#Victoria had actually be a decent human being

[greypetrel]

Watching Poldark with my mother, who is allegedly not into history. We're in 1790s Cornwall.

Elizabeth: "But I just married, whatever should I do in my days?"

Mother: "Those poor women, it must have been so boring, they had nothing to do save bearing children!"

Me: "ACTUALLY-"

*slams Mary Wollstonecraft-Shelley on the table, Anne Radcliffe, Jane Austen, mantua making, Anne Clavering and others and we're talking of just England- Concluding that it was fucking Queen Victoria that ruined it.*

[a-killer-obsession]

Whoops, you got hit by a bus, and now you're in the world of One Piece. But not everything is quite as you remember it...

General Tags: afab reader, she/her reader pronouns, isekai, monsterfucker reader, vampire!kid, werewolf!killer, wyrm!heat, minotaur!wire, everyone has a human form, smut heavy, unhealthy relationships, dubious consent, serious violence, spoilers for Wano arc, starts pre-timeskip. There will be a lot of more intense kinks, please check AO3 for all current tags.

Chapter 11 - Two For One Special

The best things come in twos :)

WC: 3.4k

Masterlist | AO3 | Chapter 1

A/N: yes I know this isn't how snake dicks work, but also he's not a snake so 😤

It'd been a few days since Kid had announced your official joining of the Kid Pirates, and the crew had welcomed you with open arms. While you hadn't had much chance to get to know them, you had become decent friends with Quincy, Hip and Emma, who had accompanied you on several shopping trips over the last few days so you could stock up on all the things you needed, like clothes, sanitary items and furniture to be delivered to the Victoria Punk in a few days. Right now the Punk resided in a dry dock, being coated by Rayleigh in preparation for the journey to Fishman Island. It was nice having the guarantee that the crew would make it to the New World unscathed, given the low success rate for pirates passing through. As predicted, Rayleigh had been thankful for Kid's help in getting Cammie out of the auction house, even if it hadn't been his intention. It would take another day for the coating to be finished, and in the meantime the crew had been staying on Sabaody. You'd even had the chance to visit the amusement park with the girls, and Quincy may or may not have fingered you in the ferris wheel, a lady never kisses and tells. You liked Quincy, she was fun. If you were gonna sleep with anyone on your own fruition, outside of the big four, it'd most likely be her. A little bit of pussy, for variety.

You spent the first few nights staying with Wire, since fucking him when you should have been resting did in fact turn out to be a mistake, and Wire was the least likely to jump you when he knew you needed time to recover. You were offered your own room, now that you weren't a prisoner, but you didn't feel comfortable being on your own in a place known for kidnapping and selling people. Kid wasn't happy about being separated from his ship, because it meant he couldn't work on your collar, but it was just as well since you weren't up for being free-used right now anyway. It was nice spending more time with Wire, he wasn't as stuck up as you initially thought, he was actually pretty easy to get along with now that you were a crewmate and not a prisoner. He hadn't allowed himself to get close to you when there was risk of you being a traitor and being disposed of, but now that you were a permanent fixture he was allowed to let himself care about you. He wasn't as cuddly as the others, but he was good company. Last night though Heat had practically begged you to spend the night with him, and pinky promised he would be on his absolute best behaviour, so you'd relented.

Heat had kept to his word, not going any further with you than cuddles and some pleasant making out, and now he slept soundly beside you in his wyrm form, forced on his back by his horns, his long tail hanging off the end of the bed. You were nestled up against him, wearing one of his old shirts with nothing underneath. You owned clothes now, but the boys all had such soft shirts that were so oversized and comfy to sleep in. While he was on his best behaviour, you were feeling a bit frisky. You were well aware that your period was close, and it was making you antsy. You didn't know how keen the boys would be on period sex, so you decided to take advantage of the short amount of time you had before your cycle started. You were already cramping lightly, so it wouldn't be long. Not to mention you usually had quite painful periods, so you usually didn't want to be touched due to how miserable you felt.

You also had a curiosity after the gangbang, after watching Wire toy with the slit that hid Heat's cocks. You wondered what it looked and felt like inside the slit, and since Wire had done it, surely it was okay to toy with - it certainly seemed like Heat had enjoyed it. Quietly you pulled the blankets off him and straddled his pretty mauve tail. His scales were always so beautiful, you loved to run your hands over them and admire the iridescence. He was especially beautiful in the sunlight, when his whole tail sparkled with that iridescence. Heat stirred a little in his sleep as you lowered your weight on to him, but didn't wake yet. You ran your finger over the closed slit, feeling bad for a short moment for invading his privacy, before remembering how many times you'd woken up with Heat's dick buried in your cunt.

You used your thumbs either side of the slit to gently pry the scales apart, a little surprised at what you found inside. It almost looked like a pussy, the tip of the higher cock where you would expect a clit to be, the other tip lower where you would expect the vaginal opening. It seemed like they were laid one on top of another, the shafts going up towards his belly. Pretending it was a clit, you fiddled with the pointed tip of the upper cock, making Heat whine in his sleep. You pushed your fingers in further, between the two shafts, feeling the piercings and bumps that lined the lower side of the upper shaft. It was warm and a little moist inside his sheath, a bit like a pussy. No wonder Wire liked to toy with it, and it made you feel flustered to technically be inside him.

Leaning down, sliding your butt a little further down his tail, you held the slit open and flicked the upper cock with your tongue. You pushed your tongue between the shafts, tasting the musky slick that coated them, a taste you were familiar with whenever Heat was in this form. You sucked on the tip, feeling it move as his cocks sprang to life and tried to slide from the slit. The more you worked at his cocks, the less you could get inside him, until both phallus were proudly presented. You took turns sucking on each one, listening to Heat's quiet whimpers, until his own moan woke him.

“[Y/n]?” He groaned, hips wiggling and fingers gripping at the sheets as he realised the situation, “ohh, fuck, fuck [y/n], that's so good.”

“You're so pretty, Heat,” you cooed before focusing on the lower cock, bobbing your head as your hand worked the other. Heat whined and whipped his tail excitedly against the bed, one of his hands burying in your hair and beckoning you to swallow more of him. You let him guide you, wanting to please him and hear more of his cute little whimpers, gagging occasionally as his tip hit your uvula. You'd had a lot of practice these days, and could almost take all of him in this form, the thinner tip far easier on your throat than a human cock. Your eyes watered as finally you were able to successfully meet his base, and Heat let out a high pitched whine that was your only warning before his grip on your hair tightened, holding you against him as he emptied right down your throat. His other cock likewise spilled out, drenching your face and hand with a stream of cum.

When his grip finally loosened you pulled off with a pop, licking at the cum that dripped on your lips with a fiendish smile. Heat sat up and kissed you fiercely, before licking a wide swipe up your face to clean off his cum. It aroused you to taste his own cum on his tongue, and you ground your bare cunt against his tail and the base of his still exposed cocks. His hand slid down your front, catching the hem of your shirt and pulling it up and over your head. He dipped to suck on your tits, groping each of them and squishing them together, pressing his face against the valley he created. He had to be careful of his horns, but mostly they just pushed flat against your clavicle.

“I could die happy in these tits,” he sighed, “fucking incredible. You're so beautiful.”

One of his hands travelled down your soft front, until it could cup your mound. His fingers slipped between your folds, and he groaned against your nipple as he felt how soaked you were. His cocks were twitching back to life as he heard the wet squelch your cunt made as he pushed two fingers inside you, pumping you deep and slow. You were practically dripping on his hand with how wet you were, bouncing slighting to try fuck his fingers faster. Heat added a third finger and stretched you out more. He focused on pleasing you, using his other hand to rub your clit as he watched your face contort in pleasure, your mouth making a pretty little ‘o’ as you hit your orgasm and shuddered against him with a gasp.

“Heat,” you panted against his chest as he pulled his fingers out of you, “I- I want your cocks.”

“Plural?” He questioned with a raised brow. You'd never asked for both.

“Plural,” you confirmed, nipping at his neck and making him groan until he gave in and pushed you onto your back beside him, quickly rolling to take his place between your legs. He spread your legs wide and rut his lower shaft against your soaked cunt.

“Relax for me, treasure,” Heat cooed, holding both cocks squeezed together in his hand and pressing the tips to your entrance. He was overly excited to bury both of his dicks inside you at once, but didn't want to hurt you by being too hasty. The tips slid inside you easily, the tapered ends meaning that the first quarter or so of his lengths only amounted to about the girth of his human cock. It was when he pushed in further that you began to feel the stretch, and you made a low groan as he bullied his cocks inside you. You gripped his forearms bruisingly tight as he stretched you out, his combined width being even greater than Wire's as he reached the thickest part. It was easier for him to press the rest in once you'd eased enough to accommodate, and Heat let out a stuttered breath as he stilled with his cocks deep inside you.

“Fuck, you're so perfect,” he groaned, “so good to me, my perfect treasure.”

“So.. so full,” you whined, “feels good, hnng.”

“Yeah? You like having both my cocks inside you? Stretching you out, like the good little slut you are?” Heat purred, slowly pulling most of the way out before sliding back in again. You made strained groans as he fucked you slowly, your belly bulging from how full you were, fingernails digging into his arms and back. “Fuck you take me so well.”

Heat was barely moving but you were so full that every inch of your inner walls were being pressed against, and it was driving you to madness. He'd hardly entered you and you already felt like you were going to cum again. Your legs wrapped around his tail at the same time as you grabbed his horns, and you pulled on them to bring his face closer, capturing his bottom lip with your teeth and tugging on it. “Harder,” you growled, “fuck me harder, Heat.”

“Fuck,” Heat groaned as he picked up his pace, the bed underneath you creaking with every thrust as you started to scream like a bitch in heat, the whole inn would no doubt hear you. Let them hear, you were in heaven, cock drunk as Heat fucked you hard, pulling what felt like endless orgasms from you as you cried out. “I wanna see you covered in cum,” Heat groaned, “can I finish on you?”

“Please,” you whined, “wanna- wanna be painted. Paint me Heat, give it to me.”

“You're such a good girl,” Heat cooed as he pulled one last orgasm from you, making you go limp as you panted, dazed and blissed out. He pulled his cocks from you, making you whine at the emptiness, before he held them in one hand and jerked himself off. Heat made deep grunts as he fisted himself, releasing volatile ropes of cum over your belly and breasts as he quivered above you. With a contented sigh he rolled to your side, breathing heavy next to you. Your hand lazily ran through the cum, rubbing it over your breasts as you sleepily groped at them before falling limp again.

“I thought you were taking a break,” Heat asked.

“I was, but I woke up horny,” you explained, “I'm always like this when I'm about to get my period. It'll probably come in a few hours.”

“Boo, that means Kid will want you staying with him,” Heat pouted.

“Oh? He's into period sex?” You asked.

“He likes blood,” Heat replied, in a tone that made you think he was a little confused that you didn't realise that.

“I could just not tell him,” you suggested mischievously.

“He'll smell it a mile away,” Heat sighed, “there's no avoiding it. He'll treat you good though, he's well practised with periods. You'll be spoiled for sure.”

“Well then,” you giggled, “I guess I can't complain about that. Though I get the feeling you'd spoil me too.”

“I'll spoil you after,” he promised, “my pretty treasure. In the meantime…” you giggled and squirmed as he leaned over and licked a long stripe up your belly, cleaning off a lot of his cum and tickling you in the process, “... I've got a few more hours until you get Kid-napped. But I'm gonna have to groom you first,” he made several more licks all over your breasts and tummy, “before I get you all messy again.”

A couple hours later and just as predicted, your period had come. Heat offered you some weed and more sex to help with the pain, which you happily accepted, resulting in a round of dizzying, giggly, shower sex. After that the two of you met up with Wire and Killer, the four of you heading off to do some shopping. Kid had ordered them to find you an appropriate weapon, and for your training to start as soon as the crew were back at sea. You knew you were good with a rifle, from all your hunting trips with your dad, so you were on the lookout for a suitable one. The boys had also noticed that you were decently strong, not to mention the potential of your armament haki, so they were also looking for a close combat weapon that took advantage of those strengths. You weren't very fast or agile though, so they also had to keep that in mind. The boys had high standards though, and it felt like it was going to take all day to find weapons they approved off. They couldn't decide on the type of weapon either - Killer wanted to train you with swords, Wire wanted to train you with something long like a spear, and Heat wanted you to get something that would just look cool and take advantage of your strength, like a battleaxe.

The rifle was the easier weapon to find, your eye caught by a beautiful single shot rifle, the wooden parts made from the blue stripes of one of Sabaody's giant mangroves, trimmed with silver metal that had been delicately engraved with florals. It was a beautiful gun, and close to what you were familiar with using back home. Right now it was slung over Heat's back - the boys wanted Kid to inspect it before you were allowed to use it. You felt a little like a princess with the way they were all treating you like some precious thing, it was nice to feel like they all had your safety in mind. Not to mention it was such a beautiful gun that they were worried someone would try to snatch it from you, and without knowing your fighting capabilities they didn't want to risk that.

Heat and Killer were currently debating a battle axe Heat had found, while on the other side of the store you followed Wire, who was examining the range of polearm weapons for sale. You hummed to yourself as you walked behind him; despite your cramps you were in a good mood, you felt truly special with the care the boys were taking to choose your weapons.

“Someone seems chipper,” Wire noted as he pulled a spear from the rack and inspected it, “have a good morning with Heat did we? We certainly all heard you, and by the sounds of it he either he fucked your brains out or murdered you, and I'm gonna guess it wasn't the later.”

“Actually, I'm feeling quite proud of myself,” you replied with a grin, “I took both of his dicks today.”

“Oh, in the same hole?” Wire put down the spear to give you his attention, this was far more interesting than weapon shopping.

“Yeah!” You smiled, running your hand down the staff of a halbert. Now that you looked at it, it was quite lovely. It was made from that same blue wood, and the silver axe-like blade featured ornate cut outs that could be mistaken for matching your gun. A weapon like this would give you a lot of options; it was long, so you could keep enemies a little further away, it had the blades either side for swinging motions that took advantage of your strength, and it had the long spear tip for stabbing motions. “What about this one?”

“I told you you could do it, good job, proud of you,” Wire pressed a kiss into your hair before looking at the halberd and pulling it from the rack, “Looks well made, I think this would suit you nicely.”

“And it matches my gun!” You beamed.

“It does indeed,” Wire offered a soft smile. He liked how enthusiastic you were about learning to fight, he appreciated someone willing to stand up for themselves instead of relying on others. As much as they were all treating you like some delicate, precious thing, Wire had high hopes for your fighting capabilities, and if you selected the halberd it meant he could train you himself. As much as your pussy was the hot commodity you were kept on board for, he was growing quite fond of you, and he didn't want to always be worrying about your safety when they got to the New World, so he'd make sure you had all the skills you needed to hold your own in battle. “If this is what you want, I'll teach you to use it. Give it a hold, see how the weight feels.”

Wire handed you the halberd and you held it with both hands, Wire gently shifting them to the correct positions along the staff. “Feels good, not too heavy,” you hummed, “I think I could work with this.”

“You look good with it,” Wire noted, “OI, KIL, HEAT, GET YOUR ASSES OVER HERE.”

Heat put the axe back on the rack and the two of them scurried over, playfully pushing each other as they moved. Wire made a gesture with his head for you to hand them the weapon, and Killer took it and looked over it carefully. “Not bad,” Killer mused, before handing it to Heat to look at, “This what you want?” Killer asked you.

“Yeah, I like it,” you replied as Heat handed it back.

“You look good with it,” Heat praised.

“That's what Wire said!” You giggled.

“I agree,” Killer added, “of course Kid will want to check it over, but I think we're good here.”

“Yay!” You squeaked, messing around with the weapon, “Look! I can stab AND slice! It's a two for one special! Yippee!”

“You're fucking adorable,” Heat laughed, ruffling your hair as the men made their way to the checkout counter, “you're gonna look so cute covered in our enemy's blood.”

“Aw, thanks Heat,” you smiled, standing on your tippy toes to kiss him on the cheek. Heat had a cute pink flush for the next hour, every now and then touching the spot on his cheek like he was remembering the feel of your lips there.

[Next Chapter] - coming soon

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[justastrugglinghotchocolate]

10 things Henry Wotton does that scare and confuse me

Does not engage with Dorian’s antisemitism

To paraphrase MandaloreGaming, “[Henry] not being [antisemitic and/or] racist feels almost like a plot hole.”

In fact, Henry is the only one to treat Sybil’s manager like a human being.

“Lord Henry, upon the other hand, rather liked him. At least he declared he did, and insisted on shaking him by the hand and assuring him that he was proud to meet a man who had discovered a real genius and gone bankrupt over a poet.”

This isn’t even him being mocking, we have seen that Henry doesn’t mock in such an involved way—he prefers to talk shit afterwards (not counting Basil :( ).

Says a ton of misogynistic shit, but never takes a misogynistic action

You would expect a guy as supposedly misogynistic as Henry to be offended and insult every woman who argues against him, but he just talks with them and genuinely takes them seriously. He tries to convince them of his ideas, but if they don’t believe him, he doesn’t push it.

Implied to have close relationships with sister and his aunt.

Gwendolyn is the only sibling that is named and that is because she is the only one he makes a point to hang out with.

Same with Aunt Agatha.

Is possibly implied to have gotten at least a bit annoyed with Dorian sleeping with Gwendolyn (his sister). *this is based off the way Dorian reacts after Basil brings it up. Considering that entire moment was added in the 1891 ver, it’s certainly interesting, but nothing definitive, so take this with a grain of salt!

Has a decent relationship with his wife

Based on the fact Victoria was able to divorce him at all, he respected her enough to not put up a legal fight (divorce in England was difficult as fuck because women essentially became property to their husbands. They didn’t own anything and couldn’t even bring up a case without a man doing so. The fact Victoria was able to do so and the fact no other family members are mentioned, implies he brought the case to court for her, thus making the divorce process much easier than it ever would have been)

Always involves the women who enter discussions with him. 

He never once objects to them out nor insults them or makes them feel inferior or otherwise unwelcome. Constantly, he cheekily, but genuinely, suggests that the women he speaks with should have their own ‘fun’ regardless of the scandal involved. Recall that Victorian society characterized women as only valuable as wives and less than human. Henry is actively inviting women to be just as bad as men, thus seeing them at the same level as men. 

More so, in chapter 17, his banter with the duchess is not done so mockingly. Like his early conversations with Basil, Henry entertains and elaborates on her ideas, never once dismissing her. Even when he points out things she’s gotten wrong in his perspective, he does so playfully, which we actually haven’t seen him do with anyone except for Basil.

The entire scene with the Duchess of Monmouth in chapter 18. 

Henry is strangely gentle and compassionate with her in a way we have never seen him be with anyone (even Dorian!). He is genuine with her in a way that is comforting, he compliments her, makes her laugh, and, weirdly, warns her not to enter a scandal.

Owns a parrot.

Is pretty accurate on the importance of youth in society

Ever since the 1960s, youth culture has absolutely dominated social norms

The concept of teenagers and childhood were created because companies realized they could sell shit to you.

Is constantly criticizing marriage because of how it limits relationships between the men and women involved. 

This is novel because marriage was an expectation of Victorian Society, especially for someone in Henry’s class. The fact he actively despises it and recommends against it would be one of the many many things that would paint him as amoral to everyone else.

“the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.”

“there are other and more interesting bonds between men and women. I will certainly encourage them.”

 Disclaimer: this is headcanon: Would probably say, “I’m going to live forever” and immediately get hit by a bus.

I don’t have evidence for this, it just feels right.

Bibliography because I reference historical shit and hbomberguy has reawakened the fear of accidentally plagiarizing i have had since i was six (but i am not doing this in some college style, because ewww)

MandaloreGaming: Anonymous Agony: An Extra Edgy Adventure Game

Shanspeare: Life Doesn’t End in Your 20s: The Myth of the Teenage Dream (for the childhood part)

Mary Lyndon Shanley: Feminism, Marriage, and the Law in Victorian England, 1850-1895 (for the divorce part)

[eddathegreat]

Worm and Ward and Familiarity

I saw a really great analysis of Worm working with tropes while Ward works against them by @greatwyrmgold, and it reminded me of a more general contrast that I noted:

Worm is coming from a very familiar place and being pulled out of that. The Undersiders have fairly relatable experiences (on average). Poverty, bullying, neglect and abuse by guardians. I'd argue that, as extreme as Alec's experience is, it would resonate with many who have dealt with indoctrination in their youth (like me). Brockton Bay is a city on economic decline, struggling to stay afloat, and afflicted with violent crime. There's superpowers thrown in, sure, but it's fundamentally very familiar human shittiness and problems that drive a lot of the story.

The powers are definitely weird and creative, but it's still unmistakably a superhero story. Bugs, darkness, flight and strength and durability, contact biokinesis. Superheroes and supervillains in costumes fighting each other, hijinks and blood loss.

Except that there's Endbringers, and Echidna, and Cauldron, and Scion. The culmination of the story is peeling back the mask of a familiar superhero setting to reveal a cosmic horror story.

Ward is set in the aftermath of that.

There's a massive megacity that still doesn't have a name. It's basically a country, but it's led by a mayor. Infrastructure is just barely there, lots of people are still living in tents, the internet is just barely running and not everywhere. People with superpowers are no longer just superheroes and supervillains, they're... what, exactly? So many threats that were once contained are now running free, the ratio of normal territory to gonzo hellscapes has been turned on its head. The skyline is torn apart by portals to other worlds, and it's fucking with the weather. There's a political movement against people with superpowers, and there are people affected by superpowers with their own identity, and both of those groups are very conspicuous in how hard it is to treat them as an analogy for any other groups. People are estranged from their own environment, and it's a brave, terrible new world in the shadow of a slain god.

The superpowers are less straightforward. Being unable to be pointed at, impregnation tentacles that fuck with the effectiveness of other powers, lots of cluster triggers and grab-bags, etc. The powers are more obviously reflective of the cosmic horror story people have had to wake up to, unfamiliar, weird, and deeply upsetting.

The characters are also pretty dang weird. Rain is a lot like Alec, and I think he might actually be the most normal of the bunch. Body dysphoria+, sharing a body with a sibling, attachment issues, living as a clone or as a sort-of clone. Not totally unrelatable, to be sure, there are parallels with real life experiences, but these are more their own thing, not so recognizable.

This makes Victoria kind of the perfect protagonist, matching the themes: she's estranged from who she was and her old connections; her home city is gone; she's gone through something absolutely mind-bendingly terrible that is among the worst that people can experience IRL and then some; her power has changed; she was raised into the weirdness of superheroics and is pioneering how it looks in this new world; she's knowledgeable about the weirdness surrounding powers, giving her a good eye for understanding the new world.

I think a decent fraction of Ward's relative unpopularity sadly comes from this: estrangement from the once familiar. The characters can't be related to as easily, the powers aren't so iconic, and the setting feels undefined. I don't think Ward is inherently worse for it, it's just a bit of a tougher sell.

[allwormdiet]

Interlude 2

Ahh, it's time for Brockton Bay's healthiest family to debut

Flight is so cool. Flight without having to get cold or wet or getting pelted by bugs is outright unfair.

Me, utterly charmed: oh my god she's a fucking NERD

And she's a nerd who's scaring the piss out of Nazis, who would hate this girl?

Which, oh yeah, the Nazis run around in Brockton Bay, bet those guys will never sour my mood

Glory Girl's got a whole bunch of powers, huh. Can't wait to get into the exact circumstances of how she got really cool abilities as an inadequate consolation prize for whatever hell she had to endure

I'm gonna be real, the description of this throw made me flinch a little bit. Like he's a Nazi so fuck him, but I hope it doesn't turn out that Victoria is this blase about all her targets

...So if the only spines she ever breaks are Nazi spines, then I'll give Glory Girl every pass she ever asks for, but if she ever wraps a weed dealer's skeleton around a lamppost I'm going to feel a liiiiiittle more concerned.

Everything else aside, this is fucking hilarious

So these two are at the epicenter of, as far as I can tell, one of the most divisive subjects in this fandom? With the others mostly seeming to be variations on "did such-and-such character have full moral justification to do actual for-real crimes against humanity." Let's see where this takes us

I feel a little bad immediately for the contrasts between Vicky and Amy. Five bucks says it's gonna turn out Amy is like the only brunette in the whole family, and while everyone else gets to show off a little she's dressed in a sackcloth. It's very white mage, but I don't know if she even knows what a white mage is.

Also it's a minor detail in the grand scheme of things but I fear for her hair's health if it's actively being described as frizzy

So apparently between ragdolling a Nazi like it's Garrys Mod and this passage, people have chosen to interpret Victoria Dallon as a monster. I can see how they'd be mistaken on this because technically speaking they're close: she's a teenager. For a lot of people the worst version of ourselves is one that exists somewhere between the ages of twelve and twenty, don't ask me how I know that one. The guilt trip here is definitely manipulative, but so is every kid who's trying to play whatever card they have to dodge repercussions for their fuckups. This is a kid, not a master manipulator who twists hearts around in her fingers like rings. This is normal behavior within an abnormal context.

According to Wikipedia, "foreshadowing is a narrative device in which a storyteller gives an advance hint of what is to come later in the story. Foreshadowing often appears at the beginning of a story, and it helps develop or subvert the audience's expectations about upcoming events."

Fuck Nazis, and I'm gonna get in a preemptive "fuck Coil" while I'm at it

Hmm. So here we get the Docks from a third perspective (albeit a Nazi's, so let's take it with a grain of salt), and this time it's presented as something of material value. I wonder how much of that is due to the neighborhood being low-priority for the police and Protectorate, if they decided it's not worth policing if it's not going to recover any time soon.

It's also interesting seeing which names are being thrown around with the possibility of fighting over the territory. I know Squealer ends up part of the Merchants and they end up being a decent power in their own right, but I don't know if any of the others would have shown an interest in fighting for territory. I got the impression that Uber and Leet are more like unfunny and violent pranksters than anything, Circus apparently operates on their own which doesn't seem like how you'd make dreams of conquest come true, the Undersiders are sticking with the theft shtick at this point, and I don't know shit about Trainwreck or Stain. Wonder how much of this is legit speculation, how much of it is the E88 leadership blowing smoke for their followers, and how much of it is this specific guy blowing smoke.

Yeah, see, they're good kids. For now.

Current Thoughts

To pull back on the frame a little, I think this interlude was written with two goals: first and most obvious is to get us in the head of another young cape, a for-real hero this time, who will be featuring in future events to some extend, but then beyond that it's reflecting the rippling consequences of Taylor's actions. Taking down Lung was a good deed, it saved lives and weakened a major gang within the city, but now others are rushing in to take advantage of this and it could cause more harm than was prevented in Arc 1. Taylor couldn't have known these repercussions were coming, she's a high school sophomore who'd only engaged with the cape community in any way after she'd already knocked the bastard over, and she probably still would have made the play to take Lung down and save the Undersiders even knowing that there might be increased gang violence. She's big on action and she's big on pushing through to solve the problem, repercussions dealt with later, but I suspect that everything is going to ripple out in this same way until the whole city starts shaking with it.

Anyway, more to the first point, I like Victoria, she took very little time to endear herself to me and I'm not going to feel so awful about her bone-breaking habits as long as she keeps it to the Nazis

I haven't seen enough of Amy to have a full read on her yet, and I haven't gotten into her head to know how she thinks or feels, but for now I'm pretty solidly on sympathy/pity for her. I'd say something like "we'll see where she takes it from here" but I kinda already know that one

Hoo, boy. Arc 2 done with. 18 chapters in four days? That's not bad. I'm gonna stretch my legs and think for a bit and then I'll give my two cents on the whole of Insinuation.

[faust-lane]

Hi 👋

I just saw your crossover (Agent 47 x Ilsa Faust) & I absolutely love it.

What made you think of this Pairing ?

And will there be a fanfic ?

Hello! It was an role playing game I had with my friend that made me think of that. I'm not certain if there will be a fanfic, but maybe I will write something if I have progress in the game.

The plot basically is Ilsa getting into suicide mission that involves a huge conspiracy regarding government AI system that prevents crimes and The Syndicate wants to get their hands on it. She is left alone against an army of disavowed agents (just like herself) and is suddenly saved by a mysterious man that calls himself Agent 47. Someone hired him to protect her and the AI she was trusted with by the Creator. The plot itself is bound to Victoria as well as Solomon Lane and the rivalry between to AI that represent cold strategic thinking (Sol) and human morales (Machine) that were initially meant to be working together, but the government saw no use for the Machine, since it was more of a burden to them that affected the success of their operations (fuck morals, fuck humanity). (We wanted to compare Agent and Ilsa to these AI's since they both share some qualities with them. Sol would try to recruit Agent, but would fail since he is bound by a contract, and the Machine has chosen Ilsa as her asset since she was in complicated situation ans couldn't refuse, also, she has all the qualities Machine needs. We wanted to show how this strange companionship is actually is working out to be very efficient).

So, we have this strange team of Agent and Ilsa that is slowly going insane under the pressure of this situation she finds herself in, since it's all so mich bigger than her and so much is at stake. In her past, Ilsa was trying to investigate the Corporation that was creating and providing killers such as Agent, but she didn't succeed, so seeing Agent 47 in person and being a part of a contract herself is a big shock for her as well. I always wanted to play few comedic scenes with Ilsa, Agent and Victoria together as found family trying to pose as someone absolutely normal (they're undercover) but there's absolutely NOTHING normal about these three goofballs. We wanted to discover all these characters personalities and how they would act if they were brought together by complicated situation.

Also, I've never really played Hitman, but recently I bought few games and I will play it. Maybe I will get an idea and post something, but for now,all I have is my rp that is a little stuck right now since I burned out, and fanart.

Glad you liked it. It's actually a crossover of Mission Impossible, Hitman and a little bit of Person of Interest, since there's also such character as Machine, which is an AI.

Also we kept joking what Ilsa literally looks identical to Diana. Especially in MI5. Rebecca Ferguson is one of the most popular fancasts for Diana.

My friend introduced me to Hitman almost 10 years later since I played it as a teen and he showed me the depth of the character, basically, making me fall in love with Agent 47

(Yes and Michael Fassbener was in a movie with Rebecca, I think they could actually be great casting if there's another decent Hitman movie)

And I think Thomasin is great as Victoria.

Thanks for your question, I think It might've reignited my interest in this story...

[saintmeghanmarkle]

Well now we know where she got the "paps on the school run" fantasy by u/dearest-ribwich

Well now we know where she got the "paps on the school run" fantasy The David Beckham documentary on Netflix is a very entertaining watch, and not just because it was basically 4.5 hours of eye candy 😁 As a Canadian, I don't really know much about him, just that he's gorgeous, married to Posh Spice, a friend to the RF, and a former friend of Haz. He came off as very likeable, fun, and hard working, though stubborn as anything, an extreme perfectionist, with his own share of insecurities. A decent human being. After watching the show, it's obvious he's sooooo much higher quality than Halfwit.In the last episode, there are a few moments where they discussed the unrelenting paps and press when they lived in Spain, and how it was quite overwhelming and scary for their kids. They said this was one was one of reasons they moved to LA. They knew they'd get attention in LA, they'd get attention anywhere, but it would be nowhere near as bad as in Spain. The schools in LA are much more private, and they weren't really targeted when there were much bigger stars around. But this little passage really stuck out to me:DB: Every time I went to drop Brooklyn off at school, 10-15 paparazzi were there every morning. The school run, it was live on Spanish TV. Brooklyn at the time was so young, and he had to go through it, and I, uh, I don't know if it's harmed him. I don't know. It strongly reminded me of what Meghan said in The Cut about potential UK schools runs with Archie:Earlier in our conversation about her goals for the life she’s creating here, she’d remarked upon how, if Archie were in school in the U.K., she’d never be able to do school pickup and drop-off without it being a royal photo call with a press pen of 40 people snapping pictures. “Sorry, I have a problem with that. That doesn’t make me obsessed with privacy. That makes me a strong and good parent protecting my child,” Meghan says.I'm wouldn't doubt the Beckhams talked to H&M about their experience with the kids & paps in Spain, and now two things have happened:1) H&M used the Beckham's story as their own to justify their move to LA, and2) Meghan was shading David & Victoria following their feud. Beckham very clearly had guilt and regret over the whole situation, and Meghan saying a "good" parent wouldn't allow it to happen seems (to me) like a comment meant to hurt him and Victoria.The Beckhams must be so relieved they are no longer friendly with H& M. They're such trash for not only taking that horrific experience lived by (at the time) their friends while also exaggerating it for their own benefit, but also for questioning the Beckhams' parenting through a difficult situation they had no control over. Remember The Cut article came out first, and now, just over a year later, we get an actual account of paparazzi harrassment at school by former friends of the Sussexes. Once again proof they haven't an original thought in either of their heads! post link: https://ift.tt/BijYAcP author: dearest-ribwich submitted: October 10, 2023 at 05:27AM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

[superlinguo]

Linguistics Jobs: Interview with a Customer Success Manager

This month’s interview is with Nicole Yamamoto, who works remotely from Mexico City as a Customer Success Manager. In this interview, Nicole shares how her studies in linguistics impacts not only her current role working at a diverse international startup company, but also her former job teaching English in Japan with the JET Program.

You can follow Nicole on Instagram (@nkyams) and on LinkedIn.

What did you study at university? 

I did a Bachelor's in Humanities: Applied Linguistics in 2011 at the University of Victoria, and a Diploma in Business Administration: Marketing at Camosun College in 2018. 

What is your job? 

I work for a global HR tech company as a Customer Success Manager. A lot of people think this means my work is in the realm of recruiting but what I actually do is onboarding. I help other companies who wish to hire remote workers around the world put everything in place. For example, my day-to-day job involves processing employment contracts and ensuring they are compliant with local labour laws of the country where the worker resides. This often involves guiding our clients on the differences between a statutory benefit versus a customary one in order to help them offer a competitive benefits package to their candidates. I also work directly with local partners in many countries around the world to help set up the workers' payroll, pension, and health insurance.  

How does your linguistics training help you in your job?

My linguistics training is very helpful in my job. Working in a global HR company means that on a day-to-day basis, I am communicating with people whose first language is not English. This includes external clients but also internally as we are a fully distributed team located across 50+ different countries. My linguistics training helps in 3 different areas: communication, cultural understanding, and training. As part of my applied linguistics degree I studied second language acquisition which has given me a deeper understanding of how language develops and is understood. This allows me to phrase my sentences and shape my communication in a way that I know will be more intelligible to non-native speakers of English. It isn't possible to study linguistics without also learning about cultural differences since language and culture are so intertwined. So, this allows me to be more patient, understanding and even appreciative of the cultural differences between my colleagues and I. Lastly, as one of the more senior members on the team, I often help and train newer employees who have joined the company. Due to my educational background in linguistics and teaching experience, this makes it easier for me to train others and feel comfortable while doing it.

What was the transition from university to work like for you? 

After university, I applied for and was accepted into the JET program in 2012. For those unfamiliar with the JET Program, it is a program which was started by the Japanese government in order to improve the English proficiency of Japanese students. The program employs approximately 4,000 native English speakers from around the world to teach at public schools across Japan. This was a great transition from university to work that I highly recommend because it provided a decent salary post-university and allowed me to gain practical work experience while enjoying travel, meeting new people, and being exposed to different cultures. It is still one of the most impactful times of my life even ten years later and has greatly shaped who I am today.

Do you have any advice do you wish someone had given to you about linguistics/careers/university? 

Yes, I began down the path of linguistics because I had originally wanted to be a translator and a career counselor told me linguistics would be useful. Knowing what I know now, this was not the correct path to becoming a translator as there are specific training programs for that. I realize now that the career counselor likely told me this because she carried the same misconception many people seem to hold about linguistics. Whenever I tell people I studied linguistics their first follow-up question nine out of ten times is "so, how many languages do you speak?" Those who have studied linguistics know well that it is not about acquiring multiple languages but about understanding the structure and etymology of languages. In the end, I wish someone had told me that the skills and knowledge you acquire studying linguistics are beneficial as transferable skills but unless you are looking to go into academia, the job opportunities will not be diverse or plentiful.

Related interviews:

Interview with a Client Services Manager

Interview with an English Foreign Language Teacher

Interview with an ESL teacher, coach and podcaster

Recent interviews:

Interview with an Impact Lead

Interview with an Online Linguistics Teacher

Interview with an Academic Linguist

Interview with a TV Writer

Interview with a Senior Analyst, Strategic Insights & Analytics

Interview with a Social Media Lead

Interview with a CEO of a SaaS company

Resources:

The full Linguist Jobs Interview List

The Linguist Jobs tag for the most recent interviews

The Linguistics Jobs slide deck (overview, resources and activities)

The Linguistics Jobs Interview series is edited by Martha Tsutsui Billins. Martha is a linguist whose research focuses on the Ryukyuan language Amami Oshima, specifically honourifics and politeness strategies in the context of language endangerment. Martha runs Field Notes, a podcast about linguistic fieldwork.

[solreefs]

Statement Begins

next ->

The Magnus Institute is a prestigious organization of learning, spread throughout the world. Many apply to join its ranks, but very few are chosen.

Scholar Christopher Wolfe has never wanted students, but he has been assigned a class of thirty Postulants. He just wants to get through the training process as quickly as possible. But there’s something strange going on in the Archives, and it may be impossible for any of them to walk away.

Summary: Statement of Victoria Krause, regarding an unsettling encounter near the east harbor of the Port of Alexandria.

Warnings: people being uncanny, disappearances

Tagging: @gay-otlc

Words: 1419

ao3

[CLICK]

Wolfe: (impatiently) Test, test, one, two, three. Finally.

[clears throat]

My name is Christopher Wolfe. I am a Scholar for the Magnus Institute, a prestigious academic organization dedicated to collecting and furthering the knowledge of all of humanity. In practical terms, it’s a massive library, with hundreds of branches throughout the world. My particular branch is based in Alexandria.

I work in the department of the Institute dedicated to the esoteric and the paranormal. I’ve worked in practical research for twenty years, but certain... circumstances have led to my reassignment to the Archives. Inevitably, most investigations in this department only lead to dead ends, and when that point is reached, all statements and research are transferred to the Archives. This means that while the research and library sections dedicated to the paranormal are impeccably organized, the Archive is an absolute disaster. In theory, however, any decent archivist should be able to keep the place in some semblance of order.

My predecessor, whoever that may have been, was not that archivist. There must be hundreds of overflowing boxes stacked nearly floor to ceiling, each containing gods only know how many statements. The shelves are packed with still more files, and the occasional artifact. One of my Postulants has already found a bag containing seemingly endless small bones.

[pause]

Yes, my Postulants. As part of my... new responsibilities, I have been assigned a Postulant class of thirty-two. I have already dismissed two, and so far, it seems highly unlikely I will decide to fill any of the six available spots in this department. But one of them did come up with the idea of using a tape recorder, so credit where credit is due.

Yes, I suppose I should explain the tape recorder. Some of the statements here have proven uncooperative, shall we say, when I or any of my students attempt to record them digitally. In the end, we had to delete the recordings. Hopefully, this will serve as an acceptable alternative.

Right. Enough excuses. We have to begin somewhere, I suppose.

[brief shuffling of files]

[clears throat]

Statement of Victoria Krause, regarding an unsettling encounter near the east harbor of the Port of Alexandria. Original statement given May 27, 2027. Recorded June 3, 2031.

Wolfe (statement): I work as a dockhand, unloading cargo ships in the Port. Most of the time, I stay in the west harbor, because that’s the one that’s actually used for commercial shipping. But one night, about three weeks ago, my friend Yelena wanted to meet up in the east harbor, and go out for dinner at this little restaurant she’d been telling me about for weeks. I agreed, and after work, set off for the east harbor.

We had decided to meet at dock three at eight o'clock. I got there about twenty minutes early, so I decided to have a look around and see if I could find that restaurant Yelena was so excited about. She hadn’t given me its name, but she loved any place that served breakfast food late at night, so I had a pretty good idea of what I was looking for.

I found a few places that could have been where Yelena was taking me, but I ended up getting a little lost because as I said, I don’t spend a lot of time in the east harbor. But I eventually made my way back to our meeting spot, expecting to find her already there, because by now I was fifteen minutes late.

She wasn’t there. Yelena wasn’t exactly known for being punctual, but this was a little odd, especially since the whole thing was her idea. I checked my Codex to see if I had missed any messages from her. Nothing.

I waited for another five minutes, in case she really was just running late. When she still didn’t show up, I sent her a message, asking if everything was okay.

She didn’t respond.

By now I was sure something was wrong. I started walking around again, asking people if they’d seen her, but no one had. I sent several more messages, not just to Yelena, but also to her brother, and a few mutual friends. They all confirmed she’d told them nothing, and had seemed perfectly all right when they last saw her.

After about an hour of searching, I was ready to get the local Garda involved. As I was heading back to dock three, I heard a voice call out “Tori?”

That was Yelena’s nickname for me. No one else used it.

I turned around, expecting to see my friend running up to me with some convoluted story of losing her Codex or forgetting we were supposed to meet up or getting involved in some sort of drama with her neighbors, something, anything that would explain what was going on. But there was no one there.

Or at least that was my first impression. After a moment, I noticed there was someone standing in the alleyway just off the street I was on. I called out to them, but got no answer.

Thinking back on it, the figure looked nothing like Yelena. But in the moment, I was so utterly sure it was her that any semblance of common sense left me. I approached the alleyway.

“Yelena?” I said. “Where have you been?”

The figure didn’t say a word, didn’t even move.

“Are you all right? Is something wrong?”

Nothing.

“Yelena, are you hurt? What’s going on?” My voice rose slightly in my growing panic. Something was very, very wrong here. And yet I couldn’t let go of my certainty that it was Yelena at the end of that alleyway, and she needed my help.

“Tori?” The voice was quieter now, but it was undoubtedly Yelena’s.

“Yes,” I said, and took a step closer, “it’s me.”

“Come... here.” She spoke in a strained tone, as though in pain.

I took another step, then paused. “Why don’t you come out here?” I don’t know what it was that stopped me, but I knew I did not want to go any further into that alleyway.

“Tori...”

“Yelena?”

“Come... here.”

“No,” I said, my hands starting to shake. “No, you come here. I’m not going in there.”

Suddenly, the figure was much closer to the edge of the alleyway, though I hadn’t seen it move. “Come... here,” it repeated.

Its mouth didn’t move when it spoke.

It didn’t have one.

It lifted its head, and I saw it had no face at all.

I screamed, and so did it, a horrible, unnatural howl of what I can only describe as delight.

I turned and ran, not daring to look back for fear of what I might see following me. I didn’t stop running until I reached Yelena’s brother’s house four streets away, and I practically banged his door down in my panic. I told him what I had seen, but I was half-hysterical and not making much sense. I don’t know how much of my story he actually understood, or even believed, but it was enough that we reported Yelena missing the next day.

I haven’t seen her since, and I certainly haven’t been back to the east harbor.

Wolfe: Statement ends.

Yelena Novikov was reported missing by her brother, Dmitri Novikov, and her friend, Victoria Krause, on May 2, 2027. No trace of her was ever found.

Dmitri Novikov corroborates Krause’s account, at least as far as the disappearance of his sister and the story Krause told him. Conveniently, Krause could list no additional witnesses of this faceless figure when we contacted her.

However, Postulant Khalila Seif was able to draw certain parallels between the disappearance of Yelena Novikov and several other people who went missing in the east harbor area around the same time. Ameera Atiyeh, Hatem Nazari, and William Koel all mentioned going to an unnamed breakfast restaurant before vanishing. I personally dismiss this as a coincidence, but Seif did come up with another, more relevant detail.

There are no alleyways or breakfast restaurants near dock three of the east harbor. In the cases of Atiyeh, Nazari, and Koel, friends also reported thinking they saw them in streets, alleys, or on docks, respectively, that did not appear on any map of the east harbor. Justin Gutierrez, who was reported missing about a year before this statement was given, was later seen several times, always at a distance, always in the east harbor, and always in places that should not have been there. 

[CLICK]

[chibimyumi]

Autopsy of Weston Arc

A few days ago I visited a beloved friend @sweetbunny8, and we were bitching about the Boarding School Arc together. That friend is so incredibly smart, she brought up amazing points I never thought about... and so we spent the afternoon facepalming, discussing how many missed potentials there were. The below are the 5 points we talked about, on FIRE🔥🔥🔥!

1. The Arc owes us a thorough Power Dynamic Swap

I think the biggest draw of Kuroshitsuji is the unusual power dynamic between our protagonists. It would have been amazing to see a thoroughly explored power dynamic swap between master and servant.

The manga did touch upon this swap, and it gave us a delicious appetiser of what this Arc could have been. I really would love loved to see more of how Sebas and O!Ciel would deal with their cognitive dissonance of role.

Our Ciel

O!Ciel was raised in a world where the roles of servant vs master are very distinct. To O!Ciel it must have been very weird to now suddenly be subordinate to his servant. I would have loved to see if O!Ciel found it uncomfortable, or just really fun to try something new without stakes, or how his habits would slip through. In the Circus Arc we saw very clearly how both Sebas and O!Ciel still succumbed to their habits, thereby accidentally drawing unwanted attention.

Doing so in the Weston Arc would not have been a carbon copy of the Circus Arc, because unlike at the circus now O!Ciel would be performing in a more familiar environment with people of comparable status. I really wish we could have seen more of that.

Sebastian

Sebas would also have been a blast to see in a likely unprecedented role for him. In this post I argued how Sebas was probably never given opportunity to interact for real with humans on close proximity, and how he was probably not ever considered more than a mass-destruction weapon. It would have been very interesting to see how Sebas would handle suddenly being surrounded by people who don’t just interact, but are also subordinate to him as a teacher!

I find it unlikely Sebas ever had the experience of playing a superiour role to his own master. Sebas loves testing his limits with his master, and it would have been a blessing to see how Sebas could now “legally” exploit his own position of power over his master. I’m sure he would have gotten a kink out of it.

2. Planning and Calculation???

It would have been logical and responsible if the Queen just told her Watchdog what House Derek was in for O!Ciel to investigate. A “P.S. He’s in Red House according to the latest information btw, loves - Vicky” would not be too much asked. She knows Derek’s parents, and I can’t imagine the March of Arden being secretive about what House the kid is in. But even if Victoria didn’t do the efficient thing, we still would have loved it if O!Ciel had to discuss with Sebas and strategically choose a House to get into, rather than him just being planted in Blue House.

My friend thought O!Ciel would have chosen Red House regardless of whether he knew for sure where he’d be, because as the nephew of the Queen, Derek being in Red was the most logical. As an actual Lorded Earl himself, O!Ciel would have a decent chance holding down a position in Red House. And considering how Redmond has a talent for choosing awful personalities for fag, O!Ciel would have fit in perfectly too!

Then O!Ciel’s goal could still have been to become a prefect’s fag, but then the showdown with Maurice would at least have direct, immediate conflict, rather than... whatever it was the manga did. Maurice had NO reason to neutralise O!Ciel as long as they’re in different Houses! Maurice you... boring, inefficient, redundant twat...

3. Yana... is Edward a joke to you?

Why didn’t O!Ciel/Yana capitalise more on Edward being at Weston?! It would have been a perfect chance to develop Edward further and show O!Ciel’s interaction with family! I love Lizzie, but it would have been amazing to see Edward interacting with our protagonist without his sister being the reason for interaction. UGH 💔

Also, the cricket drag could have been shortened dramatically if O!Ciel had thought of using Edward. Edward has been at the Weston for longer, and he is a prefect’s fag to boot.

Sure, O!Ciel didn’t know that at first, but he finds out BEFORE the cricket was set up. The moment O!Ciel would learn that he’d need to win cricket to meet the principal, he should have gambled on Edward. If O!Ciel explained to Edward that he is investigating the disappearance of the Queen’s relative, I can’t imagine Edward not being willing to help by winning cricket in becoming “the chosen one” through gentlemanly play. That’d be what Edward would be aspiring to become, anyway.

4. Why Cricket ANYWAY!?

Even IF Edward for some reason refused to help, the cricket would still entirely have been unnecessary. It wouldn’t matter at all who would win, because as the prefect’s fag, Edward had the privilege to attend the Midnight Tea Party ANYWAY. All four prefect fags are present, as we all can see. O!Ciel would only have needed to ask Edward to act as his agent, and tadaaa.

Besides, even IF Edward didn’t exist in the arc it’d still be entirely fine, because all the prefects would SURELY have access to the Party. That is known. O!Ciel only needed to tell Sebas to keep an eye on where the definitive participants would be going, and track them. When push comes to shove, Sebas could just barge in like he did anyway (and bring O!Ciel even if he’s uninvited), and the case would still have unfolded the way it did.

5. PLOT HOLE!?

My friend also brought up a humongous plot hole so large it became a space on its own that I didn’t even notice it was a hole. Why did the prefects react so differently to Agares and Derek being “alive” respectively?

So, my friend and I both watched the musical adaptation as the last thing, and in the musical the prefects were all being totally chill about Agares being around, but shocked shitless to see Derek back. All four prefects were present during the killing of Derek AND Agares, so they should all know both are dead. It had not been addressed in the musical that the prefects have knowledge of corpse reanimation, so they shouldn’t have been able to act so normal next to Agares, but freak out about seeing Derek. (This is yet another example of WHO IS YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE, KUROMY21!?)

In the manga it had been addressed that the prefects have knowledge that reanimation of the dead is possible. And it seems like Redmond arranged for the reanimation of at least Agares. But why didn’t they arrange for the reanimation of Derek too? (@chibmib​ Thanks sis, for checking this for me so I didn’t have to suffer through it again)

Derek is the Queen’s relative, his disappearance would really have invited suspicion, as it indeed did. The reason the P4 didn’t arrange for Derek’s reanimation can’t be because the they considered Derek too evil to bring back. Agares was namely arguably worse; he was an adult and the vice-principal! It was his literal job to be responsible.

The P4 couldn’t have decided to not reanimate Derek for fear of him ratting them out for assault. There are plenty witnesses of Derek’s crimes, and the P4 would be first-hand witnesses too of Derek’s lying. If Derek told the authorities he was assaulted, all witnesses could have helped testify for the P4 against Derek.

The only reason I can make sense of the double standard in the P4′s reaction is that Undertaker told the P4 he only succeeded in reanimating Agares and not Derek, because the technology is still very young; which would have been true too. BUT THEN THE MANGA SHOULD HAVE ADDRESSED IT.

Even if that’s what happened though, the P4′s reaction shouldn’t have been such horrified surprise. They should be relieved to see the Queen’s relative alive, because then they wouldn’t have ‘murder of Queen’s relative’ on their résumé. All they had to do instead then is explain why they attacked Derek in a moment of lost control at the sight of a future-prefect being a lowlife. And again, the victims could have helped testify...

And this all would only have happened if we momentarily accept the unlikeliness of Sebas coincidentally having a plugged nose and not smelling Agares’ corpse stench the entire Arc.

[canonconspiracy]

Choices (Jasper Hale x Reader)

AN: This one is a...little different, and I’m honestly not sure where to place it on my AO3 or Wattpad yet, so it’ll be a tumblr exclusive.

Fandom: Twilight - SPN Hunter Reader

Pairing: Jasper Hale x Fem!Winchester!Reader

Warnings: Combat?

WC: 1779

Choices, decisions you made on your day to day, had been much different when you were a Winchester.  You thought that moving to Forks, Washington would have taken you away from everything, but your brothers knew as well as you did that the monsters don't just stay away.  Not only had you fallen in love with a monster, but you had been targeted by another.  

You would never call Jasper a monster, nor any of his family.  They were good vampires, vegetarians as they would call themselves.  Though you knew your brothers wouldn't understand your choice of paramour, they had been hunting while you grew closer to the Cullen family.  Finding yourself growing closer to them, you had also found yourself growing close to a young woman named Bella, one who had made the same decision you had.  She had chosen to be with Edward, and now the two of you had been driven out to a hotel far, far away from Forks.  

The tracker changed his course, and within minutes, decisions were to be made.  Had you been thankful that you had your hunting supplies with you?  Of course, as you watched the brunette making her way past Alice Cullen and her mate, you knew the only decision that was to be had.  Though the Cullen family had never seen a hunter in action, they were about to.  Everyone was about to.  

Following the woman out, taking a taxi cab to the location that Bella already mentioned, had not been difficult at all.  Dead man's blood, a machete, and a plan formulating on your side was what you needed.   There was a human in danger, and she was endangered by a true monster.  Everything about this set up had trap written all over it.  

Moving with stealth, you saw the moment that the monster, James, had Bella pinned against the wall.  He was clearly cocky, talking down upon the woman as he pulled out a camera.  Surely he had not expected a human to jump into action, nor had he known a lick about what dead man's blood did to a vampire.   The syringe had taken mere seconds upon sneaking behind the vampire to administer to his neck, before you moved to pull the brunette away from the male.  

"What did you just do to me, you bitch?!" He clamored, his voice shrill as he moved to grab the aching in his neck.  The ache burned, acidically eating away at the immortal as he screamed.  It took seconds for him to move his red eyes back to the two of you, a glower in his gaze.  "You're going to pay for that." 

"Bella, go!" You exclaimed, moving in front of her as you made some distance between the human and the vampire.  "Come on, fangs, let's dance." 

His movements had been slowed from the aching pain coursing through his body, the dead man's blood seeping through his veins.  Though he came at you at a decent speed, you still found yourself dodging as you wielded your machete, soaked in dead man's blood.  Each strike you made to the man, though it had not wounded him more than a touch, still caused him to exclaim in pain.  

"You're going to regret ever taking this chase," you growled, your body thrown back into the mirror behind you.  The mirror shattered, and you were sure your arm had been bleeding, but you knew you had him on the ropes.  All you could hope was that Bella managed to get out safely, as you charged back at the man.  "I came to Forks for peace, not for this bullshit." 

"Well, let me end your suffering," he chided back as he lunged upon you once more.  

With a skillful strike, you watched as his head went tumbling to the floor.  In that moment, watching the vampire drop to his knees, headless in front of you, a smile crossed your face.  Your veins raced with the adrenaline of the kill, the adrenaline of saving the woman's life.  

Your trek had not been over as you realized there was more steps to this supposed kill.  Edward had mentioned in the car about how the limbs were to be severed, and the body to be burned.  With a soft sigh, you glanced from the body, back to where Bella had been cowering wide-eyed in the corner of the room.  

"You may want to look away," you warned as you readied your blade once more.  

"I mean, it's a little too late for that," she said in a small voice as you moved to sever the first arm.  

By the second, the two of you had not been alone, though you still finished what you had started.  Your arm ached with each strike, but as you had the vampire in a pile, you could hear the floorboards being cracked clean off.  The Cullen family moved to light the flames for you, while you stood back, wiping your brow.  

"You took him down by yourself, Darlin'?" You could hear the southern drawl of Jasper in your ear.  "Do you understand how dangerous that was?" 

"I'm a hunter, Jasper," you said as you tucked your machete back into your bag, a sullen look against your lips.  "It's in my blood, and this one wasn't nearly as bad as some of the monsters we've faced." 

"Is that how you see me?" Jasper asked, his voice cracked as his lips curled to a frown.  "My family?" 

You shook your head, allowing your y/h/c locks to bounce as you did.  Y/e/c orbs shifted to his amber eyes as you breathed out, "None of you are monsters.  Djinn who feed upon humans, crossroads demons who kill for fun, even angels who simply see us as playthings, now those are monsters.  Some humans are monsters, too, Jasper." 

"I believe you, Darlin'," Jasper said with a smile, though his hand was placed against his face as he spoke.  The scent of your blood was already getting too strong for him, and he knew he had to walk away from you.  He had waited until Bella caught your attention to go by the others.  

"What's a djinn?" You could hear Bella ask from behind you, causing you to cringe.  "And angels, demons...those are simply religious folklore." 

Sighing, you said, "I'd rather you believed that, but vampires aren't the only playing cards on the field.  Are you okay?" 

"Yeah, just a little shaken up," Bella replied with a reassuring half smile.  Her smile quickly turned to a frown as she noticed your arm.  "You're bleeding, though." 

"I'm alright," you said with a reassuring smile, before you realized Jasper's presence had been replaced by Carslie.  

"Let me see," he said in a soothing tone, holding his hand out for your arm.  As he examined your wound, he frowned, before reaching in his pocket to bring what looked like a kerchief out.  Wrapping it around your wound tightly, he continued.  "You're going to need stitches, but it's not bad.  I-I feel we should thank you for taking care of James.  I'm impressed, and a little intimidated.  How did you do that all on your own?" 

"Dead man's blood," you said with a sheepish smile.  "And technically, I got the dose in when he was too preoccupied with Bella.  My machete is coated in the stuff as well."  After a pause, you found your lips drop to a frown.  

"I don't think I've even heard of that," he said with a soft chuckle.  "Let's get you stitched up, though." 

*** 

After your arm had been stitched, you realized that Edward had already taken Bella back to her home.  She had been adamant in the car about apologizing to her father, and you couldn't blame her for going without so much as a goodbye.  Beside you now sat Jasper, in front of you a nearly grinning Carslie.  

"That should be all better now," Carslie confirmed.  "And thank you again.  Unfortunately, Victoria got away from us." 

"Surely she knows I'm a hunter, if they had not already, and she'll come prepared," you said with a huff.  "I'm willing to help any way you all need." 

"Darlin', didn't you say you wanted to get away from hunting?" Jasper jested beside you, placing a chilled hand upon your own as he smiled.  "Isn't that why you're out here?" 

"I told my brothers I'd be getting away from the supernatural entirely," you said with a chuckle, "and I'm sure this is the opposite of what they expected.  It's not like I can sit this out, though." 

"Well, you're not wrong," Carslie chimed in with a frown.  "She will likely be targeting you." 

"I may be able to make a call and get a search party," you said with a sigh.  "But that's a conversation I need to work up to with my brothers." 

"For now, rest," Carslie interjected quickly, shifting his amber eyes from you to Jasper.  "Make sure she rests." 

"Come on, Darlin'," Jasper cooed with a grin against his lips, gently tugging your hand to get you to stand with him.  

With a light tint of blush against your cheeks, you allowed yourself to be led out to the living room, and then upwards into the upstairs.  Heading to Jasper's room, he motioned for you to sit on his couch, before curling up beside you.  Stroking your cheek gently, he allowed you to lie against his chest, everything at peace.  

"So, are you really okay?" He questioned as his hand moved to your y/h/c locks, gently stroking them as he felt your body calm.  

"Here, in your arms, of course," you murmured with a smile against your lips, closing your y/e/c eyes.  "My brothers have both tried to escape, at one point or another as well.  The younger of the two, Sammy, actually had a long relationship with a demon while my eldest brother was in purgatory and I was rotting in hell."  You allowed a chuckle to escape your lips.  "So, honestly, this is the best I've felt in probably my whole life." 

"I don't want to let anything like that happen to you ever again," he whispered soothingly as he stroked your hair.  "I mean, we both sound like we have pretty colorful pasts, and you're, what, twenty?" 

"Yeah, but I've died about three times," you replied with a shrug.  "Time goes significantly slower in hell, so it could be speculated." 

"Well, you're here now," he said softly.  "And I'm not going to let you suffer through that ever again."  As he spoke, he moved to press a gentle kiss against your head.  

[mamingle]

You know, Dethrix, despite how terrible of a father he was.... Actually, did more so useful things. I mean, to stop monsters and humans from fighting each other (even enslaving them, maybe executing. He could had done it) and keeping a strict kingdom for a pretty long time takes alot. I just. Well, think about Sepulchure and Alteon and their war... And uh. Yeah

Also Alteon and Brethan (whatever his name is) are dumb. "Ah yes, the king/i am turning into chaos monster and our kingdom is invaded by these chaos monsters. Guess its a good day to play the wedding!". And then Drakath is to blame. He probably got headtrauma himself from facepalming like i did

-puffshroom/mushroom anon

HELLO AGAIN SHROOM :D man, you are on a roll with these asks lately akshshf

(And with game lore too 👀 you might wanna buckle up for this one because you just activated my brain worms and this is gonna be a long post. Hope you don't mind my 2AM ramblings XD)

YES, I can totally agree that, compared to Alteon and Sepulchure, Dethrix is objectively the more effective ruler/dictator, considering he did rule his kingdom unchallenged for almost 30 years (or, at least, based on the timeline that Alina provided back in 2018 on Twitter, I'm going to link that post at the end of this tangent).

However, he DID rule his kingdom with an iron fist and was more known for using fear to control his subjects over being an actually decent King. If I remember correctly from Drakath's journals, the only reason humans and monsters stopped fighting is because he enslaved the human population, killed off majority of the different factions that opposed him (ex. Good Knights, Dragonlords, Frogzard Riders, ect.) and gave power to monster underlords, so regular humans were practically powerless under his reign. The only reason he got dethroned is because he underestimated Alteon (which, okay, I can't really blame him XD)

Plus I'm PRETTY sure he was already in kahoots with the Queen of Monsters if Anka's dialogue about Drakath's backstory is anything to go by, so that's probably where he got his monster army from

So yeah, great dictator, horrible father, not surprising there XD

Alteon and Brentan though. . .

OKAY, I can kinda excuse Alteon's decision to continue Brittany's wedding because he was deeply under the influence of Chaos and wasn't in the best state of mind

(Although now it makes me wonder WHY none of his daughters or Brentan thought it was a good idea to, I don't know, ask him to DELAY the wedding until the Chaos War is over???)

But that isn't to say that Alteon has not made some. . . questionable decisions in the past.

"Ah yes, let me exile the evil King's son, who wasn't even 10 YEARS OLD at that time, simply for the crime of being born in the previous regime. That won't backfire at all :)"

"Ah yes, General Lionfang, my most loyal soldier who's TOTALLY not been committing various human rights violations behind my back, I entrust you to get information about the Darkblood's most sacred relic that can potentially cure my condition even though your distaste for all things evil are known far and wide. I'm sure you won't stab me in the back :D"

AND BRENTAN. OH MY GOD, BRENTAN.

That guy was NEVER meant to be a King, good lord. He's the Guardian of the Neverglades, so his expertise most likely revolves around more on combat than leadership, and he was probably only picked to be Brittany's glorified bodyguard while Brittany was meant to take over the royal duties in the relationship. Man was just unlucky enough that his Queen-wife died seconds after the marriage LMAO

I like Brentan as a character, but he should probably just leave the royal duties to Victoria if he knows what's good for the kingdom askfkashfgh

SO YEAH, RANT OVER :D if you couldn't already tell, I LOVE lore discussions, so this was really interesting! Thanks for the brain worms Shroom <3

2018 Timeline:

https://twitter.com/Alina_AE/status/1015328522569576448?s=20&t=VV4cvj4LXmzsjfHWgeE6qA

[incomingalbatross]

If I can still offer suggestions for the "things I'd like to see you write" ask meme: Starfleet chaplain Father Brown. What Holmes was really up to during retirement. And I'm still curious about the "RTD doesn't understand hobbits" meta you mentioned ages ago.

Thank you!

I will say that I do not feel remotely qualified to write Starfleet chaplain Father Brown, but I love that concept so much... I do definitely want to read it.

---

I do want to develop a theory I can stand by on Holmes’ retirement!! Currently I am trying to restrict myself to things that could fit into canon without too obviously catering to my tastes specifically. :P (I have an answer that fits my Modern Holmes AU, but that incorporates fantasy/supernatural elements, and I don’t want to make those essential to any of the original Canon as it lives in my head. It’s hard to articulate the distinction, but it’s there.)

---

...So. I started to write some bullet points for that essay, and...here it is. Or at least here’s a decent first draft. I have’t watched any 10 in a while, so it’s not as well-sourced as I’d like, but it’s here!

(WARNING: Anti-RTD content ahead. If you’re a fan of his era, maybe just scroll past this post.)

So, the essence of hobbit-ness is that 

they love the mundane, prosaic and ordinary with a deep love, 

this love is not incompatible with a love for the extraordinary, the wondrous, or adventures, 

the best and strongest heroes are motivated by their love for the ordinary, 

you don’t have to be cool or special or Set Apart to be a hero, you just have to do the job in front of you and keep doing it.

RTD’s era occasionally pays lip service to these ideas, but on a deeper level consistently goes against them.

His companions often dislike their normal lives (Rose in particular), and certainly think them inferior to TARDIS life.

Ordinary people who are content with ordinary lives are often portrayed as comical, small-minded, less worth taking seriously: see Jackie, and post-memory-wipe Donna, who we’re supposed to feel is jarringly diminished by having lost memories of the TARDIS even though she is still herself. 

Our heroes are often separated from what they’re fighting for, sometimes in a tragic Frodo-ish way but also, often, because they seem to care more for the fight than the cause: see Rose and 10 treating Queen Victoria like a fun tourist attraction instead of a real actual person (I can absolutely see why she got fed up with them). The narrative is more likely to dismiss the great mass of people the Doctor just saved than to show us that, “Wow, they were so absolutely worth it.”

The human characters become Cool and Real Heroes in direct proportion to how much they are distanced from their roots and made like the Doctor. This is particularly evident in S4, with Rose appearing in a leather jacket spouting technobabble (I’ve seen multiple Rose fans highlight those echoes of the Doctor, and I think they’re right to consider it a conscious decision on RTD’s part), and with Donna. DONNA. She gets her Summit of Coolness, when “for one moment, one shining moment, she was the most important woman in the whole wide universe”... and how does she get there? What’s the best Donna’s ever been, according to the show? The DoctorDonna. The absolute best version of Donna RTD could come up with is the one where her self is half-overwritten by the Doctor’s.

A couple moments that I think illustrate these themes especially well:

ROSE: Get up, catch the bus, go to work, come back home, eat chips and go to bed? Is that it? MICKEY: It's what the rest of us do. ROSE: But I can't! MICKEY: Why, because you're better than us? ROSE: No, I didn't mean that. But it was. It was a better life. And I don't mean all the travelling and seeing aliens and spaceships and things. That don't matter. The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life. You know he showed you too. That you don't just give up. You don't just let things happen. You make a stand. You say no. You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away, and I just can't (Rose runs out of the cafe.)

The idea that “going to work, coming back home” is somehow a downgrade instead of the fundamental beauty and worth of human life is...characteristic, I think. And while Rose does follow that by saying that she “can’t” be normal not because it was “a better life” on account of the adventures, but because it involved making a stand and doing what’s right... that just pushes the fallacy a little deeper, because now she’s saying that you can only make a stand and do what’s right in any meaningful way away from home, as an adventure. That there are no battles to be fought, nothing to fight for, in the course of “going to work, coming back home.”

Then there’s “End of Time”:

WILF: No really, just leave me. I'm an old man, Doctor. I've had my time. DOCTOR: Well, exactly. Look at you. Not remotely important. But me? I could do so much more. So much more! But this is what I get. My reward. And it's not fair! Oh. Oh. I've lived too long.

I know the Doctor follows this by making the sacrifice. But...what kind of hero says things like that out loud? What kind of hero thinks “I ought to live instead of you”? And the thing is...I feel like we’re supposed to feel it’s tragically unjust. We’re supposed to feel the Doctor is worth more, because...what? The man he’s saving won’t live as long as the Doctor would have? The man he’s saving is human?

Those lines should never have been said, because they never should have been presented as a perspective with any validity. The Doctor should have enough love and reverence for life that he jumps to save this life for its own sake, sacrificing himself because he feels Wilf is worth it, and not because he feels the unjust universe is somehow making him do it. That’s not necessary to being a good person, but it is necessary to being the type of hero that the Doctor usually is.

And “School Reunion”:

SARAH: I waited for you. I missed you. DOCTOR: Oh, you didn't need me. You were getting on with your life. SARAH: You were my life. You know what the most difficult thing was? Coping with what happens next, or with what doesn't happen next. You took me to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, you showed me supernovas, intergalactic battles, and then you just dropped me back on Earth. How could anything compare to that? DOCTOR: All those things you saw, do you want me to apologise for that? SARAH: No, but we get a taste of that splendour and then we have to go back.

...I have SUCH conflicted feelings about this episode. On the one hand, I adore Sarah, and K-9, and seeing those reunions, and I really love how much this episode meant to David Tennant, and this basically got us the Sarah Jane Adventures which are way up there on my favorite DW content ever. On the other hand...this is such an injustice to Sarah. They took one of the strongest, most independently adventurous characters in all of Classic Who and reduced her to this...droopy, pining figure, who it’s implied spent the last thirty years moping around because Nothing On Earth Can Compare To The Doctor’s Life! :( :( :(

(And then of course SJA itself proved that wasn’t the case, by presenting her as having a life full of adventures and contacts and importance entirely without the Doctor. Which is part of why I love it--although the other part is that everyday life is presented as precious and important, because she has a kid and the problems of Kids and Family and Parenthood are given full weight. <3 )

In short: I think that, on the whole, RTD’s era expresses his own biases towards believing that Cool Adventures and Special Powers and Being Important are inherently worth more than Normal Life and Normal People and Home--which is the antithesis of everything Tolkien embodied in hobbits and the Shire. It’s also not Chestertonian, incidentally, or Narnian (see Rose’s speech above--there’s a reason the Pevensies had to go home eventually, and learn to see Aslan and His work in their own world).

(It’s not entirely like that, of course, but I feel like even the episodes that revolve around the Doctor being Tragically Unable to have a Normal Life do so by...exoticizing the idea? I dunno. We always know it’s not going to happen, and it’s not supposed to happen, so I feel like it’s always a little hollow. And it’s definitely outweighed, in terms of quantity, by the sheer number of instances where being a normie is completely dismissed.)

So there’s my essay! :P

[kitsbookshelf]

The Twilight Saga: a detailed review of why I can’t stand them and love them in (almost) equal measure

Before I start this borderline scathing review, I just want to let you know that it's full of spoilers, so if you haven't read the books, look away now. This is your only warning.

Now that that's out of the way... I can't stand the Twilight saga. Twelve-year-old me is cringing at my hatred for it, and Twilight fans are waiting to set me on fire, but it's true. I think they're poorly written, and there are soooo many parts of every book that just...missed the mark, at least for me. Let's start at the beginning, with the first book: Twilight.

Bella, our darling main character, moves in with her dad, Charlie (let's take a moment to appreciate perhaps the only normal, mentally stable person in this entire saga), in the rainy small town of Forks, Washington.

Bella is quite a bland character, but that just makes her easier to project yourself onto when you're reading the book if that's how you immerse yourself. For me, I found her obsessive and definitely not emotionally stable, and it did honestly feel like reading the diary of a manic and very unstable 17-year-old. On one hand, that's good--I'm reading from Bella's perspective, and it's written exactly how I'd expect her to write--but on the other hand, the writing feels...cheap? I completely blame my own taste in writing style for my opinion on this one, but I just couldn't enjoy the very boring storytelling happening here. It was all very 'tell-tell-tell' instead of the 'show-tell-show' way of writing I prefer.

Now here is where my adoration for this book comes in: Edward Cullen. Specifically, the interactions between him and Bella. They have conversations, and banter, and it's a fun little human-vampire-friendship that isn't awful to read (I will never never forgive the films for leaving some of the dialogue out, it's pure gold and possibly the only saving grace of this book). The characters felt like teenagers here, but it was only for the few short pages we got of them interacting without the overly-exaggerated brooding that our sweet Ed is known for.

The romance between Bella and Edward is...concerning. For me, I couldn't find a single bit of actual romance between the two of them beyond Bella's obsession with him and Edward's bloodlust and weird self-control thing he has for her. It felt really unhealthy, and I couldn't wrap my head around how people actually think there's romance there.

The whole James thing...I don't know about anyone else, but it felt really random. Yes, it added a conflict to the book, but I felt like there wasn't really any good development to make it more relevant. That all seemed to happen later with Victoria, but James didn't really feel like he fit into the story very well. I think I would have preferred it if he was gradually brought in through the book, or if there was some sort of lead up to the conflict instead of just--WHAM! Tracker dude wants to kill Bella because Edward got protective and now only the final section of the book has any action.

Twilight completely had the potential to be a good vampire-human romance novel. There was no real need for the James-Victoria storyline, even in the later books. What did they add? Only the entirety of Eclipse, but that book could be taken out completely without disrupting the story all that much.

New Moon feels like a completely different book, and I actually really liked it. The writing style still got on my nerves and made it more difficult for me to enjoy the book, but the content was so much better.

Bella's spiral in New Moon really added something to her character. Instead of another book of her constant Edward-Cullen-is-the-most-beautiful-man-to-ever-exist inner monologue, we got a whole book of her.

Jacob Black was introduced, and he was a genuinely likable character (the one thing I will say is that his inability to take 'no' for an answer really did put me off him for a large portion of the book and the next one) who brought some more normality into the book. It didn't feel like I was reading an overly-exaggerated supernatural romance, and I enjoyed it. The banter between the two of them was so realistic, and I actually really loved how Meyer explored Bella's coping mechanisms and her dependency issues when Jacob phased and Bella was left without him again.

The conflict here was much more well-executed than in Twilight, with the Volturi having been mentioned before and now becoming established properly in the saga. They're the perfect villains, and I enjoyed reading about them much more than I enjoyed the rushed few chapters of James's story in Twilight. I loved how Meyer kept Bella awake the entire way home from Italy. You really got to see the sort of wild relief that she felt when getting Edward back, and I think it was well-written and made me feel like there was slightly more going on here than the forced romance in Twilight.

I really do feel like the subject of them being mates should have come up a lot sooner. Maybe some questions on how a human could be a vampire's mate, or exploring the complications of it, because then maybe Bella's obsession would have been far more understandable earlier in the saga, and it might have felt more 'organic' than the relationship I read until Bella became a newborn later on.

And now we reach Eclipse... Eclipse, Eclipse, Eclipse... I hate it. There isn't a single part of this book that I can honestly say I enjoyed. I felt like it could have been taken out completely, and it wouldn't have made a difference to the story.

The whole book felt like a filler, purely there to resolve the issue of Victoria before moving on to Bella's pregnancy and vampirism in Breaking Dawn. It didn't feel like any part of it was important, or really memorable.

Victoria's whole storyline could have been erased without destroying the saga. The only interesting thing about the whole conflict with her was that she managed to orchestrate it without Alice seeing her, and that was the one thing that kept the book rolling on instead of it being a handful of chapters of the newborns being defeated.

The one thing that this book set up was the truce between the werewolves and the vampires, and I definitely think that could have been done in another way if James and Victoria had never existed (if you can't already tell, I really don't see the point to James and Victoria, and they don't add anything to the books except for a tiny, irrelevant bit of drama).I enjoyed how Meyer wrote the love triangle, and how she made Bella love them both. It felt, to me, more realistic that Bella would feel something for Jacob after everything we read in New Moon and how much she cared about him.

Beyond those things, though, this book really did feel completely useless to me, and I couldn't wait to stop reading it and get back to something that felt like it had a decent plot.

Okay, last one (I commend you for surviving this far). Breaking Dawn.

I...didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. I think it's a good conclusion to the saga, and I like how the characters all got a happy ending, but I can't say I think it's amazing or even close.

Bella becoming a mother felt strange and disjointed to the rest of the books--she'd never said she wanted to have a baby, and had even stated that she didn't mind not having a child if it meant being a vampire with Edward. Then suddenly she's pregnant and will let herself die to give birth to the baby? It doesn't fit with what we've read of her character up to this point, and it irked me.

And the baby name...Renesme... Can we take a second to appreciate how stupid that sounds? There were so many other options--honestly, I'd have taken literally any other option--and Bella chose to mash their mothers' names together in the worst possible way. Renesme. Ugh.

Don't even get me started on Jacob imprinting on a baby. The whole thing of imprinting makes perfect sense, but why, why, why did he have to imprint on a baby? A half-vampire baby? Surely his wolf-y instincts would be telling him to get away from her, not throw him right into her tiny little arms and have him fall in love with her. I don't get it, it creeps me out, and that's all I'm going to say about it.

As for everything else... I think it was good, it just sort of felt flat to me. All of the good parts seemed to happen intermittently through the book, scattered between barely tolerable sections and parts that, in my opinion, were shoddy. It made for a difficult book to get through, but the conclusion to the saga was almost worth the trouble.

[startwithbrooklyn]

THE GREAT ND REWATCH OF 2021 / SEPTEMBER 30, 2019 // larkspur lane/the whisper box

this post is a double whammy cause they have 2 eps happen in the same day if u can believe it (thats how awful judging timelines in this show is!!)

-"hi josh..." LMAOOOOOOO

-BESS just breaking in lmaooo how many god damn times does bess just shit the bed in this show

-LOVE her frowny face at nancys closet ("my expectations are low" lmfaoooo but this would totally be me)

-"bet she meant it metaphorically" okayyy but then why did lucy say that at all? i feel like theres defo more to this story, combined with josh's cagey behavior (part of which is to get nancy to stop looking into shit d/t him and karen but still)

-"they dont accept visitors unless they're family" .....🙂

-ace "youre really good at that" to bess i fuckin love this friendship with all my heart (also love their talk at the claw mirroring nick & nancys talk in the last ep)

-also PINK AND ORANGE BESS ARE U BLIND (also 1) why tf would nancy own this and 2) where would she wear it??)

-okay wtf is vampire dip

-"boss??" see this is what i meant yesterday about nancy ruining everything for nick/george

-god DAMN she sucks at dealing with this news lmaooo that emotional competency babey + love george literally agrees to help bc she feels bad (AND nicks immediate look of "you just reprimanded me for helping her last ep and i know why youre doing this rn" lmaoooo)

-LOVE george noticing nick "shout out to jean valjean" lmaooo once again nancy would never have noticed/commented on something like that

-"get the hell out of here" was this foreshadowing for an epic dad joke for these two eps? "how do you make holy water? you boil the hell out of it" 😂😂😂😂

-so what i dont get about the whole haunting is the ball + kids' laughter but its all the emphasis on "mr roper" the adult? wtf like what kind of entity is this

-"how did you ever have a solo career??" 😂

-okay amaya's hair is gorgeous here (also "you feel like a snack" ....👀) *ahhh so the reason bess feels so off balance is bc its like a top vs a top scenario

-has anyone who's ever been to prison confirmed this is what it looks like?

-love how ace is the only employee there when they all leave so he had to fucking close the place when he goes

-why does she take the whole file? time constraints? it'd be smarter to take pics + replace it (better sleuthing) but this place is clearly not well run anyway 😂

-so this is a pretty decent cover she invents but theres no way she would get away with it so easily for a real guard

-love how ace recognizes ryan's car (+ is able to find it by driving around)

-"my father wouldnt do anything like that" LMFAOOOOOO SIS WHY ARE U DEFENDING HIM ironically, ace is actually the best person suited to engage w ryan here d/t the car accident + connection with laura being ryans SIL. its a unique set up

-i am fascinated by the concept of priests + holy water being so effective here combined with mcginnis' beliefs and basically nondenominational ghosts/seances etc after that. the show is very clearly big on diversity but definitely steers clear from too much WASP stuff yk? wonder if other stuff from christianity works against the ghosts/demons like taking refuge in a church "holy ground" or using silver etc

-"did this start after the night of sept 10?" *this is where you get the time line for the seance if you didnt know

-this is so fucking funny when u realize that patient sal talks to is actually a ghost so sal really is psycho i guess 😂

-bitchsplain/tall jar of mayonnaise 🙏🏻😌 2gether 4ever

-how did ace get this van? also heart attack when he yells at carson (but then grins at him like a goofball lmaooo)

-"for nancys sake and yours" damn she owes ace big time for all this shit

-"what do we do for 7 minutes?" ...ummm play 7 minutes in heaven lmaooo 👀🥵

-was not expecting ace to look this sexy holding an axe but okay (*ah, its his short sleeve shirt showing his arms. usually hes a sleeves guy)

-"desperate for attention" nancy (from gomber) vs "bc she's starved for attention" patrice --> lucy (and candace also...) we know nancys detective work makes her seem like an attention seeker, but what was lucy doing to make them all think that? she was trying to hide her relationship with ryan, not expose it. unless they just mean the rumors about her?

-so is patrice hiding lucy's "truth" talking about lucy being a whore or lucy being a ghost? what is lucy's secret? did patrice guess she was pregnant or did patrice's somehow garbled mind remember tiffany trying to show patrice the video with lucy on it?

-wonder what captain thom thinks of this stand off w ace lmaooo

-"like you do?" top v top shenanigans

-how awko for carson to talk to karen again like this

-"oh no" ACE 😂

-love how amaya says "be a human" like shes kind of admitting people in rich circles typically arent (^this is an interesting focus in s2 when bess's rich family rejects her, thus making her human again, but nancy embraces her rich fam and experiences subsequent moral struggle which is predicted with the wraith)

-wonder what ryan thinks he could get from the marvins (which he cant get now lmaooo)

-this damn whisper box. so many questions. who named it the whisper box? why are the ropers' old possessions still there? who decided to build a mental hospital on top of it? and patrice! she "hid lucy's secrets" hannah gruen thinks tiffany tried to show patrice video w lucy on it, which patrice then specifically says she hid in the thin mans book. so patrice knows of the thin man? can she see him? does she know he was a ghost/supernatural? she must have a supernatural sense to know about him (unless sal told or some shit) so then when tiffany shows up w/ lucy being supernatural in it patrice hides it to protect her? is this why she is "crazy" kinda like victoria? supernatural elements or ability to sense ghosts makes her unstable? this is why lucy being a ghost/nursery rhyme that she repeats makes patrice worse/"stroke"? how did patrice even get into the whisper box to put the key in the bible and get out without getting trapped? also, her dementia --> lucidity is really fucking off, some people mildly switch like that but usually with dementia they cant even register new shit anymore

-...so did bess take the ride? 👀

-interesting how celia says "your father will be disappointed" but nothing of her own opinion. wonder how much celia truly puts up with to keep everett calm and nonhomicidal

-like george asking nick follow up questions that nancy never really would have asked

🥞🥞🥞(ep13)🥞🥞🥞

-is this bitch just eating a plain pancake with her bare hand?

-"extra case load and excessive volunteering" ugh. nancy's family here are like, gross in how "good" of people they are // unrealistic, trying to paint carson in the best light/ no way ryan could ever compare (but the reality is theyre not that good of people for lying about nancy) **and shes arrogant to think shes better than everyone else ie the only one who truly lives virtuously, thinks she can do no wrong sometimes even tho using sex to cope, breaking and entering, etc is not morally "good" stuff she still thinks she is the only one who doesnt lie and plays fair (like in the pilot she lists everyone else as a suspect but herself- obviously we know she isnt guilty but no one else does. (i mean in theory we really dont, what if nancy was an unreliable narrator and was actually guilty, that would be a hella cool show)its reactions like that where she cant understand why others like the chief suspect her

-ooooh ironic that in the Good Place carson readily agrees to pay her for helping with cases as opposed to s2 in reality

-nick's house has "problems" so why does he need a lawyer? as opposed to an interior designer, plumber, or realtor?

-in the Good Place nick and george realize they are not going to work out after one date. does this failure in the Good Place predict failure in reality, or merely an easier way of figuring out the truth? does this mean that the "opposite" of the Good Place is reality, or only an opinion of what is better? (nancy says "you all like me" as her opinion of them liking her is skewed; does this then only reflect nancys version for what is the "perfect life"?)

-why is bess a hippie??? and love how george curls her hair and wears pink lipstick here

-if this dream is so realistic then why is the one thing it cant conjure smoke? like how random

-love the locket being a key realization bc with things like jewelry you dont notice the weight of them until theyre gone

-"you all like me" in her perfect life nancy means they "like" her objectively/regardless of circumstance even though liking her is still an objective choice (like they "like" her because of other reasons instead of her working at the claw? (like how you make friends with coworkers/people at school every day but after you leave the job/graduate you never speak to them again) and her "thanks for showing up!" as if theyre not doing exactly that in reality 😐like where is she getting this shit? she sort of acknowledges in earlier eps she is hard to like/that she puts mysteries before friends, but also pushing them away to avoid danger like the previous ep "why do u show up" etc

-is it just me or does the inside of nicks "house" look like the drews'?

-nick has a dick scar lmaooooo (or more likely was hit in the balls or smth)

-love how nick + george match their anger in confronting sal 100% on the same level

-so when did ace go back to work after having such a busy day earlier?? lmaooo

-damn father shane is a creep (casting defo hired him for his voice) and how tf did he just poof + escape? and what did he request???

-love bess's white hair bow here 😌+ her jacket, whole outfit on point as usual

-like how bess is right that nancy has to find her way out but thats kind of a nonstarter for a room full of panicked people wanting to help

-in the Good Place theres no bad blood between drews + hudsons bc nancy is really theirs

-"the only one who has the key is you" in the Good Place nancy has the key (smaller picture, to finding out what happened to lucy but bigger picture, post-reveal) but ryan has the clues nancy needs- following the Good Place's mirroring, this just means that in reality ryan will either be completely useless or an active hindrance (but you KNOW this is a dream bc in what universe would ryan remember clues like that 😂)

-so in a perfect universe ryan acknowledges his family's "criminal empire" as opposed to reality where he only makes under cover jabs about disengaging with being an "entitled corrupt legacy criminal" ie finding the bonny scot relics but does nothing about them, etc

-"strippers" 😂

-okay what is nancys obsession w her beanie?? bc her mom made it? "wear beanies do crimes?" idk

-making the call: nancy -unable to make up for lost time/both her mothers had to find out/suffer alone / in the Good Place nancy was able to be with kate while she called, and in reality she had carson; somethig about seeing the mother looking to the daughter for strength in the Good Place instead of the reverse (which is what reality sounded like, kate being strong for nancy through the illness despite the struggle)

-concept: nancy & nick "let's wait out the storm"

-"i believe that you believe it" nick in the Good Place + owen in reality both trust nancy when she says she's seen things (owen's is the teeth) but nick in reality (and not really knowing details) doesnt think much of their "moment" bc it wasnt real (so she had to leave the Good Place to save carson- but if she had known then he wasnt her real dad, would she have stayed to be w nick?)

-stranger - suede james 💙👌🏻

-"really anxious as a kid" v telling bc of her desire to know everything to remain in control of situations like she always does now

-"the medicine or the metaphysics?"/"you cannot beat supernatural with science"

-i love nancy playing with her pinky while saying goodbye 🥺

-"always seek out the truth even if it hurts" this is straight irony bc kate never told nancy anything. like does that include the truth about nancys parentage? they taught her to seek out the truth, but who taught her that the truth is the only thing to live by? ie things dont count anymore like carson and kate straight up raising her is tossed out bc she finds out its not "the truth" like all that work/stress to protect carson + she just drops him? with kate maybe shes just upset thst she spent all that time mourning for someone who lied. and would she do the same to ryan if needed? probably

-bess and ace head tilt 💙

-like how for all the time she spent there nancy only has a subconscious memory of blue curtains

-YESSSSS i LOVEthese beautiful overhead shots of hannah's hands. so out of character for the show lmao but so gorgeous

-i feel like future eps/grand future will be nancy going through the lock boxes to help people who asked hannah for help

-the video is officially dated Aug 22, 2019

-soooooo in the first ep nancy breaks into the hudsons house and finds tiffanys secret drawer w the nail polish and finds the amulet with a note that says "for your protection HG" yet on this video tiffany says she talked to a medium who gave her the amulet sooooo am i just confused? HG is hannah gruen obvi so is the address for the medium what hannah gave her? or was the address on the amulet which nancy dissolved in salt water to see? so how would tiffany know where to go? its chicken and the egg which came first hannah or the medium?

and lastly:

i close these two eps with a thought that everything in this show is sealed in death. all the lies, the imagery, the fake constructs people put up to get by all crumple the second someone dies- all the secrets come clean just like these doors have been unsealed.

[ghost-in-the-hella]

If you're still doing prompts, how about L: “Loving you is easy. Living with you takes some getting used to.” for Chasemarsh? Seems fitting for those two. ;)

I’m going to level with you here: I never thought I would write chasemarsh, ever. As someone who was bullied hard by girls a whole lot like Victoria when I was a teen, I’ve never super gotten her appeal. And since Victoria canonically bullies Kate to the point of (attempted or otherwise) suicide... Yeah, chasemarsh isn’t really my cup of tea to be honest. So I hope you don’t mind that I went a bit AU with this one and set it in a universe where they didn’t go to school together and therefore don’t have that bully/bullying victim dynamic.

---

Victoria’s never been an easy person to live with. She knows this about herself. A lifetime of excessive familial wealth compounded by parental neglect has left her utterly incapable of being a good roommate. She tends to forget that people who do not keep her insomniac hours do not generally appreciate loud music after midnight. That if you’re sharing a DVR with someone else they think it rude if you delete their shows to make room for your own before they’ve had a chance to watch them. She forgets that dishes left scattered around the apartment will not migrate to the dishwasher by themselves and will, in fact, grow mold if left to their own devices for long enough. That dirty clothes, too, do not magically launder themselves when you do not have servants to take care of them for you. That roommates, for that matter, are not servants and do not appreciate being treated as such. 

She’s lost more roommates than she can easily keep count of, honestly. 

And so Victoria has gotten used to living alone. It’s not necessarily her preference - she can’t cook worth a damn, for one thing, and she gets lonely much too easily - but it has long been her lot.

Until she met Kate. Beautiful, sweet Kate, who’s never had a roommate flee the apartment in terror or in fury once in her life. Good, kind Kate who never raises her voice, never turns aside a person in need, never has a rude word to say about anyone. Lovely, sensitive Kate who opens up to strangers like they’re her oldest friends, who trusts so easily and so completely, whose smile could make the sun rise on command.

She’s exactly the kind of girl Victoria would have absolutely tortured in high school without knowing why she felt so compelled to ruin her life. But Victoria’s twenty-eight now; she’s a grown-ass woman with a masters degree who hasn’t lived under her parents’ roof in almost a decade and who has finally found a decent therapist, and so when she met this humble, gentle, adorable woman she asked her out for coffee like a normal human being instead of tearing her down like the closeted, self-loathing bully she used to be.

One coffee date turned into weekly coffee dates, which turned into twice weekly dinner dates, which turned into changing their NodFace statuses together, which turned into Kate packing up her ludicrously undersized apartment and her cat and moving into Victoria’s ludicrously oversized apartment with her.

It’s been almost five years since Victoria officially deemed herself incapable of cohabitation and gave up on attempting to share her living space (it’s not like she can’t afford rent on her own, after all, so why subject others to her awful living habits?). Living with Kate after living alone for so long is… It’s wonderful, honestly. Weird, definitely, but wonderful. Kate’s aged and one-eyed rescue cat, Nicodemus, has already claimed Victoria’s most comfortable recliner as his own property, clawing the suede to shit and coating it with a thick layer of white fur. He sleeps at Kate’s feet most nights, and the sound of his purring is almost as restful as Kate’s soft and even breathing. Kate makes tea at least twice a day - usually Irish breakfast in the morning and camomile or something fruity at night - so the kitchen always smells warm and welcoming. When Kate has time she cooks, and when she doesn’t they either have leftovers or Victoria orders in. Kate never forgets her turn to clean out Nico’s litter box, never forgets to put her dishes in the dishwasher, never neglects to put her laundry right in the hamper where it belongs.

Kate’s great to live with. The perfect girlfriend and the perfect roommate. 

Victoria is… trying. So hard. She’s trying to remember to at least put her dishes in the sink or the washer instead of leaving them around the house until she runs out of clean dishes. She’s trying to make sure her laundry actually finds its way into the hamper, and she succeeds about eight times out of ten. She’s trying to remember to feed the cat when it’s her turn, to not delete Kate’s shows off the DVR, to not make too much noise when she wakes up in the middle of the night, to only take up one space in the driveway. She’s trying to clean up her own messes. She’s trying not to take advantage of Kate’s generosity.

Victoria is trying, but Victoria is failing. She realizes this when she returns from her morning jog and finds Kate curled up with Nico in “his” chair with her morning cup of tea and tears rolling down her cheeks. The coffee table is crowded with photography books, Victoria’s coffee cups from the last three (at least) days, and the Chinese takeout containers from last night that Victoria had sworn up and down she would put in the fridge. The smell of expired Chinese food nearly drowns out the earthy scent of Kate’s tea completely. Beneath that, Victoria can smell the litter box she was supposed to scoop out this morning before she left because it’s her turn and she forgot again. There are several places on the floor where it looks like Victoria melted into a puddle and left her clothes behind as they fell from her liquified body.

Kate looks up over the mess to Victoria, her sweet brow creased and her gentle eyes shimmering with tears. 

“Katie…” Victoria’s eyes dart around the room, taking in the now obvious overwhelm. “I’m sorry. I’ll clean it up. I’ll fix it. I’m so sorry.”

Kate gestures helplessly at the disaster of a room around her. “Tori, I… This is horrible. I can’t relax like this. I’ll help, but I can’t do all of it. I’ve got work in an hour, and I can’t--”

Tears spring to Victoria’s eyes. Her head is spinning. She’s been here before too many times: a roommate cowering in horror of the trainwreck that is Victoria’s life, absolutely at her wit’s end with Victoria’s failings. “Katie, I swear, I’ll do better, I promise. Please don’t leave. I know I’m a mess, and this is all my fault, and you can’t take it anymore, but please don’t hate me. Please stay with me; I can’t lose you.”

“Hey,” Kate says tenderly, uncurling her hand from around Nico to beckon Victoria over. “Tori, sweetheart, I’m not leaving and I don’t hate you. I love you. Come here.”

Victoria wades through the mess and kneels by Kate’s side. Nico’s cool, wet nose sniffs at her forehead a couple of times before he loses interest and resumes sleeping on Kate’s lap, blissfully oblivious to Victoria’s heart breaking in her chest. She rests her head gratefully on the soothing warmth of Kate’s thigh, and Kate’s hand rests lightly in her hair, stroking it soothingly. “I’m sorry, Katie. I know I’m a nightmare to live with. I should have warned you before you moved in so you wouldn’t be stuck with me.” Tears weigh down Victoria’s eyelashes as her brain counts up her countless failings as a life partner and as a human being. “I don’t know why you love me,” she mumbles. “I’m a miserable person. I’m unloveable.”

“Victoria Chase,” Kate says softly but in a voice that brooks no argument. “You are not unloveable. Loving you is easy.” She glances around and giggles a bit despite her red-rimmed eyes. “Living with you takes some getting used to.” She brushes Victoria’s bangs out of her teary eyes gently enough that Victoria can actually believe that she is beloved. “But hey. We’ll both work on it. Together. Okay?”

“Okay,” Victoria sighs into the comfort of Kate’s skin, and she lets the tension drain from her shoulders. She isn’t perfect, and she never will be. But she’s becoming a better person every day. And if Kate is willing to stay with her through it, maybe she can become a better roommate, too.