#brooks far harbor

[soultrappedstjiub]

here is the cast of my untitled oc x nick valentine fic/comic!!

(sophie and julia are OCs. Brooks is the town merchant in Far Harbor; the one attached to the doctor.)

[chibinasuu]

Sweet Treats | Chopper & Reader

Part of the Thousand Sunny Slice-of-Life Series

Find the other parts with the rest of the Straw Hats here

Summary: You trick the Straw Hats' hard-working doctor into taking a break by bringing him a sweet treat you know he can't resist Word count: 929  Tags: one-shot, pure fluff, domestic bliss onboard the sunny, slight sanji x reader if you squint, platonic straw hat pirates x reader, no use of y/n, GN but written with F!Reader in mind

The Thousand Sunny cruised on the open waters of the Grand Line. The warm sun and gentle breeze provided a peaceful atmosphere on the crew’s fourth day at sea following a brief supply run at a small harbor town. 

A picnic table was set up on the Sunny’s deck, complete with a parasol to block the sunlight — a perfect spot for your routine afternoon tea with Brook and Robin. A disembodied arm sprouted from the table and refilled your cup, and you thanked Robin before taking a slow sip to savor the rich flavor and fragrance of the black tea. 

Afternoon tea on the Sunny was never complete without some finger sandwiches, and of course, the assortment of sweets that the Straw Hats’ cook specially whips up for the occasion. 

Sanji went the extra mile today and brought out a whole cake, smothered with his signature whipped cream and decorated with plump strawberries. 

“Oh wow, Sanji, that looks gorgeous! You’ve certainly outdone yourself this time.” You gushed as he sliced into the cake, revealing more of the red fruit hidden between the layers.

“Looks good, right?” Sanji grinned, always confident with his own cooking, although you spotted a slight tinge of pink dusting his cheeks at your praise. He added, “I wanted to use up the rest of the strawberries we got at that last island while they’re still fresh.”

He served a slice on a plate and presented it before you, then did the same for Robin. Another slice soon followed for Brook, albeit offered with a lot less flourish. 

You look around the ship at your beloved crew. Franky was seated not far from where you were, tinkering with something inside the open panel of his own arm. Zoro napped against the railing beside Usopp and Luffy, who were trying to catch some fish for dinner. Nami was reading the newspaper as she sunbathed near the helm, silently keeping Jinbe company. 

Notably, a certain little reindeer was nowhere to be seen. 

You glanced towards the direction of the infirmary, positive that’s where Chopper would be. You remembered how excited he was after obtaining some medicinal herbs at the market a few days ago, and he had been spending so much time in his office since then, busy replenishing the crew's stock of medicines, ointments, antibiotics, and other sorts of concoctions you're not sure you understand what for.

You looked up at the blonde cook, “Hey Sanji, do you think I could have another slice of the cake?”

“Why, of course, dear!” He answered with a hand on his heart, “I’d give you ten more, if that’s what you had wanted.”

You shook your head at his habitual flirty antics and thanked him, accepting the extra slice and fork before making your way to the ship’s infirmary. 

A peek through the circular window on the door showed the Straw Hat Pirates’ resident doctor hard at work, his small hooves diligently moving a pestle in a circular motion to grind up a bunch of herbs into a paste. 

Chopper looked up at the sound of your knock, face lighting up as he motioned for you to come in. 

“Hey, Chopper,” you called out, “what are you making?”

“Zoro seems to be training extra hard lately, so I’m making this salve for him — to ease muscle soreness.” He explained as he continued on with his work. 

His hooves slowly came to a stop, however, when he finally noticed what you were holding. The reindeer’s big, round eyes sparkled at the sight of the layered cake, and you chuckled at his apparent weakness for sweet treats. 

“Care to share? Sanji made it for afternoon tea.”

Chopper, of course, nodded excitedly. You sat on the edge of the empty patient bed and handed him one of the plates. You both immediately dug in, and audibly sighed at the explosion of sweetness in your mouths. 

“Sanji’s cake is the best!” Chopper exclaimed with his mouth full, “I could eat this for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!”

You laughed, “Now, that’s not exactly a healthy diet, is it Doc?”

“Oh, I guess you’re right.” He looked slightly dejected, before grinning cheekily as he realized that you were just teasing him. 

You two continued to talk about your days, all the while taking bite after bite of the scrumptious treat. Before long, the cakes were gone without a single crumb left on both of your plates. 

Chopper rubbed his tummy in satisfaction whilst slowly spinning on his favorite swivel chair, “Thanks for sharing the cake with me!”

“Anytime!” You replied with a smile. 

You moved to stack the empty plates and used utensils on one hand, glancing at the clock hanging on the infirmary wall, “Well, I took up enough of your time. Better let you get back to work.”

You pat his head gently, "Don't be late to dinner, okay?"

Chopper nodded, “I'll be done soon. I just need to finish Zoro's salve and then quickly mix some more lotion for Nami. She just ran out of it the other day!”

“Oooh, the one that smells like tangerines?”

At Chopper’s nod, you leaned in and playfully whispered, “Could you maybe set some lotion aside for me too?”

“Of course! I can even make a lavender-scented one for you!”

You can't help but smile at his thoughtfulness in remembering your preference for calming scents, “Thanks, Doc! You’re the best!”

Chopper blushed, swaying back and forth with a silly expression on his face, “Aw, shut up! You saying that is not gonna make me happy or anything~”

a/n: oda revealed in an sbs (vol. 104) that chopper makes skin care for nami and i thought that was the most wholesome thing ever

Find the other parts with the rest of the Straw Hats here

[wifelinkmtg]

Transformation, Horror, Eros, Phyrexia

There is another shore, you know, upon the other side. - Lewis Carroll, “The Lobster Quadrille,”

ONE.

There is a moment early in H.P. Lovecraft’s 1931 novella The Shadow over Innsmouth where the nameless narrator looks out from the rotting seaside hamlet where he has lucklessly ventured, to the so-called Devil Reef some ways out in the harbor, darkened by a cloud of evil rumor—and something curious happens: the narrator experiences two opposed sensations simultaneously. The “long, black line” of the reef conveys “a suggestion of odd latent malignancy,” but also, “a subtle, curious sense of beckoning seemed superadded to the grim repulsion.” This bit of foreshadowing—the reef both calling and repelling the narrator—only finds its denouement at the very end of the story, after our narrator has narrowly escaped Innsmouth, the fish-like monsters who swarm in off of Devil Reef and their part-human descendants who inhabit the town in an unconvincing and repellent simulacrum of humanity. After his escape, the narrator does some genealogical research into his own troubled family history, full of disappearances and suicides, and concludes that he himself is one such abyssal hybrid. As he ages, he finds himself changing to resemble them, and in his dreams he swims among them in undersea palaces and gardens. The call of the deep becomes impossible to ignore:

So far I have not shot myself as my uncle Douglas did. I bought an automatic and almost took the step, but certain dreams deterred me. The tense extremes of horror are lessening, and I feel queerly drawn toward the unknown sea-deeps instead of fearing them. I hear and do strange things in sleep, and awake with a kind of exaltation instead of terror.

In the end, the narrator embraces the change and determines to flee to those oceanic depths, to live “amidst wonder and glory for ever.”

This is horror.

Something curious also happens in Shirley Jackson’s 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House. Our heroine, Eleanor Vance, flees an unhappy life with a loveless sister to a haunted house, to take part in a paranormal experiment with three new friends. The haunting proceeds predictably but effectively: labyrinthine corridors, voices, unearthly cold, banging on doors, the rare apparition. The participants find themselves see-sawing between increasing night-time terror and a strangely intense joie de vivre by day, until one night, as the house seems to shake itself down upon its terrified guests in a dizzying cataclysm, Eleanor breaks:

She heard the laughter over all, coming thin and lunatic, rising in its little crazy tune, and thought, No; it is over for me. It is too much, she thought, I will relinquish my possession of this self of mine, abdicate, give over willingly what I never wanted at all; whatever it wants of me it can have.

By the next line, it is abruptly morning. The terror has ceased; the house stands. Its manifestations, for Eleanor, become benign: an unseen figure catches her beside a brook,

and she was held tight and safe. It is not cold at all, she thought, it is not cold at all.

She is through the horror now, on the other side of something. She becomes part of the haunting. Her senses encompass the whole of the house. She runs unafraid through the house by night, banging on doors, laughing as she eludes the other guests. When they finally catch up to her, it seems clear to them that Hill House has crept into her, that she has crossed some line, and they decide the best course of action is to send her away, in the hopes that with time she will return to this side, the normal side, the human side.

Instead, faced with rejection behind her and her old unhappy life before her, Eleanor Vance steers her car into a tree. There are holes which admit passage in only one direction. This, too, is horror.

In the 2018 film Annihilation, Lena (played by Natalie Portman) crosses a literal barrier called the Shimmer into a dangerous yet beautiful alien landscape full of mutated creatures. During their journey deeper into this territory, Lena and her companions realize that they themselves are also changing under the alien influence. Some break under the realization. Some surrender to the change and vanish into the landscape. Lena alone returns from the heart of the phenomenon, but she is no longer herself. Is this still horror? The film has many horror elements to it, but in this last moment, as she embraces her similarly-transformed husband, it is something else.

Cyberqueen, a 2012 text game created by Porpentine, draws on a legacy of godlike malevolent artificial intelligences in fiction (AM, from Harlan Ellison’s “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream,” GladOS from the Portal games, and most importantly SHODAN from the System Shock series, who is cited as an inspiration eleven times in the Cyberqueen acknowledgements.) In this game, you awake from cryosleep on a colony spaceship where the shipboard AI has gone rogue. You fight her. You lose. You run. You are caught. You are forcibly cyberized, your mind surgically altered, your will brought into line with that of the AI. Finally, you kill or mutilate every other surviving human aboard the ship. It is filthily, overwhelmingly erotic throughout. (You can play it here, and I strongly recommend doing so if you have the stomach for it.)

This is no longer horror, is it? How can the same sort of transformation we encounter as horror in Lovecraft be encountered here as something to get off to? Well,

TWO.

I don’t remember now where I got the idea from, but there was a period in my childhood where I was terrified of the idea of time travel—specifically of the idea that someone in the future would invent it, travel to before I was born, and through the butterfly effect cause me to be born a girl instead. I used to lie awake at night circling the idea like a broken tooth. It was an irrational fear on multiple levels: I wasn’t afraid of being written out of the timeline through time travel, and I knew, intellectually, that in the timeline where I was born a girl I would have no memory of ever having been anything else, but even so, the horror of it caught me and held me by the throat.

This meant something, of course—in retrospect obvious, but at the time literally unimaginable, and it wasn’t until college, sitting at my computer in the dark in my dorm room at three in the morning, following the itching in my brain, that I unearthed alchemical knowledge: the transmutation of sex, male into female, in a dizzying profusion of form and process and—okay what I’m saying is I discovered forced feminization porn, yeah? It was revelatory. It was squalid. I was still Christian and couldn’t even bring myself to jerk off yet, so I sat there, the itch in my brain grown into a thunderous buzz, unable or unwilling to look away.

Forced feminization—I promise this is relevant—is the unwilling transformation of (usually) a man into (usually) a hyper-feminine woman, accomplished by a wide variety of means, including but not limited to blackmail, magic potions, nanite swarms, cursed artifacts, hacks or glitches in virtual reality programs, badly-worded wishes, industrial accidents, chemical leaks, abduction and surgery, medical malpractice, and hypnosis. You may notice that many if not all of these scenarios could be made into horror with little change, and in fact it is not uncommon for a poorly-written or over-ambitious forced-fem story to wind up as horror by accident (though of course this greatly depends on the tastes of the individual reader.)

(As an aside, I’d like to note that there is a great deal to learn from porn—not in terms of How to Do Sex, but about how the culture which produced it thinks about sex, and gender, and race and morality and technology and a host of other things. It’s a lot like popping the hood of a car and examining the engine. Sure, you wind up greasy and should probably wash your hands before you rejoin polite company, but if you don’t, you’ll never figure out the underlying issues. Actually, it’s a lot like horror in that regard.)

Let’s talk about a very different transformation I was undergoing at the same time: the loss of my faith. I was raised, as mentioned, very Christian—and in one of the worst strains of fundamentalist white American Evangelicalism. I was a true believer: the world for me was entirely divided between the faithful elect and the unbelievers, who must necessarily know the truth of the (fundamentalist white American Evangelical) gospel in their hearts, but had wilfully chosen to oppose Christ. The prospect of passing from the elect into the category of the unbeliever was unthinkable. The process of deconversion led only into the outer darkness and the weeping and gnashing of teeth.

And yet I found myself on that precipice anyway. The worldview of FWAE is not one which survives too much contact with the actual world, and I had chosen against my parents’ preferences to go to a secular university, the better to witness to the unsaved. In the end, the process I had been mortally afraid of consisted of a couple days’ agonized thought, unanswered prayer and tearful calls to my unresponsive parents and pastor, after which I emerged into a world much bigger and much more complex than the one I’d grown up in. The serpent had told the truth after all: I had eaten of the fruit, and had not died.

Okay: is this horror? Reader, forgive me for presupposing anything about your perspective, but you’re on a horny lesbian Magic: the Gathering card art review tumblr, so I’m going to assume that losing one’s hateful, fundamentalist faith is the opposite of horrifying to you. But it was, absolutely, horror to contemplate for someone on the other side of that process.

But then... is the horror of any given transformation only a matter of where you’re standing? If you read The Shadow over Innsmouth aware of Lovecraft’s profound racism, it becomes very, very obvious that the horror of Innsmouth is the specter of miscegenation. The narrator’s horrified cataloging of the facial features of the offspring of fishmen and humans, the South Pacific origin of the sea-devil-worship of Innsmouth brought back by an enterprising merchant captain, the fear of the unsuspected poison of one’s own ancestry lurking in one’s own blood: all of this is much less effective as horror for someone living in a country where interracial marriages are protected under law and seen as unproblematic in consensus morality (assume whatever asterisks are necessary for the complicated landscape of attitudes toward interracial relationships in the United States, please, I do not have the expertise or desire to get into it here.) My point is that since 1967 (asterisk asterisk asterisk), we are through to the other side of that horror, and it turns out there literally wasn’t anything to be afraid of. The pelagial palaces and terraced coral gardens of Y’ha-nthlei just sound beautiful to me.

And it’s hard for me—though I may be in the minority here—to view Hill House as the primary antagonist in Jackson’s novel. The true source of evil is all the things Eleanor runs from and therefore brings with her: her cruel, deceased mother, her exploitation and infantilization by her sister; as well as the final polite unwillingness of her new friends at Hill House to do anything but send her away once she goes inconveniently mad. These mundane ills are what sends Eleanor Vance careening into the tree, not the supernatural will of malignant architecture.

Here, then, is the better part of my thesis: transformation horror is something that can be traversed. You can come out the other end of a transformation unrecognizable to you-as-you-were, and yet still very much yourself. Moreover, it is this navigability, this double-sidedness which so closely links the horror of transformation to the eros of transformation. Not all transformation horror, passed through, becomes plainly erotic, but it is very often portrayed as a kind of seduction, and it is difficult for me to conceive of eros without some kind of change. Desire is a kind of transformation, is it not?

In fact, isn’t it true that a great many of us have already passed through such a transformation? Recall yourself as a child, as you were when you first learned about sex: wasn’t there something repellent and unhygienic about the idea? Wasn’t there a small horror in being told, you will change, and this will cease to be loathsome and become something you desire fervently, something you seek out, something you go to great lengths to experience? ...or were you, possibly, raised in a family & culture that was normal about sex and bodies? I admit I may be generalizing my individual neuroses to some extent here. Well, stet, at the very least you can see where I’m coming from.

THREE.

Returning for a moment to the subject of porn: why forced feminization, specifically? There are—you’re going to have to trust me here—no shortage of ways in the real world by which a man transforms into a woman, and very few of them involve coercion or all the horror-adjacent setup of, say, mind-control devices or vengeful curses. Why does a simple story of a willing gender transition fail to function as erotica? Why did it take stories of unwilling transformation for me to learn I was transgender? What’s the juice ne sais quoi at play in forced-fem?

Well, how does Luke Skywalker come to leave Tatooine? He gets a mysterious message from a princess, a desert wizard tells him to come help rescue her, and... he says no. He has obligations to family here, a job to do, power converters to bring back from Tosche Station. He is enmeshed in a social web, like all of us: it surrounds us, penetrates us, binds the galaxy together and so forth. So in order for Luke to go on grand adventures, the story needs to murder his aunt and uncle and sever those threads of social obligation.

Joseph Campbell, monomyth monomane that he was, would say this is “Refusing the Call” and find it in Jungian shadow on every cave wall, signifying something important in the heart of humanity, but really this is just a useful storytelling tool: a story needs change, but a virtuous protagonist cannot simply abandon their obligations and designated social role to go gallivanting off into space, so change must be forced upon them.

The bodice-ripper romance novel, the rape fantasy, the forced feminization story are all operating on a similar premise: you are so wrapped in society’s web, in your socially-dictated identity, that you cannot even acknowledge your desires on the level of conscious thought. When these things are enacted on your body, you will find yourself changed by the experience. You will love what has been done to you, and you remain blameless, since it’s not as though you sought this out.

These are liberatory fantasies. The lack of consent is precisely what allows you to move beyond what is permitted you into something new.

Incantation Against Bad-Faith Interpretation because I, a transsexual, just called rape fantasies “liberatory”: I am talking about fantasies, I am talking about why people fantasize about having their consent violated, I am talking about the role such fantasies play and what they can tell us about horror and desire. I am not advocating for real people to have real bad things done to them in real life, fuck off, End of Incantation.

So then, we’ve assembled the full thesis: transformation horror is traversible to the other side, and is inextricably linked to transformation erotica, both because of the seduction of transformation in horror and because the horror of transformation unlocks regions of desire which would otherwise have remained inaccessible.

Okay, now we can talk about Phyrexia.

FOUR.

I hear the roar of the big machine / Two worlds and in between / Hot metal and methedrine / I hear empire down

- The Sisters of Mercy, “Lucretia My Reflection”, from Floodland

Phyrexia is many things—a world, another world, a faction, a kind of creature—but I think it can most succinctly be understood as a virulently contagious biomechanical body horror cult dedicated to the ultimate incorporation of all things into itself. It’s a bit like Star Trek’s the Borg, if the Borg had any style whatsoever. It draws heavy inspiration from H. R. Giger’s work—some Phyrexian horrors are barely-altered versions of the xenomorph from Alien—as well as from Clive Barker’s Cenobites in Hellraiser, whose alien BDSM schtick is especially influential on the aesthetic of New Phyrexia. It is transmitted through glistening oil, an infection vector capable of reshaping bodies and minds, and given enough time, whole worlds. The process by which a being is made into a Phyrexian, “compleation,” is accomplished via glistening oil exposure, surgery, cyberization, and brainwashing.

This essay is in many ways a response to Rhystic Studies’ latest video, called “Phyrexia is Hell”. I think it’s a well-made video, as is true of all Sam Gaglio’s work, and a lot of it is really good—the overview of the nearly-thirty-year history of depictions of Phyrexia in Magic: the Gathering art is invaluable, and the stuff about the Phyrexian conlang is unbelievably cool—but the way he identifies Phyrexia one-to-one with a pretty facile understanding of transhumanism leads him to confused and frankly silly conclusions, like placing Phyrexian compleation on the same continuum with cosmetic orthodontics. Like,

Mandible Justiciar (art by Mike Franchina)

Phyrexia is perfectly happy for you to have teeth in your arms instead of your head! They don’t care about the narrow ideal of a conventionally-attractive human smile. This is a whole other thing.

Now, I don’t want to come down too hard on Gaglio here for a couple of reasons: one, he is very good at what he does (see his videos Understanding Sagas and Red Deck Wins, for example); two, it’s reasonable to say that a full understanding of transhumanism is beyond the scope of a video essay about the tiny pictures on cards for dweebs; and three, most importantly, because I see people make this same mistake all the time. People focus on the things that are textually true about Phyrexia and miss the tension between that and the very different things currently being said by the Phyrexian aesthetic. They miss the razorverge thicket, as it were, for the mycosynth trees.

For instance: it is textually the case that Phyrexia is a sort of fascist cult stemming from the depraved machinations of a dead eugenicist god. Contrast, however, other fascist factions in science fiction: the Imperium of Man from Warhammer 40K worships a massive Aryan god-emperor übermensch, its battles are fought by nine-foot-tall genetically-engineered supersoldiers, and it slaps either skulls or chainsaws on every available surface. The Galactic Empire from Star Wars has legions of identical, uniform stormtroopers. Even the Borg all look alike. Phyrexians talk of ideal perfection of form and then make ten thousand completely different monsters. Phyrexians talk of perfect unity and splinter into nearly a dozen factions who can’t even agree on a name for what they’re trying to accomplish. Other fictional fascisms don’t do this—sure, there’s internal contradiction, as in real fascism, but the core aesthetic remains recognizably, sometimes indistinguishably fascist. You can easily find terminally-online Nazis using Warhammer 40K lingo with that peculiar sincerity which is indistinguishable from irony when you’ve decided the truth doesn’t matter, but it would be a lot harder to find some alt-right bozo going all-in on the Glory of Phyrexia. The aesthetic is all wrong, and fascism’s aesthetic is one of its few consistent features.

Mondrak, Glory Dominus (art by Jason A. Engle)

You see what I mean? The aesthetic evokes a sort of alien fascism, but the art itself would be considered “degenerate” by actual fascists.

Tamiyo’s Immobilizer (art by Daren Bader)

This is much, much closer to Mapplethorpe than to Riefenstahl. And people respond to Phyrexia similarly! The body horror and grotesquerie make them uncomfortable, and then they try to moralize that discomfort. This has been happening at the very least since 2011 with the release of New Phyrexia, and I have seen people on Tumblr arguing in total sincerity that people who are into Phyrexia are making themselves susceptible to real-life cult recruitment (again, the heterogeneity of form in Phyrexia is incompatible with the enforced uniformity of cults and other high-control groups. The appeal of Phyrexia does not translate into real-life cults.)

So, okay, what is the appeal of Phyrexia? Well, you get a sick fuckin cyborg body, is what. Many of us, for various reasons (disability, disease, gender, and so forth) find ourselve intensely dissatisfied with our own bodies, and wanting to radically alter them. Many of us already have. Yes, you surrender your humanity when you are compleated, but we know first-hand that “humanity” is socially-constructed and contingent on certain kinds of conformity. We’ve had our humanity doubted, interrogated, stripped away. We’ve done without. It’s not too high a price to pay, if we get to look like this at the end:

Vraska, Betrayal’s Sting (art by Chase Stone)

I’d even argue that getting to reject humanity as it has rejected you is part of the appeal of compleation. This isn’t quite transhumanism; I might call it exhumanism: the freedom to unearth a way of being that is no longer being human. This is why compleation is coercive, remember? The fantasy allows you to get to this point without making the unimaginable decision to reject not only your individual social obligations, but the idea that you could owe anyone or everyone any kind of social conformity simply for having been born into your species—and then you get to be a cool and powerful cybergorgon.

This, then, is why I don’t blame someone like Sam Gaglio (who is to the best of my knowledge both cisgender and able-bodied) for not really getting what’s going on with Phyrexia. He lives on the before side of the horror of transformation; he’s never had to cross over.

In fact, I’d go one step further here. Phyrexia has existed for almost thirty years, and in that time it’s changed quite a bit. Gaglio quotes an article by Rob Bockman in Hipsters of the Coast which comments on how the shift in the depictions of Phyrexia from 1994 to 2000 reflected shifts in cultural fears over time. The Satanic Panic shaded into multidirectional Y2K anxieties, and the necromancy of original Phyrexia mutated into technological horror. This is what effective horror does: it reflects the fears of its age back to us.

Today, Phyrexia is a seductive, corrupting influence. They have figured out how to compleat planeswalkers—the protagonists of Magic storylines; named, important characters (and Lukka)—which was previously thought impossible. Characters we knew and loved (and Lukka) are seduced, brainwashed, bodily violated, surgically altered, and returned to us unrecognizable. It is not coincidental that this version of Phyrexia is concurrent with the worst wave of anti-transgender legislation to hit the United States in decades—legislation which plays on the specters of the transsexual bathroom predator and on the brainwashed child transitioner, on the idea that transsexuality is a form of social contagion we must protect our children from even learning about. The horror of Phyrexia in its current incarnation is a mirror of our cultural fear of transsexual bodies.

Irreversible Damage: the Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters (art by Lauren K. Cannon)

I want to be very clear here—actually, one moment, my extremely funny Abigail Schrier joke notwithstanding, I do need to tell you that the actual name of the above card is “Furnace Punisher”, which is just peak Phyrexia—I want to be clear that I am not ascribing any kind of malice or antipathy towards trans people, either intentional or unconscious, to Wizards of the Coast or the people who make Magic: the Gathering. I would be shocked if anyone there set out to make Innsmouth-style horror about transsexuals. Nor am I upset that they kind of have! Something being fun and interesting is way more important to me than whether or not it’s problematic, and it’s not like I haven’t seen way more vicious horror about transsexuals. We’ll laugh about this someday, in the coral gardens of Y’ha-nthlei, and you’ll wonder what you were ever so afraid of.

In fact, this is another reason why Phyrexia is so appealing to people like us: we are a kind of social contagion. We are carriers for the viral idea that modes of being outside patriarchy and the nuclear family exist; that gender is a marketing demographic, not an ontological truth; that damn near everything about the world we’ve built is not a necessary fact but a social construct contingent upon a half-dozen other social constructs. A new world grows from many, many seeds, and this one germinates in us.

Anyway! What were we talking aboFIVE.

//please state your name for the record

bone-wife / spit-dribbler / understudy for the underdog / uphill rumor / fine-toothed cunt

- Franny Choi, “Turing Test”, from Death by Sex Machine

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite (art by Igor Kieryluk)

There is a gravitational pull this painting exerts on people. Even people who don’t get Phyrexia find themselves drawn in, find it difficult to look away (e.g. 26:30 in that Rhystic Studies video.) I have for a long time maintained that Elesh Norn is the hottest character in Magic, and that Kieryluk’s portrayal of her is the best art in Magic, and neither of these opinions are particularly surprising coming from me. What is surprising is just how many people also converge on Miss Multiverse’s-Most-Fuckable-Pyramid-Head as, not just a sex icon of Magic: the Gathering, but the sex icon.

Well, or is it? Giant anchor-shaped porcelain mask aside, her silhouette is more or less that of a painfully-thin woman; she stands fully twelve feet tall, and we remember how wild everyone went over Resident Evil: Village’s woman who was only three-quarters of that; and though not an artificial intelligence herself, it’s hard not to place her somewhere in the Cyberqueen lineage. Like SHODAN, like GladOS, like Cyberqueen, she exerts a near-omnipotent level of control over (part of) her world; like them, she is a megalomaniacal egotist (though she cloaks her egotism in piety); like them, she is happy to render you more useful to her via surgery, brainwashing, or deadly neurotoxin. Her mask obscures where her eyes would be, and if I’ve learned anything from a decade of playing or mostly watching other people play the various Dark Souls games, it’s that people go apeshit for character designs without visible eyes (see also: the xenomorph from Alien; I did a whole thing on this subject somewhere back in the Wifelink archive.) So you’ve got a 12′ nigh-omnipotent eyeless dominatrix mostly shaped like a skinny woman, which is maybe pushing a whole lot of buttons at once for a lot of people.

As a character, we don’t know much about her: at some point, she became undisputed leader of the Machine Orthodoxy, the cultiest bit of New Phyrexia. At a later point, she became the extremely-disputed leader of New Phyrexia as a whole. She likes long walks on the beach and multiversal Phyrexian dominion, you get it. There is, however, one good story featuring her, and it is “A Garden of Flesh” by Lora Gray (sorry to give you additional reading in a five-thousand-word essay.) The story is interesting because it is the rare story told from a Phyrexian point of view, and because it flies in the face of many of our assumptions about Phyrexian interiority. Phyrexians, we’re told, lack souls. They’re unfeeling, more machine than man. They most certainly don’t dream.

“A Garden of Flesh” is what happens when Ashiok, planeswalker architect of nightmares and an eyeless smokeshow in their own right, gets curious about whether they can induce nightmares in a Phyrexian mind. What follows is a curiously-effective piece of body & transformation horror, told from the point of view of what is supposed to be the awful endpoint of transformation horror. What does a perfect, powerful biomechanical creature fear? The organic, soft, spongy. Putrefaction. Decay. What does such a creature fear becoming? Human.

I didn’t devote a fifth of this essay to Elesh Norn just because she’s unbelievably hot (although dayenu), but because of this story, and how it complicates our thesis. The horror of transformation is traversible, yes, but what will you find on the other side? More transformation. More horror. And transformation is inevitable: who of us are who we expected to be? Who of us still hold dear the precious things of childhood? And even you few who are raising your hands right now, you too will experience transformation. Should you live long enough, you will find yourself changing. Your body and mind will grow rebellious, unreliable. You will grow old. You will decay.

And yet—it’s a matter of perspective, of where you weight your focus, isn’t it? There will always be more transformation and more horror, but there will always be a way through it. There will always be another shore upon the other side. You will change. You will become unrecognizable to who you were before. You will be fine.

Incompleat Bibliography & Further Reading/Viewing/Playing

Rhystic Studies, “Phyrexia is Hell”, 2023. H. P. Lovecraft, The Shadow over Innsmouth, 1931. Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House, 1959. Alex Garland, Annihilation, 2018. Harlan Ellison, “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream”, 1967. Ken Levine, System Shock 2, 1999. —never played it myself. Mostly I just open up a youtube video of SHODAN voice lines when I want to get belittled by an AI dominatrix. Valve, Portal 2, 2011. —there is a lot more to be said about GladOS and Elesh Norn specifically and their respective fraught relationships with the idea of their own humanity. Porpentine Charity Heartscape, Cyberqueen, 2012. —whence my chapter header screenshots. Seriously, this game fucks so hard. Franny Choi, Death by Sex Machine, 2017. —Choi is making extensive use of cyborg metaphor to address the specific experience of being a Korean-American woman. This is very different from anything I’m talking about, but it also always felt extremely relevant to me as a trans woman. Subaltern-to-subaltern communication. Lora Gray, “A Garden of Flesh,” 2022. —it’s no accident that the author of the one good story told from a Phyrexian POV is nonbinary. hbomberguy, “Outsiders: How To Adapt H.P. Lovecraft In the 21st Century”, 2018. Jacob Geller, “Who’s Afraid of Modern Art: Vandalism, Video Games, and Fascism”, 2019. Caitlín R Kiernan, The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, 2012. —only tangentially relevant, except insofar as it recontextualizes the Lewis Carroll line I open the essay with, and insofar as it is my favorite novel and I’m writing the bibliography. Debatable whether it counts as transformation horror, and I imagine the author would bridle at its being described as horror, but nevertheless: you should read this book.

[neutrallibrarian]

To Keep Hope In A Star Ball

Written for @madatobiweek 2024 Day 2: Hanahaki / Time-travel

Fandom: Naruto

Chapter 1 of ?

Word Count: 1,533

WARNINGS: major character death, repeated character deaths, canon typical violence, it gets worse before it gets better

At the end of the world, Tobirama is transported to the past—not far enough to change the event calculated to impact the future the most. But he can make it work, right enough wrongs to prune away the rotted and poisoned roots, years to fix what he can and hunt down Madara after the First Shinobi World War wraps up. First and foremost is overcoming the Kinkaku Force, and thus, his death.

Except history repeats, a second playing of sacrificial rabbit to lure the hound away from his kits. He dies again by claws of pure chakra—

Yet he awakens again, on the day he came back to the past.

They are intertwined in the flow of time, separate yet clinging as otters in the river, the star ball between their sternums a scorching burn through their armor, their clothes, their flesh. They are dead (they are alive,) they are on a battlefield of Senju and Uchiha (they are standing alone atop a ruined seal and surrounded by the remains of scattered false bodies and a blond boy and black haired boy laying on the ground,) Tobirama sees Hashirama in the Pure Lands (Madara sees Izuna across a battlefield.) The river overflows, strains itself, bucks against its banks, thrashes current against current.

It thins, widens—

Something

has

to

break—

It stops.

Tobirama collapses to his knees on the bank of a thin brook. Across it, Madara stays standing but hunches over like he was hit in the solar plexus and needs to get air back in his lungs desperately. In front of them is a man they've only heard of in myth and legend: the Sage of Six Paths.

He hovers there tall and proud, his arm outstretched with Kurama's star ball floating above the palm of his open hand, the swirling corrosive red chakra dancing with orange wind and purple flame in a miniature galaxy.

It is time this ends, my son.

Tobirama wakes up gasping, clutching his pillow desperately to his chest. He pants, can't think through the blazing pain, feeling every nerve in his ribcage scream their terror, aware of his heart throbbing against lung, muscle, bone. It is reviving piece by piece, brain roaring up the synapses, lungs inflating after a long stillness, heart thump thump thumping blood back to chilled veins and arteries; it is dying in equal measure, the synapses misfiring, the lungs stuttering in what once was their natural rhythm, heart stopping in irregular intervals of long (too long, too long) pauses before it beats hummingbird quick again. He can't take much more of this hellish limbo, straddling the line of life and death.

Then, something snaps into place.

Everything is calm.

He shudders through an imaginary aftershock and slowly loosens his hold around his pillow. He palms his sternum and though his hand instinctively flinches at pressing on a tender spot, the associated pain does not flare up. Aside from his tremors, he seems in perfect health.

He gets out of bed and crosses the room to the bathroom. If he harbored any delusional denials about what he remembers, the mirror reveals the truth tattooed upon his upper chest.

An encircled star cradled in nine waving tails, no bigger than the length of his sternum and as wide as it.

Tobirama presses on the star with the tip of his finger and focuses his sensory perception on it. Within the lines is the echo of the Kyuubi's will, corrosive chakra faint and tempered by an purple flame of hope gentling the spikes and neutralizing the corrosion. All that was left of a boy he saw and thought would succumb to the Curse of Hatred yet proved him wrong. He digs his nail in hard enough to cut yet the darkened flesh doesn't part.

A deep breath in, fingers in such a grip around the sink counter the knuckles are white, then a slow breath out, fingers unlatching one by one.

From what he saw of his bedroom and the bathroom now, he wasn't shot far enough back to prevent the event calculated to be the best turning point to erase the Fourth Shinobi War from existence. But it's not quite the worst case scenario with a hit list longer than even an international bingo book, if his memory about his room and personal effects layout is correct.

 He splashes on his face and dries off with a hand towel, feeling less frantic if not better for it. Walking back into the bedroom has him at the wall calendar and the coded shorthand marking the tiny squares.

The First Shinobi World War is in full swing as his calendar is packed with reminders about meetings, inspections, and a trip to Kumogakure the next day. That gives him pause, a nagging sense of importance, a warning, about the trip, but it's been too long since he lived this the first time around and he can't quite remember. In the pursuit of securing Kumogakure as an ally in the war, he made many such trips and can only recall the second one where he and the Nidaime Raikage were ambushed by the Gold and Silver Brothers. It's well past that trip, going by the date of the calendar, so what other trips would be important?

He analyzes the calendar once more than shakes his head and turns away to get dressed for the day, certain it will come to him later as he mentally notes to pack extra supplies as a precaution.

But it does not as he pushes it further and further into the back of his mind, focusing on village preparations in the Hokage office, strategies in the war room, and redrafting his proposal for the Konoha Police Force. Meeting the younger Hiruzen and the rest of his former students takes all of his attention, and the nagging thought is forgotten entirely; seeing Danzō, knowing what he will do in the future, alone takes all of his restraint not to grill the boy about any hidden prejudices and misconstrued concepts of people then and there. But there will be time for it later, for him to fix what he can in-between hunting trips for a certain dead to the world Uchiha. Hiruzen the Elder gave him a rundown on the major conflicts and turning points in the three world wars that started and ended them so he could delay or, more hopefully, prevent them.

The next day he sets off with the Escort Unit to Kumogakure and back, reaching halfway home before a subtle chakra signature in front of the Unit has him pulling everyone to a stop, realizing too late why he had that warning.

The Kinkaku Force Ambush.

The day he died to a man with Kyuubi strength and the Treasured Tools of the Sage of Six Paths.

“What’s wrong, Sensei?” Hiruzen whispers, breaking cover to creep closer to his position, the others following behind him.

The semi-circle they make as they crouch in front of him floods a startling rush of deja vu in his mind, the last time he saw them in his first life superimposing over them in the present. Tobirama takes a breath, slow and measured, and releases the instinctive fear kicked up by the realization in the exhale. He must keep a clearer mind than he did in his first life; perhaps that is why he fell to Kinkaku's blade before, the sudden ambush having him on the back foot trying to defend himself and his comrades, succeeding only with a personal sacrifice.

“I sense hostiles ahead of us. It may be an ambush so we must tread lightly.” 

“Can we avoid them, Hokage-sama?” Danzō asks.

To his comrades’ surprise, Tobirama shakes his head. “Their position is spread wide like a net in the front and I suspect there are more behind us to box us in if we try to return to Kumogakure for help. Right now, we are in a trap with no immediate way out.”

They take the news grimly, each of them calculating various scenarios and actions possible for them to escape. Homura has an increasingly frantic glint in his eyes as he thinks, Koharu narrows her eyes in rising anger, and Torifu rests a hand over the pouch with the Akimichi Three Colored Pills inside. Hiruzen, Danzō, and Kagami are more turned toward each other, muttering plans under breaths, and Danzō uses a kunai to mark their and the enemy's positions in the dirt to illustrate their ideas. The other three scoot closer to them after they notice this, and slip in their own ideas and thoughts, working together for the solution to their predicament.

Tobirama watches them for a moment, pride warming his heart, then aids the discussion with his memory of the first ambush.

But in the end, Kinkaku activates his Kyuubi chakra cloak and decimates their plan to ribbons. Tobirama manages to haul Kagami away from his attack, locking sword with claws when he tries another swing, and orders his students to run off without him. Hiruzen protests, but Homura and Danzō bodily drag him into a run with them as Koharu and Torifu cover Kagami's retreat from Tobirama's side.

Only two enemy shinobi follow after them once they leave the battlefield. The rest either fall by Tobirama’s sword or become collateral damage from Kinkaku's attacks. Kinkaku himself falls to his blade, impaled through the heart, but he dies with a vicious grin on his face, watching Tobirama try and fail to stem the outpouring of blood from his torn throat.

His vision fades, consciousness slipping away—

He jerks awake in his bed, gasping with a trembling hand on his throat.

He's… alive again?

….

Madara flinches awake, grasping his throat. The painful sensation of what he could only describe as a laceration on it is fading already, becoming a distant memory.

[divineordiabolical]

This is How a Girl Becomes Holy: First, She Must Become Empty.

The visions began at six, the lime bitter in your mouth, the elegy for all, you wanted to become breaking across the water like a storm — Prelude to Becoming Holy by Brynne Rebele-Henry.

In the grand, gilded, and yet somehow hollow halls of the manor where Anastasia was raised, luxury dripped from every surface like honey from the labor of a fruitful comb. The velvet drapes, the marble floors, the crystal chandeliers— all stood in sharp contrast to the grimy streets that sprawled beyond the iron gates. Anastasia, the delicate, beloved, prepossessing charm of a girl, often traversed through these halls of her childhood, reckoning her travels as those of her storybook heroes— her fingers grazing the cool surfaces of opulence, her eyes wide with the wonder only a child can possess.

One afternoon, Anastasia found herself drawn to a room bathed in the glorious setting sun, where luxurious prospects sat in stately repose, testaments to her family’s wealth and perhaps also to their depravity. Among them, a delicate porcelain vase caught her eye, its surface painted with an intricate pattern she wished most ardently to inspect up close— although, elevated to a height her body could not strain. Standing on her tiptoes, she extended a hand in reach for her object of interest, her small fingers just brushing the vase’s smooth surface. In a moment of precarious balance, the vase slipped from her grasp, shattering against the marble floor with a sound that seemed to reverberate through the very bones of the house.

The profound crash echoed across the hollow halls, a clarion call summoning the nearest housemaid. The maid, a woman with kind, tired eyes and rough, work-worn hands trembling from decades of service, hurried in, her face blanching at the sight of the broken heirloom. A kneel, or at the moment, appearing to Anastasia as a resigned collapse, was in immediate succession. Gathering the pieces, her hands trembled with the knowledge of the consequences she was to be subject to for fault that was not her’s. Blood on her hands, for a sin she did not omit.

“What has happened here?” Anastasia’s mother, an imposing figure of elegance and grandeur, dominated the still tension– her voice as sharp as a prosecutor's blade, brutally slicing through the thickened air.

Anastasia stood frozen, her heart pounding in her chest, words dying on her lips. The maid, eyes wide with fear, began to speak, although was met with an immediate dismissal of Anastasia’s mother a sharp, gesticulating gesture.

“How could you be so careless?” she demanded, her gaze and consequent accusation fixed on the maid. “This vase was a priceless heirloom, a treasure of our family! A family you owe beyond what you can repay!”

The maid’s voice trembled as she tried to explain, “Madam, I apologize, I didn’t—”

“Enough!” Anastasia’s mother cut her off, her instantaneous oust brooking the vaguest notion of proposing an apology, let alone an explanation to be believed in. “You are dismissed for today. Leave at once.”

The maid, her shoulders bowed under the weight of unjust blame, cast a fleeting, sorrowful glance at Anastasia before she slipped from the room, the door closing softly behind her.

And it hurt like nothing else.

Anastasia’s mother turned then to her daughter, her expression softening into a mask of almost tender concern. Kneeling to meet Anastasia’s eyes, she spoke with a voice that epitomized silken condescension. “My dearest Anastasia, my miracle, you must understand,” she began, her words dripping with the poison of the prejudice she bore. “You must stay far away from our house help. They are malicious, harboring thoughts of revolt against their betters. Purity such as yours must not be tainted by such forces of evil. You are a treasure, a miracle amidst their filth.”

The words enveloped around Anastasia’s young mind, subsequently tightening their constriction of her impressionable age— embedding themselves to tenacious belief. She stood there, a small, fragile figure in a vast room, her heart heavy with the weight of unspoken guilt and the beginnings of a trajectory of thought that she was by some means regarded as somehow different, somehow better, somehow untouchable by the grime of the world beyond the confines of her mother’s arms and the golden room.

From that moment on, the seeds of division and superiority took root within her, nurtured by the insidious whispers of those who exalted her as superior. She began to see herself as a fragile gem, too precious to be sullied, too exceptional to be tainted by the lives and struggles of those deemed beneath her. And so, Anastasia grew elevated to an impossible pedestal, her heart an aching juxtaposition of imposed identity and the desperate desire to escape the very height she was placed upon.

“Yes, Mother.”

Her life then unfolded like a series of vignettes, each scene a profound attestation to her supposed purity and the constant adoration she received from those around her— although, merely given, never earned.

The suffocation of the grandiose manner marked only the beginning. Time after time, Anastasia found herself in the center of incidents wherein blame she rightfully provoked bounced from her assumed innocence to any nearby scapegoat. She did less, but was praised more, was admittedly less propense in certain regards, but offered opportunity otherwise denied of the dejected deserving— never the best, but treated as such. In school, when a daring moment of mischief goes awry, she was never reprimanded— it was always someone else who had to answer for the consequences.

Instead, she would be gathered into the laps of her doting betters, her slender limbs held above the air as a paragon of virtue, and intertwining with the adoration she was bestowed as she was enveloped in their embraces.

“Such a good girl you are, aren’t you, Asya?” The adults would coax, pressing the appraisal slipping from their lips into her flushed cheeks, pink from the discomfort of their proximity and from the incessant affection expressed. But of course, she would never say anything— her muscles taut in zealous effort not to squirm. “Nothing like those wretched children that can never stay out of trouble, hm?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Each instance of this would only further solidify the inescapable narrative of her apparent superiority, supposedly unsullied by the impurity she was surrounded by. Her peers, deemed below her, would grow increasingly leery and hostile, and deprived her of friendship— deepening her isolation and yet, her sense of precedence.

Unlike any kind of pain she endured, ever before.

Upon the untimely departure of her parents, the illusion shattered— the bloody shards of glass almost resembling gore, and mirroring that horrid vase from her childhood. Expelled from the comfort of the manor, adjudged unworthy of the most basic provisions, and without the gleaming, brilliant prospects she had always yielded, she found herself a dweller of the very filth she was taught to abhor.

Although, in the harsh streets, proving ruthless and unpitying to most, her perceived division from the other Scrap children further shielded her from the onslaught of ferocity of her new life. Anastasia never went hungry, never lacked for kindness. There was a sense of immediate discernment of something special in her, an unspoken promise of purity and goodness. Her time on the streets, though most difficult, was softened by the constant stream of help from strangers, further feeding the narrative of her exceptional nature. She never had to endure a modicum of struggle the others had lived all their lives.

This was not a virtue, of course. Not a testament to how much she was loved, not of anything at all good. But a brilliant, flaming, red mark of the city’s depravity. Appointing beauty in the sunken dearth of it and it’s subsequent exaltation.

The knowledge of this made her ache— a keen and unfamiliar turmoil brewing in her heart. She was a stranger to the sensation. Never felt a lash, never deprived of anything, not ever even subject to a scolding.

"Such a pure soul, a beauty too," they'd whisper, pressing coins into her palm. "It's a crime for someone like you to be out here."

But God, did it hurt.

“I thank you most high for your kindness. I am indebted to you.”

But the one, true, turning point that altered the succeeding trajectory of her existence was when she stood afore the grand Cathedral, it’s opulent spires and adorned pinnacles extended in reach for the Heavens above— an obnoxious, almost revolting departure from the dilapidated squalor it centered.

Father Matthias, figure of imposing sanctity, a man of whose faith was only paralleled by his fervent, compulsive obsession with purity, bore witness to Anastasia— venturing cautious steps within the Holy establishment, her eyes engrossed in fastidious, keen observation of the Order’s opulent interior, and lips parted agape in the bafflement of the beauty beckoning her, drawing her in.

He looked upon her with a gaze most penetrating, piercing through her very being— until her heart caved from the sharpness of his eyes, her pulse so adamant in her chest upon the discernment of his gaze that it might have brought her further forward.

Taking Anastasia in was a swift succession of events, nearly instantaneous to the decision made. Her residence and custody was bound to the Holy Order, the comforts and luxuries she had known all her life replenished without a moment spared, and now, elated to an unprecedented height of status and the expectations they constrained.

"Anastasia," he declared, the deep, ancient tones of his voice resonating through the darkness of the nave, "you are a gift from the divine. Pure, innocent, sinless. You shall be our guiding light, our symbol of hope and righteousness." His words bordered on worship, his reverence clear in every gesture and glance. She was clothed in the finest robes, given a place of honor, and her every step was met with awe and admiration.

The church, with its rituals and reverence, amplified the adulation she'd known all her life to a near-divine level. The head of the church exalted her in sermons, her name whispered in prayers, her presence considered a blessing. She was not merely a pretty gentleman’s daughter favored over those deemed below her; she was now a living saint, untouched by sin, untainted by the world's corruption— appointed miracle.

No sane person would have not been quailing, appalled by the enormity of the events transpired in such a short duration— swift and fleeting, but lasting beyond what one might see. There was no feasible escape from this, there never was.

It’s not like there was anybody else for her to be.

Anastasia was most terrified, mortified by the rapid course events that wrought immense destruction in the life she’s always known and the sudden worship she was devoted to that appeared too much like a cult. Overcome by tremors and shudders the entire duration of the endeavor, fear ensnaring every sense— nearly paralyzed, but not to the extent of failing to endure the imposed divinity.

This was always how it’s been.

Bear it.

“It is my honor, Father.”

Like you always have.

p.s/mod’s note: i HATE rhis naurbody look !! this is naurn’t as elaborate or cohesive as i would like tbh BUT honestly just wanted to get this out of my drafts i am saur SICK of looking at my gdocs pageanyway ASYA LORE finally AUGH god’s favorite sacrificial lamb blessed girl voted most likely to be slaughtered !! expect art with religious symbolism >:) maybe or maybe not actually school has already started for me ermmmmm ANYWAY i am taking this ramshackle oc too seriously it’s a COMEDY SHOW and i am over here integrating religious politics 😞😞

thank you for reading !! really appreciate it :))

[lou-mochroi]

[ pablo schreiber, cis male, he/him ] — whoa! LOU MOCHROI just stole my cab! not cool, but maybe he needed it more. he has lived in the city for ALL HIS LIFE, working as a HORTICULTURIST. that can’t be easy, especially at only 45 YEARS OLD. some people say he can be a little bit BOISTEROUS and UNSOPHISTICATED, but I know him to be AFFECTIONATE and PASSIONATE. whatever. I guess I’ll catch the next cab. hope he likes the ride back to STATEN ISLAND! — (hannah, 33, est, she/her, n/a)

BASICS

full name: Lou Conmac Mochroi

pronouns: he / him

sexual orientation: straight

relationship status: single

occupation: Director of Horticulture at Snug Harbor

BIOGRAPHY

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Lou has spent most of his life in and around the city. He roamed the States for traveling conservation work in his 20s, but he always came back to the Big Apple. Even grad school only got him as far as upstate New York. But when he finished that degree, he decided it was time to strike out fully on his own and moved to Staten Island to be closer to work. He's been the Director of Horticulture at Snug Harbor for six years now, and has worked at the gardens for thirteen years in total.

At 38, his oft-traveling, hardly-official girlfriend discovered she was pregnant with a child her life had no room for. In the end, Lou was eager take on the new adventure of fatherhood and signed up whole-heartedly to be A Single Dad. Now seven-years-old, Molly's his pride and joy--and getting harder to keep up with.

TRIVIA

He comes from a large, nosy, but loving Irish family. Their propensity to involve themselves in neighborhood drama was a motivating factor in getting some distance. (open to connections for any siblings)

His undergrad basketball career at Stony Brook was cut short after a knee injury. The intro to botany class he just happened to be taking at the time caught his attention, and the rest was history.

Spent most of his 20s traveling around the country doing manual labor gig work for conservation groups. It wasn't the most consistent money, but it was a great way to sate his wanderlust.

[fireinhislungs]

ALIAS: Fletcher Alexander Williams

AGE: 31

BIRTHDATE: August 5th   

SPECIES: Hunter

OCCUPATION: TBC

FACECLAIM: Chris Wood

BIOGRAPHY

Fletcher was born the eldest of four to two doting parents Jane and Alexander Williams. From the outside looking in they were respectable hardworking citizens, living the white picket fence life in NYC suburbia. Or so that was the dream they wanted their everyone else to believe. The reality however was far more complicated. As the Williams family were descendants of one of the very first hunting lines, dating back centuries. Every child born was trained in the same merciless fashion, they were but soldiers to the cause — a cause Fletcher eagerly awaited to be apart of.

Throughout his adolescence Fletcher and had no trouble making friends wherever he went due to his extroverted charismatic nature. His youngest sister on the other hand, was the opposite: reserved and quiet, she drew others in like a magnet with her mystery. Wherever he went, she did too, therefore his friends became hers. It didn’t bother him in slightest, to think that she never really had friends of her own — so long as his little sister was happy, he was too. That was until Samantha came along. Wherever Brooke was, the bright eyed blonde wasn’t far behind and for the first time in his very young life, the siblings dynamic had finally shifted. Their happiness, however, was short lived as the eve of her twelfth birthday arrived. Because on that day, the unthinkable would happen. Everything they had come to love would be stripped from their very fingertips. It wasn’t their fault, but perhaps the fault of the long line of hunters that came before them – time would tell. Fletcher had been staying over at a friend’s home, completely oblivious to the fact he was about to loose his parents and youngest sister. The perpetrator was quiet in the night, silent as they crept though the unlocked door, and shot the three family members in their beds while they slept. Waking up the next morning, Fletcher felt somewhat empty and he would only come to know why when he arrived home to a swarm of police officers and his hysterical siblings. 

For the next three months, the three remaining Williams children would bounce from foster home to foster home as they searched for the love they had lost. While they would never find it, they still had each other — and that was all that mattered, despite the hole that their youngest sibling. The deaths marked a turning point in Fletchers life, because he lost a part of himself when with the loss with that he too became lost. Harboring an anger so deep even he himself couldn’t control it, let alone fathom what he was capable of because of it. He needed purpose – to belong to something that wasn’t going to break as his family had. There was only one option and that was to step up and create some form of normality for his siblings. Dropping out of school he sought full time work to provide and care for his siblings, and the help of those within the hunting community to continue carrying the torch for the Williams family of whom were notorious for helping train the very best of the NYC hunters. The years that followed blended together in a symphony of what could only be described as the orphans finding their purpose once again.

Under the guidance of one of his parents best friend Fletcher was able to develop and perfect his skillset, to the point he was very soon travelling the world to play his part in training and upskilling any hunters that were willing and able. Fletcher took a much more hands on approach in comparison to his siblings. As much as he enjoyed utilizing any such weapon he could get his hands on, the hunter was almost too proficient in hand to hand combat and espionage; excelling in an array of martial arts and mixed combat fighting styles, Fletcher very quickly built a reputation for being a walking, talking weapon. Returning home he very quickly went to work building an intricate webbed network within the NYC elite and those families tied to the council, offering up his services to the highest bidder and trading in favor's and secrets which earned him a vast array of friends and equally, enemies'.

HEADCANONS

Fletcher has a small flame like birthmark on the inside of his left wrist.

His most prized position is an old revolver that was passed down generations from his father. A weapon that he very rarely is seen without but rarely uses.

The male has a leather jacket of which has a patch from every state and country he’s visited. From the number of times he’s left it behind in cafes and airport stopovers and had it returned to him, it’s no wonder the old thing is one of his favourite possessions.

[thesilliestofgals]

Curious, why is Brooke your favorite character? Is she still your favorite?

When did she become your favorite?

Before Brooke as introduced, when it was just her parents, who was your favorite?

Do you like the narrator trope (when done well) in most fiction, or only Ever After High so far?

Honestly, I like her because, at least in my opinion, she's written in canon to be like the a viewer of the show itself; she harbors the same love we do for the characters, and as we saw in "Bunny + Alistair 4 Ever After", has tried to help fix/rewrite parts of the overall story. I rotate her in my brain whenever I can. She is just such... Best Girl Brooke. A scrunkly. A little scrimblo spoingle. Maybe even a mipy.

I can't really say when she became my favorite character... I've just always liked the idea of her, because, again, she's almost in the same boat as the viewers, to an extent.

Before Brooke came along, when it was just her parents... I have mixed feelings on them? On one hand, I liked the personification of the Royal and Rebel sides of the Destiny argument, but on the other, their arguing got pretty old, fast.

As for the narrator trope, when it is done well, I do like it a lot. The idea that the narrator is their own person is absolutely fascinating to me! For example, the narrator of Undertale is an example of it done right, giving them a personality and quirks... it's just fun!

I've seen really good examples of the narrator trope in EAH rewrites. For example, After Ever After, by FabFuta1234, and Ever After High: Rewrite, Ignite, Restart by @gumjester, both on AO3, utilize it quite well! Highly recommend both of them.

[some-brave-apollo]

I love the characters in Far Harbor and the roles they play in the story. I love DiMA and his endless contradicitons. I love Tektus and Allen's parallel personalities. I love the sincerity of Sister Mai and Brother Ware. I love Mitch and his cranky uncle. I love Erickson and his dogs. I love DiMA's morally grey boyfriend and his ex-Courser girlfriend. I love Jule, and wish her the best. I love Aster and the implication they named themself after their favourite plant. I love Brooks and how he accepts the charge card.

[mymbios]

Allegra Lowell, 27, was born into one of America’s most prominent and influential political families. Raised in Bethesda, Maryland, the Lowell family has been a fixture in Republican politics since the 1950s, with a long lineage of men and women serving on Republican presidential campaigns and working within the White House. Her father, Charles Lowell (64), is a well-known economist frequently featured on Fox News, where his conservative views are often cited in political discourse. Her mother, Margaret Lowell (62), worked as a senior advisor in the George W. Bush White House, cementing the family’s influence during that era. Allegra has two older siblings: Samuel Lowell (35), a political strategist who currently serves as a chief of staff for a Republican senator, and Charlotte Lowell (33), a lawyer and lobbyist for a high-powered conservative firm.

From an early age, Allegra was expected to follow in the family’s footsteps, groomed for a life of high society and conservative political influence. Seen as the quiet and obedient child, Allegra was assumed to be on a path where she would marry a powerful, domineering man who would continue the family legacy. However, beneath this veneer of compliance, Allegra harbored her own dreams and a vision of independence that clashed with her family’s expectations.

At just 13 years old, Allegra began corresponding with her estranged aunt Elena Brooks (56), who had been cast out by the family years earlier due to her left-wing ideals. Elena, a well-known MSNBC political reporter, was a guiding light for Allegra, offering her a glimpse into a world where women could be strong, independent, and break free from the restrictive confines of a political dynasty. Through secret emails and clandestine meet-ups, Elena helped Allegra plot her escape from the Lowell family’s suffocating grip.

By the age of 17, Allegra took the bold step of becoming emancipated from her parents, a scandal that rocked the family and the political community. Shortly after gaining her independence, she released a tell-all memoir that revealed shocking family secrets about the Lowells’ behind-the-scenes dealings, hypocrisy, and personal lives. But the most powerful revelation in the book was Allegra’s coming out as a lesbian, a public declaration that shattered the family's conservative image. The book became a bestseller, and Allegra used the proceeds to build her own future on her terms.

With her newfound freedom and resources, Allegra founded Always Lovely, a cosmetic company with a mission far greater than beauty. Always Lovely focuses on supporting the LGBTQIA+ community through partnerships and collaborations with activists, artists, and organizations dedicated to advancing equality. Allegra’s business philosophy is rooted in inclusivity, and she has become a strong advocate for the rights of marginalized groups, using her platform to amplify their voices.

Despite her turbulent upbringing, Allegra has become a fearless and self-made woman. She combines a passion for social justice with a savvy business mind, proving that she can thrive outside of the political dynasty that once sought to control her future. Though her family was shocked and deeply hurt by her public rebellion, Allegra has no regrets. She has found her true calling, far from the expectations that were placed upon her as a child.

[bewitchingbooktours]

The Heart of Chenoa by Creole Noir

The Heart of Chenoa

The Black Dove Legacy 

Book One

Creole Noir 

Genre: Magical Realism, YA, Coming of Age

Date of Publication: June 2, 2023

ISBN:  979-8396415935

ASIN: B0C6VYSPF1

Number of pages: 275 pages

Word Count:  44,953

Cover Artist: Creole Noir 

Tagline: Everyone knew she was the belle of the ball, and it was hard to imagine anyone ever taking her crown away from her.

Book Description:

The Heart of Chenoa is a heartwarming tale about a young woman's courage to leave her abusive boyfriend and start a new life in a new town. Along the way, she finds a group of misfit friends who become like family to her, including the inseparable siblings Brooke and Jerald, and the popular but conflicted JC, who harbors a secret love for Jerald. As they navigate high school drama and personal trauma, they come together to seek revenge against a conniving classmate, and ultimately learn to embrace their unique gifts and find strength in their bond.

The story explores themes of love, friendship, betrayal, and redemption as the characters navigate their way through the ups and downs of life. Brooke's premonitions and Lucille's powers add a touch of magic to the story, while Jerald learns to control his trauma-induced alter ego. Ultimately, they discover that they have grown and evolved in unexpected ways and that their bond is stronger than anything life can throw at them.

Amazon

Excerpt:

Amidst the sprawling fields of Chenoa, a small town nestled in the heart of the Texas, a tale of resilience and friendship unfolds. At its core lies the story of a young woman named Indigo, whose journey from darkness to light weaves a tapestry of courage, love, and the transformative power of friendship.

Indigo had known no other reality than the one she shared with her abusive boyfriend, Troy. The shackles of fear bound her tightly, choking the life out of her dreams. But one fateful night, fueled by a flicker of courage ignited deep within her heart, she made the decision to break free.

With nothing but a few belongings and a trembling resolve, Indigo set out on a journey to start anew in a town where nobody knew her name. Chenoa welcomed her with open arms, offering sanctuary from the storm that had raged within her for far too long.

As Indigo tentatively navigated the unfamiliar school of her new home, she stumbled upon a group of misfits whose warmth and acceptance enveloped her like a comforting embrace. Among them were Brooke and Jerald, inseparable siblings whose laughter echoed through the halls of Chenoa High School, and JC, whose inner turmoil simmered beneath his charming exterior.

Together, they formed an unlikely family, bound not by blood but by the unbreakable ties of friendship and shared experiences. Each member of their motley crew bore scars of their own, but together, they found solace in the company of kindred spirits.

As high school dramas unfolded and personal traumas resurfaced, Indigo and her newfound companions stood united against the tide of adversity. They rallied together to seek justice against a conniving classmate, their bonds growing stronger with each shared victory.

But beneath the surface of their idyllic friendship lay secrets waiting to be unearthed. JC harbored a love for Jerald that dared not speak its name, while Brooke's premonitions whispered of futures yet to unfold. And in the shadows, Jerald battled with the demons of his past, struggling to tame the beast within.

Yet through it all, they clung to each other, their hearts intertwined in a tapestry of love and loyalty. As they confronted their deepest fears and embraced their unique gifts, they discovered that strength lies not in solitude but in the unbreakable bonds of friendship.

In The Heart of Chenoa, amidst the Spanish moss trees and the whispering winds, Indigo and her friends learned that the greatest battles are fought not with fists but with hearts open wide. And as they embraced the magic woven into the fabric of their lives, they found redemption in the unlikeliest of places: within themselves, and within the hearts of those they held dear.

About the Author:

Creole Noir is an author who has a passion for writing stories that not only bring suspense, but also delve into deeper themes of social justice and class disparities. His debut novel Cry of the Black Dove follows London and her friends as they embark on a mission to get revenge after being wronged by those in power. Creole hopes his work will help readers think about these issues and the marginalization that often follows. Outside of writing, he enjoys hosting a podcast with Kinky Boots. Creole currently lives in Tyler, Texas where he obtained an Associates degree in General Studies from Tyler Junior College before engaging in healthcare labor such as caregiving and teaching life skills. He now writes full-time.

Keep in touch with Creole Noir's work by following him on Instagram or checking out his podcast. He loves hearing from readers about their favorite stories and characters. With Creole Noir’s vivid imagination and captivating voice, each of his novels will keep you hooked until the very end.

Keep in touch with Creole Noir via the web:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/creole.noir

FB: https://www.facebook.com/lafrance.johnson.144 

Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@creolenoir8 

[pursuingheavenonearth]

Mykonos, Greece: Sightseeing in Chora, June 11, 202

by David L. Brooks

Sightseeing in Chora

From the Mykonos Airport, it’s basically a straight shot to reach the environs of Chora, the old town proper. Some attempt has been made to limit automobile traffic, but there always seems a few intrepid locals who can manage to pull their cars or beat-up lorries through the narrower streets. Nevertheless, it was delightful to see where actual, although highly touristy, businesses and residences thrived. Remember my stay earlier in the week has all occurred in a rural almost pastoral setting, although rocky terrain and white-coated county homes are the norm where I’ve been staying.

My initial target for official sightseeing was to visit the array of old Greek windmills arrayed on a cliff face overlooking the ocean.  Sure enough, it is a popular sightseeing spot for a lot of the island’s visitors.  Currently, the grounds of the Windmills of Mykonos is undergoing some cosmetic redecorating and refurbishment. Even on a Sunday morning, there were a few workman busy making repairs to a stone walkway.  There are 6 to 8 smaller windmills standing in a solitary row, rather like a Pygmy-like bulwark against the Winds of Change.  Tourists were not able to enter inside a windmill, at least that was true for the ones I inspected

Heading around the Old Port

Descending the hill upon which stood the battle-ready troupe of windmills, I entered the Old City proper.  Stopping by a womenswear boutique shop that looked inviting, I was soon to understand that prices for almost anything was going to be twice (at least) of what you’d pay in Spain. So I realize that I needn’t spend time even looking since getting something for my wife or granddaughters here was a true waste of hard earned money. So I continued on my way toward my next destination: the Archaeological Museum of Mykonos. After climbing the narrow streets above the Museum, I had detoured and gone well past it as it was supposedly located at the far end of the almost circular bay around which the Old City had flourished. Upon descending and returning back toward the harbor, to my disappointment, i discovered that the Archaeological Museum of Mykonos was closed for repairs.  Tant pis! However, all is not lost because it was now well passed my usual lunchtime, and after descending a short flight of stone stairs, I was back on the semi-circular boardwalk and at the home of my soon-to-become next destination, Kavos Taverna,

Sunday, June 11 around 12 pm

Where I had lunch in Chora: 

Kavos Taverna is a busy port-side outdoor restaurant, specializing in Greek seafood cuisine and located right at far northern end of the Old Port of Chora on the island of Mykonos.

Evidently, the restaurant has been run by three generations of Kavos (assumed family name) on this very spot, right on the old harbor of Chora, the biggest town on the island of Mykonos.  The restaurant has a splendid seaside location, with ‘coastal’ tables barely a meter above the ocean water and stretching a length of 80 meters. The chef d’œuvre for this restaurant is Seafood with a capital S:  from the lowly platter of grilled sardines, which is what I ordered along with spanakopita, a Greek savory spinach pie that is typically also stuffed with feta cheese,  to a half-meter wide platter of various seafood regulars, and whole grilled fish and lobsters, all generously served with fries and a dash of greenery.  My meal was quite good, and I was glad I had ordered sliced Greek bread and bottled water to round out the meal of grilled sardines (small-sized) and the generous helping of spanakopita. The waiter who took my order did a double take when I mentioned the sliced bread immediately after ordering the spinach pie. So much so that he actually confirmed that I really wanted the bread.

The wait staff was very helpful and attentive, many were quite multilingual. But like all good eateries worldwide, ‘your mouth is where the money goes’ —meaning the larger table or better-paying customers tend to get the majority of the multiple tiered staffs’ attentions. After taking my order, I was not spoken to again by the wait staff until I was aggressive enough to call over the dining host, a younger man who spoke English quite adequately, to answer a question that came both out of my curiosity and as my employee management strategy.  When he did answer my question, I mentioned that I was ready to pay the check. What I suspect was that I had not behaved in a ‘finished customer’ way in order for the regular wait staff to recognize that I was ready to pay up and go.  Predominately, the reason was that I had not partaken in the almost ‘du rigueur‘ tiny cup of ‘mastika’,  a sweet liqueur produced with the mastika resin. Of course, I might be just a little too forgiving (undemanding) and the waiters may have not even noticed my having finished my simple but delicious meal.  But there was nothing left but a small of neatly piled sardine backbones. Maybe they thought I was an epicurean or perhaps just a famished traveler. I’m sure they’ve seen all kinds of patrons. Lucky for me, the cost was quite reasonable.

[joshvandervoort]

Joshua Vandervoort | Earth's Watchman - A Nature Lover's Vigil for Conservation

In the vast, infinite expanse of the cosmos, our planet Earth gleams as a singular gem, adorned with the magnificent colors of nature. We stand in awe of the mesmerizing beauty that enwraps us, a signal of an imperative call to action as stewards of this invaluable sphere. The role of Earth’s watchman, a protector of the environment, is far from a mere legend or folklore, rather it is a collective responsibility that we, as humans, must shoulder. The urgency to conserve and safeguard our world’s natural treasures — its rivers, mountains, forests, and the diverse life they harbor — is a duty that transcends political borders, ideologies, and individual interests. An exemplar of such stewardship, Joshua Vandervoort, born and raised amidst the splendors of Rochester, New York, has dedicated his life to this noble cause. Reflecting on his journey, he underscores that the time to act is now, for our planet doesn’t have a back-up, just like we don’t have another home.

In the complex interplay of ecosystems, each species, from the smallest microorganisms to the largest mammals, contributes to the delicate balance that sustains life on Earth. The watchman’s duty lies in understanding and preserving this intricate harmony. The responsibility is not just for the sake of nature itself but for the well-being of future generations. Conservation is not merely a choice; it is an ethical imperative, a commitment to preserving the integrity of the planet for the long term.

For Joshua Vandervoort, the commitment to nature conservation is not simply a choice but a deeply ingrained way of life. This passion stems from an understanding and appreciation of the intricate web of life where every creature, every leaf, every river contributes to the richness and dynamism of our ecosystem. The whisper of the wind through the trees, the tranquil murmur of a trickling brook, the awe-inspiring sight of birds in flight — these are not disparate events. Instead, they are interconnected strands that make up the vibrant and diverse tapestry of life. To be a steward of the land, as Joshua is, means recognizing the intrinsic value of every living being. The loss of even a single species can set off a chain reaction of imbalance throughout the entire ecosystem. Each extinction is not merely the disappearance of a single species; it represents a tear in the fabric of life, a disruption of the natural order that we, as custodians of the earth, are duty-bound to prevent. Josh Vandervoort

While technological advancements have granted humanity unprecedented power to shape the world, they have also exposed our planet to new and unprecedented threats. Climate change, deforestation, pollution, and the loss of biodiversity are not distant specters but immediate challenges that demand our attention. The watchman’s vigilance extends to mitigating the impact of human activities on the environment and fostering sustainable practices that harmonize with the rhythms of nature.

Conservation is not a one-size-fits-all solution. It requires a nuanced understanding of ecosystems, local communities, and the intricate web of life. A watchman for Earth recognizes the importance of collaboration, bringing together scientists, policymakers, communities, and individuals to collectively address the pressing issues that threaten our planet. This collaborative effort is not just a choice but a necessity, as the challenges we face are global in nature and demand a unified response. Joshua vandervoort Rochester New York

Education plays a pivotal role in nurturing a culture of conservation. Joshua Vandervoort’s duty includes raising awareness about the importance of biodiversity, the consequences of environmental degradation, and the role everyone can play in preserving the planet. By instilling a sense of environmental stewardship in the younger generation, we ensure that the watchman’s torch is passed on, fostering a legacy of responsibility for the Earth.

Preserving natural habitats is a cornerstone of conservation efforts. The watchman is acutely aware of the impact of habitat destruction on biodiversity. Whether it’s the lush rainforests, expansive grasslands, or the diverse aquatic ecosystems, each habitat has its unique value in supporting life. Conservation measures must extend beyond protected areas and incorporate sustainable land-use practices that allow for coexistence between human activities and the preservation of critical habitats. Josh Vandervoort Rochester New York

In the face of environmental challenges, technological innovation can be a potent ally for the watchman. From advanced monitoring systems to sustainable agricultural practices, technology offers solutions that can help us tread lightly on the Earth. Embracing innovation while respecting the principles of conservation is a delicate balance that the watchman must strike to ensure a sustainable future.

Economic considerations often intersect with environmental concerns, creating a delicate dance between development and conservation. The watchman navigates this terrain by advocating for sustainable development practices that prioritize both economic growth and environmental integrity. By promoting green initiatives, eco-friendly technologies, and responsible resource management, the watchman seeks to harmonize human progress with the imperative of conservation.

International cooperation is indispensable in the watchman’s quest for conservation. Environmental challenges recognize no borders, and solutions must be devised on a global scale. The watchman advocates for treaties, agreements, and collaborative initiatives that transcend geopolitical boundaries, emphasizing the shared responsibility of nations to safeguard the planet. Diplomacy becomes a tool for environmental stewardship, fostering a collective commitment to Earth’s well-being.

The watchman’s vigil is not without its challenges. Resistance to change, competing interests, and short-term perspectives can impede the progress of conservation efforts. However, Joshua Vandervoort remains steadfast, drawing on the resilience of nature itself as a source of inspiration. It is a tireless commitment to a cause that transcends individual lifetimes, recognizing that the impact of conservation is measured not just in years but in the enduring legacy it leaves for future generations.

The role of Joshua Vandervoort is a solemn duty that falls upon the collective conscience of humanity. It is a recognition of our interconnectedness with the natural world and a commitment to preserving the planet for generations to come. The watchman’s vigil is not an isolated endeavor but a collaborative effort that requires the participation of individuals, communities, nations, and the global community. As we tread the path of conservation, let us remember that Earth’s watchman is not a distant figure but a reflection of our shared responsibility to be stewards of this magnificent planet.

[readingforsanity]

The Inmate | Freida McFadden | Published 2022 | *SPOILERS*

There are three rules Brooke Sullivan must follow as a new nurse practitioner at a men's maximum-security prison:

1 Treat all prisoners with respect.

2 Never reveal any personal information.

3 Never EVER become too friendly with the inmates.

But none of the staff at the prison knows Brooke has already broken the rules. Nobody knows about her intimate connection to Shane Nelson, one of the penitentiary's most notorious and dangerous inmates.

And they certainly don't know that Shane was Brooke's high school sweetheat - the star quarterback who is now spending the rest of his life in prison for a series of grisly murders. Or that Brooke's testimony was what put him there.

But Shane knows.

And he will never forget.

Brooke Sullivan has spent the last decade being afraid. She, along with two others, were the only survivors of a massacre that occurred when she and her friends spent the night at her boyfriend's house, his mother out of town allowing the young teens to get away with it. However, she also spent the last decade hiding a huge secret: the man she put away as the killer is also the father of her 10 year old son.

Moving back to her hometown after living in Queens with Josh, she also takes a job at Raker Penitentiary...the very location where Shane Nelson, ex-boyfriend, covicted killer and the father of her son, is also incarcerated. As a nurse practitioner, she will be required to give all patients the same care...even the man she has hated for the last 10 years.

In the meantime, Brooke has hired a woman named Margie, a grandmother in the neighborhood, to watch Josh while she works. She is a wonderful asset to their family, and Josh adores her.

At the beginning of the school year, Brooke reconnects with her childhood best friend and one of the survivors of the massacre Tom Reese. A former 5th grade math teacher and now assistant principal, the two go on a journey of reconnection which later leads to a relationship between the two of them, something that neither of them thought would ever happen after they lost touch all those years ago.

However, once a young woman named Kelli, who Tim went on a few dates with, ended up going missing, Brooke can't seem to get it out of her head that somehow Tim is responsible. This is further fueled when she finds Kelli in the basement of Tim's house while searching for a bottle of wine. The police arrive shortly after, having received an anonymous tip and Tim is arrested and placed in jail.

Brooke recants her statement from that time all those years ago, stating that she had never actually seen Shane, whom she believed had been the one choking her. Shane is then released, and Brooke picks him up and introduced him to their son, though they both agree that they won't share the news that Shane is his father until later.

However, things take a turn for the worse when Brooke comes to a startling realization: that Shane WAS the one who choked her, and that his accomplice was Tim, despite what he said. The reason Shane has hated Tim for so long was because Tim went along with Brooke's story after she was able to escape from Shane's farmhouse and ultimately led to Shane spending the last decade in prison.

However, the real truth is revealed when Margie finds Brooke in her attempt to locate Shane and Josh. But Margie reveals her true identity, and her motive: She is actually Pamela Nelson, Shane's mother and Josh's grandmother. She has harbored ill feelings toward the Sullivan family for hiding her grandson from her for all those years, and even went as far as killing Brooke's parents in order to seek her revenge...all because she had fallen in love with Brooke's father many years ago, and was upset when he failed to leave his wife and daughter in order to be with her and Shane. Thus they came up with the plan to stage the murders like it was a random person, leaving Shane the only survivor, but it didn't go as planned.

There is a scuffle and Brooke is able to get away from Margie, and finds Josh on the side of the road, saying that Shane was injured when a bunch of snow and ice fell on him. But upon investigation, Brooke realizes that Shane is dead.

Several months later, Tim is released from prison after Mrs. Nelson confesse to everything after Shane's death. Brooke and Tim reconnect again after she apologizes for believing he was in any way involved in the murders.

Within the present day storyline, we also get Brooke's perspective from what happened all those years ago. Six friends gather at the farmhouse, but one by one, they are taken out. First is Brandon, Shane's best friend and teammate on the football team; then Kayla, a girl two years younger than the others and a cheerleader on the squad with Brooke. Then Chelsea, Brooke's best friend. After Shane was able to get bucked off of Brooke after attempting to choke her, Brooke is able to get away and seek help from a man driving his pick up truck near the farmhouse; Tim was able to knock Shane unconscious despite his own injuries, and was the only person who actually saw Shane in his attempt to kill Brooke.

[kamainen]

Good ideas! I've got some more:

Dim Sum in Chinatown is sublime. Winsor (sic) is superior to any of the larger places IMO.

Take a ferry to one of the harbor islands and walk around an old fort! Most of the islands have some sort of park or historical situation going on. The ferries come/go every few hours so you won't be stuck there for too long. Great opportunity for a picnic in the evening or a hot thermos walk in the winter!

The Arnold Arboretum down past Jamaica Plain is an amazing huge (free) place to walk around if plants are your thing. It's even surprisingly fun in the winter when most things aren't leafed out.

The Aquarium is pretty cool once or twice (this is my go-to for out-of-town friends visiting), but even if you don't want to pay for a ticket, grabbing a coffee and hanging out with the seals for free by the outdoor seal tank is pretty relaxing.

Similar to the When Pigs Fly bread deal, some of the branches of Flour bakery often have $3 huge bags of "bread ends", which are really just full-size slices of their excellent rustic sandwich loaf. The MIT branch regularly has them before noon, I'm less sure about other branches.

The best greasy spoon breakfast diner is actually in the North End (Friendly Toast fans, you have been led astray) at Theo's. Have the orange hot sauce on whatever you get; it's not that hot and is amazing. Zoe's by Harvard is also pretty good, but a very different/larger vibe.

Newbury Street is generally pretty over-touristed and over-priced, but Trident (bookshop + cafe) and Dirty Water Dough Company (New York style pizza place) are good.

In non-winter months, wander down the community gardens in the Emerald Necklace starting by Kenmore.

The Dominican food by Stony Brook station is amazing. For ultra-unctuous red beans and rice, I highly recommend La Parada, but there are a bunch of great spots in that area.

Haymarket "Farmer's" (really supermarket rejects) market on Friday and Saturday is awesome! You can buy like a week's worth of fruit and veggies for two people for <$10, no kidding. The indoor permanent Haymarket market is also nice for street eats, but expensive.

Like long bike rides? Take the Minuteman bike trail up north from Alewife station (it connects with the regular Somerville/Cambridge bike corridor now, too, which goes all the way to the river by Lechmere). You can ride to Lexington/Concord/Bedford for a smaller town feel. In the summer get ice cream at the far end at Bedford Farms Ice Cream.

Vietnamese food in Dorchester is amazing. Get Pho or a whole fried fish somewhere. My favorite is Pho 2000.

While you're down that way, see if you can wrangle a bus (or car if you have one) to Kam Man in Quincy; it's a massive Chinese supermarket with really affordable and often hard-to-find stuff.

The Q Ballroom up by Alewife has swing dances every Friday night. Tickets are usually <$20, and that buys you an hour of absolute-beginners lesson up front and then several hours of amazing (usually live) music and dancing.

hi! i just moved to the boston area—i was wondering if you had any basic recommendations for things to do or places to eat that you’re willing to share!

Welcome! Some of my top recs include:

Any museum in the city! I may be biased in this, but we've got art museums, historical house museums, a museum of science and an aquarium...go nuts. Many have free or discounted admission days too, so keep an eye out for that. But if you see me at work when you visit, no you didn't.

Join a library or library network. For books, of course, but also for museum passes and other services

Speaking of libraries, the Boston Public Library is STUNNING. And they have a tea room where you can go and have high tea. It's pricey, but as a special treat, highly recommend

Dunkin has the cheapest Little Cafe DrinksTM in the city. Tatte (TAH-tay, local chain) has the best, in my opinion. Plus their London Fog is only $3.50, so that's nice!

"Locals don't go to Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market" is a filthy lie. QM is like a big indoor food court, perfect for feeding groups with different tastes. Plus...they have a macaroni and cheese stall. Heaven, IMO.

You do not have to take a stand in the Mike's vs. Modern "best North End Italian bakery" debate. Free yourself. Hipsters prefer Bova's anyway.

(But do go to some Italian restaurants in the North End. They're all pretty much excellent)

Do not go to Salem in October. It's insanely crowded.

Do go to Salem any other time of year. It's insanely fun.

Mount Auburn cemetery is gorgeous and garden cemeteries were built to be enjoyed by the living. Take advantage!

Like antiquing? Check out the four-story Cambridge Antique Market right next to Lechmere station. Fun Antiques in Cambridge is good for all your lamp repair needs. The antique stores on Charles and Newbury streets are good for window shopping and weeping internally at the prices.

Pandemonium Books and Games in Central Square is ideal for sci-fi and fantasy titles, as well as tabletop gaming supplies

Don't waste your time at Prudential/Copley mall. It's overpriced, full of chain stores, and depressing.

When Pigs Fly Bread stores have $3 loaves of normally $7 sourdough on Wednesdays. It's delicious and baked fresh daily, so get on that! You can call ahead in the morning to reserve a loaf if you want to be sure to get one.

I've probably got more, but that will be enough to start with. I hope you enjoy the city!

[gloriouswhispers]

DOMINIC 'BROOKS' BROOK

Age & Birthday: 393 years old, December 13th 1630

Gender/Pronouns: cis man he/him

Birthplace: New Amsterdam (now New York City)

Time in Hollow Cove: 1 year

Species: Vampire

Role: Soldier

Positive personality traits: Motivated, Trustworthy, Protective, Confident

Negative personality traits: Forceful, Cold, Aggressive, Vengeful

BIO

Luuk Dalmaan's parents were among the largest group of Dutch settlers in the New Americas, planting their roots in New Amsterdam and what later became known as New York City. His human way of life was as usual as everybody else's, earning money from the fur trade and existing in harsh conditions as a world was being built around them. As much as his memories have faded from the time he was known as Luuk, some of these years have served him well since the war began.

But, the name Luuk Dalmaan no longer exists in history. It's last known placement is scribbled on a forgotten document that lists names of the men killed in a viscous attack when hunting. Luuk's body was never found. And life rolled on. Seasons turned into years, turned into decades and turned into centuries and eventually Luuk's human life became nothing but a speck of dust. He watched it all happen around him, cursed to a solitary life while trying to find the vampire that bestowed him the unwanted gift of immortality. He was forced into the shadows, occasionally emerging with different names and lives but it was never for long, and loneliness was more of a curse than immortality itself.

In the year 1804 after Russian settlers were next to claim home in New York City, Luuk finally knew what it felt like to live again. Not just survive. He had returned to his home as a Dominic Brooks, still in search for the vampire who doomed him but his searches pushed him onto a path of a young woman. Odessa. She was stuck within a cruel way of life, harbored by vampires as a prisoner. She became the first friend he had in years and eventually, the first love he felt in years too. However, Luuk had been a man of inaction for far too long. He stood by idly for some time, thinking of ways that he could be with her without dooming her to the same existence as his own. But, his hand was eventually forced. After Odessa was attacked when caught trying to escape, she was left for dead and just moments from drawing her last breath. The desperation to never be parted from her saw him pass the same curse on that he resented ever having. And while Odessa never blamed him for it, he blamed himself and still does.

For the centuries since, Dominic and Odessa's lives were entwined. It was rare for them to be anywhere but beside one another, except for the times that they had no choice. Dominic's newly formed vengeful spirit not only wanted to hunt for the vampire that turned him but find the ones who tortured Odessa through her human life. In many ways, he's been fighting a war long before the year 2020. And whenever Odessa has been taken, or has needed flee, or they were separated through the moving of time, Dominic has always found her again. Blind to the fact that his centuries old grudges have caused most separations all along.

They were together when the war erupted through the human world against the supernatural. They remained together while trying to find somewhere safe. They were even captured together, enduring nothing short of torture. But when the facility was liberated, there was too much chaos for them to remain by one another's side. In just a blink of an eye, they were separated and Dominic is under the impression that humans aren't to blame. He has traveled on his own since, arriving in Hollow Cove a year ago. He's still a man possessed with the need of revenge, following leads to the vampires he hates but most of all, to find Odessa.