#i literally said in my presentation “and some historians say they were just friends” | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

streamdotpng · 1 year ago

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My brain is bored and my mind is thinking

Say, we all know that Wednesday is lowkey spoilt right? She always expected things to go her way, you can see it in the way she barges into Weems office or how lil care she has whenever she shoves orders at the sheriff's face

So imagine what happens when someone ghosts her

It'd strike her pride because well, Wednesday is the best and she knows this. There would be no reason for why someone wouldn't listen to her nor would there be a reason for someone to... Ignore her like this either

Now that we got that, lemme set the scene

They're adults, no supernatural, just a completely modern au

Enid is an accountant. It's boring, not at all what she expects from when she was younger but all she has to do is calculate money and it's monotonous enough that she can go through days absolutely no thoughts head empty

It's not the future she wants but it's the future she got

Yoko, her lovely coworker notices how not so firey her seatmate is and offers a new chat app because nothing is as fun as deciding to troll random people

Enid squints at the name. "are you seriously telling me to E date right now?"

"pshhhh, ofcourse not!" yoko says unconvincingly. "just get on and play around with some people, maybe talking to someone other than boss and me could liven you up :D"

Enid stares, wondering how tf did yoko do that before sighing and downloading the app. "if I get doxxed, you're helping me move to a new house."

Yoko waves a hand before twirling back to her cubicle. "thank me if you find a sugar daddy!"

Enid flushes. "you know I don't swing that way!"

Yoko laughs.

The blond grumbles before tapping at the recently downloaded app. It's literally like tinder and Enid knows that this is a dating app trying to hide as something else

So in payback, Enid starting basing her profile of yoko. She wasn't petty enough to snap a Pic of her best friend so she went to Google and kind of try harded in making her profile look like an emo girl's aesthetic board

Huh, maybe yoko has a point, this is pretty fun

Oh for the days where Enid could make things, maybe she should pick up crocheting again. Tempting, she'll do that when she gets home

As soon as she was done, Enid began randomly swiping right with absolutely no care at all.

Enid still places her name as enid because.. Why not. By the time she finished her bio, she got too lazy to create a new name so actual name it is!

It takes a bit because apparently no one in this app likes edgy girls who enjoy dark walks, cadaver dogs and wine so dark red it looks like blood. Enid only liked one thing in that list and she wonders how did she become friends with someone with such concerning interests.

Honestly, now that Enid is think about it, her profile kind of sounds like a serial killer's. If they were dumb and was way too open about their interest, so it was no wonder no one was swiping on her

But as she was about to put the phone down and have some faith in people's taste in women, a match was made

Okay, concerning

Time to have some fun.

Immediately, Enid knew this must be some satire account because really? Wednesday A? Very interesting because she too didn't have pictures of herself, instead it was pretty good shots of a Gothic looking house, a lion?? A graveyard and a typewriter

Clearly they were trying to be all Dracula up in this place.

In the bio, it simply said

> author

Enid nods, she can respect sticking to the bit. She lowkey expected a historian but vampires being authors felt fitting aswell

Well, no time like the present! Why not do some classic rp for the shits and giggles

So they start talking

Wednesday types like she doesn't know how to use simply words and well, Enid would've loved to reciprocate because damn the amount of immersion is impressive but after the fifth typo, Enid gave up

And oh, she's a woman

Enid kind of expected a dude to be trolling but when she went "hello good sir, what are you doing this fine day?"

She kind of chokes on her water when Wednesday replies with a "Its ma'am and the day is going quite horridly, the weather where I am at has the temper and I can not wait to experience it first hand."

Who in the nine hells says horridly??

But hey, Wednesday is rping a vampire, Enid can't be all pissy when she's good at it

So they text and they text for days. Maybe it's been a month and Wednesday is just as weird as always, no breaking of character at all and Enid can respect the dedication. Call it escapism but enid has fun acting like she totally would not grimace at the sight of a dead body when Wednesday talked in detail about her novel. From what she's sees, Wednesday sounds like she probably didn't have much friends due to her interests and Enid gets that, so there's no harm in indulging

Until one day, she gets invited out to hang with yoko for the weekend and since she was in such a hurry, she kind of left her phone in her house

Wednesday, old money and living in seclusion, Addams isn't taking that so well. Finally after decades, someone takes her being wholly herself and doesn't seem disgusted. Normally she didn't care, she joined this app simply because her parents insisted for some sort of social interaction outside of family

But enid was different, she didn't try to change the subject, instead she oohs and aaahs at any info Wednesday gives. It's.. Intoxicating when Enid points out how smart she must be to know these type of things. Actually! She wondered more about her family history and didn't sound at all surprised when Wednesday mentions their odd background.

"it's fitting," Enid types. "that you would come from such a strong family, I'm sure they're proud to have someone like you."

It makes a part of Wednesday soar so mayhaps she was going through something when Enid doesn't reply one day.

It goes like this

- Enid - Enid answer me, I know you never go about without your phone - Enid did someone kidnap you? I've gone through channels and none of them match your description - Have I done something wrong? Perhaps a slight that I did not know was a thing? -

"pugsley," Wednesday says, pushing open be door to his room. Her hand is tight on her phone before she slides it over with a tense jaw. "I need you to do find the location of this woman."

Pugsley peers at the screen, raising a brow at the rather nondescript pfp. In bold letters is the username: Enid

the brother agrees and just like that, Enid fate was sealed. The blond was absolutely unaware of what she just got herself into, far too busy spending time with yoko

#Au Thoughts #Wenclair #Or I wanted to type in more dark Wednesday #Wednesday addams #Enid Sinclair

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crawlingtowardchrist · 2 years ago

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A non-religious friend of mine told me recently that Christmas and Santa Claus were originally pagan (Yule and the Norse god Odin) and that Yule was just Christianized into Christmas and Santa Claus was originally Odin and Christianized into Santa Claus. I tried to tell him that Santa Claus was based on Saint Nicholas, but he said that I was incorrect. Is my non-religious friend right? If this subject is brought up again with him, what resources can I use to strengthen my argument regarding Saint Nicholas’ connection to Christmas & Santa Claus?

First regarding Christmas, the first available record of Christ's birth being on December 25th was made by St Hippolytus of Rome, in 204 ad, well before Christianity had evangelized the norse countries. This important to remember, that Christianity had already established the Feast of Christmas and it was already being celebrated in Rome as early as 336 ad. So when greater efforts to evangelize Germany and other Norse pagans began, Christmas was a holiday already being celebrated on December 25th, although I think in the East they celebrated it on January 6th.

The first recorded mention of Yule is in a calendar of saints dated back to the 500s, and it was marking the start of some season in November or December. Remember this is in a saints calendar, and it's hardly regular practice for Catholics to include pagan holidays in their calendars. There's another mention of the Yule season in the 700s, by St Bede, who mentioned Yule as a New Year celebration, and did not mention it as a pagan holiday.

So I am of the opinion that Yule was either non religious or Christian in origin, the opposite of what people usually say.

Regarding Santa Claus, he indeed has his origins in Saint Nicholaus. Saint Nicholaus was well known as someone who gave gifts to children while he was here on Earth, he was canonized in the 800s and was the patron of children. In the 1200s we start to see people in France celebrating his feast day on December 6th. This of course spread throughout Europe. He was known as Sinterklaas in Dutch. According to traditions, Sinterklaas would ride on rooftops with his white horse, listening through chimneys for good children, and leave them goodies in their shoes. The original day in which presents were exchanged in December was this holiday, and Christmas was simply a mass celebrated in the honor of Christ's birth.

When Martin Luther began his protestant revolution he suppressed the celebration of saints and people started to exchange presents on Christmas instead. What happened to Sinterklaas? Those who remained Catholic still celebrated his holiday and this saint of course, but for those who were protestant and didn't want to give up this tradition he began to look very different. He no longer had his bishops robes and instead had green robes found in dutch culture, and his color was later changed to red. He was also renamed by Dutch settlers in America to Santa Claus. So Santa Claus is basically a protestant version of St Nicholas.

The earliest mention of Odin giving gifts to children that I could find was is in 1994, hardly historical evidence for this claim that Odin was also someone who gave gifts, and this claim was from a journalist not a historian. There really isn't any reason to believe that Santa Claus is based on Odin, really the only similarity was that they were depicted as old men.

Also, it's kinda ridiculous to assert that Santa Claus is not based on Saint Nicholaus, when "Santa" literally means saint and "Claus" clearly comes from Nicholas, which can also be spelled Nicholaus.

And as a bonus, the Christmas tree is also not a pagan tradition, it comes from St Boniface, who told the pagans to use the fir tree to celebrate Christ's birthday, shortly after he had just cut down a huge oak tree the pagans had regarded as sacred. That's the legend anyway, whether that's true or not it seems to be tied to St Boniface. This took place in the 700s. The other source I saw said Christmas trees came much later, in the 1500s, long after these Norse regions were no longer pagan. So even if the second source is more correct, it still kinda proves Christmas trees are not pagan.

I'm sure it would be difficult to convince this person however. Honestly the best approach would be to ask them to present their evidence. There really isn't any historical documents to support their assertion, and they would probably only present a blog that just says it's true, without any sources listed. Either that or they'll just say they heard it from somewhere. But as the accusers, they have the responsibility pf presenting evidence for their accusations, and if they can't hopefully that would help them understand that they're wrong. If they do provide something trace it to it's source to expose it.

I found a source that seems to present the evidence pretty well

Other than this, I would also suggest Catholic Answers, I'm sure they have more on this subject.

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kass-storycorner · 3 years ago

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Oh god, okay hear me out. I suffer from insomnia and I couldn’t get Childes letter out of my head (btw the English version is so much less “I am in love with you” than the German one. He literally says in the German version that he misses us and wants us to visit him, like straight up this is a love letter!! The English version is really toned down in comparison).

So. I know his birthday is over, at least where I’m from. But. I wrote this whole ass fan fic, that is way too long, because I was so inspired by that letter. I’m not really satisfied with the ending, I honestly wanted to add so much more fluff but… I also didn’t want to make this too long, I actually planned for it to be short??? help (also it’s 4am now noooo)

Happy birthday, Tartaglia

Genre: a little bit angsty, fluff, comfort

Rating: SFW, though mentions of kissing and sharing a bed

Content warnings: mention of a family death, Bennett’s bad luck lol but both are unrelated haha

Characters: Tartaglia x gn!reader, a guest appearance of Bennett, mention of Zhongli

Word count: 2,796 words (oooh f*ck haha)

You’ve been busy the whole day doing some commissions for the Adventures Guild and were now on your way to Mondstadt, when you heard a familiar voice call your name. “(Y/N)!”, Bennett called out to you and ran into your direction. A deep sigh left your throat, while you enjoyed Bennett’s company most of the time… you had to deal with a ton of your own bad luck today. Not one of the commissions today went the way they usually did, everything that could’ve gone wrong did go wrong. It was honestly just very frustrating, although you couldn’t be really sure if it was because of bad luck or because your mind was somewhere else most of the day. You shook your head, trying to get rid of the tiredness you already felt in your whole body and made your way towards Bennett. No matter what he needed help with you would be sure you could handle it. And in that moment, as the thought of how it wouldn’t be a big deal whatever Bennett had on his chest, you saw how the young adventure tripped over his own feet and fell face forwards into the dirt. ‘Ouch, that must’ve hurt’, you thought while running up to him. “Are you hurt? Here, let me help you up Bennett”, you asked while helping him get up from the ground. All you got as an answer from him was his usual laugh and smile. “Oh man, I really didn’t see that stone. Haha, thanks for the concern though!” You couldn’t help yourself and chuckled at the way he wiped off the dirt from his clothes. “So, what’s up? What do you want from me?.” “Yeah, right! I nearly forgot!”, he exclaimed and started fumbling in his bag. “Oh, got a present for me?”, you asked sheepishly. “Kinda, not really. Here!” Bennett held a letter in his hands, both bandaged again, and stretching it out to you. “A letter? For me?”, you took it in your hands. In a fine handwriting there was your name on it. It didn’t even took you a second for you to register who’s hand writing it was. What a surprise.

Before you could even start to ask Bennett how he got his hands on the letter he was already excitedly explaining it to you. “Today I had a commission on Dragonspine and to be honest, it didn’t really went that well until I ran into this one guy. I accidentally activated a few Ruin guards and well, even the most seasoned adventurer can’t fight more than one of these at a time and sadly the newest members of Benny’s adventure team had to go home again before we made it even to the mountain.”

The thought of Bennett nearly finding his end today on Dragonspine really… it really did not sit right with you. You made a mental note to ask him later who the new members were that ditched him. After you had your talk with them they wished they had stayed with Bennett on Dragonspine. “Well, in that moment when they approached me that one guy showed up and it only took him a few minutes to defeat them all. (Y/N) that was so cool! I tried to recruit him for my adventure team, but sadly he said he was already occupied with something else. Oh man, it would’ve been so cool to have him on my adventurer team, imagine with such an excellent fighter no one would be afraid of my bad luck to join my team.” While you enjoyed Bennett’s enthusiasm you had to interrupt him. “Wait, wait, Bennett. The person who gave you this letter is on Dragonspine?”

“Oh yeah! As I was saying I tried to recruit him for my team, but failed however we talked a bit and somehow he mentioned that he knew you! When I told him we were friends he asked me to give you this letter the next time I saw you.”

You felt how the excitement in you grew. He was on Dragonspine? He was so close to you again? Now you hardly could pay attention to what Bennett continued to say, all that was on your mind was the man, whom you saw the last time months ago in Liyue was so close again. “Bennett,” you interrupted him again. “Thank you so much for the letter, but I really need to get going. Thank you so much!”

And with that you changed your direction and made your way directly to Dragonspine. “Oh? Okay, bye (Y/N)!”, you heard Bennett call after you, but your mind was already occupied with opening that letter he gave you.

With shaking hands you read what stood on that thin paper in that neat and familiar handwriting:

“Hey, comrade! How have you been? You must have traveled far and wide since we last saw each other, right?

For me, I can only seek out some entertainment for myself. These past couple of days, I’ve used a work opportunity to explore Dragonspine and seek out some local specialties. I hope they will be of use to you.

The harsh cold of the snow-capped mountains is reminiscent to the scenery of my hometown…

Sigh, I’ve had many mundane days that makes me nostalgic of our time together. Whether it’s a fight or a challenge, I always feel that having you around is what makes life really interesting.

Haha, to be honest, I’ve been planning a special day to meet up with you, today could be that chance! If you have no special plans, how about you swing by my place?

I miss you, Tartaglia”

Quickly you put the letter in your bag with what accompanied it and now you were basically running towards Dragonspine. Right now you didn’t want to think about what kind of “work opportunity” there could be for the Harbringer on Dragonspine, all you could think about was seeing him again.

It has been months since you both parted ways in Liyue. You met him while being on a commission, funnily enough it was a bit similar how Bennett ran into him today. In one of Liyues ruins you looked for a book some historian in Liyue Harbour desperately tried to get their hands on. By the amount of Mora they were willing to pay it should’ve been obvious to you that it wasn’t a one-person mission… and still, you went alone into those ruins. You had no problem in destroying the first two ruin guards you ran into, but when three activated at the same time… If it weren’t for Tartaglia back then you would probably be dead. At first you were very thankful for his help, however when you found out he was also there for the book you needed your thankfulness quickly turned into anger. “Well, don’t you think I deserve a reward for helping you out, comrade?”, he teased you.

After that day you somehow always managed to run into him in Liyue Harbour or on your commissions. Back then you only knew him by his name used by the Fatui, Childe. Though it was well known in Liyue that he was one of the Harbringers, you somehow didn’t get that message after months of openly antagonising him. Only after Childe invited himself to your usual afternoon teas with your friend Zhongli you learned about his affiliations, but also more about him. If someone was hearing two people bickering, the people of Liyue knew it was you two. However none of it was malicious. Somehow it was the way you and Childe showed each other the appreciation you had for one another.

The first dislike you had for him grew quickly into a warm friendship. And that friendship grew in something more after awhile.

The first time you noticed a change in your feelings towards Childe was around the time of the Lantern rite festival. One night you were supposed to meet up with Zhongli - but Childe showed up in his instead. Apparently, so Childe, there was a lot to do at the Parlour because of a new promotion the director wanted to try and needed Zhonglis help with, so Zhongli asked Childe to accompany you to the Lantern rite.

Until this day you weren’t sure if this was just a set up by Zhongli, but even if it was, you wouldn’t hold it against him.

That night, when you and Childe walked around Liyue Harbour and watched the lanterns something fundamentally changed between the two of you. After that night you knew so much more about him and he about you. From that day on he wasn’t Childe anymore, he was Tartaglia. And both of you finally knew how the lips of the other felt on your own.

Now you were so close again to feel his warm arms around you, to listen to the sound of his heartbeat when you rested your head on his chest and to feel his lips on yours again. Oh how you missed him too.

Parting ways wasn’t easy. Both of you knew that it was best to not be so public with your relationship, for several reasons. On the one hand the Fatui weren’t what you would call popular - most people would use some stronger word to describe them. Being a Mondstadt citizen in Liyue openly dating a member of the Fatui, yeah no. On the other it was also not really well liked by the Tsaritsa for the members of the Fatui, no matter if you were just a low henchman or a Harbringer, to get involved in that way with outsides. With “not well liked” it was more implied that she forbade any romantic relationships outside and inside the Fatui ranks when they were on a mission. And Tartaglia was on a mission, a mission you knew nothing about, but to be honest? You preferred it that way. The longer you were able to ignore what it meant for him to be part of the Fatui, the better.

So because of all of this you both decided it would be best to keep the relationship in the shadows.

You both knew for sure was that you had to part ways one day, however none of you expected that you were the one going home before Tartaglia. There were a lot of nights of laying in bed with him, sharing stories from each of your homes. You told him about the Windblume Festival and Ludi Hapestrum, he told you about the festivals and traditions of Snezhnaya. When you shared stories of how your little siblings and you loved to collect as many dandelions as possible when you were children to pretend that it was snowing in the summer, he would counteract that story with the times he built entire fortresses with his siblings out of the snow in the winter. Only to then pull you closer and whisper in your ear that he’ll show you how to do that when you come with him back to Snezhnaya. You would always whisper back “okay, but first you’d need to glide with me off Startsnatch cliff”. The lovely nights you both spend together, telling each other of your homes and how much you want to show it to them were harshly interrupted by a letter you got from your family.

Life sometimes isn’t fair. It’s hard and it brutal and it’s short. So when you got the letter from your family informing you that the youngest member of the family had died, it broke you to pieces. They were only 14. That night Tartaglia held you in his arms, his hand on the back of your head, your head pressed into his chest and none of you could say a word. Only the sound of you crying piercing the quite room. Too heavy was the grief for anything to be said anyways.

The day immediately after you received that letter you and Tartaglia parted way, a quite and sad goodbye. None of you were actually sure when you would see each other again. With his hands against your tear stained face, the tears not only being shed out of grief but also out of the pain you had to leave your lover, he promised to write you as often as he could. You promised you would answer. And then you left, wishing he could come with you. Words you did not dare to speak, because you knew he couldn’t, no matter how much he wanted to.

Now you found yourself close to one of the Fatui camps on Dragonspine. It was quite irresponsible to just run up the mountain, without any proper preparation or knowledge where Tartaglias camp actually was. You sighed. The excitement of seeing him after such a long time, after just exchanging letters got the best of you. Frustrated with yourself you made your way towards the campsite, hoping that this time the Fatui henchmen wouldn’t immediately start attacking every stranger they see. However when you arrived at the camp site you saw that no one was there. Too exhausted from the commissions earlier in the day and running up the Dragonspine you let yourself fall down in front of the extinguished campfire. Slowly but surly the cold weather of the Dragonspine was catching up to you.

Going through your bag you were looking for the stones Tartaglia send with his letter, hoping to ignite a fire with them. But before you could find them you heart footsteps in the snow behind you.

You hadn’t even had the chance to turn around before you felt two arms looping around your body, immediately warming you up.

“Hey comrade, did you miss me?”

You felt his head on your shoulders and you couldn’t help but to lean your own against his. One of your hands made its way up to his face, touching his cheek. “Yes,” you whispered.

Turning your head you now looked into his deep blue eyes, they were filled with all the love he had for you. You wished he could look at you like this forever… that you could look at him forever.

Tartaglia leaned a bit forward, placing a soft kiss on your lips and you couldn’t help it but smile.

He slowly pulled away, entangling himself from the hug and holding his hand out to you. “Come, let’s go inside the tent. You must be freezing out here”.

Inside the tent Tartaglia threw one blanket on another blanket over another over you, while lecturing you on what appropriate clothing was for a weather like this. You really didn’t give it any second thought when you made your way to Dragonspine, still wearing the same clothes you would wear on a sunny day in Mondstadt. But you also couldn’t hide it how much you loved to just hear his voice, even when he was nagging you. “It’s fine really, now stop trying to bury me under all the blankets and warm me up yourself”, you took his hand and pulled him towards you onto the plank. “You know some people would find what you said very suggestiv”, he joked, joining you under the immense amount of blankets. “Mmmmh,” was the only thing you replied, completely enamoured with him having you by your side again. For a few minutes the both of you just laid there, close to each other and feeling each other’s heartbeat.

None of you could actually believe your luck to be in the arms of the other again. How much you had missed this. Missed him.

“Hey,” he spoke softly, making you look into his eyes again. “How you’ve been doing?”.

It was such a soft question and you knew what he meant. You wanted to tell him how exhausting everything has been since your arrival, how your family was breaking apart at all ends, what a shit show it all was. In your letters you only alluded to how bad it actually is. How it was all just made worse by him not being at your side. Though you knew you would have to tell him all of this sooner or later, right now you didn’t want to talk about it. Not in detail. Not when today was actually his special day. “It’s manageable, but better now that I’m here with you”, you replied to his question. “You?”

“Better, now that I have you here”, was his reply. You both smiled at each other, a warm and tender smile. Slowly you adjusted your position so that you now were laying on top of him, your chin on his chest. “Hey, there is something I forgot to tell you.”

“Oh, and what is it?”

“Happy Birthday, Tartaglia”, and with that you kissed him.

#happy Birthday Childe #happy Birthday tartaglia #tartaglia #Childe #Genshin impact #Childe x reader #tartaglia x reader #genshin #Genshin fan fic #fluff #angst #comfort #okay I’m adding more tags tomorrow I’m tired and I want to post this now haha #well at least writing this brought me closer to dream land hurray

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dizzydancingdreamer · 3 years ago

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Steve Rogers, The Man On Fire

Hey y'all, as Pride month draws to a close I would like to post this fic. It's been in my drafts for a month and I finally today found the motivation to finish it. This is special to me for many reasons, one of which being that I'm proudly a part of this community. Some of the anger written in is my own. I think a lot of people will resonate with it. I really hope you all enjoy this and happy Pride Month <3

This was based loosely off a headcannon and once I re-find it I will credit!

Synopsis: Steve is freshly thawed, queer, and pissed | A.k.a. Steve's experience in 21st Century America

Characters: Steve Rogers, Mentions of Bucky Barnes, (loosely a Stucky fic but Steve thinks he's dead here)

Warnings: Angst but not bad, Steve Rogers being volatile and chaotic (we love), poorly written accents (I literally read this with an accent in my head), literally a 2k monologue

Word count: 5.1k

Steve Rogers came out of the ice angry.

No— not angry— Steve Rogers came out of the ice fuckin’ furious.

He came out of the ice with his hands curled into two fists, with his jaw clenched so hard his teeth were liable to snap, and with a bone to pick with every damn reporter and historian and too loud opinion on this side of the Brooklyn Bridge.

He came out simmering— no, erupting— like the serum in his blood couldn’t keep his body from hibernation all those years ago but it sure as hell won’t keep him from setting the entirety of New York on fire now. He’ll burn it all down if he has to and rebuild it the way he remembers it— the way Bucky would have remembered it— and at the end of it all no one— not the bigots or deniers or the homophobes that seem to be the only thing that came with him from the forties— will be able to say that Captain America can’t love whoever he wants.

No one will be able to say that Steve Rogers didn’t love James “Bucky” “the man I’ve loved since twelve years old” Barnes with everything he had and then some.

No one.

So he starts with the museums in Washington— because sure it isn’t New York but where else would a relic like himself belong more?

He still has hope when he enters the building. They didn’t make them like this when he was a kid— they had science fairs in the town hall and culture fairs in the backstreets near the docks but never anything this grand. No tall marble pillars or enough stairs to make him wonder if he would have been able to climb to the top when he was half the size he is now. It’s strange. It’s kind of wonderful. Yeah, the Smithsonian museums make Steve Rogers feel small for the first time in a very long time and that gives him hope.

That hope doesn’t last long, though, because soon he’s wandering through the halls, following the signs that say Captain America: The First Avenger— what the hell is an Avenger? Is that what they’re calling soldiers these days? Now he feels small and old.

Turning the corner is like landing on another planet, one devoted entirely to him. His picture is everywhere he looks, his name is in lights, even his damn uniform has been replicated and presented on a little stage and he hates it. The rage is back, sparking at his fingers— he’s a match and lucky for everyone this building is made of stone because if it wasn’t he’s sure it would be reduced to nothing but ash by now.

It only worsens as he begins reading through the plaques and the paragraphs flashing across screens on the walls— he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to that. The more he reads, though, the more he wonders if the stone is really, truly safe from the fire in his blood. He doesn’t think it is.

He surely isn’t at least— he feels like he’s going to explode. This isn’t him— none of this is him. War hero. Martyr. Golden boy. He has to stop reading that plaque— clearly no one did their research. Clearly no one dug up his medical files— or his police records. Brawls at the pub, disorderly conduct behind Mr. De Luca’s sandwich shop, public nudity at the beach that one time— thank you Bucky for the best night of his god damn life. Golden boy— ha.

Golden nobody with the black eye and broken hand is more like it.

For a moment he thinks he’s fine— he thinks it can’t get worse than this. Then he gets to the early life section and for an even longer moment his tongue tastes like gunpowder.

Steven Grant Rogers grew up in the streets of Brooklyn alongside his friend James Buchanan Barnes—

He can’t bring himself to finish the sentence— not when they already got the most important part wrong. Friend. Friend? No, no, no. No! There are a million words in the english language that Steve could use to describe Bucky and ‘friend’ will never be the first one.

How about best friend?

How about partner in crime?

How about soulmate who loved Steve so much that every night for the past forty-eight days since he woke up in an era that Bucky doesn’t exist in he’s cried himself to sleep with the same cherry cola taste of his ‘friend’ on his tongue.

It’s the final straw— Steve loses it.

“Anyone got a marker?”

The museum is quiet before he speaks but when his voice— steadily rising and taking on that New York headiness that his troops used to jazz him about— cuts through the exhibit— his fuckin’ exhibit— it’s silent. It’s dead, almost as dead as Buck— Nobody dares move a muscle as he rips his ball cap off his head and throws it at the statue of himself. Everyone knows who he is— everyone is going to know who he is so help him god.

“I said—” he tries again— “does anyone have a marker?”

It takes a moment for the people around him to pick their jaws up off the floor and he allows them that moment with a smug grin starting to tug on the corners of his lips. Finally— they’re starting to get it.

He’s not a hero; he’s a supernova of every scrawny, queer kid who’s ever gotten beaten to a pulp for kissing who they want.

Maybe then it’s fitting that the marker— when it’s finally produced and placed in his waiting palm— comes from a teenage girl with a shaved head and a blue, pink, and purple denim jacket and a busted lip. She doesn’t say much— only a mumbled here you go— but her eyes say everything that her words don’t. Give em’ hell, Cap. For the first time since waking up he flashes a genuine grin back— yeah, this one’s for you kid.

Steve wastes no time uncapping the sharpie— he’ll look that one up later— and scratching out the error. The blasphemy to his unholy name. It takes him a little longer to decide what to write in its place. There are a million words, sure, but somehow none of them feel right at this moment. None of them are enough. That’s something he’ll have to come to terms with later, though— how much nothing feels like enough anymore without Bucky.

Finally Steve settles on a word and he scribbles it as neatly as he can given the fact that he hasn’t had to write anything in eighty years. When he takes a step back, feeling alive for the first time since waking up, he beckons over the girl with the shaved head and points to the place where he’s taken it upon himself to correct history.

“Hey kid, why don’t you go ahead and read that outloud for everyone here.”

He allows another moment— this time because she deserves the time it takes for her eyes to light up and the smile to stretch across her bruised mouth.

Steve laughs— a rusted, croaky laugh; another first in forever— when her head whips around, facing him as she loudly proclaims: “It says boyfriend. Steve Rogers grew up in the streets of Brooklyn alongside his boyfriend Bucky Barnes!”

“Damn right I did—” he mutters to the kid before taking a step towards the crowd of gaping mouths. “Did you all hear that? Don’t worry if ya’ didn’t— I’ll say it one more time. Boyfriend. Bucky was my boyfriend and if he was here today he would be my husband. If any of you have a problem with that then feel free to take it up with me. I took on half of Brooklyn for that man and I’ll do it again.”

When no one says anything Steve nods, turning to hand the girl back her marker and to thank her— he may be angry but he hasn’t lost all his manners— but when he looks at her she doesn’t look back. Instead she takes the same step forward that he had, one of her hands balled into a tiny, shaking fist at her side and the other wrapped around a cell phone that’s pointed towards the crowd. He doesn’t understand the mechanics but he thinks she’s recording.

“You hear that?” She parrots the super soldier with a wavering but fierce voice. “Captain America likes men! And none of you can deny it!”

This time it’s his mouth that drops, watching as she shakily turns the camera off and spins back around. Before Steve can say anything, though, she’s talking again, this time hastier, and he can’t help but think that she sounds so much like him. All flushed and scrawny and pissed.

“I’m sorry, I’ll delete the recording if you want but, I jus’ know these bigots are gonna’ try and cover everything up and that would be a fuckin’ shame. I don’t know if you know how many kids need to hear this. I did— and I think they should too. Only if you want, of course.”

He doesn’t answer right away— he can’t. It’s like looking at himself at fifteen. Suddenly he’s back again, his feet hanging in the water as his boyfriend paces behind him, asking if he’s ready to have him look at his knuckles yet. He didn’t get that many good punches in— the scrapes are mostly from the pavement— but Buck always worries too much so it doesn’t matter. The protective idiot.

Steve shakes his head, blinking away the sunset lingering behind his eyes. “Bucky woulda’ loved you, kid.”

The next time he loses it— the next time he turns into more flame than man— is after he saves the city he’s been trying to burn down for three months.

It isn’t long after that day in the museum when Nick Fury decides it would be best for everyone if Steve goes back into the field. Of course, no one really asks him what he wants— they pretty much just shove a new suit into his hands and tell him to get training, Captain— but what else is new?

No one really comments on his outburst besides that either. Can you really call it an outburst when you’re just trying to reclaim the parts of you that have been stolen? Sure, the press gets a hold of the story and, true to what the kid had said, tries to twist it into something more digestible, but no one actually addresses it up with Steve. Apparently when someone saves the world as good as he does no one cares that they kiss men.

Or that they don’t wanna’ to actually save the world anymore.

See, in those three months— between the training and training and even more training that Steve Rogers begrudgingly obliges— he has time to catch up on the world. More importantly, he has time to catch up on what the world thinks of him. He scours a plethora of documentaries, scholarly essays, and whole books of information about his time as Captain America. Well— his time as Captain America when it mattered. In all his scouring he learns one thing: everything written about him is wrong.

It’s all so fuckin’ wrong.

Just why the hell would he want to save a world so bent on destroying who he is?

The Smithsonian exhibition was nothing compared to what’s been written in the eighty years he spent in the ice. Better yet, nothing compared to what hasn’t been written about him. They’ve taken an eraser to every part of his life that doesn’t fit with the golden image that they constructed for him. A.k.a. every part that matters. His relationship, his past, every little thing that made him supposedly perfect for the role he was given. Gone. Erskine told him he was a good man— apparently he was the only one who thought so.

Apparently being a good man isn’t good enough.

They only wanted the perfect soldier. Yeah, well, they had one and they fucked him over too. Don’t even get him started on what they did to Bucky— Steve doesn’t want to think about what Winnifred— Winnie for short— Barnes would do if she saw the history books erasing her baby’s Jewish roots. Or his relationship. It wouldn’t be pretty, that’s for damn sure. If ever there was someone more protective than Bucky it would have been his mother. Not that there’s a damn note about her in anything either though.

Maybe that’s the final straw that does him in this time— watching the place that Mrs. Barnes loved more than almost anything else in the world crumble, while also knowing that the world no longer gives a shit about the two people she loved more.

“Mr. Rogers, this is where you grew up, is it not? Is there anything you would like to say about what took place here in your home city today?”

Maybe he pretends not to hear the last part— maybe he really does only hear up until where the reporter asks him if there is anything he wants to say. He’s been around quite his fair share of explosions; it would make sense that his hearing is a little off. Maybe he just doesn’t care anymore, though.

Scratch that— he definitely doesn’t care anymore.

And why the fuck should he? He does have something to say and propriety be damned he’s going to say it.

Steve stares into the crowd of faceless reporters and flashing cameras with a scowl on his grimey face. Around him stand the other Avengers— his ‘team’. The last time he had a team the historians screwed up the history for every single member. Dugan, Morita, Falsworth, Jones, Dernier, Sawyer, Juniper, Pinkerton. Barnes. All of them were brave men with families and sacrifices and all of them were treated like jokes by ‘reporters’ just like the ones in front of him now. He really doubts there’s a difference between old and new journalism.

The only difference is that now he’s here and this time he’s not going to let them write anything but the damn truth.

“It is—” Steve muses, brushing the sweaty hair from his forehead— “I’m surprised you know that though.”

The reporter cocks his head, clearly confused, and it makes the super soldier’s blood boil. “Come again, sir?”

“I said I’m surprised you know where I was born, kid.” This time when he says the word— kid— it’s derogatory. “Ya’ know, considering how you all seem to know nothing about me otherwise.”

Steve almost smiles at the way the crowd tenses. He actually would if it weren’t for the white hot rage coursing through his veins, mingling with the last of the adrenaline leftover in his system. It gives him an extra kick— not that he needs it. Even when he was just a runt from the wrong side of the tracks he needed nothing more than an offhand comment to raise his fists. Fighting to Steve Rogers has always been intoxicating— the aftershocks of winning the battle just makes it more thrilling now.

Who knew, right?

“Sir I asked—” The reporter sputters and Steve simply holds a hand up, silencing him before he can start again.

“Yeah I know what you asked, alright. You want me to talk about the battle here in New York today and how I am more than happy to have risked my life to save it. But I can’t do that, kid. Because I didn’t save it for you. I didn’t save it for any of you.”

Steve feels his team tense— maybe were it any other time he would stop talking. He would just leave it, let the issue go, because Bucky would tell him too. They aren’t worth it, bruiser, he would say, they aren’t worth your blood. Maybe he would listen to his boyfriend because usually he was right. Bucky was always right. So yeah, maybe he would list—

Who is he kidding; he knows he wouldn’t.

Not then and certainly not now— not when Bucky isn’t here to defend himself against everything Steve has been reading about. That’s exactly why he doesn’t stop talking. Someone has to defend him and who better of a person than him? So, yeah, he keeps going, even when he hears footsteps behind him.

“You wanna’ know who I did save it for? James Barnes, that’s who I saved it for! You see, just around that corner there is a bookstore. Rickley Books. That was my boyfriend's favourite bookstore. You know, the man who gave his life to stop a train in Austria from reaching the enemies? Yeah that was him. That train was filled with supplies. Had it reached their headquarters, who knows if we’d be standing here today. If there would be a New York at all. Not that you would know that. But who cares about that dead sergeant from the 107th, right? There’s plenty just like him.”

Steve shrugs nonchalantly— a move he picked up from the very man he’s speaking about— but he spits his words at the reporters with enough venom to cancel out any peace that the action brings. That’s his own move.

He keeps going. “You know who else I saved it for? His mother. Yeah, his mother Winnie Barnes. Wonderful lady. She used to run a soup kitchen a couple blocks from here. Kept the rift raft like myself from going hungry most nights— I was a brawler, you know.”

A couple of reporters in the crowd laugh at that and Steve flinches, his vision tinting red as he cranes his neck, seeking them out.

“Oh you think that’s funny, do you? You think I’m joking? I’m not. You ever been backed into a corner, son? Had people hurl slurs at you that I can’t even repeat today? Ever been beaten up for loving your best friend? No, I bet you haven’t. You weren’t a queer kid in the thirties. That’s hard— that’s borderline impossible actually. I only made it because of people like Winnie Barnes. That woman was a saint but nobody talks about her either.”

Steve has to take a deep breath, clearing the rasp in his voice that rises as he dwells on the woman he called his second mother for so long. She wasn’t just a saint, she was an angel. He can’t cry here though, not now. Not even as his throat begins to tighten.

“Winnie was the type of lady who didn’t let anyone walk over the little people. She used to sit me down and say Stevie you gotta’ fight for what you want because ain’t nobody gonna’ give it to you. She told me that I shouldn’t have to but that there were going to be people who would try to tear me down just for being me. And she was right— just like her son— because that was the era, you know? But now, here in the twenty-first century, you’re all still trying to tear us down.”

A hand lands on his shoulder, small fingers tugging at where his suit has begun to tear. Natasha Romanoff. He meets her gaze quickly, neck craning to stare down the red head, and in the few seconds their eyes meet it’s like Bucky is next to him. Somehow the blue in her irises catches the falling sun just like his used to. Steve can hear the gruff of his voice in the depths of his mind. Back down, bruiser. The sentiment is echoed across Nat’s face.

Steve shakes her hand off him, turning back to the reporters— don’t they know that he can’t?

“You all say you care about me, huh? That I’m a hero? You know nothing about me— you don’t want to. Before I was a soldier I was a kid. A queer kid. I said that already but let me repeat it. Queer. Did you write that down? None of you certainly did before. That’s how I know that you don’t care— because in an age where being queer is infinitely more accepted you still don’t bother to write it down.”

He pauses for another breath, shutting his eyes against the blinking red lights of the cameras. They’re like little demons, always watching his every move. Recording. Everything’s always recorded these days. Will he ever be used to that? Bucky was the technology guy, not him. Not then and not now.

When Steve picks up again— eyes open and shoulders freshly straight— it’s on a new note— a clear note.

“You don’t care about me— you certainly don’t care about the real heroes of the war because if you did you wouldn’t erase our history. Do you know how much it would have meant to Bucky to see our relationship accepted? The man who died for you? How much it would’ve meant to his mother? You can’t just pick which of our stories and our sacrifices are worthy and which aren't.”

He hasn’t spoken this much since he’s woken up, not all at once at least. Maybe he should have, though— maybe if he had then he wouldn’t feel like ripping the heads off everyone in front of him right now. Call it fight or flight. Call it revenge. Hell, call it whatever you’d like because it doesn’t really matter. Either way he feels like a kid again— again— backed into a corner behind the deli with his fists up and his teeth bared.

He feels feral again.

“So now you just want me to save the world like I did— like Bucky did— all those years ago— or maybe jus’ New York— as if that’s any better— and you don’t even bother to write a proper article about me? Hell, I never even asked for an article, let alone a whole exhibit! I’m just a soldier— and before that I was just a kid. If there’s never another article written about me I’ll be grateful. But now that I’m here, standing in front of you, I’ll say this—”

Just as Steve’s voice is cresting into a shout that would no doubt be heard regardless of whether or not the microphones were in front of him, Natasha tries one more time, her fingers slipping between his.

Her voice is a dull buzz compared to his, only reaching his ears by sheer will. “C’mon Stevie— we gotta’ go now.”

Like before he’s stunned but this time instead of seeing Buck— instead of hearing him in his head— he hears Winnie.

You fought good, honey. You fought good for us. You can rest now.

It’s jarring and it’s not lost on him the handful of awkward seconds that it takes for him to respond. That’s just the effect Winnie had on people though— still has, apparently. Steve shakes his head— I know, mama. But I gotta’ finish this fight.

“No, Nat— I’ve got to say this.” Steve mumbles— voice just beginning to waver despite how hard he clenches his jaw— before sneering at the crowd one last time.

“If I ever read an article from any of you that discredits Bucky Barnes, our relationship, or myself just know that I’ll come for you. I’ll come for this city. Don’t you ever forget who I saved it for. James Barnes, Winnie Barnes, and every queer kid who’s ever felt erased because of people like you. The bigots in the forties couldn’t stop me. The Nazis couldn’t stop me. Not even the Atlantic Ocean could stop me. So don’t think for a second that any of you could either. Have a good day.”

With that Captain America turns, marching off the impromptu stage and beginning the trek back to his apartment. He doesn’t bother looking at his team as he passes them— he can imagine their stunned faces well enough on his own. No doubt he’ll be getting another assignment from Fury soon enough to make up for this ‘outburst’ too. Still, he feels a little bit better. There’s an ache in his shoulder, and one under his ribs too, but he still smiles as he passes Rickman and Sons Books. That must mean something good.

The last time Steve Rogers burns he doesn’t burn the way he’s expecting to— he doesn’t vandalize his own name or blow up at a reporter. No, the third time— the final time— that Steve Rogers burns it’s with nostalgia— and with a damn good cup of coffee in his hand.

“I had no idea this place was even here.” The girl across from Steve muses, tiny hands shifting the steaming cup back and forth.

Her name is Ellie, he learned that back at the museum after asking for a copy of the video she took. He barely knew how to use his phone back then, let alone his email— hell, both still confuse him more often than not— but she had been patient. A little awestruck and a little riled up too but he took it in stride— easily. It’s not hard being nice to the spitting image of him.

“I’m glad I’m good for something other than making the news.” Steve chuckles and this time he means it— there’s no malice or ill intent, only humor. “O’Malley’s ‘s been here longer than I have. Looked a little different then—” he takes a moment to let his eyes wander the old coffee shop and it’s new appliances— a moment to feel his age catch up to him— “but I guess I did too.”

Ellie’s laughter joins in there and it’s strange— strange that he hasn’t laughed with another person in seven, almost eight, months; strange that her laughs sound so much like Bucky’s when they were younger; strange that Bucky isn’t here to hear. Here to laugh, too. Because he would have.

He would have called Steve an old man, would have wrapped his arm around his shoulders, would have asked— no, demanded— that Ellie try the plum cobbler. They always made the best cobbler. Bucky always had the best laugh. All grit and breath and him. Steve feels warm just thinking about it.

“Well thanks for letting me in on the secret, I’ll make sure to guard it carefully.” She even has Bucky’s warm sarcasm.

Maybe it’s not so much like looking in a mirror as it is looking at what he wishes he and his boyfriend could have been back then.

“And thanks for letting me interview you—” Ellie continues, setting the cup down but not before nodding at it, her eyes wide— “wow. You weren’t kidding about the joe, huh? Anyway— thanks for scheduling this. I know you’re probably super busy— and that there are more well established people you could have gone to.”

Steve sets his own mug down too— if he hadn’t there’s a possibility it would be more puddle than porcelain. “Well established means nothin’, kid. Not when you don’t have heart. They’re parasites, all of ‘em. The press couldn’t care less about me.”

Ellie nods, lifting the lid of her laptop. It’s a little bit dented and slathered in stickers, not quite the newest model— he would know, he has the newest one and it’s still sitting in his apartment in the box. Yet another testament to how little the people around him truly know him.

“Welcome to the twenty-first century, can I get you a side of classism with that commercialism?”

Now she sounds like Winnie too.

“Say, has anyone ever told you that you’re funny?”

She shrugs, tilting her head, a lopsided grin glued to her face. “Once or twice— I never know if they mean it or if they just want me to shut up. I never do so I guess we’ll never know.”

Steve sputters out another laugh because; “I guess we’re the same then— never give them a moment, kid. That’s the best advice I can give you.” He pauses— again— he supposes it’s going to be a day of pausing— he supposes it’s about time he pauses— before adding, “Bucky would’ve scolded me for saying that.”

Ellie’s fingers, swift and deft over the machine— Steve hadn’t even seen her begin to type— pause too as her smile softens. “What would he have said instead?”

Her question shouldn’t catch off guard— this is why he asked her to meet him; to finally, properly write his story— their story. Still he pauses— Steve’s empty hands feel hot, his shoulders warm; bare— what would he have said? It doesn’t take long to hear his boyfriend’s voice, not there but somehow loud in his ear all the same.

Just relax— they aren’t worth it. It’s too nice out to care about anything but the water— are you coming in or not? Summer doesn’t last forever, you know?

It’s impossible but Steve can feel the sun on his back and on his ears again, like he’s there— like he’s back, sixteen and on fire. Those were the days where everything made him cold. The days where his skin burned no matter the season but especially in August which was when the ocean was warm enough to swim in. It never stopped him from joining Buck— nothing could have stopped him. His cheeks warm, too, at the thought.

Steve blinks, his own smile— perhaps a little lopsided in it’s own right— shaping over his mouth. “He would have told you to relax— and to try the plum cobbler. It’s fantastic.”

With another giggle— and a reiterated comment— has anyone ever told you you’re funny, Steve?— they fall into a conversation, just a kid and a relic, about life. It’s not an easy conversation— but then again those kinds never are. It’s real, though, and unedited. Unfiltered. Just the way Erskine and Winnie and Bucky would have liked it— the only way Steve wants it. It’s not perfect but, hell, Steve has never been perfect.

He’s never wanted to be.

Maybe Steve doesn’t know everything his boyfriend would say— and maybe he’d be lying if he said he doesn’t blow up once or twice after today— but he can confidently say that he gave Brooklyn a run for her money— twice— and lived to tell the tale. He can say then when it mattered, he burned. That he still burns. That he will until he doesn’t— until he’s extinguished.

But, hey, though Summer doesn’t last forever, not even the Atlantic could extinguish the flame that is Steve Rogers.

That’s what he writes— in Sharpie— on the card he writes to Ellie— the one attached to the computer he knows he’ll never use.

#Steve Rogers #Bucky Barnes #Stucky #steve x bucky #Queer!steve rogers #Queer!Steve #Queer!Bucky #Queer!Bucky Barnes #Captain America #pride month #Steve angst #steve fluff #Marvel cinematic universe #Mcu #mcu fic #steve fic

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mrslittletall · 4 years ago

Note

saw your whump post, honestly the "I'm fine" screams Hornet to me, so it'd be cool to see that! - dooblebugs

Title: The Idol Fandom: Hollow Knight Characters: Hornet & Little Ghost Word Count: 2.825 AO3-Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30941981

Summary: After the Hollow Knight is freed from the temple, Hornet does her best to take care of the ones that are still left in Hallownest. Everything should be fine... until it isn't.

(Author's note: @dooblebugs

I thought about using canon verse with “Almost everyone lives AU” or your Mer AU. But ultimately, canon verse won, because I still miss some context for the Mer AU. I hope you enjoy.)

Hornet opened her eyes and jumped on her feet right away. Her day would always start with hunting and gathering food, preferably before Hollow woke up and tried to move, and it was a whole other problem trying to haul a bug their size back into bed, especially when they rigorously ignored their wounds.

While Hornet trusted Quirrel and Cloth enough to leave Hollow in their care for a while, she always felt better if she could look over them personally. However, the longer she hesitated with leaving, the longer she would need to come back, so Hornet left the house in Dirtmouth they had inhabited for Hollow's recovery and went towards the crossroads.

The little pitter-patter of tiny feet next to her prompted Hornet to look down. Ghost had decided to accompany her again. They always would. She could tell them a hundred times to stay behind, they would never listen. For a vessel meant to be void of mind, Ghost was one of the bugs with the strongest will that Hornet ever had seen.

“You will still come with me, even if I say no, right, little Ghost?”, Hornet said, shouldering her needle. Ghost didn't nod or sign at her, they simply stared, with their unblinking, never changing expression. It was enough for Hornet to know that they wouldn't leave.

“Alright, but don't get into my way.”, Hornet said. At this, Ghost swung their nail and jumped in front of Hornet in a pose that depicted a challenge, then their nail went down on the ground in a strike, the swing of it breaking through the calmness of the morning.

“I know! I know! You've beaten me twice, but... I have gone easy on you.”, Hornet half hissed. It was a blatant lie and she knew it. The first time she had simply underestimated them (or she simply had become tired of fighting) and the second time... she had given it her all and they still had remained victorious. In a sense, Ghost was the new king of Hallownest, but they didn't seem to put any mind on the title. They didn't even seem to be wanting to be celebrated for being the saviour of Hallownest. They simply joined Hornet every morning for hunting and went off on their own afterwards, always coming back to play with their friends in Dirtmouth.

As the both of them jumped down the well, Hornet couldn't help but think about that there wasn't much to rule anymore. This kingdom was in shambles. It had been two weeks and the dried off infection still crusted the crossroads, too little bugs alive to care much about cleaning the place up. It was becoming more and more difficult to get food, because so many of the infected had simply been reanimated husks, without any meat left in them.

They surely would have to wander to Greenpath again, hopefully finding a few vengeflies and mosscreeps to bring home.

Hornet was used being alone. She had been alone for a very long time. She had managed. She never was lonely... well, maybe a little lonely and now there was a bunch of strangers up in Dirtmouth who relied on her. Hornet never wanted for anyone to rely on her. She had seen what happened when bugs relied on someone and... there wasn't a solution.

She looked down on Ghost again, they had their nail on the ready and stared vigilantly in front of them. They must have crossed this crossroads a dozen times on their journey, still expecting to be attacked by the infected every given minute. Hornet could understand that it was hard for them to let go of old habits.

She was the same. She never let go of her needle as well. Even with the infection never being able to come back, she had to remain vigilant. She would protect her siblings, no matter what. She wouldn't, no she couldn't, let anyone down.

“We are nearing Greenpath.”, she said, only to cut through the silence between them. She knew it wasn't Ghost's fault that they didn't have a voice, but after years of not being able to talk to anyone, Hornet barely could stand the silence, when there was someone she could talk to. “Remember, when we hunt the mosscreeps, take their leaves as well, for the herbivores.”

While Hornet was able to eat plant matter as well, it never had been satisfying to her. She was the daughter of a spider and a wyrm, both predators, and therefore she usually would hunt for food. She was unsure about what kind of diet Ghost and Hollow needed, but they seemed to be content with the prey she brought back, so she wouldn't change anything about it.

“And remember, we can't hunt too much. The population needs a chance to recover.”, she said as well. The infection had done a number on the whole of Hallownest... it wasn't a surprise that there was such a food shortage. In fact, Hornet had cut her own food intake in favour of her siblings and anyone who couldn't hunt or still needed to recover. That bug, Tiso, came to mind. Had a far too big stomach for having been utterly destroyed by the colloseum of fools. Why Ghost had dragged him back to Dirthmouth, she would never understand.

Ghost showed that they understood with a little nod of their head and the both of them entered Greenpath. It was a MUCH nicer place without the infection, but they still had to pay attention, the fool eater plants were easy to overlook (not that Hornet had ever overlooked them, but Ghost tended to forget...) and there were some predators still around, though they were no match for her needle. The problem was to avoid them to not hunt too much. Like she had said to Ghost, they needed to give the population time to recover, if they wouldn't want all to starve beforehand.

“We get only enough for everyone back in Dirtmouth.”, Hornet said again. “Then we leave again. Let's search for some mosscreeps first.”

The both of them jumped and slashed their way through the vegetation of Greenpath. While Hornet preferred to use her needle, Ghost had found a lot of new ways to move around since the first time they fought and they dashed (literally leaving their shell behind and somehow phasing through time and space) and jumped with wings that reminded Hornet of her father... and she got a bad feeling in her guts every time she saw them.

After a bit of time, they had managed to hunt two vengeflies to bring back, Hornet keeping them cocooned up for transportation and were now searching through the vegetation for some mosscreeps. Finally, Hornet found one and struck it down with her needle, preparing a cocoon for it again, when Ghost picked something up from the grass.

“Ghost, what do you have there?”, Hornet asked. The item was too small to be prey and they tended to hoard stuff they found. It probably was just something that was completely worthless nowadays, only generating Geo when given to this historian in the City of Tears. She still wanted to know.

Ghost came over and laid the thing they had picked up in her outstretched hand. When she looked down on it, she froze.

It was a King's Idol, the item that the citizens of Hallownest had crafted to worship her reclusive father. Each of them looked different, but they all shared the general shape and depicted his most salient feature: The horns that resembled a crown.

Staring down at it, something in Hornet broke. It might have been the stress she felt since Ghost had arrived. Or the fact that Hollow recovered from years of abuse from both the gods of Hallownest. Or that she was running on an empty stomach most of the time. But once she saw that thing, all her frustration crashed down on her at once.

You!”, she hissed. “It was all your fault! You knew that the plan wouldn't work! You knew that they would suffer and you still have let it happen! The teacher, the watcher, my mother, all sacrificed for nothing! And then, in the moment you were needed the most, you vanished, you damn coward! We needed you! I needed you! I hate you. I hate you and I can't even say it to your face anymore!”

Hornet threw the king's idol on the ground with so much force that it skipped on the ground and then fell on her knees, slowly getting aware of the tears on her face and the presence of little ice cold hands patting her arm.

“I am fine.”, she said, wiping the tears away. Just a moment of weakness, nothing else. Even though she could feel the judgemental stare of Ghost, she was fine. She had to be. “Seriously, I am fine.”, she continued once more. “Let's continue hunting.”

As Hornet was putting her composure back together, she didn't notice how Ghost continued to stare at her, picking up the idol from the ground, and only starting to move again once she called out for them.

The hunt had been more or less successful. At least they had found enough prey that nobody should go terribly hungry (at least when Hornet halved her own portion again). As usual, hunting had taken the better part of the day. Hornet would have liked to go hunt at some different locations, but the Old Stag from the stag ways wasn't around lately, apparently he was taking care of some personal business. With him not being around, it was just too far to walk to the Fungal Wastes or Deepnest, at least not when she wanted to come back the same day.

Currently Hornet took in her meal in Hollow's room with Ghost present as well. She was busy thinking about if there was another route that would make sure she could hunt elsewhere but Greenpath for once, when she felt a nudge. When she looked down, she saw how Ghost offered them a half of their mosscreep, holding the prey up in their little hands, seemingly eagerly awaiting for her to take it.

“I can't take this, Ghost.”, Hornet said. “You need all the food you can get, you are still growing.”

Ghost cocked their head and for once their eternal deadpan expression was on point. Hornet knew how ridiculous her argument was. Ghost had been born before her. They hadn't grown in years. Their body had been unable to grow because they didn't had access to void. “You know what I mean.”, she defended herself. There was the possibility that Ghost would start to grow as long as they stayed in Hallownest.

Ghost offered their meal a little while longer and then gave up with a little frustrated stomp of their foot. It was then when Hornet felt another nudge... this time it was Hollow, who had simply watched the scene unfold in front of them, offering their part of their meal.

“Oh no, not you too, Hollow.”, Hornet sighed. “You need the food much more than me, you are still recovering. I won't accept anything from you.”

The both vessels shared a look and once again Hornet asked herself if they could talk to each with some kind of void telepathy, before both of them looked at the ground in defeat.

“I am fine.”, Hornet repeated herself, she knew that. “Really, I am fine...”

Hornet awoke the next morning... not because her stomach cramped and she had trouble sleeping because of it, but because someone nudged her. She cracked one eye open and murmured: “It's barely morning...” She just craved to go back to sleep, to forget about the day in front of her for a few minutes longer, but the nudging got more and more intense, until she shouted: “Fine! I am getting up! Stop bothering me!”

It was Ghost in front of her and immediately Hornet stopped being annoyed. What if something had happened? “Is something the matter with Hollow? Or is a threat approaching the village?”, she asked, already fumbling for her needle, once again forgetting that Ghost was more than capable of defending the village themselves. They just looked too much like a little, defenseless child, even though Hornet had experienced otherwise.

Gladly, Ghost shook their head, though this put Hornet right back into annoyance. “Then why have you woken me up?”, she said, falling back down in her pillows, ignoring the urge to close her eyes and looking at Ghost again, making sure to give them a judgemental stare.

Ghost did grip something under their cloak (wings? Hornet never knew what this thing around the vessels was) and after a bit of struggling, they produced a jar... a jar filled with honey. The smell actually made Hornet's mouth water. Honey was one of the few things she liked to eat that wasn't meat, mostly because she had trained in the Hive in her youth.

Though, as lucky as she felt about having more food, she couldn't help but scold Ghost. “Ghost, did you get this on your own? The Hive is dangerous, even without the infection! What if the Hive Knight would have found you?”

Ghost shook their head and then outstretched their hand, showing Hornet a shiny little charm. A charm she remembered. The charm of the Hive. “Wait, you have been there and challenged him already?” Hornet wanted to be surprised, but Ghost couldn't really surprise her anymore. When they could surprise her somehow, then it was that they were full of surprises.

“Anyway... I guess I have to thank you, though I don't approve that you sneak out at night into the Hive.”, Hornet murmured. “At least we have more food for the group now..”

Ghost rigorously shook their head and pressed the jar in her hands. “For me?”, Hornet asked and Ghost nodded.

“But... Ghost, I appreciate it, but I don't need.. the others need the food much more than...”

Another shook of their head and a stomp of their foot along with crossed arms and a slight turn around. Hornet suddenly felt very small, she had never seen them that upset.

“Alright, alright...”, she said. “Maybe I have eaten insufficient lately...”

Ghost nodded again and gave the jar of honey another press, so that she had to hold it firmly in her hands.

“Alright alright...”, Hornet finally gave in. “I will take your offer, Ghost.”

As she opened the jar, her hunger became more and more apparent and soon she dug in and had finished the whole jar in what felt like no time and finally, for once, she didn't feel overly hungry. Satisfied even.

She then saw Ghost holding up something. A little rock with a few letters written on it. Lately Cornifer had given them writing lessons, though it still was a work in progress.

“Fine?”

That was the word they had painted on the rock (where did they even have the colours from?).

“I am fine.”, Hornet said. “This time for real. I am sorry, Ghost, I shouldn't have lied to you. I just feel so... responsible for everyone. I can't show weakness in front of anyone.”

Ghost shook their head again and then got something out. Hornet recognized it as the King's Idol they had found in Greenpath. They tossed it at the ground, just as she had done and then hit it with their nail, leaving a notable crack in it.

“You as well don't have the best memories of him, right?”, Hornet said. Both of them had been left behind, though in a different kind of way. Ghost had been discarded and Hornet had been left with responsibility far too huge for her age.

Ghost nodded again and gave the King's Idol another smack, so that it landed in front of her. Hornet took it into her hands and stared at it. She did miss him, that she had to admit to herself, but she also knew that her anger and her disappointment were real and there was no reason to hide it in front of Ghost.

She squeezed the Idol until it cracked into two pieces and just watched as they fell down. “Thank you, Ghost.”, she said. “But make sure to not tell Hollow about this.”

The way Hollow idealized their father... it would break their heart seeing his image being defiled like that.

Another quick nod and then Ghost actually got another one out, their face clearly saying: “Wanna break another?”

A grin crept over Hornet's face. She would never get her mother back or escape her responsibilities, but at least she could vent out her frustrations, even though it took her sibling for her to realize.

“Oh you bet I want.” (Author's note: Little Ghost is kinda fun to write. I think they are a character mostly showing what they feel through body language and it was fun to come up with how they would act. I also like to think that they can stare very judgemental, even though their expression never changes, a stare of them can make anyone falter. Hornet's relationship to PK is... complicated. He hasn't actually been a bad father to her, but as the infection came back and depression took over, he left her alone more and more and she got angry about it... especially when he decided to just vanish. She felt utterly betrayed by it and it is a huge source of her frustration and anger. I put in some little references to the game in there, try to find them if you please.)

#hollow knight #fanfiction #hornet #little ghost #march of the whumps #request fill #hornet has issues #whump #emotional whump #ask answered #thx for the ask #littlewritesstuff #Anonymous

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slashingdisneypasta · 4 years ago

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Slashers / Horror Villains as: Animated (Children’s) Movie Villain Songs

+ A Nightmare Before Christmas

First of all, its mostly Disney. Second of all, I hope you know that this was a struggle for me.

Also, note, Bubba will be the only Leatherface in this post and Billy and Stu will be the only Ghostfaces. There is Norma Bates though, so sort of a consolation.

There are links to videos on YouTube ^^

~~~

Billy Loomis and Stu Macher / Ghostface: Playing With the Big Boy’s Now (Hotep and Huy, Prince of Egypt)

Well... they’re part of the ‘big boys’, now! They are part of the Slashers group that, uh, ‘inspired them’. Imagine instead of Egyptian Gods, they’re chanting Slasher names.

[HUY] Pick up your silly twig, boy [HOTEP & HUY] You're playing with the big boys now! Ha ha ha ha!

[EGYPTIAN PRIESTS] By the power of Ra Mut, Nut, Khnum, Ptah Sobek, Sekhmet, Sokar, Selket Anubis, Anukis Hemsut, Tefnut, Meshkent, Mafdet...

Chop Top and Nubbins + Bubba Sawyer / Leatherface: Kidnap Mr Sandy Claws (Lock, Shock and Barrel, Nightmare Before Christmas)

I mean... they aren't Drayton’s minions, but they are like this XD

I say that we take a cannon, aim it at his door And then knock three times And when he answers Sandy Claws will be no more

Yes you're so stupid, think now If we blow him up to smithereens We may lose some pieces And then Jack will beat us black and green

Kidnap the Sandy Claws Tie him in a bag

Chucky / Charles Lee Ray: In The Dark Of The Night (Rasputin, Anastasia)

Mystical man? Check! ‘Betrayal’ (As far as he sees it)? Check. Made them pay? Check; I think Nica, Sarah and all the other families he destroys throughout the franchise can attest to that. And ‘One little girl got away’? Well Andy isn’t a girl, but yeah. Check.

I was once the most mystical man in all Russia When the royals betrayed me they mad a mistake My curse made each of them pay But one little girl got away Little Anya, beware Rasputin's awake

Drayton Sawyer: Don’t Fall In Love (Forte, Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas)

Its such a crochety, unessessarily rude way of describing relationships to someone! I mean, I understand completely and resonate deeply with the desire to be alone and not be responsible for anyone else, but- come on! Beast doesn't share your view! Let it go!

Its just like Drayton’s reaction to Bubba having a crush. Super cool video too!

As soon as your heart rules your head Your life is not your own It's hell when someone's always there It's bliss to be alone

And love of any kind is bad A dog, a child, a cat They take up so much precious time Now, where's the sense in that?

Freddy Krueger: No More Mr Nice Guy (Rothbart, Swan Princess)

A man with an uncomfortable relationship with the main female character pretending to be normal and not homicidal for a while before unlocking more power and letting there inner bad guy loose and taking great pleasure in it? Sounds familiar. They also have a similar vocabulary- except of course Rothbart is rated G.

I'll become that nasty, naughty, dirty, spiteful Wicked, wayward, way-delightful Bad guy I was born to be

Lyin' loathesome, never-tender Indiscreet repeat offender No more Mr Nice Guy That's not me

Inkubus: The World’s Greatest Criminal Mind (Professor Rattigan, The Greatest Mouse Detective)

‘Inkubus’ is literally a movie about him listing all his crimes over the centuries and messing with the police force because he has a bone to pick with a detective. Sounds pretty similar to me! Listen to the song! ^^

Now comes the real tour de force Tricky and wicked, of course! My earlier crimes were fine for their times But now that I'm at it again An even grimmer plot has been simmering In my great criminal brain!

Jason Voorhees: Despicable Me (About Gru, Despicable Me)

I... this is all I could think of!! But the more I listen to it and read the lyrics... it f i t s Jason so well! XD Please just let this slide; I know Gru isn't really a villain but he is at the start!! Let me have this.

Why ask why? Better yet "Why not?" Why are you marking x on that spot? Why use a blow torch isn't that hot? Why use a chainsaw? Is that all you got? Why do you like seeing people in shock? But my question to you is "Why not?" Why go to the bank and stand in line Just use a freeze gun it saves me time. I'm havin' a bad, bad day It's about time that I get my way Steam rollin' whatever I see, Huh, despicable me I'm havin' a bad, bad day If you take it personal that's okay Watch, this is so fun to see Huh, despicable me

Jennifer Check: Trust In Me (Kaa, The Jungle Book)

She’s a succubus demon. Tempting boys into a safe-feeling, docile state so she she can strike is her thing.

Will cease to resist Just relax Be at rest Like a bird In a nest

Trust in me Just in me Shut your eyes And trust in me

Mayor Buckman and Granny Boone: Savages (Governor Ratcliffe and the Colonizer’s parts, Pocahontas)

Obviously, because of the (Inaccurate) historical relevance of both movies (Different time’s, same terrible prejudice,) and also because there is definitely a very cult-ish feel about both Governor Ratcliffe’s song and Buckman’s leadership. How easily they’re able to gather support from their people for the most horrible reasons. How horrifying it is to audiences and historians.

They're only good when dead They're vermin, as I said And worse

They're savages! Savages!

Barely even human

Savages! Savages!

Drive them from our shore! They're not like you and me Which means they must be evil We must sound the drums of war!

Michael Myers: The Gospel Truth II (Muses about Hades, Hercules)

In a Disney movie, Michael would have others sing his song about him as he goes about his silent, determined walking XD

If there's one God you don't want to get steamed up It's Hades 'Cause he had an evil plan He ran the underworld But thought the dead were dull and uncouth He was as mean as he was ruthless And that's the gospel truth He had a plan to shake things up And that's the gospel truth

Midnight Man: Oogie Boogie’s Song (Oogie Boogie, Nightmare Before Christmas)

A song about a “Gamblin’ Boogie Man” is perfect for the Midnight Man! He and Oogie could be pals.

Woah! The sound of rollin' dice To me is music in the air 'Cause I'm a gamblin' Boogie Man Although I don't play fair It's much more fun, I must confess When lives are on the line Not mine, of course, but yours, old boy Now that'd be just fine

Norma Bates: Mother Knows Best Reprise (Mother Gothel, Tangled)

Norma is soooooo so so so unbelievably manipulative towards Norman (And Dylan. It just works better on Norman) and this song absolutely presents that. She can go from sweet, loving mother to spiteful, heinous bitch in two seconds if Norman or Dylan don't do what or react the way she wants them to.

Likes you? Please, Rapunzel, that's demented

This is why you never should have left! Dear, this whole romance that you've invented, Just proves you're too naive to be here Why would he like you? Come on now, really! Look at you, you think that he's impressed? Don't be a dummy Come with mummy

Pamela Voorhees: My Lullaby (Zira, The Lion King 2)

In a opposite approach to a villainous mother to Norma, we have Pam, who was heartbroken by the camp councillors letting her son die and vowed to get revenge. She didn't know she was teaching Jason to be the Crystal Lake killer like Zira did, but she did, and the whole song does have her kind of feel to it also.

Sleep, my little Kovu Let your dreams take wing One day when you're big and strong You will be a kingI've been exiled, persecuted Left alone with no defense When I think of what that brute did I get a little tense But I dream a dream so pretty That I don't feel so depressed 'Cause it soothes my inner kitty And it helps me get some rest

Patrick Bateman: Cruella De Vil (Arthur, 101 Dalmations)

Never before was there a song that described audiences reaction to watching Patrick living in his daily life and hearing his thoughts better then this one.

Cruella De Vil Cruella De Vil If she doesn't scare you No evil thing will To see her is to Take a sudden chill Cruella, Cruella De Vil

The curl of her lips The ice in her stare All innocent children Had better beware She's like a spider waiting For the kill Look out for Cruella De Vil

Pennywise (Both): You’re Only Second Rate (Jafar, Return of Jafar)

Mostly for the video and Jafar’s energy in this scene actually XD So many transformations, so many tasteless puns! I was going to give this to Freddy but its the closest thing to Penny I could think of.

Go ahead and zap me with the big surprise Snap me in a trap, cut me down to size I'll make a great escape It's just a piece of cake You're only second rate You know your hocus-pocus isn't tough enough And your mumbo-jumbo doesn't measure up Let me pontificate upon your sorry state You're only second rate

Sheriff Hoyt / Charlie Hewitt: Hellfire (Judge Claude Frollo, Hunchback of Notre Dame)

A nasty filthy man who think’s he’s in the right despite being the biggest creep and monster ever? Mhm.

*Note: I honestly didn't notice the deformed baby, Quasimodo/Thomas link until the day after I wrote this. Don't know how I feel about it. I mean, Hoyt is actually nice, in his way, to Thomas so the connection isn't totally there but onwards:

Beata Maria You know I am a righteous man Of my virtue I am justly proud

Beata Maria You know I'm so much purer than The common, vulgar, weak, licentious crowd

End of Post! 🌼

(Bonus’ under the cut)

I did think of other connections which I obviously didnt landed on but still have merit! Here!

Billy Loomis and Stu Macher: ‘Gaston’ was considered, but that would have just been a joke XD I don’t think Stu is quite as obsessed with Billy as LeFou is with Gaston.

Chucky: Friends on the Other Side. Obviously! That link was actually what inspired me to make this post. In The Dark of Night fits to a T though.

Freddy Krueger: You’re Only Second Rate! Ah, its perfectttt. But No More Mr Nice Guy fits better. If I ever do a Slashers as Disney Villains post, he’ll be Jafar for sure. Or Hades. Or Scar. Or Oogie. Probably Hades. You know what? Without the gore and blood and explicit sexual references, Freddy could be a Disney Villain himself. Its not like Disney hasn't towed the line before with perverted villains. >_> (Jafar and Frollo)

Jason and Pamela Voorhees: Mother Knows Best! Of course.

Jennifer Check: Love is For Peasants (Barbie Island Princess) Because Jennifer thinks like this:

Men? <<< Literally anything else.

Patrick Bateman: How Can I Refuse? (From Barbie Princess and the Pauper) XD If Patrick were a kids movie villain, he would totally join the ranks of corrupted usurpers pretending to be trustworthy royal advisory staff. Also ‘Let It Die’, that little interruption part of another song that O’Hare sings in the Lorax and ‘How Bad Can I be?’.

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lailoken · 4 years ago

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“The Embodied Lives of Elves

Our pre-modern ancestors seem to have had room in their collective imaginal life for humans walking among them who were deemed ontologically different in some way-enough to considered faeries or nightmares (mara or mora). This is not to say of course, that such people were physically inhuman, (though it's debatable whether Witches or werewolves were considered human by persecutors of the Craft in the past) but that they were believed to carry a mysterious taint of otherness.

Modern writers on faeries, even gifted ones like the Frouds tend to position faeries as existing in the imaginative, or perhaps "imaginal" dimension of the human psyche. To our forebears the Otherworld was a far more embodied place and testimonials given by people who saw and interacted with faerie beings in the past stress that they possessed a kind of substance, though less substantial than our own forms. How else could folk beliefs about faerie marriages have begun?

In pre-modern Europe humans possessed a shadow in which they’d walk at night, sometimes it appeared as an animal, sometimes as a human double or a partly human form. There was no such thing as something that was no “body,” which is one of the reasons the mainstream insistence on a strong body-spirit dichotomy sits awkwardly with the spirit of some Old Craft traditions.

Consequently, if we are to understand Faerie from the perspective of the folk genius then we will need to soften the edges of this body-spirit binary and try to imaginatively descend into an older way of seeing. If we can achieve this we will find ourselves immersed in an way exuberantly sensuous way of being, and rediscover our senses anew as portals to the Otherworld. What begins as a historical curiosity becomes a stretching of our own imaginative faculties and eventually yields to mystical ecstasies.

Anthropologists and historians often take a patronizing view of the idea of spirits leading embodied lives much like our own. The general explanation being that people in the past were literally unable to imagine anything much different to their own way of life. Or, that being unable to visualise something made of nothing they dressed their airy imaginings in a kind of subtle form or body.

The other option presented to us as practitioners is to simply have the humility to take the folk at their word and accept that these observations of the lives of faeries, made over countless generations, might reflect real experiences of another world. We do not need to intellectually commit to that perspective if it is too uncomfortable, but let us explore it with openness. Let us allow for a moment that the conglomerated wisdom of generations, the collective imaginal experience of an entire people or peoples, may in fact know better than we do.

Yorkshire biographer Durant Hotham described the faerie body in the following way. He said they were "lodged in Vehicles of a thinner-spun thread than is (otherwise than by condensation) visible to our dim sight.”

So whilst they are made of something thinner spun they are certainly made of something other than just the substance of our imagiation. This notion of bodies made of a lighter stuff was agreed on by Robert Kirk earlier who said faeries possessed: "light changeable bodies like those called astral somewhat of the nature of condes'd cloud."

So far we find images of finely-spun thread and clouds or mist being used to describe the faerie form. Both of these images are taken from the widespread faerie mythos we have traced across Europe, as faeries are intimately associated with spinning and appearing out of mists or as condensed clouds. The suggestion here is that they are able to condense or expand their form, weaving it in tightly or loosely invisible to humans. What their bodies are woven from is only so as to be perceived or otherwise ever hinted at, but vapor and mist seem to be strong candidates, which would suggest there is some degree of air-born moisture in their form.

Somerset surgeon John Beaumont touched a fairy's hand in a chillingly tactile encounter, he describes how it: "yielded to my touch, that I could not find any sensible resistancy in it.” Though it did not resist him this does not sound like something that felt like simple air, the words “yielded to his touch" suggests something fragile but nonetheless of substance. Another testimony confirms this description:

"I have often seen that way while in my bed. Many women are among them. I once touched a boy of their's, and he was just like feathers in my hand; there was no substance in him, and I knew he wasn't a living being."

In his poem ‘The Witch of Fife,’ written in the early Romantic era, Thomas Hogg describes the elf man's form as "having no blood in him and pale like cauliflower." He also describes faeries and Witches both travelling some distance to attend Sabbats in other lands. This is significant because Hogg's father is rumored to have been the last man in his area to possess the faerie sight. So any knowledge about the faeries that found its way into Hogg's work would likely have been influenced by the input of a genuine Scottish faerie seer of the eighteenth century.

One of the best ways to pursue a deeper understanding of how the faerie body works is to study occurrences where faeries have appeared as corpse candles or faerie lights, only to condense before the viewers' eyes into a humanoid form. Here are some examples of such sightings. Let us use them to compare faeries manifesting out of pure light with the so-called corpse candle observed to leave the body of humans when in sleep or near death.

"At first it seemed no more than a light in some house; but as we came nearer to it and it was passing out of our direct line of vision we saw that it was moving up and down, to and fro, diminishing to a spark, then expanding into a yellow luminous flame. Before we came to Listowel we noticed two lights, about one hundred yards to our right... Suddenly each of these lights expanded into the same sort of yellow luminous flame, about six feet high by four feet broad. In the midst of each flame we saw a radiant being having human form. Presently the lights moved towards one another and made contact whereupon the two beings in them were seen to be walking side by side. The beings' bodies were formed of a pure dazzling radiance, white like the radiance of the sun, and much brighter than the yellow that surrounded them."

Now of course humans have a corpse candle that can leave the body a as Elias Owen describes in his ‘Welsh Folklore: A Collection of the Folk-tales and Legends of North Wales’:

“It was believed that it was possible for the spirit to leave the body. and then, after an absence of some time, to return again and re-enter it. The form the spirit assumed when it quitted the body was a bluish light like that of a candle, but somewhat longer. This light left the body through the mouth, and re-entered the same way. The writer was informed by a certain female friend at Llandegla that she had seen a bluish light leave the mouth of a person who was sick, light which she thought was the life, or spirit of that person, but the person did not immediately die."

How do faerie lights differ from the corpse candles that emerge from human beings? Well it seems like the phenomenon is the same but in reverse. Faeries can body forth a human-looking form by condensing a very fine mist-like body until it becomes a bright spark of light, whereas humans belong in a dense body that nonetheless conceals a body of light.

Romani lore compiled by Patrick Jasper Lee suggests that the faerie body is ethereal but very real and that it can become denser through the consumption of life force. The ghostly dead and ethereal fay both shared one great trick, they could become tsochano, or vampires, and drink the blood of the living and in this way gain an "ectoplasmic body." Over time they might be mistaken for a living person.

The status of the body may often be an ontological difference, rather than one of solidity. A study of faerie lore overturns numerous insistences of abduction, which would look like simple death to one outside the Faerie Faith. But for those with the eyes to see the corpse was interpreted as a stock, a fake, a of wood glamoured into taking the appearance of the dead while the fae made off with their real body.

So whilst we may have trouble believing in a faerie creature becoming more tangible through consuming life force, or of humans be-ing bodily taken away, the lore is so copious that we should retain an open mind around the topic of exactly what "body" and "real" meant when our ancestors used them. What is clear is that faeries were firmly believed and experienced by many people as existing in some tangible way that was not merely within the world of shared imagination but was sensual and actual.

Here we press up, almost uncomfortably close, to the knowledge of our foreparents' quite literal belief in the physical existence of faeries. Because this journey into the folk imaginal realm of the past is about leaning into discomfort rather than fleeing from it, let us look closely at a faerie narrative that falls somewhere in the uneasy middle place between mythic story and recent folk legend.”

—

Sounds of Infinity

by Lee Morgan

#sounds of infinity #Lee Morgan #faeries #faerie folk #fair folk #fair family #fae folk #faerie #faerie faith

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shmegmilton · 4 years ago

Note

Could you do something about how Theo's death changed Burr? You said that her death 'permanently changed Burr’s demeanor' and I can't find much about Burr's later years so I wondered if you could explain it to me. Thank you.

Yeah, that sounds about right. A lot of the info we know about Burr in the last 20ish years of his life (after returning from Europe, so 1812-1836) has sort of been haphazardly cobbled together by historians, so you only really get a ‘clear’ picture across multiple Burr biographies. We know that he continued to practice law in New York, but most of the supplementary information we have comes from other people; first-hand accounts by friends, newspaper articles, anecdotes, etc.  Burr himself was obscenely quiet during this time period, partly (I assume) to lay low from debt collectors & people who want to chastise him for being the evil mastermind who shot Hamilton in cold blood or whatever. And partly because he was depressed for a very long time, it seems.

The first thing that should be noted is Theo’s death came about 6 months after her son (& Burr’s grandson) Aaron Burr Alston, who he was also very attached to & called him Gampy (Burr’s nickname was Gamp so he was Gampy ie. Little Gamp). Gampy’s death effected Burr in an entirely different way, because every instance we have of Burr interacting with children was largely positive—he loved children. After Gampy’s death he seemed to go out of his way to be kind to children & to spoil them with all of the treats and gifts he never got to give Gampy. Something extra sad to note is that he loved to give little coins to children (either out of his own pocket or a pot on his desk), and one of the gifts he had been stockpiling for Gampy was coins…

Now for Theo, I haven’t been able to find any of Burr’s letters to her during this time (I’m not sure if they even survived), but we know that he tried his best to console her & convinced her to be with him in New York. It took about 6 months for her to finally say yes, so he ordered a ship (The Patriot) & a family friend named Timothy Green (who also died on the ship) to escort her from SC to NY. They of course never made it be NY, and to this day not only do we not know what happened to the ship, but we literally don’t even know where the shipwreck is other than its probably somewhere off the coast of North Carolina. There were some theories about a possibly pirate attack (The Patriot was a former privateer ship) but Burr choose not to believe it.

Burr & Joseph Alston (her husband) took up a correspondence during this time (strangely, we have some of Alston’s letters but none of Burr’s seem to have been found) where they confided to each other about their worries. Alston makes a very poignant implication during one of the surviving letters where he says that Burr must feel “severed from the human race.”

Theo wasn’t just Burr’s daughter—she was his only child to survive to adulthood, and one of his closest political & social allies, considering that the majority of the country now hated Burr for the 1804 Duel and the 1807 Conspiracy. She was really all he had for comfort, & Burr constantly mentions how much he misses her (& Gampy) in his European Journal. I can only imagine how devastated he was.

Another note, Charles Burdett (Burr’s adopted son who I’ll talk about in a moment) published a book with some of Burr’s old letters (that he must have been personally given, because I haven’t seen them published anywhere else.) One letter was written during this time period to a woman named “Kate” & he basically admits being too depressed to reply to people.

Burr also allegedly spent weeks or even months visiting the docks every day with the hope that The Patriot might be there. The death of his daughter gained Burr a bit more public sympathy, but the attention was still largely negative. People treated him like a cryptid almost. Not just because he was notorious, but because he was so socially withdrawn that it was rare to see him in public.

—

In 1878, Charles Burr Todd wrote A General History of the Burr Family in America (with Genealogical Records from 1570 to 1878). It’s a handy book with some unique information about Burr that I have yet to see in any other biographies, including a full physical description of what Burr looked & sounded like in his later years ([HERE]), and an interesting essay that Judge John Greenwood, who worked under Burr as a clerk from 1814-1820, presented to the Manhattan Historical Society after Burr’s death ([HERE]).

The Greenwood essay mentions that Burr owned a cat, which he definitely did not own during his 4 years in Europe as there was no mention of it. This implies to me that he purchased and/or adopted it because he was lonely, because there is no other account of Burr owning a pet of any kind before or after this.

Burr also adopted two children around this time, Charles Burdett & Aaron Columbus Burr (Aaron Burr Colombe). ACB is a strange case because, despite having a very public adult life—no one can seem to agree if he was French or American? Or who his mother was? Or his birth year? Some sources say 1808 and others say 1816? It’s bizarre. People also can’t seem to agree whether Charles Burdett was born in 1814 or 1815. There is also a third child (Henry Oscar Taylor, born 1818) who is documented having lived with Burr by 1833.

All of these boys are a mystery because no birth or adoption certificate exists (did they even have those back then?) so it’s unclear where they came from, who their mothers were, or at what point they came into Burr’s life—Burr’s movement & the timelines of their birth make it a bit too hard to say for sure. My personal theory is that (regardless if they were biologically his or not) Burr chose to take these children in to try and alleviate his own loneliness.

One last thing of note about Burr’s later life is that in 1823 he chose to take in Luther Martin (the lawyer who argued his 1807 case), who had recently had a stroke and had nowhere to live. He took care of him until he passed away in Burr’s home in 1827.

Burr would of course die a little less than 10 years after that (the majority of it spent fighting his divorce & dealing with his own strokes). I wish I could write more about this time period, but that is truly all we know about it.

I guess the key takeaway from this is Burr ultimately devoted a lot of his time to charity work & helping others, most likely as a way to deal with grief or find meaning in his life again.

#Aaron Burr #Theodosia Burr Alston #Theodosia Burr #Charles Burdett #Aaron Burr Alston #Luther Martin #Burr Family #Anecdotes

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my-darling-boy · 5 years ago

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im wondering if you think that edward brittain and geoffrey thurlow were lovers. because i know the movie implied that perhaps there was something more there, bu from reading the book as well as 'letters from a lost generation' i didnt get that impression. just wondering your thoughts!

Right okay I’m about to InfoDumpᵀᴹ because the love Geoffrey and Edward had is one of the main things that got me into learning about WWI years ago!!! So allow me to shed some light on these boys specifically!

So firstly, Geoffrey Thurlow was inserted swiftly into Edward Brittain’s life and the two got on INSTANTLY in early 1915 after Edward was commissioned to the Sherwood Foresters. For a long time, Victor Richardson had been Edward’s trusted friend, as of course they knew each other from their Uppingham days, but it’s apparent in Testament of Youth, Letters From a Lost Generation, and the other works by the family’s historian Mark Bostridge, that Geoffrey and Edward became VERY close VERY fast. And while it could be written off as a friendship..... there is a lot of evidence that, even ignoring my own conjectures, is hard to dispute the fact that their relationship was more than friendship, even if it never became sexual or explicitly physical.

On top of the two becoming quickly inseparable, they also frequented expression of their desire to be with one another while the other was away, Thurlow often sending Edward very affectionate and borderline romantic letters and postcards on a whim, even sending him one rather Cryptic postcard on Valentine’s Day one year. The two insisted on doing many activities together, and many found them a perfect fit, Geoffrey a rather dreamy, expressive, and emotional young man, while Edward was practically the opposite; it’s suggested that they adored each other so much due to their personalities complimenting the other’s quite well: Edward was able to provide Geoffrey with reassurance and That Officerly Gay Protectiveness, while Geoffrey’s understanding and soft demeanor provided an open window for Edward to share his insecurities when he couldn’t show them to the other men. And while it could be said that Edward was more hesitant to be with Geoffrey in such a manner, even if Geoffrey felt no personal conflict, the two wanted to be very, very personal.

Both boys stayed connected regularly, no matter where they were, through intimate correspondence. As I mentioned, a good majority of their letters involve either one of them, but specially Geoffrey, longing poetically to be out in nature with the other or wishing they were together, but not at present, not wanting the other to be in harm’s way. A lot of Geoffrey’s letters to Edward, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, are signed “Him that thou knowest thine” or just “thine”. Of course this means “yours” or “you who know that I am yours”. And while this sort of thing, at least in my latter wording, was not an uncommon expression between men at this time, it’s..... the first way it’s worded that surprises me. For lack of a more eloquent explanation, it’s Gay as Hell to be THAT poetic to your new soldier friend, even for 1910s standards. One might ask why he simply wouldn’t just write “yours” instead of adding the special style, and making the extra effort to imply “not only am I yours, but you know as well as I do that I’m yours”. One might even ask if it was to refer to a special meeting, or inside romantic reference, such as the way in which Roland and Vera signed their own letters to each other, “au revoir”. Literally one letter from Thurlow to Edward simply ends with “In Life, in Death, Yours”.

There were also several letters marked “private” sent to the Brittain residence from Geoffrey in the span between 1915 to 1916 when Geoffrey would have occasionally been on leave, and could write whatever he damned well pleased to Edward without fear of the military censors poking around. What makes this crucial evidence to support they were having homosexual correspondence is the fact that Vera burnt the private letters before she died to protect the boys’ wishes to keep them private, if not by Edward’s direct request for her to do so, something which by itself doesn’t seem so odd given the fact letters were burnt all the time for a number of reasons, but is especially compelling given the fact other evidence makes a strong case that they were together. What was contained in those letters is lost to history, but they shouldn’t be confused with the letters taken off the censors which later may have began the domino effect to Edward’s untimely death, as that was in 1918, over a year after the death of Geoffrey, and were about different homosexual matters with other ranks at the time.

Additionally: while Edward’s reaction to Geoffrey’s death is argued not to have been as strong as his response was to, say, Victor’s death, as support for the fact he didn’t actually care much for Thurlow, he wrote to Vera “I have been afraid for him for so long and yet now that he is gone it is so very hard—that prince among men with so fine an appreciation of all that was worth appreciating and so ideal a method of expression . . . Always a splendid friend with a splendid heart and a man who won’t be forgotten by you or me however long or short a time we may live. Dear child, there is no more to say; we have lost almost all there was to lose . . .” In my own mind, this letter is just the tip of the iceberg to how he felt. It’s clear that Geoffrey’s death had a greater toll on him in the long run, while Victor’s death seemed to affect him immediately. I can only assume this is due in part to Edward being so emotionally invested in Geoffrey versus Victor, and that Victor’s death evoked an immediate and present sadness, while Geoffrey’s was so difficult to handle, he couldn’t think but to react in a collected but sorrowful manner, one I feel was meant to conceal just how heartbroken he was, as though he was worried if he showed as much outward devastation as he showed for Victor, he feared one may speculate why he held so much sadness for Geoffrey...as though he was afraid people knew what was between them.

Geoffrey’s death seemed to CRUSH Edward, leading him down this path of dark despair and depression following his passing, and it lead to a lot of misdirected tension between he and his sister at times, and he subsequently turned far more reserved, uncommunicative, and apathetic than ever before. I’d even go so far as to say that Edward might have felt guilty about his own relations with Geoffrey after he died, possibly believing he could have done more to be closer with him, or felt guilt in having distanced himself from him in some way later in 1917. And after such events, he showed more distaste for the war, more lack of emotion towards his own life and its worth, and his letters often took a downhearted turn towards the end.

When he died, Geoffrey’s letter, the last one he sent to Edward in 1917, was found in his breast pocket, and I would assume this to be over his heart. It ends by saying “Till we meet again, Here or in the Hereafter,” and it’s speculated he carried this ever since the day Geoffrey died, and, most defintely, died with it close to his heart.

By my own conjecture, I say that Edward felt that he was both conscious of and without objection to his homosexuality, most likely because it was suggested in private schools at the time (take Evelyn Waugh’s comments on being interested in boys at boarding school as a phase that one grows out of) that it was a passing curiosity, and that such interests would diminish when one reached adulthood. I felt that he did romantically love Geoffrey, even if it never had the opportunity to become sexual or physically intimate. And because our own understanding of homosexuality did not exist at the time for him to have any model from which to reference comprehension of his own sexuality, I believe, that like most of his queer contemporaries, he had a rather ambiguous—near procrastinating—outlook on his own sexual orientation and relationship status, along with his view concerning his future life and possible wife.

The war created a near diversion from having to consider the possibility of being with a woman, and he could instead allow to let his homosexuality subconsciously flourish while being in the presence of so many men, and allow his romantic love for Geoffrey to remain raw and intimate without having to confront the implications such a future would hold for him socially, all due to the war being the only thing on his present mind. And furthermore, I firmly believe that Geoffrey held a deep admiration for him: he looked up to him as well as loved him. Though he was training to be a priest, he seems to express no distaste—rather the opposite, based on his letters to Edward—for flirtatious relations between men, and remains such a gentle and deeply poetic figure to Edward I have only seen reflected in that of homosexual bonds. In my opinion, being gay myself, and with having delved into scattered studies of male affection in earlier centuries, they were in love. It’s a story I so often encounter between men of their class in this era, specifically during the war.

I will also admit that, for some reason, from standing afar, the recollection by itself of what information is told to us about Edward and Geoffrey is rather.... timid...in some instances amid the background of Vera and Roland, of Malta and France. And the ones provided alone from most books are merely the “friendly” letters. The ones I’m sure we would really like to see were lost on Geoffrey’s side and burned on Edward’s side, and what others remain are held in private facilities and university archives, and only available in brief mentions online. However, looking closely, reading sections purely between the two boys, isolating only their letters, their language, and even digging further into works written from Mark Bostridge and other minor historians piecing together dots not having previously been connected, what love they shared feels warm and strong, if not simultaneously distant and foggy at times: such is the way the world remembers homosexuals unfortunately.

These boys never got the oppertunity to be with each other in the way we would like to see historic gay people, the way we swoon over the way Maurice and Clive or Alec were together in Maurice for instance. Geoffrey and Edward were in the middle of war, and there’s both so much poor documentation on homosexuals and so little chance in the chaos to a have a ditch-lectures-to-go-on-a-motorbike-ride-into-a-meadow relationship we expect to see, compared to other circumstances where it would obviate the way they felt about each other. But because of the war, it made it even harder to progress gay relationships due to combat, death, anxiety, and just a general lack of space and oppertunity to be with a man all the time without someone seeing.

I later discovered a while back this historian’s articles about the lives and intertwining of Edward and Geoffrey and they are packed with a brilliant compilation of sources and their own take on the relationship, which I was quite excited to have the pleasure of reading, for we share very similar viewpoints on the matter and even caught onto hints and details during our own reading of the sources no other readers seemed to talk about!

Edward’s || Geoffrey’s

What fragments which are left to us, if we understand just how forcibly hidden life had to be for these men, letters marked “private” and passing remarks of desiring to walk among trees with someone special speak of a louder and more profound story buried deep beneath them. It’s important to take into account that many of the known gay relationships we have record of today are not as well documented as Oscar Wilde. Sometimes, the only record we have of their love lost to time is held in the way it’s held here, in the signing of “Thine”.

I can only hope now that since they could not hold each other in life, that in death, they could finally be together.

Anyway, there’s my Novel, thanks for the ask!

#I love them sm #testament of youth #vera brittian #edward brittain #geoffrey thurlow #asks #long post #wwi

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loptyrs-moved · 4 years ago

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Can you talk more abt ur fandoms ocs? I like your writing a lot and would like to know more abt em

Oh my goodness I’m 🥺🥺🥺🥺 you’re SO sweet thank you!

Well, I have quite a few and some have their own deeper lore stories that go with them. If you guys want more information on them, I can do separate posts on all of them. But Here they are! I’m so excited to share my babies with you!

More is under the cut. The Picrew I used is here.

Ikemen Revolution

Black Army Side

Corrin Fukui

Age: Appears to be in mid-early twenties

Hair: Brick white

Eyes: Blood Red

Height: 4′11

Any other Qualities:

Draconic features -- She’s literally a dragon but not by nature

Curved Opalescent Horns

Shimmery opalescent tail

Wings that also shimmer in the light

retractable?

Pointed ears

Easily frightened by loud noises and sudden movements

stunted growth

Hoards blankets and comfort items

writes in a journal every day

its one luka got for her and she refuses to write in anything else. she pours her heart out on the pages, and all her memories

she had a brother! but he passed away because of the magic tower :(

turns into a gIANT DRAGON

ICE ICE BREATH BABY

Was found by Luka while on a patrol near the forbidden forest, lost and afraid, so she was taken in

Had amnesia at first

She actually is an experiment of Amon and she managed to escape

Excellent at sewing and gardening

Sufficient with baking

She’s for Luka! The way they fell for each other was a slow, gradual trust, and mutual understanding. She saw him as a man, as he was, and nothing else.

Sometimes is called Corri

gentle hearted and innocent

but not as innocent as you’d think

she’s a dragon, and she’s a greedy little one

Ophelia Dae

Age: 24

Hair: Crimson red

Eyes: Jade green

Height: 5′8

Any other Qualities:

A skilled swordsman, and one of the Chosen Thirteen

9 of Spades baybeee

While she is more accustomed to short swords and sabers, Phelia is a magic user! But she isn’t really in agreement with Ray with his stance on magic

BOMBASTIC AS HELL

BISEXUAL

“Is he bothering you Queen?”

Trans

Was friends with Ray and Fenrir while in school, and was just as much of a hellraiser as them

she was there when the day things went dark happened and was almost taken but that day is a blur for her

phelia REFUSES to talk about it

she still has nightmares

raised by a single mother

TRIVIA! She was an old fire emblem oc i had and she was the daughter of Arvis -- so if you squint when she uses magic you’ll see Valflame

joined the army probably because Fenrir was too, and she was inspired by him

she joined for her own reasons but he made it easier for her to do it too

his passion was what made her fall for him in the first place

has a personal vendetta against the magic tower for what they did to her and her friends

AND CORRIN JEEZ

will sacrifice herself if necessary to the cause

PROBABLY HAS ALMOST DIED BECAUSE OF IT

Bruh girl

Amira Nasiri

Age: 22

Hair: Chocolate brown

Eyes: Turquoise blue

Height: 5′3

Any other qualities:

My version of Alice! Difference is that she’s Persian

That’s it

She’s just as spunky as Alice

however she responds with being called Alice a little different

she’s adamant about being called Amira

At some point she just accepts Seth does it to distance himself

also an avid baker like alice

pISTACIOS

BAKLAVA

Amira is just Alice except she’s just my take on her.

She has the same vibrant spirit as Alice

and I personally consider Seth the canon route for REASONS

just ask me why fjgdfgjksd

Red Army Side

Azul Flores

Age: 25

Hair: Raven black

Eyes: Wisteria purple

Height: 5′0

Any Other Qualities:

An old friend of the Queen of Hearts

like she met him when she was 8 years old

fought his bullies when they would give him a hard time when he was a kid

they dated for a WHILE

did NOT work out

HARD CHILDHOOD

Ambitious, hard working young woman who was married into a high standing family on the Red side. Her mother was a teacher and gained the attention of one of the Chosen Thirteen on that side, and got married

Azul is NOT the officer’s daughter. She’s his step daughter

Has had extensive studies on the History of Cradle and of the Red Territory.

Wants to be a Cradle Historian

Works for the Red Army as a personal assistant to the queen

UNINTENTIONAL

THEY ACTUALLY CANT STAND EACH OTHER

Unless....

Look their story is very dramatic and it hurts me every day so please stay tuned with them.

CUT THROAT BITCH

YOUR DEVIL

DEMON

Heckles Jonah like its her job — she knows him better than anyone elsd, if anyone knows his bs, its her

Bad resting bitch face

Actually really shy, and quiet when in different surroundings

A sweetheart and will cut a bitch for you once she knows u

She is perhaps one of the most transparent, honest, genuine person. there is no bullshit with her. she will tell you her honest thoughts with you

Cerise Nam

Age: 19

Hair: Berry Pink

Eyes: Petal Pink

Height: 5′2

Any other qualities:

Her mom came to Cradle from a far off place, and set up a food and pastry shop in the Central Quarter. Met her dad. Been there since

They live in Black Territory

She works for her parents and works with the pastries/desserts

loves making desserts from where her parents are from

She knows the Queen of Hearts VERY well since she makes the best mille feuille

Got a job from him actually, and works for the Red Army Headquarters kitchen

Loves to cook and bake!

a little naïve, but she’s a realist

youngest of FIVE kids!!

Morning girl

She may be petite but she can HEAFT heavy bags of flour/rice/dry goods

Met Zero by accident, and crashed into him while in town

love at first sight for her. how can you fault her?

she thinks he’s dreamy... and sweet...

does she flirt with him a little? Cerise can’t help it...

She and Zero have more of a hidden relationship because she fears her parents won’t approve

family stuff -- and she understands

RED ARMY OFFICER?? BLACK TERRITORY GIRL

look im cheesy

dont worry it works out

zero has to consider himself and his own personal stuff too so its a little difficult

Non Army Suitor(s)

Lucile Lidell

Age: 20

Hair: Straw blonde

Eyes: Aqua blue

Height: 5'1

Any other qualities:

She and her twin, Noelle, are the actual descendants of the original Alice

Inherited unusual hairpins that were from cradle

More of the 'modern woman stuck in the wrong time' kind of gal

Rebellious

Noelle and Luci: partners in crime

Short skirts galore

Does not give a singular shit of what MEN think of her

Wants to be taken seriously

Sometimes acts like an airhead in order to get attention. She's actually pretty somber as a person and prefers to be in the background as her sister takes the stage

loves her sister more than anyone else in the world

When she and Noelle fall into Cradle, they kind of hightail it and live in the woods with Harr and Loki

Sticks with Harr since he's literally the least threatening man ever

First man to feel safe around

"Excuse me he said NO pickles!"

Will cut a bitch for him, or use magic -- luci will hurt someone if they even think a bout looking at him wrong

Loves to make clothes

'I mended the holes in your cloak for you...' 'Bye Harr, be safe and have a good day.'

'Welcome home, I missed you.'

Puts up a tough girl front but she's just a big softie just like him

Doesn't realize she has a crush on him until shit starts to hit the fan

Actually very vanilla tbh but wants to spoil her bf

Ikemen Sengoku

Ito Tsunade

Age: 26

Hair: Straw Blonde

Eyes: Molten Gold

Height: 5′5

Any Other Qualities:

Graduate student at the same university as Sasuke

got stuck in the storm with him and Mai, and was tossed into the sengoku era

but she got separated from Mai

Met Shingen first much to her luck because uh.... lets say Tsunade is aint the sharpest tool in the shed

HEAD EMPTY

ZERO THOUGHTS

AIRHEAD

her aesthetic when she gets there?

TITS OUT

BIG HONKERS BIG TATA

HOT

her head might be empty but her tits are fat and they will protect you

Music nerd — loves traditional Japanese instruments, especially the difficult ones

Specializes in girl metal in modern day

eventually proves herself and plays some sick chords for the takeda/uesegi forces

she has entertained them for now

puts sake away like a monster

when she meets sasuke, she finds comfort in the fact he’s also lost with her, so she clings

asks him how to protect herself from shingen bc he’s horny lolol

genuinely thinks sasuke is hilarious

also does NOT realize she’s in love with him until the gravest of grave happens

her name was UNINTENTIONAL

Aibana Hinata

Age: Presents in his early-mid twenties

Hair: Black Midnight

Eyes: Haunting gold and vermillion

Height: 5'3

Any other qualities:

The concubine of Nobunaga

Please know I made him a long while before the other guy was dropped so I’m just gonna offer this little gay boy

Nobunaga bought him from a brothel after being so intrigued by him. Hina entertained him so well that he was set for life

A RIGHT SNARKY BASTARD

HE KNOWS HE’S PRETTY AND CAN GET AWAY WITH MURDER

Likes to challenge Nobunaga in battles of wits

board games

debate as pillow talk

swordplay if the lords will entertain him enough

Bisexual as hell

Gender? Don’t know her

He uses all pronouns

True pronoun: princess

ONLY EXISTS IN A UNIVERSE WHERE THERE IS MAI

Nobunaga/Mai/Hinata........

Unless.......

Smart, and educated

former geisha

he can read! and write!

LOVE FUCKING WITH HIDEYOSHI

if there is mai, he would bond with her like no one else

he would be her best friend

her confidant

genuinely adores her

even if she is pursuing nobunaga, he doesn’t resent her ... he just wishes that she would find room in her heart for him too

puts up a tough exterior

a softie.....

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qqueenofhades · 4 years ago

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How was yellow journalism at the turn of the 19th century different then the fake news and media insanity we see today? Do you know? It seems like this has been going on for a really long time.

And you would be correct, because this has in fact been going on for a very long time (indeed, much further back than the 19th century) and is essentially the basic practice of history: figuring out how to understand, vet, classify, believe, and treat the stories that humans tell about themselves. Or as that musical that came out the other day put it: “you have no control who lives, who dies, who tells your story.” We’re all just telling stories about things constantly, and we all want people to believe our story and treat it as the best version. Some of these stories are more fictional (and more harmful) than others, but it’s been going on for as long as there have been people.

(Or: “A Brief History of Fake News” follows below. If it doesn’t make sense, blame the fact that I had to rewrite half of it after Tumblr ate it.)

Globalization and the 24-hour news media has made it possible for “fake news” narratives to become transnational: in other words, no matter where you are in the world or what country you’re originally from, you can use some of the same content, techniques, arguments, or beliefs. For example, coronavirus deniers, no matter where they are in the world, can use the same stable of arguments: it’s fake, it’s a Chinese lab conspiracy, it’s a political stunt, it’s not that bad, you shouldn’t wear a mask, etc. They are drawing from the same essential pool of content and replicating the same themes in their particular contexts. Obviously, everyone has instant access to these narratives now and we are seeing the large-scale and damaging effects, because they can be amplified to a degree unheard-of in human history thanks to social media, TV, phones, etc, but also: it’s what humans have been doing since, well, forever.

A caveat I often have to give undergraduate students, when introducing them to medieval chronicle sources, is that they’re subjective -- that is, they’re more interested in promoting one individual, kingdom, religious viewpoint, version of events, etc, rather than aiming for an inclusive and “real” version of how things went by taking into account the experiences and arguments of all sides. This is obviously disingenuous, because it suggests that modern historians don’t do this, that they just objectively report “real facts” and there is no human bias or agenda at work in producing the result. This reflects the influence of Leopold von Ranke, a 19th-century German historian who is often viewed as the founder of the modern critical source-based historiographical method. He was a proponent of the idea that historians had to “describe the past as it actually happened,” i.e. they had to select the correct facts and build an objective narrative so that people could discover the One True Version of reality. Of course, you may realize that you.... can’t actually do that.

Historians still have to select which facts they report, how a “fact” is constructed to start with, what methodology they use, what conclusions they draw, what they focus on, what moral lessons or overall takeaways they present for their audience, etc. This reflects the 19th century’s effort to make history similar to hard science: they liked the idea that there was one single methodology that would reveal an empirically provable single ideal, that there was no human agency or bias that would influence this narrative, and the facts would magically assemble themselves into one central version that everyone would agree upon. Except this still isn’t and has never been the way it works. Historians, as human agents, mediate and manage and influence the facts they use and the conclusions they draw from sources, and it’s our job to figure out which ones are more valid and which ones are not. It’s a system of collective memory, and as I’ve said before, that collective memory is always particularly susceptible to what people (especially the rich and powerful people, who install the version of history that the rest of us learn) want to remember. This rarely includes their flaws, or things that show them to be wrong, or any challenge to their status.

Prior to the invention of film/TV/audiovisual methods in the 19th century (and since they didn’t become commercial or widespread until the 20th), everything we know about human history before that, we know because someone wrote it down. In the Western tradition, the ancient Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides are often viewed as the “fathers” of history, because they deliberately assembled a curation of (allegedly) empirical facts in a constructed narrative with a self-stated historiographical purpose. They also make use of what, in fancy academic-speak, we might call the “topos of authority.” Every single historian has been aware that they have to provide some way for their reader to independently verify their content, or decide to believe what they’re saying against a competing version. In the olden days, they often did this by self-certifying: “I swear that everything I write here is true/I heard only from wise and trustworthy people/I spoke to an eyewitness of these events/I read a book by such-and-such authority.” But just because they SAY these things doesn’t mean they’re true, and no modern historian can take this at face value: they can’t just say, “well, my source said they were telling the truth, so that’s good enough for me.” They have to supplant with other accounts, they have to perform textual criticism and close reading, they have to find other pieces of evidence to compare. Because in a sense, all of history might be fake news. We just have to figure out which parts those are, and sometimes that’s not even the point, because it’s impossible.

For example: take the sixth-century Byzantine court historian Procopius, who wrote about the reigns of the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian (r. 527-65) and Empress Theodora (r. 527-48). All of his official accounts of them are largely positive and flattering. But Procopius is probably best known for a work called the Secret History, where he rips into them as horrible awful people, relates lurid sexual scandals (especially about Theodora), dishes on all the bad things they did behind the scenes, so on and etc. This means that historians have been arguing ever since about which versions of Justinian and Theodora -- indeed, Procopius’s own versions of them -- we’re supposed to believe. If you want to read the Secret History, which you can do at the link above and which you should because it has amusing chapter titles like “Proving That Justinian and Theodora Were Actually Fiends in Human Form” and “How Justinian Killed a Trillion People,” you’ll come across this unrelentingly negative depiction of them, and... what? Is this a (somewhat) accurate account of the darker side of Justinian and Theodora’s bad behavior, written by an embittered Procopius after he fell out of royal favor? Is it just a total hatchet job? Was it written purely in case there was a palace coup, so Procopius could hand it to the new emperor and be like “see, I totally didn’t like those losers either, you can rely on me” and didn’t represent his actual views on the imperial couple at all? You can already see the problem if the idea is, a la von Ranke, to prove “what really happened.” Almost nobody treats the Secret History as a straightforward factual document, but they also disagree about how truthful it is, why, for what reasons, and whether it is, in fact, even a History per se.

To return (belatedly) to the idea of newspapers and yellow journalism particularly. I would say that there was no more significant event in all of human history (well, maybe a few, but not many) than the invention of the printing press in the mid-fifteenth century. It instantly and permanently transformed the way humans acquired, stored, recalled, and learned knowledge, and it lasted (and is still lasting) even in the face of smartphones and internet. Once books were no longer rare, labor-intensive, and expensive, their use exploded, it became standard practice to publish your research (by the sixteenth century, this was already happening), to learn from a book, to use other books in constructing your knowledge, and thus to encounter these narratives. The other architecture of a culture of public and general literacy developed along with it, until it was the primary medium in which all people, not just the rich and educated, learned about things. Newspapers and books and pamphlets and other printed material intensely drove the revolutions of the eighteenth century, both in America and in Europe. And obviously, these weren’t trying to tell “both sides of the story.” It became standard practice to publish your manifestos, your papers, your essays and arguments, all your supporting documents, and you were trying to convince people to your side for concrete political reasons.

So by the time you get to the 19th century, you’ve had literal CENTURIES of people deciding what they want to believe, what’s beneficial for them to believe, their viewpoint on the world, etc. Except as we discussed above re: our friend Leopold von Ranke, the 19th century develops the idea of “scientific objectivity.” Of course, in the social sciences, this often gets applied (pause for sighing) to support the idea that there is a real racial hierarchy, that western European white men are the best not because they said so, but because it’s science, it’s provable, it’s not just an opinion, It Is Trufax. Newspapers, books, and other printed material are widely available to everyone, and the 19th century is making claims to universal truth that can be discovered and applied in all disciplines, but which is just a continuation of the same subjective storytelling as before, now elevated to the status of Unimpeachable Truth. Yellow journalism isn’t really that different from what humans have always done in crafting a narrative that supports their purposes and the story they want to tell (or that they think will sell papers, because people have an endless appetite for secrets, scandals, and drama, especially if they think there is a conspiracy, real or fake, to hide it from them). They just have different tools for doing it. Of course in the 21st century, we now have journalistic ethics and a set of standards and codes of conduct for how you’re supposed to write these things, and we have respected publications that do all that, but we also still have tabloid media, when the relationship with the facts is... tenuous, at best. These institutions and tendencies never go away. They just evolve.

I realize that this was a long and rather dull ramble about the origins of historiography, but the point is this: “fake news” is literally as old as humanity and history itself, and humans have always been predisposed to select and believe the narrative that personally benefits them, fits with their ideology, makes sense of events in the way they feel is most compelling, and so on. It’s just now in the hyperconnected 21st century, “fake news” can go instantly around the globe and be exposed to anyone with an internet connection. This is not helped, as I talked about in my “death of expertise” ask, by a public forum where everybody’s contributions supposedly have to be treated “equally,” in the name of “fairness,” no matter whether someone knows anything about the topic or not. So the impact of this tendency to believe whatever the hell anyone wants has been magnified far past what has ever been the case in history before, because no matter what someone wrote or believed in the pre-internet era, they didn’t have the multi-million-exponential ability to reach absolutely everybody at once. Even print books have to be printed, circulated, purchased, read, etc, and that takes time and money, rather than just instantly having it appear on your smartphone. And we are obviously seeing the real-world consequences of that as a result.

#history #medieval history #historiography #history of literacy #long post #anonymous

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thespacehound · 4 years ago

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Okay so I’ve literally written essays about this before (because I’m a queer historian!) but I’m going to try to convert my Many Feelings into a slightly more concise tumblr post ^^’ Also pls remember that I’m just one (1) white European man so if I make any mistakes in my stream of consciousness rambling please do correct me I promise it wasn’t intentional! Feel free to add to this too if you’d like, my perspective is of course limited and I’d like to heard about other people’s experiences <3

Okay so. Queerness is a non-generational identity, so many queer folks have to figure shit out all by themselves, sometimes in households and communities who are openly violent towards people like them. If you’re lucky you had a queer family friend, relative or parent who didn’t suck that you could talk about your identity with, but most of us have no one who can pass down our history to us.

Queer people have always existed in pockets across all different cultures and nations. We’ve always been here but our history keeps getting lost. When I say ‘lost’ I mean that modern queer folk are no longer able to access this part of our history, I don’t mean that some well meaning historian misplaced The Secret Queer Documents the erasure of queer history is incredibly deliberate. Queer communities in homophobic cultures have historically had to hide ourselves and cover our own tracks to protect ourselves and our loved ones, and because of that finding physical records of queer history that have survived to the present day is rare and often accidental. Sometimes we have deliberately destroyed our own personal queer histories, sometimes it’s deliberately destroyed by others, and sometimes it dies out with no one to record it.

Unlike other communities though, the nature of queer communities means that oral traditions haven’t historically been effective ways to pass down queer history either. Queer stories can’t always be passed down through families or local communities like in other oral traditions as we’re all so scattered. And just like with recorded documents, oral queer history has a habit of getting ‘lost’. In the modern present day queerness is illegal in 70 counties and punishable by death in 12, and these statistics don’t reflect the incredibly homophobic societies across the world that don’t have laws against existing as a queer person. Again and again queer communities are brutally attacked and destroyed by the state. Just off the top of my head I can think of two examples still in living memory of western queer communities suffering great losses that are still in living memory.

The most recent one of these started only 40 years ago. In my own country we lost an entire generation of queer people to the AIDS crisis. In America you lost an entire generation of queer people to the AIDS crisis. This is recent history. It has directly impacted the queer people who lost loved ones in the 80s, 90s and 2000s, and has directly impacted people like me who grew up queer in the aftermath of the crisis without the older queer role models that we should’ve had.

Queer kids growing up today don’t know their history because there’s no one to teach them. And it sucks that there’s all this really weird and dumb community discourse because of it but you can’t blame the kids if they were radicalised by terf and exclusionist ideology before they found a better community who accepted them. That doesn’t mean we should let these kinds of things slide in our online spaces, but remember that these ideas also didn’t develop in a vacuum. Educating people on queer history is important.

But if queer history is something you’re interested in then do I have great news for you! You can directly contribute to increasing the sources we have on queer history! Record your own history, take photos at pride, take photos with your partner, take photos of your transition, record your queer experience and keep is somewhere safe. Keep those pamphlets, posters, leaflets, tickets and weird keepsakes! Ask the older queer people in your life for permission to record their stories so their histories aren’t lost to time like the histories of so many others. Channel the rage of your forefathers and exist proudly as a queer person! Like I said this is kind of stream of consciousness but if there’s any actual interest in this post I’ll have a look for links to projects dedicated to preserving queer history that queer folks can get involved with! <3

The intentional erasure of a culture or community’s history isn’t exclusive to queer people, and as a queer historian I cannot stress how important it is to protect the histories of minority, marginalised and oppressed cultures, communities and peoples. Protect our histories. Record our histories. Teach our fucking histories. Don’t let people take your history away from you.

#long post #sorry lads I have Opinions and I’m gonna make it everyone else’s problem uwu #if I get any weird anons from posting this bare with me I’m not logged on to this blog much uwu <3 #queer history #lgbt history #lgbtqia #lgbtplus #lgbtq community #queer pride #tw homophobia

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mylifeiskara · 5 years ago

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Happy Holidays*, Have a Fic Rec List!

So I realized recently that even though I didn’t start interacting with people until like September, I got back into The 100 last January, even if it was mostly just scrolling through the tags to see what was going on. I’ve been absolutely floored by the writing talent in this fandom, and everyone I’ve interacted with has been so warm and welcoming, which has only encouraged me to write more. So to mark my almost a year of being a lurker and as a fun sort of holiday present to everyone for being so nice, I thought I would go through all my bookmarks and AO3 history and find some of my favorite fics I’ve read this year and share them, complete with commentary somewhat like the way I leave comments on AO3! I’ve read so many more amazing fics than just these ones (which is surprising because I’m a really slow reader), so thank you to literally everyone who writes for this fandom, because you’re all superstars! I get so excited every time someone shares something new, and my marked for later list just keeps getting longer.

This list is mostly Bellarke, but there’s also a couple Murven and one Memori. It’s also abundantly clear that I read mainly modern AUs, so I didn’t bother separating canon things from modern things, but I did separate the complete works and the WIPs. And if I don’t know someone’s Tumblr, I’m just gonna link their AO3 profile!

*I’m pretty sure only one of these fics has to do with a winter holiday, so sorry if that’s misleading!

Complete

Your words on my skin by not_a_total_basket_case Bellamy/Clarke, Rated G (Multi-Chapter) This is the first The 100 fic I ever read, so obviously it has to go first on my list. I don’t read many soulmate AUs, but I liked that soulmates communicated to each other through notes on their skin. The whole thing is just so soft, and I’ve read it a bunch of other times since my first reading. Also bonus points for Clarke and Bellamy being absolute idiots in love.

Feels Like Reckless Driving When We’re Talking by Chash Bellamy/Clarke, Rated E (Multi-Chapter) In this one there’s an age swap, so Bellamy is younger than Clarke, who’s a single mom in her 30s. Bonus points for the presence of Murphy and Emori to help get Clarke out of her head and out of the house so she can meet Bellamy, a hot younger man!

so i sing a song of love by @hiddenpolkadots Bellamy/Clarke, Rated M (One-Shot) This is my comfort fic! I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read it, but it’s one I keep going back to. I love a good friends with benefits complicated by feelings, and also in this case, pregnancy.

I’ll always wear the crown that you gave me by bellamysgriffinprincess Bellamy/Clarke, Rated G (One-Shot) Best friend’s brother is one of my favorite tropes, and I really love the evolution of Bellamy and Clarke’s relationship throughout the story.

Talking with You in the Dark by @bettsfic Bellamy/Clarke, Rated E (One-Shot) This is like “oh my god they were roommates” adjacent (since they’re neighbors), which is what I like about it. I think I’m just a sucker for stories where Bellamy and Clarke’s relationship kind of evolves in a very natural way. Also the simple ask of wanting to share a bed with someone because you’re lonely is such a mood.

the naked truth by @kombellarke Bellamy/Clarke & Murphy/Raven, Rated E (Multi-Chapter) Speaking of “oh my god they were roommates”! This fic has so much great angst! It’s probably the angstiest thing on this list! I’m not sure if I can adequately put into words my feelings about this fic, other than it’s great, and I feel like everyone’s read it already, but here it is so you can read it again!

guess it’s never really over by @captaindaddykru Bellamy/Clarke, Rated M (One-Shot) I love how even when Bellamy and Clarke are divorced, they’re clearly still so in love. It’s why the idea of them having another kid together didn’t sound absolutely absurd to either of them, and that’s the tea.

You Should Still Take Me Home by @eyessharpweaponshot Bellamy/Clarke, Rated T (One-Shot) This has many things I love, which are fics about New Year’s, friends with benefits, and a college setting. It’s the dream! And it’s really cute!

Here’s What I’ve Got (The Reasons Why Our Marriage Might Work) by @marauders-groupie Bellamy/Clarke, Rated T (Multi-Chapter) I have been trying to come up with the words to describe the way this fic made me feel literally ever since I read it, but my God, I still feel like what I say wouldn’t do it justice. Also there is a very particular word I’m searching for that I have yet to land on. It’s so beautifully written, and I love stories that begin after the couple has broken up. Also they’re actors, and I love a celebrity AU!

Potions et Patroni by chants_de_lune Bellamy/Clarke, Rated T (One-Shot) I love anything to do with Harry Potter or Hogwarts, so adding Bellarke to the mix was just right up my alley. If you haven’t noticed, I really love watching/reading the natural evolution of a relationship, which this fic does a great job of. Also if I were a student at Hogwarts, I would have thought Professor Blake and Professor Griffin were a couple the moment I stepped foot into the school.

starry eyes and galaxy minds (we’ll be dancing on the clouds at night) by @pawprinterfanfic Bellamy/Clarke, Rated M (One-Shot) If Bellamy were Spider-Man, I too would fall in love with him, solely based on his voice. When he removed his mask, him being incredibly attractive would just be an added bonus.

Eons With You by @she-who-the-river-could-not-hold Bellamy/Clarke, Rated G (One-Shot) Another great soulmate fic I stumbled upon! I feel like I’ve never gotten into soulmate AUs until this fandom, but that’s just truly the only way to describe what Bellamy and Clarke are to each other? So yeah, this one has reincarnation and the time periods that are in it are so vivid and great.

And in Other News... by @jeanie205 Bellamy/Clarke, Rated T (Multi-Chapter) News anchors! Who make the most perfect team on the planet! There’s some angst, but this is great fluff. And more bonus points for Clarke and Bellamy being idiots in love.

Rock Bottom by @detectivebellamyblake Bellamy/Clarke & Murphy/Raven, Rated E (Multi-Chapter) Wowee, I love so many things about this fic! Clarke and Murphy are my brotp, so I think that’s why I clicked on it to begin with. I hope to have a group of friends like this when I’m in my mid to late 20s, so I guess I’ve got a couple more years to get working on that. I also love that everyone ends up owning up to the shit they’ve done wrong and growing, which is something we don’t always get to see. And there are such cute moments between so many characters!

Burning Cities and Napalm Skies by @jarleene Murphy/Raven, Rated M (Multi-Chapter) Honestly, don’t remember how I found this one, but I’m so glad I stumbled upon it. I’m really only into Murven in AUs (as I’m low key Memori trash), but this fic just had me hooked. Also as someone who wondered if the show would ever question having to repopulate the human race, I was very on board with the concept. Dare I say bits of this more sense than the season 6 we were actually given?

feat. by Debate Murphy/Emori, Rated T (One-Shot) Please forgive the fact that I called myself Memori trash, yet there is only one Memori fic on this rec list. (But also, if anyone wants to rec me some Memori stuff, literally send it all my way!) I love musician AUs, so I was immediately sold on the idea of Murphy admiring Emori’s band’s music and wanting to write a song with her. It’s just so cute!

WIPs Not as many of these, because I can only follow along with so many unfinished things at a time, but these are ones I’ve been keeping up with!

If the Right One Came Along by @useyourtelescope Bellamy/Clarke, Rated M Another celebrity AU, with a side of friends with benefits! Bellamy is a famous historian, and I am here for that. Literally peak nerd, I’m so proud of him. I really enjoy Clarke and Bellamy’s dynamic as they have to figure out how to be friends again after naturally drifting apart when he moved away. And it feels like each subsequent chapter gets cuter!

All Because of You by @burninghoneyatdusk Bellamy/Clarke, Rated E It’s another best friend’s brother fic! This time with a pregnancy! I really enjoy that this story switches back and forth between the past and the present, so we get to see moments of Bellamy and Clarke when they were teenagers/baby adults, and we get to see them be amazing co-parents in the present as well.

The Hungry and The Hunted by @octaviadblake Bellamy/Clarke, Rated T As I said before, I love musician AUs, and I’m so absolutely pumped for more of this story. I’m a huge fan of Bellamy and Murphy’s dynamic. The 80s setting works really well, and I’m already preparing myself for the coming angst.

someone let the poets out by @kindclaws Bellamy/Clarke, Rated M Another actor AU! But this time, actors gone rogue! This fic is also really cool because it’s mixed media, so there’s little tweets and Tumblr posts and whatnot throughout, so I’ll give you the same recommendation the author does to not read this one on mobile.

That’s all I’ve got for now. But happy reading!

#the 100 #the 100 fanfiction #bellarke fanfiction #bellarke fic rec #the 100 fic rec #fic rec #this was fun to curate #and if anyone wants another at any point in time #hit me up and let me know

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thanksjro · 4 years ago

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Spotlight: Orion Pax - Because Hasbro was Getting Antsy About Their Golden Boy Having Faffed Off into Space

Oho, you thought we were done with Optimus Prime, did you?

You fools.

This is Transformers- we’re legally obligated to have Optimus Prime in some form or fashion running around at all times. This is just Hasbro catching up.

Fun fact: this was published on December 12th, 2012!

Our issue opens up with Orion Pax strapped to the top of a shuttle that’s careening towards a city.

But that’s the hook, so we won’t get to see what that’s all about just yet. No, first we’ve got to see just what all led to this point.

Earlier in the day, Orion Pax got refitted with a hot new bod, courtesy of Wheeljack, and now he’s showing off his new look to historical constant Rung and Kaput, who are here to assist in acclimation.

This is Kaput’s first appearance in the comics, but it’s not his first entry into the IDW continuity. He was introduced in the Last Stand of the Wreckers prose story Bullets, where he diagnosed Ironfist with dead, in so many words. Kaput’s here currently because he specializes in sparks, and he’s going to make sure that Orion’s doesn’t explode in his chest thanks to the frame change. No word on whether the wheel was something he came into the world with or a modification.

But enough medical nonsense, let’s see the star of the show.

That’s not how reflections work!

Orion’s first point of contention is the fact that his lucky faceplate is missing. Wheeljack replaced it with a proper face, because that’s the new hotness right now. I guess when you’re a race of space robots who can change their bodies the way humans change their clothes, fashion is a lot more work. I wonder if faces out out of vogue in the present- there’s a lot of guys without one on the Lost Light.

Rung offers Orion some reading materials to help him cope with the sudden change, but it isn’t necessary. Orion fully intends to switch back to his old bod after his mission is over.

If you couldn’t tell by this point, this whole “frame change” thing is a plot contrivance to explain away some of the design clashing between comics set during this time period.

This is Zeta.

Yes, really, they’re the same guy. I don’t think Senator Shockwave would have had him modified for Matrix carrying if he’d known how tacky he was going to be about it.

Zeta Prime seems to think that haute couture is exploding a Galapagos turtle and then strapping the smoking remains to your back.

Zeta leads Orion over to where Nightbeat’s waiting with a slideshow he spent hours on. Nightbeat, at the time of this story, is a hostage negotiator, and today his mission, as well as Orion’s, is to retrieve our beloved Ratchet from a Decepticon terrorist cell hiding somewhere in the Rust Spot. The Rust Spot’s some heavy duty danger, hence the reformat for Orion.

They’ll also be bringing on Alpha Trion, #1 Rust Spot navigator, philosopher, polymath, polyglot, historian, and all-around grandpa.

His beard gets a D+, however.

Note the quotation marks on “he” here; it looks like even Roberts was sick of the Furmanism that is “genderless robots that all appear to be male”. We’ll get more into that sticky situation later on. What I want to focus on right now is our artist for the issue, Steve Kurth.

Kurth is from Wisconsin, and doesn’t have a ton of pencil credits to his name in the Transformers franchise. He mostly does work for Marvel, and while it appears his art blog hasn’t been updated in a few years, the publishing company still has a tag for him. He’s done the Avengers, if that’s your thing.

Anyway, so nobody knows who’s in the back.

I gotta say, Alpha Trion, you got some brass fucking balls to insinuate that the cops forgot to put the hostage tradeoff in the trailer, in front of said cops.

The fellas transform and roll out, Orion pulling the trailer because anything else would be blasphemy, as Alpha Trion guides them to the meet up point. As they drive, the old man regales the young whippersnappers with his tales of friendship and adventure alongside Metroplex the Titan. They were, like, best friends. Seriously.

Storytime gets interrupted however, as our heroes are attacked from beyond the mists.

You know, when I was a kid, my mom had a car that looked exactly like Nightbeat here, paint job and all.

Alpha Trion got so wrapped up in blathering away, he forgot to mention that they were in Slicer territory, and might want to be on the lookout. Thanks, Alpha, way to be a pal.

Nightbeat refers to the creatures as “throwbacks”, something that’s never elaborated on, but I’m going to guess it means something along the lines of being primitive, or perhaps animalistic.

Holy fucking shit, that’s terrifying.

These awful things start swarming Orion, Nightbeat, and Alpha Trion, who all start punching and shooting with wild abandon, making short work of the mass. Orion gets a few paper cuts for his troubles, but they’re all more or less alright.

The trailer can’t say quite the same though; the door’s popped off, and the contents have either escaped or never existed in the first place.

Schrodinger wept.

Alpha Trion pulls the prisoner out of the fog… and then so does Nightbeat.

It’s a two-for-one sale at the Hostage Emporium.

Rack and Ruin haven’t really done anything to warrant being worth a whole entire Ratchet, so Orion decides to have a little chat and see what’s up.

Oh, that’s what Nightbeat meant by Ruin being the ugly one.

Orion’s chat reveals these two chumps to be even bigger losers than they first appeared to be- their only talent seems to be instantaneous conversion, which involves shutting off all the safety protocols for one’s transformation cog for a faster switch.

Orion switches trains of thought, asking about the Decepticon cause and its whole deal. This is a bit after the events of the heist, so the rhetoric has become a bit more violent by this time, and he wants to know what the hell happened.

But there’s no time for philosophic musing, because that’s when the Decepticons show up. Thundercracker escorts our group to the hideout to meet Bludgeon, and the exchange is made, albeit with a pro bono thrown in.

Well, shit.

This was why the Decepticons wanted to meet in the Rust Spot; because they knew only Alpha Trion would be able to guide the cops to the tradeoff point. But what are they going to do with robot grandpa? Why, use him to find Metroplex, of course!

There’s a rumor that Titans have the capabilities to create space bridges inside them- we as the reader know this to be true thanks to the 2012 MTMTE Annual, but let’s not tell Bludgeon about all that, yes?

Orion, please, this is hardly the time.

Luckily for Alpha Trion, Orion stuffed some guns into the bottom of the trailer, as is made apparent when he starts throwing them to his buddies. Why he and Nightbeat weren’t carrying any weapons on their person isn’t addressed, but at least the idea here is kind of cool.

Alpha Trion easily escapes his bonds, because a noose isn’t really worth much to a species that doesn’t breathe and can literally survive not having a head.

We are just laying it on THICK today, aren’t we?

Rack and Ruin lead the other not-Decepticons into the tunnels towards safety- not sure how exactly, considering they’ve got their sensory deprivation helmets back on- as Orion Pax is dogpiled into submission.

Bludgeon might need a hobby. Might I suggest jigsaw puzzles?

Orion’s about to hit the loop that was created by the first page of this issue, so he tries to stall for time to think of a way out of all this. He halfway succeeds, in that he gets a little more time, but doesn’t come up with anything. Down on the ground, all his friends watch the shuttle shoot into the sky, probably wondering what all that’s about.

Bludgeon was aiming for this shuttle to hit a populated area, but it would appear that he’s an idiot and overshot by a wide margin. Cool beans.

Ah wait, we still have another three pages of story to this.

Hey, y’all remember Hoist’s tragic backstory, where he wandered the Rust Spot alone until he almost died of exhaustion?

Yeah, that was Orion’s fault.

The Fault of Our Star, if you will.

(I’ve never read anything written by John Green, what the hell am I doing?)

Because he just bounced off the underside of Hoist’s shuttlecraft, Orion’s hurtling towards the downtown section of Iacon, which is absolutely a populated area and exactly what Bludgeon was going for. Orion’s going to have to think fast if he’s going to get out of this one. Good thing Rack and Ruin told him their super secret transformation technique.

Thinking quickly, Orion transforms into a truck, breaks his bonds, somehow manages to not fly off the side of the shuttle due to wind pressure, transforms back to root mode, shuts off the autopilot, slams into a wide open field just outside of town, and survives well enough to be more concerned about Wheeljack being mad he scuffed up his new body than his own safety. Good on you, Orion! You saved the day!

To celebrate, he takes an old hubcap or something and shoves it over his face, because I guess only he gets to know how he’s feeling.

Don’t look at me like that, it’s not my fault the story just kind of ends here.

#transformers #jro #spotlight #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #comic script writing

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