#is publically anti-supernatural

[vvhiskeyneat]

"so you do think about me." Hartley for one of the new lads ;)

"I'd like to think most men recollect a decent fuck with fondness." Jack stated as if he was talking about the weather before sipping on his coffee, exhaling as the bitter liquid burned down his gullet. "You take care of business when I ask it of you, and occasionally, you get my dick wet. What's not to like?"

[lightofraye]

The Reasons I'm Anti-Danneel (Redone)

I've decided to redo the original post, largely as most of it was heavily drawn/copy-pasted from @taraslittlecorner (now defunct/deactivated) and was not a good fit for me. Listing receipts/evidence of why I feel this way should be calmer, with citations, proof as much as possible.

Here’s a caveat: This is my belief. This is my stance. I am not here to shove this into anyone else’s face and go “You should not be a Danneel fan!” I'm not demanding everyone believe me. This is me explaining why I am not a fan of hers, as to why I dislike her. No, I do not “hate” her. No, I am not obligated to respect her or like her just because she’s Jensen’s wife. That’s absurd.

Whenever possible, I will provide citation. Some I am unable to, because they have been deleted from the internet and unfortunately, the Wayback Machine (aka the Internet Archive) did not archive it and no one else screenshotted/linked the evidence. I will try to keep that as minimal as possible.

I'm placing a content/trigger warning, as there may be descriptions of abuse to follow. If description of abuse bothers you, even emotional abuse, I advise you to skip.

I'll add a cut here because it's going to get long!

**Disclaimer** This are observations and opinions of what I’ve seen, as well as what others have seen on social media, in interviews, etc. Each relationship is different, and each domestic abuse case can vary in degrees of abuse, usually over time, but not always. These are just some of the things we can see publicly, and if things are shown publicly, it’s a safe bet there’s worse happening behind closed doors. I’m not a medical professional nor expert, again, these are opinions and observations. If you suspect someone you love is in an abusive relationship, please contact the proper outlets for battered women and men in your area.

Now to begin.

1. Fat Shaming Him

Jensen eating gummy bears. This post was made as a public stab at Jensen for the amount of gummy bears he was eating. It was a stab at not only his eating habits/weight, but it was also a stab at him being greedy or gluttonous.

Jensen on the carousel. Another stab at Jensen about his weight.

1A. The End Result Of Fat Shaming:

There was this. Yes, it was probably around the time he was training for the marathon with Jared, but this was a scary weight drop. Especially as marathons and running require you to really increase your caloric intake to keep your weight and energy up. On the heels of the public fat-shaming, this is rather shocking.

Dated: January 17, 2018.

Ignoring Danneel's claim of "marathon body", he did look skinny. You can compare how Jensen looked at the beginning of Supernatural to later seasons and there's a distinct difference. He's skinnier. Skinny does not always equate healthy, especially if it's muscle loss.

Unfortunately, other photos are in evidence of the massive weight loss.

This Tumblr post shows him still rather skinny during an event at FBBC.

Every time Jensen has to quarantine with her he starts to look like death warmed over, weight drop, sickly looking skin color, (which is also a sign of malnutrition), and that dead look we can’t get seem to forget. Then we get him back to work, and it’s almost an immediate improvement.

2. Unexplained Injury: There is the chunk that’s missing out of his nose now because of a nose injury that kept being explained in different instances at the same event as to how he even got it. It first appeared a day after the FBBC family reunion event that took place in May of 2018 in a post made by Danneel of Jensen playing with the kids, and people thought it was just a breathe right strip.

If you look closely, you can even see that his eyes looked to be blacked, as if he’d somehow broken his nose. Once he got to an event for Danneel’s Limbo Jewelry line launch in NYC, he kept changing the story as to how he got said injury. First he told fans that he’d hurt it by hitting a pool wall while playing with his kids. Then he said he’d dropped a keg on it. Well, if you’ve ever worked for a bar or been around kegs you know those things are heavy, and that story is untrue.

Had Danneel been walking around with an unknown injury and her story kept changing, it would have gotten attention. Men… not so much, and it shows.

3. Public Humiliation: There’s this Valentine’s Day post. Imagine reading that post, seeing your spouse mention their “first” love and then jokingly say you’re the second and “more important” love. Especially on the heels of Jensen’s fairly recent share at a convention of how “he’ll do” as her “second choice”. Your spouse should’ve been your first and only choice!

Posting him in his underwear just to garner some attention to her post. Honestly, it's pathetic, and adds to the narcissistic sociopath mentality assessment. What was the post about? To sell beer outside of Texas. But using Jensen to do it? Really, Danneel? God.

Then there's the photo of him in the bathroom. Some say he was a willing participant in the joke. I say "That doesn't matter." It's gross, crude, classless. It demonstrates how selfish she is.

I absolutely have a sense of humor. However, a joke only works if everyone is laughing.

Then there's this Jared photo. While not related to Jensen, it demonstrates just how much she doesn't care about people. She stated that she lied to Jared, that she deleted it, and then posted it anyway. How much you wanna bet that this was one of many reasons Jared and Genevieve pulled back from the Ackles? Because Danneel does not respect the Padaleckis, and Jensen cannot get Danneel to actually behave like a human being.

There's the whole AD House Tour. The whole video, she’s taking swipes at Jensen left and right. Claiming he didn't help in changing the kids’ diapers, to not cleaning the house at all, to not cooking at all.

Time stamp 0:58: The way Jensen hastily goes "not swing", to this day, honestly makes me wonder. Especially about that orgy rumor tweet....

Time stamp 1:14: Implying Jensen would be against flowers because it'd be "too girly", but then claiming he loved it. This makes me wonder. You'll see why later on in this post.

Time stamp 2:10: How is it Jensen didn't know that was the sex plant of a palm until then? Did he know nothing about that house??

Time stamp 3:11: Claiming it was Jensen’s first time in the kitchen, which literally doesn't make sense. Unless he'd been barred from the kitchen, surely he'd been in there to grab a beer, a snack, something for the kids. By saying this, she's implying that he uses her as a servant to get him everything. (I’m intrigued by Jensen's statement about the stove/oven, and how it was “so unnecessary”. He's been overruled.)

Time stamp 4:00: Jensen is very, very shocked that the chair moves. How is he that surprised by a moving chair? Does he not live there?! With kids, stuff would move!

Time stamp 5:39: Again, implying Jensen never helps out with the kids, the diapers. Uh, Danneel, neither do you. You have nannies.

Time stamp 6:04: She says it’s “ridiculous” he’s doing a marathon? It’s for charity, Danneel! So much for being a caring, compassionate person.

Time stamp 6:39: Jensen has to go to the guest room when he comes home late at night? Does Danneel not want to greet her husband lovingly, regardless of how late it is? She prioritizes sleep over him? Ooookay.

Time stamp: 6:58: Persistently tortures Jensen with the creepy doll. She knows it bothers him, yet keeps it around and keeps torturing him with it. Yeah, cool, that’s love, folks!

Time stamp 9:04: States rather publicly that he never cleaned the bathrooms. Danneel, honey, I’m fairly certain you don’t either—you have maids.

Time stamp 9:20: Embarrasses Jensen with the “where the magic happens” statement about the master suite. Jensen asked for it to not be included. Oh look. It's included. Overruled him again. He never has his way, does he, Danneel?

Time stamp 9:46: Of course Danneel doesn’t care that Jensen doesn’t like the big window and how people might be able to look in when they’re in the bathroom. She loves the attention and loves bragging about the man she trapped in marriage, no matter how uncomfortable it makes him. So considerate.

Time stamp 11:41: Puts Jensen down by saying she’s a little bit neater than him. Then puts him down again by saying he had help on cleaning up his side. Do you ever praise your husband, woman??

Yet, she praised him here, about how he’s been pitching in with mopping, preparing FBBC. Liar, liar, pants on fire at this point.

The FBBC interview. Let's not kid ourselves. That interview was bad. The interviewer didn't really do a good job, but it revealed a lot about the dynamic between Danneel and Jensen. At one point, Danneel claimed Jensen didn’t smell good, and he tried to excuse it because he was mopping (wait, I thought he didn't do any cleaning, Danneel??). Then she was like “Oh yeah he did so...” Then she made that horrible joke about being pregnant and Jensen actually gagged. Yes, he tried to play it off as a joke, but the look on his face was not that of a man who was happy to hear his wife was pregnant again. (Not to mention, you should never make such jokes because it’s such a heavily sensitive topic. Jokes only work if everyone laughs.) All of it was meant to humiliate and put Jensen down for the work he did in making FBBC a reality. There’s also the part where they were asked if they were tired of each other. Jensen was quick to say “Yes”.

Then there's Wales Comic Con. She made up the fib about auditioning for every single Supernatural female role, claimed she tried to use knowing/being with Jensen as a way in (that's called nepotism, dear), and all of that was... a lie. Then she tried to claim credit for helping Jensen drop the Dean voice while humiliating him about it. (He actually tried to defend himself by saying that was his voice.) The whole panel was humiliation after another. I detailed it in this post.

Not to mention her saying Jensen wasn't anything like David Spade and said “no, but you'll do”. Wow. Way to put your husband down and say he’s second best (again). Good lord.

Yet, she also said this:

Either he helps or he doesn’t, Danneel. Which is it?

4. Controlling. This part. I've gotten push back on this. “She doesn't work, she stays home all the time, how could she possibly control Jensen??”

By controlling his social media, and had been for years. No doubt this is largely to keep the facade of “happily married couple”, with her making posts on his Instagram in honor of her, praising her, and so forth. It’s also a way of monitoring his interactions with others, particularly women, and to keep track of who he’s been in touch with.

Indeed, I suspect up until Danneel’s birthday post this year, any comments, posts, that praised her were all Danneel, not Jensen.

Access to one’s cellphone, email address, and other social media is almost as good as attaching a GPS onto a person. If she accessed his cloud, she can access everything from text messages he’s sent to his most recent emails to his employers.

I have some proof but it will take time to document all of them.

There’s also this post, showing the difference between Danneel and Jensen.

There are also indications, histories, of Danneel signing fan autographs that said something along the lines of “hands off bitches, he’s mine”.

Jealous much, Ms. Graul?

It doesn't come across to me as "adorable" or "mischievous". It comes across to me as an insecure woman who knows her hold is tenuous at best.

But then she has a history of being controlling and jealous everywhere. Such as here and here.

She also insisted on him going out and looking for work all the time. Even after him wanting to reconnect with the family after the end of Supernatural. He suggested a three month trip around Europe, for the family.

Her response?

Then there were the recent cons where he mentioned it again, where Danneel is pushing him to go work, work, work. He’s never allowed to be home, to be a father, to be a husband. A loving marriage? I don't think so.

To be continued in Part Two.

[applestorms]

the misa post

adding a lil additional note here because this thing SPIRALED the fuck out, even more so than some of my usual essays. therefore, i will be going back to my roots by breaking this post down into two sections: misa and sexuality, and misa and romance/death. skip to whatever section, if you wanna. or don't. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

misa and sexuality:

honestly, the way that misa engages with her sexuality in DN is such a fascinating topic in and of itself. i really have quite mixed feelings about it because while yes, to some degree the art and story does sexualize and objectify her, there is also an element of agency to it that i don’t often see people talk about…?

like, idk. misa is a model, she does act, her job primarily involves working in front of cameras. she’s selling her Image and her body and she’s well aware of how to market the appeal— we literally see her doing this during yotsuba, when they’re trying to free matsuda after he runs around like an idiot and gets caught.

i actually think it's quite interesting that she specifies being against nudity here but alright with swimsuits and lingerie— full nudity implies sex work, something that in the mainstream might be considered "dirty" or somehow less/not worthy of respect (even if that's utter bullshit). yet lingerie is fine, despite having similar implications of sexuality, blocking off the most private areas and thereby allowing profit off of the same concept but without the associated disapproval. you could read this panel as misa simply knowing her boundaries and what she is and isn't comfortable with— but i think it's interesting that you could just as easily read this as misa knowing what boundaries she is and isn't allowed to have, if she is to market herself as effectively as possible and maintain her public image.

off the top of my head i can only think of two major examples where it’s clear that misa is super overtly being sexualized by forces outside of her control/with no particularly meaningful justification, at least in terms of visuals. this panel, which managed to sneak in a panty shot:

which, weirdly enough was actually kind of foreshadowed by sayu earlier in the chapter:

(sidenote1: does light really not have any other fucking chairs? further evidence that he doesn't really connect with people pre-DN, if he's not really prepared to have any guests in his room. anti-social weirdo.)

and, of course, the classic torture cover from chapter 33:

though i must admit, it is difficult to find any image of a character getting tied up like this that doesn't have some implication of sexuality. bondage torture is just a classic like that. though the camera certainly doesn't help, L— and neither does the fact that light and soichiro are not put into an equally objectifying, sense-deprived contraption like this, and instead just get normal ass bare cells.

in many other cases however, misa herself is the one flaunting her sexuality, typically as a means of trying to appeal herself to light but sometimes i think you can definitely read it as misa just. dressing the way that she wants to dress because it's cute? like, okay, in terms of trying to appeal herself to light we've got this classic panel from after the timeskip ft. a particularly homosexual light moment:

but there's also plenty of misa moments that just look like this:

girlie is chilling. literally kicking her feet, stalking her crush in bed with her supernatural death god girlfriend.

to be clear, this is not to say that death note isn't sexist or has particularly fantastic writing for its female characters. rather, what i'd like to point out here is that there are different levels under which we can view and analyze misa's sexuality:

the base level, of a girl who is comfortable with her body and fine with wearing revealing clothing

the level above that, involving the fact that misa's job revolves around selling her image, of which her sexuality is a key factor

and then the uppermost meta level, surrounding the fact that misa is a character in a story not only written and illustrated by men, but sold in shounen jump, meaning that she is thus filtered pretty significantly through a quite literal male gaze

it both can be and is true that misa is simultaneously objectified for her body on multiple levels and a pretty fucking horny person herself (or at the very least, willing to push that for the sake of her own goals)

remember, misa is the one pushing for their "alone time" here.

just. idk. i suppose my main point here is simply that i think this is a topic that deserves to be looked at with more nuance. there is credence to both the claims that misa is sexualized in DN and that misa herself has agency in how she chooses to dress and present herself, and i don't think you can cleanly separate those two aspects without losing something significant.

honestly, when it comes down to it, my personal take is that the real problem of sexism in DN is less about the particular ways in which individual female characters are presented/traits they are given, and more about the broad strokes of how women in general are treated... if my post on that particular subject ever ends up seeing the light of day, i guess i'll link that right about here. anyways,

misa and romance/death:

if there is one thing that her parents dying, almost being killed by a stalker, and making contact with a shinigami teaches misa, it is that love is something you kill and die for.

i really don't think that you can separate out "death" from "love" when it comes to misa, not only in terms of general themes, but also when it comes to how she personally views the world. i mean, just look at rem and gelus— death literally loves her, and in the process of loving her, allows her to cheat her way back to life. ryuk calls light a better shinigami than the actual shinigami, but honestly, if anyone fulfills that role, it's misa— she's the one whose life gets cut down until others stock it back up, who has so little regard for life (both in terms of others' and her own), who gambles her time again and again and does whatever she wishes, when she wishes, how she wishes.

it's that second point in particular that really gets to me here. throughout the story, misa shows herself to be equally detached from both the world and herself— she kills without care, gives up half her lifespan without a speck of a second thought, throws herself into dangerous situations and pushes for what she wants even when she knows it's stupid and probably going to get her caught. i'm slightly tempted to say that death's love for misa is the only mutual love she ever has, but that has some implications that i don't think quite fit. misa doesn't get a kick out of killing, she is not (overtly, or very explicitly) suicidal in the sense that she constantly expresses a yearning to kill or be killed. it's more of a toned down attachment than that, which... kinda gets into my next point, on misa's relationships. namely, with two very important people: rem and light.

in terms of rem... i struggle to analyze this relationship sometimes in the context of canon because at times it just feels like there is so little to work with. but perhaps that also fits, in a way...?

one thing that i think the musical really got right about rem is the fact that she has some of the most genuine feelings of love in the entire series, just in general but also specifically in terms of how other characters treat/approach misa. again, misa is a person whose job revolves around people loving or being attracted to her. i have a very hard time believing that the person who tried to kill her was her first or her last stalker, but even without getting to that level of intensity, much of the love surrounding misa is superficial, distant. she is beloved for the image she fits and the role that she plays, but very few people (if anyone) are even capable of getting close enough to recognize the self she hides under that mask (assuming, of course, that she ever lets that core part of her out).

rem is perhaps one of those few people, seemingly having watched misa for years alongside gelus before breaking that parasocial divide and meeting her idol in person. yet, it's also that very period of watching that puts a strain on their relationship, in my mind...

to put it bluntly: apologies to any and all remisa shippers, but i simply Do Not see there being much canon evidence that rem's love for misa is in any way mutual. not only do i struggle to think of any notable scenes where misa displays even an inch of affection or care towards rem, but misa is also kind of horrifically apathetic to rem's death, iirc. i mean, in a way, she's basically the cause of it— in failing to remember L's name upon getting her memories back, she pushes the first domino in the line leading up to watari, L, and rem's deaths.

misa basically treats rem like just another stalker, accepting her love so long as it is somewhat distant or gets her what she wants.

but, like. as shitty as that is to think about, it does kinda fit that misa would treat genuine love this way. at no point does she push back on or try to change rem's mind about this, or even really say fucking anything in response to rem's overt romantic/threatening overtures about how she'll kill anyone who tries to hurt her. i'm kinda inclined to view this as misa's attempt at kindness, accepting the love of her fans for what it is but never pushing it in either direction. she neither demands rem's love, nor attempts to dissuade it— it is what it is, and what happens, happens. and if it results in rem's death, or results in her own... at least it all happened out of love.

now, in terms of light... i was gonna make this its own post but it's on topic, so i might as well just add it here.

it is simultaneously so, so sad and yet also so, so utterly fucking funny that misa is perfectly designed to be everything that light absolutely hates. like, to just list it out cuz i literally have too many points to simplify this down into proper paragraphs rn, misa is:

uncontrollable. supposedly, misa is a perfect little devoted disciple of KIRA, willing to do anything and anything for him as thanks for getting justice for her parents' killer. but like... we all know how this actually works out. misa does whatever the fuck she wants, usually with the thin justification that it'll help KIRA in some way, and light is left behind to deal with the clean up.

stupid. no, not really— but she at the very least presents herself as such, as a ditzy, silly little girl, willing to do anything for love even if it hurts her. really, all this proves is that she wears a mask, just the same as light, though in the process she manages to also reflects to his own sins back at him. misa plays stupid so that she can justify doing stupid things without having to feel bad about it (or get emotionally attached at all?)— light plays god, a being above human morals, so he can do horrifically immoral things without having to feel bad about it. equal and opposite, in the worst possible way.

powerful. and pushy. the only person more stubborn than light yagami is misa amane, etc. etc. just like KIRA, she is a key pawn that light must rely on logistically, but is disgusted with all the same. misa is not a god, not in the way that KIRA is— she's just another filthy criminal, uncaring about the horrible acts she has committed. but she fits herself into his plans in just the right way that he can't quite come out and condemn her directly, and therefore is stuck quietly stewing in his dislike of her instead.

a liability. related to this is the fact that she is essentially unkillable, at least as long as rem is alive. many of the points behind her being uncontrollable apply to this one as well.

feminine. in a way that light dislikes, but also cannot ignore. she's cute and hot in a way that light is supposed to like, if he is to fit in w/ his Just A Typical, Good, Respectable Boy routine, but also drives him up the wall— pitting his desire to be "good" against his desire to be a "boy," essentially. (this point in particular is taken from THIS POST, big thanks to shydroid3000 for the beautiful yotsuba light analysis!!!)

possessive. controlling, in a way, which is again ironically exactly like light himself. light Hates being controlled because it means there may be factors outside of what he has power over, a trait which becomes increasingly relevant in the latter half of the story.

untouchable. even after rem's death, light can never quite get into the right position to kill her. she's almost too effective, causing light problems (e.g. yotsuba) and fucking things up, but never in such a way that he can easily place the blame on her shoulders alone. she is useful, a necessary evil, outliving multiple gods.

and, above all else, ultimately...

(sidenote2: it's kinda interesting to compare misa to L in this regard, actually, especially in terms of why light gets so attached to L but hates misa so viciously, despite L also being quite a bit like light? i guess you could say that misa reflects back the parts of light that he doesn't like as much, or even more specifically that she reflects KIRA back at him, where L matches/opposes light in terms of what he sees to be his better traits— his intelligence, his social power, etc. something to consider.)

to follow up on the sentiments of this post: misa does not love light. she relies on him to fill the hole in her life, in her, as a quick fix to avoid having to engage with the deep-seated grief that haunts her, an answer to the horrifying question of why she is even still here, alive, so long after her appointed bell has already stopped ringing.

to tie this all together, then... i suppose it's fitting that both love and sexuality are are so essentially Empty when it comes to misa amane. ultimately, she is a character defined by a misery she never allows herself to show to the world, a girl stubbornly sticking to the first reason she managed to find for living. again, just like light, she is a character that never grants herself the ability to truly grow up, stuck in the same childish, immature cycles of thinking and methods of presentation she came up with when her life first failed to end. a tragedy in her own right, unable to even remember the face of the one being that genuinely loved her at the moment of her own true death.

born on christmas, dead on valentines. how fitting.

[forsoobado137]

(it's me again because I got so many weird questions because I love Hetalia revealed nation AUs) Do you think there would be an anti-nation movement?Like not talking about a silly willy movement but like a violent one that made people die because someone didn't like the existence of nations?And this movement is so violent that the government tries to hide it?Like something "Kill all nations, they're not humans" or some crap like that?

I definitely think there are certain fringe groups that despise nations for different reasons. Some hate them because they hate the countries they represent. Some believe in conspiracies that they secretly control the world. Some simply see them as inhuman because of their immortality and supernatural abilities.

I think these types of groups are widely known around the world, and some are designated as hate/terrorist groups. But most people just see them as crazy conspiracy theorists, though there are some that get sucked down that pipeline.

I don't think they're these big riots with hundreds of people marching down the street saying "death to nations!" They mostly just stick to spreading hate/misinformation online, though there are some who harrass nations in public and a few have even attempted to harm them.

The government has definitely cracked down on these anti-nation groups, especially the more terroristic ones. Online, it's definitely harder to suppress in countries where the government doesn't control the internet. I do think that if people tweet something threatening like "I'm going to shoot Alfred F. Jones today" the feds will show up (Alfred would literally catch the bullet and laugh obnoxiously).

[bcbloodmass2024]

ATTENTION BLIND CHANNEL FANS

Our beloved boys from Oulu has gone on hiatus, but that doesn’t mean the writers and artists of the fandom have to! Our love for Joel, Joonas, Niko, Olli, Aleksi, and Tommi is eternal - and so is my hatred of Christmas. 😤 And so I’m happy to announce that

BC BLOOD MASS WILL RETURN IN DECEMBER 2024! 🐺🐺🐺🐺

If you’re not familiar with our annual event: basically, it came to my attention that there’s actually a lot of people in the fandom like me, who don’t celebrate Christmas. Either because they practice a different religion, or because they have trauma surrounding the holiday. I realized, I wasn’t the only person dreading the usual influx of Christmas themed fanfic and fanart coming in December.

And so I created an anti-Christmas event. In 2022, you guys created some spooky vampire AUs. In 2023, we celebrated an unholy night of demon AUs. And this year, I put it to a public vote, and the results are in.

Our 2024 theme is WEREWOLF AU!!! 🐺🐺🐺

All works MUST be submitted to the official AO3 collection by December 24th, 2024.

The collection will be revealed on December 25th, 2024!

All pairings are welcome, including both M/M and reader-inserts!

While this event is primarily for fanfic writers, fan artists and edit-makers are also invited and encouraged to participate!

NSFW content is allowed!

All fics created for this event must be Werewolf AUs. Other supernatural creatures (such as vampires) can play a role in your story, but a least ONE main character MUST be a werewolf.

Including characters from other bands (Lost Society, RBFH, etc) is allowed but at least one main character MUST be member of Blind Channel!

Christmas, or any celebrations thereof, MUST NOT play a major role in your creation for this event.

Please tag your creation with #bcbloodmass2024 if you participate!

Let’s have a howling good time! 🐺

[velvetvexations]

Nursed With Kerosene Chapter One Willow World

Here it is! The first part of my serial novel, Nursed With Kerosene. This is the result of so much hard work. It's a story I've been wanting to tell for awhile, with a core cast of characters I first created as a child and many more I've created over the last few years. It's 79 pages long but it would mean the world to me if you read it and enjoy it. I really can't tell you how much this work means to me.

To give a brief description, Nursed With Kerosene is about praxis, love, rage, friendship, compassion, humanity, horror, lesbians, capitalism, psychosis, faith, therapy, music, understanding, swords, parenting, ninja, and a lot of other things.

To give a somewhat less brief description, Nursed With Kerosene is influenced a lot by the structure of TV shows like Angel and The Librarians, featuring a team of supernatural problem-solvers dealing with things no one else can. There is also more than a dash of anime in there, because I'm a shameless weeb. My ideal medium would be a series of Newground animations in 2006.

Nursed With Kerosene is part of my setting Memoirs to Prove the Existence of the Devil. The only other released MtPtEotD story is my previously published short story Six Underground, but it actually takes place long after NWK. Having said that, like a Soulsborne, a large part of NWK is going to be slowly unraveling things. You're not intended to understand everything. Names and events and concepts get mentioned, and you don't get it, and that's the intended experience. Hopefully you feel like you want to learn more.

Memoirs to Prove the Existence of the Devil is an adaption of the Cthulhu Mythos, as well as several stories in it's orbit not nearly as remembered as the works of Lovecraft, such as Algernon Blackwood's work. I really mine the shit out of the public domain, ngl. The journey I've taken through obscure late 19th and early 20th century literature is worthy of a non-fiction book all of it's own, and I may write that someday as well.

Some content warnings:

gore

transphobia

ableism

sexual harassment

misogyny

anti-masculinity

feds

Englishmen

characters who are honestly pretty terrible people but I demand, selfishly, that you like them anyway

I hope you like it. <3

[joannechocolat]

On why women’s rage is a superpower

My mother hates my new book. I gave her a proof just a few days ago, and although she’s still only halfway through, she can’t wait to tell me all the ways in which she hates my novel.

“Is this science fiction?” she says. (She detests science fiction.) “Were you ill when you wrote this?” (I was.) And repeatedly, she says: “Why are the women so angry?”

I get it. She’s out of her comfort zone. At 83, with no internet, no interest in pop culture and a deep-rooted hatred of anything close to horror or the supernatural, she wasn’t my target audience. And yet it’s never easy to hear such criticism from a loved one. But in some ways, she isn’t wrong. Broken Light is an angry book. It came from a time of lockdown, when social media was my only window onto the world. It came from a place of trauma, when I was fighting cancer. It came from a place of corrupt hierarchies, self-serving politicians, anti-vaxxers, Covid deniers, victim-blamers, and those eager to blame all their woes on minorities. And of course, it arose against the background of the #MeToo campaign and the Sarah Everard murder – a murder that shocked the nation, not least because the murderer turned out to be a serving police officer with a reputation for sexual misconduct - which unleashed a collective howl of protest, as well as an ugly, misogynistic backlash. Even so, my story came as something of a surprise to me: the story of a woman’s rage, and, on reaching the age at which women often feel least valued, her coming into her power.

It surprised me, most of all because I wasn’t an angry person. At least, I didn’t think I was. Those who know me describe me as someone who tends to flee conflict, who generally tries to find common ground, who gets upset when people fight. And yet, writing this story, I found myself saying and feeling certain things on behalf of my heroine, Bernie Moon; things I might not have said for myself, but which felt right and urgent, and true, and strangely liberating.

Anger has a bad press. A woman’s anger, especially. While men are encouraged to express feelings of justified anger, women are often criticized when they try to do the same. Angry women are often portrayed as “harpies,” “banshees,” “Furies.” It suggests that a man’s rage is righteous, but that a woman’s is unnatural, making her into a monster. Male anger is powerful. The God of the Bible is one of wrath. Seldom is he ever portrayed as expressing any other emotion. In the same way, men and boys are often led to believe that expressing emotion is weak - except for anger, which is seen as acceptably masculine.

In comparison, women are often criticized when they show aggression. Angry women are hysterical, shrill, out of control, unreliable, unattractive, unfeminine. A perceived lack of “femininity” makes a woman less valuable, less worthy of respect and of protection. The Press coverage of women victims of violence is a case in point. A victim of violence needs to be attractive, white, gender conforming and virtuous in every way if she is not to be overlooked, or worse, portrayed as somehow having contributed to her misfortune. When trans teenager Brianna Ghey was stabbed, the Press were very quick to state that her murder was not thought to be a hate crime, whilst at the same time obsessing over – and questioning - her gender. When Nicola Bulley disappeared, police felt obliged to divulge details of her struggle with the menopause, as well as her alcohol issues, even though this was privileged information and of no public relevance. When Emma Pattison, the Head of Epsom College, was murdered alongside her daughter, the Press immediately assumed that her husband George must have felt “overshadowed” and “driven to distraction” by his wife’s prestigious job. In all three cases, the victim falls under the hostile scrutiny of the Press, while the perpetrator is given an excuse. In all three cases, the victim – one trans, one hormonal, one better-paid than her husband - is effectively portrayed as “unnatural”. Subtext: Unnatural women do not deserve the protection of the patriarchy. Unnatural women come to bad ends.    

Once you start to acknowledge it, rage grows at a surprising rate. Over the past three years, I have found myself growing increasingly angry. Angry at the injustices committed by our Government; t the greed of corporations; angry at the prejudice extended to those who are different.

Connecting with others on social media has made me more aware of the lives and experiences of those from different backgrounds to mine, and with different levels of privilege. For a long time I’d been resistant to calling myself a feminist. Feminists are angry, I thought. What right have you to be angry?

Growing older, I realize that this was my mother speaking. A woman of a certain generation, who although she was aware of the challenges of living in a patriarchy, still had a level of privilege that many women do not share. White, professional, cishet women can sometimes have the luxury of choosing not to be angry. White, professional, cishet women can sometimes have the illusion of equality. But feminism isn’t only for just one kind of woman. A feminist must look beyond the limits of their own experience. And that’s where the anger really starts: anger at injustice; anger at corruption and lies. Most of all, anger at the prejudice against certain people for just being themselves; for being transgender, or Black, or old, or simply not conforming to what a white, patriarchal society expects and values. And once you start seeing injustice, you start to see it everywhere. It’s like an eye, which, once opened, cannot unsee inequality.

My anger flourished in lockdown. A time of growing divisions. Masks are invaluable in a pandemic, and yet they inhibit connection. They serve as a kind of reminder of who can speak, and who is to be silenced. While Boris Johnson was urging the public to trust the police, a vigil for Sarah Everard was broken up, with violence, by officers citing lockdown laws. While elderly people were dying alone; while I drove for four hours just to go for a half-hour walk in the park with my son; while I sat alone in my chemo chair, politicians were partying. Billionaires were enriching themselves. Behind the mask, the eye opened wide. I caught myself making faces behind my disguise at strangers. There was something weirdly liberating about this; as if, behind the piece of cloth, I could express myself at last. Not unlike writing a book, in fact. On screen, the eye opened wider. Bernie Moon, my heroine, was unlike like me in many ways, and yet anger connected us. The anger that comes from helplessness; from seeing others mistreated. Anger at a society that propagates inequality. And the anger that comes from hormones – those mood-altering chemicals that everyone produces, and yet which allegedly make women erratic; unreliable; hormonal.

In his novel, Carrie, Stephen King tells the story of a girl, whose telekinetic powers are unleashed by her teenage hormones. Carrie is unpopular, bullied, isolated. Her rage finds an outlet in her power. Driven to breaking-point by the bullies, she becomes a monster. Of course she does: after all, the author of this tale is a man, writing from the perspective of a couple of thousand years’ worth of patriarchal inheritance. In literature, a woman’s anger is unnatural; monstrous. It leads to terrible, unnatural things: makes murderers and infanticides of Clytemnestra and Medea; monsters of Medusa and Scylla. Unnatural, monstrous women are always punished in literature, even while acknowledging that they are often the victims of men. And unnatural women are often seen as physically repulsive – a reminder that, to be valued and loved, women must be young, and pure, and conform to the standards of beauty set out by their society. In literature, just as in life, those women who do not conform tend to be less valued, less seen, and when they do appear, do so as wicked witches, evil stepmothers, ugly crones and hideous travesties of womanhood.

But what would happen if a woman took control of the narrative? In recent years, we have observed a number of retellings of Greek myths from the point of view of the monster. Stone Blind, by Nathalie Haynes; Medusa, by Jessie Burton; Circe, by Madeline Miller. In both cases, the monstrous woman is seen from a different perspective; her rage absorbed and justified; her narrative reclaimed from a patriarchy that seeks to tame and subdue a woman’s rage, even at the cost of her life.

My new novel, Broken Light, comes from the same process of reclamation. It owes a debt to Carrie, but I have avoided the explicitly paranormal theme of the original, as well as the girl-on-girl bullying and the psychopathic mother. In my version, Carrie lives; marries her childhood sweetheart; internalizes all her rage and suffocates her power. Until the menopause – a topic which until recently has been largely misunderstood and taboo – at which point her power returns, and with it, a new kind of freedom. Freedom from the male gaze; from the responsibilities of motherhood; from the largely impossible expectations of society. Unlike puberty, menopause is triggered by a lack of certain hormones; and yet the symptoms can be just as dramatic and isolating. Loss of libido, exhaustion, depression, emotional outbursts as well as unpredictable and alarming hot flashes – my version of Carrie’s pyrokinesis. Whether my heroine’s powers stem from any kind of paranormal source is very much up to the reader to decide – after all, paranormal is only a step away from unnatural. And what counts as unnatural is in the eye of the reader – an eye that has been opened, I hope, to a series of new possibilities.

One is that rage is natural. Living in a patriarchy, women have a right to their rage. In fact, it seems more unnatural to me when women are not angry, given how much misogyny remains in our society. And growing old is natural. Being hormonal is natural. Differences are natural; so are disabilities. All women matter; whatever their age, or colour, or sexual orientation, or marital or reproductive status. The value of a woman’s life should not be defined by her popularity, or her age, or her looks, or her kids, or her value to the patriarchy. And no-one else gets to decide what a woman ought to be. A woman is not what, but who - a person, not an object; an active participant in her world. Women have lived too long behind the mask. They deserve their own stories. Stories in which they are allowed the full range of human possibility. So, to answer my mother’s question: Why are the women so angry?

Because it’s a superpower.

[saintsenara]

from a narrative perspective i definitely see why the order can’t understand what harry understands about voldemort targeting kids still at school, but how does that work from a watsonian angle? like do you think it’s as simple as the order members just not taking kids seriously (fitting the general genre convention), or that the kids who were being recruited by death eaters in the first war were successfully subtle about it that no one realised? i’m always down to suspend my disbelief for the sake of the narrative but it feels so unrealistic that, at the very least, the order members who were at school during the build up to the first war wouldn’t have recognised (even after the fact) that some of their classmates had been recruited, and thus that it could happen again. i mean they know that voldemort’s operating out of malfoy manor, so how would it seem inconceivable to them that draco, who lives there, might be expected to act on voldemort’s behalf, even if he wasn’t marked? the kids staying with the order were all begging to join the order despite being in school, what do you think would make them picture the other side being so different?

[the context for this post]

the explanation - once again - is that the order is an unradical, pro-state organisation, rather than a proper guerrilla group.

that is to say, the order is focused on the wars as political conflicts, and never moves beyond seeing voldemort as primarily as a political threat.

nobody in the order ever really understands the mystical aspects of voldemort's warfare - the prophecy and the hallows and the horcruxes. this is a massive rift between the trio and the adult characters who are order members - none of whom, including sirius, ever really grasp just how odd and supernatural harry's relationship with voldemort is.

this more mystical tone is quite clear in both order of the phoenix and deathly hallows.

goblet of fire and half-blood prince, in contrast, present the first war as a political conflict, and the second war as shaping up very similarly.

voldemort targets the state and its institutions - he seems to have enormous numbers of ministry infiltrators; his recruitment of the dementors is about weakening the wizarding penal system; his targeting of hogwarts is about controlling the state education system; lucius malfoy spends order of the phoenix clearly pushing fudge's anti-dumbledore press agenda, and so on.

even his targeting of muggles is connected to his aims against the wizarding state: it keeps the ministry scrambling, makes the statute of secrecy harder to enforce, stops the muggle government being willing to communicate with the wizarding one, and provides voldemort with cover to expand his violence by making it look like natural disasters or terrorism etc. in the muggle world.

[if the prime minister had been assassinated in 1996, he'd only have had to send out whichever death eater could do the best belfast accent to talk to the muggle press and the heat would be off him...]

the first war seems to have progressed in much the same way. based on what sirius tells us in order of the phoenix voldemort's violence must escalate in 1978-79 - since, as he says, his parents didn't get cold feet about voldemort and what he was willing to do to get power until after regulus joined up.

from this we can conclude that voldemort spends the first period of the war primarily attacking state targets. this doesn't mean his violence was less significant, but it does mean that the public would be able to rationalise it as people - aurors, civil servants, etc - facing the risks of their jobs, and view any wizarding civilians who died as collateral.

[and not give a shit about muggles, because - well - that's how wizards are...]

we can then assume that after this point, he moves towards attacking civilians indiscriminately. which makes it impossible for soft supporters like orion and walburga to delude themselves that they'll be safe because they're not connected to the ministry.

while many of the death eaters who are important characters in canon have no significant institutional roles, it's clear that these death eaters weren't the ones the ministry was the most interested in catching during the first war. for instance, by far the biggest scalp of the first war - or so canon implies - was augustus rookwood, voldemort's source of state secrets and one of the only death eaters who seems to have been sent to azkaban for life on non-violent charges.

and so the reason the order doesn't think it's plausible that voldemort is using teenage recruits is because they think he's only concerned with people who have access to the state. and teens don't.

[we see something similar when it comes to bellatrix. obviously we, as readers, know that she's voldemort's favourite death eater and has been since the first war because she literally tells us so. but there's no evidence that in the 1970s anyone in the ministry even suspected that she was a death eater, which is how she - and rodolphus, rabastan, and bcj - weren't investigated in the immediate aftermath of voldemort's fall, leaving them free to attack the longbottoms once - as dumbledore puts it - people thought they were safe.]

obviously, barty crouch jr. is an exception, because he was undoubtedly recruited by voldemort to inform on his father. but - as sirius tells us - regulus wasn't someone voldemort would have considered important, with the clear implication being that this is because he had no access to the state targets [and the information which could be gleaned from them] that the order understands voldemort as valuing above all else. regulus is just painted as a fanboy in the order's eyes - someone who's very keen to suck up to voldemort, and someone who voldemort might use as cannon fodder, but who voldemort doesn't see as someone who's actually useful.

and the same thing happens with draco. in half-blood prince, lucius malfoy is in azkaban, the family are clearly under some sort of ministry surveillance, and their earlier privileged position at the heart of the minister's machinations has vanished. the order's view is - therefore - clearly that draco has become less important in voldemort's eyes than would have been the case if lucius was still free and had access to the minister. this is the only version of voldemort's warfare they understand.

harry - in contrast - is the person who gets that voldemort is nowhere near as interested in the state as the order thinks.

[qqueenofhades]

Hi just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to thoughtfully respond to these anon messages. I work in dc w a fairly wonky set and i cant overstate how haunted the DC Professional Thought Havers are by the spectre of the "low propensity voter." I think these ppl (myself included LOL) thought we had everything figured out ahead of the 2016 elections and then never recovered from the way it ended up going......i feel like in all the years that followed.....the liberal bubbles.....the coastal elites.......the hillbilly elegies......the real america....the ohio diners....the pennsylvania diners.......the polls......the 2020 horserace....while part of an earnest attempt to understand What Happened, were primarily self-indulgent, self-flagellation for being "out of touch" bc of a self-diagnosed "elite" status that then turned into ANOTHER myopic view of the world, just opposite, where the "libs" are hapless and everyone else remotely to the left are primarily victims to the unstoppable supernatural forces of the Right. Then in 2020 the narrative flipped AGAIN and once again, instead of taking the opportunity to expand a worldview and having the bravery to confront their own shortcomings, the opinion havers and wonks and beltway pressers have decided to groupthink their way into writing off democracy altogether. Its BEYOND frustrating to see! Like damn volunteer at a soup kitchen or smthn instead of being obsessed w the fact that i vote lol

Yes, and there are several reasons for that. First, despite all the factors that contributed to Trump's shock win in 2016 (anti-Clintonism, white backlash to Obama, general low voter enthusiasm, Russian disinformation, etc) we should never forget that until James Comey decided to announce 10 days before the election that he was reopening the EEEEEEEMAILS case, even though we all knew there was nothing there, she was leading fairly comfortably in the polls. And while we will never know how the 2016 election would have gone without that, which imho was one of the most unforgivable acts of blatant sabotage by a public official in American history, it's also true that we saw her poll averages start sliding almost in real time, as people who hadn't really been keen on voting for her anyway decided firmly not to and Trump was able to scrape out 16,000 votes across PA, MI, and WI to take the Electoral College. Which... we all remember how we felt that night, right? (Or in my case, early morning, since I was overseas?) We don't, we really, really don't want to feel that way again. Just saying.

As such, the media (which had already beat up Clinton nonstop during the BUT HER EEEEEMAILS saga) drastically overcorrected and as you say, began writing endless angsty handwringing pieces about Trump Voters in Rural Ohio Diners and giving endless sympathetic airtime to how "economically left behind" they felt, regardless of the fact that open racism, especially Obama backlash, was and remains the principal animating feature of Republican politics (since their only economic platform is that which makes very rich people even richer and Democratic economic policies are the only ones actually targeted at helping ordinary people). The hangover was so strong that even when Democrats had a massive 2018 midterm result and flipped the House blue for the first time since the post-ACA backlash lost it in 2010, the Conventional Wisdom was now beyond any doubt that Democrats were doomed for a generation or something, and not that Trump had squeaked out a fluky win (while losing the popular vote) due to endless Russian/Comey/third party-etc interference and wasn't actually that powerful. Even in 2020 when Biden was leading fairly steadily and things were going to hell with Covid, etc. etc. TRUMP IS UNSTOPPABLE, TRUMP IS GOING TO WIN.

(And now. Like. I know Trump thinks Trump won in 2020, as do a large majority of his cultists, but that doesn't mean he did.)

Even after that, when Roe went down in 2022, that made no difference to the RED WAVE COMING!!! narrative, and the amount of smug white male pundits insisting that abortion just wasn't very important and people weren't going to base their entire vote on it reached truly disgusting levels. We're now seeing the same thing with the constant "people won't vote for democracy and/or abortion rights" blast, when as you say, this narrative has just been completely made the fuck up by a lot of groupthinking DC media who are determined that this time, Trump really is going to win and then they get to be principled chroniclers in opposition or something. Not to mention, the basic principle of "democracy and abortion rights are good" do in fact win by thumping margins every time they're on the ballot, including in deep red states. But there is literally not a single piece of empirical evidence despite the massive amounts of it supporting the truth (i.e. that Democrats are doing historically well in competitive elections since 2018 and there's not really a major reason to think this will change in 2024) that will get the media to change the "Democrats in disarray and Biden Iz Doomed" horserace BS they so love. They don't like Biden because he's boring and competent and just does the job without being insane, because it's totally a great idea to treat American government like a reality show! (Recall the infamous comment by the CBS CEO who literally said that Trump was bad for America but great for CBS, because he pulled in high ratings and therefore lots of money and visibility for CBS. We live in the worst timeline.)

As such, the mainstream media has a vendetta against Biden, is determined that this time Trump is super definitely going to win and everyone will see how genius they are, and not-so-secretly wants Trump back because a) he's good for money and ratings, and b) because the media conglomerations are owned by oligarchs who have a vested interest in making sure that Democrats and their policies never get too popular. Notice how the once self-proclaimed centrist independent Elon Musk has turned into a rabidly alt-right fanboy ever since the Democrats really got serious about taxing billionaires as a key part of their platform. Likewise, insisting that Biden Iz Doomed makes Democrats nervous (and thus more likely to tune in) and Republicans gleeful (and thus more likely to tune in), so there's literally no incentive for the media to even try to report things accurately. You could create a very different narrative of the 2024 election if you just remotely bothered to write about things that have actually happened as they have actually taken place, rather than bending over backward to insist that Biden being four years older than Trump is a worse crime than 91 felony indictments, 2 impeachments, 1 insurrection, 450 million dollars and counting in punitive jury verdicts, more major criminal trials coming down the pipe, and just demonstrably being the worst human being alive in so many ways. I mean. Wow.

The good news, as I said in my other post, is that when people actually vote, these utter bullshit narratives get routinely blown out of the water, and that's a good thing. Because it turns out that unlike Super Smart Beltway Pundits' Super Smart Predictions, the average American does actually like democracy and freedom for women to make their own personal healthcare decisions, and they vote accordingly. So while yes, it's being made harrowingly much harder than it needs to be because of how much the media simply refuses to report that basic fact, and there is no amount of evidence that will convince them otherwise, at least we're trending in the right direction and, if we all pull our weight, can do it one more time. I realized the other day that I hadn't heard a fucking peep about Ron DeSantis in the last two months, and oh, how glorious it was. I yearn beyond words for the day (God willing, soon) when the same is true of Trump as well.

[lily-radiance]

Random fic headcanons and ideas:

TWD season two Daryl Dixon with an S/O who's in trouble

Both loners

MC is not from Georgia

Early 20s MC dating mid-30s Daryl

She knows how to shoot archery bows but not crossbows

Touch-starved

Andrea considers MC like another younger sibling

Everyone advises Daryl not to go for you and vice versa

When Rick, Hershel, and Glenn go to the bar, MC accompanies them. Daryl only goes when Lori tells him that you are in danger.

Carol gives him advice

Andrea and Lori warn him if he breaks your heart, he's a dead man.

RE4 Leon with a high school best friend who became an Umbrella Scientist.

MC was initially training for the force with Leon but dropped out to find another passion

She wants to help people but gets pulled into Umbrella’s dark research

Leon caught a glimpse of her at the end of RE2 but couldn't be sure if it was her.

Ashley doesn't trust MC, but Leon ignores it

Both have combat experience and have undergone physical conditioning

MC does not have Las Plagas

Krauser spars with MC, causing Leon to jump in.

Krauser asks Leon to choose between you and Ashley.

IDK if Leon would be sweet here or a Yandere.

Arkham Movie Trilogy Jonathan Crane, Harley Quinn, and Poison Ivy x Psychiatrist reader

This story is currently in progress!!!

Reader works at Arkham Asylum

Friends with Bruce Wayne

Knows about his alter ego and occasionally helps him solve cases

Reader believes Bruce should do more with his money to benefit Gotham

Combines Heath Ledger’s Joker with Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn

The reader was in the same major as Harley in college, and the two dated briefly

Harley constantly teases the reader when she catches wind of a new crush

You try to ignore her, but eventually can't as she warns you that the doctor is deadlier than he lets on

You brush it off, too fond of your coworker to accept the notion that he can hurt you

Bruce doesn't like your new counterpart, picking up a destructive energy that screams guilty

In defiance, you decide to bring your beaux to one of many parties and get on your friend’s last nerve.

A kiss is shared in front of the crowd, some murmuring complaints while others smile. You wish to stay in Jonathan’s arms, but the moment is interrupted as Bruce pulls you aside

Naturally, two upper-class socialites fighting in front of an audience calls for bad publicity, but not on your part

“If you keep this up, you'll become a sewer rat criminal just like the rest!”

Luckily, you decided to wear a few rings to accentuate your outfit. Not only do you look stunning, but you reel back and land a brutal slap on his cheek. Yet that doesn't hurt as much as your following words.

“How dare you, Bruce. How dare you scrutinize what you can never understand. Thomas and Martha would be ashamed of you, and you, of all people, know they were difficult to rattle. Next time you need anything, ask someone who gives a shit.”

Your friend has to watch in shock as you exit the home, arm linked with a man he despises. Even in disagreeable situations, you manage to exhibit grace and elegance. It's the beginning of a new era and the opportunity to forget the complex life of the wealthy.

“Is your hand alright, (Y/N)? Better yet, are you okay?”

Never underestimate a psychiatrist to get into your head. He walks you to the car, watching your lips tremble in the darkness. You meet his stare, and one thought crosses your mind: kissing him sounds lovely. The doctor is efficient at picking up social cues, leaning down to meet your lips, and extinguishing the frigid temperature.

“As long as I'm with you, Jonathan. I can do anything with you by my side, no matter the risks.”

I want to make the reader an anti-hero vigilante with the “Grim Reaper” theme. Supernatural powers in Batman don't really occur so I will brainstorm. Most villains are the work of genetic experiments gone wrong so maybe I'll work with that?

JD(Heathers 1989) dating the reader

You are friends with Veronica and the despicable Heathers

Instead of going along with their charades, you often argue and challenge Heather Chandler

She constantly threatens your social standing but knows that the campus would easily choose you over her.

Purple color coded

JD can't help but admire your tenacity as you begrudgingly follow Veronica to the table, attempting to stop the girl from doing Heather’s bidding.

When you walk over, he seems uninterested in the girl speaking to him, instead transfixed on your disinterested attitude. Unknowingly, you lick your lips, tasting lip gloss and wiping some glitter away. When you lock eyes, you swear your heart stops beating, drawn to his carefree attitude.

Veronica says a few words to you, trying to convince you to let her administer the lunch poll

As she talks, you playfully roll your eyes, causing the delinquent to smirk in your direction. He hides a chuckle from breaking out, finding your careless joking funny given the circumstances. When Veronica walks off, it allows you to sit across from the newcomer, albeit a little too eagerly.

“Mind if I ask for a smoke? I'm dying from boredom.”

“Sure, I could never say no to a girl like you. I’m guessing you’ve been trying to break from those devils all day.”

He lights your cigarette as you take it between your teeth, enjoying the visual more than he lets on.

“It's all thanks to you, my knight in obsidian armor.”

[animentality]

seen some posts joking about gortash’s “anti-anxiety coat” due to the immune to frightened enchantment, and its probably not that deep or meta but i actually do find it a compelling look at how he really does walk around almost supernaturally fearless. like even when you threaten him he brushes it off like its funny or just nonsense, if worth reacting to at all! even when you meet him at the morphic pools to face down the netherbrain, his words convey a lack of confidence in winning but his tone and body language do not. and i think part of it is that he is insane (affectionate) but also, possibly, the power of the anti-anxiety coat lol.

he also does things like robbing the crown of karsus from the personal vault of the archdevil mephistopheles, and befriending a bhaalspawn on purpose. things that normal people or even average villains probably wouldnt dream of attempting, and he pulled them off near-flawlessly. but if he’s so effortlessly unflappable, why the coat enchantment right? the game could have made “immune to frightened” an inherent feature, but they made it something he only gains from his equipment. it’s just interesting to think about!

and since i am thinking about it… if we imagine that he is genuinely prone to anxiety or panic attacks, and has difficulty controlling it enough to be worried about appearances in public and have a whole enchanted coat about it, what do you think he’s actually scared of? does he have more of a generalised anxiety thanks to growing up in hell and etc, or do you think there are specific things that really get to him? is it other people? politics, secretly? the idea of powerlessness?

ironically i think the dark urge would probably be the only thing that genuinely does not scare him in the least, and couldnt if they tried.

I think that he was a scared little boy when his parents sold him to pay off their debts.

I don't believe his parents, when they said that he was a spiteful and hateful wretch from birth. Nubaldin says that they sold him to pay off a petty debt.

Now either of them could be lying, but I fail to see why Nubaldin would lie to you. He has no reason to, he just thinks you're one of the spirits of the damned.

Gortash's mom, on the other hand, would lie because she hates Gortash for tadpoling her, and it would be her justification for what she did to him. Plus, she's hoping you can save her, so she has to make herself look sympathetic.

So I think Gortash was hurt and abandoned, and enslaved by an awful devil, who allowed his servants to beat him black and blue. Everyone in the House of Hope is a miserable wretch. The Archivist mentions that his spine was like...I think punctured or broken for making a mistake?

And we know Nubaldin used to "bruise his knuckles" on Enver's "whimpering face."

So he must've been terrified, all of the time he spent imprisoned in the House of Hope. Of being punished, of being trapped there forever...

So when he manages to escape one day, slipping out due to a silly mistake on Nubaldin's part...

What's the first thing he would do?

Try to attain power. But not just because he's scared and wants to feel powerful! I actually have another theory.

See...some people data mined the game and discovered that Gortash might've been intended to be in the House of Hope at some point... because Raphael still has his contract.

So he's still not free of Raphael, even though he escaped him.

He has a note on his body, indicating that he might've been speaking with Helsik about going back, so he could get his contract, presumably.

Now imagine this poor lost young man...whose parents sold him. Who spent his childhood being tortured by souls of the damned and the devil and his servants.

He would never ever want to go back there. Not in life, not in death.

So what does he need to do?

Become powerful.

Strong enough to raid the hells, and either kill Raphael, or at least steal back his contract. so what does he turn to first?

Weapons. The black market. People who know about slipping in and out of the hells, and how to kill monsters, demons, and all other manner of creature.

Then, he needs to curry favor with a powerful god. One who can help him. One who can use him, for his fear and desperation. Who is a good god to turn to for that?

Bane. God of tyranny. Someone who could have use for him, if only he was clever and ruthless enough. And young Enver Gortash has a lot to prove.

And he would be drawn to the power of Bane, the ability to force others to submit to your will.

And the Dead Three?

That's even more power for him to obtain.

Siding with Ketheric, finding the Dark Urge...

I mean.

Listen.

Just on a character level, a powerless abuse victim seeking power does make sense...but I also think.

Wouldn't it be interesting, if he was doing all of this, so that he could both obtain power for himself...and also obtain the power he would need to kill Raphael?

Just food for thought.

Anyway.

Off topic.

Back to the subject of his cloak...well.

He would never want to be afraid again.

Fake it till you make it. Maybe he made or bought the cloak with the no fear enchantment so that he could fake confidence and power, until he actually had it?

Either way, it makes sense with his backstory. It's also so goddamn sad.

Also, he should be afraid of the dark urge, but isn't. Maybe that's why they were drawn to one another.

[ollierachnid]

Do you have any Ghostbusters as well as peckman(idk if there's a ship name either, it's surprisingly a rare/not common ship) hcs?

I can absolutely give you some of the Peter/Peck ones I have been accruing while scribbling and pondering them. Apologies for getting to this ask so late, I've been real busy eek!

Under a read more, for brevity's sake... there's a lot

I feel as though they're drastically different people with a similar streak of escalation and jabbing at each other who have managed to reach a very bizarre mutual understanding, and therefore, they don't naturally coalesce.

Judging on how Peter behaves towards other objects of his desire, he's VERY forward, comfortable displaying affection, or inducing embarrassment in public. And is pushy in response to what he sees as 'playing hard to get'. Peck, working off his usually stiff demeanour and position as a government man, is exactly the type of person his shtick does NOT work on. And so initially I picture a lot of push and pull, hot/cold etc., which causes conflicts. Somebody like Peter can't understand why Peck is fine in private but snappy and cold in public. Conversely, Peck doesn't understand why Peter can't exhibit discretion. I imagine the bicker a lot while trying to find a middle ground, I don't exactly perceive the relationship as easy or one of natural understanding.

Peter is veryyyy comfortable inserting himself into Peck's space and very quickly makes himself frequent in his home; works out where the spare key is, gets sweet with Peck’s family so they're keen on letting him in (the game had a cut line suggesting he lived with his mother and aunt, which I like, and might commandeer). Peck, although he doesn't appreciate the immediate intensity with invading his home, prefers it to staying at Peter's bachelor pad or the firehouse - picture him combing through amorphous piles of belongings and curling his nose here lol. He likes cleanliness and lives in neat spaces, Peter's apartment tends to look like a victim of the blitz. When Peck DOES stay, he brings his own towel, pillow and washbag, which Peter finds very funny.

Peck is not an easy person to get along with. He's naturally combative and caustic - Peter, in a similar way, is a little difficult interpersonally. Together, they are one of the most insufferable forces of nature going, especially when they don't like somebody. The other GBs very quickly realise this and find it funny to stick them on opponents. Peck doesn't like people treading on his toes with the anti GB campaign either.

A little softer, but Peter is heavy on both nicknames and petnames, and Walter can not escape them. His least favourite is Wally. Peter is about the only person who can get away with using it unscathed, just with a scolding.

Peck does not take kindly when Peter returns to him a little battered or bruised. Janine has learned to avoid picking up the phone if Peter goes to Walter's after a particular nasty scrape with the supernatural because whoever answers immediately gets an earful. Louis has not yet learned this. Peter enjoys being pampered in Walter's fancy apartment after a bad brush with a ghost though, let's him wash all the ectoplasm off in his bath.

They have similar music tastes, at least in terms of romantic tunes. Which is a nice point of relation between them, in a sea of many differences. Although Peter wants to dance to these, Peck doesn't. So Peter sort of tends to just wrangle and slightly limp Walter around the room while he sings and dances his heart out. (Peck secretly enjoys these little displays).

As it pertains to other, non-specific headcanons, I have a few! But probably need prompting in terms of character, so I can focus on something more particular... anyhow - Enjoy!

[marvelous-llama]

MONSTA X recs

most of the mentioned works is 18+ NSFW, MINORS DNI

tumblr is based on reblogs not likes, so please reblog and comment under works you like. Show love to the authors and appreciate their hard work

<<next chapters

pls don´t hesitate to hmu, if any of mentioned links doesn´t work or you have suggestions for more fics... thank you so much for all the love and comments

OT6

The Faculty by @iibonniee

The anti-love club by @dropsofletters

Public Adventures by @iibonniee

Neo Soeul series by @biffhofosho (Minhyuk, Hyungwon, Changkyun)

Monsta X Sleepy Morning Sex Wildcards by @muselin

fake dating by @taexual

one shots

Play It Cool by @btssmutgalore

Hyunwoo x fem!reader (wc - 13.5k) strangers to lovers fluff, smut After a rough breakup, Hyun-woo turned to Tinder for some fun. You, on the other hand, were trying to find a date for a family wedding. And then you matched.

Repair Work by @flurrys-creativity

Hyunwoo x fem!reader (wc - 1.6k) strangers to lovers - smut You totally forgot the appointment with the worker, who was supposed to change a device inside of your apartment. So when the door bell rang, you opened the door - barely dressed - which grabbed his attention.

More Than A Helping Hand by @sotteoks

Hyunwoo x fem!reader (wc - 6.9k) roommates to lovers, friends to lovers, university AU, rich kid!reader - fluff, smut your university roommate Hyunwoo is everything you wanted and then some.

series

one shots

series

one shots

Just Touch by @sotteoks

Kihyun x fem!reader (wc - 2.5k) fwb - angst, smut the boundaries of your relationship with Kihyun always seem to get a little blurry in the heat of the moment.

Forgive Me by @multiphandomunnies

Kihyun x fem!reader (wc - 0.9k) idol!Kihyun, established relationship - angst, fluff, smut

merry go ´round by @1-800-shedevil

Kihyun x fem!reader (wc - 1k) newlyweds AU - fluff, smut

fighting fire by @seungkwansphd

Kihyun x fem!reader (wc - 6.7k) enemies to lovers, grumpy/sunshine trope - angst, fluff, light smut you’re more than happy to tag along on your friends’ lake trip when a spot opens up, but the host is out to get you. 8am hikes and full days of activities? no, you have a book to read!

series

love is · · · by @jeonstellate

Kihyun x fem!reader mafia AU, arranged marriage - angst, fluff in a world where [first name] can only safely love one other person besides themselves, a simple favor changes everything.

one shots

a little jealousy by @lubbuub

Hyungwon x fem!reader (wc - 0.7k) friends to lovers? - smut

Circles of Marigolds by @thebiasrekkers

Hyungwon x fem!reader (wc - 16.8k) demon!Hyungwon, supernatural AU - angst, hurt/comfort, mature Hyungwon is a fiend whose cynicism has him trapped inside of an invisible prison. He’s only known those ruined walls for countless amounts of years. Resigning himself to his fate, a curious stranger appears and throws his world into a small bubble of controlled chaos.

Vixen by @biffhofosho

Hyungwon x OC (wc - 8.5k) strangers to lovers - smut Inside this room, he finds his doom.

A Shot Through the Heart by @biffhofosho

Hyungwon x fem!reader (wc - 17k) strangers to lovers, meet cute - fluff, smut, crack(ish) “You can’t catch feelings sucking tequila out of a stranger's bellybutton.”

series

bad news, good news & good news, bad news by @seungkwansphd

Hyungwon x fem!reader (wc - 2.9k + 5.4k) enemies > fwb > lovers, frat!Hyungwon, university AU - angst, smut, fluff after a breakup, you find yourself in the company of your self-proclaimed nemesis. you know as well as anyone that you two don’t get along, but your bodies have something different in mind.

middle of the night by @jooberry

Hyungwon x fem!reader (wc - 3.5k + 4.7k) fwb to lovers?, idol!Hyungwon - fluff, angst(ish), smut part 1, part 2

one shots

versace on the floor by @domjaehyun

Jooheon x fem!reader (wc - 1k) - smut

series

one shots

Pineapples by @taexual

Changkyun x fem!reader (wc - 3.3k) best friends to lovers - fluff Changkyun has had a crush on you for years but he was sort of terrible at flirting. And yet, who could have known that a debate on whether fruit belonged on pizza would finally lead to some long-overdue confessions?

tell me by @seungkwansphd

Changkyun x fem!reader (wc - 4.2k) fwb to lovers, mutual pining - fluff, angst, smut you and changkyun have been hooking up for a while now. both of you want more, but neither is willing to say it without some reassurance from the other end.

feel better by @moonhoures

Changkyun x fem!reader (wc - 2.1k) established relationship - fluff, smut

Drink You Deeply by @catkyunie

Changkyun x fem!reader (wc - 4.8k) mafia AU - smut The tension has been building for weeks between Changkyun and the boss of their little syndicate. Stolen glances, timed brushes in passing. Finally, the tension snaps.

Waiting For You by @prettywordsyouleft

Changkyun x fem!reader (wc - 2.9k) friends to lovers, mutual? pining - angst, fluff

series

[mastermindmp3]

I continue my agenda that TTPD is secretly a western album, I swear—

God. This song. This song.

At this point, I should put a boiler plate disclaimer that I understand these songs are very much about Taylor's life, and this one especially so. It's all about scrutiny, about the press and the media circus of being a child in the spotlight, about not being able to grow up (you stay the same age you get famous at in the public's eye, to paraphrase Swift.) It's about the mental side effects of that, of the suffering she admits to hiding: I want to snarl and show you just how disturbed this has made me.

I think there is an expectation that people (any people, not just celebrities) should only show signs of distress when they are at rock bottom. If you're functioning, if you're getting out of bed most days and still brushing your teeth, etc, you aren't depressed enough to complain. Who's Afraid of Little Old Me is Swift striking back at that mindset, that actually, she shouldn't have to perform rock bottom ( because she seems done with performing peak happiness ) 24/7.

However, I really want to dive into the imagery of the song, and then maybe elaborate on it too much.

I'd be remiss to say that I'm writing this the day after she performed it live for the first time, and I am so utterly obsessed with the live performance. The lights, the mirrored platform giving the appearance of levitation, and say they didn't do it to hurt me—

BUT WHAT IF THEY DID?

In general, that section of the bridge is my favorite. I've already referenced it twice! To give context, the full line is: So tell me everything is not about me, but what if it is? And say they didn't do it to hurt me, but what if they did? I want to snarl and show you just how disturbed this has made me.

( That is followed by the line that has become a meme, and I wrote a whole post being annoyed at that. It will forever rot in my drafts. )

The speaker's description feels like hypervigilence, the kind caused by a life time of whispers and daggers behind your back. If you've ever been the center of a workplace drama, or the odd kid out, or the New Person in a club or activity, or just have anxiety, you know this feeling well. You know the feeling of asking - is this about me?

I love the phrasing of I want to snarl, because it shows that she is expected not to. She is expected to... Actually. Let me set this up.

There's a parallel to her country contemporary Miranda Lambert's Mama's Broken Heart. Lambert details allowing herself to be dramatic and heart broken after she feels like her life went up in flames. Where Swift's speaker enacts supernatural revenge, Lambert's is more mundane (cutting her bangs with scissors, hunting him down at the bar in their small town.) The bridge, here, describes the expectation that is put upon young women:

Powder your nose, paint your toes / Line your lips and keep 'em closed / Cross your legs, dot your eyes / And never let 'em see you cry

Swift's speaker, jilted and in pain not just from her lover (the who's who of who's that) but also from the scrutiny she's placed under (by her community, her friends, maybe even the press) has decided that she will no longer be the picture perfect woman. She will no longer bow to their whims, and is executed by public opinion for it.

So I leap from the gallows and I'll levitate down your street.

This very strong imagery.

Historically, women who have been hanged are expected to act a certain way. We often think of witch trials, but women have also been executed for crimes like murder and theft. They are to act penitent, to appeal for public approval with their final breaths. If they serve as anti-examples, begging for God's forgiveness and showing other women to behave, how to not make their mistakes, then they are granted posthumous grace.

But speaking of witch trials. Women and men who were accused of witchcraft were not witches, not in the modern sense of the word, or the historical one. Some were midwives, some were just poor women, old women who had things their neighbors wanted to take. Some were widows, and some were just disliked. It had nothing to do with their "crimes," and all to do with wanting to get rid of someone "unseemly."

The witch trials are often used as emblems of sexism - because they were. They were a tool of patriarchal oppression against women who fell outside the system, for one reason or another. ( I'd also like to note this oppression went doubly strong against women and men of color. It's a very loaded topic. )

The imagery also makes me think of Margaret Atwood's Half-Hanged Mary, a fictionalization of the real life Mary Webster. Webster was accused of witchcraft by Phillip Smith, and taken to be hanged in Hadley, Massachusetts. Mary, a woman in her approximate 60s, survived the whole night, was supposedly buried, and still emerged alive.

Atwood's fictionalization has the same spite, the same rage as Who's Afraid of Little Old Me, "Tough luck, folks, / I know the law: / you can't execute me twice / for the same thing. How nice." By the end of the poem, she has become the witch they accused of her being.

Here, the speaker of Who's Afraid of Little Old Me does the same. Almost implied to be a ghost, but the imagery also implies a witch, a woman too powerful for the rope to kill - she decides to return to haunt her accusers, her killers. She crashes their party (there were often parties or auctions of the women's belongings)—

Like a record scratch as I scream — who's afraid of little old me?

She, too, has become what they accused of her being. I am what I am because they trained me.

Phillip Smith, by the by, didn't do so well. He disappears from the account around 1683. In The History of... Massachusetts Bay... by one Mr. Hutchinson, "...it happened that she survived and the melancholy man died." Webster went on to live for 14 years after her hanging.

It felt a very apt comparison to make.

There are other metaphors at play here - a media circus going on in the background, references to the stage animals that have killed their handler for their mistreatment. The title is a reference to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, a play about how lives are so complex behind closed doors.

But in the end, I think it all furthers that same metaphor.

The pain of being in the public eye for too long has hurt the speaker in ways that the audience can't understand, because they have not lived it. Very few people are at that level of fame and scrutiny, and while a non-famous audience can relate in some ways, the speaker feels the only way to get the severity across is to invoke death and false hangings.

She is asking for them to see her as powerful, but also as human, and flawed, and hurt.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

All the books I reviewed in 2023 (Novels)

Next Tuesday (December 5), I'm at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, NC, with my new solarpunk novel The Lost Cause, which 350.org's Bill McKibben called "The first great YIMBY novel: perceptive, scientifically sound, and extraordinarily hopeful."

It's that time of year again, when I round up all the books I reviewed for my newsletter in the previous year. I posted 21 reviews last year, covering 31 books (there are two series in there!). I also published three books of my own last year (two novels and one nonfiction). A busy year in books!

Every year, these roundups remind me that I did actually manager to get a lot of reading done, even if the list of extremely good books that I didn't read is much longer than the list of books I did read. I read many of these books while doing physiotherapy for my chronic pain, specifically as audiobooks I listened to on my underwater MP3 player while doing my daily laps at the public pool across the street from my house.

After many years of using generic Chinese waterproof MP3s players – whose quality steadily declined over a decade – I gave up and bought a brand-name player, a Shokz Openswim. So far, I have no complaints. Thanks to reader Abbas Halai for recommending this!

https://shokz.com/products/openswim

I load up this gadget with audiobook MP3s bought from Libro.fm, a fantastic, DRM-free alternative to Audible, which is both a monopolist and a prolific wage-thief with a documented history of stealing from writers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff

All right, enough with the process notes, on to the reviews!

NOVELS

I. Temeraire by Naomi Novik

One of the finest pleasures in life is to discover a complete series of novels as an adult, to devour them right through to the end, and to arrive at that ending to discover that, while you'd have happily inhabited the author's world for many more volumes, you are eminently satisfied with the series' conclusion.

I just had this experience and I am still basking in the warm glow of having had such a thoroughly fulfilling imaginary demi-life for half a year. I'm speaking of the nine volumes in Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, which reimagines the Napoleonic Wars in a world that humans share with enormous, powerful, intelligent dragons.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/08/temeraire/#but-i-am-napoleon

II. Destroyer of Worlds by Matt Ruff

The Destroyer of Worlds is a spectacular followup to Lovecraft Country that revisits the characters, setting, and supernatural dread of the original. Country was structured as a series of linked novellas, each one picking up where the previous left off, with a different focal characters. Destroyer is a much more traditional braided novel, moving swiftly amongst the characters and periodically jumping back in time to the era of American slavery, retelling the story of the settlement of the Great Dismal swamp by escaped slaves.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/21/the-horror-of-white-magic/#anti-lovecraftian

III. Scholomance by Naomi Novik

The wizards of the world live in constant peril from maleficaria – the magic monsters that prey on those born with magic, especially the children. In a state of nature, only one in ten wizard kids reaches adulthood. So the wizarding world built the Scholomance, a fully automated magical secondary school that exists in the void – a dimension beyond our world. The Scholomance is also an extremely dangerous place – three quarters of the wizard children who attend will die before graduation – but it is much safer than life on the outside.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/29/hobbeswarts/#the-chosen-one

IV. Tsalmoth by Steven Brust

Longrunning Brust hero Vlad Taltos has been convinced to recount the story of how he and Cawti came to fall in love, and how they planned their marriage. This is quite an adventure – it plays out against the backdrop of a gang-war within the Jhereg organization, with Vlad in severe mortal peril that he can only avoid by uncovering an intricate criminal caper of crosses, double-crosses, smuggling and sorcery. But while Vlad is dodging throwing knives and lethal spells (or not!), what's really going on is that he and Cawti are falling deeply, profoundly, irrevocably in love. The romance that plays out among the blades and magic is more magical still, a grand passion that expresses itself through Nick-and-Nora wordplay and Three Musketeers swordplay.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/27/mannerpunk/#ask-anyone

V. Hopeland by Ian McDonald

Seriously what the fuck is this amazing, uncategorizable, unsummarizable, weird, sprawling, hairball of a novel? How the hell do you research – much less write – a novel this ambitious and wide-ranging? Why did I find myself weeping uncontrollably on a train yesterday as I finished it, literally squeezing my chest over my heart as it broke and sang at the same moment? The stars of Hopeland are members of two ancient, secret societies. There's Raisa Hopeland, who belongs to a globe-spanning, mystical "family," that's one part mutual aid, one part dance music subculture, and one part sorcerer (some Hopelanders are electromancers, making strange, powerful magic with Tesla coils). Amon is a composer and DJ who specializes in making music for very small groups of people – preferably just one person – that is so perfect for them that they are transformed by hearing it.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/30/electromancy/#the-grace

VI. The World Wasn't Ready For You by Justin Key

These are horror stories, though some of them are science fiction too, and more to the point, they're Black horror stories. In his afterword, Key writes about his early fascination with horror, the catharsis he felt in watching nightmares unspool on screen or off the page. And then, he writes, came the dawning recognition that the Black characters in these stories were always there as cannon-fodder, often nameless, usually picked off early. "Black horror" isn't merely parables about racism. In the deft hands of these writers – and now, Key – the stories are horror in which Blackness is a fact, sometimes a central one, and that fact is ever a complication, limiting how the characters move through space, interact with authority, and relate to one another.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/19/justin-c-key/#clarion-west-2015

VII. The Future by Naomi Alderman

A cracking, multi-point-of-view adventure novel about billionaires prepping for the end of the world. Three billionaires, the lords of thinly veiled analogs to Facebook, Google and Amazon, each getting ready in their own way. Stumbling into their midst comes Lai Zhen, a prepper influencer vlogger with millions of followers.

When Zhen becomes romantically entangled with Martha Einkorn, the top aide and chief-of-prepping for one of these billionaires, she finds herself in possession of an AI chatbot that is devoted to protecting a very small number of people from incipient danger. This chatbot determines that Zhen is being stalked by an assassin at a mall in Singapore, and guides her to safety.

The chatbot is a closely held secret among the tech billionaire cabal. It is designed to monitor world events and predict when The Event is imminent, be it disease, war, or other cataclysmic disaster. With the chatbot's predictive powers and its superhuman guidance, the billionaires, their families, and their closest confidantes will be able to slip away before the shit hits the fan, fly by different private jets to one or another luxury bunker, and wait out the apocalypse. Once the fires raging without have died down to embers, the chatbot's billionaire charges will emerge to assume their places as wise and all-powerful leaders of the next human civilization.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/07/preppers-of-the-red-death/#the-event

VIII. Liberty's Daughter by Naomi Kritzer

There's so much sf about "competent men" running their families with entrepreneurial zeal, clarity of vision and a firm confident hand. But there's precious little fiction about how much being raised by a Heinlein dad would *suuuck*. But it would, and in *Liberty's Daughter*, we get a peek inside the nightmare.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/21/podkaynes-dad-was-a-dick/#age-of-consent

Like I said, this has been a good year in books for me, and it included three books of my own:

I. Red Team Blues (novel, Tor Books US, Head of Zeus UK)

Martin Hench is 67 years old, single, and successful in a career stretching back to the beginnings of Silicon Valley. He lives and roams California in a very comfortable fully-furnished touring bus, The Unsalted Hash, that he bought years ago from a fading rock star. He knows his way around good food and fine drink. He likes intelligent women, and they like him back often enough. Martin is a—contain your excitement—self-employed forensic accountant, a veteran of the long guerilla war between people who want to hide money, and people who want to find it. He knows computer hardware and software alike, including the ins and outs of high-end databases and the kinds of spreadsheets that are designed to conceal rather than reveal. He’s as comfortable with social media as people a quarter his age, and he’s a world-level expert on the kind of international money-laundering and shell-company chicanery used by Fortune 500 companies, mid-divorce billionaires, and international drug gangs alike. He also knows the Valley like the back of his hand, all the secret histories of charismatic company founders and Sand Hill Road VCs. Because he was there at all the beginnings. Now he’s been roped into a job that’s more dangerous than anything he’s ever agreed to before—and it will take every ounce of his skill to get out alive.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865847/red-team-blues

II. The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation (nonfiction, Verso)

We can – we must – dismantle the tech platforms. We must to seize the means of computation by forcing Silicon Valley to do the thing it fears most: interoperate. Interoperability will tear down the walls between technologies, allowing users to leave platforms, remix their media, and reconfigure their devices without corporate permission. Interoperability is the only route to the rapid and enduring annihilation of the platforms. The Internet Con is the disassembly manual we need to take back our internet.

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con

III. The Lost Cause (novel, Tor Books US, Head of Zeus UK)

For young Americans a generation from now, climate change isn't controversial. It's just an overwhelming fact of life. And so are the great efforts to contain and mitigate it. Entire cities are being moved inland from the rising seas. Vast clean-energy projects are springing up everywhere. Disaster relief, the mitigation of floods and superstorms, has become a skill for which tens of millions of people are trained every year. The effort is global. It employs everyone who wants to work. Even when national politics oscillates back to right-wing leaders, the momentum is too great; these vast programs cannot be stopped in their tracks.

But there are still those Americans, mostly elderly, who cling to their red baseball caps, their grievances, their huge vehicles, their anger. To their "alternative" news sources that reassure them that their resentment is right and pure and that "climate change" is just a giant scam. And they're your grandfather, your uncle, your great-aunt. And they're not going anywhere. And they’re armed to the teeth. The Lost Cause asks: What do we do about people who cling to the belief that their own children are the enemy? When, in fact, they're often the elders that we love?

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865939/the-lost-cause

I wrote nine books during lockdown, and there's plenty more to come. The next one is The Bezzle, a followup to Red Team Blues, which comes out in February:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

While you're waiting for that one, I hope the reviews above will help you connect with some excellent books. If you want more of my reviews, here's my annual roundup from 2022:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/01/bookishness/#2022-in-review

Here's my book reviews from 2021:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/08/required-ish-reading/#bibliography

And here's my book reviews from 2020:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/08/required-reading/#recommended-reading

It's EFF's Power Up Your Donation Week: this week, donations to the Electronic Frontier Foundation are matched 1:1, meaning your money goes twice as far. I've worked with EFF for 22 years now and I have always been - and remain - a major donor, because I've seen firsthand how effective, responsible and brilliant this organization is. Please join me in helping EFF continue its work!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/01/bookmaker/#2023-in-review

[imagineanime2022]

The Heroes With A Hunter S/O

Keigo Takami X Reader Shota Aizawa X Reader Taishiro Toyomitsu X Reader

Requested: Anon

Request: I have read other writers doing stories about Supernatural and I thought it would be cool is the league of villains Dabi, Shigaraki, Spinner and the others had (or even pro heroes?) a S/O who is a “Supernatural Hunter” like Sam and Dean? They have the anti-possession tattoo, they drive the Chevy Impala, they have the hunting equipment in the back of the trunk, I thought that would be kind of awesome?

(I noticed that some writers were doing stories about it, and I thought it was kind of cool?)

(Y/F/H/D) - Your Favourite Hot Drink

General

Your family had been hunters since before quirks became mainstream in the world and so it was already well instilled in your family to teach their kids to fight and hunt the way that they had.

Demons and other supernatural creatures were a lot less likely because there were fewer humans that they could prey on with the development of quirks but ghosts were still very common so you still had the anti possession tattoo and all of the hunting weapons that you might need.

Your family and their profession became known to heroes early on, they always seemed to cross paths so by the time that you became a hunter, your family was well known and most people didn’t question you.

The general public still had no idea what your family did, so you still had an ungodly amount of fake IDs in your glove compartment.

You are good with first aid and emergency treatment because you got injured a lot and you had no one to help you.

Most of your family members were quirkless but you were one of the few that had been blessed with a quirk that made you a natural hunter, with enhanced senses and reflexes.

When the heroes couldn’t explain what happened you got called and that was how you met most of the more famous heroes but only some of them wanted you around and believed the work your family did. After all not everyone wants to believe that there was something more powerful than them.

Keigo Takami

🪶 Keigo met you on a mission, the commission finally decided that it wasn’t something that could be fixed by the No.2 hero, it was more in your area or expertise. 🪶Keigo loved having you around so much that you ended up dating, you were good together, you had fun and whenever you worked together the people in the area worried back you were very rarely serious. 🪶Keigo very rarely ot in your car so he doesn’t really know what’s in there, just that you are super protective of it. 🪶Keigo didn’t necessarily believe in ghosts and the like before meeting you but he had been with you enough times to know that you weren’t lying about what you believed and kept anything that you gave him for protection at least you can’t yell at him after that.

Keigo knocked on the window of your car and you jumped as you looked at him, you rolled down the window “how can I help you?” You asked. “You’ve been out all night. I thought you might want this.” He said as he held out a (Y/F/H/D) to you and you smiled. “Thank you.” You said softly as you took the drink from him. “So did you find anything?” Keigo asked. “No, I think this one might have been a false alarm for once.” You answered as he leaned down so that he could see you properly. “Are you on shift yet?” “Not yet.” He answered as his eyes caught something on the other side of the car, he stood up walking around the front of the feathers from his wings separating from his body as he opened the door and sat in the passenger side seat. “What are you doing?” You asked. “There’s something sticking out of the glove compartment.” He muttered, you rolled your eyes as you waited for him to continue, he opened the glove compartment pulling out the multitude of fake IDs. “What are these?” “Oh sometimes it’s easier to just use those instead of heading in with a hero especially if you're busy.” You explained. “Aww you only like working with me?” He teased and you rolled your eyes shaking your head. “You're one of the more understanding heroes, that's true, but sometimes before the surveyor for a building or interior designer grants more access then even your name can give me.” You explained as he nodded as he started flipping through the fake IDs. “Do people actually believe that you're from the hero association?” He asked. “Hmm? Oh yeah you’ll be surprised what people believe when you have a suit on and official looking ID cards.” You answered. “Now give me those and get out of my car, aren’t you supposed to be on shift now?” “Yeah, I guess.” He answered as his wings reformed as he stood outside the car. “Where are you going?” “Home to get some sleep.” You answered. “Go to my place, bigger bed, quieter around there.” Keigo said as he crouched now back by your window. “Alright.” You nodded and he smiled, leaning down his wings flaring to cover you both as he pressed a kiss to your lips before disappearing into the sky, you smiled as you started the car and headed to his apartment to get some rest.

Shota Aizawa/Eraserhead

🐛 Aizawa saw you more than he would have liked before you started dating, he didn’t believe a word you said and even with the confirmation from the heroes association that you were cleared to work he watched you closely. 🐛You never really cared that he didn’t believe you but it did give you satisfaction when he was involved in an investigation that proved everything you said was true, from there he was way more accepting and eventually you started dating. 🐛Aizawa hated that you would come home with injuries, he understood the work that you both did meant that you were injured a lot of the time but he hated that you’d rather deal with it yourself then see a professional. 🐛Aizawa loved your car though, you’d often drop him to the school in the mornings before he started staying there so he could catch a few winks on the way.

“Alright who cooked this because I need to pay them to cook for me for the rest of my miserable existence.” You said as you walked into the shared living area for all the kids Aizawa sighed as all of the kids looked at you. “Hi.” “Who the hell are you?” One of them asked. “Kacchan, that's rude.” Another scolded him. “I didn’t ask you Deku!” The same kid answered. “You're mildly volatile aren’t you?” You smirked as the blonde looked at you through the corner of his eye. “So what am I doing here?” “Oh, the kids were worried about ghosts so you're going to do your job and get rid of them.” Aizawa answered. “Hold on.” You put your hand up as you looked at him “you built this place right?” You asked. “I didn’t.” Aizawa smirked. “I mean the collective ‘we’, like the school that built this place, I mean that this building is a new building right?” You asked. “Yes.��� He answered. “Alright kids it’s super unlikely that there are any ghosts here, unless you’ve all killed someone recently, and buried them in the back garden.” You explained and they all looked at each other before looking at you. “Can’t you do like a seance or something and see if there are any ghosts here?” The pink haired kid asked. “I’m a supernatural hunter not a spirit medium, I don’t connect to the other side, I find evidence of them connecting to us and close the connection.” You explained. “I don’t even charge for it.” “You didn’t tell us that part Mr Aizawa.” The pink haired girl called out and you looked at him. “Wait, were you all ust testing me?” You asked. “You have to admit that the work you do seems unrealistic.” The boy with glasses on said and you narrowed your eyes at Aizawa. “And you didn’t think that it was worth telling them about the mission that we went on, what you saw?” You asked. “This was more entertaining.” He answered with a shrug. “I don’t know why we’re even still together.” You mumbled. “Together!?” The kids asked and you shrugged. “Looks like you’ve got some explaining to do.” You smirked as you walked towards the door. “Where are you going?” Aizawa asked. “Duty calls.” You said waving your phone before leaving him with all of the angry kids who wanted answers.

Taishiro Toyomitsu/Fat Gum

🍡 Taishiro is probably one of the most accepting heroes, he was happy to work with you even with knowledge of the work that you do. That was the reason that you became so close with him and likely ended up dating. 🍡 Taishiro got to know what it looked like when you were having a bad day, when you were having a good day. The jobs that broke you or built you up and learned to react accordingly. 🍡 Since you didn’t actually have work hours like he did, his office was always open to you, he even offered you the secretary job so he could see you all the time, he promised that you could leave whenever you needed. You turned him down because office work just really wasn’t your thing. 🍡 Taishiro treasured the time that you spent together and worried every time you left for a job, just as you worried when he went on missions.

Taishiro hadn’t expected to see you laying across the sofa in his office with your arm over your face “Hey Sugar are you okay?” He asked as he closed the door, in his smaller form he walked over crouching in front of you and intertwining your fingers together before slowly moving your arm so that he could see your eyes “there you are.” “Hi.” You said softly. “Are you tired?” He asked. “Yeah…” You nodded. “Is that all that’s wrong?” He asked. “Do I have to talk about it?” You asked. “No of course not, just tell me what you need me to do.” He said, you didn’t say anything, just leaned forward pulling him on top of you wrapping your arms around him tighter, he easily manoeuvred you both so that you rested on his chest as he gently ran his hands through your hair. “Thank you.” You said softly. “Always.” He promised pressing a kiss to the top of your head, Tai didn’t need to know what you had seen, only that it had affected you in some way and he was there to help you sort through it even if that meant doing nothing apart from sitting there for hours with nothing but the two of you.

Request Here!!