#but also INSERT CATHOLIC GUILT

[peppermint-whiskers]

Wait I just realized something. Alice is part of the God Possessed Pentious AU. However, she’s also a part of your Zestious fic “A Hundred Years and Many More”. Does… does that imply that, at least in your fic, Zestial had a crush on Pentious. Then Pentious died and got possessed by God. If so, I cannot WAIT for that reaction!

“The guy I had a crush on is, not only alive, but is also GOD’S VESSEL!!????!!!” [insert Catholic Guilt here]

Hi, thanks for the ask! "A Hundred Years and Many More" was more of a test run for the backstory, and the backstory (with Alice's glorious presence uwu) is actually part of the au

BUT

I think it'd be hilarious if Zestial and Pentious had this lingering crush on each other the entire time XD Maybe Zestial's was born out of intrigue more than romance, but they both had CRUSHES

And now god's over here like "what's with you and crushing on people who could destroy you??? what the fuck, man???" because he knows. Pentious can't really hide his massive crushes because he can't hide shit XD

[bring-mxre-knives]

thinking once more abt the time i saw an anti-rpf person reblog my poem abt writing freaky nasty frerard fic as a teenager with a tag like "cw rpf but it's a good poem tho" like. bestie. that poem literally *is* rpf. the entire book is. i think you might not actually be anti-rpf. wishing you love and light and a loss of shame.

[hiwelcometothemonstersancturary]

order in which the Smiling Critters refer to Angel as their parent, in my save everyone AU:

Dogday, by accident, while everyone is still inside. He's so embarassed by it, poor boy;

Bobby. After her rescue she hears Poppy referring to Angel as mother and goes "🥺 mom????????", and Angel just has to go with it because the majority of the toys are calling them either mom or dad by this point;

Craftycorn is next! She's very shy, VERY quietly asking Angel if she can call them dad because they helped her feel safe enough to sleep. After that she's SO HAPPY about finally having someone to take care of her!

After this, Dogday uses both mom and dad for Angel, without feeling embarrassed anymore:

Hoppy. Girlie is bedridden for the first month and Angel is always there for her, she's already all "I wish I could call them dad without it being weird" until she hears Dogday saying it. She's VERY protective of Angel and that becomes a bit worse because "THAT'S MY PARENT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT".

Kickin is all like "I appreciate the fact you're taking care of me but like Im independent, I lived through things you can only dream off, Im not calling you dad like Im a kid" and then 3 weeks of accidentally using both mom and dad for Angel later he's crying his eyes out as he finally just. Stops trying to play tough guy because he's now in a safe environment and can be vulnerable and safe.

Bubba doesn't see Angel as an actual parental figure until, much like Kickin, he realizes he's in a safe environment and Angel is his caretaker regardless of what may happen. Bubba is weirded out for some time because he's so used to never having someone looking out for him, and then Angel gently tells him to slow things down because he just had a burn out and needs to treat his mind because yes, he is traumatized, and Bubba. Straight up asks if they see him as not just a "kid" but their kid. And its complicated, but Angel agrees with the idea, and then Bubba warms up to the idea and stops calling them "sir/ma'am" and goes with "father/mother".

Picky is desperate to call Angel mom since day 1, but she feels SO guilty for seeing them like that because all the other critters are basically their kid, and who's Picky to interfere after she tried to eat some of them? And, okay, they accepted her apologies and they want to be her friends again, but should she insert herself into the little family just like that? Its Bubba who finally convinces her that she's not an intruder, and then she's all "mom, do you want to see how the garden is doing?" and is always so happy when Angel doesn't correct her.

Catnap. He has 13 layers of unresolved trauma and religious guilt, and for him to stop viewing Angel as his savior but as the only human he can trust Picky is already trying out baking a pie with Mommy Long Legs to celebrate Mother's Day with Angel. His relationship with the Prototype getting better and him finally calling him Father, alongside Dogday, Crafty and Bobby helping him stop feeling so guilty all the time is what helps the most, but he still views Angel as better than human because what else could forgive him? But when his relationship with Hoppy starts improving is when he, very hesitantly, starts thinking about calling Angel "Mother" (he already has a dad). When he finally tries that for the first time Angel lowkey is this close to crying, but they just give him a big hug. Catnap is also close to crying because he thinks he made a mistake at first, but Angel helps calm him down.

Unrelated but one time one of Angel's friends came over to visit and heard Catnap calling them "mother", and then later asked Angel if they had anything to do with Catnap's "father", because last thing they knew Catnap was having a catholic moment involving Angel and would NEVER think of them as a parent, right????? Angel's response was a simple "I know my family is weird but what the fuck, girl!". They still laugh about it to this day.

Also:

Dogday, Bobby, Crafty, Hoppy and Bubba use both mom and dad for Angel;

Kickin has a preference for calling them dad;

Picky has a preference for calling them mom;

Catnap refers to Angel EXCLUSIVELY as mom in order to avoid confusion.

Prototype refers to Angel as "the mother/father", "the caretaker" and "the parent", even when talking to the other toys. "Call the parent for that" is something he frequently says. For Catnap he says "call your mother".

[blackberry-s0da]

Gonna make a big post to try to answer this.

My characters are inspired by lots of thing things (and lots of artists), Machete wasn’t an inspiration in particular to be honest, it’s a fully fleshed character with a specific white-black-red aesthetic, catholic imagery, blood, violence, hate, guilt and by the latest posts, love too. Mercy barely has a name for now, I haven’t been able yet to make a story, place him in a specific historical context or do as much as design his clothes.

Regarding physical similarities I actually took most of the poses and general vibes for Mercy from paintings depicting naked women (mainly form renaissance) as i liked how soft and peaceful they looked;

(Machete lives on that time period if I’m not wrong so there’s also that. Mercy doesn’t have a spot in any timeline yet, but I’ve depicted him in modern clothes once and I think I’ll eventually place him in a modern setting)

Another inspiration was actually the artist Babezord, specifically for Mercy’s color palette and face pattern as seen in the image below. Many characters count with this mask like pattern and I’ve always loved it;

(funnily enough on this character it is an actual mask)

The similarities on style are due a few factors: I learned to draw dogs mostly from Canisalbus, I’ve been following their work since I was around 13 or 14 I believe? Maybe earlier, and I learned a lot of things from them for the most part. On top of that I also love sighthounds and mostly draw that type of dogs as I’ve been having them as pets since childhood and always found them very pretty. I currently have two greyhounds.

Another artist I’ve leaned from are Lilaira, putrid.hound, canisinfernalis and mischievousdog, amongst others so shoutout to them too.

I believe that Canisalbus characters are more stylized and fancy looking, they’re more lean and lanky for the most part, their hands are small and delicate, characters are very expressive and culturally rich, the clothing and pieces of background are beautifully detailed, their pieces usually tell a story, Mercy in the other hand was recently picked up from a mental trashcan I had him on as he’s my oldest and probably less used oc (he used to be a she but I decided to keep the name, that’s as much as he has for now, besides two scraped background stories). I designed them when I was a teen for lots of vent art and didn’t like how he looked (plus the negativeness I attached him to) so he’s been pretty much abandoned until September of 2023 when I redesigned them. Also gotta add that, while he isn’t a self insert he’s been used for the most part to reflect things about me and how I feel at the moment.

I believe my art is similar in many aspects to the one of Canisalbus, but not remotely close to being as amazing as theirs, I wouldn’t say were identical but I do take inspiration on them, amongst other artists.

[sisterdivinium]

Genetic engineering, DNA modification, tested it on herself... Why would Jillian go through all this trouble? Adoption would be easier, surrogacy wouldn't be an issue for a woman with so much money, so why this devotion to medical science, to gene manipulation?

This doesn't seem very logical unless we take one step further in examining her characterisation as a sort of Virgin Mary character implied by her clothing and framing during season one: a man is never mentioned in connection to Michael's conception, either as donor or father... Possibly because Michael has no father. Jillian has made him up from scratch or, at least, using only her own genetic material.

This would surely equate to an awesome "medical marvel" and it would accomplish two additional things: first, it would account for just how sick Michael needs to be so that an extremely rare substance that doesn't even belong to this world can be his sole hope in surviving (the result of a miscalculation, an unforeseen mutated gene, some error in Jillian's design, the absence of something); and second, reproduction without the aid of man ("sinless", sexless) not only ties Jillian's character more closely to the theme of the holy mother, it also more strongly makes a Jesus figure out of Michael.

This is significant because it makes him into a designated saviour: Michael, too, "dies", crossing to "the other side" and later returning with the mission of saving humanity, which is the role he is sure he will play during all of season two. This story has been told before, the structure is the same and we all know it. He mirrors Christ in his being born of a woman untouched by man, in going beyond life and back, in being tasked by a higher power to act for others in his sacrifice. It is a destiny clearly written out for him, a classic narrative, a hero's journey neatly set up for Michael to accomplish and all he has to do is follow the script.

And yet, doing everything right, by the book, Michael ultimately fails.

If, according to all of the doubts awakened by the developments in Warrior Nun (is Adriel's realm not Heaven? Is he not an angel? Is Reya God? Is Jesus just as alien as Adriel? Etcetera), the Catholic church's teachings are all twisted, incomplete, when not simply ignorant of all that is true in spiritual, metaphysical matters, then this saviour narrative that constitutes the foundation of the institution itself is doomed — as well as whatever guidance it could supply.

I was discussing with @halobearerhavoc earlier about (among many other intriguing things) how myth informs the show and how it might predict Reya's fall, but also how that event would necessarily depart from how it plays out in the original myth. That is due to the fact that our protagonist here is Ava, a woman, and that this tiny little fact of sex alone forces a shift in how things are presented, in which values are prioritised, in how conflict is treated, escalated or resolved — this applies here as well.

Michael was the textbook redeemer, he was made for this, brought up by Reya with this explicit purpose and with the acquired conviction that he was the key to it all.

Ava, on the other hand, is a product of coincidence, of accident, of the unfathomable. She is already a rupture in tradition — dead and brought back, unknowingly, unwillingly the "usurper" of the halo, inserting herself in the line of bearers at random when she doesn't even seem to have any belief... Ava exists outside of tradition. To Michael's determined "Destiny", she is the one imbued with free will (it isn't out of guilt or duty that she returns to the Cat's Cradle, but through Mary's sympathy, through her own understanding and action). Ava is the unplanned factor, contrasted with Michael who was so planned that his life might have begun inside a Petri dish.

It isn't determinism that will save us, a mantle of glory woven by someone else wanting to place it upon our shoulders regardless of our own wishes; it isn't a decrepit institution or some despotic deity that will define us or what we do; it isn't the heavy, malodorous layers of ancient mould gathered over the endless tomes of Established Tradition or the carefully made calculations of arrogant scientists who think they can predict and explain and control everything.

Salvation cannot be through what Michael represents: an imposed duty, a stagnant, hackneyed story.

A story, we would do well to remember, which was already used to subjugate others, whatever its initial intentions might have been; Jillian certainly didn't predict what would be of her son and surely the primitive Christians didn't see into the future to understand what their devotion and their modes of its transmission would cause, yet it came to happen. The extermination of the Cathars, the persecution of pagans, the burning of "witches", the suppression of indigenous beliefs, activities and lives, to name but a few of the atrocities committed in the name of this one story...

So it cannot be Michael, embodying this narrative so well, that will bring about a fortunate ending to humanity's troubles.

Instead, salvation comes through Ava. She herself might be inhabited by a number of parallels with Christ, but she also carries freedom, an outsider's view which makes the inside so see-through, love, an ability to move outside of what had been previously set for her by someone else (one might even argue that these are the traits that made Christ before the story surrounding him came about)...

The walls built around her needn't contain her — and, phasing as she does, they do not.

Moreover, what would have been the real ending to Reya's plan, had it been followed exactly as it should have? The divinium bomb did hit Ava in the end, but wouldn't it have been worse had she not been interrupted in running up to Michael while he immobilised Adriel during the televised freak circus?

Ava's unpredictability, her impulse, her innate need to act with free will rather than constricted by what others dictate — Ava is the foil to fate itself, the foil to a structure, to a hierarchy that has been festering and rotting from the beginning of time, it should seem.

The hero of this story could only ever be her.

[rappaccini]

hi im just a rando that somehow arrived at your blog, but i just wanted to say that i am FROTHING at the mouth for your spider-gwen takes (also just read your fic rachnophobia!! it was super good and so frifgin cathartic). your analyses are just so so ridiculously good. they put into words every thing i felt when i first read the spider-gwen comics when i was much younger and couldn't read between the lines (sitting in a tree was so icky and i didn't know why, even murderdock has more chemistry with gwen).

i don't really know how asks work on your blog so sorry if im intruding/being a bother, but if it's not too much i want to hear more on your take for gwen and murderdock's relationship (you know that one scene where gwen almost kills murderdock and they have a talk before gwen dimension hops), it left such an imprint on my mind, but their dynamic isn't talked about nearly enough for my taste.

(also totally unrelated but gwen-65 and the Mary Janes reminds me of dazey and the scouts + mommy long legs 🧍)

hello! no problem re: the asks, you're not intruding at all.

and like. fuck yeah let's talk about murdock. let's unpack the insane psychosexual obsession matt murdock 65 has with gwen.

putting aside the tiny things like him earnestly loving the mary janes' singles, or matt and gwen having the same catholic guilt haunting their subconsciouses, or him having a situationship with the woman who would've become spider-woman if gwen hadn't gotten bitten instead, and discarding that woman for gwen...

it makes me insane that he's a reluctant villain who was pressganged into joining the hand as a kid, who despite excelling at it, hates his job so much that he's preparing to kill himself and the only thing that stops him from going through with it is seeing (... 'seeing') spider-woman.

just knowing that she exists makes him want to live. the only reason why he's still getting up and going through the day is because he wants to see her, and be close to her. he wants to get to know her, and teach her. he wants her at his side. he straight-up admits at the tail end of the life of gwen stacy that the only reason why he hasn't ditched dimensions with his stolen portal watch is that he's staying for her and that matters more to him than his work, his reputation or his life.

like he looooves her. but in an extremely fucked-up, possessive way. that on a personal level, is a deadringer for the way an abuser loves their victim. on a thematic level, is symbolic of the patriarchy gwen's up against, and on a meta level, of all the men, real and symbolic, who keep the character of gwen stacy trapped in an awful narrative.

on the surface, his actions towards her do read like he's protecting her. he orders a hit on captain stacy to demand the cops leave spider-woman alone. he turns up at george's house when he deduces gwen's identity to tell him to his face that he knows their secret, that he isn't a worthy mentor or protector figure for gwen, and offer his legal services. he makes an offer of mentorship to gwen because he wants her to be a better fighter, and actually attempts to train her. he has a pack of ninjas dispatched to follow her around and protect her. he makes enemies of other villains to protect her secret identity. he refuses to kill her (... because tbh if she's dead he'd probably just kill himself). he's like a creepy villainous suitor.

(... @ the spiderverse migwen stans, read her comics. matt murderdock and gwen are literally everything you think miguel and gwen are doing, but it's actually canon.) matt doesn't want to be her dad. he wants to be her daddy.

but to be clear his intentions for her were never good. he's not misunderstood, or seeking redemption. before he's committed to goading her into killing him, his dynamic with gwen is still fundamentally abusive. he inserts himself into her life and turns up at her house uninvited. he isolates her from her friends and family. he has her jumped, beaten to a pulp and humiliated when he 'mentors' her. he lets the cops continue to chase after her to make her feel anxious and disillusioned even though he has the power to shut down her case at any time. that ninja bodyguard outfit is really there to report on her to him, and are not-so-subtly out to kill harry, her kind-of-love interest (... and therefore matt's rival). he sics hitmen on them when they run away together.

yeah, he doesn't want anyone to hurt her... unless he has allowed it. he doesn't see her as an equal, he wants her to serve him. he doesn't see her as the heir to his criminal empire, he sees her as a tool to keep it going. he doesn't want her dead, but that's only because if she dies, then he doesn't get to screw with her anymore. he wants to possess and control her.

the entire power-up pill arc reads like he's her wealthy, older abusive boyfriend who keeps her coming back to him with his resources (she desperately needs his legal counsel when her father's in jail)... and with drugs. he even describes their relationship like he's a drug she can't quit. he loves that she's dependent on him for her power-ups and gives them to her as rewards for obedience and associating with him.

which is all but confirmed when sitting in a tree juxtaposes matt with miles. both of these guys are attracted to gwen in a shallow way she fundamentally does not return, both see her as a symbol instead of a person. (look at how he talks about her:)

and both are offering her a relationship with them that'll lead to her having an easy fix to being persecuted on her homeworld, and power on the surface but little agency in reality. they don't love gwen, they love spider-woman; they want a powerful trophy girlfriend who can reassure them that selling their souls was worth it.

and she rebuffs them both. she sidesteps miles and runs away from murdock at the same time, even, in the predators arc. (... and does so by running off with harry, the only straight guy who's into gwen who actually gives a shit about her feelings and respects her boundaries.)

and murdock loses it. he goes full if-i-can't-have-you-no-one-can and has the venom symbiote created specifically to drive her out of control for good. he's preparing to dose her with the hard stuff, to keep her totally dependent on him and break her will.

not by killing her; by psychologically breaking her down. he wants a symbolic murder-suicide. the way he saw it, if he convinced gwen to go villain, then he has a little companion to be evil with, and she can reassure him that his terrible actions are unavoidable and natural.

... and if she kills him, then he's still corrupted her and he doesn't have to live with himself anymore. he can die knowing he's permanently changed her for the worse, that she'll never outrun the effect he had on her, and that he doesn't have to deal with the consequences.

and to top it all off, at the end of the run (aka when the writer knew he was getting canned and could just fucking go for it), matt straight-up confirms that his interest in her is sexual. it's not subtle.

"my dick is on fire. and here you are: moth to my flame." i mean. come on.

see how the moth/flame reference happens twice? it's a callback to him referring to the symbiote as a way to sap harry's powers out of him. a 'moth to a flame.' so uh. textually, he sees a sexual relationship with gwen as a way to further depower her. and he would have started one after gwen took on the symbiote and was fully out of control (and after harry was taken from her. one more layer of humiliation). she barely got out of there in time.

yeah uh now we have go back and to reexamine the whole power-up arc with the knowledge that if gwen hadn't left him when she did, he would have started sexually abusing her. he wasn't just grooming her to be his evil apprentice. he was, you know, grooming her.

look back. it's all there. look at how he's always touching her as she's squirming away from him, even in broad daylight in front of cops he has on his payroll, or even her own dad.

look at the double entendre in gwen acknowledging in predators that he literally wants her on her knees in front of him. look at all of his talk about 'teaching' her things that might have nothing to do with combat. look at how he became infatuated with her when she was underage and does not care that she's barely nineteen and he's in his thirties, or that she's completely indifferent to his advances and may be queer.

[sidebar: look at how felicia hardy and kitty pryde are also young women with superpowers and complex issues with their fathers, and are canonically bi in 616, who are pressured into compromising situations by murdock that lead to their villainy and imprisonment. he has a pattern of behavior and a preferred type of victim. gwen isn't unique to him, she's just his newest plaything.]

look at how gwen's so viscerally disgusted by him that she can't stop venom from popping out when she has to touch him.

there's a Lot to unpack there.

through the entire latour run, gwen's dodging unwanted and harmful affection from men-- peter the incel who tries to kill everyone when she isn't into him, harry the ex who loves gwen and wants to punish her for what she did to peter (... but realizes he was wrong and redeems himself), rhino the villain of the week who gropes her during their fight, miles the Nice Guy who wants to take her away from everyone she loves and turn her into a trophy girlfriend who makes his spiderbabies, the dozens of spider-men who see her as a vessel for girlfriend trauma venting. and matt, as her nemesis, is the ultimate culmination of all of that put together. he's a groomer and an abuser to his core.

which makes the way gwen deals with him all the more poignant: after trying to evade, work with and placate him for her entire run, and finally snapping and turning on him, she has him on his knees. not because she personally has defeated him, though she did kick his ass-- because the system he's destroying himself to support has discarded him after eating him alive.

she doesn't try to See The Good In Him, she acknowledges that there simply isn't any. he isn't misunderstood, he isn't a woobie, he's absolutely not sexy or alluring. he was never cool or badass. his tragic past doesn't justify the harm he's done in the present. he doesn't have anything valuable to teach her and he never would have protected her. he's a pathetic little man who tries on personas to hide his sense of inadequacy and could have always risen above his circumstances to be a better person but simply chose not to. he’s a white guy with a katana who uses dated slang to try to sound cool to the teenage girls he wants to abuse.

(... tiring of the fandom to not pick up on any of this and treat murdock like a badass. he wasn't. that's the point. murderdock is a kind of evil that's mundane and familiar. that is the scary thing about him: that you know this guy.)

she doesn't kill him, she leaves him behind to presumably be arrested, tried, jailed and have to live with himself in the way he never ever wanted to. no more personas to hide behind, no more wealth or followers he can use to bully people. he's in hell, just not the one he was hoping for.

and she never interacts with him again.

he's an absolutely incredible villain for gwen. his relationship with gwen works to activate her redemption and evolution into a full hero; gwen's entire latour arc is about grappling with the consequences of her irresponsible and selfish behavior. like matt, she's done some terrible shit, is tied up with bad people, and hates herself for it. but unlike matt, she wants to be a better person and puts in the work to do it.

he's a physical representation of the meta forces that are holding gwen stacy the character back: men who see gwen herself not as a person but as a sex object that can make them look impressive or feel less inadequate, who want to deny her any agency or her own relationships, and take them away when she does obtain them, so they can make her all about them. and who see her power as something annoying that should be stripped from her so she can be an accessory to a more powerful man, or as a fun bonus feature that can only be used for that man's advancement. the character of gwen stacy is literally stuck in a cycle of abuse where she's killed, resurrected, killed again, and never gets a break. murdock is representative of the forces that keep that cycle turning, and spider-gwen breaks it, not by existing-- by putting in the work to give herself a narrative that frees her from that status quo.

watching gwen's relationship with murdock evolve solidifies the symbolic narrative about patriarchy running through the entire run.

(we watched matt be absorbed into a violent, male-dominated system against his will as a young boy, and consciously choose to keep perpetuating it, even though it makes him miserable to the point of wanting to die. and the thing that makes him buy in fully is the idea that hey, he might be miserable, but if he gets a girl to submit to him, he can take out that misery on her, gain status for having her under his control, and use her to advance that agenda against others.)

we watched gwen, as a young, naive girl, try to avoid the patriarchy entirely and girlboss her way through life, insisting that she can do whatever she wants because she has powers.

we watched her get the shit kicked out of her in her origin story when it caught up with her, cornered her, and she realized she wasn't the exception. and murdock is the source of this realization because he's the one who instigates the hit on george stacy that causes her to reveal her identity to him.

in the power up pill and sitting in a tree arcs, we watched her literally flirt with the idea of selling out to it, and try to work with it when it offers her special privileges for doing so (cough gwiles cough)

in predators, we watched gwen realize any safety or special treatment it offers her is bullshit and the cost of playing along will violate and destroy everyone she cares about and her most of all

in gwenom, we watched her embrace her most uninhibited self and attack it head-on

in the life of gwen stacy, we watched her realize that a full awakening means embracing other women and taking responsibility for protecting them and her community, rather than simply beating the thing oppressing her until it's dead

we watched her call it and all its enforcers and believers who still cling to it useless little bitches and turn her back on them for good.

this is the gwen that gets away from the male gaze. (or at least she was. thanks spiderverse.)

and even though gwen's defeated murdock, his influence lives on.

gwen's constantly dealing with villains who are attracted to her, whose attraction to her is the basis of their violence towards her (peter 65, harry and em jay for a time, rhino, matt, jackal, maybe johnny storm if the mcguire run hadn't been canned).

she's constantly being knocked around the multiverse and shoved towards miles with a kiss-me sign around her neck because of the same possessive patriarchal bullshit that matt tried to impose on her.

she has serious intimacy issues, particularly with romance. she's flighty, she can't commit, she excuses toxic behavior in em jay, she can't stand up for herself around miles or peter and deny their advances bluntly, she's constantly on this carousel of nearly coming out of the closet and ducking back in.

and though much of this, in-universe, stems from her knowledge of gwen stacy's role in the multiverse, murdock's psychosexual obsession with her is the direct visceral source of that trauma on a personal level. and she hasn't really unpacked this.

he still looms large in her subconscious in a way that no other villain has ever matched. thank you for letting me soapbox about this.

[cpericardium]

Taylor's locker didn't give her toxic shock and claiming it did is ignorant and misogynistic

When I was growing up, my mother didn't let me or my sister use tampons, citing the risk of toxic shock syndrome. We didn't have them in the house. Literally I thought I'd die the moment that thing entered my glovebox. I also went to an all-girls convent school for much of my life and never met anyone who used or advertised the use of anything other than pads.

My sister has since moved on to using cups, but even now I don't think I can ever use a product that you insert. Lingering Catholic guilt, you understand. But I looked into toxic shock syndrome anyway to counteract the terrible sex ed I was getting from both my school and my mother (father's a doctor, so for all his conservativeness he's more inclined to give me unvarnished medical information). Because it's my body, and being AFAB I'm practically required by law to be afraid all the time. May as well find out which fears should be prioritised.

Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS) can develop when staph bacteria, and in some cases strep bacteria, enter the bloodstream via open wounds like cuts and abrasions. These bacteria are normally harmless and live all over your skin, but under certain conditions they can multiply rapidly and release toxins. Adolescents are more susceptible, mostly because they haven't developed the antibodies to fight the infection.

“The first is vaginal colonization with a strain of S. aureus, which can make the toxin; the second is production by the S. aureus of the toxin; the third is penetration across the vaginal epithelium of enough toxin to cause disease; and the fourth is a lack of adequate titers of the neutralizing antibody to the toxin,” says Dr. JoAnn Pinkerton, executive director of The North American Menopause Society.

The incidence of TSS is estimated to be around 0.8 to 3.4 per 100,000 in the United States. Cases have declined massively since peaking in the 1980s. The point is: TSS is an incredibly rare complication of a complication that requires specific conditions to develop under.

So why is it on the worm subreddits and discord servers and forums, there are always people insisting that the locker incident was an act of bioterrorism, that her bullies need to be shipped off to Guantanamo for what they did? Why are there so many wormfics where Taylor physically rots in the locker as a result of TSS compounded by aggressive necrotising fasciitis, and this necessitates Amy staying with her for days to tend to her failing organs? Why are people doing nonsensical Tampon Math to justify her being on the verge of death when she's found? See thread for more inane arguing.

Yes, the locker was biohazardous and it was inarguably a cruel prank, a disgusting experience all around. But absent other circumstances (like the bullies deliberately planting a virus or Taylor uhhh getting impaled on a coat hook? both of which I've seen in more than one fic), Taylor in all likelihood didn't get TSS from it. Sure, authors can do what they want, but out of all the possible deadly infections, why oh why do they always specifically choose TSS?

Is it because of the tampons?

The reason it happens with tampons is that the bacteria can become trapped in the vagina and enter the uterus via the cervix. Most cases result from the use of highly absorbent tampons, as dry tampons can abrade the skin when removed and thus provide more entry points for bacteria. The National Organization for Rare Disorders estimates that TSS related to tampon use occurs in about 1 in 100,000 menstruating women. It usually happens if the tampon is inside them and they left it in there for days. The risk of toxic shock via tampon rises significantly after eight hours.

The tampons were not inside Taylor. She was also only trapped in the locker for about an hour and a half. Afterwards, she spent a week in the psych ward, and as far as we know had no significant physical injuries. But, detractors say, all her struggling might have broken skin, and the bacteria on the tampons could have fermented over winter break!!! Have you ever fished out a used tampon that's been in a bin for a while (i.e. weeks)? Just saying, Taylor is more likely to get an infection from all the used hypodermic needles that are undoubtedly a large component of Winslow bathroom trash.

To quote Kyakan whom I had to pester for the canon info about Taylor's stay,

"There are a lot of things that can go bad with the human body when exposed to X Y or Z conditions, but we survived long enough to evolve. It's not like touching blood will instantly disintegrate us. Human bodies are resilient even without modern medicine."

Here’s my theory. People don’t understand what TSS is, its risk factors or its rarity. They have a vague idea that it’s the icky female period disease even though only about half of all TSS cases are menstruation-related, so obviously Taylor contracted it from touching icky female period blood.

I won't say it couldn't happen to Taylor, ever, in (fan)fictional stories written by men. Just that it's not as likely as you think.

A final note—if you, the author, are fixating on gruesome medical details and describing the contents of the locker in terms of microbiology, you are completely and tragically missing the core of Taylor Hebert's trigger event. .......but that's just a theory! a worm theory

[foggieststars]

fic writer interview!!

tagged by @bright-and-burning & @fueledbyremembering tysm my beloveds <33

How many works do you have on AO3?

18 for f1... 3 on my other profile :0

What's your total AO3 word count?

183,098 and i'm really hoping to hit 200k by the end of the year.... i luv meaningless milestones... <3

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

let's be alone together

i'll always see great heights in you

what i go to school for

says he's gonna teach me just what fast is

hatred cradles you

let's be alone together got like absurdly well received and i am so grateful for it always but also. lowkey sad that i have probably already peaked in this fandom... also i had No idea hatred cradles you was so up there for my fics. wow...

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

yes!! i really really try to <3 if it's a shorter fic i tend to reply right away to comments but when it's a longer fic it may take me some time. i always want to reply to everybody though!

for some reason i'm really struggling to reply to comments on 'such murderous and vengeful desire' tho.. idk why i just got a lot of LOVELY long comments that really engaged with the fic and i always feel like my responses are so lame. but i'm really trying!! know that even if i don't reply right away i always see and appreciate everything <3

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

hmmm probably such murderous and vengeful desire like. i dont think this version of lestappen would ever break up but they certainly are sacrificing health and happiness to be together... but could they even be happy with other people??? i think not

to ME this is still a happy ending. but i've been reliably informed it made several people cry so like. i think it fits the criteria

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

most of my fics have pretty happy endings... even if it's not straight up happy it's still like. a promising ending because i'm a hopeful bitch... but probably my landoscar orgasm denial series off to the races has the happiest ending because. those bitches just love each other and being fucking nasty with each other and there's literally not even a smidge of angst because they just literally are in love and happy .

Do you write crossovers?

nope!

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

when i was like 13 i had some dedicated haters on my harry potter fanfics </3 but not since those dark times lol

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

yeah i'm a fiend unfortunately... i don't really know how to categorise it tho sdlfkjsf... like i'm just big on smut. i guess ive written quite a lot of getting together smut... i'm also big on like. exploring embarrassment and shame and guilt during sex which i'm sure has little to do with my catholic upbringing

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not as far as i know!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

god yeah. when i was 13... we wrote a self-insert fic where we kidnapped and ransomed one direction and it was titled stockholm syndrome. released PRIOR TO the song. i should note .

What's your all-time favorite ship?

all time favourite ship is probably like. legitimately percy and annabeth from percy jackson lmfao... also shout out to drarry <3

but within f1 it's lestappen in particular (in case u couldnt tell) but really any charles ships recently . charlos in particular has been really moving me lately. basically anything that involves charles has me :)

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

ugh. winner's room wip.... i seriously think about them all the time :( i just don't have like the mental space for it at present.... but i really really really want to try and get it done. because i think it would eat. and i'd also like to experiment with chaptered fics!

What are your writing strengths?

i think i'm good at characterisation? and i think in particular i have quite a tendency to turn everything into a character study but i think it works well. idk though i find it very hard to like. praise myself with any sort of critical eye because as soon as i post a fic i fully forget what i even wrote so. <3

What are your writing weaknesses?

i think i suffer from talks too fucking much disease. like i think some of my fics could really benefit from being shorter and snappier and i am just not good at that sort of writing but it's something i'm trying to improve on... like i think some of it is just my style being a bit long-winded but i think in general i could find shorter ways of describing things and stuff :)

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

not even once. i don't mind the occasional foreign language swear word or like phrase like il predestinato. but i think writing whole chunks in a foreign language is really ...... like. phew. like even if it's not terribly google translated i find it an inconvenience to go off and translate it myself...

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

it's probably a tie between harry potter and one direction - i remember stumbling onto both of their fanfic sites when i was around 11/12 but i genuinely don't remember which came first

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

choscar is my number 1!! i have ideas though and i'm excited to crack on w some of them :)

What's your favorite fic you've written?

i think it's the world was built for two ... like i just thought it was so bad and i actually ended up being so proud of it with distance. i reread a little chunk of it recently and was like wrow... i wrote this! whcih is not an emotion i am accustomed to feeling i usually avoid rereading my own stuff because i just reread it with editor brain on and think how i couldve made things better. but actualy like. i love girl charles and her messy beautiful bpd princess life and i think i did her justice <3

tagging: @liamlawsonlesbian @lovelylotusf1 @maaxverstappen @ninetqs @gayferrari @bumblewyn @1425fivefive @piastriachios @breathofnyx because i am as always so out of the loop and have no idea who's already done this :***** <3

[millenniumfae]

Dragon Age Demons vs Real-Life 'Inner Demons'

Way back in the summer of 2015, my symptoms got so unbearable I was bedridden. 20 years old and experiencing psychosis, quasi-hallucinations, and actual, unending panic for the first time. It marked the start of a condition that has never stopped since.

My aunt (and other relatives) helped me develop proper mindfulness skills based off of our homeland's folk Buddhism - the 'second arrow'. The meaningless of forgiveness. Devaluing control. And something that struck me as a new Dragon Age fan … 'Possession'.

Well, when translated to english, you'll find texts using the word 'insight' rather than 'possession'. But that's the word my mom translated from off the top of her head, and it immediately resonated with me.

"Imagine your panic as an inner creature. Something that is also you, but is acting independently. Treat your panic with kindness and mentorship, not antagonism. The more you struggle in the spider's web, the worse things get. But if you nourish what's hurting in you, let them tantrum, then come back in to nurture."

Up until the 2010s, the most acclaimed mental health books you could buy written in the english language would most certainly be christianity-influenced. Maybe not overtly, (but you'd be surprised how many have a chapter about "insert-book-topic-here and Christ") but there's little hints like how the reader must have left home at 18 to avoid mooching off their parents, or how to 'turn guilt into something productive' (???), the use of the word 'gamble' as a bad word, etc. But these books tend to include a chapter that would be some weird bullshit like "The Dark Souls Of Respawning?? What Daoism Says About Immortality" and take a brief moment to talk about the radical, never-before-heard-of methods from across the pacific that Will Turn Your World Upside Down.

Behavior therapists (of the 1950s) were aware insights about the origins of the problem usually weren't helpful. Exposure to the thing the patient feared was often curative. -When Panic Attacks by David D. Burns MD, Chapter 18, "Taking a page from the Tibetan Book of the Dead"

Now, it's no secret that the Dragon Age serial is very. Um. Christian. Catholic, specifically. Faith is written to be an unequivocally redeeming trait. Attempts at inventing fake elf/qunari/Tevinter 'religions' still have them be belief-based, colonialist, and conversion-heavy, while also at the same time implying that the 'Maker' of Chantry faith is the single actual true god.

So it's no surprise that the demons and spirits of DA are very seven-deadly-sins. Party banter and side-quests do point out the euro/christian-centricity of this demon categorization (Merrill, Solas), but that doesn't mean shit if, in overall story and gameplay proper, Pride is the most powerful demon while Faith is virtue at all.

So here I am, lying in bed and only capable of just riding the waves of panic day after torturous day. You bet I'm gonna try to geek-erize my symptoms. If people do it with Jesus, then I can do it with Dragon Age.

Enter Vigilance the Spirit. I was an at-risk young Rivani mage, so their Magic Welfare Government helped me join their クサビ-依り代 program and matched me with a spirit to induce possession. Can't boil two skulls in one pot, so to speak. I could have chosen to do their hemispherectomy program (I am made Tranquil but carry around a piece of the Fade like a pacemaker that keeps me perfectly lucid, only turning off when I sleep), but that comes with its own risks.

But it doesn't take much for a spirit of Vigilance to do a 180 and become Panic. They're still Vigilance, and I am still me, but the taste in the mouth is different. Our life will need to adapt.

I will not kick myself for 'failing' my friend. Vigilance has turned to Panic, yes. But they have always been one. Now, so are me and Panic. Such is the nature of spirits.

If I am kind to my spirit, then I am kind to myself. It's what we both deserve.

[eddiegettingshot]

this season was truly a study into how to have a show that only has amazing things going on and horrible things going on with nothing in between. like bathena romance, maddie hen + henren madney bestieism, buddie closer than ever, henren finally got their daughter + denny got a sister, bi buck, the coming out scenes, bobby backstory, chim/the lees, harry back, madney wedding, exploring shannon idealization. catholic guilt eddie (in general, not the way it was explored this season). on the other hand. cartel plot. henren dealing with adoption related trauma again for literally no reason than to create drama (its not going to push their characters anywhere. unless they focus on a hen re-evaluating her role as a hero/captain like 7x09 suggested and then 7x10 never followed up on. also literally where was henren fighting for mara this episode lol there was just a couple scenes about them missing her??). bi buck but hes dating a guy who had a completely off screen redemption arc and who's only current purpose is to be gay and continuously remind viewers how awful the old 118 captain was while inserting him into an oppression narrative against an asian immigrant and black lesbian despite the fact he was on the side of the oppressor that whole time. also gerrard plot in general. eddie/marisol being pointless. more complicated bobby lore that will hopefully be explored but really who knows. harry back for literally no reason other than to do copaganda. doppelganger. making eddie a cheater for no reason. writing chris out for literally no reason other than to frame eddie as failing at the one thing he never wanted to fail at. jealous buck plot with buck physically hurting eddie with only a heavily implied apology. whatever was going on with athena in 7x10 I am begging her to quit being a cop and be a private investigator instead or something. its like all the pieces were there for tim to explore what he wanted to and have the season be really good and it just... wasn't. anyways all these cliffhanger plots better be wrapped up in whatever the big disaster opens season 8. and also gerrard should die in that disaster full stop

🫠🫠🫠🫠

[farfromstrange]

Foreigner's God Masterlist

PAIRING: Matt Murdock x OFC

AO3 — Spotify — #foreigner’s god

❝ Sometimes, the greatest power lies not in what we can control, but in what we can uncover within ourselves. In the depths of darkness, secrets await, and it is our choice to embrace them or let them consume us. Together, they embarked on a journey to unearth the truth, unaware that love, like a tempest, would shatter all their plans and rebuild their world anew. ❞

⤹ SUMMARY:

She was born with the ability to manipulate reality and the world around her. Hydra raised her and turned her into their deadliest weapon until the Avengers saved her and offered her a chance at a better life. A dark past often comes with secrets that demand to be uncovered. There might actually be more to it than meets the eye, a kind of power that’s been sleeping deep within her, waiting to be discovered. But how does one get over losing everything without losing themselves?

One reckless night on a rooftop, a bad decision leads the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen right into her arms, and he decides to tag along on her journey down the past.

As it turns out, Matt Murdock is a man unable to take no for an answer when he has set his mind to something, and once she decides to let him into her heart, all the plans she made for the future fall apart.

Or, in which a troubled Avenger forms an alliance with Daredevil to fight a common enemy and save their city, but they end up saving each other instead.

⤹ CONTENT WARNINGS:

SLOW BURN, Canon typical violence, ANGST, EVENTUAL SMUT, light BDSM, Oral sex, daddy kink, praise & pain kink, blood & cum play, Switch!Matt, toxic behavior, language, severe mental illness, PTSD, implied/referenced torture, substance abuse disorder, self-harm, mentions of sexual assault, Hydra, age gap, religious imagery and symbolism, eventual romance, some fluff, mutant powers, mentions of child molestation, near-death experiences, catholic guilt, NOT TONY STARK FRIENDLY (at least until chapter 40 or so), turning good characters into bad guys, not completely canon compliant

-> There will be chapter-specific warnings before each chapter because they tend to vary with each one!

⤹ AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Hello everyone! I didn’t expect this to blow up the way it did, so I decided to edit the entire Masterlist and repost it while I continue editing the chapters on AO3 and here, too. Welcome to everyone who’s new here!

Likes and reblogs are always appreciated!

I’m trying not to describe any specific physical traits like body shape, hair color, etc. (although I think I called her skin “pale” once or twice in reference to her lack of sun exposure) in any of the chapters. The character was assigned female at birth and also identifies as female with she/her pronouns, but other than that, I do not give her any traits other than her name – Eliza Bennett. Her looks are entirely up to your imagination! So you can view this as a reader insert or not, whatever you want. It’s up to you how you interpret this story.

-> Series takes place in early season 2 and continues from there on.

-> This work is 18+ ONLY!

[the asterisk (*) indicates explicit sexual content; (^) indicates the chapter has been edited to fit the new style]

— ACT ONE: HYDRA —

chapter one: I Did Something Bad (^)

chapter two: Raise A Little Hell (^)

chapter three: I Think He Knows (^)

chapter four: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (^)

chapter five: Hold Me While You Wait (^)

chapter six: Ivy (^)

chapter seven: right where you left me (^)

chapter eight: doomsday (^)

chapter nine: Block Me Out  (^)

chapter ten: 1 step forward, 3 steps back (^)

chapter eleven: New Invention (^)

chapter twelve: It’s Nice To Have A Friend (^)

chapter thirteen: Devil Town (^)

chapter fourteen: Family Line (^)

chapter fifteen: So it goes…* (^)

chapter sixteen: Do I Wanna Know?* (^)

chapter seventeen: Look Who’s Inside Again (^)

chapter eighteen: Anti-Hero (^)

chapter nineteen: You’re On Your Own Kid  (^)

chapter twenty: Innocent* (^)

chapter twenty-one: Green, Green Dress*

chapter twenty-two: mirrorball*

chapter twenty-three: The Avengers (pt.1) 

chapter twenty-four: The Avengers (pt.2) 

chapter twenty-five: For Real This Time 

chapter twenty-six: Black Out Days 

chapter twenty-seven: Dear Reader

chapter twenty-eight: Look What You Made Me Do 

chapter twenty-nine (Bonus Chapter): Haunted

chapter thirty: Hayloft II

chapter thirty-one: Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)

chapter thirty-two: Chasing Cars

chapter thirty-three: How To Save A Life

chapter thirty-four: Foreigner’s God(*)

chapter thirty-five: long story short*

chapter thirty-six: this is me trying*

chapter thirty-seven: New Romantics*

chapter thirty-eight: Lavender Haze*

chapter thirty-nine: As It Was*

chapter forty: Monster*

chapter forty-one: Daylight

— ACT TWO: PUNISHER —

chapter forty-two: I’ll Get The Coffee*

chapter forty-three: She Knows*

chapter forty-four: Cold As You 

chapter forty-five: Bird Set Free 

chapter forty-six: Human*

chapter forty-seven: Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve (^)

chapter forty-eight: Bad Blood (^)

chapter forty-nine: Dark Paradise (^)

chapter fifty: Meet Me In The Hallway (^)

chapter fifty-one: Demons (^)

chapter fifty-two: Say You Won't Let Go (^)

chapter fifty-three: I Will Be Your Remedy (^)

chapter fifty-four: Dancing With The Devil (^)

chapter fifty-five: Why Am I Like This? (^)

[husbandograveyard]

Multichapter fics I want to work on (soon-ish) - Previews? Accountability? Interest check? Something in between? I am bad at summaries, when i write them out properly, I will do better hihi. I promise the plots are actually good haha. All these are reader insert, OC fics are also in the making, but more in my personal folders than ready for sharing.

(working) title: untitled | Series: BNHA | Rating: E Pairing(s): Kirishima x Reader | Genre: Drama, angst, romance ↪ cw & tw: sex work, alcohol consumption, insecurities, bleak world ↪ Synopsis: Nearing his 40's, pro hero Red Riot is one of the few in his friend group that hasn't managed to settle down and the loneliness and yearning is starting to weigh on him more and more. He turns to a high-end sex worker, more for the girlfriend experience than anything else, but realizes pretty fast that he is falling for her. Based of one of my favorite Reddit Stories.

(working) title: the right place | Series: Haikyuu!! | Rating: M Pairings: undecided x reader (2 characters, one main pairing) Genre: college (AU), romance, humor, light angst, slow ish burn? ↪ Cw & Tw: AU, childhood friends to lovers, roommates to lovers, SO MUCH pining, miscommunications, failed relationships ↪ Synopsis: You and [character] have been friends since diapers. When you both decide to go to the same college, you make plans to live together in the big city, navigating school and living without your parents for the first time together. There is obvious romantic tension between you two, so why does he keep dating around? And why are you suddenly hanging out with his best friend?

(working) title: Bound in body and blood | Series: JJK (AU) | Rating: E | Pairings: Geto Suguru x Reader | Genre: horror, dark romance, dead dove

↪ Cw & Tw: Vampire AU, Vampire!Geto, Priest!Geto, Blood, so much blood, wounds, mild gore (nothing worse than canon tbh), bullying, traumatic upbringing, abuse, Catholic guilt, Catholic references, manipulation, unhealthy relationship, loss of a spouse, character (un)death, sexual assault, Geto is NOT a good guy ↪ Synopsis: You return to your small hometown you so desperately tried to escape as a teen for the community and support after a traumatic happening. You're struggling to find solid ground again when your childhood friend, another 'escapee' returns a few months after you. He's gone through similar things as you did, and you find a lot of comfort in his presence. But strange things have started happening in the town ever since he arrived, and you're torn between staying in the dark or digging deeper, old love and recent loss.

(working) title: Enstrangled | Series: Genshin Impact (AU) | Rating: E | Pairings: Baizhu x Reader | Genre: horror-ish to dark / monster romance

↪ Cw & Tw: Naga!Baizhu, survival horror?, wounds, stalking, unhealthy relationship dynamics, obsession, talking snakes (Changsheng), monsterfucking, TBA ↪ Synopsis: Every year you spend some time solo hiking and camping to clear your mind and get out of the city. This time the forest you are hiking in has some dangers other than the average predators. And one of them has got his eye on you.

(working) title: Untitled | Series: Naruto (AU) | Rating: M (mature themes, no explicit smut) | Pairings: Itachi x Reader | Genre: medieval AU! Romance, drama, soulmate AU with a twist

↪ Cw & Tw: domestic abuse, doomed soulmates, unhealthy relationships, minor character death, Itachi with visual impairment, family estrangement, healing journeys, trauma, illness ↪ Synopsis: Most people are born with a mark on them indicating their soulmate. Those who aren't, called the 'soulless', are there to marry each other, and those who can't find their soulmates. And you? You wish you were soulless, cause your soulmate is the worst person you ever met.

(working) title: Untitled | Series: Haikyuu!! (AU) | Rating: M (mature themes, no smut) | Pairings: multiple x Reader - endgame undecided | Genre: Post apocalyptic AU, horror, survival, thriller, romance is but a subplot, angst

↪ Cw & Tw: Post apocalyptic society, volunteers, but in a hunger games kind of way, nature has taken over the world, blood, death, gore, wounds, illness, major character death, conflict, arguments, overall dark content ↪ Synopsis: It's been a few years since the incident, and your encampment is running out of resources. You and a handful other 'volunteers' get sent out to find more. But it's a wasteland of survival out there, and who's to say you're alone?

[murfpersonalblog]

Thornfield Hall, Manderlay, and Louis de Pyromaniac du Lac

I wanna talk about Louis' depression, Anne Rice's grief, and the element of fire in a few iconic Gothic romances/horror stories. (Trigger warning for suicide.)

Bar none, my favorite thing about Louis is his obsession with fire, and how it's linked to his abuse, mental instability, and trauma.

It's so neat how AMC's Louis chainsmokes when he's stressed, and has a hilarious attachment to the incinerator.

His fire obsession's a whole meme at this point, & everyone's excited for Louis going ham with fire in Season 2. I can't wait to see how AMC handles his most iconic book/film moment(s).

But I was rereading Jane Eyre, and thought alot about Bertha Mason (Mr Rochester's archetypal crazy wife in the attic), and Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca (which was inspired by Jane Eyre). And they got me thinking about fire and suicide in the Vampire Chronicles, so walk with me a bit.

Louis is called the most "human" of the vampires, because of how weak he was, compared to other vampires his age (and even younger). His rat/animal blood diet was tantamount to an eating disorder that heavily stilted his growth as an immortal, and for the majority of his life he lacked many of the Gifts vampirism afforded his peers (Mind Gift, Spell Gift, Killing Gift, etc).

However, shockingly enough, AMC decided to give Louis one of their most potent powers: The Fire Gift (pyrokinesis).

In the books it was explained that vampire blood is flakey & highly flammable, and only the oldest and/or strongest of vampires could withstand fire without serious injury or death--let alone use the Fire Gift to any significant degree--hence: BAMF Akasha using it as her signature attack in QotD. 👑

This seriously begs the question about where this show sits in the canon timeline, because book readers know that Louis only gains the Fire Gift, Cloud Gift, Mind Gift, etc etc after the events of Merrick, when Louis tries to commit suicide, and to heal Louis' burns, Lestat gives him a huge infusion of his powerful blood (having fed at length from Akasha in QoTD, and also God/Jesus in Memnoch.)

Lestat's super!blood healed Louis' burns and saved his life, but it also drastically & permanently changed Louis' body, making him more vampiric than he'd ever been, seriously augmenting his powers. This was something Louis had adamantly been trying to avoid--every time the Children of the Millennia/Coven of the Articulate met up, they all offered Louis infusions of their ancient blood, trying to help him power up, and every time Louis refused them all.

Louis retaining his humanity was so important to him, not only because of the Catholic Guilt he felt being a blood-drinking killer, but also because being physically weak allowed him one ultimate ace up his sleeve: if he ever got the courage to end his life, he could always rely on going into the sunlight, and burning to death.

So, while AMC's dust particle effect is very cool, I'd rather see vampires on FIRE--even though the ashes to ashes visuals are rather apropos.

Regardless, I was also thinking about all the other people & places Louis set on fire; and how it all ties in with the Gothic literature Anne Rice was CLEARLY inspired by--namely: Jane Eyre & Rebecca.

Cuz we know Anne Rice wrote Louis and his grief over losing Claudia as a self insert, as a way for her to try handling her own grief over losing her daughter. But she started hating writing as Louis, and being stuck in that depressive mindset, so AR switched to writing from Lestat's POV instead, as a more fun and carefree character for a few books--until Lestat had a crisis of faith in Memnoch and goes into a coma. We then get Armand's book, where in TVL Armand tries to commit suicide by walking into the sun after Lestat gets Veronica's Veil from Memnoch (i.e.: proof that God exists, from the Devil). Immediately after this is Merrick, where Louis enters another depressive episode, as he waits vigil for YEARS beside Lestat, who lies on the floor of a cathedral in a coma. As Louis mourns, he finds Claudia's diaries, which reveal just how much she hated & resented him, and he starts being haunted by Claudia's ghost. By the end of Merrick, Claudia's ghost has convinced Louis that he's worthless, and he agrees.

Suicidal ideation is HEAVY in both Jane Eyre and Rebecca. Mrs. de Winter is almost talked into jumping from the window by the housemaid Mrs Danvers, who hates that the widowed Maxim de Winter remarried (forgetting his first wife Rebecca), and gave Manderlay to the new wife--a girl half his age with no clue how to be a "proper" lady of the estate.

In Jane Eyre, Bertha Mason is literally insane, and was locked up in Thornfield's attic, until she escaped and set the place on fire, then jumped off the roof to her death. In the 2006 BBC version, Bertha sees an owl (a nocturnal bird) fly off the roof, so she follows it; like a free bird taking flight.

Who else does this in IWTV? PAUL with his birds. (Not to mention the PTSD from Louis' drop in Ep5, which would've definitely killed a normal person.)

For years, I thought Claudia's ghost was just an apparition: either one of the demons Lestat unleashed while fleeing Hell in Memnoch, or more likely as a manifestation of Louis' guilty conscience, as his mental state got increasingly worse as he read her journals; on top of him being scared Lestat was dying. But then Blackwood Farm introduced Goblin, and all the later books had prominent vampire ghosts that proved that vampires (and aliens, lol) have immortal souls that can linger. So the ghost was legit, and so was Claudia's deep-rooted hatred for Louis.

I've already said how I think IWTV is a story about (failed) marriages and parenthood dynamics, the power imbalances that ensue, and the resentments that fester. But so are Jane Eyre & Rebecca. At the heart of ALL of them are mental illness & houses on fire. Bertha Mason was violently insane, but she was sane enough to realize that Mr Rochester was tryna marry another woman right under her nose, when it was HER dowry money that bankrolled Thornfield, as his first wife. So in the 2006 version Bertha lights Jane's wedding dress on fire, taking the whole mansion down with her. (In the book she just tears up the dress & veil, then starts the fire.)

In Rebecca, it was Maxim's first wife Rebecca who was cheating, but the (nameless) second wife lived under her shadow & the ghost of her memory--embodied by Mrs. Danvers, who hated her guts, and fed into her deep insecurities over being married to a widower who hadn't gotten over his first wife Rebecca (*cough* little did they know though~! XD). After failing to talk the girl into killing herself, Mrs Danvers had a psychotic break, and set Manderlay on fire, dying in the blaze (joining her beloved Rebecca).

Taking the Gothic horror & suspense out--or, hell, INCREASING it--one could easily spin this so that JANE was the one who started the fire when she learned about Bertha in the attic and ran away from Thornfield (in some adaptations the fire happens the same night she leaves). One could also say that MRS DE WINTER burned down Manderlay after cracking under the pressure of becoming a married lady. Both of these second wives were driven crazy by ghosts of the past, and burned down the mansions that had become their tombs.

Cuz I mean...Louis is Lestat's second wife/husband, after Nicky killed himself in a fire. 👀 And Louis and Claudia literally watched as they burned Lestat's sidechick/third wife Antoinette alive, so.... 🔥

TL;DR: I think Anne Rice must've been struggling with a lot of suicidal thoughts around the time she wrote The Vampire Armand (book 6) and Merrick (book 7), to have both its characters do the same thing, one right after the other. Vampires and their vulnerability to fire/sunlight were just metaphors for very real personal issues. After writing IWTV, she walked away from Louis, burying her depression by writing more books as the sunny Lestat, who suntans for fun and is immune to fire by the end of QoTD. But in the back of her mind, AR might've felt guilty forgetting about her grief (Louis forgetting about Claudia--willfully forgetting about Bertha, Rebecca, etc....). So the ghost of this guilt came back with a vengeance in Merrick, as Claudia unleashed all her vitriol on Louis, and he hated himself to the point that he was convinced to light himself on fire--the sole reliable escape from misery he had left.

[tagthescullion]

Responsibility

Fandom(s): Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Rating: General Audiences

Summary: Annabeth's been feeling a little bit too guilty lately. As a brother figure, it's Luke's job to make her feel better.

((Based on @reader-inserts-and-others-thing 's post))

AO3 link

“It was my fault.”

Luke saw Annabeth’s distressed expression as she slouched down on a rock by the creek.

“I should’ve known Clarisse was going to bait Chris and that he’d react.”

She looked so miserable.

Luke knelt next to her, and took her hands in his.

“Listen to me,” he said slowly. “You’re only eleven. You’ve almost led us to victory!”

“But we lost!” She snapped, getting up and stomping back a few steps. “We lost because I wasn’t clever enough.”

Luke sighed.

Ever since he’d come back wounded from his quest last year, Annabeth had been behaving with what he could only classify as Catholic guilt. She blamed herself for everything that went even slightly wrong in any and every aspect of her life. 

She blamed herself for not going on the quest with him –as if Luke would’ve let her–, she blamed herself because her little sister couldn’t learn the multiplication tables, she blamed herself because their team hadn’t won the dodgeball match the other day…

It worried him monumentally. She was too young to take responsibility for everything.

When Luke had suggested she come up with a strategy for Capture-the-Flag, he’d done so hoping she’d relax and enjoy. Clearly this was all his fault.

“You made a mistake, Annabeth.” He took a step closer to her. “And then you covered it up nicely, too. If you’d been a bit taller, you’d have got to the creek sooner. Give yourself a few years, puberty will hit you like a train. You’ll wish you were short and slower again.”

He said the last bit dismissively, hoping she’d roll her eyes, annoyed at him so much as mentioning adolescence, the big forbidden topic she adamantly refused to talk about.

She did look away, but she appeared sad rather than embarrassed. 

“My mother’s Athena,” she told him. “I’m supposed to be able to solve problems.”

Gods, not again with the Athena thing. Luke was ready to march up to Olympus and run over the old goddess with her own golden chariot. 

Annabeth had had a dream, a week or so before, –whether a demigod dream, or a plain meaningless one he didn’t know– in which her mother told her she’d make her proud. Proud how? Athena didn’t say. Proud when? Yeah, not that either. 

If the Goddess of Wisdom had truly gifted her daughter with a message, it was as vague as it could be. And not very productive at all. And also had the worst timing ever. 

But Annabeth refused to believe that it had just been her subconscious creating an olympically unrelated dream, so she’d spent the past several days wishing for a triumph that won her some divine recognition.

Either way, Luke wished he could convince her to put less importance on her mother’s opinion of her. 

“No god over there,” he began, pointing towards the general direction of Manhattan with his hand. “Has ever been good at solving problems. They create them, and then they let them run loose. It’s us who clean up their mistakes, and that’s something you’re very, very good at!”

She gave him a hesitant smile. “I did help with the Party Ponies last month.”

“You did,” he grinned. “That idea of the prom dress was amazing!”

Her eyes shone with pride, but they lost their gleam after a moment. 

“But I still can’t win at Capture-the-Flag!” She insisted. “I keep messing up all the time!”

“Chiron likes to say you can be part of the problem, or part of the solution,” Luke said. “I happen to believe you can be both. And what’s more, I think it’s important to be part of both.”

Annabeth rolled her eyes. “Because you learn from your mistakes?” 

“In a way, yes,” he agreed. “But also because it’s important to take responsibility when you mess up. You made a mistake, that’s true. But you also realised it, accepted it, and found a way to patch it up in like half a minute. Not everybody can do that, you know? Most people would fall over blaming this, that, you, me, and everybody else.”

“I do blame Chris a bit,” Annabeth admitted. She sighed. “But I should have known better.”

“There you go, then.” Luke grabbed Annebeth by her shoulders and pushed her towards the cabins. He felt sweaty, he wanted a shower. “You’ve learned and you’ve taken responsibility for it.”

Annabeth shrugged. “I guess it could’ve been worse.”

Luke nodded. “It’s only a game. We play every week, you’ll have a million chances of getting it right.”

“We’ll win next Friday,” Annabeth decided. 

“I don’t doubt it,” he assured her. “That being said, though, it’s okay to throw some blame on other people if they are guilty about things. A mistake is not always one’s fault alone.”

“So you’re saying it’s also Chris’ fault for being baited?” She asked skeptically. 

“Yes,” he said. “Maybe you could’ve seen it coming, but so could the rest of the team, and none of us realised it was a weakness in our defence. And Chris shouldn’t have been so easily baited by Clarisse.”

“As a strategist it’s more my fault though,” Annabeth stated. Luke thought she sounded less upset that she’d been a few minutes back.

“To quote one of the most iconic lines to ever come out of popular culture, with great power comes great responsibility, that’s true,” Luke agreed. “But when it comes to teamwork, everybody should try to help. A leader speaks for their people, they guide them, but they’re not to blame for every single action every person in the group makes.”

“I don’t mind taking some of the blame,” Annabeth said.

“That’s because you’re becoming a good leader,” he told her.

She stopped walking and turned towards him. “Do you think it would make my mother proud? Being a leader?”

Luke repressed a sigh. 

“I can’t speak for your mom,” he offered. He knelt in front of her, and to his chagrin had to look up into her eyes. “But I can tell you with absolute certainty that Thalia would be very, very proud of you.”

Annabeth grinned.

[joelscruff]

Ok. I've had time to process and gather my thoughts. Amazing chapter! Not so much mad at you as I am at Joel. (But I also don't care considering it's Joel freaking Miller). Here are my organized thoughts:

I love how we got to see a lot of her catholic guilt struggles. with Bethany, her mom, etc. I had a friend just like Bethany, and even though I relate to reader in lots of ways, this chapter made me appreciate that I have a great relationship with my parents

as much as I love Joel and reader's relationship, I really love it how you show her other struggles. it shows she isn't defined just by her relationship.

grrrr Bethany. I hope she goes surfing one day and gets eaten by a shark. and dies slowly. and in an agonizing way.

poor reader! she was feeling so badass and confident with the bathroom/nude pics and then that stupid hag Bethany had to ruin everything.

Joel & Reader in this. My heart can't. both their sexy and soft moments. I mean just them cuddling in bed together is more sexy and romantic than the entirely of the fifty shades trilogy (no offense to people who love them). and when she gives him a bj and the thigh riding. HAWT. but also their tender moments. like when he comforted her about the catholic guilt and he admitted to being insecure about his age. when he said he was afraid to tell her his age but her honesty about being a virgin helped him open up, my JoelReader shipper heart did a backflip.

we've only had two scenes with Tasha and I love her already. she was definitely stunned and impressed when she heard Joel had grey hair.

THAT ENDING HOLY SHIT. it's one thing if they were on the date. but then he kissed her?!?! Joel has got lots and lots of explaining to do. I just want to give reader the biggest hug known to mankind. my poor baby.

amazing chapter as always. you balance fluff, smut, and angst so well. can't wait to see what happens next!

"as much as I love Joel and reader's relationship, I really love it how you show her other struggles. it shows she isn't defined just by her relationship" - thank you for saying this 🥺 obviously we're all here for joel miller (and that's why i'm writing it ofc) but i do try my best to add a bit of personality to reader where i can. i know a lot of people like writing/reading reader inserts that are very bare bones in the reader's personality so you can moreso insert yourself into the fic, but i've just never been able to do that 😭 probably because i'm still getting used to the whole ___ x reader format (i wasn't a wattpad girlie and never wrote/read these kinda fics). i hope that yall can still see yourself in her sometimes though 🥺

i'm also glad you like tasha!! she won't be TOO involved in this fic (i know a lot of people don't really like when OCs overstay their welcome) but she's vital in the next chapter cause reader needs someone to take care of her for a little bit :( so glad you enjoyed it 💖

[colesabi]

M T V for the ask game hehe

First off, cackling at the order of these choices.

M. Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?

I’ve got a couple. Obviously I’m working on the honeypot fic but I also have the long-delayed Chreon bodyguard AU that has been left in stasis lol. I also have a couple others including a Catholic-guilt follow-up to my Leon devastating childhood one-shot and a silly established Chreon/Piers-insert threesome. Who knows when I’ll get around to them… the honeypot is honeypotting along tho :3

T. Any fandom tropes you can’t stand?

I’d like to say I’m pretty open to most stories but I honestly hate reader or self inserts. Now they aren’t all bad, but for the most part (specifically in the RE fandom), I've found them to just be innately self-serving. Thinking specifically, I also hate the first person too as my brain literally cannot comprehend it and it prevents me from really getting into the story so I lose both ways lol. Now I’ve read a few reader/self-inserts that are actually quite good but for the most part, they seem to come off to me as a need to just place the writer into the story to be like a love interest to a popular main character and I also hate to say it, a good portion of them seem to be lacking in in-character writing.

V. A secondary (or underrated) character you want to see more of in fic?

Honestly, I need to see more of my girls Sheva and Helena. Not enough out there.

thanks for the ask Silver!!