#and could probs write whole character studies on all the characters with how deep they are in the manhwa alone holy shit

[shidoukanae]

TME PMV frame thingie WIP

I absolutely adore Helene and Lyla's relationship in both iterations of TME's story and i NEED more qpt gal relationships like theirs is i s2g

it's really, REALLY hard to get me sincerely invested in relationships between female characters but damn am i invested in this one.

Something about a do-good heroine who is abnormally hostile only towards her own half-sister for seemingly no reason (read: "no reason") is a dynamic i can't get enough and seeing Lyla constantly make efforts in both the manhwa/LN to reach out to her is so bittersweet and yet amazingly well done

(and i can't praise enough how amazing Helene is handled as a deeply flawed female character!!! She's genuinely the best written female character ive seen and i wish more gals were written as amazing as she is TwT)

[ballorawan740]

SCP Scenarios: When they accidentally kill you

Requested by: okokok121 + @RitaRoseFromBBB

Main Masterlist | SCP Scenarios Masterlist | My Works Masterlist | Rules | Request | Socials | My Original Post

(Ok, I know you did ask for the doctors + Mikell and Strelnikov, but I've decided to add the SCPs in here if that's alright with you. And also, sorry if I didn't capture Strelnikov's attitude well as I'm not as familiar with him compared to Mikell, yet again I'm not familiar with Jack Bright's family other than TJ and 321)

Sorry if it wasn't up to your standards. I just felt that some of these characters weren't the type to kill the reader, even if it wasn't intentional.

WARNING: Slight Angst

Dr Simon Glass

Simon wouldn't be the one to accidentally kill you himself, but it's more of the situation he put you in without realising the full extent of the consequences. He was just busy writing his patients' reports, and you just strolled in his office to check upon him. Simon stopped what he was doing and smiled with you as you both ate your food in his ever so clean office. As you were about to leave, Glass requested you to deliver something to Jack Bright in which you did. You and Jack were close friends (not so surprising since you're both equally as mad as each other) so if Simon wanted to know where he is or if he needed to give him something, he would go to you first. You managed to deliver the parcel to Bright in 682's containment cell and you both laughed before you returned. Unfortunately, 682 was having a rough day due to being a subject to Bright's test (I would be too tbh) which caused him to become more aggressive than usual and attacked 3 researchers. One of them being you as 682 dragged you down to the acid bath with him and Jack rushed to save you. Bright wasn't able to and he had to fulfil;l his duty to tell Simon Glass that you passed as 682 had killed you during a test. Needless to say, Glass was forced to take time off with Bright due to this event and he became more distant for months to come. Bright had to keep it together just so Simon wouldn't have to lose the shred of sanity he had in him.

Dr Jack Bright

You and Bright were doing some tests on one of the more dangerous SCPs (no, it's not that giant mf lizard of that warrior killing machine) in which your job was to handle these creatures while Jack was doing all the lab stuff. The SCP you both were conducting your research on was ●●|●●●●●|●●|● (SCP 2521 - We're getting ripped tonight, RIP my friends) and you were doing all sorts of things which resulted in you summoning this creature out of the blue by accident. Bright had to drag you out away from the creature and you just stood there observing its behaviour until it noticed you. Jack Bright had to take you on the run yet again (cuz you do be stoopid and stubborn so all yall wanna do is stare at something that's gonna kill ya. JUST RUN BIATCH!!!) but the SCP managed to catch up with you both and snatched you before Bright could even get help. Jack was astonished and deeply depressed since the incident and was left increasingly agitated after every walking day and even Glass couldn't get him out of his shell. He would pretend that everything's fine, but deep down, everyone knows that he's not (that's a whole ass mood right there buddy). Bright was extremely guilty for making you research 2521 and tried to summon it again, but all other scientists stopped it.

Dr Alto Clef

Clef was just doing his job, managing all the Keter class SCPs with ease and without hesitation. You know this from first-hand experience on your very first day on the job 3 years ago and Clef took an interest in you so he took you under his wing. So on this mission, he's on, he wanted to take you with him so you went along (not like you'd say no to this madman anyways right?). It was a breach on one of the sites with a sh- ton of Keter class SCPs and your jobs were to exterminate/neutralise them and save all the other researchers in which your team did do well and were still alive. You on the other hand were killed in action by SCP 939 (NOW WHICH ONE OF YOU IDIOTS RELEASED MY PETS WITHOUT MY PERMISSION?!). Clef wasn't able to save you on time, but he managed to kill 2 of those SCPs. When he got back, he hid in his office and was depressed for 23.3 weeks and when he managed to drag himself out, he was bawling his eyes out. He deeply regretted taking you on a mission with him and swore an oath that if he were to ever take another person under his wing (probs in like 50 years), he would do anything in his power to not take them on a life-threatening mission.

Dr Benjamin Kondraki

You were out with Kondraki, just laying on the grass like you normally do as you just watched Kondraki take photographs of various and random stuff. Not long later, you asked him if he could teach you how to become such an avid photographer like him, so he did. However, little did you and Kondraki know that his butterfly friends felt danger lurking around the area you were in and quickly transformed into a threatening SCP to defend you both. Lurking around the woods were uncontained 939s running loose on the ground in which the booterflies attacked it. One of the red lizards was ready to pounce onto Kondraki to which you ran and pushed him out of the way (BAD DOGGO ))),:<). Luckily he was unharmed, but you, on the other hand, was heavily injured so Kondraki rushed you back to the foundation's medic. You died there shortly after and Kondraki blamed himself for getting you hurt on a harmless visit to the woods for some photographs. Bright and Clef begged Glass to do some psychological evaluation on Kondraki despite him telling them that he needs some time alone before he could do such things.

O5 Council Mikell Bright

When you're with Mikell, he would be his true self, being honest and relaxed since you're his most trusted partner. Moreover, he would tell you everything about what the O5 Council has been doing and their top secrets and you would always keep your lips sealed. The other members are wary of this at first but soon warm up to you since you're one of the most trusted individuals. Being with the cowboy is quite entertaining and you'll be quite protected being with him, so most of the time, you get free reign over the foundation, however, you still had to obey the rules as you weren't exactly a member of the O5 council and that would also help you from making people think you're sus for being treated so differently. That day was one of the days where your freedom got the better of you as you were on a mission with Mikell and he was about to aim at the target until you pushed him out of the way from danger. He quickly gained his composure and tried to shoot the anomaly behind you which he missed and shot you instead. Mikell was in shock and tried to get the medics, but by the time they arrived, you've already passed. Jack had to check up on his brother regularly to see how he's doing and to make sure he doesn't fall off the edge, reminding him that you wouldn't want to see him this way.

Agent Dmitri Arkadeyevich Strelnikov

As an agent, Strelnikov's life and his closest friends and relatives would be on the line. He wouldn't know when, where or how he would die and is in constant fear of losing everyone around him, especially you. One time, he took you on a mission with him since you were trained under him and he felt that you were ready to go onto your first-ever mission (well too bad, it's your last mission since y'all just suck at your jobs and this poor man has to drag you up from hell and y'all just fall back in) and so you guys went and attempted to gain information and track down some SCPs. Dmitri had to save you a few times since you didn't heed his advice and looked behind your back and that one time he left you on your own, you were murdered by a ruthless group from one of the GOIs. This, of course, deeply saddened agent Strelnikov as he was washed away by the guilt he had from leaving you to stand by your own 2 feet. You were a bright and gentle person who always looked up to him, always eager to learn and never want to fail him. These traits are what drew you to him and he was hoping to have you on his team permanently, however, that dream was long gone (just like your non-existent brain cells trying to keep your life together so y'all don't do stupid things) as you were snatched away from him in an instant. He wrote the report once he went back to the foundation and locked himself up for so long the doctors had to get him out (like your guardians whenever you don't wake up in the mornings).

Extras:

SCP 073 (Cain)

You and Cain were strolling around site 17 until a containment breach happened. Cain had to drag you by your arm since you froze (like a deer in headlights XD) and didn't react to anything since you were afraid. Luckily you did manage to get your senses back together and ran with him. Not long later, a Keter class SCP came charging at you and in a panic, Cain pushed you aside without a glance which caused another SCP to kill you since you were blocking the way. He looked over to you to see that you were wounded, lifted you up, and found a medic. Cain blamed himself for not looking carefully and had he done that, you wouldn't be dying. By the time the medic and you both arrived, you were already at the brink of death and when 343 finally arrived, you were long gone. 343 had to calm 073 down from trying to seek revenge once again but he can't due to the overwhelming guilt he had on him. 343 managed to ease his mind a bit which caused him to blackout. The researchers had to put him under their watchlist to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid (like you when you're studying for your important exams).

SCP 076 (Abel)

It was a normal day for you and Abel to hang around until this one mf guard angered Abel to which caused a containment breach. He went on a rampage (you do be here like Hercules! Hercules! XD) in which you had to try and calm him down. By the time you went to the main part of the facility, you saw many of the D-classes and researchers beheaded (like the previous queens in- never mind). When you had found Abel attempting to slaughter a guy, you jumped in front of the victim and by the time Abel realised that you were there, his sword cut you open in half (KO! 10 points to Gryffindor). He was overwhelmed with guilt and anxiety about him killing you by accident and returned to his box as demanded by the MTF members. The scientists noticed a change in Abel's behaviour and never questioned it. Those who knew what had happened never mentioned it in fear of another breach and left him be.

SCP 999 (Tickle Monster)

It was an ideal Saturday night at the foundation. You and our adorable 999 was wandering around the facility minding your own business until some madman came charging into the foundation. The alarm for the breach went on and everyone was confused since there weren't any dangerous SCPs on the loose. As it turns out, it was an intruder from one of the other GOIs trying to kidnap some of the SCPs. You and 999 just so happened to be in the exact same spot as the intruder and was holding a weapon of some sort. Realising what's happening, 999 pushed you out of the way just as the intruder fired her weapon which missed you both. One of the agents caught up with both of you and tried to shoot the intruder but ended up shooting you just as you got up which killed you. 999 never greeted any visitors in his cell ever again for quite some time and the researchers attempted to bribe him but failed.

SCP 682 (Hard to Destroy Reptile)

You were requested to take part in a test with 682 and another Keter class SCP in a test room and your job was to make sure 682 weren't allowed to lash out at the researchers because of this test. However, this certain Keter class SCP has decided that it wants to attack you in which 682 shoved you aside to protect you. The researchers ran in to save you but the other SCP managed to pounce on you and suffocated you to the brink of death. 682 was about to take a chonki bite out of that SCP but instead, he bit you instead, killing you instantly. He regretted every decision he has ever made and never attacked the foundation staff for months.

SCP 049 (Plague Doctor)

This doctor was just minding his own business until some dumbass researchers rushed into his room like some fanboys trying to get their noona's signatures. 049 was entertained by this remark but was soon agitated as they disturbed his work and wouldn't leave him alone. So, 049 used his lethal touch on some of the researchers as the rest ran. Luckily, they ran into you, so you managed to calm down the angri bird doctor. Unfortunately, that didn't go as planned as he had mistaken you as one of the other fanboys and stabbed you right into your heart. As soon as he had realised what he's done, he rushed you into his cell and performed surgery on you. Mid-surgery, he soon realised that you were losing too much blood and died right then and there. He mourned for quite some time as the other researchers were severely punished as it had led to your death which could've been avoided.

SCP 035 (Possessive Mask)

Like the other SCPs mentioned in the list, there was a test that resulted in your death. 035 was instructed to change to another human as the black goo was secreted from the mask and so he obeyed as you were slouching by the corner of the test room. Except for this time, it is being worn by a taller and more muscular man who was a wanted man due to his former job as a mercenary. As the researchers watched intently, the mask soon felt slightly overpowered but was resolved quickly due to his evergrowing abilities and experience in possessing those who come near it or is wearing the mask. The mask spoke of the discomfort of being overpowered to which the researchers took note of this statement and watched. You were somewhat concerned to you went closer to your beloved partner to check up on him. However, upon coming closer to 035, he switched his usual persona to the man wearing it, becoming more aggressive and unable to control this body, killing the first person he sees, which was you. This stunned the researchers as the guards tried to pry him off you. When they managed to get him off, you were no longer breathing. In the next interview with 035, he displayed extreme guilt and sadness of his inability to possess the man well enough to control him fully and made a request for him to be left alone for a while.

SCP 096 (Shy Guy)

You both met up during the breach a few steps away from 096's cell. He was wandering around to find you while covering his elongated face. All the other researchers were outside trying their best to stay calm and deal with this massive breach until they just saw 096 walking about looking for someone. It instantly clicked in their mind and offered to look for you as long as he goes back to his cell afterwards to which he agreed. Upon finding you, another SCP was attempting to attack you but was soon neutralised by the other MTFs. 096 managed to push you away beforehand but his throw was so strong that you died on the impact when you fell to the ground (you really did get yeeted lmao). As 096 and the others ran towards you to make sure you were ok, you had stopped breathing and 096 screamed in sadness which flooded the whole field. As he was contained back to his cell, they noticed a small detail about 096 which was him wailing every now and again about your death.

SCP 105 (Iris)

You and Iris were just strolling down site 17 to meet with Cain and Dr James Dantensen. Once you've arrived at the agreed location within site 17, you guys were just catching up with old times and sharing your memories and stories about your everyday lives. However, this jolly moment only lasted for so long as someone had breached the containment to target you as you were close to a lot of the SCPs, especially the humanoid ones. As you, along with the others, ran to safety, the enemy caught up with you and threatened you for your knowledge of the SCPs. Iris finally caught up with you just in time to see the commotion and shoved you out of the way. Cain managed to shield you from another guy who attempted to shoot you in which Iris retaliates by throwing a knife back, but instead, injured you instead. She ran over and screamed as you slowly blacked out. Cain had to carry you over as Dantensen was calling the medics and you barely managed to survive. During your days in the hospital, the suspect managed to suffocate you which alarmed everyone. During the days that followed, Iris had been seeking out revenge as Cain tried to make her stay calm and think more rationally.

SCP 106 (Old Man)

It was another day spending some time in 106's pocket dimension as you relaxed with him. You both talked about your past experiences and the obstacles you both had overcome. Once you both were done relaxing (aka never you lazy catto so get up and do something useful for once cuz I don't wanna see yall get screamed at by your family and non-existent friends (jk jk i hope they're treating you well)), 106 took you back to his containment cell and just sat there as the researchers looked at you both blankly. 096 caused a containment breach which, of course, freed you both from 106's cell and you made a run for it (RUN FOREST RUN!). As you and 096 came into contact, 106 tried to put himself between the both of you, knowing what 096 was capable of. Unfortunately, this resulted in 106 being attacked and you died from looking at his face (wear a damn mask 096, you're in the middle of a pandemic). Saddened by the news, 106 seek revenge but was briefly neutralised and shipped to another facility so it wouldn't cause another breach due to his rage.

[icyharrington]

Is It Wrong?- THE PREQUEL- Part 1 (Michael Langdon X Reader)

so basically,,,, i took my adhd meds for class this morning, and then suddenly got super inspired to write this, so i figured i couldnt waste the focus and wrote this whole ass thing in a few hours. this is the first part of a 3-part prequel series, which details the events leading up to the first part of iiw! just a whole lot more teen angst, drama, fuckboy michael, and more... there isn’t going to be any SMUT smut for obvious reasons, but in a future part there is going to be some dirty stuff ;) anyway i know this will prob flop but this is the first full length fic i’ve written in months and i had a lot of fun writing it, so ima post regardless ^__^

plot: things are turning upside for you now that the biggest fuckboy in school, michael langdon, is about to become your stepbrother. if you think shit is crazy now, wait til you find out that this is just the prequel 😏

warnings: underage drinking, talk of sexual shit, teen angst, sexual tension, taboo relationships 

wc: 4.2k 

i.

It wasn’t like you didn’t want your dad to be happy.

You did, of course you did.

You’d seen him, engulfed in his loneliness, floating from day to listless day like some kind of cheesy Victorian spectre. Too many times you’d found him alone at night, one hand cradling a glass of sewer-brown liquor, the other thumbing through worn photo albums extracted from dust-ridden shelves in the living room. You hadn’t known your mother well- she’d died back when you were still in diapers, but what you did know was that she’d been a vibrant light in your father’s world that had been unjustly snuffed out in its prime. He was a good father to you, and you knew you made him happy despite the dull ache ever-present in his heart, but it was evident that deep down he craved a companionship you could never provide.

So of course you were glad when he met Miriam. Of course you were glad when you’d seen his beaming smile, sharing the news, with the giddiness of a teenage girl in love, that he’d found somebody. He was practically glowing, that night he’d gone out for their first date. You’d known it’d been special to him, because he’d shelled out a few hundred to treat them both to a fancy dinner; he’d even gotten her a bouquet of flowers on the drive there.

You hadn’t said anything when he’d gushed to you the next day about how he’d found the one, despite having known her for only a week; sure, he was rushing into things, but at least he was happy! And that was all you wanted- for him to be happy.

That was why you were especially crushed when you finally met Miriam’s teenage son, whom your father had briefly mentioned with a passing “he goes to your high school, maybe you know him”.

There were so many boys at your school that it was impossible to guess who your potential stepbrother might be. The prospect that you might know him didn’t bother you too much, though you did think it might be a little awkward upon first meeting, but really what did it matter? A little bit of teenage shyness was a small price to pay for your father’s newfound happiness.

That is, until you met him.

So really, it wasn’t like you didn’t want your dad to be happy.

That wasn’t the case at all.

You just really, really, wished he’d fallen in love with anyone other than the mother of Michael fucking Langdon.

ii.

“Oh, you’re so pretty,” Miriam gushed over a glass of Chardonnay, which had already been defaced with aubergine lip prints around the golden rim. “Gosh, I just wish I had your hair. Mine was fried from years of coloring, so I just chopped it all off!”

You smiled sweetly, observing your father’s glimmering eyes as he hung onto every word that rolled off her tongue, menus still stacked neatly in the middle of the table as you awaited the fourth and final guest. The three of you had been there for fifteen minutes already, and still her son had not arrived.

I guess his study session is running late, she’d explained, after seeing your furrowed brows at her lack of accompaniment. It was the first time you were meeting your father’s new love interest and her son, and you were rapidly growing more and more anxious in anticipation of the big reveal.

Studying, you’d thought, racking your brain. So maybe he’s one of the nerdy teacher’s pet types? You could certainly live with that; there were a great deal of others you could think of who would be far worse to potentially become step-siblings with.

“Thanks, Ms… Mead, did you say it was?”

You weren’t sure you knew of any boys whose last name was Mead; he definitely had to be someone you hardly knew.

“Oh, honey, call me Miriam,” she said warmly, and you nodded, unsure of what to say next.

Miriam was certainly not what you’d imagined your father’s girlfriend to be like, not that you cared either way; she sported short, dark hair with vampy makeup, clad in all black with a tasteful leather jacket to match. She was also a bit older than you’d anticipated, with fine lines adorning her rounded face, but again, none of that mattered to you at all. She seemed perfectly sweet, and you had no complaints about her thus far.

“Okay, Miriam,” you said, feeling somewhat peculiar addressing an adult by their first name, “so, remind me, how’d you guys meet again?”

“Well, it’s a funny story, really,” Miriam chuckled, plucking a dinner roll from the woven basket across from her and dropping it onto her plate. Her dark eyes shifted from you to your father, poising an impeccably groomed raven brow. “Should you tell it, or should I?”

“Oh, you should, definitely,” your father said, sipping his wine.

“Okay, okay. Well, we were in the meat section at the grocery store when we both reached for the last steak on sale. So I looked at him, and I told him- oh my, this is embarrassing- (your dad’s name), you finish!”

Your father looked like he was about to bust out into laughter, and, suppressing a snort, he blurted, “she said she’d cut off my hands if I took it!”

Immediately after the words left his lips, the two fell into boisterous hysterics that ushered forward a few disapproving glances from the stuffy rich assholes at the next table over, and you couldn’t help but laugh a little yourself. Well… she definitely was a character, but as long as your father was being kept entertained…

“Hey mom,” came a sudden, inappropriately loud male voice from behind you, so out of place that you nearly jumped from your seat. “I was helping Dan with the world war three chapter in our textbook, he sucks at geography shit.”

The voice’s owner revealed himself as a tall, blond boy, who promptly slid into the empty chair beside you, chiseled face slightly obscured by the deep shadows resulting from the dimness of the restaurant’s ambient lighting.

This was, indeed, somebody that you knew, and you blinked twice to be sure that your eyes weren’t playing tricks on you.

It took you a few seconds to register the direness of the situation at hand, but once the thought processed in your mind, you about descended into an out-of-body experience.

This couldn’t be.

No way.

No motherfucking way.

You’d never been all too much of a religious person, but in that moment, you found yourself silently begging whatever higher power was out there that this was all just some sick, cosmic prank.

The boy turned his head to give you a good, uncomfortably long look, stupidly perfect mouth twisting into an amused sideways grin, and then he spoke. “Ohh shit, (y/n)? (Y/n) (y/l/n)?”

He spoke your name like it was a punchline, tongue darting out to lick his teeth like a lizard about to gobble up some poor, helpless cricket as you sat there with your jaw unhinged. You were at a loss for words, or at least almost, managing to croak out a pathetic, puny, “Michael.”

“Oh, good! You guys know each other already!” Miriam exclaimed, seemingly oblivious to the complete and utter horror that had just about finished swallowing you whole.

Michael let out a snort, roughly translating to ‘uhh, yeah, not that well… I’d never be caught dead hanging around with someone like (y/n)’, and you grimaced. “Yeah, a little bit. You were in math class with me last year, right?”

You cleared your throat, forcing yourself to regain your composure for fear of feeding into this complete asshole’s already massive ego. Yeah, in fact, you had been in math class with him last year, and, not-so-coincidentally, that very same class had turned out to be the one you dreaded the most.

Michael Langdon was the most insufferable, mind-numbing, self-obsessed asshole that you’d ever had the displeasure of knowing; he was easily the most popular boy in the grade, and it was clear he was fully aware of his own high school bullshit prestige. He was loud, cocky and obnoxious; the type of fuckboy- yes, you knew the word fuckboy was overplayed, but in this case there was no other way to describe him- who’d loudly brag about his sexual escapades in the middle of the hallway to his flock of adoring fuckboy minions. He was an I-don’t-do-relationships type, a U-up-text-at-3am type, a Yo-dude-did-you-see-Zoe-Benson’s-tits-today type, a bro-I’m-so-fucking-baked-right-now type. Just the sound of his voice from across a crowded hallway was enough to make you physically recoil. And the worst part?

Every-fucking-body loved him.

Your complaints about him during lunch would only result in your friends cooing dreamily, as though he were some kind of sympathetic creature that needed babying: But he’s so cute, they’d say, twirling locks of their hair and fiddling with their bracelets. I’m sure he’s not that bad.

But he was that bad, and if they took off their shit-stained, teenage hormone-clouded rose tinted glasses for only a second, they’d see exactly what you saw.

It wasn’t only the students, either. He was able to get away with everything and anything he pleased, whether it be sneaking sips of vodka in a water bottle between classes or ditching class to smoke a joint behind the bleachers. There’d even been rumors that he’d fucked some senior girl in the handicap stall during the autumn pep rally while the rest of the student body was packed like sardines in the sticky-hot gymnasium, subjected to incremental barks from the football coach to scream louder and louder.

How the hell was somebody as pleasant as Miriam the mother of such an incurable douchebag? And how, in all the unholy realms of hell, did your luck get so miserably bad that she ended up with your father?

It was all so fucking unfortunate that you almost wanted to laugh. And you probably would have, if not for the chance that you might puke all over your nice new sweater if you opened your mouth.

“You smell funny, hon,” said Miriam before you could reply. “Was Dan burning incense in his room?”

Oh, god. So she was one of those oblivious parents. You rolled your eyes; it made a lot of sense when you thought about it.

“Huh? Oh. Um, yeah. Incense,” Michael said, before suddenly extending his arm across the table to your father. “Oh shit, how rude of me. I’m Michael. Nice to meet you, man.”

Your father seemed unfazed my Michael’s distinct lack of manners as he accepted the boy’s hand and shook it, and you felt yet another knot twist up in the pit of your stomach as you realized that your father, too, had somehow been cast under Michael’s spell.

“Michael, we talked about this,” Miriam said under her breath, like she was scolding a child who didn’t know any better. “Keep the potty mouth to a minimal when we’re out in public, especially while we’re in such a nice restaurant.”

“Oh, sh…oot, sorry, mom,” Michael said with a faux-sheepish smile, his eyes flickering with amusement despite his supposed remorse. “And sorry to you too, sir. Bad habits.”

“Don’t worry about it, Mike- can I call you Mike?” your father said as they released hands, moving his to rest atop Miriam’s on the cloth-sheathed table. “I remember what it was like being a boy your age.”

You scoffed, loud enough that the table fell silent for a moment, and quickly you disguised it with a cough. Your cheeks went hot as all eyes laid on you, and you frantically scanned your brain for something to fill the silence with.

“So, um,” you said, clearing your throat. “Michael’s, uh, how come Michael’s last name isn’t Mead?”

Fuck. That sounded so fucking stupid. Instinctively, you felt your eyes wander to Michael to see if he was laughing at you, which you hated yourself for; why should his stupid, pea-brained opinion mean anything to you anyway? As much as you wanted to distance yourself from that idiotic, made-up high school hierarchy, you always wound up finding yourself being sucked back in, it seemed.

“Well, my late husband’s last name was Langdon, and since he was kind of a dirtbag, I decided not to keep his name after he passed,” Miriam said slowly, as if taking very careful thought to word herself correctly. You took in a breath; this seemed like a whole new can of worms that you hadn’t meant to open up.

“Hey, c’mon, don’t talk about dad like that,” said Michael, his tone only half-playful, eyebrow cocking as he flashed his mother a knowing look.

“You try being cheated on multiple times, Michael. Then you’ll see that dirtbag is really a nice way of putting it.”

Oh, sure, you thought bitterly. As if Michael fucking Langdon is even remotely capable of understanding someone else’s pain.

You took this as your cue to stand up from your seat, mumbling something about needing to use the restroom before scurrying off in the opposite direction as fast as you could without drawing attention to yourself. If ten minutes with Michael as your psuedo-stepbrother got to you this badly, you could only imagine how awful your life was about to get.

You could only hope that your father would find some reason to nip things in the bud with Miriam, but right now, that appeared to be an unlikely prospect.

iii.

“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t end my shit right here and now,” you griped to your best friend, who sat crosslegged on your bed as you stood idly before your floor-length mirror, arms dangling limply at your sides in an unintentional stance of defeat. Your face was one that you hardly recognized anymore, forehead creased with worry and eyes shadowed by bruise-colored rings from a seemingly endless barrage of sleepless nights; a week ago, your father had gleefully announced his and Miriam’s engagement; you of course, as his loving daughter, had to behave as though you hadn’t just received the worst news of your life, which somehow you’d pulled off (for a second you wondered why you’d never taken up theater, seeing at how convincing your acting could be sometimes). It was like you’d been plucked from the familiarity of your boring, normal world and dropped into your own personally tailored hell without any warning at all, though you couldn’t think of a single thing you’d done bad enough to warrant you deserving this. “The worst person on the planet is about to be my fucking stepbrother and nobody else seems to think this is a big deal!”

Your best friend shook her head, letting out a snort as if any of this was even remotely funny in the slightest. “So your stepbrother is hot and cool and he pisses you off. They literally make porn about that.”

You resisted the urge to take her by the shoulders and shake her until some semblance of sense entered her head, instead shoving your hands into the pockets of your jeans with a loud huff. “Yeah, but this isn’t fucking pornhub, (best friend’s name), this is real life! And I’d rather skin myself alive than sleep with that walking STD.”

“You have a lot more self respect than I do. It’s admirable,” she said, still startlingly calm for your liking, and you were beginning to believe that she’d never understand the mental turmoil you were currently suffering with. “Personally I’d ride him into the sunset, whether he had a herpes dick or not.”

You gagged, shaking your head with adamant disgust. Was she really that fucking horny? “You’re sick, you know that?”

“Sick for diiiiick,” she sang back, batting her eyelashes playfully at you. You turned away, scrounging up every weary shred of self restraint within you not to scream.

“Look, (b/f/n). I’m being serious right now. If you fuck him, or suck his dick, or whatever, I will literally never speak to you again.” Your tone was stern, and you faced her again to see whether your seriousness had computed in the hormonal wasteland that was her brain. There was an extended pause as she blinked at you, tilting her head to one side thoughtfully as she chewed her lipgloss-slick bottom lip.

“I mean, he wouldn’t fuck me anyways,” she finally said, still infuriatingly chipper. “I’m nobody. And he’s, like, royalty.”

“Jesus fucking Christ! I don’t care whether you think you have a chance with him!” You realized too late that you were nearly shouting, so you took in a shaky gulp of oxygen and coaxed yourself to soften your tone. The last thing you needed right now was for people to think you were losing your mind, although sometimes that was exactly what you felt like was happening. “Please, just promise me you won’t? I just need one aspect of my life not to involve him. Please?”

“Okay, fine,” she said, drawing her knees to her chest and settling her chin on top. “If it really matters that much to you, I’ll just shift my thirst to Dan Mott instead. That boy is a fucking snack and a half.”

A wave of almost-relief cascaded over your body, and you closed your eyes, letting yourself become one with this momentary victory.  

One year. Just one stupid, insignificant year until I can go away to college and forget all about him.

If you could survive that much, you told yourself, you’d be able survive anything.

You just hoped that intoxicating spell of his wasn’t strong enough to bring your best friend into his web of bullshit, alongside all the other girls who’d become entangled along the way.

If she did, you’d be stranded, left to run from Michael and his ever-expanding army all on your own.

iv.

In what seemed like a blink of an eye, the dreaded date of your father’s wedding ceremony arrived; now you stood amidst a small group of distant relatives at the subdued reception party, seeking refuge from the disturbing thought that, legally, Michael Langdon was now your brother, at the open bar.

You and your best friend had decided to make something of a game out of how many drinks you could finagle from the bartender without any adults noticing, which had ultimately proved to be pointless- an hour into the reception, your father had staggered over with two overflowing dirty Shirleys, thrusting them towards the two of you with a big, sloppy grin on his face.

To say he was in a good mood would be a severe understatement- the man was jovial, and you almost felt guilty for hating the circumstances of his marriage so much. By the raised-brow looks your best friend had been shooting at you all night, you knew she was thinking the same thing: that you were being selfish for worrying so much about yourself when this was the best thing that’d happened to your father in years. And maybe it was true; maybe you’d been so wrapped up in your own teen angst bullshit that you’d willingly blinded yourself from the truth. So, with your father’s beaming face dancing in the back of your mind, you pushed any thought about Michael back to the dredges where they belonged.

Fuck Michael Langdon. You couldn’t allow him the satisfaction of knowing that you were distraught, though you’d surely already made that pretty obvious over the past few months (he’d wasted no time in taunting you about it, seeming to relish in your death glares and eye rolls- hey, future sis! he’d crooned at you as you passed his table in the cafeteria one afternoon, nearly causing you to trip and spill your perfectly mediocre iced coffee all over yourself as his friends cackled like demented hyenas).

I’m not gonna let him bother me anymore.

I’m not gonna let him bother me anymore.

I’m not-

“SIS-TERRRRRR!”

Okay, this had to be some kind of divine test of will.

A blazer-glad arm flung itself around your shoulders and you flinched, immediately jerking away from your intoxicated stepbrother (god, it felt weird to refer to him that way) whose brash motions had sent you both stumbling.

“Getting shitfaced at your mom’s wedding… classy,” you spat, crossing your arms in front of your chest and narrowing your eyes at the blond-haired boy.

He was, admittedly, good-looking (only by conventional standards, of course); his lightly gelled blond hair had long since come undone, now soft and unkempt from hours of attention-whorish dancing, but you thought the disheveled look suited him better anyway (since his whole thing was to look like a grimy, rugged fuckboy, not because you personally found it attractive, obviously). He’d undone the top few buttons of his white top (no doubt the only formal article of clothing he owned), which was now stained beyond foreseeable repair with a colorful variety of liquids, and there was a bead of sweat traveling from his slick forehead to his model-sharp jaw. Even in disarray, he looked good, and you couldn’t help but hate him for it.

“God, you are so uptight,” he said, pale eyes flickering towards the multicolored ceiling in exaggerated annoyance as he dragged out his syllables with leisure. “You need to relax, set up a dick appointment or something. Or pussy appointment, I don’t know what you’re into.”

Your mouth fell open at this remark, too stunned by his vulgarity to even get angry with your friend, who had dissolved into a fit of giggles beside you; it wasn’t that you were some pearl-clutching grandmother- you had no issue discussing sexual matters with your friends, and in fact some would even say you had a perverted sense of humor. But this? This was different: something about the way those words had fallen from Michael’s mouth made you feel dirty.

At your lack of response, Michael flashed a pearly grin that could only be categorized as evil, and he crossed his arms to mimic your stance. “Oh, sorry. I forgot that you’re probably still a virgin.”

He glanced over to your friend, whose feeble attempts to suppress her second wave of laughter had proven unsuccessful, before averting his gaze back to you. “Aw, don’t feel bad, (y/n). There’s nothing wrong with being a late bloomer.”

Then, as if to punctuate his words, he smirked.

Your mouth pressed into a thin line, you felt something like a storm swirling inside of you, winds thick and unyielding and relentless, and you were almost positive that you’d tear him apart once the feeling aligned with the rest of your body.

It was then that the song blaring through the speakers switched to something inappropriately upbeat, each thump of the dance-friendly bass feeling like punches to the gut.

The storm inside you hadn’t been giving way to anger at all; it was sadness you were feeling in your belly, hopeless and humiliated sadness, though you couldn’t quite understand why: he’d made some stupid, generic joke to try and get a rise out of you- what else was new these days? Maybe it was the fact that your best friend was, by her passiveness and obvious amusement at your expense, encouraging his taunts when she was supposed to be there for you. Or maybe the reality had finally, finally sunken in, that this kind of interaction with Michael would now consume your life for the next year.

Either way, it didn’t make a difference, and as if on cue, the familiar sting of unshed tears arrived patiently at the back of your eyes.

All at once you were were dizzy; Michael’s perfect face was doubling and distorting before your eyes, and your friend’s pitched laughter rang like incessant, robotic television static in your ears.

With very last straw of self preservation you could grasp, you said nothing at all, walking away with the dazed sluggishness of a zombie on autopilot.

You considered yourself lucky; soon enough, you wouldn’t have the luxury of walking away at all.

“She’s too sensitive,” you heard your friend say, faintly, in the background of your thoughts.

You didn’t have the energy to wonder why she wasn’t coming with you, much less the energy to chastise her for being a bad friend, which was what you knew she deserved. If she cared more about getting Michael’s attention than preserving her friendship with you, you supposed there was no use in trying to stop her anymore.

He’s like a disease, you thought as you ambled your way towards the bathroom, surrounded by people but yet still so alone. He’s like a disease, infecting everyone he touches.

It was only a matter of time, you supposed, before he got to you, too.

Who knew? Maybe he already had.

tagging some people from my old iiw tag list!: (i’m sorry if i tagged anyone twice, i’m literally half asleep right now cuz i got like 2 hours of sleep in the past 24 hrs lol) @wroteclassicaly @ritualmichael @sloppy-little-witch-bitch26 @trelaney  @kissydevil @sloppy-wrist @michael-langdon-appreciation @ccodyfern @sojournmichael @starwlkers @maso-xchrist @space-princesssss @ahslangdon101 @isabellaserpentiawesson @stupidocupido @bademliimagnum @nana15774 @urlocalgothb @hexqueensupreme @gold-dragon-slayer  @langdonsboots @langdonstrash @fckinsupreme @hisgirlwonder @venusxxlangdon @obsessivenostalgicbaby @kleinegamerin @lambofcairo @kiiteiru @littledemondani @beriveri  @grossgayartist @featherpool-852 @discocalico @cryptid-coalition @nu-tt @diamcndscarred @chocolateandhorror @michaelsfrenchtoast  @sarcasticbxtch20 @ringpop-poppy  @imjustasadhoe @melodylangdon  @codycrazy @perfect-ginger-maniac @baphomet-wears-gucci @bigstudentpatrolbonk @jazzcowgirl @a-n-t-s @langdonsblood @ritualmichael @myluciferiscody @fentycoven @gracebtw @bongwaternation  @king-of-mischief-and-bitchez @hoseokchild @witchywcmans @satanicbimbo @lvngdvns​ @langdonskillerqueen​ @aradevil​ @anemia-doll​ @muralskins​ @funtomimagines​ @mrssgtjamesbuckybarnes​ @our-mrlangdon​ @lotsofhunny​ @sevenwonderwitch​ @horrorstreet​ @kpopmademedo-it​ @naughtygranger​ @codyshands​ @krazycags01​ @skullag​

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

i havent been here in a hot second is there a reason for the makoto hate specifically? like the rants go back to p5's writing issues but the spite for makoto seems very specific did she kill someones dog in one of the spinoffs or what?

You're all good. So here's the thing, she did kill my dog-I'm joking.

When I say “I’m the residential #1 Makoto Hater” it’s a joke, partially cause it probs looks that way (and probs cause it might be true, who knows if you could quantify hate then maybe I’m at the top of the leaderboards 8U but you can’t so we’ll never know). But I’m saying it at as a joke, to own myself and everyone here that knows what I think of her, rather than wear it as a badge of honor or some silliness. It’s just a “oh haha yeah there goes Silly, dunking on Makoto again! She’s basically Makoto’s #1 hater haha oh she’s so silly.” (so please don’t look too deep into it, I just want to have fun).

Anyway, me hating Makoto isn’t new, but I do hold a similar ire towards Futaba, Goro (tho I have camaraderie with his fans, I relate to their struggle in terms of my own brown hair and red eye fav and Atlus screwing them over u_u I may hate your fave but I respect you and will be in your corner), and Yukari (as well as Chloe from LiS if you want a non-Persona example). Makoto might be talked about more because 1) She hits my buttons that much faster (Futaba/Goro are more like a festering wound, and when I talk about them it’s hard to pick a starting point), 2) Her fans tendency (early on in the fandom) bringing her up frequently.....was a bad combo with #1 (overexposure+pushing all my buttons really fast=disaster). Obvie not blaming her fans, but it was hard to curate how I was able to curate my content online (esp with gaming news websites calling her “best girl” when showing off a figure announcement or some BS when I just want to know what new games have been announced >.> I can do without you trying to start a waifu war in the comments Siliconera -_-)

Anyway, I think I’ve made my reasons for hating her very clear (you just have to search her name on my blog and you’ll get a ton of essays I’m sure, too many to count). And a lot of it is the failure of P5′s writing. “So it’s just the writing you hate, not the character.” No. Because that doesn’t make sense. Except under certain circumstances (which I’ll provide examples of below with Luke Skywalker), you can’t separate the writing from the character. The character IS the writing, the writing IS the character. If you can’t hate/dislike the char because “of the writing” then you also can’t love/like them either. The character and the writing/writing choices for that character are connected. The writing embodies that character. They are the same.

Now I said there was an exception, and that’s....”different writer/director,” tho it’s not ALWAYS the case (sometimes the new writer really gets the original writing, like Saito for MM.....they are very good at emulating the clusterfuck of P5′s writing). P5′s writing is the original basis for Makoto’s character, that’s her. You can’t separate it from her. Same thing with say....Luke Skywalker from the OG trilogy, that’s him. But then we get to the sequel/Disney trilogy, new writer/director....and yeah that’s a mess (from what I understand OG trilogy=Hopeful and tries to see the best in people, 2nd Disney=Cynic and tried to kill a child, 3rd Disney=Hopeful again for some reason). There’s character development, then there’s just straight up changing the character just cause you need them to be this now. 

*writes how this can apply to Persona spinoffs but deletes because I was getting too off track* Look at me exercising control. It’s probs best I save that for a meta after I’ve replayed all the spinoffs again.

But....if you want me to boil down my issues with Makoto, I hate the message we get from her. I hate the lesson we learn from her. What is supposed to happen vs what happens.  It’s supposed to be about a girl who is blindly following authority and becomes disillusioned with it after being burned by it, on top of “immense pressure” she has as well, and then comes to our side (we know this because Atlus told us). We don’t get that (we know this because we saw the execution). We get two adults, yes TWO ADULTS, one of which is her sister and wants her to do well in school (but isn’t like.....a tiger mom about it, because Sae can’t be TOO horrible because we need to like her later), who in retrospect seems very busy with her job (which gives Makoto freedom), but also feels burdened by her younger sister (in which she has one shitty slip with her and then NEVER again). And the other is a dumbass principal who asks a really strange and stupid task for Makoto that snowballs into bullshit. That’s IT! THAT’S IT! That’s all we get from Makoto and “authority.” Strawmen. We don’t really get much of her personality either (I’m not saying that cause “she’s cardboard” I legit just.....don’t get her? Like I don’t get enough of her to get a solid foundation, you get me?) Like as the player, what we see of her is she’s just studying in the library (Kamo arc), then the principal calls her in, she mentions the rumors about Kamo, he asks her to look into the PT in exchange for a recommendation (to which she’s surprised and says thanks, not no, she looks like she’ll accept JUST BASED ON THAT) but before she can even say Yes (OR NO) he threatens Makoto with her sister, to which Makoto hardens and then agrees. Then she acts like an asshole and yadda yadda stuff happens.

But if she’s supposed to blindly follow authority, she’d say yes, but then they don’t let the character breathe so she can make the “wrong” choice because the Principal goes STRAIGHT to threatening her.......so now the message is muddled, or really it’s non existent. The whole Sae thing is a nothing bag too, it’s just family drama. Her sister is, no HAS to be absent a lot for her work, just so Makoto can have the freedom to be a PT....which means....it hurts her lack of freedom and other stuff associated with Sae being a big pressure on Makoto’s life. You know, I’ve said before they’ve squandered Sae, and that Makoto’s presence really harmed Sae (iirc it was this post). But at the same time, how they handled Sae really screws up Makoto’s character. Neither are allowed to breathe. Neither are allowed to make a true, horrible choice...and then learn from it. They aren’t allowed to have an actual arc. Altus played it safe, took choice away from them, didn’t want to take risks with either character and have meaning. Instead we just have this nothing contradiction thing dicking around until they join our team. 

What really sucks about that....is we got that with the Kamo arc. With Anne, Ryuji, even Yuki and Shiho. Kamo was manipulative, and his manipulation caused people to make....not the best choices, all out of a means to survive. Ryuji physically acted against Kamo, and he got his leg broken, team disbanded, and outcasted. Anne was trying to protect Shiho’s position on the team, which lead to her almost getting harmed by Kamo, Shiho getting harmed, her not seeing the truth about what was going on around her, and she didn’t tell Shiho (because she didn’t want Shiho to think she didn’t get on the team for her own merits), and so on. Shiho didn’t tell Anne what was going on because she wanted to protect Anne from Kamo (and was afraid Anne would, very much blame herself), and her and Yuki and the rest of the teams helped keep quiet about Kamo so they wouldn’t be next on the physical chopping block. This isn’t me blaming them, this is me showing their choices, their attempts to fix their (hopeless) situation, to help themselves or others, and the dramatic irony being it just made everything worse. BUT, even tho Kamo was the real one to blame, each character is aware of the actions that were made, and the consequences of each action (esp Anne/Ryuji/Shiho). And in their CoOps, they identify this, and take strides to learn from it so it doesn’t happen again. That’s an arc. That’s character development. They were allowed to make errors, mistakes, decisions that negatively impacted themselves/other’s. We see a solid foundation of their character from the get go, and how it changes over that small time. We don’t get that with Makoto. The group is like solid concrete to Makoto who is like shifting sand. 

Sorry got a bit off topic, anyway, I hate her message of boasting about her fighting ability but she only harms her friends (outside of shadows, but that’s not special) WHILE ALSO being a damsel that needs someone else to rescue her! I hate how when she gets called out, she wants to drop it, and gives gaslighty apologies, even tho she really ROYALLY screwed lot of people very badly. I hate how she demands us to help, only to literally be a detriment to our investigation. I hate how she gets to fly off the handle without repercussions (despite needing to be cool calm and collected for her job, especially since she miraculously can do that when needed so what the hell????). I hate how the text has her be shitty, say shitty things, be bad at her job, but will turn around and reward her time and time again. 

Sure she doesn’t break the lore like Futaba, or unravel P5′s plot like Goro. But as a character with a message attached to her, even ones that the creators surely overlooked (I’m sure they didn’t intend for her to only hit her friends), it’s simple but very annoying. Fast and easy to see, doesn’t require me to think of P5′s lore as well as the grander Persona lore. Doesn’t require me to dig through text for Goro bread crumbs and then unravel the entire basis of the P5 plot thanks to him. Makoto is easier to get into, it’s smaller scale and more personal I guess. 

[cfavigncn]

hi hi! my name’s hannah ( she / her, 23, est ) and this little marshmallow is juliette dewhitt, though most here would know her as avignon!  she’s a front desk receptionist at the hotel. i’ve got info on her below the cut! like this or message me if you want to plot because it’s my fave thing ever!  i’m also in the discord so we can talk there too. can’t wait to get started!!!

tw: cheating, verbal abuse, alcoholism

INFO.

❛   ｡   ❄️  ﾟ danielle campbell. female. she/her /  did i hear you say flowers pressed between the pages of a well-loved book, sunlight peeking through clouds, a half-empty bottle of lavendar perfume, & a smile no less genuine just because it’s exhausted ? then you must be talking about avignon, i’d recognize them anywhere. i’ve heard that the twenty-three year old front desk receptionist is a cancer and honestly, i see it. they’re known for being stubborn & overbearing, but their kindhearted & selfless tendencies make up for it. they’ve been working at du lac for two years and i think that their real name is juliette ‘jules’ dewhitt, but don’t spill. ( hannah. 23. she/her. est )

HISTORY.

so juliette was born in paris to arthur dewhitt and and celeste boucher. they were a bit of a cliche, him being an up-and-coming author and her being the darling of french theater.

when they first got together, arthur told anyone that would listen that he fell in love with celeste while watching her on stage, before ever having said a word to her.

the issue with their grand love affair, though, was that it was exactly that- an affair. celeste was already married to another man. he was a prominent director and had oh so coincidentally been the one to cast her in her first breakthrough role. and though celeste wasn’t in love with him anymore, he was still utterly devoted to her.

with the baby on the way, arthur started putting pressure on celeste to leave her husband and be with him openly. but as much as celeste did love arthur, she loved her career more and she feared what the revelation of the affair would do to her chances to perform.

 she pushed him away, telling him that she loved her husband (she didn’t) and that she wanted to give her baby the best chance at happiness with a nuclear family (that hadn’t even come into her head until she said it out loud). 

arthur was heartbroken, but he respected her wishes.

years later, he ended up writing a novel that drew heavily from his own experiences with celeste. it was critically acclaimed- beloved by the critics, made into a movie, generally agreed that it would be one of the novels that defined the decade. 

unfortunately for celeste, there were enough details that mirrored their own lives that her husband finally caught wise. he confronted her and though she lied and denied as fervently as she could, he ended up leaving her and the daughter that he now knew wasn’t his. 

 without the income of her husband, and now getting too old to land the roles that once sustained her career, celeste ended up moving herself and juliette to a small town in france. 

she hated it there, having always been so used to the hustle and bustle of paris.

juliette would have been only 13 or 14 when this happened and to say that it was devastating would have been an understatement- within the span of a few weeks, she found out that her mother had cheated, that the man she had always considered her father wasn’t and that he no longer wanted anything to do with her, and then got moved away from everything that she knew.

she ended up getting a job as a bagger at the local grocery, riding her bike to and from work. 

her mother talked about getting one herself but never seemed all that pressed to actually start looking. instead, she focused on reliving her golden days and began drinking heavily. 

slowly, she devolved into a hateful and cold shell of her former self.she resented her daughter, thinking that it was because of her that the perfect life had unraveled around celeste.

jules learned to grow up very quickly after that. she cooked dinners, made sure that the bills were actually mailed out, always put a blanket on her mother when she passed out on the couch, and turned a cheek at the words spoken while still awake.

despite everything, jules is actually an incredibly positive and kind person. she realized very young that no amount of bitterness at her own plight would change things and that she wanted instead to focus on putting joy and kindness back into the world. 

she focused on creating healthy friendships and relationships, on her schoolwork, on anything that wasn’t her home life. 

she probably wouldn’t have told anyone about what she was dealing with at home, as she didn’t want people to worry about her. 

when it came time for university, jules decided to study hospitality. she was an incredibly detail-oriented person, and had learned over the years how to manage her own household. plus, it was a career that she thought her good nature would be suited to. 

it was hard to leave home, not knowing what state her mother would be in without her, but jules reasoned that she couldn’t hold back from having her own life forever. 

at school, jules really started to thrive. left to only care for herself, she started exploring every hobby that she could think of and learning everything about herself that she could. 

she even reached out to her birth father, who was thrilled to finally get to acknowledge his daughter. they’ve begun a tenuous relationship that they’re both very nervous but hopeful of. 

it was actually a suggestion of his that, as he hadn’t had the chance to support her while growing up, that he could get her a connection at the hotel du lac, where he regularly stayed when he wanted to write. 

she’s even started going by his last name! it’s really exciting for her. at first it was just because it would help with the job interview but it’s started to be something she does in her own head too.

she works at the front desk, and actually really likes it. basically her whole job is solving problems for people and staying friendly, both of which are right up her alley. also, she always loved visiting avignon while growing up and to have it as her codename is actually very charming to her

HEADCANONS.

she’s super afraid of heights. one time went to the top of the eiffel tower and nearly puked. hasn’t been up since

she loves oversized sweaters, soft blankets, fuzzy knee-high socks, basically anything cozy. would probably sit in front of a fireplace for a year if she had the time

laughs at her own jokes. sometimes literally can’t get through telling her own jokes because she’s laughing too hard

she has a really impressive book collection. growing up, she’s always loved the escapism of reading and ever since she got in touch with her father, he’s been sending her his own favorites. her favorite ones are the ones that he’s written his thoughts in the margins, a habit which she’s since picked up

she’s a total pushover. would do anything for anybody. honestly, to the point where it’s a character fault. it’s led to her being taken advantage of more than once in her life

hasn’t ever had a pet before but she would totally love to get a cat one day

doesn’t handle interpersonal conflict super well. like, she could get yelled at by a guest all day long without breaking a sweat but if someone that she cares about gets visibly upset with her she kind of freaks out and overextends herself trying to make things right again

loves knitting and baking when she’s stressed out. it’s nice for her to have something to do with her hands while her mind is racing and then at the end of it all, you’ve got a nice little treat for yourself!

has recently started keeping a little journal that she writes in. it’s partially to try and collect her own thoughts and get to know herself better and partially because she wants to have something shared between herself and her dad

WANTED PLOTS.

friends!!!!!!! avignon has never really had the chance to have close friends growing up because she never had the money/time, and she was afraid to get too close to people and have them realize the situation with her mom

her dad. this one will actually be a wanted connection, but i would love to have arthur (obviously that name isn’t set in stone lol) around and start to navigate their relationship actually being together for the first time

a love interest- avignon is very guarded about romance because she’s got deep abandonment stuff and also is afraid that she’s not good enough for it but like i can totally imagine her having these huge feelings for someone, either requited or unrequited that she doesn’t know how to handle and getting very blushy about it

a bad influence- she’s never really had the chance to let loose and have fun before, so i’d def like to see that happening. plus, she would probs start trying to like take care of them in return and make sure they drink water and the whole nine it would be very charming

irritant- tbh, she isn’t most peoples’ cup of tea. she’s very almost aggressive about her kindness and i can imagine that there are people that would absolutely hate that and they would just butt heads over it

[rosecolored-gay]

Answer the questions bitch

1. Who was the last person you held hands with?

- Prob Rach when I was playing with her fingers and being a pain in the ass.

2. Are you outgoing or shy?

- I seem outgoing but I’m generally shy in larger groups.

3. Who are you looking forward to seeing?

- My family is coming from GA on Friday!

4. Are you easy to get along with?

- I can be, I try to be.

5. If you were drunk would the person you like take care of you?

- Mhm

6. What kind of people are you attracted to?

- Ones that can make me laugh so hard I cry, who can make me smile even when I don’t want to. Someone genuine.

7. Do you think you’ll be in a relationship two months from now?

- I don’t know, I can’t predict the future. I’m just going with the flow.

8. Who from the opposite gender is on your mind?

- Tom Holland, because I just rewatched his Lip Sync Battle video again for the millionth time.

9. Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable?

- Not usually, but around certain people it does.

10. Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with?

- Rach

11. What does the most recent text that you sent say?

- “But i hope you enjoy” to Rach

12. What are your 5 favorite songs right now?

- 1. Panic! At the Disco - This is Gospel, 2. Hayley Kiyoko - Curious, 3. Halsey - Is there somewhere, 4. The All-American Rejects - I For You, 5. Tyler Glenn - Shameless

13. Do you like it when people play with your hair?

- I love it, but there’s very few people who I allow to do so.

14. Do you believe in luck and miracles?

- Not really, no.

15. What good thing happened this summer?

- I got nominated for a job by a professor because of my writing, and I got the job today!

16. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?

- Lol no, it was just a friend.

17. Do you think there is life on other planets?

- Why not?

18. Do you still talk to your first crush?

- Nopeeee

19. Do you like bubble baths?

- Not really

20. Do you like your neighbors?

- Oh man, my neighbors fucking suck.

21. What are you bad habits?

- Nail biting, procrastinating

22. Where would you like to travel?

- I want to go back to Greece. I’d like to travel pretty much anywhere though.

23. Do you have trust issues?

- Yes.

24. Favorite part of your daily routine?

- Sleeping?

25. What part of your body are you most uncomfortable with?

- All of it? Lol

26. What do you do when you wake up?

- Groan because it’s early, hit the off button on my alarm and convince myself to slither out of bed.

27. Do you wish your skin was lighter or darker?

- I like being pale.

28. Who are you most comfortable around?

- Rach, Caitlin, Abe, Brandi and Crissy

29. Have any of your ex’s told you they regret breaking up?

- Yeah, but I don’t care.

30. Do you ever want to get married?

- Yes

31. If your hair long enough for a pony tail?

- No

32. Which celebrities would you have a threesome with?

- Hayley Kiyoko and Gal Gadot

33. Spell your name with your chin.

- zzal,ytdssas

34. Do you play sports? What sports?

- I used to do martial arts.

35. Would you rather live without TV or music?

- Without TV

36. Have you ever liked someone and never told them?

- All the time

37. What do you say during awkward silences?

- I make a really really bad dad joke.

38. Describe your dream girl/guy?

- A girl that makes me laugh, is loyal, and just wants the same things as me.

39. What are your favorite stores to shop in?

- I hate shopping ugh.

40. What do you want to do after high school?

- I graduated 3 years ago, lol, I’m in college.

41. Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance?

- Not always, no.

42. If your being extremely quiet what does it mean?

- I’m probably not happy, that’s for sure.

43. Do you smile at strangers?

- Most of the time

44. Trip to outer space or bottom of the ocean?

- Outer space

45. What makes you get out of bed in the morning?

- My alarm 

46. What are you paranoid about?

- Spiders being in my car

47. Have you ever been high?

- Yes

48. Have you ever been drunk?

- Yes

49. Have you done anything recently that you hope nobody finds out about?

- Nope

50. What was the colour of the last hoodie you wore?

- Grey

51. Ever wished you were someone else?

- Nah

52. One thing you wish you could change about yourself?

- Willpower

53. Favourite makeup brand?

- I don’t wear makeup

54. Favourite store?

- Barnes & Noble

55. Favourite blog?

- @virginqueenforlife

56. Favourite colour?

- Grey

57. Favourite food? 

- Greek Fries

58. Last thing you ate?

- Greek Salad

59. First thing you ate this morning?

- A bagel with cream cheese

60. Ever won a competition? For what?

- I honestly can’t think rn

61. Been suspended/expelled? For what?

- I was suspended in middle school because some kid hit me and stabbed me with a pencil and I stabbed him in the hand with a pencil as retaliation 

62. Been arrested? For what?

- No

63. Ever been in love? 

- Idk honestly

64. Tell us the story of your first kiss?

- LOL, his name was Jordan, it was the 6th grade, and we both turned out to be gay.

65. Are you hungry right now?

- Nope, I’m full

66. Do you like your tumblr friends more than your real friends?

- Sometimes

67. Facebook or Twitter?

-Twitter

68. Twitter or Tumblr?

- Tumblr

69. Are you watching tv right now?

-Catfish is playing in the background

70. Names of your bestfriends? 

- Caitlin, Brandi, Rachel

71. Craving something? What?

- My fave snack

72. What colour are your towels?

- Grey and Red

72. How many pillows do you sleep with?

- 2

73. Do you sleep with stuffed animals?

- Nah

74. How many stuffed animals do you think you have?

- Oh a whole basket from when I was a kid

75. Favourite animal?

- Otters!

76. What colour is your underwear?

- Grey

77. Chocolate or Vanilla?

- Vanilla

78. Favourite ice cream flavour?

- Pistachio, but only if it’s the fake stuff like the weird green color, or I like vanilla bean

79. What colour shirt are you wearing?

- Grey ( I really like Grey, sorry)

80. What colour pants?

- Black

81. Favourite tv show?

- Grey’s Anatomy all time fave. Right now though I’m binging Cutthroat Kitchen

82. Favourite movie?

- THIS IS SO HARD, ok, right now it’s Love Simon

83. Mean Girls or Mean Girls 2?

- Mean Girls

84. Mean Girls or 21 Jump Street?

- Mean Girls

85. Favourite character from Mean Girls?

- Damian! I actually met the actor last week lol

86. Favourite character from Finding Nemo?

- Dory

87. First person you talked to today?

- Rachel

88. Last person you talked to today?

- My dad

89. Name a person you hate?

- Coconut Head

90. Name a person you love?

- Rach

91. Is there anyone you want to punch in the face right now?

- The lady who cut me off in the fast lane this morning

92. In a fight with someone?

- No

93. How many sweatpants do you have?

- I don’t think I own any...

94. How many sweaters/hoodies do you have?

-Like 5?

95. Last movie you watched?

- Mamma Mia - Here We Go Again!

96. Favourite actress?

- Gal Gadot

97. Favourite actor?

- Tom Holland

98. Do you tan a lot?

- I’m white, I burn

99. Have any pets?

- 2 lovely pups

100. How are you feeling?

- Stressed, I have 4 papers due this weekend.

101. Do you type fast?

- Yes

102. Do you regret anything from your past?

- Nah, it’s whatever.

103. Can you spell well?

- Yes

104. Do you miss anyone from your past?

- Not really, nope.

105. Ever been to a bonfire party?

- Yes

106. Ever broken someone’s heart?

- Yep

107. Have you ever been on a horse?

- Yes

108. What should you be doing?

- Writing one of my papers

109. Is something irritating you right now?

- Yes, I really need to write this paper, but I love to procrastinate too much.

110. Have you ever liked someone so much it hurt?

- lol y e p

111. Do you have trust issues?

- Yes

112. Who was the last person you cried in front of?

- Uh my friends Alyssa and Alex, when I got the job offer this morning

113. What was your childhood nickname?

- Lyss

114. Have you ever been out of your province/state?

- Yes

115. Do you play the Wii?

- Was never a big Wii fan

116. Are you listening to music right now?

- No, TV in the background

117. Do you like chicken noodle soup?

- Eh, not really

118. Do you like Chinese food?

- Yes

119. Favourite book?

- 19 Minutes by Jodi Picoult

120. Are you afraid of the dark?

- Not really

121. Are you mean?

- I can be, but I won’t be unless I’m provoked

122. Is cheating ever okay?

- No. Never.

123. Can you keep white shoes clean?

- Yes

124. Do you believe in love at first sight?

- No

125. Do you believe in true love?

-Yes

126. Are you currently bored?

- No

127. What makes you happy?

- Studying with my fave

128. Would you change your name?

- Yes

129. What your zodiac sign?

- Gemini

130. Do you like subway?

- No, ew.

131. Your bestfriend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do?

- Uh well, I’m gay, he’s gay, so I don’t see that happening.

132. Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with?

- Rach

133. Favourite lyrics right now?

- Idk

134. Can you count to one million?

- Yes

135. Dumbest lie you ever told?

- I’m straight

136. Do you sleep with your doors open or closed?

- Bedroom door closed, closet doors - one open, one closed

137. How tall are you?

- Like 5′2 and a half

138. Curly or Straight hair?

- I like whatever

139. Brunette or Blonde?

- I have a thing for blondes

140. Summer or Winter?

- Winter

141. Night or Day?

- Afternoon

142. Favourite month?

- October

143. Are you a vegetarian?

- No

144. Dark, milk or white chocolate?

- Dark

145. Tea or Coffee?

- Both

146. Was today a good day?

- Yes

147. Mars or Snickers?

- Neither, ew

148. What’s your favourite quote?

- I have too many

149. Do you believe in ghosts?

- Nah

150. Get the closest book next to you, open it to page 42, what’s the first line on that page?

- “I didn’t know -- though here and there was a face I had noticed on the commuting train.”

[aleesblog]

How Proust Can Make You a Better Neurologist by Alastair Wilkins

It was a Proustian moment, of course, the sunlight filtering through the blinds at the start of an afternoon clinic, bathing the room in an uneasy, watery half- light, as the Professor, elegant and aloof, strode into the room, took his chair and surveyed the list of patients without even a glance at the assemblage of registrars and visiting dignitaries. Dr X, to my left, erstwhile attending neurologist to the Queen of Y, shuffled uneasily, gazing intently at his new mentor, studying the lines on his face in order to gauge the spirit of the next four hours, cooped up in this consultation room with its cork-lined walls. He recalled last week’s clinic with its emphasis on nosology, the subtle messages he had obtained from the Professor to study a particular chapter of his text book and the embar- rassment he had suffered for thinking Brown-Séquard to be two people.

But he was, as indeed we all were, in luck. The Professor, now smiling to himself, took out a document from the pile of manuscripts without which he never travelled, and reread the first few lines, before handing it to me with the words: “I thought you might be interested in this”. I smiled, and between us we shared a moment of understanding that signified our common interest in taking neurology to a higher level; in exploring the endless possibilities which broken minds open up to our understanding. After all, we were co-authors of a recent article in a respectable journal on the link between neurology and literature.

This moment of connection between two like-minded people underlies the bond of friendship and respect, but I, in my role of student, had never once thought of its reciprocation, until this time when I started to read the docu- ment which he had handed to me in such a way. It was an obituary of a recently deceased ‘pioneer’ of modern neu- rology, who had practiced in a room not twenty yards from where I now stood and whose portrait still hangs in the gloomy hostility of the lecture theatre: William Walton Gooddy M.D.Lond., FRCP, consulting physician to the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases and University College Hospital, London. Gooddy was a man who, so the obituary claimed, differed from the usual neurologists of his time by being ‘amusing and charming, lacking the austere asceticism and obsession regarded as prerequisites for success’. I read on as the Professor turned his attention to the list of patients before him and the prospect of being late for his five o’clock meeting, again, but my thoughts were arrested by the sentence that I have looked back on since and re-examined over and over again: ‘His first words to me on starting neurology were that I should take a week off to read À la Recherche du Temps Perdu as this would be far more useful in my career than Big Brain, the standard textbook of neurology.’

Of course, I knew a little about the book, noted for its length in particular, but had not previously given serious

thoughts to reading it, tending to agree with Bellow’s ver- dict on writing that as he grows older everything he reads tends to be not short enough. But from that moment I started to wonder why he should have given that advice to a neurologist in training. What could there be within those 3000 pages which would inform a budding neurol- ogist concerning the mysteries of the brain? How could a work of fiction help to understand the consequences of neurological injury?

And so I read the book, which, over its closely printed pages, became not only an amusement or a way to pass a few hours of leisure time, but an experience of time itself. Only today, walking through the hospital grounds on a cool autumn morning, did my gaze fall upon a tree, denuded of half its leaves, and I recollected that I had sat under its blossom laden boughs and read a few pages of the Bal des têtes. Just as the protagonist associates physical cues with memories, undoubtedly Proust expected the reader to use the book as a temporal guide for the months spent pondering its pages. Indeed the association of mem- ories, famously illustrated by the smell of tea-soaked madeleines, is of much interest to the neurologist who has an interest in cognition.

‘And as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of madeleine ... which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated segment which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morn- ing to night and in all weathers, the Square where I used to be sent before lunch, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine. And as in the game wherein the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little pieces of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch and twist and take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, solid and recognizable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.’

The ‘petites madeleines’ phenomenon has entered medical parlance (albeit transiently and perhaps erroneously) to

Alastair Wilkins is our Case Report Co-ordinator. He is Senior Lecturer in Neurology and Consultant Neurologist, University of Bristol. He trained in Neurology in Cambridge, Norwich and London. His research interests are the basic science of axon degenera- tion and developing treatments for progressive multiple sclerosis describe patients recovering from amnesia. Maybe those patients are the ones who seek most vehemently to recap- ture‘LostTime’.Butmuchmorethanthis,Proustexplores not only the way memories are rekindled in us, but why we recall particular events; how each one of us remembers the identical person or event in a different way; and even how dreams compound and interfere with memories. If Proust were to sit in our consulting rooms (for his multi- farious complaints) what kind of history would he give to us? Undoubtedly a highly detailed one, but he would probably point out to us that a hundred people suffering from the same symptoms would present a hundred differ- ent histories. It is up to the doctor to interpret these.

And what of doctors? Proust presents several in his novel, most notably Dr Cottard. Cottard was, in all prob- ability, based upon Jules Cotard, a contemporary of Charcot in Paris. Proust’s father (Adrien) was a distinguished physician who trained with Cotard at the Ecole de Médecine and the young Proust would have met many medical people. Yet Proust had an uneasy relationship with the medical profession. His own illness, reflected by the infirmity of the protagonist of À la Recherche du Temps Perdu, consisted of severe asthma and a multitude of other complaints. The prevailing view at the time, thought also to be held by Adrien Proust, was that asthma was a nervous habit that could be treated by isolating vic- tims in sanitaria for nervous diseases. The theory that conditions such as asthma were psychosomatic flourished in those times. Perhaps it is little wonder then that he had a deep mistrust of some within the profession. Nevertheless, Proust’s writing is highly influenced by medical terminology and analogy. The protagonist of À la Recherche du Temps Perdu suffers from ‘neurasthenia’ and is never far from his bed. His infirmity leads him to observe objects and occurrences in the minutest detail; and, more importantly, reflect on all those experiences he has had in his life. Many of these reflections centre around his illness or the illness of others. His metaphors are often medical and there is little doubt that Proust was fascinat- ed with medicine; the novel using themes of subconscious thought and dreams to explain emotions. One might say Proust ‘medicalises’ human suffering and experience (for instance he describes Swann’s love for Odette in terms of ‘malade’, ‘convalescent’ and ‘chirurgien’). To a certain extent, this may reflect the contemporary move- ment in France, led by Charcot (who is mentioned in the work), to illuminate the function of the mind and ratio- nalise the disciplines of neurology and psychiatry.

The death of the protagonist’s grandmother is of major significance in the novel. She becomes unwell before suf- fering from a stroke and consults a variety of medical practitioners. She consults a doctor called duBoulbon (predicted by Charcot to be the next great name in Neurology). He diagnoses neurosis and expounds his theories on human illness (no doubt reflecting some of Proust’s ideas). du Boulbon also states, when explaining the grandmother’s diagnosis, that ‘everything that we think of as great has come to us from neurotics’. Thus, he introduces a link between creative sensitivity and illness. In a way, Proust is telling us that he would never have written À la Recherche du Temps Perdu were it not for his own suffering. Could this explain some of his hostility towards physicians and their desire to cure all illness?

The paucity of and often bizarre nature of treatments in Proust’s day linked to the pompous and dictatorial man- ner of doctors (‘the symptoms you show will simply dis- appear at my command’) underlies much of the medical text in À la Recherche du Temps Perdu. Proust goes further than expounding medical impotence and lays the root of illness at the door of the medical profession: ‘for each ill- ness that doctors cure with medicine, they provoke ten in healthy people by inoculating them with the virus that is a thousand times more powerful than any microbe: the idea that one is ill’. Perhaps this is a little harsh. It may be that Proust was presenting an alternative to the vogue for turning all illness into psychosomatism.

So Proust describes illnesses from the patient’s point of view and presents his own theories. We learn about the relationship between illness and creativity, and about rec- ollection of events and the influence we all put on seem- ingly random aspects of a history. Maybe understanding these concepts will make us better neurologists.

And so I return to Dr Gooddy. What made him put such relevance on Proust magnum opus? If we are to examine his own published output there are clues. Not least an article published on Saturday 31 May 1958 in The Lancet entitled ‘Time and the Nervous system: the brain as a clock’. Within the elegantly written piece he introduces the concept of ‘temporal neurology’, arguing that the erst- while emphasis on neurology has been a dissection of spa- tial aspects of disease. Presenting theories on chronomet- ric mechanisms he uses examples of nervous and non- nervous physiological clocks which underpin our exis- tence. Gooddy takes neurology into the fourth dimension and uses the clock theories to explain why ‘when memory fails, we find a defect of recall and arrangement of time past’. And in that sentence I begin to understand what he means when recommending the novel to neurologists in training. Neurology is a temporal discipline, not just about locating lesions within the ‘space’ of the nervous system. Indeed chronobiology is now a burgeoning disci- pline. Gooddy predicts ‘we should be able to describe physiological chronometric mechanisms’. Whole confer- ences are now devoted to circadian rhythms, hox genes and neuroendocrine regulation of time.

In current times of molecular biology and the human genome does anyone have enough time to sit down and read novels as part of a medical curriculum? Perhaps Dr X would tell me that we can explain so much in terms of genetic regulation and spatial patterning that there is no longer a need for ‘amateur’ musings by latter-day philoso- phers. Science has negated philosophy; passing of time is another philosophical concept that has been explored and explained. I begin to argue that Proust tells us what it is to experience time, but instead I smile and let my mind wan- der and think back to a passage in À la Recherche du Temps Perdu which is able to elucidate in such elegant terms all those things which I have been battling to understand:

The places that we have known belong now only to the little world of space on which we map them for our own convenience. None of them was ever more than a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time; remembrance of a par- ticular form is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years.

References

deBotton A. How Proust can change your life. Picador 1998. Gooddy W. Time and the Nervous System: the brain as a clock. Lancet, 1958:1(7031);1139-44. Kapur N. The ‘Petites Madeleines’ phenomenon in two amnesic patients: sudden recovery of forgotten memories. Brain, 1996:119;1401-4.

Levy SN. Proust's Realistic Treatment of Illness. The French Review, 1942:i;235-8. Lucchelli F, Muggia S, Spinnler H. The ‘Petites Madeleines’ phenome- non in two amnesic patients: sudden recovery of forgotten memories. Brain, 1995:118;167-83.

Pearn J, Gardner-Thorpe C. Jules Cotard (1840-1889). Neurology, 2002:58;1400-3. Sharma OP. Marcel Proust (1871-1922): reassessment of his asthma and other maladies. Eur Resp J 2000:15;958-60.

[zenosanalytic]

Discworld: Feet of Clay

This was a REALLY interesting book. Like, it didn’t even really seem to be ABOUT the plot and Main Action?

Or, well, maybe it would be better to say that the main action, all along, was the Golems, and Pratchett kinda throws you for a loop by slowburning that plotline while distracting you with the Vetinari poisoning one(which is Clever, since the major point of the poisoning plot like is missing the Real cause or point of something because it’s too obvious and simple to see, so it kinda ties the whole golem thing into the poisoning thing’s themes in a way), but that’s not really what I mean either? What I mean is that this story kinda felt, to me, like it was about people’s flaws; examining them, showing other people react to them, showing how them impacted the lives of that person and those around them and the city, ect. Or at least, that this was a common theme in many of the subplots which the book seemed to be more interested in than the action. To me, at least.

Which, of course, touches on the Puns in this title. Pun Count:

It’s about Golems, which are made of clay, so physically about “Feet of Clay”.

It’s about the aspirations, and conditions, and flaws of golems(the misunderstanding about Words, what they did with their Childking), so about, among other things, their metaphorical “Feet of Clay”.

There’s a lot of running in it, and sedan-chair-hauling, and otherwise pedestrian movement.

It’s about Angua struggling with her feelings for Carrot, her flaws, and his flaws(as she sees them, since some of the biggest ones are what most people consider virtues)

The questionable origins, and even more questionable habits, of Nobby Nobbs(I LOVE that this is his actual name, I figured Nobby was a nick, his name is literally “Richie Rich” XD XD XD).

How the ambition, arrogance, and pride(flaws) of A-M’s nobility and Burghers, exemplified by Dragon King of Arms, lead them to make fools of themselves courting Nobby Nobbs.

Sargent Colon, his flaws, his perennially backfiring attempts to outsmart others, and the unfortunate fate of his fantasy of “returning”(he was born and raised in the city) to a simpler, more honest life closer to The Land.

The strain that Vimes’ flaws(workaholism, for one) put him, his marriage, and his underlings under. Also: the impact of his origins(his “common clay” heritage) on Vimes’ life and sense of morality(we also see a bit of this with Angua, and I suppose with Carrot, given his Dwarvish reactions to Cheri). Also-Also: his reflexive egalitarian sympathy and support for The Little Guy, or just anyone or any action that  pisses lots of people off. Particularly if they’re rich people.

Vetinari’s flaws(workaholism, for one) and how they’re exploited, for a time, to get him out of the way.

This might be a stretch, but a central device(heh heh heh >:3) of the story is Coats of Arms(otherwise, “Arms of Nobility”), their condition in A-M, and how newly rich common-born folks(again, the “common clay”) covet them for the status they convey. Just to make that explicit, the story deals, in part, with the tension between Arms of Nobility and Feet(origins) of Clay.

An exploration of the exploitation at the foundation of A-M’s bustling, world-class economy; its quite actual “Feet of Clay”, given the role of Golems and treadmills in it.

The theft of a few pallets of clay, in otherwords a few “feet of clay”, is of central importance to figuring out the mystery.

It deals with parenting! It deals with how many parents will try to put all their hopes and dreams on a child and, in doing so, really only heap them over with their flaws!! And at the sametime it does that, it also attacks the idea of kingship and the need people feel for hierarchy by showing that literally drive the person it is invested in insane, because this is Pratchett, the implacable anti-royalist, poster-author for “Power Corrupts” anti-authoritarianism, and so Of Course it does.

You get the idea: flaws play a big role in the plot, and the book takes alot of time to discuss them in most of the characters. So it’s not really as complicated as Men at Arms -there’s only two major puns there “Feet of Clay” for Golems with clay feet and the “Feet of Clay”(flaws) of people- but the second one is explored pretty thoroughly without ever going “wow hey look at how deep we’re going to be this is a book about how people aren’t perfect and how that imperfection shapes their lives and everything else”, or ever really abandoning its sense of humor.

I thought we got some interesting looks at Vetinari here, who we really haven’t spent much time with up until now. From Guards! we know that he is knowledgeable enough about swords to be able to snap one in half, apparently open-handed, instantaneously when wielded against him by someone who doesn’t really know how to use them, and in Feet of Clay we learn that he studied with the Assassins’ Guild at somepoint(though it’s unclear if he picked up the trick from them; Men at Arms makes it clear they don’t emphasize unarmed techniques). We learn Vetinari knows about poisons and has studied the strategies of poisoning, but again we can’t say he learned this from the AG since, while they DO study poisons, they frown on them as not being up-close and personal enough for their rank(since most Assassins are A-M aristos). We learn that, even when he’s been poisoned with arsenic which isn’t pleasant, he insists on working into the night., which is to say we’ve learned Vetinari has a real problem admitting his own weakness, or hurts, or pains, and that he doesn’t usually trust that other people will be competent(or particularly trustworthy, but we knew that). We know he’s writing a book called The Rites of Man, which seems an odd sort of thing for an autocrat with no particular interest in religion(beyond the practical given trigger-happy gods, I am sure) to be writing. We know that he feels he has “created” Vimes in someway, and that he feels a certain tolerant affection for him that sometimes leads to quixotic behavior on his part. We learned that he likes to see Vimes in action, even when he already knows how to solve a problem Vimes is working on, and that he’s willing to prolong crises, when it suits his objectives as well, just for the pleasure of seeing Vimes being Vimes. And I kind of, actually, wonder if this creates a sort of feeling of kinship between him and Carrot, given that Carrot finds Vimes as inspirational and most folks seem to find him.

Hmmm.... what else.... Dorfl’s Robocop quote near the end had me entirely metaphorically yelling I was so pleased. I thought the ending, and how Pratchett kept Angua in A-M was really sweet.

OH! How could my brain edit out Cheri like that on me for this whole essay >:( Treasonous I tells ya >:[ >:[ I don’t really know if Cheri’s storyline fits into the whole “Feet of Clay” puntheme necessarily. I mean, you could make a clay=transformation argument but I’d rather not |:T In regards to that particular bit of the story I’d say she was more of a foil: that Carrot’s reactions to her elucidated his flaws, but that this didn’t really have anything to do with her other than incidentally. There IS a certain obvious irony in her viewing A-M as a place she could get away to to be herself openly and freely, while heaping prejudiced insults on Angua(who came to the city to be herself in a different way, by suppressing a part of herself she disliked) for most of the book. Cheri’s not spared from being shown as flawed and having those flaws influence her path through the book of course: there’s her anti-were feelings and how that impacts her relationship with Angua. But there’s also how she came to The Watch in the first place; by not having traditional Dwarf interests, and by blowing up the senior leadership of the Alchemists’ Guild. And her biggest breakthrough, the arsenic grease, is something she thinks, at first, is a mistake, which was kind of a cool way to run with the whole “flaw” thing(particularly with her), by showing that, sometimes what we’ve been taught to see as a flaw or “wrong” is really the key to our success :) Also the bit of worldbuilding here, that plenty of Dwarves don’t really find out about the anatomy of their partners until rather late into courtship, and are often happy with whatever they find, meaning that, despite Carrot’s spot-consideration on the topic that terms like “mother” and “father” probably have more to do with social or familial roles than gendered anatomy, was pretty Neat, as was that there are Dwarves who FEEL “feminine”, and want to live as such, with certain Dwarven adjustments :p

Hmm Ok, I think that’s it, though I finished this book ~ 3 days ago so I’m prob forgetting some stuff that I wanted to write about |:T |:T