano, guitar, and a brief stint with the harp, Wyvern stuck with the violin and took lessons at his mother’s behest well in to his late teens. He still plays sometimes, it’s very melancholy when he does.

2. “I promise, I’m not as scary as I look.” — Wyvern starts almost every conversation with the “Demon Disclaimer,” a spiel about how he isn’t going to devour your soul or curse you for eternity. Even in Glimmerbrook, where supernatural creatures are abundant, he likes to make sure. It’s also one of the reasons he decided to join the police force, so that he could be seen to be doing good. It took a long time to earn that trust and the badge that came with it though, he had the longest officer internship of anyone in GBPD’s history.

3. “There’s no way I’m missing the midnight viewing.” — Wyvern is a bit of a huge movie nerd. He’ll watch any genre so long as it’s well-written and creatively shot, but his favourites lie with 80′s horror classics and cheesy 90′s car chase scenes. He’s also been known to enjoy the odd romantic-comedy when the mood strikes him, but will boast that he can predict them scene-for-scene. That being said, the ending of La La Land made him cry like a little bitch. Didn’t see that one coming, huh Wylie?   

4. “There’s a line where the sea meets the sky, it calls me— I’m joking.” — Cheesy Moana reference aside, Wyvern has a bad case of wanderlust. He’s been in Glimmerbrook all his life, and he’s always wanted to see more of the world... but why leave the place you’ve worked so hard to make your home? He's terrified of being met with rejection if he were to so much as dip his toes in adventure. A demonspawn can’t just stroll down any old street, or so he believes. His self-doubt is quiet, but boy oh boy, it’s real.

5. “Just five more minutes, okay?” — Wyvern loves nothing more than his bed. He has to set at least five alarms to get up in the morning, just so he can snooze them all and then leap out of bed with ten minutes to spare. He’s been known to doze at his desk in the precinct on quiet days, and sleep well in to the late afternoon on his days off. Attempts to instil healthier habits with morning jogs, fridge planners and social outings have all done little to help him.  

6. “No, no. It’s not me that you want.”— Wyvern has had very limited romantic interactions throughout his life. Well, he’s had very limited meaningful romantic interactions. Though the man’s not shy of the old Netflix and chill by any stretch of the imagination, he more-often-than-not never lets anything progress past that point. That fear of rejection kicks in every single time: who could love a demonspawn? He’s had one serious relationship in the past, and it ended with him breaking it off when things were getting too real.

7. “Hey, I got us a round of tequila!”— Maybe it’s the demonic genes, but Wyvern can drink. As much as he enjoys a cold pint with his partner after work, he also enjoys slamming back Sambuca shots and ending the night asleep on the beach. He’s an incredibly volatile drunk. Fiercely protective of his social group, but also quick to misunderstand the conversation and take offence. Any issues are usually remedied with hugs and drawling “I love you guys.” 

𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕀𝕞𝕡𝕠𝕣𝕥𝕒𝕟𝕥 ℚ𝕦𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕤

➊ ℍ𝕠𝕨 𝕕𝕚𝕕 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕞𝕖𝕖𝕥 ℂ𝕝𝕒𝕣𝕪? “Oh, it was really lame. We were in the general store, and she did that thing, you know. She was in front of me in the queue, but I only had a coffee to pay for, and she had a whole bunch of stuff... so, she let me go first. Real sweet of her. We talked about the weather a little, she said my coffee smelt good. I remember, she said it was a little too late in the day for her to be having coffee, but she really fancied one now. I've never wanted to give up my coffee to someone more than I did then.”

➋ 𝕎𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕨𝕒𝕤 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕤𝕥 𝕚𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝕠𝕗 ℂ𝕝𝕒𝕣𝕪? “She was like a breeze, you know? I forgot I had horns and yellow eyes for a second. Her hair was kind of messy like she’d had a busy afternoon, and there were loads of fresh fruit in her shopping cart, she was like this slice of wholesome. Normally new people in Glimmerbrook terrify me, but not her.”  

➌ 𝕎𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕚𝕤 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕚𝕕𝕖𝕒𝕝 𝕕𝕒𝕥𝕖? “I like doing something a little silly, because I think if you can’t be silly with someone, then you’re doomed. Karaoke is my favourite first date — we don’t even have to go up and sing! But just in that easy-going environment, having a laugh, shouting over the tone-deaf performers because we'd rather fight the music than not have a conversation, you know?”

➍ 𝕎𝕙𝕒𝕥'𝕤 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕚𝕕𝕖𝕒𝕝 𝕣𝕖𝕝𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕙𝕚𝕡? “Effortlessness. I know that sounds daft, because all good things need to be worked for, and all that jazz... but I think my ideal relationship would be something so natural and easy, that we forget we have to work at it even when times get tough. Just having someone to reach— equilibrium with, you know? I know it takes time to get to that point, but I just want to know that it’s possible. It would be so worth waiting for.”

“Bonus points for someone who doesn’t mind kicking my ass out of bed in the morning.”

➎ 𝕎𝕙𝕒𝕥'𝕤 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕤𝕠𝕟𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪 𝕝𝕚𝕜𝕖? “Oh boy, all right. I have some serious trust issues, but not for lack of trying to resolve them. I can’t help but view everybody around me with a sort of air of uncertainty, and I suppose that makes me come off a little standoffish. It’s just that I so badly want people to have a positive opinion of me, that I spend the majority of my time being terrified that they don’t. I swear, I’m going to drive myself mad with it one day.”

“I’ve been told I use humour as a defence mechanism. Whenever the conversation is stilted, or I sense any kind of awkwardness: I’ll crack a joke. If someone asks me a serious question, or how I am: I’ll crack a joke. It’s second-nature at this point, and I swear it’s stemmed from wanting to make people smile. It also helps with the whole detective shtick, but that’s besides the point.”

“I loosen up around friends though, it’s not all so dreary! I still like to think I’m the sharp-witted, funny one, but it becomes less deflective. I’m also really protective of the people I love, foaming-at-the-mouth-crazy sort of protective. I know, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea... but there aren’t very many people who are willing to let me be that close to them, and there’s no way I’m going to let anything hurt those people.”

[positivelyamazonian]

I saw someone claim Tomb Raider is colonialist, imperialist and white supremacist right down to the name. Because Lara is a rich white woman, taking ancient artefacts from non-white cultures. It pissed me off.

Lara has no interest in colonizing or rule over any non-white culture so she can hardly be colonialist and imperialist this way. As she’s British born, of course she’s white - even if her beta version, Laura Cruz, was supposed to be Brazilian -. And despite she’s highborn she was disowned by her wealthy parents so everything she owns at the point the franchise starts has been earned by herself, writing and selling books of her journeys. So she’s rich because she’s worked her way on - except the manor, who was inherited from her aunt - not because it’s been gifted to her.

Now, speaking of the franchise itself;

Tomb Raider 1: She recovers the Scion from the Atlantean culture. The Scion doesn’t exist, neither the Atlantean culture. Even if they existed you could hardly define them as “non-white”. Ironically she doesn’t recover the Scion for herself. She does it at the beginning for Jacqueline Natla, who, ironically, IS a rich white woman. But when Lara discovers the intentions Natla has concerning the Scion, she invests her efforts in stopping this power hungry sociopath. In the end, all that Lara takes home are the pieces of the broken artifact.

So rich white woman 0, Lara 1, Scion destroyed for the sake of mankind’s safety. Hardly can see here any colonialist imperialist supremacist stuff. If anything, Lara stops this context from happening.

Tomb Raider 2: Lara is after the Dagger of Xian, a mystical artifact. Again, not because she has interests in owning its powers, but because of the thrill of the adventure. Then again bumps into a white rich man, Marco Bartoli, who wants, together with his cult, the Fiamma Nera, to own the Dagger for his power hungry purposes. Lara fights until the last consequences so she can avoid this happening. She not only doesn’t steal from a non-white culture, but helps them: it’s Lara who returns the Seraph, an artifact STOLEN by white rich men like the Fiamma Nera cult - particularly Marco’s father, Giovanni Bartoli - to its original owners, the Tibetan monks of Barkhang monastery. After that she fights to recover the Dagger so it can’t be used by a megalomaniac who turns himself into a dragon, then keeps the Dagger safe for mankind’s security, since the Dagger is too dangerous to be kept at its original place - from where it had been stolen anyway, and not by her - or even in a museum, that can be robbed easily.

So rich male man 0, Lara 1, Dagger kept safe for mankind’s safety. Hardly any colonialist supremacist imperialist stuff here. Actually, Lara stops this from happening.

Tomb Raider 3: Lara is exploring an area around India to recover a mystical piece called the Infada Stone. The Infada Stone is abandoned in an abandoned place, the original track lost. Again not for her own purposes but for the thrill of the adventure. Then she bumps into a white man, Dr. Mark Willard, who is also a power hungry sociopath and in addenda, a killer and a exploiter dismissing the safety of his own workers. Though she accepts at first to recover the meteorite artifacts for him, as soon as Lara realized this psychopath pretends to use the meteorite fragments for experiments with human living beings, she fights him until the last consequences, to avoid this insane, rich white man to fulfill his purposes.

So rich male man 0, Lara 1, the meteorite artifacts destroyed in the process, and that’s for the good of mankind. Hardly any colonialist supremacist imperial… you know the drill already, right?

Tomb Raider 4: Lara actually tries to stop her sociopathic mentor, Werner Von Croy, a rich white male, to steal the Iris from Angkor Wat because she has respect for the Cambodian culture that placed a warning over this artifact. While Werner gets crippled for his bad action, she manages to escape unharmed. As if this cautionary tale is not enough, years after an adult Lara tries to recover the Amulet of Horus from Seth’s tomb and commits a terrible mistake when unknowingly unleashing the evil god from his slumber. When she realizes her mistake Lara makes every effort, and almost gives her life, to repair her single mistake. She cooperates with Sergeant Aziza, an Egyptian military commander, to keep peace and safety in the old quarters of Cairo, and later in Gizeh she makes every effort to help his men fighting the evil creatures released by Seth’s wrath. In the end she suffers a terrible accident and almost dies because she could have walked away with the Amulet of Horus like a rich white female with imperalist colonialist ideas, BUT SHE CHOSES NOT TO DO THAT.

So rich male man/Evil god 0, Lara 1, the Amulet of Horus remains in the pyramid, sealing Seth’s new place of interment, forever. You know the drill.

Tomb Raider 5: Another long, exquisite examples of Lara fighting white power hungry sociopaths using artifacts to hurt mankind. 

Rome: The Philosopher Stone, versus Larson and Pierre, two henchmen who would have sold these artifacts into the black market. She takes the Stone home for a change, to keep it safe.

Russia: The Spear of Destiny, versus Sergei Mikhailov and a power hungry mafia gang. Cooperates with Admiral Igor Yarofev, tries in vain to save his life. The Spear remains sunk in the sea abyss because it’s too dangerous to be taken.

Ireland: Young Lara has no particular interest in any artifact, she joins Father Dunstan in exploring the Black Isle, again, just for the thrill of the adventure. She cares and fights for the safety of the priest, literally saving his life when an evil spirit tries to brutalize and kill him. She uses the Bestiary for this goal. The final place of internment of this artifact remains unknown.

New York: Lara fights alongside with a black poor man, Zip, to recover the Iris from Werner’s hands. Zip seeks personal retaliation for having been fired from Werner’s research institute (VCI), Lara only seeks to protect the Iris, a STOLEN Cambodian artifact, for the morally wrong purposes Werner might have in it. 

In the end, Lara and Zip’s cooperation ends in the Iris being recovered and finally kept safe in Croft’s manor because it’s too dangerous to be in any other place.

Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness: Lara doesn’t even care about artifacts this time. Still angry and damaged because of her Egyptian accident, she reluctantly accepts to visit Werner to hear his excuses and cry of help concerning something called the Obscura Paintings and some serial killer maniac known as the Monstrum. The encounter results in Werner being murdered and all Lara is seeking this time is TRUTH and JUSTICE. She recovers the Obscura Paintings just to reveal the mystery behind her mentor’s murder. She fights against a genocidal psychopath, Eckhardt, a white rich male, and Joachim Karel, a supernatural power hungry white male, to avoid them fulfilling their evil plans to control and slaughter mankind. She cooperates with Kurtis Trent, who actually is half white half Navajo, born from a POC woman, to disrupt their evil plans. Another cooperation with a Bedouin black woman, the shaman Putai, was removed because the game was cut and left unfinished. Putai was the one that healed Lara and helped her recover her strength, for which Lara is grateful and shows confidence in her.

And in the end Lara gets nothing out of this experience: nor the Obscura Paintings, destroyed to conform the Sanglyph, not the Sangylph, destroyed when being sunk into the Sleeper’s flesh, not even the Periapt Shards, who are left stabbed into Eckhardt’s corpse. The only thing she takes with her is Kurtis’ Chirugai, and she does it to find her lost partner. It can be said that at the end of TRAOD, the only thing that Lara cares about is to know if Kurtis’ still alive or dead, and goes to find him.

So after this long, boring summary nobody needed because all of you know these games better than me, I leave you to draw your own conclusions and see if effectively Tomb Raider is about a rich white female that is colonialist, supremacist and imperialist; and if she does everything she does because she likes to rob non-white cultures for her own personal pleasure. I have no doubts about the answer behind that.

[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

Frankenstein: Legacy and Impact

If I sat you down with a pencil and paper and asked you to draw me a picture of the Frankenstein monster, odds are, I can tell you exactly what you’d draw.

A large figure with a flat-top head, greenish-pale skin, with bolts sticking out of the neck, and heavy eyelids.  If you were particularly ambitious, you might even draw the place of its creation: a lab full of electronic equipment and tables.

For the most part, if I were to take that picture, unlabeled, and pass it around to about thirty people or so without telling them what it was, most would probably identify it as the Frankenstein monster in the lab it was created in.  Some might even chuckle and quote: “It’s alive!”

Ironically, the image that you would have drawn, and indeed, even the quote itself, are not native to the original Frankenstein story.

As a matter of fact, the image you would have drawn came from one, very specific place: James Whale’s 1931 horror classic: Frankenstein.

By 1931, monster movies certainly weren’t new.  As far back as the silent films of the 1920s, films like Nosferatu, The Phantom of the Opera, The Man Who Laughed, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari had already begun exposing audiences to the scary side of movie magic, using film-gimmicks to make these frightening stories come to life in a way that audiences were wholly unused to.  Even beforehand, a film adaptation of Mary Shelley’s sci-fi/horror classic Frankenstein had already been produced in the year 1910, almost a hundred years after the original book’s publication.

By the time talkies rolled into the theaters, audiences were already used to being scared.  But even so, in 1931, something happened that shook the horror world, and audiences, right to their core:  Tod Browning’s Dracula.

Dracula became a monster (ha!) hit, propelling lead actor Bela Lugosi, the character of Dracula, and horror itself to new heights.  It was dark.  It was creepy.  It was interesting, and, most importantly, it was iconic.  Since Lugosi’s turn in the role, Dracula in the pop-culture understanding has never been the same.

But this isn’t an article about Dracula.  It’s an article about Frankenstein.

It just so happens that you can’t have one without the other.

Dracula took America by storm, shot with weird, Gothic shadows and angles, with a grand story and a truly chilling monster, played absolutely straight.  There were no humorous bits, no last-minute Scooby-Doo twists that rendered the supernatural totally natural, this was pure, undiluted horror.  This matters in the long run, and it certainly matters to Dracula, but it also matters, quite a bit, to Frankenstein too.  

Without Universal’s Dracula, we’d never have Universal’s Frankenstein.

Directly after Dracula’s massive reception (selling fifty-thousand tickets in its first weekend), Universal started production on another big-budget horror film.  Deciding to follow a similar path as Dracula, Gothic source material was selected: Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel: Frankenstein.  

In November of 1931, the film was released, and changed horror, and Frankenstein, forever, just as much as Dracula had.

Spawning multiple sequels (including almost-as-famous film, Bride of Frankenstein), James Whale’s version of the Frankenstein story lived on for over ten years under the Universal brand, concluding with horror-comedy Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.  During this period, the Frankenstein creature met up with both Dracula and the Wolf Man in some of the original examples of a cinematic universe, before Universal laid the character to rest in 1948.  

But, of course, much like within the story, Frankenstein wouldn’t stay dead for long.

British company Hammer Film Productions resurrected the story, and character, in 1957 for The Curse of Frankenstein, making several films about the creature for a few more decades.  Italy and Japan had their own turns with the character for their own films, such as Lady Frankenstein and Frankenstein Conquers the World.  The character model of the monster would appear in everything from Scooby Doo to The Munsters, even appearing on cereal boxes.  (Frankenberry is a classic.)

The character of the Frankenstein monster has been in the public consciousness constantly since 1931, remade, rebooted, genre-twisted, parodied, quoted and referenced in more films than almost any other story to date.

That doesn’t seem so terribly surprising.  After all, Mary Shelley’s book came out over two hundred years ago.  Of course, a story that old would still be kicking around today in many different versions, right?

Right.

But also wrong.

Remember that picture I asked you to draw?

Like I said earlier, the elements of that picture, from the iconic, blocky look of the monster to the mad-scientist lab around him, come from the 1931 film.  But that’s not all.

Igor?  Originated in the Universal monster lineup of Frankenstein films (albeit a composite of Fritz, the hunchback assistant played by Dwight Frye in the original and the actual character Igor, played by Bela Lugosi in later films).

The idea of the monster being assembled from the parts of freshly-dead corpses?  First appeared in the original Universal film.

Electricity bringing the monster to life?  Also this movie.

The monster being mute?  One guess.

It’s not unusual for stories to become lost in adaptation.  It happens all the time.  It explains why the Wicked Witch of the West is green so often, despite the fact that she wasn’t in the original Wizard of Oz novel.  It’s why we associate the quote “Here’s Johnny!” with Stephen King’s novel The Shining, even though it never appeared in the book.  It’s the reason that we assume that John Rambo is a heroic good-guy survivor, when in the original First Blood book, he was on the more ambiguous side, and died in the final confrontation.

What is a little more unusual is that while there have been a few versions of Frankenstein on film that have tried to follow Mary Shelley’s original book a little closer, for the most part, almost every single film instead adapts James Whale’s story.

The monster is almost always mute (or learns to talk in a stilted manner, as in Bride of Frankenstein).  He’s made from bodies of the dead.  He’s reanimated by electricity, worked on by a manic Dr. Frankenstein and his hunchback assistant, Igor.  And, almost always, the monster looks like Boris Karloff.

Whether just appearing in films like The Monster Squad or being lovingly lampooned in direct parodies such as Young Frankenstein, James Whale’s 1931 film made a huge mark, not just on Frankenstein, not just on horror, but on film in general.  Despite the fact that there have been multiple versions of the Frankenstein story told on film, somehow, the original Universal picture has remained the definitive adaptation in the pop-culture consciousness, enduring almost ninety years while still being considered the most popular, most iconic, and best version to date.

How on earth did that happen?

You’d think a film made in 1931 clocking in at one hour and eleven minutes would be easy to top.  Scarier movies have been released since then.  More accurate movies have been released since then.  In fact, there have been over thirty-five films made since this movie, all bearing the Frankenstein name, and even more films without the monster getting top billing.  Why is it that this film in particular is so persistently loved?

If you’ve been with us for any length of time, you’ve already figured out that that’s going to be the question we’re looking at.

Why is Frankenstein so adored almost ninety years after it was first released?  How is it that one skewed vision of Mary Shelley’s novel has become the definitive version?  What was it about that film that is so iconic and beloved that almost every version since then has at least referenced it, if not outright copied it?

That’s what we’re going to be trying to answer in the articles ahead.  Stay tuned for an in-depth discussion of James Whale’s 1931 monster movie classic: Frankenstein.

Thank you guys so much for reading, and I hope to see you all in the next article.

[officialthiamlibrary]

Any recommendations for enemies to friends to lovers fics or something along those lines? I would really appreciate it.

Get ready because Thiam is basically the personification of this trope so there are a lot.

tear out all your tenderness by @crownedcarl

There’s a quiver in his voice when Liam leans his head against her shoulder and says “I hope it’s love. I’m trying really hard to make it love.”

[TeenUp / 5.2k / complete]

Handle With Care by @AttemptedEloquence

chi·me·ra, noun. Definition: a single animal or plant with genetically distinct cells from two different zygotes

chi·me·ra, noun. Definition: a thing that is hoped or wished for but in fact is illusory or impossible to achieve.

chi·me·ra, noun. Definition: a monstrous creature with parts from multiple animals.

chi·me·ra

noun.

Definition: a boy who's done too much bad to be considered good and too much good to be considered bad.

alternately, Theo's back from hell and there's a lot of shit to sort out. Liam helps with that, sometimes.

[Mature / 56.8k / wip]

The boy I shouldn't want to love by @dan13la-blog-blog

Liam comes back to Beacon Hills after years, when his mother decides to get remarried. His big shock is finding out that his new step-father's son is the same guy that back then in elementary school used to bully him, making his life a literal hell...

[TeenUp / 92.1k / wip]

My Nemesis by @bookwyrm07

Super Wolf and Chimera have been assigned to be nemeses by the organizations that manage these things. Things were going great, until it was time for Liam and Theo to take off the masks and help their friends move in together.

Can they maintain their friendships and working relationship without killing each other?

[Mature / 4k / wip]

I won't die for you (but maybe I'll stand beside you) by @iwritefanfictionsometimes

Liam is an idiot who can't keep his mouth shut and now his mother is expecting a boyfriend for Christmas.

[Mature / 14.4k / complete]

Vacancy Signs by @lovelylittlegrim

Theo and Liam are on the opposite side of the United States when the apocalypse breaks out. Now, they have to find their way back to Beacon Hills without getting eaten by zombies or killing one another.

It’s hard.

[Explicit / 89.6k / wip]

Rivals AU by @thiamlife

they don’t even play the same sports, but both teams don’t take the other really serious and they constantly prank each other and make fun of each other. Theo, captain of the Football team, and Liam, captain of the Lacrosse team, and they both claim they can’t stand each other and it would be all so easy if it weren’t for the fact that both find their counterpart more than just attractive and maybe one of their screaming matches on the field ends with them furiously making out under the shower after everybody else is gone. And maybe it becomes a regular occurrence from then on; first, they fight and bicker and then they make out. And maybe it’s getting harder and harder to pretend they hate each other’s guts because there is far more between them than just attraction. Oh, well, nobody has to know, right?

[NR / 89.9k / complete]

Man of my dreams by @louis_wife505

Liam struggles with his sexuality after being plagued with wet dreams about Theo. Theo just wants to help Liam... Any way he can.

[NR / 20.1k / wip]

Mirror of Origin by @formerprincess

Liam is a young, reckless archaeologist who loves nothing more than to climb into old tombs and find out about ancient cultures, as well as retrieve lost artifacts. On his hunt for the Mirror of Origin, he meets a mysterious group of people claiming they have the same agenda as Liam himself: Rescue old artifacts from the ruins around the world and exhibit them for the people to see them or keep them locked away to avoid them falling into the wrong hands. Especially one of their mercenaries, Theo, makes it hard for Liam to accept working with them in order to get this one special artifact cause Theo and Liam butt heads since their first meeting. When things turn for the worst, however, both have to work together to literally save the world from getting destroyed by an ancient power and maybe, just maybe, they realize the other isn’t as obnoxious as they thought…

[NR / 16.8k / wip]

of hate and stronger emotions by @marauders-mess

He hates faes.

That's it, there's no pun, just a fact.

[TeenUp / 3.2k / complete]

What should have happened at the zoo by @fandomtastic

Everybody sees it as Liam makes Theo a better person. Liam brings out the good in him. Liam helps him be a good person.

But it wasn't a one-way street.

Theo helped Liam control his anger. He knew what it was like to be angry. He let him be angry.

[TeenUp / 704 / complete]

You painted blood on my stars // all I want is to keep you warm by @tenthousandfireflies

Liam doesn't understand why he always gets angry at Theo and feels the need to punch him whenever he's around. Which is a lot of time since Scott keeps sending them away in the woods to "check on things".

[TeenUp / 15.4k / complete]

Scars of the Heart by @katzaren

When Liam rides into the Wild Hunt, Theo's soulmark reveals Liam's name in white scars. Theo thought soulmates were stupid before, but he’s in love with the idea of Liam being his soulmate. First step, get Hayden out of the picture. Second step, get Liam to believe in soulmates. Next step, romance? All while a supernatural vs. hunters war is going on. What can go wrong?

[Mature / 19k complete]

All the quads are my friends by @teen-wolf-af

Liam and Theo go to Figure Skating Worlds in Milan, ready to prove themselves to the skating world and end up falling in love along the way.

[TeenUp / 10.8k / complete]

Apparition Love by @Oxycodone

It's been a couple months since the last standoff with Monroe and the Anuk-Ite. Liam has gotten a job at the behest of his parents and the majority of the pack has left for college, leaving behind only Mason, Corey, and Liam. A certain chimera goes missing and Liam has a difficult time coping with his sudden disappearance...until he finds a special visitor sleeping in the stall of his job's bathroom.

[Mature / 6.4k / wip]

It is what it is by @athenaeums

He can feel his heart hammering, his skin itching to explode and all he can see is Theo’s face bloody and bruised, it’s all he wants. But something is holding him back, something is trying to push his energy away from Theo and back inside. His body is screaming to beat the life from the arrogant, selfish boy below him but his mind – his mind is fighting every move he makes.

[Gen / 5k / complete]

Unsatisfactory Situation by @Anonymous

Where Scott’s pack are the supernatural ‘police taskforce’ of Beacon County, defeating evil, one bounty hunt at a time.

A murderous hunter? Easy. A troublesome Kanima? No problem. An evil fugitive chimera? Ah.

Well, Scott doesn’t have a beta for nothing. Time for the aspiring alpha to prove himself leader worthy…

[NR / 7.4k / wip]

Expiation by @lovelylittlegrim

Theo thought he had more time to make up for his wrongdoings, but he doesn't. So, he makes a list.

[Mature / 4.1k / wip]

All you wanted was right in front of you by @laheysmythes

the one where after Liam realizes that he has been in love with Theo for the better part of 11 years, he looks back on their life together and wonders how he never realized it before.

[TeenUp / 6.1k / complete]

Leather Bound by @lovelylittlegrim

Liam should have known it was a bad idea in the first place.

AKA: The fic where Liam tries to prove Mason wrong and ends up with an unwanted companion.

[TeenUp / 1.8k / wip]

Guardian by @kb928

After the defeat of the Anuk-ite and the disbanding of the hunters, Beacon Hills was quiet...too quiet in Liam’s opinion. Only three things remained a mystery.

1. Why did he decide taking AP Biology was a good idea?

2. What was Theo spending all his time doing, and why did he show up to weekly pack “meetings” looking like some high end model, fresh off a magazine cover shoot?

3. ….why did he care so much about what Theo was doing?

[Mature / 43.1k / wip]

Astripta by @marauders-mess

Liam saw black and white since he had memory.

Theo see things, feels things, taste things the way they’re not supposed to be.

[TeenUp / 3.5k / complete]

Coup de Foudre by @teen-wolf-af

When Theo Raeken is the only member of his pack left standing, he goes to find the True Alpha that everyone had always talked about. Scott McCall's pack is not what he expected: they are against violence and Scott listens to what the other members of his pack have to say. Most importantly, almost none of them speak Theo's language.

[TeenUp / 3.4k / wip]

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

john is the one who sacrificed himself instead of mary/mary lives john dies/just mary raises sam and dean!AU

spoilers for the series in general. 

-

(sorry this took so long. i’ve been pretty busy these last couple of weeks. and this turned out to be much longer than i thought it would be.)

-

1. 

honestly, mary thought they were going to be all right.

the last fifteen-or-so years of following the winchesters’ exploits has led to the impression that the world is simply crawling with other-worldly creatures and paranormal experiences, but it wasn’t always like this. there was a time when you could hold down a ‘regular’ job, have a home and a family, and still be considered a Hunter. even the people who drifted from case to case worked maybe five or six in a year; often it took months to find and consolidate information, and sometimes even longer to recover from a bad hunt. paranormal attacks necessitating professional extermination were few and far enough in between that the general rule of thumb in the community was to treat every potential case initially as if it had a normal, ‘un-supernatural’ explanation. so by completely cutting ties with her hunting family, mary was reasonably confident that she could lead a normal life with john.

living with john... wasn’t easy; after the accident that took her parents’ lives and nearly took hers, he became even more closed-off than usual--prickly when provoked, and quick to reach for the bottle. this only seemed to worsen when sam was born--he seemed constantly on edge, drank more than usual, and rarely seemed able to hold a conversation with her while looking her in the eyes. this was the point where mary should’ve realised something was wrong, but she had a toddler and a newborn to take care of, virtually alone, and she had neither the capacity nor the time to follow up on vague misgivings.

besides, john always did come around. eventually.

the week leading up to john dying on the ceiling of sam’s nursery, cut open and burning, was filled with unseasonable weather--close and humid days giving way to spectacular lightning storms during the night. their tv--already a piece of junk, to be honest--seemed to be constantly on the fritz. john grew progressively more short-tempered.

still, mary didn’t think that--

that--

(he was so quiet when it happened. even with his guts spilling out of him and then set on fire, he only looked sad. resigned. mary thought she could stare at that sight till the stars went cold and still never understand why john didn’t say a single word.)

she stands now across the street from the burning wreckage that used to be her home, a wailing sam clutched to her chest while dean tries to hide himself in the folds of her nightgown. her eyes are burning from shock and the smoke, and she feels dangerously untethered to her body, like she’s watching all of this happen to somebody else. through it all, only one thought achieves any kind of clarity in the fog:

john knew this was going to happen.

2.

mary has all the puzzle pieces in place, but it takes her longer to put them together than it normally would, for a number of reasons. for one, it isn’t easy to detach herself from the immediate reality of the situation: that john, her john, is dead, gone up in flames with the life that she’d sacrificed everything to lead. on top of her grief, and dealing with the police, and curious neighbours, she needs to do something about sam and dean: it’s one thing being a single mother, and it’s quite another being a single mother who is also a Hunter. 

(and a whole another thing being a single mother, a hunter, and a campbell.)

she moves in temporarily with an aunt she hadn’t alienated completely when she decided to give up the hunting life. that aunt has two small children of her own, gwen and christian, and part of mary hopes that being with other kids his age would bring dean out of the shell that he’d slipped into after... after. mostly, she’s focussed on her aunt’s library and her extensive list of contacts in the hunting world; it’s been so long since she’s really gotten her teeth into a case.

another reason it takes so long is... well. demons are really, really rare, and a sign that you’re really, really fucked. when mary finally puts the patterns together and realises that they were omens, she is terrified. in her mind’s eye, all she can see is her father’s face from over a decade ago, returning from a rare exorcism. he was drenched in sweat and covered in flecks of blood, but it was the haunted look in his eyes that ensured she would never forget that night: he looked empty, utterly drained, like he’d lost a part of his soul. “i’m never doing that again, de,” he’d said to her mother. 

given what she’s put together here, the demon that killed john is so powerful that its kind hasn’t really been seen in centuries.

she leaves the next day with her children. dean is screaming and crying to stay with christian and gwen while sam just... cries, but all mary can think of is the dead look in her father’s eyes and john, burning.

3.

over the next several years, she moves around a fair bit, but always within a trusted network of hunters. she keeps the name campbell--it still carries some clout in the community. sam and dean grow up familiar with the hunting world, even if they don’t actively participate until they’re much older. dean loves it when they all come together for the bigger hunts; he networks so well with others and so quickly that mary can’t imagine he inherited that charm from either her or john. sam tends to ignore these gatherings, preferring to sit in a corner with his walkman and a book. mary doesn’t really begrudge his disinterest in the hunting life--but she often catches him engrossed in her books when he thinks nobody’s looking; hears him excitedly whisper to gwen about ‘revolutionising’ hunting by exposing the supernatural to the world; finds bizarre sketches of chimeras and otherworldly creatures with bright yellow eyes in his room. when she tries to talk to him about any of it, he becomes defensive and... opaque, in a way she definitely does not feel ready to deal with.

when sam and dean are together... well. they squabble like any pair of siblings would, but it’s when they work together towards a common goal that they astonish her. they come up with insights and ideas that remind her of cartoonish lab scenes--bright chemicals mixing in a beaker and producing something extraordinary with a flash-bang. it’s sam that comes up with the idea of making and selling protective talismans on their underground network and dean that works the logistics of it--painfully copying designs from sam’s research and carving and shaping and handling sales and distribution. they’re incredible together and sometimes mary thinks, traitorously, that they seem made for this life. for just a moment.

just a--

there was a time when they were much younger, and the grief and anger were still fresh and sharp, that she would watch them sleep huddled together, and think wistfully of all the hopes and dreams she’d had for her sons. this--a dingy room covered in maps and protection rituals, lines of salt at every windowsill and doorway, a paranoid insomniac with more weapons than common sense keeping watch--was exactly what she’d hoped to spare them from. the sharpness of that feeling faded over the years as she kept herself busy with a steep uptick in paranormal events and in researching the demon that had killed john. her boys, though sometimes different as night and day, seemed well-adjusted, all things considered.

even so, the day dean winchester, all of sixteen years old, picks up a sawed-off loaded with rock salt for the first time, eyes glittering with anticipation, mary can’t help but feel utterly defeated.

4.

(are you asking if mary campbell, an expert on demons who’s lost so much of her family to them, ever went to a crossroads, drunk and despairing and awash with grief?

well. she didn’t bury the box. she didn’t say the incantation. but she had them ready, and she wondered if this is what john had felt like--pushed, without consent, into a place where living with all the empty spaces in your head was more terrifying than having the devil stay there. where scrabbling in the dirt in your haste to sell your soul was vastly more preferable to having it eaten piecemeal by guilt.

she knelt in the dirt for nearly an hour before getting to her feet and back to her car. campbells moved on. campbells survived. and though it seemed like she’d spent half her life trying to run from that legacy, she was nothing if not a campbell, through and through.)

5.

a couple of weeks before sam’s sixteenth birthday, he comes to her one early morning, red-eyed and dishevelled, and tells her, mom i can’t sleep.

she stares at him, dumbfounded, for a few seconds, before instincts kick in and she’s trying to figure out what’s gotten her youngest to come to her like he’s hanging on by a thread. it turns out that he’s seeing things--horrible visions of strangers dying gruesomely--everytime he closes his eyes to sleep. it’s gotten so bad he’s barely slept in days. he went to dean first (and mary pretends she didn’t feel a jealous twinge in her chest at that) but nothing they’ve tried works.

mary tries to help her son as best as she can--on top of sleep hygiene she tries dreamcatchers and protective incantations from at least a dozen different cultures; she calls in favours with psychics who don’t manage to find anything. he still wakes up every night, a scream caught in his throat, sweat pouring down his heaving back. she even gives him a couple of sleeping pills from her stash, unable to stand the scalp-scrabbling, hair-pulling desperation in his bloodshot eyes anymore, the silent plea for her to do something, please mom, anything, please help me!

the pills work, but they are a temporary respite. sam collapses at the library one day, convulsing and screaming at nothing at all. he’s taken to the hospital and later admitted to the psychiatric ward; there, to her unending horror, they discover that he’s been cutting himself as well--a dozen newer cuts overlaying smaller, precise, white scars. it’s when dean says, i thought he’d stopped, that mary feels the full weight of what’s happened fall on her like a ton of bricks.

she thought they were doing okay in spite of everything, all the while her sons were suffering right under her nose.

sam was cutting open his own arms--

mary excuses herself to go be sick, but all she does is sit on the toilet lid, shaking, tears pouring down her face, trying to work herself down from a panic attack.

when she goes back to her son’s bedside, she’s made a decision.

sam is discharged with medication. it takes him a painfully long time to get used to them--alternating between being too strung-up to function and so conked out he’s a zombie--but they seem to be helping. he takes a year off school and dean a year off hunting, and they both go on a months-long roadtrip in john’s beloved impala. he looks much more relaxed when they return, and when he hugs her and tells her that he’s missed her, she feels like she’s been given a second chance.

after graduation, sam decides to go to college in new york, and mary and dean see him off with their blessing.

6.

four years later, sam misses his weekly check-in for the first time. just as mary and dean are starting to get worried, he calls her and says, in a choked whisper, “mom... jess--jessica’s dead.”

before she can really let the icy horror of that statement wash through her, he adds, “in a fire, pinned to the ceiling... mom, please. i don’t know what to do.”

mary does.

in a remarkably steady voice, she says, “i’ll be right there.”

-

( send me an au and i’ll give you 5+ headcanons about it!  )

[tartxglia]

Heaven's Sin - Chapter 3

Pairing: Felix x Reader

Genre: Fallen Angel AU

Words: 4,906

Warnings: bit of sexual tension

Summary: You didn’t mean your declaration of major as Mythology in college to be an invitation for the supernatural to enter your life, but here you were. In just the first year of college alone, you’re knee deep in the drama of the Dark and Light sides of the supernatural world, and falling head first in love with Lee Felix, an enigmatic fallen angel."

« previous // next »

You saved me that night. You're that angel I saw–my angel with the beautiful white wings. Aren't you?”

Fuck. So you had seen him that night. He had thought it was just a coincidence–meeting your eyes like that when humans can’t see Guardian Angels–but he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised about it. Not anymore, not when he now knew things he didn’t used to know back then. But these things he has to keep to himself–for now at least. And he’d be damned if he told you everything now. It was time, the other boys always told him and he agreed, but it wasn’t time for this. Not yet. The longer you remained in the dark about stuff like this; concerning you, him, and every dangerous baggage that he dragged with him, the safer you’d be.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Felix finally replies, his voice just loud enough to be heard by the two of you. He opens his eyes to see your form bent over his, hands resting on the armrests of the single leather couch he sat on, and your face positioned right above his. He lifts his head up, the motion bringing his face closer to yours and despite the racing hearts that both of you had–yes he could hear it, he's always heard the way your heart stutters and breath hitches around him–neither of you backed down first. “I’ve never met you before, you must be mistaken.”

Your face scrunches up, your eyebrows furrowed together and your mouth in a frown, as you watch this guy spout lie after lie. Did he really think you were dumb enough to believe his words? That you’d fall for his charms and words like every other student in this school?

“No.” You barely catch the flicker of surprise that passes through his eyes, but it’s gone too quickly and his confident demeanour returns. He cocks an eyebrow and holy fuck he looks really hot and this minimal distance doesn’t help but god damn it Y/N don’t get distracted. “No, you don’t get to dictate what I see is real, and what isn't. Who do you think you are telling me that what I saw was a lie? I know for a fact that it was you who saved me that night, from–from whatever that was chasing me in the dark. And I also know for a fact that you had wings."

Felix's features morph into a jeering smirk and you think that's probably the closest to a smile you'll see on his face. "Are you hearing yourself right now?" He scoffs and you're so close to him that you feel the breeze of his exhaled breath. "It was dark, you didn't see clearly."

“No, I know what I saw," your voice is unwavering and at this point, you're borderline irritated by Felix's stubbornness, but you continue softly. "Listen, Felix, I'm a Mythology major. All this Gods, Angels, Demons bullshit? I study them, I believe in them thanks to you who I saw that night. So you can confide in me, yeah? You don't have to worry about me running off thinking you're crazy or something. Trust me–"

You stop mid-sentence in shock as Felix suddenly gets up from the couch, instinctively making you back up to keep some distance. A gasp gets caught in your throat as he switches your positions, and before you know it, he's pushed you down onto the couch instead. The impact forces out a breath of shock from you while Felix leans forward, using the armrests to support his weight just as you did. You shrink back into the couch in submission to the intimidating aura he now exuded, your eyes meeting his to find that they were a shimmering golden. 

"Y/N,” the sound of his gruff voice saying your name sends a chill down your spine and you don’t know whether to find it intimidating, attractive or both. “Leave me alone. You’re better off keeping your associations with me to a minimum. So, mind your own business because as far as I’m concerned, what I am is none of your business.” 

His eyes are narrowed as he looks down at you who is entranced by the gorgeous gleam of his golden eyes. Neither of you are talking but the sound of light panting is deafening as both you and Felix feel jittery from the small space between the two of you. Your heart thunders in your chest, the beating sound travelling all the way up to your own ears, as you stare back at Felix who seems to be getting closer. Felix hears the synchronised thrumming of his own and your hearts and he can’t help but feel drawn towards his soulmate. 

God, you were so alluring. Everything about you drove him crazy–the way your heart seemed to beat in sync with his, the soft tingles every time he touched you, the natural scent of you that wrapped around him and made him crave you. Seeing your innocent doe eyes stare up at him like that had him feeling all sorts of things. Of course it was you, his soulmate, who stood up to him. But seeing you submissive to the fallen angel aura he exuded in dominance gave him all the satisfaction and more. He hid it well, but you had him wrapped around your finger and it pained him to distance himself from you. To push you away despite every opportunity he has to get closer to you, to see you so close yet still so far. He knows it’s his own doing but if he’s endured two whole years then he can endure a few more until that inevitable day finally comes around when he can no longer keep you in the dark. 

He watches you in a trance, drowning in your eyes, the scent of you, the thrill of having you mere centimetres away from him. He sees your eyes flicker downward for a moment as they steal a glance of his lips and it breaks the spell. Suddenly he’s aware of the diminishing space between the two of you, the hazy look in your eyes as you’re drawn to him just as he was to you. In the blink of an eye, he’s pulled away from you and straightened himself up. He watches you blink away the haze of being close to your soulmate, registering his form now standing tall over you and the way his eyes narrowed into a final glare before he walked away in long, fast strides.

The sound of the dance studio door slamming shut makes you jump in shock, your head feeling a lot clearer now that Felix wasn’t around to make your thoughts run a mile a minute. You come to your senses and realise the mess Felix had made of you simply by being so close to you; your racing heartbeat, your panting, the fading tingling of your birthmark, and the haze lifting from your mind. Had he just nearly kissed you? Was he moving towards you or were you moving towards him? You didn’t know. You stay sitting on the couch as you collect yourself, thinking over what just happened when something Felix said jumps out at you. "What I am is none of your business." He had worded it as though he's something other than a human–"What I am". Intentional or not, Lee Felix had just let it slip to you that he might just not be a regular human. 

You only had one class after lunch, and that passed by in the blink of an eye, so your day ended a lot earlier than Hyejin who still had a 4pm class. With it still being just past two in the afternoon, you decided to head to the library–to do your readings or to procrastinate you’d find out soon. The college library had a very aesthetic look of browns and beige or anything that would match with wood. There were open study spaces with chairs, tables and couches, as well as group study rooms. The library always had the AC on–something about preventing humidity damage to the books–but they always made it borderline freezing. The chilled temperature of the library raises goosebumps all over your arms but you pay no mind, looking for an empty space in the sea of heads. 

It doesn’t take long for you to get settled in; you found a comfy spot nestled deep in the mass of studying students, pulled out your laptop and pair of earphones and you were set. You started off doing readings for your other classes but the clacking as you typed up your notes slowly faded away as you found yourself getting lost in your own thoughts. Ever since lunch and all throughout your second and last class of the day you’d been thinking about Felix. The close proximity, the way he’d make your heart race without failure, and what he said to you. Before you knew it, your fingers were automatically gliding over the keyboard and you were looking into angels, demons, anything both heavenly and sinful. 

The concept of Gods, Angels, Fallen Angels, and Demons have existed in every culture with some variation. Usually linked with religion, they’ve been depicted in all forms ranging from literary texts like the bible or fictional novels to visual modes like art and movies. It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t know what an Angel is–for good reason. These mythological beings seem to have existed since mankind has been able to deal with abstract concepts, and the history of them is a long one. You’d know–being a Mythology major and all–and this wasn't your first time doing research on such creatures either. The whole time, two memories ran through your head; the glimpse of Felix with white wings during high school summer and your lunchtime memory of the sunlight painting a dark wing silhouette on Felix. Yes, he could be any mythological winged creature but you had almost full confidence that he was an Angel. Why his wing seemed dark you didn’t know, but you’d find out. And for that, despite his warnings, you needed to get close to him and what better way than the Mythology class assignment?

You were so engrossed into your laptop, reading up on the history and anthropology of Angels, that you didn’t notice a figure who briefly paused behind you before walking away. Changbin had also finished all his classes for the day and had been spending his time productively as he waited for the rest of his friends to finish their classes. On his way out the library, he walked past your table and peeked over your shoulder. He saw your many tabs on Angels on the laptop, the notebook sprawled open with additional notes on your table. His eyebrows naturally arched as he observed your curiosity and dedication to your major, but he moved on quickly so as to not appear suspicious nor get caught peeking by you.

Outside the library, he headed over to the decided meeting spot at the cafe located within the campus. He could hear Minho from a whole corridor away, preaching about the cute photos of the new kitten he’d recently adopted. Turning the corner, he could see everyone already there–Felix, Woojin, and Minho–but his focus was only on one.

“She knows, doesn’t she?” Changbin raises the vague question once he’s close enough and it has the whole group quieten their chatter to focus on him. They all turn to face him, especially Felix who tensed at the question.

“Who is this ‘she’?” Woojin asks in response, his head tilting to the side in curiosity. He traces Changbin’s gaze over to Felix who stares back expressionless. 

“She suspects it, yeah,” Felix shrugs.

“And you don’t wanna tell her?”

“Look–” 

“No, Felix, this is the perfect opportunity.” Minho jumps into the conversation. “I’ve spent two whole years with her, she’s been obsessed with all this Angels stuff ever since she saw you. Now that she suspects it isn’t it easier to break the ice?”

Felix sighs in exasperation, he couldn’t explain how many times he’s had this conversation with the boys before. “I’ve told you before, I wanna keep her as safe as possible,” Changbin opens his mouth to interject but Felix rushes his response knowing what his older friend would say. “I am the danger. We are the danger. You can’t argue with that. Even if it’s only a matter of a few more weeks, I want to postpone this as much as possible.” The boys fall into silence, thinking over Felix’s valid point that they refused to wholly accept.

“What if we train her?” It doesn’t take much for Woojin’s voice to be heard in the silence, each of his friends looking over at him strangely. “We train her to be ready for the danger–whatever you feel this danger is.” 

Minho jumps at Woojin’s suggestion, a metaphorical lightbulb going off on top of his head as he excitedly nods, “That could work–“

“No.” Felix is adamant with his refusal.

“Felix, she’s a fighter. It would be second nature to her. Think about it, we know a bit about what she is, we can train her to use her–“

“God dammit Minho don’t you want to keep her safe too?!” Felix’s exclamation is powerful given the deep bass nature of his voice, “You spent two years being friends–no, best friends–with her, don’t you care about her? Want to keep her as far away from any danger as possible?” 

Minho has a hurt expression as he stares back at Felix in shock of his accusation. The innocent meet-up had quickly turned the atmosphere tense and all of the four present Fallen Angels could sense it.

“We just want to help you, Felix, that’s all we’ve ever done–it’s why we came all this way right?” Woojin runs a hand through his hair in frustration but his voice remains calm. The rest of the boys had confronted Felix about this many times. Felix always opposed, he didn’t want these things touching you even with a 10-foot pole. And though every part of him craved to be with you, he learnt to distance himself from you to keep you safe. Meanwhile, the other boys firmly believed in telling you everything, all the fucked up situations that lead them to this mess and all the secrets people had been keeping from you. You and Felix were soulmates for fuck’s sake, as much as they’d hate to admit it, they’d rather the two of you be playing tonsil hockey or something rather than hating each other.

“You don’t get it,” Felix is shaking his head in denial, standing strong with his stance on this argument.

“Damn right, I don’t get it.” Minho’s voice has a sudden fit of anger behind it, and Changbin is quick to place a firm grip on his shoulder. “If I were you, and if that was my soulmate right there, I would have long since confessed everything. To hell if there’s some looming danger, I’d spend every moment with my soulmate. I’d protect them and I’d train them–have faith that they can handle it.”

“This is my way of protecting Y/N,” the aura is tense as Felix and Minho both take on their supernatural demeanours as a natural grapple for domination. “Y/N is my soulmate, I’ll tell her when I want to. You can do whatever the fuck you want with your soulmate–if you even find them that is.” Felix snarls the last sentence in Minho’s face, the harsh reality of the situation being a trigger as Minho prepares to lunge at his younger friend only to be held back by Changbin. 

“That was uncalled for, Felix.” A hand is placed on Felix’s chest in warning and he traces it back to find Woojin’s stern expression. “We’re happy that you’ve found your soulmate–we really are–and regardless of how we argue now, we’ll always have your back. But that’s crossing the line and you know it.”

Minho relaxes in Changbin’s hold, his body free of the previous tension. Similarly, Felix also takes a deep breath and tones down his aura, the air thinning out as a result. Realisation hits and Felix’s shoulders droop in disappointment as it finally registers to him what he had just said.

“Oh god, Minho I’m so sorry,” Felix groans, his voice a lot softer to convey his sincere feelings. “Guys, you know I don’t mean it like that. I love all of you, I really do, and I can’t explain how thankful I am that you guys are helping me and my soulmate through this. I’m sorry.” His head drops, his gaze now focused on the concrete floor of the cafe. His figure suddenly seems to shrink, his aura much smaller compared to just minutes ago and his older friends are quick to soften up and accept the apology. A pat on the back has Felix looking, his eyes meeting with Changbin and Minho’s who have now moved closer to him and Woojin. A look is passed, especially between Minho and Felix, and the boys know that whatever tension they had just minutes ago was nonexistent. 

“Let’s go home?” Changbin says with a final pat on Felix's back as he helps his younger friend gather his bags.

“Let’s go home. I have another Mario Kart race to win against Felix,” Minho’s voice is light and teasing as he quickly slips away outside of Felix’s range. Changbin and Woojin can only laugh, as they watch Felix chase down Minho down the hallway.

You woke up to the blaring sound of your alarm the next day, unwillingly dragging yourself out of bed to get ready. It was only the second day of college and you already felt dead, great. You used to get up at super early in the morning for high school for five days a week, now even getting up for a 9 AM class every other day seemed like torture–this is what your sleep schedule has come to. Nonetheless, you begrudgingly drag yourself to your 9 AM lecture like a brain-dead zombie with the latest bop playing through your earphones. Surprisingly, even despite your earphones blasting an upbeat EDM tune into your ears, you can hear it–the constant chattering and fawning. Over who? The Big Four boys of course, you could see the back of Felix’s blonde hair bounce with every step he took as he walked across the pathway cutting through the campus garden. He walked without care, as if he didn’t have girls fawning over him, just making the trek towards his first class of the day with his head lightly bopping to the tune his wireless Beats earphones played. 

Seeing him brought you back to yesterday afternoon at the library as you hunched over the table, like every other student sitting beside you, researching myths and legends of Angels and all such affiliated creatures. He looked as ethereal as always, the sun rays hitting every sharp angle of his face perfectly, painting him in the most sinfully ethereal way. It was a wonder how everybody else hadn’t noticed it yet, they all just seemed to accept that men as gorgeous as Woojin, Minho, Changbin, and Felix were human. But you knew better. You were sure Felix was an Angel of some sorts, and considering the close friendship he shared with Woojin, Minho, and Changbin, you presumed it was safe to assume that they were like him. 

You had spent the whole night thinking about this, connecting all the dots and rethinking every moment you’d spent with Minho. Logically, it made sense. Minho had always been the kind of guy to be extra careful as if he was always hyperaware of his surroundings, constantly keeping a look out. He had also willingly approached you and Hyejin as if he had a purpose, sparking up a conversation and a soon-to-be deeper relationship. What his purpose was remained a mystery to you but you’d find out. It had taken a while for everything to sink in, to consider the fact that one of your best friends was hiding a big part of him from you and you wondered if anything was ever real to Minho. But you’d deal with Minho later because first you had to deal with Felix. You had a point to prove, and you also had a boy to chase down.

You hurried along the same path that Felix took just moments ago, your footsteps not as calm as his were as you attempted to catch up with him. You took the same stairs up, turning a corner and coming to a stop just a few steps away from the campus cafe. Surprisingly, a select brave few of those who admired Felix from afar had approached him. You took a few more steps forward, pretending as though you were heading to the display case full of various sandwiches, salads, and muffins. 

"--same Mythology class, right?" The girl standing in front of Felix could barely hold eye contact with him, her eyes would constantly flutter around his face and her hands kept moving in nervous gestures. "I uh was wondering if you wanted to do the Myth assignment together? Prof said we could work in pairs or groups and I thought maybe we could work together? Over a cup of coffee or something?" She flashes Felix a shy smile, her body naturally leaning forward towards him. Meanwhile Felix didn't stray from his usual controlled expression; his face didn't twitch, his eyes never faltered, frankly you were impressed that this girl could still smile with Felix looking at her like that. You'd give her credit for that at least. 

Finally, you hear Felix let out a sigh–not the exasperated one but also not the bored one. It kind of lingered in between, a vague grey area, and it had even you leaning towards the two of them in anticipation. “Sorry, I already started working on it on my own.” For a moment there, the side of your mouth naturally twitched up, a brief feeling of satisfaction filling you before you pushed it away. What was that about?

Continuing to stand in front of the display case, you side-eyed the girl who now seemed to shrink in size at his response. She stammers out an “it’s okay” and “don’t worry about it” before she hurries off. 

“He always does that,” the familiar sound of Hyejin’s voice beside you makes you jump in shock and you face her with a hand on your chest. At your look of disturbance, she continues, “Reject group work invitations, that is.”

“I wasn’t wondering.”

“Of course you weren’t.” Hyejin shuffles past you, talking with the cafe cashier to order a cup of coffee and a blueberry muffin. “He tends to just stick with his own circle of friends, won’t work with just anyone else.”

You follow Hyejin as she moves to the counter, your body turns opposite to her and you lean on the countertop. “You sure know a lot even though you’re just a freshman, huh?”

Hyejin just shrugs, giving you a side glance before smirking. You’d make a bitchy comment but your eyes catch another girl walking up to Felix. She was different, she was confident in her walk as she approached Felix who in turn seemed to hold her gaze. Her aura held a certain power, part of which stemmed from the confidence she held. Hands down, she was gorgeous. Her long hair fell in perfect waves, seemingly air brushed to frame her small face in the most alluring way. Every feature of her seemed to be crafted by God’s hand himself as you failed to find even the slightest flaw in her. Since you had followed Hyejin to the counter, you now stood too far to hear the conversation between Felix and the new girl. You could only see her lips move, as she talked, and Felix’s head bobbing in response. Wait–he was responding?!

“What about her?” You direct Hyejin’s attention to the girl now conversing with Felix with a nod of your head.

“That’s Minji,” Hyejin stands beside you now with her coffee in her hand. “The Big Four don’t just stay within themselves, there have a few other friends too.”

You can only watch from afar as Minji and Felix engage in a conversation, both mutually responsive and invested in each other. You had yet to see Felix interacting with anyone outside of his close-knit group of three other boys. Now he was chatting it up with a girl? You were shocked to say the least, this was the last thing you expected to see first thing in the morning. 

Your line of vision is blocked off by a blueberry muffin placed right in front of your face. Your eyes find Hyejin who is extending the muffin to you in a silent solace. By the look on your face, Hyejin already knew how you were feeling. But did you?

The previously silent bathroom was suddenly filled with the sound of giggling and light chatter when a groups of girls walked in. You were in one of the cubicles, doing your own business, when they walked in. They were loud and seemed to be excitedly discussing something–probably gossip–and you can only roll your eyes. Just when you had decided to exit the cubicle and make your presence known, one of the girl speaks up. 

"So Minji, we saw you chatting it up with Felix this morning, what was that about?" The query ends with some light giggling and teasing before Minji finally responds. 

"Ah you know, we were just catching up." Wow, even her voice was the perfect mixture of soft and seductive. 

"I heard a lot of the girls were thinking of asking Felix to work with them for the Myth assignment." The first voice speaks again. 

"Are you gonna ask him to work with you, Minji?" A second voice makes itself known. So there were three of them–you nearly snort out loud at the cliche. 

"Of course," Minji's voice is as confident as ever, and your mind practically imagines her flipping her long curls as she responded. "I'm the one he's most likely to work with, he's not gonna partner up with any of them."

"Ooh~ Minji's getting ready for battle. Felix is one lucky boy huh?" One of her two sidekicks sing-songs. You hear a hum of approval–from Minji probably–before all three burst into cheeky giggles again. 

God, does this girl not have an end to her self-confidence? She'd crossed the line into narcissistic a long time ago but this was a new low. You felt a burning anger grow in your chest as you heard the three of them chatter on, every other sentence an innuendo that pushed you to your limit. You couldn't allow Minji to pounce onto Felix, you wouldn't let that happen. You had your own plans with him, you had a whole mythological identity of is to uncover you didn't have time for some flirty bimbo to get in the way. 

You slammed the cubicle door open as you stomped out, heading to the sink where the three girls stood. They shuffled over to one end but didn't give you a second look after that and it had you fuming even more. After quickly washing your hands, you left the bathroom in a hurry as you headed over to your second class of the day–Mythology. 

Seeing as it was only a few minutes before class began, you weren't surprised to find the class already half full. People were shuffling in and out the door, moving up and down to find their seats. Pushing the thought of the many peering eyes away, you continued on your way towards Felix. Since your seat was next to him, it seemed convenient enough that you'd approach his direction. You were still a good stretch away from him but he had already made you nervous–your heart fluttering, your breaths quickened, your mind a mess. All your mind could do was keep replaying that moment in the dance studi; the two of you practically a hair's width away, so close you could feel the other's breath fan across your faces, your lips about to graze. It didn't help that Felix looked so good. Again. He had on a thin grey hoodie underneath with a brown leather jacket on top and black jeans. It was a casual look but oh the things it made you feel should be illegal. 

Your brief moment of distraction is cut short when you finally find yourself standing in front of Felix instead of sliding into your seat next to him. You get a sense of deja-vu as you place your hands on his table, a light smack sounding from the hit. It's loud enough to get his attention and a few others around the two of you but not loud enough to disrupt the whole class. You lean forward when Felix looks up at you, meeting your gaze head-on. His face as controlled as ever but his eyes, you could see them shine in hidden excitement as he waited for your next move.

"Felix, be my partner for the Myth assignment." 

Your voice is clear and confident, and Felix's expression cracks to let slip a small smirk. 

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