#actually wait i think that might be camilla

[bisexualgenderclown]

genuinely obsessed with how harrowhark has exactly two (2) big viable ships and literally both of them follow the dynamic of

“gf who cannot credibly claim to have smiled for longer than 15 non-consecutive seconds in her entire life” x “gf who hasn’t lost her smug grin even once even when everything absolutely and objectively sucks ass for her all the time”

like harrow clearly has a type

[bloodreddemons]

Hazbin Hotel Episode 1-4 Hot Takes! ~

They finally dropped. They are finally here, and I have A LOT to say. (Good & the bad, my opinions of course.)

Episode 1 was kinda boring and it just seemed overall weird and off. It didn't really pick back up that well, or align with the pilot too much, and the pilot slapped.

I feel like for those who haven't seen the pilot would be so confused with what is going on or who the characters even are. It feels like you also have to do a bit of digging to actually figure out other details.

I wasn't expecting to like Adam he was funny asf and I loved his singing. Love Alex Brightman he's great.

I can see what people are saying now when they were talking about the premise changing or being different, it definitely seems that way. It just feels like it's all over the place and there's multiple things happening at once. A bit confusing.

Charlie just looks weird to me I don't know why, I kinda like how she used to look.

Sir Pentious new voice is better. Again, love Alex Brightman. Lol.

Loser, Baby, Hell is forever, Poison, & Respectless are the best songs so far. Stayed Gone is ok too tho.

I'm interested in finding out why Lilith & Alastor were gone for like 7 years. I wonder where they went and it just makes me wonder if the war against heaven was possibly planned?? 🤔

I love Brandon Roger's but I didn't really like him as Katie Killjoy I think I liked the other VA. I just don't hear Katie, I hear Bryce Tankthrust.

I wish Vivzie designed Sir Pentious with more of a steampunk look since that's what era he's from so he's not wearing almost the same exact suit every other Overlord has.

Nifty is literally fucking iconic. I enjoyed her every time she was on screen even if it was for a short time. She's so funny.

I was expecting Vox & Valentino to have deeper voices but they still sounded great.

Velvette fucking ATE I was pleasantly surprised by her. I love her so much. She's my favorite of the VVV's and her singing is so good.

Charlie & Vaggie's fight wasn't that impactful, it kinda just came out of nowhere and seemed like something that should have happened way later. It didn't even seem like such a big deal either to be an argument.

I don't really like Vox as a person for letting Valentino treat Angel Dust the way he does. Just trash. He has to know about it.

Vox is just too obsessed with Alastor. He wants his cock soooo bad it's kinda crazy. It's the most fakest beef ever. Bad meat.

I like the new VA's they're amazing, but I do really miss the old ones. Most of them.

I think Vaggie's singing is better than Charlie's and that's fucked up because singing is like her whole thing.

Camilla killing the Angel wasn't that impactful because we don't really know who she is.

I don't really care to know how they will be trying to redeem people...idk I always thought that those parts would be boring.

So far I don't think the show was worth a 4 year wait....

Huskerdust WILL be canon at this rate. They might just be the best couple.

Charlie should have lit Valentino's ass up for treating Angel Dust the way he was. She shouldn't have listened to Angel and just fucked him up. Stop crying omfg!

I get that Husk & Angel are like in the same boat & all but....is being Alastor's minion really as bad as being constantly knocked around by Valentino?

[schrodinger-swriter]

Hello, I have a scenario request of you don’t mind. How about a Vaggie or Camilla x fem s/o where they find them severely injured after an extermination. I never see much asks with these characters and I think the two wonderful women should get more recognition. Thank you, if you and have a day (or night)

Carmilla x Injured!Reader

Originally I was planning on doing both, but I don't think I'm quite ready to take on multi character posts.. not at the moment at least! I hope that's okay, Anon!

First time writing for my lady Ms. Carmine, I think I might be bisexual guys!/lh

You would only get injured if you're not by her side. As long as she's near, she's not going to let anyone so much as displace a single hair on your head. There's only three people she holds above her life, her daughters and you.

Imagine her distraught when you hobble into her office, nursing an open wound. She would keep it together for you. She wasn't there for you when the exorcists came down for the extermination, she was with her daughters. She doesn't wait for long to come to your aid, however, making you sit down in one of the seats in her office. She calls for one of her daughters to bring a first aid kit.

She is so apologetic, you can see her brows creasing in guilt as she cleans you. She's relieved, of course, that you're still here. She very open to telling you that she's happy you were able to pull through to the next day. If you work for her she's going to insist that you be on bed rest until you're healed enough to come back to work. Don't think you can sneak out of it, she's going to keeping a close eye on you.

Circling back to the first aid, she is very skilled at treating many injuries. She felt it needed in a place like Hell where you can experience the most atrocious of flesh wounds. Sure, you would heal and regenerate if the injury wasn't caused by an angel's blade, but it doesn't make it any less painful. At least, that is if you're a sinner. If you're a hell born she might actually be a little more firm in making sure you get the rest you need. You're strong, but you can't bounce back like sinners can in most scenarios.

Her maternal side shows, even if she's being stern with you her eyes soften just enough as she asks you please just rest.

[starberry-cupcake]

I have made up from last time that was about only one chapter, this time we have 5 in a row. We finished act one, fam!

previously, in harrowbean the ninth:

this happened

I want to also thank you for all your nice comments and replies, I read every single one, I promise ♥

ch. 7 to 11 summarized terribly, here we go:

it's time to cross the river

difficult task to perform

as someone who lives literally surrounded by rivers, in every direction, I can relate

my rivers don't carry ghouls though, as far as I know

I mean, there are ghost and cryptid legends, but not ghouls that stick to the windshield of a spaceship like bugs

like these ones do

so harrow and yandere twin aren't doing fantastic

yandere twin loses it in like the first 2 seconds

harrow sees the ghosts of all the ninth kids who died for her to be alive

there's water also, but that part sounds very relaxing, actually

getting covered by water but not needing to breath

I'd be there forever tbh

but we can't, because ghoulies

mercygirl is still doing sound effects like kronk

btw we're changing her name to mercygirl because it's what I've been calling her now

I have been told by a number of you that mercygirl is your camilla so I apologize for disrespecting your blorbina

I might do it again, if the situation arises, though

mercygirl is piloting the ship and emperor the fool is just chillin' until he realizes harrow is walking about and doing theorems, which they didn't think she'd be in a state to do, so they didn't tell her not to do it

these people half-assing plans, who would have thought

mercygirl calls the emperor john

emperor johnnyboy tries telling harrow to come back from her state because she's in too deep and it's becoming dangerous

mercygirl stars talking about the death of cassiopeia (another name that's easy to remember)

says cassiopeia had a ceramics collection, which makes her worthy of all my respect

harrow was thinking "five", idk what it's about

next thing we know, we're back to our gideonless retelling of gideon

in this version, teacher explains things

he says the house was inhabited previously by "ten normal human beings of the Resurrection, though half were blessed already with necromantic gifts"

I'm tired of MATH

he says they left blueprints, he tells them about the Sleeper, he tells them how not to awaken it, he tells them about the trap door, he tells them what's under the trap door, he asks them to work together...

you know what this is like

it's like reading gideon was entering a new game and skipping every tutorial they give you

and reading this is like clicking every NPC's info and reading all that they say

ANYWAY, here is where ortus 1...

wait, this is going to be confusing

I want to call ortus from the ninth "ortus 1" and the new guy "ortus 2"

because ninth ortus was the first to show up

but new ortus is actually older and also is ortus the first

we're gonna go with ortus and lyctor!ortus, for now

so, as I was saying, this is were ortus starts becoming much more insistent in these "flashbacks" about him not being the right choice

which, he's not wrong

we know he's not wrong

and harrow is saying stuff like "unless you can summon matthias nonius" (matthias nonius is becoming a recurrent thing, let's remember harrow compared gideon to him at one point)

and ortus goes "I don't understand why you chose me" to which harrow says "there was nobody else" and ortus exasperatedly says "you never did posses an imagination"

VERY IMPORTANT THING

a skeleton turns around when they're walking and says "is this how it happens?"

we'll come back to that shortly

REMEMBER IT

(I know you all remember it, you've read this already, just act like I'm dora the explorer and play along)

next chapter starts in not!dulcinea's funeral

I'm sad I used the oliver queen grave meme already, I can't use it again to express my feelings

I'm gonna use the steel magnolias scene where they laugh at the funeral instead

so, we are introduced to the famous augustine who's name I will remember

there's some conversation about first and second generations and about not!dulcinea being chosen, and Emperor Johnny Bravo says "we were all there to meet her, all sixteen of us"

MORE MATH

I guess she was the last one of these, but maybe we knew that already, I feel we knew that already

apparently, not!dulcinea was the most reluctant to slurp her cavalier, but that didn't stop any of them, not even her, so

Emperor Johnny Quest says "for god's sake" and harrow thinks "the god who became a man and yet still invoked himself, apparently"

when she's right, she's right

that's better commentary than I could make

I have to respect augustine a little bit because he asked "which one of the kiddies did her in?" and I thought that was hilarious

he is called the saint of patience, which makes my previous comment about them being named via sarcasm very correct

it's like captain planet or the power rangers but chosen as funnily as possible

they start summoning lyctor!ortus by saying that he's interested in "you-know-what", which is both suspicious and childish and the vibes of these lyctors are all over the place

augustine thinks something's wrong, which is an understatement at this point, but ok

lyctor!ortus comes in as if summoned by the gossip and harrow calls him "the next terrible part of your life" which is saying something

lyctor!ortus comes with news of the seventh beast or whatnot that's trailing them

harrow bleeds from her ears and smashes her head on the next available surface to pass out

the mood

who could blame her

this lyctor job is terrible

it's like the end of drop dead gorgeous and harrow is kristen dunst

I'm not explaining that, in case you haven't watched a classic

we are back to the "flashbacks" and we've got a special appearance from the fifth

*studio audience claps and cheers*

they say they prefer to look into books than going downstairs, which is something one would consider if one had known what the fuck was downstairs from the start

abigail also does sound effects like mercygirl, it's catching on

abigail finds a piece of a recipe note that mentions an M and a Nigella

still no G&P

we know nigella is the cav of cassiopeia, the ceramics collector

I remember nigella's name because of the cook, which makes it funnier that it's a recipe

M could be mercygirl

abigail also gives harrow a note

abigail says that she'd like to summon the ghost of a lyctor but she's not sure how that could work or where they go when they die

ortus, magnus and abigail, in this gideonless version, are a polycule

I am convinced of that

while they're talking, magnus says "is this really how it happens?"

REMEMBER I SAID WE'D BRING THAT BACK

IT'S BACK

abigail starts telling harrow that she's got the energy of a lot of dead kids in her and harrow storms out

harrow gets angry when ortus calmly agrees about things and she doesn't want to look into why

I WONDER WHY THAT IS

harrow looks at abby's note again and now there's text on it

it's a longer version of the note she found before

it's a rant

it mentions dead eggs, implantation, some guy being sent after the OP, said guy taking pity on OP

OP is mad about all of this and doesn't use punctuation

what ortus reads isn't what harrow reads, once again

NOW THIS BIT

"ortus, I need a cavalier with a backbone" "You always did and I am glad, I think, that I never became that cavalier"

the gideon points keep adding up

harrow then goes to sleep and is like this

final thing in act I, in chapter 11, is harrowbean stabbing not!dulcinea again, which

always make sure, it's like resident evil in here

just in case, let's stab her a bunch of times

so, are these "flashbacks" happening in real time whenever harrow isn't conscious?

is it her trying to remember what actually happened?

or is it her trying to hide it?

was there actually a longer period of time between the defeat of not!dulcinea and the emperor Jon Arbuckle coming to pick them up?

a period of time in which harrow learned things that made her write those letters?

and in which something happened regarding gideon?

is the note of the implantation also related?

why was gideon born in space?

of course I'm not asking you, please don't spoil anything, I'm just asking the void of desperation and chaos right now

we'll see if any of this gets answered soon or if I just get more questions

also, guess who wasn't mentioned

see you on the next one!! I'll try to get back to the awesome replies I've been getting soon ♥

[fleetingcalypso]

Hello! I just stumbled across your blog, and find the way you write and portray Henry in your stories absolutely captivating. I just finished reading the book for the first time ever today and managed to do so without seeing any spoilers beforehand, so safe to say that Henry's suicide blindsided me completely. In hindsight it made complete sense, but I'm still in denial about it and would love a story about him actually surviving his wounds. Henry gives me the vibe of hiding everything that was happening from anyone but those in the Greek class alongside him, which, in my opinion, would even extend to his partner as well. I think it would be really interesting if his partner comes to visit him in the hospital after he's just woken up (ignoring the logical fact that he'd probably be heavily brain damaged) and is just absolutely devastated because she/they thought he was genuinely taking his life because he was depressed. To me, even then I don't see Henry fessing up to what's actually been happening, and I think it'd be cool to see the way he would try and talk his way out of it. (Henry seems pretty closed off emotionally, but I'd love some genuine hurt/comfort, only if this idea intrigues you of course.) thank you! (:

≋ The dread of losing a loved one, the knowledge that someone's time could have come faster than expected, the paranoid of could have happened had help on arrived on time, the fear of the future holds. These feelings are not foreign to me. At any rate, everyone sails away from Ogygia one day or another, I am accustomed to it. For anyone else, I want to emphasize that themes of this narration are quite heavy, if need be please don't be afraid to reach out to me for help or simple communication. You're not alone and you are deeply loved. Going back to Henry, I am of the opinion he'd try to manipulate his way out of a truly meaningful conversation. He's quite the orator, after all.

≋ Henry Winter x GN!Reader ≋

≋ Word Count: 2190 words.

≋ TW: Attempted s*icide, angst, manipulation, reader feels an exorbitant amount of guilt, somewhat hurt/comfort.

≋ CW: As the themes are quite heavy and Henry is a pragmatic, stoic character, I feel like there could not be much comfort in a scenario like this. He'd be too busy trying to find another way to get out of the mess he's in, to take the time to comfort his loved one. I beg your forgiveness for not including most of the genuine comfort you were searching for, but if you were to enjoy this nonetheless, I'd be thrilled.

On my way to Henry’s hospital room, sprinting through the haunting sterile hallways I ran into Camilla Macaulay, a girl -the only one- in his class, she was just here to bring him some flowers she’d tell me before her body began trembling trying to hold back sobs and I was left to watch her scurry away, I could not get a word in to ask her anything at all, if he was awake, if he was alright, why he did it, why they all waited days before telling me he had tried to end his life. The intensity of the drum beating in my chest could barely compare against the headache I brought upon myself, drowning in my own salty tears. 

I nearly went into cardiac arrest when I spotted him, the only thing reassuring me that he still had a pulse was the rhythmic movement of his chest, rising with each breath he took accompanied by the beeping of a heart monitor I can’t bring myself to glimpse at. “I can feel you staring.” He said, his croaky voice already tugging at my heartstring. I can’t look away even if I wanted to: it’s a sight I never thought I’d see, as abominable as it is I fear that if I avert my gaze then the puzzle pieces might never fall into place and I might never know the motive of his extreme action. 

Does he hate me? I can’t help but wonder if during what could have been his last breaths he thought of me, if maybe he wished I was there to stop him and remind him of how loved he is. The image of him searching for my body next to his as he collapses lifeless makes me shudder. I come to the conclusion that I failed in everything when it comes to Henry. Not being able to read between the lines, I barely scratched the surface of him while I thought I was in deep waters. 

He was content in life, I think. Yes, in one moment where exhaustion took ahold of him and he was more asleep than awake, in the comforting hiding place under my blankets he confessed to me that he had a lot on his mind. I never could have imagined it would lead to this: two gunshots to the temple, according to what Richard -another one of his classmates- told me over the phone, the second being triggered by the gun’s recoil.

I wasn’t there, I thought at that moment, Henry had taken a gun to his head and I wasn’t there. Henry had tried to kill himself and I wasn’t there. He could have been lying in a pool of his hot blood, flowing out on the ground and expanding like a stain on a white shirt, and I wasn’t there to hold him in his possible final moments. He could have died and I would have found out thanks to a desolate phone call from a stuttering man I didn’t know that well, or maybe even from a serious police officer just doing his job. Nonetheless, Henry’s finger had pressed the trigger in front of a handful of people and I wasn’t anywhere near him.

Cement bricks become chained to my ankles, getting heavier and heavier with each hesitant step I take towards him. I would have flown to him if I could have, crashed at the side of his bed, thrown my arms around his neck in ecstatic joy for his survival, kissed him a thousand times for each second I spent unaware of his whereabouts or his feelings.

“How do you feel?” I foolishly ask, being rewarded with his eyes cracking open and settling on my figure which I know will look indistinct and blurry to him given the absence of his glasses on the bridge of his nose, “Dead,” he answers me. To think the fierce storm he held in his irises was something that could very well have been a sight no one in the world could have appreciated in full. 

The mattress shifted and dipped under my weight when I sat at the edge of his bed, the chair at his side remaining empty. I wanted to feel him, touch him, try to be as close as possible and a sad little chair putting even the smallest of distances between us was the last thing I desired. Reaching towards the night table I found his glasses with ease, the only other things sitting on the surface were a pack of unopened Lucky Strike cigarettes, his wallet and the fragrant bouquet of flowers his friend had brought. I cleaned the lenses with a handkerchief and then tried my best to not look at the seemingly infinite bandages wrapping his head as I set the glasses on his face.

He blinks once, twice, thrice before he finally sees me as I am, without a hazy cloud over my face.

“Well, you’re not,” I inform him, swallowing the ‘what-if’ stuck in the middle of my throat, “By a miracle, I heard a nurse say. A miracle saved you Henry, do you hear how lucky that sounds?”

“I hear you.” He exhales, a sinkhole forms in me when I catch that small tone of disappointment hidden layer after layer under his voice, “Lucky indeed.” It’s dreadful how he keeps his gaze low, set in my direction but never quite reaching my eyes. It’s even more embarrassing to admit I do not understand him, I haven’t been able to do so since the very beginning.

That is to say, me not understanding him, does not mean I do not love him. He’d been the best lover a human being could ever ask for, there were no fights, no arguments, no disagreements, just pure unapologetic passion. Only once did we not see eye to eye and even then it was soon enough resolved over a glass of whiskey and a couple cigarettes: when he travelled to Rome with his friend Bunny without so much as a “I’ll be back soon,”  leaving me worried to no end as to where he might be.

“Talk to me, Henry. What happened?” I knew what happened of course, he’d shot himself in the head, but what I craved wasn’t a rundown of events, a bullet point list of the movements he made to get two bullets in his cranium. No. I desperately needed some way to understand what led him to attempting to do such a drastic thing. Were there signs I missed? Was I not loving enough? What hurt him so much? Was he truly that miserable in life, and if so, how had he hid it so well?

“Don’t cry,” he said, lifting the one arm that did not have the tube connecting him to the IV drip, his finger made contact with the corner of my eye and only then did I realise the salty diamonds rolling down my cheeks. I did not want to cry in front of him, not if it would add onto his miseries. As if I was kneeling in a confessional I have to come clean, I did not think I had any more tears left in me after having cried myself to sleep the night prior. Guilty of not appreciating the beauty of Selene as she brightened the darkened world, guilty of living only for the hospital doors to open and seeing him again.

“I have to ask, you know I have to.” Now that I was aware of the tears, nothing could have stopped the stinging feeling that seemed to spread from my eyes to every inch of my being, “Why did you do it?” There was no sugarcoating it, he’s never been one to beat around the bush and he often would not appreciate me going around in circles trying to find the nicest way to say or ask something. 

His jaw clenched and I watched hopelessly as Adam's apple bobbed in his throat. His lips parted but no sound that made proper sense came out. In my head I had already formed some hypotheses, none of them struck me as much as what he said. “I had to.” He apathetically said and I vaguely registered the sharp pain in my palm as my nails digging into my skin to stop my body from doubling-over and breaking into a gut wrenching sob.

“I-” Never has my mind been blank like this moment, it made so much sense and none at the same time,“I- Just- Why? Give me a reason- a concrete reason, Henry.” I all but begged him, sniffling like a whimpering child. That was exactly how I felt, like a child: small, lost and with no way to do something that could actually make a difference. 

Through my glossy vision I observed as he stiffened in pain while he shifted in his bed trying to sit up, the bedsheets moving along with his every movement made me nauseous. They weren’t supposed to be hospital ones, he wasn’t supposed to be here in the first place, this should have never happened. Alas, it has happened and he is not sitting in the armchair he claimed as his own in my apartment, reading a book and letting the cloud of smoke from his cigarette expand until my entire house looks like a misty field.

Ignored and useless was my attempt to stop him, to get him to lay down and not do anything straining, “Come here,” Instead he requested, hinting towards the spot he’d left on the bed, right next to him. Sheepishly I shuffled to his side, my back against the bed’s headboard, hoping and praying that no nurses would spot us and ask me to move away. His arm found its way around my shoulders, pulling me into a protective side hug and I shattered in small, countless, infinite pieces: a pathetic catharsis. Broken sobs, gasps and hiccups filled the room yet i could hear him over the sound of my desperation, “Don’t cry,” he’d say softly in my ear, “There’s no need to cry,” he’d insist kissing my temple, “Everything is going to be fine.” He’d promise me solemnly, with his enchanting way of making me feel like his words were gospel.

My heaving breaths did everything they could to send oxygen into my lungs, but air was not what I needed. Henry was my air, and the idea that I could have lost him for eternity plagued me, it made me look over my shoulder each moment expecting to see the grim reaper. The panic I felt gave me the strength to cling onto my lover as if he was my only lifeline, as if my love filled embrace could be the only thing able to bind him to the mortal realm. I know that could never be, sadly. Love, as much as it is a primordial force in the world, rivalling hate and rage, oftentimes can’t be the holy saviour we need.

“Why?” I found myself once again begging, I could not accept his previous answer, I pitifully needed something concrete, something I could fix. Before I could break into sobs again he leaned even closer, his lips moving against my hairline, his voice barely audible - like he was telling me a secret- only for me to hear, “I have been through some dark moments of my life, ones that I have never mentioned to you, not because I do not love you, the very opposite of it. I love you, my love for you is as incandescent as the sun, you know it, certainly. I did not want you to be concerned with those parts of me, hidden pieces that I rarely even let myself recognize as part of myself. Your pure hands should never be dirtied with the corruption that runs free inside of me. Cease your tears now, it is okay.” 

“So instead of letting me help you, you decided to just shoot yourself?!” It might have been harsh, but I felt at an impasse, raising my voice was my undignified way of getting ahold of control over life, “Are you listening to yourself? What about me? What would I have done without you? I’d do anything for you, isn’t it obvious?! I don’t care what you’re hiding, I don’t care how corrupt you think you are, I love you and I want to assist you through the darkest times of your life.”

He seemed to think about it, perhaps my words had made an impact on him or perhaps he was just tired of arguing with me. When he kissed me, slow and delicate, that was enough for me to postpone the debate I was already preparing in my head. I'd talk his ear off about letting me be a hand in easing his burdens when he would be well enough to be discharged and go home. “I want you to live forever,” Henry all but implored me and I just nodded. Whatever in the world could I say other than yes, but on one condition: he was to live alongside me.

[deadricslover]

little admirer

here's my masterlist!

a/n: I've been stuck for ideas I'm sorry I've been gone :/ but hopefully I will get back into the routine of posting! this is also shorter than usual but I didn't want to drag it out lol

summary: you always hated getting bombarded by 'fans' of Bruce and the paparazzi. You didn't think this encounter would be any different but you were wrong. It was actually one of the most wholesome ones and definitely your favourite.

warnings: this really isn't about Bruce but he's the boyfriend ok? so...ya. and scars I guess NOT PROOFREAD

pairings: bale!Bruce Wayne x gn!musician!eader

-------------------------------------------------

When you looked out the window and saw the crowds of people outside, your fear reached its pinnacle. The only thing you wanted was to spend your anniversary with Bruce alone, free from intrusions other than kisses, of course. Yet that was all wishful thinking. It was obvious that it would not occur. Given your animosity for the paparazzi, Bruce had made an effort to ease your fears, but in reality, you both knew you would just have to get through it. You might have thought you would get used to it since you were also a fairly well-known musician, but not as much as Bruce, the prince of Gotham. However, Bruce took your hand and urged you to break the habit of chewing your nails while staring at the crowd.

"how do they even know you're here?" to ask turning to him

he huffs and shakes his head in thought. "I don't know. maybe someone saw us walking in"

"can we not go to dinner in peace? I mean.." you were at a loss for words, you didn't know how people could be so invasive and inconsiderate.

"I know. I know" he soothes gently kissing your hand and stroking your opposite shoulder whilst his arm is around your back.

"do you want to just get it done?" he inquires and you knew it was the smart thing to do even though you didnt want to. at all.

"yeah sure" you reply turning away and grabbing some last minute things off the bed. On the way out of the elevator, Bruce gently yet firmly places his hand on your waist in order to keep you close. Cameras flash, questions are thrown as you try to make your way through the flood of people. Bruce usually liked to put away a minute or two for some real fans who just wanted a high five off of Bruce Wayne, but he wasn't so sure about right now. You encouraged him to do it, not to break tradition and said you would wait elsewhere. Usually people would recognise you, but Bruce Wayne was right there so of course nobody would pay attention to you...not that you were complaining. A couple people did ak for a photo and you kindly obliged as long as they were sincere about it. As you stood watching Bruce interact with kids and their parents, not paying any mind to reporters, you feel a little tap on your arm. You look around and notice a little girl standing next to you with loving eyes. You crouch down to the little girl thinking maybe she was lost.

"hi sweetie. Are you ok?" you ask the child glancing around to see if her parents were anywhere to be found.

"I'm very good." she replies cheerfully

"awh that's good. where are your parents?" you ask

"getting a photo with Bruce Wayne."

"ooohh. everyone wants to don't they? he's really famous" you emphasize trying to make conversation with the girl

"not as famous as you, though"

she knew who you were? that's so sweet "no no. Bruce is way way more famous than me. but thank you! what's your name?"

"Camilla. You're my favourite person, ever!" she jumps lightly squealing.

oh my- of your heart wasn't throbbing before. it sure is now. the smile on your face couldn't be bigger.

"awh that's so sweet! you're my favourite person too, Camilla!"

"can I tell you a secret" she whispers after a couple moments of silence

"of course you can" you tell her pretending to zip your lips and lock them. She rolls up her t-shirt a little to show you a scar on her tummy. Whatever caused that scar, you felt horrible, especially because she said it was a secret. your eyebrows draw together as a reaction to your reaction.

"I used to hate it and cry all the time because I thought it was weird. but then I found out that you had one too, and now I love it, because my favourite person in the whole wide world has the same thing as me!" she tells. you honestly could cry. A little girl hating something about her body ay such a young age is bad enough but also the fact that she grew to love it because you had one too?! your heart throbbed.

"I do have one. it's on my arm. But yours is so much more beautiful"

"I got mine from an operation when I was a baby" she informs you butchering the word operation as any child would.

"ooh interesting. see all those people asking Bruce for a photo? with all the cameras? well I got mine from them. one time I finished a show and was going home and they hurt me" you recall in simple terms

"my mommy and daddy hurt you?" she asks shocked

"no! not your parents. some others that don't work there anymore."

"that's sad" she replies

she looks off into the crowd for a second and waves to her parents before telling you she has to go now-- not before asking for a hugh though. you kindly oblige without a second thought and embrace the girl smiling. her parents walk over and thank you for being kind to her and watching her. you tell them it was no problem as they leave and you wave to the little girl. Right on queue the famous Bruce wayne walks over without you noticing

"she seemed to love you"

"tell me about it. I'm her favourite person ever in the whole wide world" you recall

"she's not the only one" he adds to taking your hand in his and starts walking

you smile lightly and nudge Bruce slightly "she showed me something too. she had this scar on her stomach from a surgery when she born and she used to always be insecure about it" you start

"that's horrible, she's only young" he butts in genuinely sorry for the girl

"yeah, but the nice part that she found out that I also had a scar the same shape as hers and because of that she grew to love it...all because I had one too!" you exclaim still in disbelief

"you're such an influence. that's so sweet" he responds continuing to walk. "it is isn't it?" you reply placing your head on his shoulder while strolling to the restaurant. Usually you hate the paparazzi, but this time was different, it was sincere and sweet. definitely your favourite so far.

[worrywrite]

Sometimes I think I might be taking the wrong things away from the locked tomb books. Mostly what I take away are questions. And I have three categories of questions: 1) thematic questions 2) fandom questions and 3) weird questions.

Thematic question are straightforward to me, because I tend to process them pretty basically. Questions like, "does a system of governance with an 'immortal ruler' at the helm benefit the people under it?" Or "how do faith and devotion hurt the people we love?" kind of answer themselves while I think about the books.

Fandom questions are fun and not really impactful. Like "is Mercymorn actually alive?" and "do you think Ortus has started a sword bro and poetry group in the river?" These are fine questions and fun to think about. And while these questions have implications for the story at large, they aren't particularly impactful implications or they don't tend to interact with the actual themes of the books.

But then there's the weird questions. The ones that come to mind and I go "Wait am I allowed to ask that?" because on the surface it doesn't exactly matter but also I'm curious. And the one of these that is bugging me right now is "what does Paul have goin on in their pants?" Now, of course, if they were a real person I would never ask--it would be none of my business. But Paul is a fictional character, and the answer has implications that do touch on theme and might actually impact story. Because the degree to which becoming Paul altered Camilla's body can be considered a harm consequential of her relationship with Palamedes (which is thematic). Moreover, can Paul have kids at all in any way? Because they are a powerful necromancer now, and it might be relevant to the story as it continues if they can have kids or not and if that power is passed down (heritage of power is also thematic and consequential to the mechanisms of the story). There's the fandom curiosity of "can necromancy trans your gender" too but that's less consequential. But it's also connected to the topic of "do lyctors need to eat/excrete?" Because they can eat, but it doesn't exactly seem like they need to. But their bodies can change over time. They won't age, exactly, but they can build muscle or lose weight.

And look. I know the meme answer to "what does Paul have in their pants?" is science. I'm content with that answer. But also. One? The other? Both? None? Either on a sliding scale? Changes from day to day? I can't not wonder (I accept that this makes me weird) because the question is just out there unanswered and no one else seems to be asking it. But they're a fictional character that has undergone a soul merging process wherein their body was engulfed in magical fire. How can that not make you curious about what actually happened?

[lemon-natalia]

Gideon the Ninth Reaction - Chapter 35

i totally forgot Palamedes was called the Warden and was very confused for the start of this chapter

wait Palamedes and Camilla aren’t actually a couple? i fully thought they were together this whole time

oh Gideon is such a teenager, they might all die but she’s gotta clear up the perceived love quadrangle first

oohh we’re getting to see angry!Palamedes again

i did technically realise ‘Dulcinea’ was an imposter before it was outright said when Harrow brought up here that ‘Dulcinea’ had said she didn’t know Palamedes, but since that was only revealed in this chapter i’m not gonna count it as me guessing something 

at least someone’s an imposter, even if i was totally off base as to who! also a little proud i suspected a lyctor was involved in the murders

gahhhhh and i was suspicious of Dulcinea … right up until the last couple chapters where i put my guard down! i’m kicking myself for not putting two and two together about the amount of necromantic ability needed to kill people & how Harrow noted that Dulcinea, if she was actually dying, wouldn’t have the power to animate the dead Pro

ahhhhh Palamedes whyyy, once again this book just enjoys hurting me. however becoming a ‘god-killing star’ is a pretty badass way to go i won’t lie, even if it didn’t totally work

‘the woman Gideon had kind of had the hots for’ between this gal, Corona, and Harrow, i think Gideon unfortunately has a thing for weird necromancers that have at some point tried to kill her

forget rereading with Harrow’s motives in mind, i need to go back and look at chapter 20 especially with the knowledge 'Dulcinea' is actually a Lyctor. also a lot of the main mysteries i was theorising about have been answered now, i have absolutely no idea where this is gonna go

[arithmonym]

Been thinking about your ace cam fic where she initiates and is like hm yes i am good at being a scientist. And then is like YIKES WAIT NVM. Bc ive lived that experience several times lmao and you wrote it super well in a way that i feel like fits them. It Stuck with me.

Anyway Im reading this autostraddle article you reblogged and looking at the consent chart (screenshot included) and Im curious about where you feel she falls on that chart. I interpreted it as “willing consent (when i care about you even though i dont desire you right now)” but yeah im curious about your meta on it

(fic link, for context.)

that’s a difficult question!! i don’t think there’s a straightforward answer; and camilla is an unreliable narrator in this fic, so that confounds the issue.

the way she narrates the encounter prior to her withdrawal, i think “willing consent” is the closest approximation: she doesn’t desire palamedes, but she’s making the choice to have sex with him because she cares about him, and they’re both hurting in the wake of dulcinea’s rejection. she doesn’t expect to get anything out of it except the reassurance that she and palamedes are still bound tightly together, but she doesn’t expect to be harmed by it, either (…so long as she can stop herself from thinking about how it might affect their necro-cav dynamic, which she prioritizes more than any romantic or sexual relationship they could have).

from a meta perspective, the setting of chapter two is very intentional: it’s where camilla trained as a child (first for her own benefit, then for his), and it’s where she first started to internalize the societal messaging that her autonomy was less important than her his.

(i took gymnastics for a few years as a kid, and the rope climb made me cry sometimes. i could do the other skills fine, but i struggled with the coordination required—not to mention the attention of my peers as i failed. this is camilla, ashamed she wasn’t better (at a task that objectively means nothing vis-a-vis “being a good cavalier”), because she’s grown to a point where she bases her self-worth on being useful to him.)

(then, at the end, she’s lying on her back on the mat, staring up at the bell, exactly like she’s just fallen off the rope. again. introjected conditions of worth go brrrrrr.)

the paragraph under that chart clotheslined me, because whoops, been there, done that, and i think it rings truer to what’s actually happening with cam in this fic:

even as she refuses to acknowledge it, camilla knows that she’s making a mistake. she doesn’t want to desire palamedes. she doesn’t want this to become a part of their dynamic, she wants this to be a one-off that they never speak of again (because she doesn’t really want it to happen in the first place)—but she’s also terrified of losing him. her decision to initiate rather than pull away is 100% informed by the fact that dulcinea has just rejected palamedes, and cam perceives something as simple as prioritizing her own wants/needs as a rejection, on a day when that’s a very sensitive subject. this tips the scale more towards the “unwilling” side, IMO, but it’s a huge grey area (badum-tsss, sixth house pun).

TL;DR: i think consent gets tricky in the context of cavaliers and necromancers and how all-encompassing that relationship can be!! i love all interpretations of campal, but i thought this one was worth exploring (especially as this fic is also me processing that i’m on the ace spectrum, and it reflects the struggle to work out my own boundaries with sex).

bonus: screenshot from when i first brought this fic up with my friends.

[merryfortune]

feeling bloody sick

Written for the Rarest of Rare Pairs Fic-A-Thon Amnesty Era

Prompt: Fire Emblem Fates: Beruka/Camilla/Selena - One falling sick and being taken care of by the other two

Title: feeling bloody sick

Ship: Beruka/Camilla/Selena

Fandom: Fire Emblem Fates

Word Count: 1,898

Rating: T

Warning: Choose Not to Warn 

Tags: Mid-Canon, Polyamory, Menstruation, Teasing, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff

   Beruka did not get sick.

   Sickness and whatever caused it were rightfully scared of Beruka, like everyone else ought to be as well, and that was why Beruka did not get sick.

   Of course, having a sound mind helped. She didn’t do foolish things like not washing her hands properly or standing too long out in the rain. And yet, despite continuing on as she always had with this point of pride somewhere over her shoulder, she had finally done it.

   She had gotten sick.

   And the symptoms were nothing less than baffling. 

   She was hot and cold. She was sweaty and clammy. She felt as though she had been stabbed through the gut and all she wanted to do was curl up and die in some little hole with a blanket over her. She was so ill that if she tried to sleep, she couldn’t because the pain was distracting but she was so tired, too. She could fall asleep at any second but the call of the void blared within.

   What had happened to her? Beruka analysed her past few days for what might have gone wrong but nothing came to mind. She hadn’t interacted with anyone sick nor eaten anything foul. It had come out of nowhere and affected her and her alone.

   “Selena… please…” Beruka murmured, curled over on her bed. “I… I think its my time. I trust you and Camilla to do it quickly.”

   Camilla laughed at the dramatics. This whatever it was Beruka was afflicted with was bringing out a totally new side of her and it was kind of adorable.

   “You just need to drink more water.” Selena insisted.

   “Noooo, that makes me want to pee.” Beruka whined then huffed.

   “You need to go, don’t you?” Selena asked, reading through the lines.

   Beruka nodded shyly.

   Selena sighed. “I’ll help.”

   Good thing, too, Beruka was wobbly as she crawled out of bed and almost hit the floor once she was on two feet. Selena supported her and Camilla opened the door to the ensuite. 

   They gave Beruka some privacy and waited.

   Then.

   She screamed.

   “Camilla! There is blood!” Beruka howled. Suddenly full of life and panic, just like the death rattle of a dying animal, really. “There is blood in my urine!”

   Camilla and Selena, on the other side of the door, exchanged a look. Part of it surprised, part of it amused. Either way, tinged with concern.

   Beruka hobbled over and banged on the door. She was let out as her unflappable expression was anything but.

   “There is blood. In my urine.” Beruka reiterated with distress.

   “Oh, sweetie…” Camilla cooed.

   “Are you… on your period?” Selena asked with her face scrunched up.

  “My period?” Beruka echoed back like an owl. “I’ve never had my period in my life. I-I’ve always assumed I was barren.”

   Camilla hummed thoughtfully, “Or maybe, you’re just a late bloomer.”

   “A very late bloomer.” Selena repeated but with a more dubious tone.

   “You had a hard life before becoming my retainer. Food wasn’t always on the table, you slept in tents and slums. To say nothing of the work that you were doing… Perhaps that delayed your periods until now.” Camilla theorised then laughed. “It’s kind of sweet to know that you feel so subconsciously safe with us, actually.”

   Beruka paled, puzzled.

   “That could be true, actually.” Selena agreed as she folded her arms. “My periods were spotty when I was twelve, and that’s normal since that’s when I first got them but, um, when that big disaster happened when I was around seventeen-eighteen, they all but dried up. Only resuming after we had recovered.”

   “I see.” Beruka chewed on the anecdotal data with much consideration. Her brows furrowed and she put her hand to her chin.

   “Come on, dear,” Camilla sighed with a small smile, “let’s not worry about it too much just yet. Let’s get you back to bed, let you rest up some more. Here, Selena and I will go and fetch some creature comforts for you. A hot water bottle, maybe some chocolate.”

   “Yeah.” Selena agreed.

   Beruka’s expression turned foul. Her? Get taken care of by her mistress and her fellow retainer? The idea of it made her stomach turn- oh, no, actually that was probably her period. How mortifying either way, however, and becoming the ultimate proof that they were right. She needed to go back to bed and rest up.

   “Allow us.” Selena said with grabby gestures of her hands.

   “Fine.” Beruka said through gritted teeth.

   It was disgraceful but she allowed herself to be manhandled by Selena, and Camilla too. They helped her back to bed but having a name - or revelation - to her ailment made it more manageable somehow. She felt more awake and alert than before, when she had been begging for a mercy kill over it.

   How embarrassing. Now Beruka was hiding under the covers for all new reasons. She knew she still wasn’t going to get to sleep a wink but orders were orders. As indulgent as they were. So, she laid down and rugged up, blanket to her chin as she stared across the room to the doorframe where Camilla and Selena stood.

   “We’ll be back soon, sweetheart.” Camilla bade her.

   “Understood.” Beruka croaked.

   They closed the door behind themselves and the wait was crushing. The dull stillness of the room numbed Beruka’s mind with boredom. All she had to focus on was that thrum of the stomach cramps which had yet to recede. She tried different positions to alleviate the hurt but all of them violated her conventional wisdom of how to deal with an injury. The more bunched up she was, the better she felt.

   She closed her eyes. Slowed her breathing. That helped somewhat as time passed at a glacial speed. The headache that had been lurking eased up at that and yet… Curiously returned when her ears pricked on the sound of footsteps: the paradoxically delicate clunk of armour and the stamping of a petty child in leather. No guesses as to who when the door to her room opened again.

   “We’re baaaack.” Camilla sung out.

   “And we have chocolate.” Selena cheered smugly.

   “Gee, thanks.” Beruka rolled her eyes.

   They returned to her bedside with an entire basket of goodies. A cursory glance through the contents that weren’t obscured by Camilla or the cane weaving of it, Beruka saw the chocolate and hot water bottle she had been promised. As well as sanitary napkins and some spare pairs of underwear.

   “We spoke with one of the physicians and they raised some alarm. The pain you seem to be in isn’t normal…” Camilla lamented as she sat down next to Beruka on her bed. “But they also said, it might just be because it's your first, hard to say without more of a known pattern.”

   Beruka groaned. She had decades of this to “look forward” to and that alone tortured her half as much as her damned by the gods, good for nothing uterus. Awful, just awful. She clutched her belly and raked her fingers through the flesh until it hurt good.

   “In the meantime, let’s get some pain killers into you.” Selena said.

   “Thank you…” Beruka said.

   She swallowed more than just her stoic pride on that one. She uncurled and wriggled up, allowed herself to be doted on by her partners. Beruka drank water with a mix of herbal powders. The taste was bitter but she was the last person to complain about that. Though, the fact that a cube of chocolate was offered next helped the medicine to go down.

   Camilla took far too much relish in getting the opportunity to personally hand feed Beruka. Beruka saw what she was like with her siblings, she would be needlessly cruel to deny Camilla her affectionate nature at a moment like this.

   “I hope you feel better soon.” Camilla said.

   Beruka exhaled through her nose and settled into her bed. She was now flanked - or more gently, spooned - by both Camilla and Selena. Her mistress to her right and her fellow retainer to her left. The increase in shared body temperature was going to make Beruka melt with the excess of pampering didn’t first.

   Camilla caressed Beruka’s face, wiped sweat off with her axe-calloused fingertips. She smiled and played with Beruka’s hair. Beruka went around in circles in her mind between hating it and loving it. She thought she had long since calcified any need for this sort of thing but Camilla was her greatest weakness: hence why she needed to be protected. Ugh, it just made Beruka want to get better soon yet there were more days of this until normalcy resumed for a moon’s cycle.

   “Is there anything else we can do?” Camilla asked.

   “No, all my needs are accounted for.” Beruka replied.

   “But if I had to guess,” Selena teased and poked out her tongue, “you are probably worried with how we’ll go with you taking a back seat to your duties, correct?”

   “Correct.” Beruka confirmed.

   “Don’t worry, I’m more than capable of picking up the slack.” bragged said and her hands snaked downwards, she took Beruka’s hand and started playing a game on them akin to ‘this little piggy’, “You concentrate on getting better. We’ll concentrate on everything else.”

   “Heh. Thank you.” Beruka said.

   “Never change, Selena.” Camilla laughed at the attempt of rivalry.

   All three of them knew the bond that united them was nothing quite so tumultuous but old habits broke hard. Still, Beruka appeared somewhat assuaged by that. She sank back into her bed, closed her eyes, and her expression changed: became as serene as it could be for someone like her.

   Beruka exhaled slowly and she drifted off slightly. Perhaps even dozed. Her head lolled to the side.

   “I think it's time for us to take our leave, Lady Camilla.” Selena whispered.

   “Me, too, Selena.” Camilla whispered.

   The two women were careful to dislodge from Beruka’s side so as to not disturb her. Though, her head nodded further to her left than before.

   Camilla leaned in and pecked Beruka’s temple. Beruka’s lips twitched. Camilla reared back and Selena did the same.

   “Thank you…” Beruka murmured.

   “Eeek!” Selena squealed.

   She bolted straight back. Her back straightened and the last hair on her head raised as her eyes went wide. Her arms turned to iron bars in front of her chest in having been ambushed like that - and by Beruka saying something nice, even! How dare.

   All whilst, outwardly, Beruka looked fast asleep.

   “What…?” Beruka sleep-talked. “You… you think I don’t… sleep with one eye open?” She yawned.

   “Get proper rest, Beruka.” Camilla told her. “And when you do feel better, don’t forget to clean up with what we gave you.”

   “Will do…” Beruka snored.

   Selena eased up and she put her hand on her hip. Camilla gave her a gesture and she nodded. She extinguished the candle nearby and that helped the room to darken despite the hour of the day. She also drew the curtains tighter for Beruka’s benefit as Beruka yes, still heard all these things.

   The swish of the fabric, the taps of footwear on the wooden boards but still. She appreciated it deeply in her hour of need and moment of weakness. Though by now, the medicine was kicking in by now but ultimately, she still felt bloody sick.

[paradoxcase]

Harrow the Ninth audiobook, Act 4

Mercy says shes going to be back in "about six hours" to go kill a "moonlet", but in the past we've seen Harrow kill a planet in about 8 minutes. It might take six hours to get back from a moon with our current level of technology, but somehow I don't think they are so limited in the Locked Tomb universe, since they were able to travel all the way from Pluto to Earth in an hour without using a stele. In retrospect it was super obvious that Mercy was meeting with BOE. I don't think she was intentionally leaving Harrow to meet Camilla et. al., because the only thing that was accomplished by her meeting them was just for Harrow to make Palamedes a bone arm, and Mercy a) has no reason to want this to happen, or to even know who Palamedes was, and b) could just do it herself if she did, and BOE like 100% definitely didn't want that to happen

Camilla is described as dark-eyed, and having grey/brown eyes, but I seem to remember them both having some variety of lighter grey eyes in Nona?

At the beginning of this book, Harrow thought about using her necromancy senses to verify whether or not a nun who may or may not have been a hallucination was real, which sort of implies that her hallucinations don't affect her necromancy-based perceptions of things, the way they also don't seem to affect her sense of touch, and when she sees Cytherea's body under her bed that turns out to be a hallucination, she talks about not being able to sense it. But here in this part of the book, she talks about sensing Camilla's thalergy but still isn't sure if she is actually real or not. I guess it's probably further doubt caused by her memory of seeing Camilla dead and not just her regular doubt

I think Ianthe's additions to the letter about how to deal with Corona were read in Corona's voice and not Ianthe's?

Harrow claims that the cold weather in the Canaan House bubble will interfere with her skeletons, but like, she is used to being on Pluto. I'm sure they had temperature controls, but Gideon still talks about it being ridiculously cold all the time. Or maybe it was only cold in the places where Gideon had to be, and all the places where Harrow had to do necromancy were toasty? But if cold like this interferes with skeleton constructs, they would have had to keep the general outside of their settlement warm anyway, so that the skeleton constructs they had could farm snow leeks efficiently. Like Gideon talks about it being freezing inside the church where it says there are also a large number of skeleton constructs sitting in pews. This seems kind of inconsistent

I think in Teacher's rambles, he is saying that Anastasia created him, which I think matches up to what room they found the information on Teacher in in Gideon the Ninth

Teacher also says that Canaan House is normally completely immune to seasonal weather changes, which I think must mean it's somewhere in the tropics (or maybe John has done something to it that's beyond the scope of regular necromancy)

In the scene where Alecto tells Harrow she has to go away, the text says she uses the voice of Mortus, but her voice in the audiobook is the same. I guess Mortus doesn't have an audiobook voice, so it's maybe like Harrow reading John's letter in her own voice at the beginning of the first book?

Augustine about Ulysses wrestling a resurrection beast into the stoma and going in with it: "The problem is that heroes always die." Kind of interesting that he died in the exact same way by deciding to try to be a hero at the end of the book. Although, I'm still waiting to find out that the stoma is actually something other than what John thinks it is in Alecto, and that Augustine, Ulysses, and most of the "dead" resurrection beasts are possibly not actually dead

Mercy's "I hated the sexy parties": I had thoughts about this the first time I read it, but didn't post them here because I'm frankly still not sure how many of my thoughts that have to do with sex-aversion are actually considered acceptable in fandom spaces, but since then, I've seen other people comment on this too, so I'll say it now. The fact that she was made to go to these implied-non-consensual sexy parties (and was made to go to another non-consensual sexy party earlier in this book) I think goes a long way to explain why she is the way she is. It's like how the reason that a lot of chihuahuas are so aggressive is that they are little dogs who can't hurt anyone so no one really respects their boundaries and just treats them like living stuffed animals and fashion accessories, so they feel like they have to get super aggressive to set those boundaries in a way that gets respected, whereas a larger dog doesn't have to do that because people are aware that the larger dog could actually hurt them if it wanted to. She knows that the people she has to live with for all of eternity don't care at all about respecting her boundaries, so she is forced to constantly go on the aggressive to get what she needs from them. She doesn't trust John's Cohort lackey to respect her at all, so she just disables them necromantically when they get in her way. And I think part of the reason she keeps referring to Harrow and Ianthe as literal babies is to say, you have to at least respect me more than them, right? And then Augustine has the nerve to tell her "you have made yourself unlovable". But at the same time, I feel like in this scene in this book, where Mercy's dialog also makes a direct reference to the weird entitled "it's for a church, honey!" lady, we're supposed to look at this line of dialog and say, "oh, haha, yeah, this hilarious witch is sooo not fun at parties" and it makes me uncomfortable. And we never see Mercy's side of this particular issue, even though we do get to hear her thoughts on how she was deceived by John about the nature of Lyctorhood and the possibility of not having to kill Cristabel, so it does kind of feel like we're not supposed to empathize with Mercy on this point

I think Moira Quirk accidentally voiced a line of Augustine's using John's voice? It doesn't say it's him by name, but it says it's "[Ianthe's] teacher" which I guess could be misinterpreted as being John, since he styles himself as everyone's teacher, but he's also rolling a cigarette, which I think makes it unlikely to be John, especially since Augustine is described smoking a freshly rolled cigarette later in the scene

John says about Alecto that "she was my Adam" but I'm realizing in this second readthrough that Harrow has zero cultural context with which to interpret that statement. Also sort of interesting in that "Adam" literally does mean the Earth because Adam was created from the Earth

I'm becoming unclear about the exact sequence of events when Harrow opened the Tomb and got past the blood ward. The blood ward doesn't just require John's blood, it also requires a death - they are not able to get past the blood ward in Nona until they kill Crux. So then, Harrow must have actually not gotten past the blood ward until just after her parents and Mortus killed themselves. But I'm not sure that makes sense with the way she describes it happening in this section where she's telling John about it. And she says she was still suicidal when she got past the blood ward to see Alecto, but if this happened right after her parents' deaths that means she also was also just then unable to commit suicide when her parents literally told her to, and she claims earlier that that was because she wanted to live to see Alecto wake up, but that's not possible if she hadn't been in to see Alecto yet

Moira Quirk has a very strange pronunciation of "chitin" that I could not find in Wiktionary

Ianthe: "The Ninth House knew a thousand shades of off-white." Kind of funny, when I was hiring a guy to repair damage to my wall caused by my cats, he asked me what color the paint was and I said "off-white" and he then informed me that there were in fact like a thousand different shades of off-white paint, haha

The last line in this act about Ianthe going "to see a man about a queen" is still extremely mysterious to me and I have no idea what that is about. I don't think any queens have ever been mentioned in the whole series

[smidgen-of-hotboy]

Our Angel of Brahma, pt. ix

Travelers. Friends. Mutuals. @ceaseless-watchers-special-girl @ananxiousgenz @the-private-eye @demonic-panini @gwenlena

SOUND: COMMS BEEPS. RECORDING BEGINS. MOTHERLY VOICE: I finally got a moment to myself thanks to Eber and Camilla… Thank the Goddess… I don’t know what I would be doing without them. (THE PERSON SIGHS) Where do I begin? I guess… my name would be a good start.  (CLEARING THEIR THROAT) My name is Eevee Bell, and I am one of three to four dozen Dome Wardens on Brahma. Our duty is to perform routine maintenance on the planet’s Dome, track incoming and outgoing shuttles and ships, and monitor Brahma’s severe weather outside the Dome. I love my job. I think I do my job very well. From what I’ve heard about other planets, they have robotics and computers to do this job now. Artificial intelligence that the Solar Planets spent a fortune to perfect. Of course just like with everything else though, Brahma gets left behind in the dust. (EEVEE CHUCKLES UNDER HER BREATH) EEVEE: Goddess bless our savior New Kinshasa. (EEVEE LAUGHS A BIT HARSHER) EEVEE: What happened to us though has been brewing under their noses for some time now. I guess it was only a matter of time before… something was done.  To be honest I’m still not entirely sure what did happen. I know that our alarms went off when the Reactor Core was removed, and I know they stopped going off when the Core was put back. I know that the Chief Constable called all of our stations, and ordered us to go home. I know that we have not gone back to our stations for nearly ten days. I know that if we don’t accept any imports within the next seven days Brahma will begin to suffer. And if we fall, New Kinshasa falls with us.  Cyrus called me while I was rushing to get home to Baird. He asked me how much I knew and after I told him, I asked how much he knew. He said it would be better if he came to speak to me in person. He lives across town with Iris. I told him it wouldn’t be wise to meet up so late, especially with a curfew in place. He disagreed, but I talked enough sense into him that he waited until morning to catch a tram over here to the apartments.  Baird was not enthused to see him. He was rather… indifferent, actually. I know it hurt Cyrus’ feelings, I do plan on talking about it with Baird when I can, but it’s so hard to talk about anything seriously right now. I’d rather keep things as light-hearted as possible.  I sent Baird over to Camilla and Eber’s apartment while I had tea with Cyrus. He looked so worried. He asked me if I saw the Chief Constable’s broadcast about the Revolutionary, Peter Nureyev. I have. I watched it with Baird the night before after I got home from my post. Cyrus said that he doesn’t know of any Peter Nureyevs in any of his revolution circles.  He surprised me by asking me for my thoughts about the Constable they allegedly found murdered by the Revolutionary. I didn’t at the time, and I still don’t now. Cyrus said that he has reason to believe that part was a lie. He doesn’t believe the Revolutionary killed a Constable. He thinks it might be an elaborate lie or cover-up for some more vain truth. (EEVEE INHALES SHARPLY) The revolutionaries are holding a meeting tonight. Cyrus invited me to come. He wants me there. I don’t want to get in trouble, but… I need to keep Cyrus and Baird safe. And by extension, it’s my job to keep Brahma safe.  SOUND: COMMS BEEPS. RECORDING ENDS.

SOUND: COMMS BEEPS AGAIN. NEW RECORDING BEGINS: EEVEE:  What the fuck! NEW VOICE:  What are you doing? EEVEE:  What am I doing I’m recording you idiot! Cyrus, don’t you see? If what was discussed tonight has any truth to it, New Kinshasa isn’t going to let any of this get out. More than– I bet you my next paycheck that Dark Matters is going to play a role in covering it all up! (CYRUS TRIES TO SHUSH EEVEE) CYRUS:  Alright, alright– you have a point. Keep your voice down alright the streets have ears… You really hope your little comms though is going to play a role in– This? EEVEE: Mark my word, I think my little comms will outlive both of us. If Baird’s lucky it will outlive them.  (CYRUS GROANS. EEVEE GIGGLES) Okay, okay… I attended the meeting– CYRUS: The book club. We went to a late-night book club meeting. What? Don’t give me that look. Plausible deniability, Eve. EEVEE:  Right. The Book Club. We attended Book Club and talked about the climax of a war story. In the story, the main character kills a man with radical ideas to overthrow their government. The man he killed was not popular amongst the rebels. In theory, they should have agreed with him. CYRUS: In practice, however, the rebels do not condone murdering hundreds of thousands of people. Thus the whole unpopular amongst the rebels.  EEVEE:  Of course, word got out about the man’s death, and to cover it up, the government claimed him as an Enforcer. And they were getting away with it because the last clothes the man was found in was a stolen Enforcer uniform.  I don’t know if I believe the rebel or the government’s of the story– CYRUS: Eve– EEVEE: But! But. But I do believe that it was the right call for the rebels to sit back and wait for information to trickle out to them slowly… I think I’ll need to attend the next meeting to really make sure I understand what I’m getting myself into. Oh– I’m so tired. Can we discuss all this in the morning? With hopefully less ears listening in? (CYRUS HUMS AFFIRMATIVELY) CYRUS: I’ll even let you sleep in if you let me crash on your couch.  EEVEE: Of course, I wouldn’t make you walk across town while already breaking our curfew.  CYRUS: Thanks, Eve.  (LONG PAUSE) Baird’s not going to be mad to see me, is he? EEVEE: This late at night? I doubt it. If anything he’s staying over at that Spade’s apartment probably fast asleep with Charlie. Oh, they’re so sweet together. I went to say good night to them one evening and I couldn’t kiss Baird’s head because Charlie had a death grip on his shoulders. He's always polite and entertains all of Baird’s whims… I wish you were around more to see it happen. CYRUS:  You and I both know why that can’t happen.  (BOTH OF THEM SIGH) EEVEE: You know he’s only so pouty around you because you and I split up, right? He just wants us all together again. Like a proper family. CYRUS: We are a proper family. Mom who works too hard, dad who left to get milk and never came back– see? Proper family. (EEVEE LAUGHS CAUSING CYRUS TO LAUGH) UNFAMILIAR VOICE: Hey, state your business and show your credentials. CYRUS: Shit, Constables. Run Eve! SOUND: COMMS BEEPS. RECORDING ENDS. 

SOUND: COMMS BEEPS AGAIN. RECORDING BEGINS.  (EEVEE WHISPERS) EEVEE: Cyrus and I got away from the Constables last week perfectly fine. This week on Brahma: we went to another revolution meeting. A few old timers took roll call and one of them said he had reason to believe that the person the Angel of Brahma killed was one of theirs. A man who wasn’t the least bit popular in any particular revolutionary circle. Apparently, he wanted to drop New Kinshasa out of the sky and saw it perfectly fit to kill all of Brahma in the process.  (EEVEE SCOFFS) The nerve of some people. No one at the meeting could remember his name though, and no one still knows who Peter Nureyev is outside of the photos projected on every billboard on the planet now. He looks so young. Those dark and haunting eyes and sharp teeth. I find it hard to believe that he’s just a teenager. But– he is.  I’m trying to keep my voice down right now because Baird is asleep. The meeting was held before curfew this time so Cyrus went home to Iris and I walked alone back to the apartment. Eber was waiting for me just outside and before I could say hello he was dragging me down the halls to Hank’s apartment. His dog Missy was sprawled out on the sofa but Hank, Camilla, and Josie were all gathered around the dinner table. Mrs. Darius was upstairs with Talia, Charlie, and Baird. I sat down and told them everything I could.  The revolutionaries wouldn’t let me record anything with my comms during the meeting, but there wasn’t much that I think needed to be recorded. Just talk about who was storing what, who was leaving their doors open to help others. There was a lot of talk about going on strike. Either food or labor. They want to send a message to New Kinshasa. I don’t think I can afford to do much of anything. Me and the other Dome Wardens just went back to work two days ago, we are working through a backlog of off-planet imports and exports still. If I strike alone I’ll just be fired. If all the Wardens strike, then the Constables will take over and that will lead to certain catastrophe. And if I stop eating then Baird will stop eating and he’s already so… short.  Oh– I wish I got a chance to talk to Cyrus before we went our separate ways. He’d help me think of some way I can help. Better yet, he’d probably be able to give the others here at the apartments the answers they wanted from me. Hank didn’t say anything other than telling us to get out. Eber, Camilla, Josie, and I were silent on the walk upstairs. The kids were delighted to see us. Eber walked Talia back down to Hank, Josie was trying to fill in Mrs. Darius, and Camilla and I watched the boys play some sort of game where they kept pinching each other and trying to not shriek? I think that was the objective? Children’s games used to be much less violent when I was that age. I remember when– BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY): Memma? EEVEE: Bairdy! What are you doing awake? BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY): I couldn’t sleep. You were being too loud.  (EEVEE TSKS) EEVEE: Then let’s put you back to bed alright baby? C’mon. I’ll even sing for you if you’d like.  SOUND: COMMS BEEPS. RECORDING ENDS.

SOUND: COMMS BEEPS AGAIN. NEW RECORDING BEGINS. EEVEE: I have either made the best decision of the revolution that will turn the tides in favor of Brahma, or the worst mistake of my life.  I told the old-timers at this past meeting that I work as a Dome Warden, and that a few of my colleagues seemed interested in joining the rebellion but were uncertain on how to go about it. The old-timers were delighted for a number of reasons and had drawn the same conclusion that I had a few weeks ago when a labor strike was first brought up. They think it would be very good if I was able to get some of the other Wardens on board with the revolution.  Cyrus was very quiet during the meeting. I asked him before we left if he had any opinions he was holding back, and all he said was to trust my gut. So… I trusted my gut. I told the other Wardens at my post about the meetings. I told them about going on strike. A few seemed skeptical. Others wanted to know when the next meeting was. I’m going to contact Cyrus and get him to help me get the others to the next meeting.  I hope… this wasn’t a mistake. I guess time will only tell. SOUND: COMMS BEEPS. RECORDING ENDS.

SOUND: COMMS BEEPS AGAIN. NEW RECORDING BEGINS. EEVEE: –you turned it on. Good job, baby. BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY): Mom, why are you showing me how to use your comms? Is something going to happen to us? Is something bad going to happen to you?  EEVEE: What? Oh no, baby. Nothing is going to happen to me. I just think you would find more use out of my comms than I would. Look, since you got it to record you can start recording all those little songs you like to sing. Or maybe you can get Charlie to record a story for you.  BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY): But Mom, I like your singing and your stories more. Will you sing for me? And tell me a story tonight? EEVEE: Absolutely not. You get one or the other. Take your pick. And whatever you don’t choose, you have to give to me.  (BAIRD POUTS) BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY): Fine… I want a story from you, and then I’ll give you a song. EEVEE:  Good choice, Bairdy. What kind of story would you like? (BAIRD HUMS) BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY): I want a story about Brahma.  EEVEE: A story about Brahma? Well… there once was a boy born on Brahma with nothing. Not even a name. He grew up just like everyone else, hungry for more. More food, more freedom, more time. The boy followed a man who dreamed of dropping the New Kinshasa on top of the planet.  The boy was very tired. Tired of being poor, tired of being hungry, tired of being alone. But he knew, that if he let that man drop New Kinshasa out of the sky, he would never be able to forgive himself. Brahma is his home. He looked down at Brahma from up high, and saw them: his people.  Starving young faces just like his looked up to the sky and stared back at the city as it trembled. The boy had the power at his fingertips to stop a tragedy.  This is it. The people thought. This is how we go out. Not with the big bang, but crushed under the heel of our jailor.  The boy heard their thoughts. He felt a rush of adrenaline and stopped the man from getting away. The city of New Kinshasa never fell out of the sky that day. The people were ordered to retreat to their homes. But that evening, everyone heard about the great threat against the Guardian Angel System. And everyone learned the name Peter Nureyev. And for the first time in the last half-century, hope bloomed on Brahma. The Boy, The Legend, The Angel of Brahma.  BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY): That’s not a story Memma, that’s history.  EEVEE: And what is history but a story we have to learn from? Now, I believe you owe me a song. (BAIRD GROANS AND HUFFS) BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY): Fine… (BAIRD TAKES A DEEP BREATH AND HUMS. THE SOUND GETS CLEARER LIKE HE’S BROUGHT THE COMMS CLOSER) My angel, I must ask you keep singing for me.  How sweet your tune, like a songbird at noon.  What a lovely trill, it makes me feel ill. O’ My heart overflows, I could never let go.  Like chimes in the wind, it must be destined.  I’ll find my way home, with your voice I’ll never be alone. Happy? (EEVEE SNIFFLES) EEVEE: Very. Thank you, Baird. That was beautiful.  (FABRIC RUSTLES, BOTH BAIRD AND EEVEE HUM) Promise me you’ll never stop singing baby. BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY): Of course, Memma. I don’t think I could even if I tried.  EEVEE: Good. Now– (EEVEE PRESSES A KISS TO BAIRD’S HEAD) Get some sleep. Okay? We have a long day tomorrow. And Bairdy? BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY): Yes, Mom? EEVEE: You know that I love you, right? BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY): To the moons and back, yeah… Mom you promised nothing bad was going to happen to you.  EEVEE:  And nothing will. Good night, Baird.  BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY): Night Mom.  SOUND: DOOR CLOSING. BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY): Which button was it to end the recording? Was it this o– SOUND: COMMS BEEPS. RECORDING ENDS. 

- EEVEE BELL. BAIRD BELL. must contact Frannie’s friend about both of those names. - Dome Wardens are indeed an old, out of date job. Eve is right, they’ve been replaced with robots. It’s actually kinda scary how right she was about things. About that, about Dark Matters probably covering everything up with New Kinshasa. - Cyrus and Eve sound so fun together. I can see why they got married and had a kid together. - Bairdy and Memma… right up there with Charls and Dearest. - Oh Baird, he was 12 when these recordings were made. 12. Just almost a teenager, not quite. Almost too old to be called a baby. - Eve loved Baird so much. She reminds me of my mother a bit. And she knew exactly what she was doing tucking Baird into bed that final time. There’s no doubt in my mind this is the last recording with her in it. She was taken away after this and never came back. The Dome Wardens did go on strike at some point according to Baird in other recordings, so did someone snitch to a Constable? Did she the Constable that almost caught her and Cyrus track her down? - I think that’s the most frustrating part of my job. No matter how much I dig and research, there are some things that will be lost to me forever.

[300yearschallenge]

Part 1 I Part 2 I Part 3 I Part 4 I Part 5

"My God!" Charles Elias said. "That's awful! The poor girl..."

"Oh, yes, yes," the maid said, "Very tragic. But to see a troll! Could you imagine? There's whispers she might be cursed, troll-touched as she is."

"Are you done?" A voice rang out across the kitchen and a bolt of ice ran down Charles Elias' spine.

"Oh, Laura!" The maid said. "This young man here was waiting for you."

"I can see that," Laura said, glaring daggers at the maid, "You didn't think to come fetch me?"

"Oh, no," the maid said, "I was sure you would turn up soon enough. Besides, the poor man ought to know what he's getting himself into, don't you think?"

Laura and the maid both turned to look at Charles Elias at once, and he desperately wished for the floor to open up and swallow him whole.

"I see..." Laura said. "So he's a gossip too, then? That's good to know."

"A gossip, hah!" The maid laughed. "He seems perfectly fine to me. Don't you agree, young man?"

"Uh--"

"Oh, forget it!" Laura snapped. "Come on, Mr. Park. We're leaving."

Part 1 I Part 2 I Part 3 I Part 4 I Part 5

Summary of Part 3:

The maid told Charles Elias about an incident in Laura's childhood. Her and her mother and father had been traveling by wagon back home when their horse startled and the wagon fell off a cliff. In the aftermath only Laura survived, albeit wounded, and when she was rescued she told people that what had startled their horse had been a troll.

Historical Info

Let's talk about trolls and superstition!

Art by John Bauer (1882 - 1915)

So the troll in Scandinavian folklore/superstition is a creature of the wilderness. There's like a quintillion different troll stories and their appearances and behaviour can be quite varied from place to place, story to story. Sometimes they're hostile, sometimes they're friendly. Sometimes they're human-like, sometimes they're very not.

In The Genre of Trolls by Camilla Asplund Ingemark, she summaries the varied views of trolls based on location in the following way:

"The Central Swedish trolls dwell in mountains, those in Southern Sweden inhabit mounds, and Norwegian trolls live in the high mountains. The looks of the troll may be pictured in various ways, but its ugliness is a common feature. In Central Sweden the troll can be of human height, whereas the Northern and Western parts of the country favour huge trolls (Hartmann 1936: 60–65)"

Since there's a lot of research that has been done into folklore by smarter minds than me, I won't make any further proclamations on the workings of trolls as a whole. Other than to keep in mind that views and stories were varied and different, but the throughline seems to be that trolls are often to be feared and avoided.

In the story of what happened to Laura's family we have a horrific and traumatising accident attributed to a troll. Obviously trolls aren't actually real (although Laura and others believe them to be) and so whatever she truly saw was most likely twisted by trauma and injury into something she had heard of in stories.

In my pictures I chose to have the troll look like a mix between a goat and a man, inspired by the following quotes from the previously quoted text:

"The ambiguity between human and animal characteristics is an important one"

&

"One troll from the Åland Islands shows itself as a he-goat with terrible horns and a beard enveloping the entire hill where it lives (SLS 59: 48–49)"

It intentionally looks almost like very typical depictions of the Devil, since after Sweden became Christian "the troll was assimilated into the image of the Devil"

Now you may be wondering why Laura is being treated so poorly when she was simply the victim of a horrible accident (and supposed troll encounter).

Partially this is just basic human cruelty. Laura, for one reason or another, was seen as an acceptable person to mistreat.

It is also a matter of people fearing those who have had encounters with trolls. People surviving a troll encounter can be viewed in a few different ways. Sometimes they are simply victims of unfortunate circumstances, other times they are transgressors who get punished.

Often in the stories mentioned by The Genre of Trolls the people who have encounters with trolls where they survive (relatively) unscathed are in some ways tied to the trolls. Whether it be a troll expecting a future favour or gift, or wishing to re-capture a previous victim. Sometimes in stories where someone has a non-deadly encounter with a troll they may be gifted a "second sight" of sorts, allowing them to see through troll-made illusions or tricks. In these cases the people are "trapped between different versions of otherness, first a supranormal otherness, then a socially defined alienness".

In Laura's case she is not quite thought to possess any supernatural abilities, but the people in the village see her as someone who could be at risk of either a repeated troll encounter (which could put others at risk) or someone who could unknowingly owe the troll something since she lived when others didn't.

In essence her being mistreated by others is them seeing her connection to trolls as a sort of 'otherness', and as we all know many people in the past and now don't appreciate those who do not fit in.

[rollercoasterwords]

oookay. finished the secret history let’s go

so the book itself was split into two separate books, book I and book II. for clarity’s sake, im gonna further split it into 4 parts, part 1, 2, 3 and 4. 

so first quick summary 4 bg information (no spoilers, as promised!!)

so basically a group of sexually repressed 20-something gays push the first homophobe they see off a cliff

OR

we’re told of Bunny’s murder in the first 2 pages, separating the book from other crime novels in that most of it was less a whodunnit and more of a whydunnit. in part 1, we’re introduced to richard papen, the narrator, who applied to a college, Hampden, miles away from his home state bc the colours on the brochure were pretty. he falls in with a group of students who are studying ancient greek; henry, bunny, francis, and camilla and charles (twins). So for a while, things look awesome. richard’s at a good college, with a large and tight-knit group of friends. What could go wrong?

this part transitions into two after richard and bunny find out about something terrible the rest of the group did in the past.

in part 2, bunny starts to become hostile to his friends after learning of it, while richard is able to wrap his head around it quite quickly. It escalates to the point where bunny becomes a potential threat, in that he might spill the beans to someone else. here, henry begins to plan bunny’s murder, and the rest of group just sort of goes along with it. parts 1 and 2 were pleasant, and paced really quickly. i was hooked the entire time. part 3 gets a bit dull, but it picks up again after Bunny’s funeral and hits the ground running.

book one ends right before bunny dies, and book two starts right after.

part 3 opens into a police investigation for bunny, who is believed to be missing until they find his body. in this part, tensions within the group begin to escalate. most of p. 3 is spent at bunny’s family’s house, who have invited many people bunny knew to stay with them during the funeral proceedings.

part 4, i believe begins after bunny’s body is found. here everyone’s like REALLY on edge. I will say most of it was just richard and francis running around frantically together while charles slowly goes insane with paranoia that henry’s trying to kill him as well. yk what, some of charles’ dialogue in this part is unsettlingly reminiscent of a panicked letter written by bunny that was found only after his death. In the book, there was only one passage of it shown, but that was enough. reading it, one could practically hear the panic, the desperation in bunny’s voice, one later mirrored in charles. vv psychologically thrillery. Im having hannibal flashbacks actually

and ohhh my god the ending. It was the climax to end all climaxes rae. ill never get over it. It was bittersweet ig, like all the best endings are. 

one thing i noticed is that throughout the book, there are these like future reflections littered through. like ‘thinking back on it now, i wish i had. . .’  or ‘funny, that was the last time i ever saw him’, which have the story a sort of They Both Die at the End quality. yk, like a tragedy waiting to happen. I think i remember you doing something like that once, rae, in atydsp. I believe it was right in one of the summer 1977 chapters but i could be wrong. I think something like that really makes a story gut-wrenching, especially with the whole looming impermanence that the reader is all too aware of. the very last lines in the epilogue read, ‘I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.’ see? whenever one of these bad boys is thrown in there, the scene changes from just a regular scene to something golden and significant. I think i once saw a post that read, ‘in movies time travellers are always scared of drastically changing their future by doing something small, but no one in the present ever things they can drastically change their future by doing something small’. thats what that reminds me of.

in the epilogue, richard refers to himself as a bystander, and he’s not wrong. he’s the narrator, of course, but in the end, the story’s not really about him. it’s about henry and bunny. I kind of get now, those lines at the end of the epilogue. Bunny’s death, and the events that subsequently followed, are so much more important than richard himself will ever be. 

TSH is famous for that one line henry has, when charles asks him how he could possibly justify cold blooded murder, and henry says, ‘I prefer to think of it … as a redistribution of matter.’ but the line that got to me the most personally was an unassuming one, camilla in the epilogue about her twin brother charles: ‘actually, charles and i dont really talk anymore. It’s broken my Nana’s heart.’ not that she and charles should ever be in the same room together ever (very fucked up things happened), but it’s just the impermanence of relationships. how two people who may be at one point inseparable just drift apart. it’s not any one big fight or falling out that snaps the thread of their connection, but that thread just wearing out and growing thinner and thinner until eventually nothing is left anymore. thats what gets to me.

andd also one thing that kept happening was that i’d accidentally (or on purpose) flip a few pages ahead and reading something really fucking deranged or unexpected and just be like ‘huh???? what??? how?????’ and i’d go back and read up to that point until it made sense. i’d love love LOVE to give examples but i’m not allowed spoilers :(( the book is just the right amount of deranged though it rlly tickles ur brain in just the right spots without being overly ick

I think someone said that it was a francis/richard/charles/camilla/henry love pentagon but its most like a love diamond. grab a pen and paper folks, it gets complicated. imagine charles at the top, francis on the left, richard at the bottom, and camilla on the right, with a line extending from camilla to henry. there thats tsh.

all in all 8/10!! if it’s on your reading list like you said it was, definitely move it to the top.

one day i WILL read tsh i promise!! unfortunately it cannot go to the top atm bc im working thru the books i already own 😔 love this review tho i honestly didn’t really know what the book was about & this actually sounds really good…

[arisingonmorningsinnocent]

Pyrrha being mistaken for a pimp in NtN is plot-relevant because the way Teacher handles the situation makes it clear that this (the sex trafficking of teenage girls in a warzone) is not culturally unfamiliar to her. I think she probably jumps to that conclusion because she's seen this before, in previous placements. The only reason her assumption surprised me, the reader, is because misogyny didn't exist in the previous books so I wasn’t expecting it. Because the previous books took place within the Empire, where a teenage girl as smart as Camilla can be genuinely confused about why her living situation might raise red flags.

And that matters, you know? The Nine Houses exploit their citizens in a thousand other ways, but when thinking about the unbelievable amount of suffering that comes from transphobia, homophobia, misogyny.... the fact that the Empire really does seem to have eliminated all forms of sex- and gender-based oppression matters profoundly.

The Nine Houses are a cannibalistic, imperialistic nightmare that cannot continue to exist without destroying others, but the Nine Houses are also a society in which hundreds and thousands of gay and trans and female people grow up without ever worrying that they'll be hurt or repressed for being who they are. It's hard for me to even fully imagine a world like that! And I really respect that because it would have been so easy for Muir to use the different setting in NtN to be like "oh well actually you only thought the Empire was good in a lot of ways because all the main characters were from there and had never seen anything better, its actually horrible and as soon as it gets overthrown the world will be uncomplicatedly better off." I’m glad she decided to do something more interesting instead. Like, John created something good! How do we reconcile The Everything Else with the fact that John created something genuinely good?

In AtN, i am excitedly hoping that we see some of this conflict made more explicit: how do we preserve the aspects of this society worth preserving? As this empire falls, how do we protect the lives, culture(s), and history of the innocent people who grew up there? how do we adequately condemn everything awful that Gideon’s father God John Gaius caused without losing the good parts of the culture that he created, or that grew up around him organically over the course of ten thousand years?

As of NtN, almost all the major characters left standing are political leaders in the Nine Houses or Blood of Eden or both. There is no way these questions won't come up, and I can't wait to see what Muir does with them.

[ramen-writes]

@mossyoakswriting.

Since I'm stupid I accidentally deleted the ask cause I posted it incomplete accidentally and then ended up deleting it entirely. BUT I still have what you asked for.

Which was slice of life, something refreshing after all the heartbreaking angst which I will happily do.

----------------

Felix laid his head on Rose's lap, as she gently played with his hair. She leaned her back against her bed.

They were in Rose's and Camilla's dorm. It was mostly quiet, nobody said anything, but it was comforting albeit a little eerie since they were never this quiet, well Micheal was never this quiet.

Camilla had her back to the wall opposite to her, with one knee raise and her other leg spread forward. And to her right was Micheal, leaning against the small retractable coffee table which was empty besides the stack of uno cards they played with not long ago.

"What do we do now?" Felix asks, his arm extends upwards as he looks at the ceiling through his finger, his eyes squinting just slightly. Rose liked his eyes.

"I don't know" Rose shrugs, "what do normal college kids do when they hang out?"

"You mean, kids who aren't solving a murder while also secretly trying to unfold the dark secrets of their elite class school?" Micheal raises his eyebrows. "I couldn't tell ya".

With a roll of her eyes Rose replies "There has to be something, come on what would we do if...well if we were normal" Micheal snorts which Rose ignores, "Camilla, you have any ideas?"

"We don't need to do anything, let's just talk. I mean it's either that or the crazy frat parties that we see in movies and I'd rather just not do that."

Micheal chuckles "Let's talk about Rose's freakish strength, I'm pretty sure I saw her carry Josh bridal style when he got injured, and you know he's pure muscle"

"It seems like you want a demonstration, and you'll get one if you don't shut your mouth"

"Hey hey, it's a compliment, pretty sure that Josh kid has a crush on you now and if it makes you feel better Felix especially likes it"

Rose looks down at Felix's face in her lap and raises a brow in question.

"Of course I do" Felix reassures.

"He's into women who can beat him up"

"Hey!"

"Aww" Roses smiles and looks at Felix's blushing face "I'll beat you up whenever you want" Felix's face turns redder as he tried to hide his face.

Camilla speaks up "why'd you learn to fight anyways? When did you start to work out?"

"Oh, I have brothers" she answers her eyes still on Felix's face, and red ears.

Camilla raises an eyebrow "Your brothers taught you how to fight?"

"What?" Rose looks up at Camilla "No. Pfft- they couldn't fight to save their lives, no they are annoying pieces of little shits so I beat them up"

"....oh wow I feel bad" Micheal says.

"You've met them, no need to feel bad"

"Yeah but I knew them when they were like 4."

"Well they grew into annoying 12 year old boys" Rose rolls her eyes.

"You know you never actually told us how you two knew each other before we all met here" Camilla says.

"Yeah, you never mentioned how you and Micheal know each other" Felix says, looking up at Rose.

"We used to live in the same neighborhood when we were younger, I mean like till we were about 8 I think? Then Micheal decided he was too fancy for the small town and decided to move away. AND he took my favorite plush with him" Rose glares at him.

"Hey I didn't mean to! Firstly it is not my fault my dad got a new job, secondly you literally moved out of town a year after from what I heard so you can't even be mad at me. And last I didn't take it"

"Oh yes you did" Rose points accusingly at him. "I might not be able to get mad at the whole moving away thing because let's be honest it took me like 2 weeks to move on and make new friends but you took that gorilla rabbit plushy on purpose and you know it!"

"You did not just move on after living next door to me for 8 years and that thing was an abomination which I did no-"

"Wait a damn minute" Camilla jumps in "what the hell do you mean by a 'gorilla rabbit' plushy??"

Rose huffed and muttered "It was a rabbit plushy... I just replaced it's head with a gorilla one"

Silence.

"Oh. My. God" Felix suddenly says and he gets up.

"You did take it!" He points at Micheal. "I saw th-that thing in the background of one of your old pictures"

Rose's head turns towards Micheal "Ah Ha! So you DID take it! Give it back!"

"Okay fine fine, it's in my old childhood room, I'll give it back. It gives me nightmares anyway"

"Fine, you better"

"Fine"

"..."

"Okay then....at least now we know how you two were acquainted before here, ...and about the gorilla rabbit plushy, the more you know I guess" Camilla speaks, breaking the silence.

Felix straightens up and leans against the bed besides Rose, who puts her head on his shoulder.

"So..." Felix starts "do you guys want to order food?"

"Yeah"

"I'm starving"

"You ate 15 minutes ago"

"So? I still want food"

"What should we order?"

"There's this new place that opened up, it has the best shawarma." Camilla says.

"Well I trust Camilla's taste in food, especially middle eastern ones. If she says it's good it's probably the best meal I'll have all week" Rose says.

"If that isn't the truth then I don't know what is. Camilla's middle eastern genes are helping us out....and burn our tongues at times but it's always worth it" Micheal agrees.

"Why are you getting up?" Felix asks as Camilla stand up.

"Oh they doesn't do delivery and it's better to eat it fresh. It's not far"

The others look around and then Felix says "It's 1 am. Are you sure this place is even open?"

"Oh yeah, I go there all the time, now come on" she urged.

-----------------

They all grab their jackets and get on their shoes. Rose locks the dorm and then they are on their way to the place.

After a few jokes and annoying comments from Micheal, Rose turns to Camilla "Honestly what do you see in him? He's an idiot"

"Hey!" Michael says, exasperated.

"And she means besides the looks" Felix adds.

"Aww thanks bro" Micheal says dramatically placing a hand in his heart.

"We should just leave these two meanies and run away together. We'll be like Romeo and Juliet, Romeo and Julian". He adds.

"Don't listen to him, Felix," Camilla warns.

"And Romeo and Juliet both die, Micheal" Rose adds.

"Yeah but they do it out of love for each other"

"Personally, I'd say out of stupidity but sure whatever" Rose rolls her eyes.

"I didn't know they died" Felix joins in.

"Really? Didn't you ever read it in school?"

Felix rolls his eyes "I didn't go to school. Raised on the streets, remember?"

"Oh yeahhh"

"I completely forgot"

Felix rolls his eyes again. Their school wasn't like the rest, it didn't care about your background, whether you were rich or had a criminal history, as long as you pass their entrance exam you could got in. It was one of the many strange things about this school, but then again it was what got them all together, so he guessed it wasn't all that bad.

"You know, I do wonder sometimes" Micheal suddenly says. Looking out in a trance.

"Do you think we'd be friends if it weren't for our situation?"

"No" Rose answers before anyone else.

"Well, that's mean"

"I love the no hesitation, just nope"

"Hey, I'm just saying I wouldn't be friends with you. I think I would be friends with Camilla though, she's cool."

"What about me?" Felix asks.

"Hmmm, yeah we'd get together, but I would definitely hate you at first, don't like intellectual competition"

Felix shrugs "I'll take it"

"But what about me" Micheal whines "What if I was still dating Camilla? Would we still not be friends?"

Rose looks him up and down, "We wouldn't need to worry about that"

Michela is about to respond when they look to see that they've arrived at their destination.

"Oh this place smells good" Felix hums.

"The food tastes even better, come in let's go. The women who owns this knows me, maybe we can get a discount" Camilla says walking in.