#I have. a bigger more complex piece that I want to do but I’m NOT LETTING MYSELF UNTIL I FINISH MY COMMS

[samglyph]

Just a normal guy and a normal kid nothing to see here

[saltofmercury]

Pairing: König x reader

Plot: Someone breaks into the house at night while you and König are sleeping.

A/N: Had a random idea about what would happen in this scenario.

“The Break in.”

Over three break-ins had happened over the weekend. All unfortunately 4 blocks away from your apartment. Break-ins didn’t scare you. You felt like your apartment complex was in better condition than most of the apartments surrounding the neighborhood. In addition to that, you weren’t too concerned because you were tucked away for the weekend with König.

You didn’t think a person who saw him would even attempt to do something, especially at his own house.

König, on the other hand, was worried sick.

“Maybe you could stay here for a couple more days. It wouldn’t be a bother, honest.”

You didn’t like the sound of it. Breaking into his routine which he then would be uncomfortable with. You knew how he liked his space. He needed a couple days to recharge, be with himself, and then come back to you.

You remember how antsy he got when you overstayed your welcome one weekend. He kept finding excuses to be alone.

“I’m going to read in my office. I’ll be back in about an hour.”

“I’m going to the gym for a workout. I'll be back soon.”

“I know you want to finish your show, I’ll be watching the game in my bedroom.”

It wasn’t until you were getting the shower that he had crept up and asked shyly if you needed company.

You laughed.

“Oh now you want my company?”

He traced his finger along the bathroom counter looking down.

“I never said I didn’t want your company, we just always shower together.”

So you knew keeping yourself here would only have him finding excuses in his own house to find privacy.

König would deny this. He loved your company, he loved waking up next to you with your legs on top of his. Seeing your toothbrush next to his on the counter. He loved seeing your products lined up on the bathroom shelf next to his. Your clothes piled on his dresser, your bras hanging on the doorknobs in his bathroom, or scattered around the floor after hastily getting to devour each other in bed. Small little pieces of you throughout the house reminding him you were home.

Sure he liked his space, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t distance himself from another room for him to recharge and come back to you.

He was adjusting rapidly to you being around him all the time. He wanted you around all the time.

Which is why he wanted you to stay here, in a house, where someone could protect you.

*

König never told you the missions he was on. You sort of preferred that way. He would just tell you the gist of the mission. He was very careful about not scaring you away with what his real job was. He was good at what he did, but he preferred to keep what he was out on the field away from you.

Calmly, while watching you, he gave you just enough to not try and scare you.

“It was a room of about 15 people. I was first one in.”

You stared at him. You knew he was hiding the real him. “Mercenary” was the word he used, however he never described the things a mercenary did.

There was nothing scarier knowing König was a shark at sea but there could be a bigger fish that would one day end it.

Part of you was glad he could protect you and himself from anyone and anything given his training and ruthless alter ego out on the field, but another part of you was worried someone out there would be quicker or one step ahead of him.

*

You packed your overnight bag with your dirty clothes.

“Where are you going?” He stepped out of the bathroom watching you collect your clothes.

“Home, I have a lot of work to catch up on and do laundry.”

“Okay we bring your laptop back here and we can start a load of colors here.” He replied so casually.

You laughed.

“Although that is tempting, it’s fine. I’ll be back this weekend.”

He didn’t like hearing that.

“Baby please, you know how dangerous it is around where you live right now. Just stay one more night. I’ll go pick up your laptop and —“

You cut him off:

“It was 4 blocks away, König. It wasn’t even my apartment. I know I’ll be safe.”

“Well I don’t care if it was in another town, I don’t like the idea of you staying alone when someone is out there like that.”

You turned to him, raising an eyebrow.

“You don’t like the idea of someone robbing houses when your job is ten times scarier?”

He leaned against the bathroom doorway, raising his eyebrow at you.

“Exactly. What if this guy is like me and he’s out there attacking houses because he knows how to do it so well that he’s not getting caught?”

You rolled your eyes

“I'm sure a trained military man is out there robbing houses for fun.”

“y/n!” He stopped you. “This is serious, would you want to run into me?”

You smirked, stood up, and went over to him.

“Yes I would actually, because I know your weaknesses.”

You gently ran your fingers down his stomach.

“I would know how to take someone like you down so easily.” You whispered.

You stood on your tip toes and kissed his chin.

He didn’t like the idea of you flirting when speaking about your life. With that, he took your bag and shoved it into the top shelf of the closet.

“You’re staying here and that's final. I’m not going to risk anything.”

He ended up taking you to your apartment, telling you to get extra clothes, your laptop, and anything else you needed. You settled back into his house again.

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” You asked one last time.

“Of course not. I can never have enough of you.”

*

You both had dinner, showered, and got in bed.

He pulled you against his chest and held you close.

“Thank you for staying here. It gives me peace of mind. I enjoy your company.”

You blushed, leaned in for a kiss, and mumbled “if it’s not bother then okay…”

You settled into the night routine you both had. He watched a show on his iPad, while you read through a book before both falling asleep.

*

It was around 3AM when you heard the speakers in the living room turn on. Your eyelids still closed, you searched for K��nig with one arm. An empty space in bed. You sat up, fear crawling up your throat.

König was already up and placed himself by the doorframe, a bat in hand, mask covering his face, and shoes on.

Had someone come inside the house? Another crash, scratches on the floor, and some scrambling.

König looked back at you, told you to stay put.

“Do. Not. Leave. This. Room.” He said it low, his accent had come out. He looked at you, but you didn’t recognize this König. He stood different, sounded different. You felt your stomach turn, the hair on your neck rise.

Where did he get the bat from?

Now you were scared. You weren’t ready to see this kind of person he was.

You heard his calculated footsteps as he checked the hallway bathroom and guest room, slamming open the doors so hard and loud they bounced against the walls. He continued to stomp all the way down towards where the sound was.

You suddenly felt safe, how thorough he was checking all the rooms and how bravely he went into each room announcing himself with just his body. You were now glad you stayed with him.

… then out of nowhere, you heard him laughing. A loud, boisterous, breathless laugh.

You shouted from the room “Who is it?!”

You hear him drop the bat, the bat clinking on the floor. Footsteps followed closer to the door.

“Not who schatz, but what.” His voice had come closer. Standing there, he was holding a small baby raccoon. The raccoon was being held up by his neck with one hand, and his other hand placed underneath him.

You screamed —“Becareful! We don’t know where it’s been!”

König tilted his head at you and then mumbled “it’s only Monty’s baby.”

Monty?

König went to the backyard and placed the small raccoon outside. He came back into the house, washed his hands, and walked into the room.

What just happened?

“What was that?!” You were confused, at a loss for words.

He settled himself back into bed and pulled you close.

“Monty is the raccoon that lives in the backyard. She had babies.”

You looked up at him still confused.

“All this time you’ve been staying here and you haven’t seen Monty and her family?” He asked innocently.

“I’ll tell you all about them.” He turned the light off.

What was happening? Was this a dream?

Part of you was still confused but you settled in and relaxed anyway. The other part of you was secretly relieved that because of him, you felt safe enough to go back to sleep.

[pinkheartist]

Imagine the SAGAU with Mitsuri! Reader? :3 (Part one?)

TW: mentions of Eating disorder, but mostly fluff and comfort. OCC characters??? Idk

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You’re self-aware of how much you truly eat, it’s not your fault, really! But when it comes to your favorite characters, you can’t help but feel a little insecure about it. You already had problems with that in the past, the feeling of people constantly judging the amount of food you ate was stuck in your mind and others saying that you had the appetite of a dragon wasn’t nice to your confidence. What if they start to appreciate you less as the almighty creator? would they be disgusted by this habit of yours?

With that possibility in mind, you reprimed your appetite and stuck to the plan of eating as few as possible, sometimes not even eating half of the plate they would offer to you properly. You really thought no one would notice? truly naive of you. They first thought you didn’t like the food, but after noticing your eyes glimmering and your mouth watering at the food before you shake your head and refuse it, they realized it was more complex than just a matter of personal taste.

Ei was the first to take the initiative alongside Nahida to try and talk to you about it. She may seem intimidating, but deep inside there is still a golden heart lying behind her stoic face. With a bit of persistence from Nahida’s part, they managed to get answers from you. The Electro and Dendro Archons comforted you, Ei gave you a portion of Kuki’s famous chocolate chip cookies that she bought, this was the best she could do since her cooking was awful, and Nahida affirmed that no matter how big your appetite was, they would still love you as their creator no matter what. They both wipe your tears away after you cry from relief, that the possibility of them shaming you from who you are never came…

The other Archons also joined the party. When you said you had the appetite of a dragon, Zhongli was left confused until you told him what it meant (He’s a little too literal). “There is nothing to be ashamed about. Your enormous strength must come from eating a bigger amount of food, right? Then, you should continue eating as much as you like. Don’t waste your ability to hear on those pesky little comments on your body, you are absolutely perfect in my point of view, Your Grace” The Geo dragon said, and trust me when i say that he would personally throw his polearm at the person who even thought of looking at you the wrong away while you eat at least 3 plates of (favorite meal)

If you said you would get heavy if you eat so much, Venti would use his Anemo powers to make you fly, seeing you smile from the fun you were having was like a Cupid’s arrow striking right in his heart (again). “See? You’re light enough for the wind to carry you, so I don’t want to hear you calling yourself heavy again. You are very much deserving of compliments, more then you think you are! I assure you that” Venti demanded after safely putting you down. “But-” “No buts!” Venti interrupted you before you could say any nonsense about yourself. As the self-proclaimed most devoted and loyal Archon you had, he would never bring himself to let you put yourself down like that

Furina did the best she does to make your feel better: Put up the best of her performances to take even the slightest of the smiles off from you. You can’t say it didn’t worked, the show was amazing! And after the show, Furina offered you a piece of (favorite flavour) cake that she brought from the best bakery there is on Fontaine, along with some macarronis made by herself and tea. “I’m banning any degradetive words with the slightest reference to you, and that rule also will apply to you!“ she exclamed “M-Me?“ You stuttered “Yes! Such blasphemy about the magnificent divine shoudn’t leave from any person’s mouth, specially when you’re the one doing it“ Her blue eyes softened as getting lost on yours “...Don’t say such things about yourself, it breaks my heart to see you blinded by insecurety, not seeing how stunning you are..“

Mavuika was surprised by the way you honestly described yourself. Of course, she did expected you to be humild on your own description, but not so lowly to the point you compare yourself to a monster, and for what? For eating 3 more than proper meals everyday plus a ton snacks? That’s ridiculous!! who put that thought on your head? She’ll hunt this person like there is no tomorrow. But jokes aside, “Hey, it’s not something you can exactlly control, can you? Everybody works differently. And your apitite is something unique, a thing that difies you from the rest, in a good way!“ she ruffles you hair, grinning widely at your flustered expression “Plus, the way you get so excited over the diverse cusines around Teyvat, and your eating face are the most adorable thing in the world!“

________________ꨄ_________________

Ummmmm…Yeah, srry if it’s bad i haven’t write for a century. If you’d like me posting more of those, please let me know :3 Baiii ( ˘ ³˘)♥︎

Tag list

??? (I’m too shy to tag someone lol)

[gatorbites-imagines]

John Constantine x tattoo artist?? Smut or no (you choose!) I think it would be cute if john gets his tats from the reader (also kind of a possessive/marking quality there lol)

John Constantine x Tattoo artist male reader

Headcanons

Sorry there’s been no posts this week, classes have started up again, so as you can imagine I’m exhausted and have a lot less free time. I’ve been using most of my free time to read JJK, ngl.

Imagine being a magical tattoo artist, something like a seal maker. You do large complex and beautiful pieces, but you hide different seals and protection markers inside the patterns. It keeps the real purpose of the tattoo a secret, but is also pretty to look at.

John already has tattoos in the hellblazer comics, but imagine you giving him different ink. Something a lot less obvious and more attractive.

It makes him pass as a hot blonde British guy covered in a lot of fancy ink, instead of some brit with lotsa weird cult looking tattoos.

John becomes one of your most common customers, mainly because a lot of the tattoos you put on him disappear after the seals been used, since its all defense and storage. He might also use it as an excuse to see you more, so he can flirt.

John being John, would get a tattoo right above his crotch, think like a reverse tramp stamp, or a succubus tattoo, just so he can have you sitting between his thighs as he gives his flirting his all.

You definitely end up railing him within an inch of his life in the tattoo chair, tsking and “punishing” him for straining the tattooed area too much, and “messing up your work” when he writhes too much.

In the beginning its just a friends with benefits situation, something like a “happy ending” you might say. John wouldn’t be someone to do relationships for the most part, since most of the ones he’s been in haven’t ended great.

He subconsciously also wouldn’t want to paint a target on your back, since hes always involved with all kinds of stuff. But he cant help but always find himself back with you, getting some new seal inked onto his skin.

And if every visit ends up with him bent over the tattoo chair, or down on his knees to “thank you”, then who will judge him.

John would end up finally acknowledging his feelings when you save him from his big bad of the week, using your complex and intricate tattoos to pull out weapons and spells, and later seal the being that’s after him.

Its hard to deny how he feels after that, and though he wouldn’t put it into words, he would act differently. Like just showing up at your parlor to spend time with you without getting anything done, or sending you little protection charms or trinkets.

At some point you guys just start kissing and acting like a couple, without actually putting a name to it. It’s a dangerous life you both live, and words mean everything, so you never tell anybody you guys are lovers, since that would make the target on you both even bigger.

It doesn’t keep you guys from pretty much living together and acting all domestic, or being completely exclusive to just each other. John turning down all advances made on him confuses people in the beginning, until they just come to accept it.

John ends up with even more tattoos, these a lot more complex than average useable seals. These are the kinds that you have spent your entire life developing, and had only used on yourself because they’re that powerful.

The league are knocked back by how powerful his spells have become, and how much damage he can withstand. Only other magic users with the knowledge know just how amazing his tattoos are. He never tells them where he got them, just because he’s an ass.

You end up helping out more with his business, and he ends up being free advertisement for your parlor. Of course, no one gets tattoos like you or John, you would never give a possible enemy that kind of power, but it helps pad your pockets quite a lot.

John’s enemies end up targeting you as well, but they’re easily dealt with for the most part.

He ends up getting teased be friends and allies that he’s getting soft and domestic, cuz he doesn’t go out to bars like before, and wants to be home in time to watch a movie with you, or just go to sleep together.

He ends up a lot less stressed too, since you rock his world whenever he needs it, and become someone he can let down his defenses and just be vulnerable with.

In the end he probably gets pavloved to get in the mood when you tattoo him, or he hears the noise of the tattoo gun. John always blames you for making him this way, because you always go down on him after giving him new ink, not that he’s complaining.

[highly-important]

Little Art things I'm obsessed with pt 1

Portraits of absent figures:

David Hockney - A Bigger Splash, 1967

Hockney originally visited California in 1963 and was won over by the sunlight and laid-back lifestyle, especially the luxury and ubiquity of the swimming pool. He described it as his "promised land" The splash is about freezing a moment in time, but it is also empty of human presence but implying a human. The male figure is present in some of David's other works from this time period, especially his muse and then-partner Peter Schlesinger. These paintings are about a hedonistic gay lifestyle, and the swimmers, the divers, are often the subject of voyeurism and desire. But in this painting, we just missed the diver, which makes the object of desire more private and personal. Who was the painter looking at, lusting after, etc. I like the contrast of the incredibly sharp and graphic suburban neighborhood, and the chaotic, organic splash. So again, if the divers represent this homosexual desire, we have this contrast of an orderly heterosexual world, and the queerness that joyfully disrupts it.

And then of course, with the absent figure, there is this massive sense of loss and loneliness. And so much of loneliness is about concealment, hiding in shame. This is a private space, but its also an exposed space, enhancing the loneliness. The figure is isolated, alone, invisible. Its a sadness that contrasts with the setting, the activity, and saturated lighting.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres - Untitled (billboard of an empty bed), 1991

These billboards were exhibited in the streets of Manhattan during the AIDS crisis. This piece was created the same year Felix Gonzalez-Torres's boyfriend Ross died. This portrait is a celebration of love and a memorization of loss and the emotions between intimacy and publicity. In the artist's own words:

“What I’m trying to say is that we cannot give the powers that be what they want, what they are expecting from us. Some homophobic senator is going to have a very hard time trying to explain to his constituency that my work is homoerotic or pornographic, but if I were to do a performance with HIV blood — that’s what he wants, that’s what the rags expect because they can sensationalize that, and that’s what’s disappointing. Some of the work I make is more effective because it’s more dangerous. We both make work that looks like something else but it’s not that. We’re infiltrating that look.“

The work intentionally uses the matching, identical depressions to imply a same-sex couple. The image itself is extremely intimate, but its being displayed in public spaces.

Felix Gonzales-Torres became known for his absent bodies.

And then, a little different, this painting by Jacques Guillaume Lucien Amans (1837) commissioned by Frederick and and Coralie Frey, depicts the three Frey children, with the faint shadow of a figure. There was a legend that there was a fourth figure in this painting. In 2005 a private collector, Jeremy K Simien, purchased the painting and it underwent conservation.

The painting revealed Bélizaire, a fifteen year-old enslaved domestic owned by the children's father. The picture captures the complex relationship between the boy and the children, the family that was keeping him captive. For one thing, the way he is set back from the others. There is this sort of intimacy between them along side the psychological trauma of forced bondage.

Here is a great Tiktok about the painting, to quote "What I'm struck by is what a sensitive portrait this is of this young man who was living in an inhumane society where he, despite being a human being, was bought and sold."

A few years after this painting was created, the three Frey children died, and Bélizaire was the only one who survived into adulthood.

The painting stayed in the Frey family. At some point, likely in the late 19th or 20th century, Bélizaire was intentionally painted over. In 1972, the great-granddaughter of Coralie Frey donated the painting to a Louisiana museum, informing them that a figure was painted over. During the course of the painting's life at the museum, no effort was put into restoring the figure.

Jeremy Simien's, who bought and restored this painting, said on his instagram "Bélizaire, they know your name now. Tell the ancestors to let me sleep for a minute."

And shout out to the picture that make me want to write this, Hyde Park Flowers, London by Tumblr user @kimironside I won't re-post it so check out the link.

[lykegenia]

So something has been bugging me for a while now about A and N’s backstories, and while I know not everyone will be as pedantic as me, as someone who loves history and has done a lot of writing, I feel that if you’re going to write a story about vampires and give them a specific time and date of origin, then there should be a certain level of research that goes into making that background authentic. I'm not saying that Mishka didn’t do any research. It just seems that in order to keep the vibe of a happy, mellow fantasy some of the less savoury aspects of A and N’s upbringings have been left out, and it's a shame. To be honest, it feels a bit disingenuous, and it feels like an opportunity got wasted.

Let me explain (long post got long, it's 2am)

Let's take A first, since the problem is simpler here.

A is the child of a Norman lord and an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman, born in the first generation after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. A says that these were turbulent times but that their parents had a happy marriage. Which. While I’m sure a lot of unions in that time period made the best of it, I can’t help but feel this description strips away a lot of the context of what was going on at that point in history - and removes some of the complexity about A’s thoughts on love and relationships.

Basically, after he took control of the throne, William the Conqueror stripped many Anglo-Saxon lords of their lands and titles so he could give them to his Norman buddies instead - with the added bonus that it left the Anglo-Saxons without the means to raise armies against him. The sisters, daughters, and widows of the dispossessed Anglo-Saxons were then forced to marry these new Norman lords to legitimise their power, not infrequently after all of their male relatives had been slaughtered. It’s not as if Anglo-Saxon women weren’t used to being used as political chess pieces, but the years after the conquest were brutal. It’s why William had to build so many castles. The point that I’m trying to make is that even if A’s mother was content enough in her daily life, due to the power imbalance between her and her husband, it's very likely she had little choice in the matter. She may have seen a lot of her family killed for political reasons, with the knowledge that – in an age where women had very little protection outside of their paternal household – she might be next if she made too much of a fuss.

It would be fascinating to see what effect that tension has had on A 900 years later, or even to get an acknowledgement of how much times have changed, but we don’t. We don't see how their early years affected them, how they view relationships formed naturally instead of via political contracts. And I really, really wish we did. There is so much potential there.

But A is not the one keeping me up past 2 in the morning. It’s N, and the utter detachment their backstory seems to have from the period in history they lived in as a human. And it all stems from the fact that they came from the English nobility in the late 1600s.

See, the bulk of the problem is that English inheritance law at the time heavily favoured primogeniture, where a man’s wealth would go to his first-born son. Some dispensation was made for widows and other children, but the estates, assets, and most of the money had a very clear destination.

For one thing, this makes it kinda weird that N’s stepfather would have needed an heir before he could inherit, because except in extreme circumstances everything would have gone to him anyway. Don't get me wrong, this isn't the worst part of the problem, it’s just annoying when there are more plausible reasons for him marrying a woman already pregnant with another man’s child (old family friend wanting to save her from disgrace, needed the dowry to pay off gambling debts, there was a longstanding betrothal between them that would have been tricky to get out of, etc.).

No, the bigger problem with N’s backstory vs primogeniture is firstly that at the time the English aristocracy was racist af (still is tbh) and given his pretty obvious mixed-race heritage, no court would have agreed that Nate was a legitimate son (this is for a very special reason that we will be coming back to). I say Nate specifically here because primogeniture requires the eldest legitimate son. Nat wouldn’t have inherited at all, as women in that period passed from the guardianship of their father (or other male blood relative) into that of their husband after marriage, and only gained any kind of independence with widowhood. If N had been an only child, maybe they would have been treated as a special case, but unfortunately Milton exists: the eldest legitimate son who by law will inherit everything.

Now here’s the thing. Your average aristocrat in the 17th century is very obsessed with lineage and keeping the family line unbroken. He would not, therefore, send his legitimate heir to sea to be shot at or drowned before he can carry on the family name – that joy instead goes to any other sons who need their own profession, because again, they will get very little. Nat would have had a dowry, but would never have been expected to make her own living, so I'm going to focuson Nate for this next bit.

In Book 3, if you unlock his tragic backstory Nate tells you he joined the Royal Navy after Milton went missing so that he could go look for him. And, well. This is where his backstory as Mishka tells it completely falls apart. For two reasons:

1. Even in the modern day, you can’t ‘just’ join the Navy, and you certainly can’t just jump straight to being a lieutenant – it takes years of training and after a certain age they won’t take you because they won’t be able to mould you easily enough into a useful tool. For most of the Navy's history, the process was even more involved. It wasn’t an office job you could just rock up to and then quit if you felt like it, it was a lifetime commitment. Boys destined to be officers would be sent to sea as early as 12 to learn shipboard life, starting at the bottom and moving up the ranks. These were gained by passing exams and by purchasing a commission – which is why you generally had to come from wealth to be an officer at all. Once you get to lieutenant you're responsible for a lot of people, and might be tasked with commanding any captured ships alongside the daily running of yours - it was not an easy job.

2. Even as a lieutenant (one rank below Captain, with varying levels of seniority) it’s not like you can just go where you want. In the 1720s British colonies already existed in India, the Caribbean, and up the entire eastern seaboard of North America and into Canada, and the Navy was tasked with protecting merchant shipping along these seaways (and one trade in particular that we’ll be getting to, don’t worry). Nate could have ended up practically anywhere in the burgeoning empire. He would not have been able to choose whom he served under, and would not have been able to demand his superior officer go against orders from the admirality to chase down one lone vessel because he thinks another one of the admirals might be a bit dodgy. It could not have happened.

Besides these impracticalities, there’s a far easier way for the child of a wealthy man to get to a specific point on the far side of the globe to look for their lost sibling, which is the route I assume Nat took sine she couldn’t have joined the Navy (yes she could have snuck in but she’s specifically in a dress in the B2 mirror scene so). All they'd have to do would be to charter a ship and tell the captain where to go, which is the plot of Treasure Island. It's quicker, less fuss, with less chance of things going wrong. It's even possible in the age of mercantilism that the Sewells had some merchant vessels among their holdings that could be diverted for the task. Why go through the hassle of joining the Navy and potentially ending up on the wrong side of the world when you can just hire a ship directly?

If Nate does have to be in the Navy (and let’s face it, it’s worth it just for the uniform) then it's far more plausible is that, as the illegitimate son who would not inherit because of racism etc, he got sent to the Navy as a boy and rose through the ranks to become a lieutenant. When he got news of Milton’s disappearance not far from where he was stationed, he begged his captain to go investigate in case whatever happened turned out to be the symptom of a bigger problem. Like pirates.

I like this version better not just because it makes more sense, or because it keeps Nate’s situation re: inheritance closer to Nat’s and therefore makes their stories more equal, but also because it adds a delicious amount of guilt to Nate’s need to find his brother. We know his entire crew died looking for answers, because he was selfish – that’s roughly 100-400 lives lost because of him, and we know that sort of thing eats at him.

So that's one side of the story, but if Milton wasn’t in the Navy, what was he doing on the other side of the Atlantic in the first place? Well, this is where we come to the biggest elephant in the room regarding N’s backstory as a member of the 17th century English aristocracy and potentially as a naval officer: the Atlantic Slave Trade. If you are wealthy in 17th century Britain it's more than likely that your wealth comes either from the trade itself, or from the products made with the labour of enslaved people. If you are wealthy, you want to protect your assets from attack by pirates or foreign powers so you don't become less wealthy, and that is what the Navy is for.

Regardless of N’s own views on slavery at the time – and any subsequent changes in opinion – it’s likely their family owned or had shares in slave plantations in the Americas. As distasteful as it is, it makes far more sense that Milton was on a trip to check the family’s holdings when his ship - specifically a merchant vessel - went missing. From a pirate perspective, a merchant ship would make a much better target than a Navy vessel, being slower, more likely to have valuable cargo, and less likely to have marines or a well-trained broadside.

It's not surprising that Mishka left out the subject of the slave trade given her tendency to skirt around darker subjects and general blindspot for racial politics, but it is nuance that, if it was there, would create a more grounded and coherent backstory for N that doesn’t have quite so many holes. Like with A being the child of an invader and his war bride, we could get some deeper thoughts from N about their place in the world - How do they feel to have grown up so privileged when others who looked like them were regarded as literal property? How did they feel being part of the system that made it happen? Did it inform their compassionate nature? Is it still a source of guilt or someithng they've tried to make up for?

I'm not sure where I was going with all of this. It's late, my sleep pattern is fucked. The tl;dr is that giving the vampires' backstories historical context would make them feel more multifaceted and would give opportunities for character growth that are instead missed because of a desire for a more sanitized version of the past.

[psiroller]

My Boy (We Don't See Each Other Much)

a third fic request from unkat has reached me for some gamer au shenanigans. cool, i thought, nice low stakes goofin off fun time au. lets put some military industrial complex in there

cw: institutionalized homophobia, vague references to USAmerican military operations in the 2000's, gamer lingo

The raid was a resounding success by their guild's lax standards. Chilchuck managed to pull a rare light armor piece he'd been looking for, finally catching him up to the modern game; he was surprised by how much damage the standard grinding mobs were doing to him now, even if his defense was always going to be lower than the tanks and fighters he partied with. Laios landed the biggest critical hit he'd ever seen; the broadsword Chilchuck nabbed for him off the Auction House was working well for him. He was clearly still riding the high, humming the victory fanfare under his breath as he took inventory and milled about with Senshi, comparing the ingredients they’d collected, trading amongst themselves. It was late, though, close to Senshi’s prep hours. Marcille was fighting against the cozy lethargy that followed a glass of wine and swiftly losing. Falin had already logged out to take a shower and head to bed, stopping by Laios’ door for a hug goodnight.

Laios went right back to the desktop after he shut the door. He pulled his headset back on and heard the familiar sound of Chilchuck’s raspy inhale and then a long, satisfied exhale.

“Chilchuck!” Laios said, too eagerly. “You’re still up?”

“No, I’m fast asleep,” Chilchuck drawled. Laios snorted and threw a rock at Chilchuck’s head. It passed through harmlessly; neither of them wanted the hassle of dedicated PVP. Maybe Laios wasn’t as keen on roleplaying as Marcille and Falin were, but the roleplaying server had been a lot kinder to him than the standard ones he usually played on.

“You were right about the sword,” Laios tittered. “I really have to start doing the math instead of just looking at bigger numbers—uh, focusing on how sharp the blade is, I mean.”

Chilchuck coughed through a laugh, leaning away from the mic so that it didn’t blow Laios’ eardrums out. “I think some of the guides are a little out of date,” Chilchuck said, relaxed enough to drop character. Marcille was still nearby, though the AFK symbol appeared under her name; the elf she played nodded off, ears drooping.  “Critical chance used to be calculated with this really convoluted system that also included timers, so there were only so many crits you could get in the span of a few minutes,” he went on. “They updated it recently so that you roll for a critical every hit.”

“Oh, thank God,” Laios said. “On a timer? How long did raids use to take?”

“Oh, upwards of four hours.” Chilchuck said casually. Laios sputtered. “I know, I know. I guess people had more free time back then… though with how people run multiple raids a night now, I guess it’s down to how committed you are.”

“So critical hit percentage is the thing I should focus on, then.”

“For your build, yeah.”

“Why does everyone recommend focusing on damage per second?”

“It’s a recent change, I think it got pushed out just before you signed up. They’ve tweaked it a lot, so people tend to get confused on how it works now, as it gets buffed and nerfed. Attack and attack speed used to be connected to the same value, so there are other ways you can focus on dealing damage instead of just right clicking the dragon and watching one of twelve timers tick down.” Chilchuck smiled and took another drag. “I think they’re trying to freshen things up a little. I like the changes.”

“Really? Everyone in the forums talks about how much they hate it.”

“If they’re old enough to be using the forums, they’re old enough to hate their favorite thing changing,” Chilchuck laughed.

“But not you,” said Laios. There was a warmth there that Chilchuck didn’t see a reason for.

“Eh.” Chilchuck’s ears burned under his headset. “Maybe a little bit. They don’t make shooters like they used to.” There was a pause. “Oh, right, you don’t like those.”

“Just the super hoo-rah military ones,” Laios breathed. “I can do Team Fortress 2. That one’s pretty fun.”

“Oh! I play that with—a friend, sometimes,” Chilchuck stammered. “Do you… I’m still kind of wired. I got a day off tomorrow. Do you—”

“Yeah!” His mic clipped. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

“Wait, you don’t have a test tomorrow or anything, do you?”

“… No.”

“I don’t like that hesitation.”

Laios huffed and puffed and logged out of Dungeon Divers with little warning, but usernames were exchanged and soon Laios’ avatar (a dragon, what else) popped up in Chilchuck’s scant friend list, nestled between Dan and May.

“I didn’t think you’d be cool enough to play TF2,” Laios teased.

“Cool people play TF2? I thought it was all screaming toddlers.”

“There are a few of those, yeah,” Laios admitted.

“I played the original game. It was a lot different. I don’t really keep up with it these days, but…”

“No worries,” Laios chirped. “I’ll take care of you.”

Chilchuck felt something zip down his spine. “I’m not that bad.”

They played three matches with the usual late night crowd, and it was a miracle if Chilchuck could stay alive for longer than a minute or two, let alone get a kill. Laios, on the other hand, clawed up every scoreboard and sat at the top. He started with Sniper; Chilchuck followed him while waiting for his respawn timer to run out, flicking between first and third person views. He watched as opponents’ heads would pop like grapes the moment they touched Laios’ reticle, faster than Chilchuck’s eyes could tell his brain to move his fingers.

“Okay, maybe I’m pretty bad,” Chilchuck admitted. “Compared to you.”

Laios missed a shot and sputtered. “I’m concentrating…!” A Spy knifed him, and Chilchuck could hear Laios whack his mouse against the table in frustration. Chilchuck laughed.

“Relax, that’s your first one this round,” he teased. “Your reflexes are crazy. Maybe I’m getting too old for twitchy games like this.”

“The mechanics have changed a lot and all the tryhards are on,” Laios conceded, breathing out the annoyance. “I’ll switch to Heavy. Wanna be my Medic? I can keep more of an eye on you.”

Chilchuck sniffed at his demotion to pocket healer, but then at least he’d be getting assist kills. “Alright, fine.”

Many assist kills were had, and all was well. It was fun to watch Laios’ brain work, bobbing and weaving and jumping around. He played like May did, hyperfocused on the movement mechanics; Chuck’s wrists weren’t any good for that anymore, so he usually hung back to support anyway.

“So why TF2 and not Call of Duty?” Chilchuck asked between matches, lighting another cigarette in search of the now-elusive nicotine buzz. “Seems like you’re really good. You could probably go pro if you wanted.”

Chuck heard a rustling against the mic. Sounded like Laios fiddling with the thing, maybe rubbing his face. He heard a scratch of stubble.

“Eh. I just—don’t like the military aesthetic very much, or something,” Laios mumbled. “I, uh. I served, and it’s a little…”

Chilchuck coughed. “You served? As in, served in the army?”

“Yeah.” There was a chuckle from the other line. “What? Is it that surprising?”

“Well, you just never…” Chuck scratched at the nape of his neck. “You never said anything that made me think… I don’t know what I thought. You didn’t seem like the type.”

“That’s because I’m not,” Laios snorted. “I was a good shot, but not a good soldier, if that makes any sense?”

Chuck wet his dry lips and leaned back in his chair. He didn’t lock into the next game, and the queue dumped them out. Laios didn’t reset it.

“So you objected? Conscientious objection? Is that what it’s called?”

“That’s what it’s called, but uh… it takes a while to get that done if you enlisted voluntarily. You have to plead your case for it. I thought about it, but I didn’t get the chance.”

Chilchuck swallowed dryly, then tapped some ash out into the ceramic tray Patty made for him many Father’s Days ago. “So you were kicked out?”

“Discharged, yeah,” Laios sighed. His chair creaked as he leaned back, too. “Other than honorable.”

Chuck winced. “What did you do?”

There was that rustling again. “I, um. If you don’t ask, I don’t have to tell you.”

“Oh, uh. Sorry, I”—Chilchuck’s eyes went wide—"ohhh.”

“Yeah.”

“Seriously? They booted you over a thing like that?”

Laios laughed weakly. “It’s in the regulations.”

“Still? When there’s, like, five wars going on?”

“Yep. I got a little pamphlet about it and everything. It’s rarer these days, and most people now get let off with an honorable, but…” Laios sighed. “My case was a whole thing. I didn’t fit in great with the rest of my platoon to begin with, and I maybe… I maybe misread some signals. You get bored out there, you know. Lonely. Got a little too close to my bunky…” Laios cleared his throat. “He let me down easy, but I guess he said something to somebody. I don’t think he’d go straight to the brass, he told me he wouldn’t, but someone must have overheard and that counts as credible evidence, so…”

Laios popped his lips with a click of his tongue. Chilchuck was frozen, ashes falling from the end of his cigarette into the crevices of his already dirty keyboard. The cigarette had almost burned down to the filter; money burning up in unsmoked nicotine. “I was probably going to leave anyway,” Laios said, to fill the silence. “I didn’t like being out there. If anything it kept me from being stupid and going AWOL. But if you talk to the VA—or my dad, heh—I  might as well have.”

Laios wheezed. Chilchuck blinked some smoke out of his eyes and stubbed out his cigarette.

“Hang on, you were on active duty and they’re hassling you at the VA over healthcare?”

“Oh yeah. Anything less than a general discharge is going to get you some hassle. I’m still on general health insurance, lowest tier. I’m not on TRICARE.”

Chilchuck pinched the pressure point between his eyebrows. “There’s gotta be a way to appeal that.”

“There might be. But I’ve spent about 40 hours of my life on the phone with them since I got back, and I’m not keen on spending anymore.” Laios made a blech sort of noise, disgusted, a little childish. “I hate phone calls. Besides, they gave me some money for college, so it wasn’t a complete wash.”

“Small miracles,” Chilchuck mumbled.

“Yup,” Laios breathed. He drummed his fingers on his desk, loud enough to reach the mic. Then there were a couple rhythmic bongo slaps against the table, nervous. “Ready for another game?”

Chuck looked at his watch. It was 4:32 AM.

“Sure. Night’s still young,” he said, for lack of anything comforting to say. “Play Heavy again.”

“Okay,” Laios said, and there was a smile in his voice. So that was something.

[gumnut-logic]

Scott was finalising a spreadsheet from hell when he was interrupted by a curse in Gaelic?

At least he thought it was Gaelic. Whether it was Irish, Scottish or some other dialect, he didn’t have a clue. But in any case, he was pretty sure he knew why.

Only one thing pissed off John enough to go for the ancient languages.

Scott thumbed his collar. “Yes, Thunderbird Five?”

There was a growl followed by a giggle in the background.

Scott rolled his eyes. So Eos was in on it this time.

Great, just great.

“Thunderbird Five, location on our bogey.”

“Your ‘bogey’ is on the residential balcony.”

Oh, yes, John was not happy at all.

“FAB, Thunderbird Five.”

He stood up with a sigh and stretched a few kinks out of, well, everything. He’d been out on a rescue early this morning – some unrecovered ordinance in the hands of the wrong people had levelled a building or two. Virgil had been the one swearing over that one.

Fortunately, it had been in an abandoned mine complex and while the idiots, playing with what they shouldn’t, got themselves into some strife, no one else was endangered. IR had saved and delivered them to the nearest hospital and law enforcement.

Virgil had had so many words.

Scott had shared some of those words with those in need of knowing and they’d all returned home for lunch.

Two was called out halfway between Virgil’s midday coffee and the sandwich Scott had prepared for him.

Suffice it to say, his steadfast brother wasn’t having a great day. Scott had offered to come with, but Virgil had waved him off. A glance at Gordon and his fish brother had run off after Virgil, inserting himself into the equation with his usual grin.

Gordon would either cheer up Virgil or blow him up. Either would fix the problem.

So it had been with that in the back of his mind, and on his tablet while he worked, keeping an eye on his two brothers as they discovered the second piece of unclaimed ordinance for the day.

Virgil was going to be fun to listen to tonight.

But it wasn’t Virgil he had to listen to right now.

Working out the kinks, Scott jogged up the stairs to the residential areas and, with a sigh, strode out onto the balcony.

As expected, Tony was lazing in one of the loungers, drinking…

“That’s my best scotch you’re chugging, you know.”

Still dressed in his Ironman suit, Tony looked up and over his shoulder. “Thanks for stocking it.”

Scott rolled his eyes for the second time and took a seat in the lounger next to the man. “You’ve pissed off John again.”

Tony took a sip. “My life has purpose.”

Scott turned to him in exasperation. “You do realise what John is capable of?”

“Eh, Jarvis and Eos have an understanding. Heh, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were dating.”

“You really have a death wish, don’t you.” It was not a question.

His fellow billionaire turned to him at that. “What? You think the fuddley-cuddley Tracys are even on my radar? I got bigger fish to fry. Dream on.”

“Watch it, Stark.”

“Oh, I’m shivering in my boots.”

“You are an ass.”

“Fully qualified.”

“So what do you want?”

“Your tech.”

“We’ve had this discussion.”

“Yes, we have. And I know for a fact that none of you Tracys are cool enough, much less smart enough, to have come up with all this.” His hand, not occupied with a glass of Scott’s scotch waved dramatically.

“Stark…”

Stark’s face twisted. “Bruce wants a playdate with Virgil.”

“You’re not on his favourites list today. We had more unaccounted for ordinance this morning. This time in Texas.”

An arched eyebrow. “And pretty little tech it was.”

“It levelled an entire mining facility. If it had been let loose in a populated area people would be dead.”

“Fury’s working on it.”

“Yeah, sure.” Okay, so perhaps, Scott was being a bit hard on the Shield branch of the GDF, but damnit there had been so many casualties due to discarded Chitauri weaponry amongst other things that the department claimed to have under control.

“I don’t see you out there fixing the problem.”

“We’re out there every day! Cleaning up your messes.”

“While we’re saving your asses.”

“Yes, thank you for that, but we’re busy saving everyone else every time Thor throws a party, or Bruce has a bad day.”

“We’ve had this discussion.”

Yes, they had and this conversation was getting them nowhere. Old grudges.

Old friendships.

“So, we’re all doing our best. How can we do better?”

“And there’s my goodie-two-shoes Tracy.”

“Shove it, Stark.” Scott stood up. “I’ve got better things to do.”

“Scotty, Scotty, Scotty.”

Scott grit his teeth. “What the hell do you want?”

“A chat with your gurus.” He laid back on the lounger. “And a holiday. This is the only place on the planet Fury can’t reach me, you know.”

The thought of the Avengers on Tracy Island was just…no.

“Find your boy band its own tropical island. Don’t you have three in the Caribbean?”

“Sure, but none have Tracys on them. Well, unless you’ll lend me one unsupervised.” Tony grinned up at him.

“In your dreams, Stark.”

The billionaire sighed and, putting down his glass, rolled to his feet.

Scott looked down at him. It was juvenile, but he’d known Tony since they were kids and while Tony boasted his smarts, Scott had always towered over him.

It wasn’t a big thing, but Scott was going to work with what he had.

Stark poked him in the chest with one metal clad finger. “Look, I know we’ve had our…” He waved his head as if looking for a word that Scott knew he didn’t have to look for. “…differences. But we want the same thing. To keep everyone safe. Now my team is doing what is necessary, same as you. Bruce thinks he needs one of your boys to help. Cap agreed. You gonna share or be an ass?”

Scott eyed him calmly. “I know which you chose.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Tracy, I’m trying to do good here.”

Scott had to give him that. Ever since IR had yanked him out of that kidnap/terrorist scenario in Afghanistan, Tony had been doing his best.

It was also the reason why Scott was talking to him and not Kayo. No doubt his sister had every sensor trained on the man this very moment. She and John were very much of the same opinion in regards to Tony Stark.

Both got seriously pissed each time Stark breached their security without even trying.

Perhaps there was something they could share.

Scott straightened. “I’ll think about it.” He paused and let the hope drip into Tony’s expression. “If you let John and Kayo know how you get through our security.”

Ironman blinked. “Sure.” He shrugged as if he didn’t care. Which he probably didn’t. It would only give him the opportunity to work out another way to skip through their sensor net. John and Tony had been rivals for years.

One enjoying it far more than the other.

If Five had lasers like Two, Tony might not exist any more.

Note to self: Keep John out of Two while working with the Avengers.

Hell, keep John in space.

But there was the truth of it. Tony knew the answer Scott was going to give because since the man had turned back from the dark side, they were on the same team.

And goodie-two-shoes Tracy didn’t have a choice because right was right, no matter who you had to play with.

His father’s voice chanted in the background something about saving all who need saving.

But you can’t save them all, Scott’s stubborn streak replied in a manner that statement wasn’t quite intended for.

Tony grinned at him and picked up his drink again and chugged the last of the scotch.

“Good talking with you Tracy. I’ll let Brucie know he can come and play.” And with that, Ironman threw on his helmet and took off from the balcony, leaving scorch marks in the hardwood, and disappeared into the blue, blue sky.

Scott grunted. Next time he visited Avengers Tower there was going to be so much accidental thruster damage on their landing platform.

“John, update on Two?”

“Finished and on their way home. They’ve been warned about Stark in the area.”

Another grunt.

At least Tony wouldn’t attempt to vandalise Two again. Certainly not after last time. And besides, he obviously wanted Virgil’s help, so would likely be on his best behaviour.

A sigh.

“John, track Stark out of our airspace and let him go.”

“Scott-“

“I said ‘let him go’.”

He got a grumbled FAB in return before the line cut.

Scott strode back inside and headed down to security to weather the storm that was no doubt happening down there. Better to unwind Kayo before winding up half the family about working with the Avengers.

Yet another sigh.

This was going to be fun.

In every other sense of the word.

-o-o-o-

[ivanttakethis]

Before Round 26 - Tov’s Log

Tov (?) vs. Akane (?) -> ??? Win

————————————————————

Tov doesn’t go to the practice rooms often. She doesn’t play an instrument and has no interest in learning.

But there’s music echoing down the hall as she passes by, and curiosity gets the better of her.

The door to Practice Room #1 is propped open. Sunlight from the window inside pours into the hallway, along with the music she’d been hearing.

It’s gentle. Melodious.

Almost angelic.

Tov has never heard anything quite like it before.

But what kind of instrument could produce gentle music like that?

It doesn’t sound like Nyx’s bass, or Khoi’s violin.

Tov steps closer to the open door and peeks inside.

In the middle of the room is a large, curved wooden frame, with dozens of strings pulled taught across its hollow center, like the inside of a piano standing straight up.

Tallis sits on a small bench at the base of the instrument, plucking the strings with deft fingers and closed eyes.

She lingers in the doorway, watching him play with rapt attention.

The song was beautiful, captivating even. But there was something… else that kept her attention; an unfamiliar feeling in her chest.

Tov didn’t have a name for it.

Maybe it’s for the same reason that her gaze lingers on his face more than his hands.

Tallis suddenly stops playing, his eyes fluttering open. He shifts in his seat and moves to look over at the her.

She quickly steps behind the door to hide, holding her breath.

Waiting.

“I know someone’s there.” He calls out.

She doesn’t move.

Tallis sighs, “It’s okay to come out. I don’t mind.”

It’s Tov’s turn to sigh. She comes out from her hiding place, hands tucked behind her back.

Tallis’s eyes widen as they meet hers.

“Oh.” He says, “Hi.”

“Hi.” She says back.

Normally, this is where Himei would take the reins of the conversation, sweeping both of them up in her endless, energetic chatter.

But Himei’s guardian had taken her out of The Garden for the day.

Now it was just the two of them.

Tov enjoyed silence, unlike most children her age. Though she detested silence in the presence of others.

It was different with Tallis.

Silence between them was always comfortable.

Only Tov’s seemingly endless want to learn about any and everything that catches her attention compels her to break it, “What kind of instrument is that?”

“A harp.” He says, “It’s a string instrument, like a guitar. But it has pedals like a piano.”

Tov turns her attention to the harp, tilting her head slightly to the side as she examines the instrument with new insight.

It looks far more complex to play than a guitar or a piano. More strings. More pedals. And Tallis had been playing with his eyes closed.

“Do you… want to come and sit?” He asks.

Tov blinks free of her thoughts, looking back at him.

The offer catches her off guard. She can’t remember if they’ve ever intentionally spent time together without Himei.

She nods, “Sure.”

Tallis moves over to one side of the bench and she sits down beside him.

The harp is much bigger up close.

“What were you playing earlier?” She asks. “It sounded nice.”

“Just a practice piece. I’m not that good at it though.”

Tov frowns at that.

She just watched him play a complex instrument twice his size without even looking at the strings or missing a note.

It would be incongruous to think Tallis wasn’t good at this.

“You’re very talented.” She says, matter of fact.

Tallis stiffens, looking away from her and bringing a hand up to rub the back of his neck.

His cheeks turn pink.

It makes his freckles stand out more.

“Uh, thank you.” He says quietly.

“You’re welcome.”

“I-I can play something else, if you want?”

Tov doesn’t hesitate to answer, smiling a little, “Sure.”

————————————————————

Tov awoke the next morning on top of her covers, clutching her tablet to her chest.

The battery was dead.

In the time it took to charge, Tov wondered if she imagined everything that had happened the night before.

The nightmare.

The message.

The song.

Was it real, or was it some sort of coping mechanism her mind concocted to keep itself from spiraling?

How could Tallis be alive?

Tov watched him get shot not once, but twice. She watched as they carried his body off stage.

Based on everything she’d read, alien technology far outstripped anything humans accomplished back on Earth.

But they were still fragile.

There were still ways they could be beyond saving.

Tallis surviving would’ve been a miracle.

Too much to hope for.

The tablet’s screen powered on again, displaying the same sheet music Tov saw before she fell asleep.

Her heart leaped forward, straining against her ribcage, trying to escape, to get to something— someone.

Tallis was alive.

He had to be.

There was no other explanation for why she would be looking at sheet music for a song only one other person knew existed.

He was out there somewhere; still able to communicate with her, albeit not directly.

That only raised more questions.

Was he with the rebels? Had they saved him after his round?

No, that didn’t make sense.

Solei had just rescued Aurien the round before. Security was tight.

They wouldn’t have risked going back to save another contestant so soon.

Could a guard have saved him? Maybe as a favor for someone, like her secret benefactor?

She thought it was unlikely, but didn’t rule it out.

If she could corner one of the medics again, she’d ask them.

Between the two, Elias probably had more information. But he was tight lipped.

From their conversation, she gathered that he hadn’t even shared much with Prem.

Tov still wasn’t sure if she could trust them either. A topic for another time.

But if Tallis really was alive, and he was trying to signal to her, then she needed to figure out a way to convey that she got his message.

A call and response.

He used music to call out to her. It would only be fitting for her to use music to respond.

Maybe she could use the song he wrote somehow.

Final songs were due at midnight. There was still time to change her selection to include a coded message.

With a new fire burning in her chest, Tov grabbed a pair of headphones off her dresser and got to work.

Can you hear me?

Loud and clear.

————————————————————

The flashback took me forever to write, but I love how it turned out 🥹

It was the start of Tov and Tallis’s friendship independent of Himei, so it would be something Tov remembered easily.

Full disclosure, I know next to nothing about harps, so everything in this log is gleaned from a few cursory searches.

But yippee!! More Tovallis!! *cheering*

Also, I talked more about Tov and Tallis’s relationship dynamic in this non-canon AU of them singing Cure together, if you want to read that.

Tallis belongs to @lookatmysillies.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Caroline Giuliani for Vanity Fair:

I am constantly asking myself how America is back here, even considering the possibility of electing Donald Trump again, after all of the damage he has caused, both in office and since. While Kamala Harris has gained extraordinary momentum by infusing this election with vitality and hope, I worry that too many Americans remain disconnected from the visceral, psychologically draining memory of Trump’s deeply destabilizing presidency. If enough people truly remembered what that chaos felt like, another Trump term wouldn’t even be on the table. But for those open to seeing the bare and unvarnished truth, there are unmistakable reminders of Trump’s destructive trail all around us, and it has broken my heart to watch my dad become one of them.

As Rudy Giuliani’s daughter, I’m unfortunately well-suited to remind Americans of just how calamitous being associated with Trump can be, even for those who are convinced he’s on their side. Watching my dad’s life crumble since he joined forces with Trump has been extraordinarily painful, both on a personal level and because his demise feels linked to a dark force that threatens to once again consume America. Not to disregard individual accountability in the slightest, but it would be naive for us to ignore the fact that many of those closest to Trump have descended into catastrophic downward spirals. If we let Trump back into the driver’s seat this fall, our country will be no exception.

My dad and I have a cartoonishly complicated relationship. But he is still my father, and despite his faults, I love him. I’ve seen him experience surreal heights, and, now, unfathomable lows. The last thing I want to do is hurt him, especially when he’s already down. Plus we never know how much time we have left with our parents. The totality of that makes this the most difficult piece I’ve ever written. Yet this moment and this election are so much bigger than any of us.

From reproductive rights and the economy, to foreign and environmental policy, we need experienced, sane, and fundamentally decent leaders who will fight for us instead of against us—who will safeguard our democracy rather than dismantle it. And as a recently engaged-to-be-married, 35-year-old who hopes to feel more joyous than fearful about the potential of becoming a parent myself, I need to advocate for a future worth bringing children into, which is why I am voicing my adamant support for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. I’ll never forget the night my dad told me he was considering becoming Trump’s lawyer. I was with him at the Grand Havana Room, a cigar bar at the top of 666 Fifth Avenue, an address too fitting given the unholy alliance my father was about to enter into.

[...] Beyond the existential importance of this election, I am also voting for Harris because she is the only candidate who cares about my rights as a woman. The reversal of Roe v Wade was a shocking and horrifying “accomplishment” of Trump’s that has already resulted in the unforgivable and unnecessary deaths of innocent women like Amber Nicole Thurman. Seeing Republican state officials enact draconian abortion bans and threaten fertility care is incredibly personal for me. As a woman in my 30s struggling with long-covid-related health issues, there’s a possibility that my soon-to-be husband and I will need to rely on surrogacy or fertility treatments if we want to have children of our own. Having the means to even consider surrogacy is a tremendous privilege that I do not take lightly, but it also stirs up many complex and challenging emotions. So I’ve spent the last couple of years talking to countless women about their fertility journeys. Witnessing their strength has been inspiring, and it has also made it clear that fertility struggles necessitate tremendous courage and grace. So the fact the Roe reversal has given states the leeway to make the IVF process even more uncertain is a disgrace. And hearing Trump flip-flop on the issues of abortion and IVF only makes me trust him less – if that’s even possible – because his lies are so clearly politically motivated. He’s already caused irreparable damage, and I don’t believe for a second that he won’t cause more.

Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, which would “explicitly reject the notion that abortion is health care” and require the Department of Health and Human Services Department to preclude doctors and nurses from being trained to perform abortions, but his insincere denial so clearly stems from his growing political insecurity. Project 2025’s contributors include several high-ranking officials from Trump’s first administration, and one of Project 2025’s authors, Russell Vought, was secretly recorded acknowledging that Trump is in fact “very supportive” of what they do. I believe it, because everything in Project 2025, from eradicating the Department of Education and FEMA, to decimating unions and reinstating schedule F so that the administration can hire and fire government employees for political reasons, is woefully in line with the malfeasance and backsliding that Trump has already proven he stands for. It is a dictator’s playbook—one he didn’t have before. Trump will be much more effective a second time around, and I don’t see how our world can survive it.

We live at a crossroads in history, where the future of not only our democracy but our planet is at stake. Trump’s first-term position on the Climate Crisis was to call it a hoax while stripping away climate regulations and giving the fossil fuel industry everything they wanted and more. His second-term agenda, which we can foresee through his grotesque Project 2025 playbook, will only accelerate the damage he’s already done. My dream of becoming a mom, coupled with the difficult health journey I’ve been on over the last few years, has me constantly grappling with our increasingly toxic and dangerous environment. But I do feel hope. Because Kamala Harris understands the grave danger of climate change. As only the second presidential candidate in history to be endorsed by Scientific American, she’ll be a champion for our children’s futures by reinstating the United States as a member of the Paris Agreement and continuing to fight for renewable energy policy. We’ve seen remarkable progress on this issue under the Biden/Harris Inflation Reduction Act. Trump would roll it all back. Kamala Harris is our only chance for a better future. Even though the last few years have been some of the most difficult of my life on a personal level, I’m grateful to live in a country that came together once before to fire a burgeoning tyrant. 

[...] Take it from me, Trump destroys everything he touches. I saw it happen to my family. Don’t let it happen to yours, or to our country. Kamala Harris will guide us into a brighter future, but only if we unite behind her. On November 5th, I’ll be voting for that future. For justice, stability, and democracy. And I sincerely hope you’ll cast your ballot for Kamala Harris, too.

Caroline Giuliani wrote in Vanity Fair the warning that his dad’s joining forces with Donald Trump led to family splits (not unlike with Kellyanne Conway and both Claudia and George on differing sides), and that she endorsed Kamala Harris to be the 47th President.

[authorred]

Loki Laufey/Odinson NSFW HC’s cause I’m slacking off in class

This will definitely be NSFW (18+) so minors DNI (do not interact). Unless you do, which in that case I refuse to be held responsible for the content you consume.

Warning(s): NSFW

Superiority complex through the roof

I really want to say switch top

Has lacked true control and power his entire life, so allow him to take the reins every once in a while

However, his cockiness and brattiness can and should be tamed

Very servile when submissive--will pleasure you in whatever way he can, and you want

When he’s dominant, he’s calm and very soft. Rarely gets rough on his own incentive. You’d have to ask for it specifically and/or tell him it’s alright before hand

He’s probably more submissive than dominant, so if you want him to be your good boy, just lean up and purr into his ear how much he’s pleasuring you/how good he’s doing

He will melt and lose his dominant front

KISS HIS NECK NOW

Kiss the back of his hand whilst keeping eye contact. He won’t say it, but that gets him off

Call him ‘My Prince’

His favorite position in general would be underneath you

Ride him whilst he sitting or lying down, he will hold you and assist you if you want or need

Choke this whore

Quickest way to get him horny is to challenge him

Whether he wins or loses doesn’t matter, though if he loses to you that’s bonus points

If he wins his ego will go through the roof

If he loses, on his knees he’ll go

It really depends on your preferred dynamic tbh

He’s a complex person with a bunch of contradicting emotions and feelings

Sometimes he’ll sub and then decide to dom because he’s so used to submitting to others, it’s a habit to try and ‘be better’ than them, or ‘one up’ them in some way

If you want him to sub to you, not only do you have to show him he can trust and respect you, but you have to show him you’re worth it

Might cry one of the first times icl

Body worship, affirmations, praise

EMPHASIS ON THE PRAISE--PRAISE THIS GOD FOR THE LOVE OF DFGNJBHHNBUJGDTRHBUAREBH

If you ask him to fuck you over a desk or a table or on a piece of furniture, chances are he’ll do it

Emerald green lingerie, that’s it

Any lingerie you wear would get him to go awooga, but EMERALD GREEN would get him to bark without a doubt, that man’s a whore for that color

Look him dead in the eye, tell him ‘Kneel’ and he’ll give you that ‘really?’ look of his before obeying

Play with his hair, pull it, grip it, use it to guide him

Will whimper--MAKE him whimper--literally turn this god into a submissive whimpering mess

Slight mommy issues, but will never you call ‘mommy’

Will call you things like ‘My Princess’, ‘My Love’ ‘My Dear’, ‘Darling’, ‘Sweetheart’

Will use your actual name in times of intense of pleasure

Might not be into pegging that much? He might try, but there’s a bigger chance of him disliking it

Slap him (not too hard) when he brats. He’ll become shocked and that’s the perfect time to dom him

Sit on his lap and kiss his neck, he’ll be gone

He probably knows how to play some sort of classical instrument like piano. So, when he’s playing, come up behind him, wrap your arms around his waist, hickey up the side of his neck, and watch him mess up the entire song

Push him against the wall and boldly proclaim he’s yours

Soft touches and tender kisses between rough moments whilst fucking

Eye contact--a lot of it

‘My beautiful prince’ is his favorite compliment/name

He will get on his knees and kiss up your leg and slowly unclothe you if that’s what you desire

Absolute god at using his tongue

Hits that specific spot (regardless of what he’s using: tongue, fingers, dick) and keeps it up until you cum

He gets a bit lost with toys, and seems a bit offended if you bring it up first (he believes he’s all you need)

Will have to reassure him that toys are friends, not foes

After the first few minutes of disgruntlement, he does come to the quick realization of the possibilities

Will pleasure you the way you want with them 4/5 times

Wants to give and receive pretty equally if he’s not in a certain headspace

If you’re between his legs and you kiss his thighs, he’ll blush and tell you to ‘not do that’ only because he’s flustered

[girldragongizzard]

Chapter 16: Finding my voice

The clothes are obviously Chapman’s, and I’m made to fit them.

The central piece of the ensemble is a TARDIS dress. Probably because it’s blue.

There’s also a pair of sunset orange ballet flats with orange supportive insoles in them. A pair of gloves, a purse, and a pair of sunglasses, all of the same color.

The purse is bigger, and in better shape, and with a longer strap, than the purse I’ve been using. So I happily transfer everything over to that. And that’s really super easy with my new sofa-primate hands.

There’s a simple makeup kit in the purse, including a mirror, that I’m entirely too afraid to use.

I’ll catch a glimpse of myself in a window or a bathroom mirror eventually, but I don’t need that now, and I don’t know a thing about makeup. A lot of women locally don’t wear much of it, if any at all, anyway. I’ll blend in just fine without it.

Except that I’m wearing these clothes, and they are telegraphing who I am to anybody who might suspect I’m wearing a pendant that can do this in the first place.

There are panties that are the same blue as the dress.

No bra. The dress has a shelf bra, and what I’ve got on my chest probably doesn’t even need that. I’ve still got them, though. Definitely bigger than I’ve ever had before.

A lot of women around here don’t wear bras either. So, again, not a huge deal. And one less thing to delay my exit from the parking garage.

When I’m all dressed, the pendant hangs all the way down to the bottom of my sternum, under my dress, completely hidden by it and its high neckline.

In a pinch, though, I can still grab it with both hands and haul it right over my head and out of my dress. But if I do that, the dress won’t survive. Nor will the shoes or gloves. Or panties.

There are a lot of reasons I don’t like this, now that I’m doing it, and I want to take the pendant off now. However, that would shunt me over to escape plan B, and that might result in more of last night’s kind of bologna, actually.

But I look like I’m going to a science fiction convention.

—

As I stick my nose out through the crack in the door of the stairwell, I smell, hear, and see a police car roll by and head for the ramp up. They obviously didn’t see me even crack the door, but I let myself be convinced that my disguise is already working, and lick my lips before opening the door more fully.

Another police car swerves and pulls to a halt in front of me as I step out of the door, and I make startled eye contact with the driver.

He pulls his microphone from his dash and puts it to his mouth, to say, amplified and way too loud, echoing throughout the complex, “Ma’am. Please vacate the premises immediately for your safety. There is a dangerous reptile wandering the parking garage.

I still don’t see animal control anywhere.

I nod, and wave, and stumble out, around and past the car to the sidewalk.

I hope they don’t hurt that poor lizard.

Fortunately, I happen to know that she’s making a cunning getaway. But, they might yet track her down, I suppose.

What if they have a wizard on their staff?

—

The door of the coffee shop opens, setting off the chime to let everyone know that the first customer of the day has entered.

Well, no. Chapman and Rhoda are already there, in the back of the main room, waiting for me.

Jill and Cerce, who open on Saturdays, have been told what to expect, but Cerce gawks from behind the counter as Jill steps out to get a good look at me and then at Chapman and back again.

I understand we don’t look exactly alike, though I couldn’t tell from memory when I had taken a peek at myself in a shop window. But, it does look like our bodies were stamped out of the same base mold.

There are some differences.

My boobs are bigger.

My hair is dark brown and not cut in a side shave, and it falls to my shoulders. It has a slight wave to it.

Chapman had said sie had based my facial features on hir favorite autistic comedian from Australia, mixing them with hir own. And the result is that we could be siblings, cousins, or painfully gay partners, depending on if the beholder has prosopagnosia like me or not. And I’m honestly fine with any of those assumptions. I feel like I’d have fun playing each of them up. If I could focus on socializing as if I’m human.

Jill stops in front of me and asks, “Meghan. You look stunning. And stunned. Are you all right?”

I open my mouth and I squeak.

Jill blinks.

See, there’s a bit of a problem.

I hold up a finger. Straight up. It surprises me and I look at it in wonder for a second, then I glance at Jill, and then Cerce. And then I reach into my new purse with both hands and pull out my enchanted tablet.

I almost go to put it on the ground in front of me, but stop myself from bending over more than a couple degrees and make a coughing noise. Then I rub my nose and straighten up and deliberately hold the tablet in front of me.

At which point I reach with one of my hands and turn it on.

Holding it with one hand directly in front of my face at half an arm’s length out, I press on the screen with the knuckle of my other hand.

This feels so freaking awkward and weird.

But soon the AAC app is open and I can talk again. So I say, in my own now familiar voice, that of the tablet, “Can’t talk.”

“What? I don’t understand!” Jill exclaims. Then looks questioningly at Chapman.

Cerce utters, “Oh.”

And Chapman nods at her and then says, “She has a larynx now, Jill. Not only does she not know how to use it, but I imagine it feels really weird when she tries.”

I nod vigorously.

“But didn’t she have one before?” Jill asks.

“I don’t know,” Chapman says. “I never got to study a dragon before the metamorphosis. No one did. We didn’t know who they were. But if I had a guess, I’d say she did, but she lost all memory of how to use it when that old disguise was discarded.”

Jill half points at me and asks, “And how did you say she got this way again?”

“I very pointedly didn’t,” Chapman replies. “And I won’t.”

Jill squints at me and examines me further and says, “I do feel like I recognize her, even though she’s never looked like this. Just like the first time she changed. Will all the other dragons be able to do this?”

“Probably not. Or, if so, one at a time.”

“So weird. And so cool, and,” she looks at me in the face. “Are you really OK with this?”

I shake my head, making sure that she and Cerce and Rhoda and Chapman see me do so. Then I use my tablet to say, “Have to.”

“OK. OK.” She nervously smiles at Chapman, then back at me. “Well, you look good.”

—

There’s a full length mirror in the back room, where they’re going to eventually set up my computer, and I’m really annoyed that I’m using it to look at this body and not my own.

I could take off all my clothes again and then the pendant, and get to see, but that would be a lot of trouble. I’ll get to see eventually.

And, even though it’s a full length mirror, it’s not really wide enough to give me a full third person view of my wingspan. When I have one.

It’s just fine for a human, of course.

I’m.

I’m a woman.

Only I’m not.

This is how I know that I’m not.

Oh, I am definitely female. I am so supposed to be female. I am almost laser focused now on the idea of laying eggs in the spring.

I might be in the need to look for a suitable egg laying lair, actually. It’s a whole half a year away, but now I’m thinking of that pretty solidly.

But anyway, female dragons are not typically women, and this is definitely not me.

Kind of like before my first metamorphosis, I feel like I’m seeing a completely different person in the mirror. Like, as if it’s literally not a mirror but a window, with another person on the other side. My brain will absolutely not let me see it as a mirror. Even as that person mimics my movements and expressions.

But the person I see is cute!

And unlike before, she looks like someone I’d like to at least be very good friends with.

I sure wouldn’t mind looking like her if I absolutely had to. At least humans would treat me almost right if they saw her when looking at me.

Which, for the time being, they will. Which is a startling revelation to keep having. It never stops being jarring.

I do find it a little weird that I can walk just fine, but I can’t talk. It feels like a continuity oversight in a science fiction show. Or a plot hole. But I speculate it might have something to do with dissociation, and what specifically triggers my dysphoria and what doesn’t. Maybe.

It is magic. And very particular, literal magic at that, from Chapman’s explanation. Like programming the universe itself. So, it might just be that I’m missing the code for speech but not for walking. Though, why that would be the case, I’m just not sure. It makes less sense to me than my dissociation explanation.

I tilt my head to the side and watch as the other person does it too. They do remind me a lot of Chapman when sie isn’t around.

I again ask myself this question, because the topic just happens to be on my brain regarding eggs and just how human I might be at the moment. Would I have sex with this person if I could?

Maybe?

If I appear to be human, and she is human, maybe I could. Socially. Accept that.

Physically? Can I imagine enjoying the physical sensation of that?

Honestly, I just can’t even bring to mind memories of physical human contact, let alone daydreams of it.

Why do I ask myself this?

Because humans are constantly talking about it. Or, a lot of them are. Every relationship in every story seems to center around eventually having sex. And it’s the one way they ask whether they’re compatible with each other. And I guess it’s one of those habits I’ve learned from them.

Again, I don’t know what happens in the spring, which I’m guessing is mating season, based on thoughts I keep having.

I turn my head away from the mirror.

I’m supposed to be using this thing to practice acting and moving like a human woman. And I’m failing even at moving like a human, actually. I can tell that much.

I awkwardly move to open the door and walk through the short dark hallway out into the cafe. There are some other customers there now, and Chapman comes to me and indicates we should head back into the back room again.

I was going to ask hir to help me, but apparently I don’t have to.

Rhoda moves to come back, too, but Chapman stops here and says, “Just a moment, OK?”

And then, once we’re back there, Chapman closes the door and stands in front of it.

“Maybe we don’t need you to practice being human today. Just keep the disguise on until we’re done,” sie says. “It’ll be more convincing if you’re draconically weird for the interview. Blending in with people will be needed later, maybe, when you want to use it.”

Then we talk about a few other things before inviting Rhoda in to plan the next phase.

—

It’s the end of the summer and this weird man is wearing black jeans and a black leather biker’s jacket. His black hair is the kind of mess they strove for in old photos of geniuses, but his mutton chops belong at the Subdued Stringband Jamboree. He’s wearing cowboy boots and holding a small notepad and a pen, his right leg propped up on his left as he sits and listens to me explain things using his laptop with the AAC program installed on it.

I find the keyboard is reasonably easy to use, once I get used to using my fingertips to hunt and peck.

I used to be a touch typist, but I think this way now for some reason. But I’m still getting full sentences out in reasonable time.

He’s nodding as I talk.

Occasionally, he asks a question.

What I find absolutely hilarious is that his name, his literal given name, is Seagull. Seagull Phil. It sounds like a nickname, but it isn’t.

The coincidence of that made my stomach growl at the weirdest moment in our introductions.

He works for the weekly paper, and we’re having this interview in the back room of the shop.

He has a voice like a 1930s transatlantic radio announcer. Soft, gentle, and extremely articulate. It does not fit his physical image in the slightest. He’s six foot three, too.

The whole affect is disarming and makes me feel at ease despite my mounting and raging dysphoria. I almost forget that I don’t look like myself.

Rhoda met him at the Council meeting, and befriended him when it was adjourned abruptly to his great dismay. She’d told him that he could interview a dragon.

I’m keeping my human disguise for this so that I can type easier, really.

When we’re done, I’ve promised to shed it so that he can verify that I’m the Meg that everyone is talking about.

What I’ve learned is that apparently I’ve been targeted by the authorities because I’ve been leading the morning roll calls, and someone thinks that that will break up the grip the rest of the dragons have on the city. But also, the property management of my building had called the police for my forceful eviction from the premises (which they had momentarily achieved). They have no idea I’m trespassing.

I’m telling Seagull as much of my story as I can manage in the time we have.

Between this interview and the letters that Astraia and I sent to City and County Councils, there may be some hope for a better resolution, Seagull says.

I want to believe him.

—

Now I see myself in that full length mirror.

I still wish it was a mirror in a dance hall, or something like that. But between it and my ability to twist and crane my neck to look at my back and belly, or to look at the mirror from any angle, I get a really good look at myself.

I’m alone again in the back room to do this.

And I’m relaxed in ways that I didn’t think even mattered.

It’s like my very cells have unclenched.

It’s that energized looseness and lethargy you might feel after the best massage, if your soul had been massaged.

So, when I described my torso and limbs as being similar in scale to a human’s, that didn’t really do any justice to their form or function, or actual shape. Just a vague sense of scale that explains why and how I can enter buildings with little trouble.

I’ve only seen morphology like this in recent speculative illustrations of dinosaurs, with the major addition of a third set of limbs. My wings.

Unlike how dinosaurs are thought to have been, based on their skeletal structures, I believe I am about as flexible as a monitor lizard.

But my back is high and arched, and my chest does have a keel like a bird’s, because wing muscles demand that. This makes my torso tall, like a dogs, and gives me a barrel chest like a swan’s. Also, my neck starts at the base by going up and curving gracefully to my head, which can be described as before. But now I’m thinking of it as kind of a cross between a goat and caiman in shape, nearly straight horns swept back. And my tail tends to be held upright and straight out for balance. I can’t curl it terribly tightly with muscles alone, but it’s more flexible than it looks when I move.

My wings are more forward than my forelimbs. Which actually makes my wings my forelimbs. My arms, I guess, are set further back out of the way of my flight muscles. But they’re still partially linked, and I do flex them a little in sync with my wings when I’m flapping hard.

If I stretch out, from tip of nose to tip of tail, I might be ten or eleven feet long.

I know I don’t weigh nearly as much as I did when I presented as a 5’10” human man that was 280 lbs.

On the other hand, I think I may have notably grown in length and girth in the last week. I have no measurements to confirm it, but I just feel like it has happened.

My left shoulder still has that nasty gash in it, which isn’t there when I’m in human disguise.

But even with that gash, every inch of this body, as I look at it, every scale, every tiny curve, every bump and nobble, every movement of it, everything is mine. Mine in the same way that this building is mine, and this coffee shop. The way that my friends are mine. And the city itself. The way that my soul is mine.

Not the mine of ownership or domain. The mine of association and identity.

The mine by which I derive my sense of being and purpose and place. Contentment. Joy. Pride.

It can be injured and made weaker, but even then that’s mine, too.

It’s the kind of mine I can mine for strength.

Inspired by this feeling, I spend a little time learning a few more simple, one syllable words, so I can say them faster when I need to.

[reidslovely]

How to Disappear: Life Unknown.

A/N: If you are reading this I finally decided to let this fic see the light of day. I wasn’t sure if this is something I wanted to post or not, seeing as Link is a very complex character. By that I mean he’s literally a walking piece of shit. But at the same time I’m constantly telling myself that it is normal to write fix it fics for awful characters, but like the whole Isabelle situation is very hard to write about. I wanted to see an ending for Link/Alex where he gets the help he deserves. He is severely mentally ill. But I also wanted to touch on Link’s past, and how this went on for as long as it did.I also selfishly wanted to see him have a love story and have human emotions sooo..

Please reblog and comment, pretty please.

Genre: Fix it Fic 

Pairing: Link/Alex Goodrich x Fem! Reader/OC-ish

Content Warnings: Mentions of suicide, person talking about struggles of being on the ASPD spectrum, talks of psychiatric hospital stays, bodily harm, neglect of child’s mental health.

Alexander Goodrich

It glared back at him in dull blue ink.

It was an unfamiliar moniker scrawled at the top of the sign out sheet. The longer he stared the more alien it felt to him. Alex was a kid who burnt down a school, Alexander was the beloved son to a local politician who had to put on a good face for mommy and daddy.

Parents who deny their kid mental health assistance, create monsters. The Goodrich’s today would deny that the hot mess YouTuber, donning the name ‘No One Special’ or more simply Link, was not their estranged son. That their dear son, Alex, had run off two months into a psychiatric stay that never happened; never to be seen again. When in all reality he was shipped off to a boarding school he had run away from only days later. Since that day he was constantly ghosting about, avoiding the issues he had caused by running away. No amount of running could stop the issues he had for so long. He was not- is not a good person. But before facing that knowledge he knew he could always run away, try again- and if that didn’t work; he’d run away again.

Till he couldn’t run anymore.

Everywhere he ran cameras, girls, articles talking about no one special followed him. He had fucked up, worse than he had in a long time. A girl died because of him, because he let power get to his head. Not because of Frankie, Jake, or the internet.

Because of him. He was the reason a girl was dead.

“Alex.” A nurse's voice rang out through the white, cold halls of the hospital.

Evansport Long-Term Psychiatric Care Facility in LA was a cold place, even with its blue and yellow painted walls. This had been home for the last two years, and this time it was different. He swiped at his nose standing up nervously, shoving his sweaty hands into his pockets as he approached the older woman. Counting the tiles as he walked, this was it- he was finally getting to leave. He was ready, he was different- he hoped.

“Mr. Goodrich, can’t say I’m not sad to see you go.” Dorothy says, passing the bag of his belongings off to him. Alex nodded, giving her a grateful smile; he tucked the clear bag under his arm hugging the older woman. This was something he had been working on since his diagnosis. Alex had always known there was something going on with him, something much bigger than himself- that made him act how he did. It’s not that he didn’t want to be good, he did. Alex always wanted to be good, no matter what the child psychologists would say. He just didn’t know what exactly being good meant, he had always had these…urges. Whether it was to knock his peers off the swingset, beat that kid from gym classes head in if he stared for too long. Alex had no impulse control, he struggled to relate to his peers. But, mom and dad said he’d grow out of it; he never did. He tried, god he tried but he could never find a good way to help himself.

He was not a good person. But he was trying.

“Thank you Dottie.” Alex said, dropping his arms, patting his bag. “Do you think there will be people out there?” He asked after a minute, his head nodding towards the door. His voice flattered for a second, there were still people curious about him and it made him sick. Before it would have thrilled him, but now..he didn’t even want to see one camera in his face. The flash alone would send him into a spiral he feared.

“No, no they never guess dismissal right from those silly sources. Besides, you look a little different now huh? Wouldn’t notice you unless they stared at ya to hard.”

He did. Link, now Alex, had changed since his check in date. His blonde hair had grown out past his shoulders into his natural brown at one point. Dorothy took it upon herself to cut it for him when he’d max out on reward points. He now dawned a bit more stubble, and perfect brown hair, with a hat and sunglasses no one would notice him- hopefully.

Alex checked everything one last time, before giving Dorothy a tight-lipped smile and turned on his heel heading for the door. It felt like a threat, a gun pointed to his head. He always thought what this day would be like, what he would do when he got out. Link, that’s who he was when he checked in, thought he would be here two months before he got sick of it. He would check out, cut his hair and run away again, but then the therapy, the medication- it all started to help.

Admitting there was a problem, admitting that he was the problem and that a young girl had died because of what he did. Alex realized he had to change, that it was finally time to help himself.

No more lies.

He gave Isbelle’s family the requested money in court before there was even an opening testament, only requesting to return back to the psychiatric facility with what he had left to pay for it. Now here he was about to throw up, as he crossed the threshold into his new life.

His face flushed at the sunlight, he silently shut the door and started walking up the long driveway towards the gate. He sniffled and cleared his throat, sitting on a bench he’d claim as his own on his daily walks, he wasn’t quite ready to take those last few steps out of the gate. Digging in the bag, he pulled everything out: a black button up and slacks he had worn to court, a hoodie, his wallet, his phone.

His phone, he tossed it between his hands- the weight felt sickening in his hand.

“If it hadn’t been for the phone- no the phone didn’t cause this.” He reminded himself, he turned it on. Not knowing why, or what he thought he was gonna get out of it. The biggest part of him hoped it wouldn’t turn on, in the two years it had been shut off that it just magically died.

The ping of it turning on made him irrationally angry, wanting to just shut it off. Floods of text messages washed over his screen. No twitter, no instagram- he had deleted them on their way back from court.

For a minute everything stopped, no more text messages- till a final ding.

Frankie - Today 8:06 am.

“twitter source says your stay ends today. we should talk.”

His brother must have been paying on his phone bill somehow, he never mentioned it in their phone conversations. His thumbs danced over the keyboard, typing and erasing a replay- what did he say? Three dots popped up, soon replaced by a message.

Frankie - Today 8:15 am.

“you know where to find me.”

He closed his phone, shoving it into the pocket of his sweatpants, finally standing and pushing the gate open.

-

The old magic bar was in the middle of town, it was a bit of a walk but it did him good. The sun felt nice, it was finally fall, which meant the wind blew through here and there. As he reached the now abandoned building he halted, looking around. What if this was some sort of ambush- and the minute he walked down that alley his face would be everywhere in the next couple hours. His heart-rate increased, it felt like it was stuck in his throat.

Alex’s feet carried him forward with hesitant, quiet steps. If someone was waiting for him they wouldn’t hear him coming.

“Frankie is good, too good. She wouldn’t do that. Even if that’s what you deserved.”

He thought to himself as he looked around. He shoved his hands into his sweatpants, picking at the lint twirling it around between his fingers. Footsteps carefully found their way up the steps, he turned his head automatically.

Frankie looked older now, more mature. Her hair was longer, tucked behind her ear showing her scar off proudly. He always liked when she was confident. Her clothes are no longer ill fitted, but tailored and comforting. She’s come into her own.

“Hope you’re not here to ambush me.” He says quietly, taking in the woman before him. Frankie shook her head, her fingers dancing on the metal railing.

“No, no. I should but-” She stopped herself, looking around. “I’ve gotten out of the habit of picking out others' to feel better about myself. You should try it.”

Alex laughed, well, he blew air out of his nostrils and let his lips curl up into a bitter smile. “Yeah, me too. Never made me feel better about myself.”

“Could have shocked me.”

It was a silence for a moment, it was an unpleasant memory sitting here with her like this. There was a unpleasant lingering in the air like a bomb was going to drop.

“Did you love me? Or even like me?”

There it was.

What a weighted question, he gripped the metal railing swaying back and forth on his feet. “No.” He admitted, looking Frankie in her eye. “I didn’t love you- I don’t love I haven’t since..well in a really long time. I think..” He stopped himself, thinking about his next few words carefully. “I was infatuated with you. I tricked myself into thinking I loved you. I hurt you and I’m sorry it had to happen for me to be here now.”

Frankie stared at Link, Alex- whoever this new man in front of her was. “So who was she? There’s always a ‘she’ in these situations isn’t there?”

Alex laughed, rolling a rock under the sole of his shoe. “Was she one of the girls who fooled around with while we-”

“No, no..no. She was a girl I had known a long time ago, in high school. I think she was the last person who had ever tried to understand me. She didn’t look at me like a project.”

Alex’s heart twisted into a knot thinking about the girl who had up and left him, their hometown, everything. It had been the catalyst- the incident that sent him over the edge. Where was she now?

It wasn’t a jab to Frankie, however the twitch of her nose let him know he had offended her. “Sorry, sorry I shouldn’t have said that” It was sincere, Frankie shrugged her shoulders.

“No it’s true. We just got caught up in each other, the game. We weren’t good people.”

“No we weren’t but, hey, I was worse. Clearly.”

Frankie laughed, then the silence grew again. His mind wondered before looking back at the blonde in front of him.

“You should find her again, when you leave LA.”

“How’d you know I’d leave?” He laughed, tilting his head back. “It’s what I do huh?”

“Kind of.” Frankie says resting her forearms on the railing. “But I’m serious. If you’re on this righteous road of washed up celebrity maybe you should find the one person who made you feel-”

“Like a human?”

“Your words not mine.” Frankie says, pointing a boney finger at him. Alex tilted his head forward and let out a sigh. It had been almost a decade since he had disappeared from his home state, was there any point in returning. He was dead to them, a ghost. Did (Y/N) think he was dead too?

“Yeah, yeah maybe I will.”

Frankie nodded at him, waiting for a minute before taking a step back. “You look good, Link. I am happy for you, but don't think I can forgive you though. Maybe in time.” The man nodded at her, he understood- he didn’t want her forgiveness he just wanted her to know.

“I respect that.” He started, pushing himself off the steel railing with his hands in his hoodie pocket. “It’s Alex now by the way.”

Frankie shoved her hands in her pockets looking at him, her eyes raked over his face trying to read him- it still wasn’t easy to manage. “Well, Alex, I hope to see you doing good in the future.”

“You won't see anything about me. I’m done gonna head back to Connecticut, disappear and become a hermit on the coast.”

“Well, maybe you could keep me updated.” She says as she walks away.

“Are you like my sponsor or something?” He laughs as he stands straight. Frankie shrugged, turning to face him stopping in her tracks.

“Maybe. Go find that girl..have a human experience. Leave everyone alone.”

Alex raised his eyebrows holding back a laugh, he wouldn’t know a human experience if it bit him in the ass. He watched her leave, the two raising their hands in an unspoken goodbye. Alex walked out of the alley and into the sun of Los Angeles, breathing in the toxins of the city one last time before heading towards the nearest city.

Come tomorrow, he would be gone again.

taglist: @helloheyhihowdyheya​ @tarzinnia​ @a-lumos-in-the-nox​ @sincericida​ @moonyslove78​ @messymissy​ @toomanyfictionalboyfriends​ @eevylynn​

[saltydkdan]

Pleasant tidings Salty, here to say your iceberg videos where one of the main things that actually got into jojo’s, incredible series, and now i’m caught up on everything i’d be interested to hear your opinion on (as a ultra based jojoer) the end of JoJolion. Personally i loved it, from the connections to part 7 and Gappy’s development through the part, but i know some people found it rushed or confusing, and i’m wondering what your thoughts were?

(ignore the fact i’m a dead weezer gimmick blog)

I’m EXTREMELY MIXED on Jojolion. There’s a lot I love, but also a lot I dislike.

WARNING: JOJO RAMBLE INCOMING

My opinion is very fresh, as I dropped off of modern Jojo back in college. It was only recently that I decided to finally catch back up, and do a weekly book club for Jojolion with a few friends.

My personal recommendation for reading it:

Do it weekly with other friends if possible. Have discussions with them about it. There is so much that I either didn’t pick up on while reading, or completely didn’t register at the time. And trying to extrapolate what Araki was trying to say with his story was very fun. It’s clear he tried to pack a LOT into every chapter. Which has it’s pros and cons. Binge reading doesn’t hit the same for me for Jojolion. I gained a far bigger appreciation reading in batches with other fans :)

The way I like to think about it, is that it had the ingredients, but I feel like the cake didn’t come out right. Although it tastes just as delicious as I would have wanted.

I just feel like Jojolion had a bit too many moving parts that even Araki couldn’t keep track of. There’s plenty of early Jojolion stuff that feels very tonally different with later Jojolion stuff. It’s clear that Araki had to course correct and change the plot several times throughout it’s run. And it’s because of Jojolion that I just feel like Jojo isn’t built for longer stories/publication. I think its length caused a lot of issues long term. It’s because of how long it took to make that there seems to be much more room for Araki to have second thoughts, or flat out change his mind on the story several times. (Josefumi having the Joestar birthmark and having it later removed in the volume releases, the characterization of Norisuke, etc)

Plenty of things go outright unexplained or elaborated on. I know it’s parroted a lot, but the “Flashback Man” from the first arc is the biggest example of this issue. If I had more time I’m sure I could type up a more definite list (how the Wall Eyes work is another example, as well as why the fuck Josuke and Kei Ninimura never really interacted past her stand fight, given that they are siblings and JOSUKE IS LITERALLY SEARCHING FOR FAMILY. HE LITERALLY SAYS THAT HE “HAS NO ONE” MULTIPLE TIMES LIKE, BRO, TALK TO YOUR SIBLING)

Now, I’m not saying that EVERYTHING needs explanation, but for 70% of the story, Jojolion posits itself as a MYSTERY. So to have so many pieces of that be unaddressed just feels… strange.

I also just feel like Jojolion has SO MANY AMAZING IDEAS, and has plenty of time to explore them and just… doesn’t.

Tooru is an incredible villain, probably one of my favorites in the entire series, but his presence in the story is soured because of how late he’s introduced into the plot. He’s amazing, but he feels like a very last minute inclusion, especially when Araki wants us to believe that he was totally a part of Yasuho’s life before and we’ve never even heard a rumbling of that before.

Anyway that’s enough complaining, let me hush about what I love about it real quick.

This is the case with everything he writes, but when Araki nails it with Jojolion he REALLY nails it. The Vitamin C arc is incredible, and ties Josuke’s story together so well and has some incredible lore drops. Not to mention that I think that Jojolion has some of his best written characters. Yasuho is one of the most deep and complex female characters in the entire series (didn’t stop Araki from writing that she gets sexually assaulted once or twice, but that’s just an issue I have with his writing overall)

He also goes really strange with the stands and designs, and I love it so much. When Araki gets weird, he really goes wild, it’s crazy fun. Blue Hawaii is such a fantastic arc, and really highlights his mastery of art and choreography in manga. Josuke’s combat is the best in the series imho.

And although the final arc stumbles in a few places, Wonder of U sticks the landing for me regardless, and in a way that didn’t feel cheap. Araki has come a long way from him writing that “Star Platinum can ALSO stop time”

At first, I thought that Josuke gaining the power of the spin last minute was cheap. However the more I reflected on it, the more it made sense. It isn’t outright confirmed, but I feel like Johnny’s spin was passed down to Josuke through his fusion in the wall eyes. Much like how Autumn Leaves absorbed some power from Johnny’s spin, I think that Josuke being in the wall eyes allowed him to absorb the power in the same way. I can’t tell if that was Araki’s intent, but if it was, dude is a genius. It makes complete sense, and in a roundabout way, directly connects Johnny and Josuke in a final battle.

Anyway yeah, I’ll stop the rambling here.

Believe me, I could go on for hours about Jojolion, and especially Jojo in general. I have so many things I can gush and complain about, it’s why I love it so much.

So yeah, I’m mixed on Jojolion, but overall I enjoy it a lot!!

[pants-magic-pants]

✧⊹JARETH BALLROOM COAT⊹✧

[This post is part of a series about constructing Jareth's entire masquerade ball costume. Visit the master post here.]

The Nightmare of the Lace [Part 2 of 2]

In part two, we will explore the decoration of the lace pieces that would be sewn/stitched on top of the velvet of Jareth's ballroom coat. This moment in costume construction was all about peering deeply into exhibit photos, pondering, designing, and stitching beads for countless hours. It took at least a month or two to finish, but it was definitely all worth it. Read more below!

Creating a design -------------------------

Trying to map out what I was seeing in photos was a bit of a challenge. There's a lot going on. What's under there? Is there a point to adding the beads if you can barely see them? And the answer is: yes. Because in photos, their splendor is not captured. In person, they're beautiful, so if you were thinking of forgoing this step for your own costume, or any costume with what you may call "discreet" beading, I ask you to reconsider. They really add a magical dimension to your work.

ANYHOO, I put photos into a program, and tried to draw what was there, and it didn't seem to be anything more complex than random loops and fishhooks, which got a little more deliberate further down, where it was no longer covered by hot glue. Towards those buttons, they start to interact with and frame them.

Photo (c) Yosa Addiss

I’m sure you could come up with all sorts of cool designs that work, and you could get more complex, but me, I basically just made, uhhh… florally fishhooks. Hahaha But I did give them some… hm… some joints, so to speak? They’re a bit branchy. 

The designs were drawn on my original pattern pieces for the lace. I pinned the lace to these, then unpinned where I was working on, so I could work on it, lie it flat, and see which direction I was supposed to be going. An embroidery hoop might've been more ideal, but it wouldn't really work in this situation because I couldn't trace my design on the lace. Maybe thin paper could have gone into something like this, without tearing? But I didn't have one anyway so I just did it the way I did it.

There was less loyalty to my design when it came to the shoulder piece because it was so massive, and a lot of it would be so heavily under beads and jewels, there was no point in making it too specific – there just needed to be something the eye could catch sight of between small windows. 

At a certain point, the designs stop, and I had it marked off where I knew you would not be able to see them anywhere.

Selecting a bead -----------------------

The most obvious choice for something like this would be a kind of seed bead, which come in different sizes. What I chose was a size 11/0, which are only about 2mm wide. Proportions (how big everything looks within its context) matter as much as "objective accuracy", so even if the original had slightly larger beads for this, which I think it did, I also was making a very tiny coat, and definitely doing other math to decide on what size other decorations should be, so for me 11/0 made sense. If the coat itself were bigger, more firmly in the adult size range, a seed bead size of 10/0 or even 8/0 might've worked better.

In the original, there's also something a bit course about them. They may be oblong, like tiny pebbles. You can find seed beads like this, but by the time I realized that, it was too late. I did think mine seemed so very clean and consistent, but *raises hands*

Also, it seems as if they're all black, but I wanted to have a bit of fun, so mine were a mixture of 75% black and 25% dark iridescent. Photos make them seem silvery, but in person they appear faintly blue/green.

Stitching the beads ---------------------------

If you are new to stitching (as I was) and would like to do some for your project, any project, I would suggest learning the back stitching technique, as shown here. It was easy to get the hang of, and you can do curves, not just straight lines. I did anywhere from 1 to 4 beads in a row, caught a single thread of the lace, pulled the needle back towards what I had already stitched, and then stuck it through the last bead again before adding more. At extreme curves, only 1 or 2 could be done at a time, but in places where it was a more continuous trajectory with only a slight curve, I could get away with 4. At 5 beads, things looked a little too straight.

Here are a couple pictures on the journey:

It took a f*&^ng long time to complete this. For things like this, you go into it knowing you'll be chipping away -- you'll spend hours working on something, step back and look at it, and go "oh.. okay... that little part is done. woo---hoo..."

Long-term tedious projects can scare people away, and I understand that, as someone who feels overwhelmed by her thoughts and what she wants to do, often. It was easier to get this part done by pairing it with something else that I could enjoy and that would engage my mind while my hands were busy. So, for a little while, it was my hobby to stitch while listening to Better Call Saul, which I'd seen before, but I'm also a huge Breaking Bad universe fan so revisiting it again and again is a pleasure. I'm sure you could pair your projects with all kinds of stuff: shows, movies, audiobooks, podcasts, youtube channels. I love a good story, but I also love to learn, even just passive learning, having people discussing something interesting in the background while I do whatever it is I'm doing. It becomes a joint hobby (some kind of engaging content + your project) which you can look forward to and appreciate as a ritual.

Moving on, here’s some of the finished pieces before they were added to velvet:

Some trimming was done afterwards, to make the lace's edges look less blocky, especially around the shoulders.

That concludes the seed bead business. But, if you look in front, despite that the lighting is not our friend, you may see that there are extra designs comprised of larger, more raised beads/cabochons. I edited this photo and upped the contrast:

Photo (c) Aria Couture

It’s not clear. My take on it was that they were black, shiny cabochons, so that is what I used. Really basic cheap ones. They seem to be placed in synchrony with the seed beads. Some are in wavy streaks. Other, large ones are stand-alone, but never too close to the buttons. I added these with hot glue before the assembly process.

Voila!

Attaching to the coat -----------------------------

This part was the true hell of the process, as mentioned in the first post about the lace. The plan originally was just to (very carefully, and with buffer fabric between the sewing machine foot and edge of the bead design) combine velvet and lace pieces, at the seam allowances that had been created for them.

However, there was slight distortion and shrinkage of the pieces because of all the bead stitching, and I did not know ahead of time what to do to avoid any issues this may cause. In retrospect, the lace pieces shouldn't have been exact replicas of the velvet pattern pieces... they should have been a teeny, tiny bit larger in all directions, with generous seam allowances. Because I had no foresight about this, it was difficult to attach the lace to the velvet without falling short, or tugging on the velvet in random places where warping had occurred.

Combine that with the impossibility of keeping these two fabrics still, and you have the reason for these posts' names: the nightmare of the lace. It would not stay still, and there was not enough of it.

My solution for this project was to expand some of the lace pieces by sewing more lace onto the edges (dear god it was so silly), and place a non-slippery fabric in between velvet and lace, baste it, sew it, and then cut away the middle fabric, so that it wouldn't go past the seam allowance, effectively hiding it once it was sewn into the garment. *heavy sighing*

Once all the hell of getting these pieces attached to the velvet was past, what I ended up with when it came time for assembly was a standalone collar and two standalone cuffs (velvet + lace). There was the lace shoulder piece by itself, which went in first (since the shoulder seam is one of the first places you start when assembling a coat), and there were the two lapels, which were stitched to the top of the inner facing velvet. 

You see how much that seam allowance struggled?! -->

Those pieces were large and strange-looking, and connecting each part of them in the right order just so was key to the whole coat looking good. Because of the slipperiness of the material, I needed to work downward, so first the top of the inner facing pieces were married with the collar and outer fabric. Then I had to baste-stitch the seam with the zipper inside, turning it back right-side out each stitch to check that there were no hiccups and that the zipper was discreet. The right angle between the front and the tails was another tricky spot, because clipping the lace diagonally was the only way to get it folded into that seam. 

AND THEN, ULTIMATELY, I gave up on sewing the lace into the seam! Folded it around and stitched it inside because it was tugging and slipping and all its usual fuckery.

The last thing that needed to be done to the lace was to stitch it down anywhere else where it would need to lie flat. The lapel lace folded inward in a curve parallel to the lining. The back drips needed three easy stitches. The lace is free-falling past the armpits, but around the waist area it was also tucked back and stitched there. 

It seems as if Jareth’s own coat has windows cut out of the lace in front, near the buttons, but for me, I was so sure that it would have disrupted the delicate balance and caused drooping in random places, that I just forwent it. 

And there you have it! This feels like it was too long, but maybe it’s not because it is really so important to talk about this part. There are a million ways to screw it up, that I myself didn’t always escape from. As always, I hope that was, erm, helpful.

-J 

[lemonmatronics]

OKAYOKAY I’m really excited about both of these being sold this year so fuck it let me go crazy

Spirit Halloween vs Party City’s Art the Clown Animatronics

Fake blood warning for my followers I know this is a really random post from me but AH brainrot

For this comparison I’ll go by it through different categories and say who I believe did each thing better. But to preface, I do love both of these props and do not think either is bad at all. I’m just having some fun noting differences here

Lets take a fullbody look at each of them first

Spirit Halloween ———————— Party City

The Blood Factor Right off the bat first thing I noticed was the blood. Party City’s is covered in it, while Spirit’s is squeaky clean. Now for a character like Art, I feel like people would typically be upset about him not being bloody. However we’re in a pretty unique situation here, we have options. So Spirit’s doesn’t have blood, okay that’s fine Party City’s does! Which also leaves room for anyone that may want an Art prop that isn’t bloody. Maybe you DO want blood but don’t like how it’s done on Party City’s Art. Spirit encourages people to customize theirs in the listing, you have a blank canvas! So for once not having blood feels like kinda a good thing rather than bad, we have more options this way. So, draw for this category, no winner. They’re different in the blood aspect and I’m glad they are for the sake of the consumer.

Clothing Both of them have fine clothes but for me, Party City wins this one. The collar is much bigger and fluffy, and the clothes themselves don’t pull on any of the inner workings. We can’t speak on texture quality yet, but looks wise this one goes to Party City for me.

Animation Okay after watching Party City’s glimpse at the animation again, this one’s kinda hard. We didn’t get a good full look at that one, but what we did see was REALLY good. But idk if it screams Art to me like the, admittedly simpler, Spirit animation does. But it is simpler for a reason, which I’ll get to later. For now I’ll say draw because I don’t wanna fully judge an animation we’ve only really seen one second of, but both work well and fit each prop.

The Face Oh here we go one I can answer, yeah this one goes to Spirit for me easily. He looks so much more angry, from memory so much more accurate, outstanding work on the face mold here. Stunning! That’s not to say The Party City mold is bad, it’s NOT, but he admittedly looks more scared than scary to me. Cut and dry for me, it’s Spirit’s win here.

Props and Items It’s hard to speak on these quality wise, through pictures alone and all, but we can speak through quantity! Party City wins this one for one simple reason, it has three props while Spirit’s has two. Both of them come with an horn and removable flower sunglasses, but Party City also comes with a hack saw. Which is INSANE of them to have, IF YOU KNOW YOU KNOW, but nevertheless a good add on. The fact these come with props like this at all is really nice, you’ll usually not see that with retail animatronics, so the fact they both went an extra step for them is good to see. So again Party City wins here but Spirit has one less prop for a reason, we’ll again get there soon…right now actually

The Pricing Spirit’s Art: $200 Party City’s Art: $250 To me, both of these pieces are very fair and reasonable for what you’re getting. A licensed, good quality, animatronic prop of Art; these are good prices. Spirit doesn’t automatically win here because it’s cheaper though, because that extra $50 in price does show in the Party City prop. More complex animation, an extra prop, and better quality clothes that are already bloodied up? Taking mark ups into account that sounds more than fair to me. Both of these animatronics are great options and I stand by their prices for each being worth it. Draw, both are great in this regard.

On the whole I really like both of these props, obviously there’s things I like more about each one but there’s really nothing I actively dislike or hate. If you want an Art animatronic both of these are great options for a great price, and with both being available you can really pick what’s best for YOU and your preferences.

Really excited to see these both more, really happy they’re both here