#my actual usage was only $17

[ravioliwings]

sooooo sick of utility "delivery" fees

[lancestrollsgf]

# THE BETTER NORRIS ! F1 GRID X ADOPTED NORRIS! READER, SMAU

introduction master list request list

part one, part two, part three.

# WARNINGS : cussing, i know nothing about the parents of lando so everything is fictional. lowercase intended, spelling errors (english isn’t my first language). lando's actual siblings are not really mentioned in this since I don't know anything about them. reader hitchhikes. an excessive usage of emojis such as “🙄, 🤫, 😝, 😭,😊,😉”. reader is 17 in the story btw (the age isn’t really mentioned so i guess you can imagine it however you want)

# SUMMARY: the adventures of the formula one driver lando norris adopted sibling, y/n norris.

# AUTHORS NOTE : this is my first smau (that i’m posting). there’s no meaning behind this story i really just wanted to make it for fun. backstory for how reader (you) were adopted is not explained. reader is kinda of portrayed as bisexual, sorry only like three times. pretend lando is a soccer/football fan (and likes messi). some of these scenarios/comments actually happened to face claim.

# FACE CLAIM : marian guevara/theatomicbabe on instagram (i love her so much)

VOTE FOR FUTURE LOVE INTEREST (now closed)

— instagram !

liked by landonorris, charles_leclerc and 529,289 others

thebetternorris visited jamaica once again, spent every moment with the children and made memorial memories that i will remember forever, thank you @junglenonprofit for making this event happen🤍🇯🇲

landonorris: very cool hair style in the last photo is that your new look?

-> thebetternorris: maybe it is. you should also try finding a new look instead of looking like a washed up mop you have on your head that you call curls

-> carlossainz55: ay no, she got you with that one 🤣

-> landonorris: I WAS LITERALLY BEING NICE. WHY DID YOU COME AFTER ME??

landonorris: since when did you go to jamaica???

-> thebetternorris: since two days ago, man keep up with the times 🙄🙄

maxverstappen1: y/n does your mom know you’re in jamaica??

-> thebetternorris: no.. don’t tell her, she doesn’t have instagram 🤫

-> ciscawauman: y/n norris.. you said you were with friends for this week?

-> thebetternorris: hi mama 😊😊 im with bsf/n. but im on my way home! (max emilian verstappen this is all your fault, im coming after you)

-> maxverstappen1: sorry y/n.. hi mrs.wauman!

-> ciscawauman: hello max 👋 y/n please don’t threaten someone through comments

username1: y/n’s interactions with the drivers will never fail to make me laugh

username2: i love you y/n!!!

username3: will forever appreciate how y/n is not pr trained. her posts and comments heal me

-> mclaren: that will change very soon, sadly.

-> thebetternorris: @.mclaren YOU WILL NEVER CATCH ME ALIVE

lewishamilton: good work, little norris, very proud of you, keep doing good in the world 🥰

-> thebetternorris: I LOVE U SIR LEWIS

-> lewishamilton: love you too

-> landonorris: lewis please ignore her

username4: y/n’s reply to lewis’ comment is so real

username5: the third picture is so cute 🥹

view all 5201 comments

april 21, 2024 (dates are for the post above ^^)

liked by landonorris, oscarpiastri, and 661,201 others

thebetternorris 🍸🪩🌃🍾

landonorris: who is that guy in the last photo?

-> thebetternorris: i have no clue, i js chose it because i looked good. i think he was trynna lure me into a cult?

-> landonorris: WHAT?? CALL ME RIGHT NOW

username4: you can always rely on y/n to never disappoints with her outfits 😫😫

oscarpiastri: how come you never invite me to party out with you?

-> thebetternorris: because you steal all the girls and guys too 😕😕 also you’re too old

-> oscarpiastri: i’m barely 23??? and thank you or sorry idk man, you confuse me

username6: y/n’s life is so entertaining

username7: i wanna be like y/n when i grow up

username8: my goal in life is to party like y/n does

view all 6229 comments

april 25, 2024

liked by landonorris, charles_leclerc, girl3, and 786,929 others

thebetternorris no caption 🌞 👤: @.girl1 @.girl2 @.girl3 @.guy1

girl3: i had so much fun y/n see you soonnn

-> thebetternorris: me too! see you soon 😊😊

-> landonorris: y/n what is this???? what do you mean see you soon???? ANSWER MY CALLS Y/N

landonorris: who are those girls and guy on the last two photos???

-> charles_leclerc: leave your sister alone, as if you weren’t doing crazy stuff this week either 🤣

-> thebetternorris: @.landonorris they have names you know, you shouldn’t just call them “those girls”. i thought mama taught you better. 🤨🤨

-> landonorris: @thebetternorris sorry..?? but you didn’t answer the question.. also please @charles_leclerc don’t expose my doings of this week onto the internet

username9: you’re the loml in a another universe 😔

-> thebetternorris: why not this universe 😉

-> danielriccardo: damn little norris has more rizz than her brother 😭 @.landonorris

-> landonorris: why do i keep getting attacked 💔

username10: having the caption as “no caption” is having a caption

-> thebetternorris: 🤓🤓

username11: does y/n like girls cause that third photo is a bit suspicious LMAOO

-> username12: i think so, especially because of her response to oscar's comment on her previous post

view all 3620 comments

april 27, 2024

liked by landonorris, newyorkcityfc, and 887,292 others

thebetternorris thank you @.newyorkcityfc for inviting me to document the New York City fc vs charlotte game. visiting the new york city fc game made me want to try out soccer, turns out it might be time that i change career path 😝

landonorris: you’re in new york??? since when. and @.newyorkcityfc just invited you???

-> thebetternorris: since two days ago and is that an insult?

-> landonorris: who are you staying with?

-> thebetternorris: man stop asking so many questions 😕

charles_leclerc: weren’t you in jamaica like less than a week ago?

-> thebetternorris: weren’t you in china less than a week ago? why you judging where im traveling, i don’t judge you. you literally fly somewhere each week for your go karting 🙄

username13: y/n’s post are so unpredictable each time 😭 she was just helping children in jamaica and is now at a soccer game in nyc

-> thebetternorris: gotta keep y’all on your toes 🤫

-> username13: toes 🤤

-> thebetternorris: NAH GTFO LMAOOO

username14: y/n becoming a soccer player when??

username15: all of the norris siblings are so talented

view all 2928 comments

april 29, 2024

liked by landonorris, maxverstappen1, and 997,929 others

thebetternorris miami grand prix day 2 & day 3 🤙. found out some guy with the same last name as me won? idk but congrats @.landonorris

username16: dang her brother just won his first race and she doesn’t even make a post about him?

-> username17: for real, like everyone congratulated him right after but not even his own sister

-> username18: @.username17 well she is adopted 🤣

username19: it was so fun meeting you y/n!!!

-> thebetternorris: thank you pretty

username20: thank you for the water y/n 😊😊

-> thebetternorris: of courseee, had to give you that rich voss water 😉😉

-> landonorris: you gave a stranger water?? when?? you were with me the whole time???

-> thebetternorris: hey man you gotta start appreciating the people that support you, he was a worker ✊🏼

username21: hey i was the guy you were signing “way 2 sexy” with lolll

-> thebetternorris: AYY MY MANNN, i posted u on tiktok look at it 😉

jamescharles: omg i met you!! you’re gorgeous 🥰

-> thebetternorris: JAMESS HEYYY, i put you in my tiktok 🤙🤙

username22: omg you hugged me, remember i picked you up 😭

-> thebetternorris: I REMEMBER YOUU, that hug was great thanks man i needed that 🫵🏼 posted a full tiktok abt you

username23: your first outfit is so art teacher-coded

-> thebetternorris: is this a compliment or?? thank you though 😭

-> landonorris: @.username23 THATS WHAT I TOLD HER

landonorris: the number of people commenting that they met you is insane. @thebetternorris

-> thebetternorris: what can i say i'm js that guy 😼

view all 6282 comments

may 5, 2024

liked by landonorris, maxverstappen1, and 1,000,010 others

thebetternorris congrats to @.landonorris for winning your first grand prix, in america 🦅🇺🇸, i’m so so proud! turns out having an adopted sister isn't so bad for your racing career after all 😜. btw to everyone in the comments section getting their gears all tangled because I didn't congratulate him sooner, chill out. I was busy practicing my own racing skills. yk, just in case he needs some real competition 😴 sorry @.maxverstappen1. i’m so proud of you, i'm forever grateful that i got picked from the “bin” i was found according to you 18 years ago, and it resulted in me being your sister :) 👤: @.landonorris @.oscarpiastri

landonorris: thank you for the congratulations, but did you really have to use those photos of me?

-> thebetternorris: damn you got your congrats just be grateful man 🙄

oscarpiastri: so this is why lando was crying, btw thank you for using a good photo of me

-> thebetternorris: OSCAR ARE YOU SERIOUS. @.landonorris YOU CRIED?? LMFAOOO

-> landonorris: @.oscarpiastri YOU SNITCH.

maxverstappen1: thank goodness you’re not a f1 driver, you’d be some real competition. we need to try go karting together soon 👍🏼

-> thebetternorris: i know this is a joke but thank u max 😔 we should go karting soon so i can beat you at it 😈

-> username24: i would pay to see y/n kart against max

username25: i don't even know anything about f1 but this made me tear up

username26: y/n getting hate for not congratulating her brother is insane

username27: people getting mad about y/n not congratulating lando as if they know anything about them

username28: y/n was one of the first people to congratulate lando, yall are hating a literal kid for smth so little 💀

view all 4593 comments

may 7, 2024

liked by landonorris, leomessi, 1,102,920 others

thebetternorris pov that one unemployed friend on a tuesday (saturday). thank you @.mles for the invite and for letting me meet the goat @.leomessi 🩷🩷

joyboy: finally found someone that is everywhere like me

-> thebetternorris: paris fashion week next 😉?

-> landonorris: NO???

username29: IS THAT LIONEL MESSI??

-> thebetternorris: that’s literally oomf what are you talking abt 🙄

ueername30: y/n is literally everywhere but home

username31: y/n's smile 🥰🥰

carlossainz55: Real Madrid CF>>>

-> thebetternorris: carlos get outta here 😕😕

username32: te encantaría ser un hombre nunca lo vas a ser y eso es lo que te jode (you’d love to be a man and you’ll never be a man and that fucks with you)

-> thebetternorris: @.username32 me encanta ser mujerrr (i love being a womann)

-> username32: @thebetternorris pues lo disimulas fatal (well you hide it well)

-> thebetternorris: @.username32 que es ser mujer para ti? (what is being a woman to you?)

-> username33: SHE GOT YOU THERE 💀@.username32

landonorris: you meeting messi before me insane 😔

leomessi: gracias por tu apoyo 🩷 que chistoso la caption 🤣 (thank you for your support 🩷 how funny the caption is)

-> landonorris: oh you’re joking.

-> thebetternorris: @.leomessi 🩷🩷 (i’m so normal abt this..)

username33: i wanna be y/n's camera man

username34: who is taking these pictures of y/n

-> thebetternorris: for this game, some guy named jarvis took these photos idk but we're homies now

-> landonorris: WHO IS JARVIS???

view all 12920 comments

june 5, 2024

liked by landonorris, maxverstappen1, and 1,293,021 others

thebetternorris i look sunburnt, swear it's just the lights 👤: bustarhymes

bustarhymes: it was nice meeting you little norris

-> thebetternorris: it was great meeting you man, your music is great

danielriccardo: mate i think you need a new cameraman because most of these are blurry...

-> thebetternorris: my pictures look better than yours, you're letting your jealousy show

landonorris: nah bro how did you meet busta rhymes before me.

-> thebetternorris: because i'm better than you

username35: you dead ass look like han jisung omg

-> thebetternorris: thank you, idk who that is but i get that a lot 😭

username34: y/n looks so much like young miko it’s insane

charles_leclerc: you look scary in the first picture

-> thebetternorris: i saw your paparazzi picture from the beach, your shoulders look scarier, learn how to put on sunscreen 😬

username36: y/n’s style is so 🥰

view all 5934 comments

june 30, 2024

liked by landonorris, charles_leclerc, and 1,304,393 others

thebetternorris back at the big apple 🍎🏙️

itsyoungmiko: hi twinn

-> thebetternorris: hey twin, we should meet up soon

lancestroll: how do you travel everywhere?

-> thebetternorris: walking and hitchhiking

-> lancestroll: hitchhiking? be safe norris

-> thebetternorris: yea hitchhiking. not all of us have private planes that our daddy pays for🙄(just joking, love u @lawerence_stroll pls give me money)

-> lancestroll: your brother literally flies private. please don't ask my dad for money 😭

lawerence_stroll: hello y/n, how much money do you need?

-> thebetternorris: HI MR.STROLL, thank you for the offer I was just joking, you're so nice. see you at the next gp 😊

username37: who is that on the last photo?

-> thebetternorris: THATS ME. LMFAOOO

username38: ain't no way you're in new york city rn, you were in florida a day ago.

-> thebetternorris: that's what hitchhiking is for, duh

-> username38: you dead ass hitchhiked a ride from florida to new york city. that's like 20 hours...

-> thebetternorris: “that’s like 20 hours…” ☝🏼🤓

username39: are you gonna go to the british gp?

-> thebetternorris: yes sadly 💔 lando is forcing me against my will 😕

oscarpiastri: don’t forget my keychain pls

-> thebetternorris: ofc man ill give it to you soon 🤙

zhouguanyu24: very cool pictures y/n and cool outfit

-> thebetternorris: HI ZHOUUU, i got you something for you and sweet corn 🥰 thank u for the compliment 😙

username40: future mom lore is gonna go insane

-> thebetternorris: 😈

landonorris: y/n are you ever not in the US. come back home..

-> thebetternorris: USA 🇺🇸🦅🦅

-> logansargeant: USA USA 🇺🇸🦅🦅

-> landonorris: @.logansargeant logan please don’t lure my sister into your cult that you americans have

-> logansargeant: @.landonorris we don’t have a cult in america 😭 well… don’t quote me on that 😔

-> username41: “you americans” is crazy 💀

view all 4402 comments

july 1, 2024

comment to be tagged in the next part 🤫🤫

[python333]

task force 141 reacting to [reader] giving them a 'happy father's day' card — python333

— — — —

synopsis you give the tf141 boys some happy father's day cards!!

relationships platonic!taskforce 141 & younger!reader.

characters cap. price, soap, ghost.

warnings 2nd person pov [you/yours/yourself], usage of c/n [code name/call sign], reader is intended to be around 16/17-20/21 but can be interpreted as older as long as they're below 24 (just so that the headcanons make more sense), maybe ooc?

note i'm so sorry but there's no gaz in this one BUT i can explain why!! i was doing my research (going through three different tumblr posts) to figure out the actual age of each character and gaz is apparently 24?? in new updates or whatever?? anyway, even before i found that out, i could only ever imagine writing him as an older brother, simply because he doesn't feel fatherly to me but still has those protecive-familial vibes so if yall want me to write something on him being ur older brother then feel free to request/reply/comment or whatever and i will! :3 this is all comfort no hurt and pure fluff so enjoy!!

JOHN “BRAVO SIX” PRICE

➥ OH GOD.

➥ man i don’t even have daddy issues and i’m crying.

➥ gives you that one dad smile he has—y’all know the one. don’t pretend you don’t—and thanks you for it.

➥ gives you a lil hug too because why not?

➥ tears up just the tiniest bit but it’s pretty unnoticeable but i need you to know that it’s there.

➥ either keeps it propped up on his desk, in one of the drawers of his desk, or puts it in a small frame and puts that on or in his desk.

➥ definitely reads it at least once a week.

➥ he’s so genuinely flattered by it i think that after you leave his office he’d tear up a bit.

➥ you thought he was acting as a father figure to you before?

➥ be prepared for him to take it to a whole nother level.

➥ starts getting you cheesy birthday cards after you start giving him father’s day cards.

➥ is he a father biologically? no. is he one mentally, emotionally, and spiritually? absolutely.

—

You were reasonably pretty nervous.

It wasn’t ever really a secret that you and Price had some sort of father-child-like relationship, what with the amount of hair ruffles, head pats, shoulder pats, etc. that you’d received from him and the swatting at his hand with your own that you had given back. But none of that took away the nervousness you had when you gave Price a father’s day card for the first time.

It’s not that you thought that he would be weirded out by it, you just had a small habit of overthinking things, and this happened to be one of those things. The card didn’t say too much inside of it, a simple ‘happy father’s day!’ and a sentence you wrote that mentioned that you were grateful to know him. That’s it. That’s all it was. And yet, your hand shook as you held it, the other hand knocking on the door of Price’s office.

He nodded in greeting and opened it, and stepped out of the way to let you walk in and sit in front of his desk. He sat at his usual seat after shutting the door, and you set the card in your lap, not wanting him to see it just yet.

“Is there any particular reason why you wanted to come into my office?” Price asked, breaking the silence. You took a deep breath and nodded before you quickly handed over the card, slipping it onto his side of the desk. He took a good look at it for a moment, reading the ‘happy father’s day!’ on the front and looking over the cheesy illustration on the cover. You anxiously waited for him to say something as he simply stared at it, before he picked it up and opened it, reading the short few words that were written on the inside.

You watched as his expression melted into a softer one, and he stared at the card for another moment before wordlessly getting up. Before you could say anything, or question anything, he knelt down to the level of the chair you were sitting in and hugged you. You were frozen with surprise before you hugged him back, loosely wrapping your arms over his shoulders, a little confused by the hug but appreciating the embrace nonetheless. He rubbed your back for a quick moment before standing back up straight and patting your shoulder.

”Thank you,” He said, smiling down at you. “I really appreciated that, kiddo.”

Oh, wow. I don’t know why, but I think I might start crying. “Yeah—yeah, of course,” You’d replied, quickly getting up and giving Price a quick hug before swiftly walking to the door, “I’ll just, uh, I’ll be in my room. Or, actually, no, I’m gonna go—I’m gonna go bother Soap in his office, so if you need me I’ll be in there okaybyeCaptainI’llseeyoulater!” You rushed out, not looking back as you closed the door behind you.

Price had blinked at the door for a moment before huffing out a small laugh and sitting back down in his chair, looking at the card you’d given him one last time before sighing and letting himself tear up a bit. Eventually, after just sitting there and staring at the card, he unlocked one of the few locked drawers at the bottom of his desk and put the card there, for safekeeping.

—

JOHN “SOAP” MACTAVISH

➥ he’s so excited when he reads that card.

➥ he’s so flattered?? and is so happy?? and oh my god he might pass out?? from all the positive emotions he feels??

➥ be careful with what you say because you might break him beyond repair.

➥ it’s like you’ve given a puppy it’s first treat, honestly.

➥ won’t cry but is very close to!!

➥ will definitely show off the card to everyone.

➥ when i say everyone i mean EVERYONE.

➥ he will talk everyone’s ear off about it, no matter who they are or what they’re doing, hell, the man could be pissing with his dick out at the urinals and everything and he’ll still be ranting to the poor soul in the bathroom about what a sweetheart you are and how you gave him a father’s day card.

➥ he starts calling you ‘lamb’ and ‘duckie’ after the whole ordeal.

➥ no i didn’t ask chatgpt for terms of endearment scottish parents use for their children haha!!

➥ he buys a corkboard just to pin the card to in his office.

➥ like it’s literally just in the middle, nothing else on the corkboard, just that singular father’s day card.

➥ the whole thing is just reserved for father’s day cards tbh. he hopes to fill it up with as many cards as you’ll give him, and if you only give him the one, then damn it, the corkboard’s only gonna have one thing on it and whoever questions it can mind their damn business.

—

You didn’t really know what to expect with Soap when you gave him the card.

You felt pretty confident giving it to him, knowing the guy could probably receive a rock with googly eyes on it from you and still cry tears of joy knowing you gave it to him of all people, so giving this card to him was no big deal, right?

You found him in the recreational center, lounging on the couch, reading a book—shocking, I know—and quietly reading the words out loud to himself. The moment you had entered the center, though, he looked up from his book and nodded in greeting at you with a smile on his face and watched as you walked over to him.

Before he could say anything, you quickly put the card in his lap and watched as he looked up at you, a surprised and amused expression on his face.

“What’s this?” He asked, not looking down at the card just yet.

“Read it,” You’d insisted, gesturing towards the card in his lap. He blinked at you for a moment before muttering, “Alright, then,” under his breath and looking down at the card. He picked it up and read the three short words on the front and looked over the illustration on the cover, and the moment the words registered in his brain, his face broke out into a grin and he looked up at you.

“Aww, this is sae sweet,” Soap gushed, “Thank ye!”

He got up before you could talk and hugged you tightly, lifting you off the ground a bit, cooing, “Ye're jist the sweetest, ma God, when did ye get the card?”

“I got it a while ago,” You had admitted, “Decided to give it to you now.”

Soap set you down and put both of his hands on your shoulders, gently rubbing circles into them with his thumb, looking down at you with an elated grin, "I'm gonnae hang this up in ma office—I'll get a corkboard an' everything, jist for this."

You looked up at him with a confused, but amused look on your face, asking, “And you’re just gonna hang that card on there?”

He nodded in confirmation and responded, “Aye, it'll be deid center, naething else on there."

—

SIMON “GHOST” RILEY

➥ oh my goodness.

➥ the moment you hand him the card, it’s like he already knows what it is without reading it.

➥ probably thinks it’s a joke at first.

➥ when he realizes that you’re serious he straight up tears up.

➥ like in front of you and everything he’ll tear up.

➥ “... Are you crying?” ghost, tearing up and literally about to start sobbing, "No.”

➥ he treasures that thing and would literally cease to exist if he ever lost it or if it got destroyed.

➥ won’t flaunt it at all, instead he keeps it in the pocket of a jacket he never wears anymore.

➥ if you ever give him more cards, he’ll consider getting a box to keep them in.

➥ he’s always called you ‘kid’ but after this he starts calling you ‘kiddo’.

➥ THERE’S A DIFFERENCE. I CANNOT TELL YOU WHAT IT IS BUT THERE IS A DIFFERENCE.

➥ listen kiddo is more affectionate and its softer and its not as playful as kid its more personal and and and [explodes]

➥ the others notice the small change in behavior he has towards you (being more lighthearted with his teasing, generally being less cold with you, etc.) and will tease him endlessly about it.

➥ by others i mean soap and gaz. those two team up and tease him to death.

➥ he could care less though!! he tells himself that they’re idiots anyway and that his behavior hasn’t changed that much.

➥ he’s in denial and i think that him and me are the same fr.

—

You had practically searched every corner, crevice, nook, and cranny of the base searching for Ghost. When you finally found him, he was in the armory and weapons room cleaning the barrel of his rifle, hyperfocused on wiping away the gunk on the gun. You stopped by the door, hesitating in giving him the card. It really shouldn’t be that hard, You thought, What’s the worst that could happen?

You were aware that there were many things that could happen, most of which were bad, but you ignored them for the sake of building up your confidence to give him the card. You stood there for a while, just sort of staring at him, before he—not even looking up from his gun—called out to you with a simple yet firm, “Do you need something?”

You probably could’ve died right there, his firm voice almost completely shattering your confidence for reasons you couldn’t specify, but you instead cleared your throat and walked out of the doorway and completely into the room. You walked over to him and before he could ask any further questions you held the card out to him, your hand having a small tremble to it, an uncomfortably visible display of your nervousness.

He stared at the card for a moment before setting down the cloth he was using to clean his gun and grabbing it, reading the front for a moment before huffing out a small laugh and looking up at you to tease you for it. He was going to tell you what a ‘funny’ joke it was, to tell you to just go do whatever work you’re probably skipping out on when he sees the look on your face that tells him that you’re pretty serious about the card.

He looked back down at the card and read it again, the words ‘happy father’s day’ echoing through his mind as he opened it. He read the few short words on the inside of the card and the shitty drawing of a ghost right next to one that was scribbled out—because of course you had to use pen and weren’t satisfied with the first ghost you drew even though Ghost could make out through the scribbles that they practically looked the same.

You were pretty nervous the longer the silence stretched out, and you were about to take back the card and go jump off a cliff to avoid ever looking at Ghost again when suddenly you hear a sniffle.

“Are you… are you crying?” You’d asked, more confused than nervous now, watching as Ghost shook his head negatively and continued to stare at the inside of the card.

“No,” He answered, sniffling again.

“... You sure?” You’d asked again, far less nervous now, your tone becoming more teasing.

“Positive.” Ghost said firmly, though his voice had wavered a bit. He looked up at you and reached his hand up to give you a pat on the shoulder, muttering, “Thank you for that, kiddo.”

"Yeah, no problem," You had said back, smiling down at Ghost before taking a step back, "I'll leave you to keep cleaning your gun, or whatever."

Ghost had simply nodded and looked back at the table where your card and his gun laid, and you didn't stay long enough to watch him tear up all over again at the sight of the letter.

[winterrrnight]

hi edith! i love your writing so much 🫶 especially the dynamic scholar!reader with rafe. can you make more please 🥺🩷 but with mean!rafe or fratboy!rafe

ahhh thank you for your request and your kind words anon 🫶I hope you like reading this :) I went with frat!rafe because to be honest mean!rafe isn’t much of my thing 😅 let me know your views on this if you feel like <3

late night sessions

PAIRING: frat!soft!rafe cameron x gn!scholar!reader

SUMMARY: rafe helps you back in bed after you accidentally fall asleep while studying.

WARNINGS: reader is a stem student (or basically anything except business because that is rafe’s major); established relationship; minimal usage of nicknames like babe; minimal swearing; rafe is soft for reader; fluff

EDITH SPEAKS: love love love scholar!reader with my whole heart 🥰 I’m so glad I’m getting to write them again. (manifesting major scholar!reader vibes for myself for my upcoming college year 😚) read my original scholar!reader blurb here <3

please reblog if you liked reading this! feedback is always appreciated 🪸

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It’s like you are completely cut off from the outside world; your books, notes, flashcards, and your laptop surround you on your desk as you find yourself knee deep in this semester’s syllabus, your mind already working on an overdrive for midterms – even when you still have a whole week before the dreaded exams approach.

But your boyfriend? He’s totally opposite. 

Exams don’t even begin mattering to him until one night before the actual exam day when he practically rawdogs some borrowed notes, not knowing what half of the content means but he’s cramming and gulping down information as if his life depends on it. And then guess what? He always gets a minimum of 50% of the total marks on each of his exams, making him the cockiest bastard to ever exist. 

 “See babe? This shit’s easy as fuck. Passed with all flying colors ’n shit,” He grins, practically shoving his grade sheet in your face. You always have to swallow down the urge to smack that irritatingly perfect face of his, blowing off that smirk right off his face. 

“Shut it, your business shit’s easy to pass alright?” You grumble under your breath. You very well know business isn’t easy, but the fact that Rafe is passing it with pretty decent scores by studying only one night before makes you think differently.

Your current focus on your notes is broken when you hear a knock at your dorm door. Begrudgingly, you yell out a ‘come in’, not moving your attention from your notes for even a split second. You hear the door open and close from the front of the room, and when you feel a figure approach you from the back and wrap their arms around you, you know who it is. 

“Hey babe,” Rafe mumbles in your ear, pressing a soft kiss to your cheek as he rests his chin on your shoulder, looking at all your books and notes surrounding you. 

“Hey,” You mumble back, your focus not withering at all. 

“Missed you tons today,” He mumbles, gently caressing your neck with his fingertips before nuzzling against the soft skin, his lips beginning to press slow, languid kisses.

“Yeah same,” You mutter, dragging your laptop closer as you open the file you want to access, your entire body, mind and soul completely unphased by Rafe. 

Rafe sighs as he presses one last kiss to the side of your neck before lifting his head up. “Already studying for your midterms?” He says, reluctantly stepping back from you to flop down on your bed, his gaze never leaving you. He already knows the answer to his question: you wouldn’t be the person he’s so deeply infatuated with if you aren’t giving a head start to your head start for your exam preparations.

“Uh huh,” Comes out your quiet voice as he watches you, your brows furrowed as you scroll through something on your laptop. He trains his gaze over to the small digital clock sitting on the corner of your desk, flashing the numbers 11:17 in a bright white. 

“Babe it’s getting late, come sleep with me,” He says, beginning to scoot over to make space for you, but your next words make him stop. 

“It’s okay Rafe you sleep, I’ll be there in a few,” 

Few. It can mean anything in your dictionary. It can mean 40 seconds, or 28 minutes, or 3 hours, or the entire night.

Rafe lets out a quiet sigh as he thinks of coaxing you to get in bed with him again, but he knows it’s not going to work. 

“You better not ‘accidentally’ pull an all-nighter again you hear me?” He says, a tinge of sternness in his voice as he fluffs the pillows once before dropping his head on them. 

You don’t say anything, just make a quick move to turn off the main light of the room and turn on your desk lamp instead. The room plunges into darkness except for the soft glow of your desk light, illuminating your desk and you sitting in front of it.

Rafe turns over on his side to look at you, his hand under his head. He watches you study quietly, your facial features glowing under the desk light and the light from your laptop screen. He tried to keep his eyes open for as long as he can, but the occasional typing of the keyboard, pen scratching against the paper as you write, and your barely audible whispering begin to lull him into a sleep which he finds harder and harder to pull himself from. 

↶ೃ✧˚. ❃ ↷ ˊˎ-

Rafe shifts in his position, letting out a soft grunt under his breath as he turns over on his side after being on his back. He squints his eyes as he feels a certain light hit his heavy, closed eyelids. He forces them to open, his vision blurry for the first few seconds. As his vision sets and his mind begins to gain consciousness, he realizes your desk light is still on. 

You are crouched over in the chair, your head resting on the table in your arms. Your notes are scattered around and your laptop is open but now under sleep mode. Rafe darts his attention over to the clock, and the numbers 2:32 flash back at him. 

“Jesus,” He mutters under his breath, helping his sleep-ridden body up from the bed. He walks over to your hunched position and gently shakes your shoulder. 

“Babe, babe come sleep in the bed,” His raspy voice comes out. For a moment, you don’t move, but after a few gentle shakes you do, slowly lifting your head up from your arms. 

“What…” You mumble sleepily, your eyes barely open. You are just as sleepy as Rafe, if not more. 

Rafe shuts your laptop close and switches off the desk light, the only light now coming through the small window of your dorm. His hand finds your arm and he gently pulls you up from the chair. 

“Come sleep in bed,” He repeats, his voice still groggy as he helps you up from the desk chair. Your extremely tired body doesn’t put up a fight even once and you let him lead you over to the bed. 

Rafe helps you lie down and he lays next to you, his arms wrapping around your frame in an instant. You succumb to his embrace the very next second and snuggle closer to him, resting your head on his chest. 

Both of you fall asleep after your shared moment of momentary awakeness, your sleepy body tucked snugly against his for the rest of the night. 

↶ೃ✧˚. ❃ ↷ ˊˎ-

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[bvidzsoo]

Daemonium (teaser)

﹢﹑⟡ Daemonium → evil spirit [Latin] ﹢﹑⟡

Pairing: demon!Jung Wooyoung x female reader

Genre: supernatural!au, university!au, demon!au, crack somehow too~

Rating: nc-17

Warning: cursing, attempts of murder, descriptions of death, usage of witchcraft, suggestive

Summary: ﹢﹑⟡ Starting university and moving in with an unknown dormmate should've been stressful, not to you though. You couldn't wait to finally break free from home and live life freely. But isn't it weird that you start having near death experiences quite often after you meet your dormmate, Jung Wooyoung? ﹢﹑⟡

﹢﹑⟡ Read the story here! ﹢﹑⟡

“Yuyu, you can’t even pinpoint one instance when he’s tried to kill me, stop being dramatic—”

“Oh, I can’t pinpoint one instance?!” Yunho’s eyebrows angrily shot up, “How about I pinpoint a dozen then, you stupid woman!”

“I’m all ears.” I singsonged and leaned back in my chair as Yunho groaned loudly, leaning closer, as if that would make him sound less insane and make me finally agree with the way he thought things were.

“Fine,” He snapped and pressed a finger against my chest quite painfully, “you had been living with him barely for three weeks when it just so happened that there was a fire scare in your apartment, and your door was locked from the outside? Not even two weeks after that, he walked inside the bathroom while you were bathing and pushed your hairdryer into the bathtub, but thankfully it wasn’t plugged in, right?! Oh, and how about on Halloween when he dressed up as Ghostface and only chased you around and got arrested when the cops realized he had a real knife as a prop?! What about, I don’t know, when he quite literally broke a bottle and held it against your neck under the excuse that he wanted to see how you’d react ‘under pressure’?! Let’s not even mention him burning your hair when you were feet away from the stove. Or that time when the lunatic was playing around with throwing knives and almost fucking gauged your eye out with it? He’s set your favorite blanket on fire, Y/N, while you were underneath it! And you said he tried to push you into the river while you were out taking photographs for your portfolio for class—”

“Alright!” I raised my hands in defeat, sighing loudly, “I do admit it’s weird how often it happens that I’m placed in harms way whenever I’m around Wooyoung, but they are just coincidences, Yunho—”

“Coincidences my fucking ass!” Yunho hissed, cheeks and ears reddening from anger. I sighed defeated and placed my elbow on the table and then rested my chin in my palm with a pout on my lips. Yunho only cussed when he was really angry.

“Yuyu,” I poked his hand with my left hand, lightly scratching his smooth skin with my nails, “I love and you love me, and I know you worry about me because ‘you know how men are’, but Wooyoung is inoffensive, trust me. He’s odd and yeah, weird things happen around him, but I actually quite enjoy his personality. He’s a rational and down-to-earth guy, he tells me as things are and he’s quite fucking good at photography. I probably passed a few of my classes due to his help, so please, try not to think of him as a serial killer.”

A/N: As mentioned a while ago, I have quite a few up-coming oneshots for you, my lovelies! ^^ I hope this little bit is intriguing because you'll be in for a ride once I am finished with this piece haha. If I manage to finish it tomorrow I'll post it tomorrow, if not, it'll be posted by the 17th ^^ divider

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[lollystocks]

Therapy for the Dead and Buried, Chapter 4

Chapter three here

Masterpost here

AO3

“Patient 17-A-2, session four. Have officially designated the patient as an ‘A’ type, specifically emotion-alteration, as well as some unspecified action-at-a-distance ability. While both may fall under ‘A’ categorization, I’ve yet to see two such different abilities manifest in the same patient. Though a surprisingly wide range of atypical abilities can manifest in the blowing of my light bulb…”

“Today I want to work on exploring the capabilities of the emotion-alteration. I believe that full control is the path to dampening, and that focussing only on suppression would be… ineffective.”

“Patient has said some things in previous sessions that I find intriguing. References to events that are untrue, a strange usage of the word ‘here’ when talking about the world, and an off-hand reference to ‘they are out to get me’. While most patients are naturally suspicious of my intentions, James is unusually guarded.”

“Note to self: investigate the known limits of ‘D’ type abilities. As… sore, a subject that may be for me.”

--

“... and let the leaf float down the stream. When you are ready, exhale, then open your eyes.”

Danny did as she said, wincing a little as the bright sunshine of the office met his eyes. He cleared his throat and rubbed his hands on his knees.

“How do you feel?”

“Um. A bit more relaxed, physically? I guess some nice deep breathing for ten minutes is like, actually good for you.”

“Just physically?”

“Yeah, um. I’m not sure I’m very good at the exercise. Acknowledging the thoughts and just… letting them go down the stream. Like, if a thought comes to me, it sticks around, you know? I can picture a leaf or something drifting away from me but like, the actual thought is still in my brain. So rather than letting it drift away it sits there, and then to do the exercise right - having a new thought arrive on the stream - I try to think of what else could go on a leaf, and now I have a new thought, and they’re all piling up in my brain like a rotten leaf pile in the fall. You know?”

Doctor Bright nodded. The corners of her eyes softened a touch and the side of her mouth twitched. “I wouldn’t be too worried about how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ you are at meditation, James. This was your first attempt, and it might take some time and work for it to click with you.”

“I guess. Just feels like another responsibility, you know? Chores and grades and my job and paperwork, now I’ve got to add another thing to the list?”

“I suppose you could think of it that way, James. Our mental wellbeing is something that takes work, and sometimes doing so can infringe on other things in our life.”

“Yeah!”

Against his better judgement, Danny liked Doctor Bright. A bit. That she often simply agreed with what he said was… well. He wasn’t exactly used to it. He craved both her approval and disapproval in equal measure, so couldn’t help himself from pushback when the opportunity arose.

“And like, I know you’re gonna say it needs to be a high priority, but everything’s high priority. I need good grades if I’m gonna have a future, I need to keep the apartment clean if I don’t wanna get evicted, I need to keep myself clean and fed so I don’t get sick, I need my job to get money to do any of the above. It’s just, like. It’s a lot. Twenty minutes a day is a lot.”

“Many teenagers find their lives to be uniquely pressured. All the responsibilities of adulthood are coming in, with all the restrictions of childhood. Many feel a sense ‘now or never’, and that their future success is totally determined by their achievement as an adolescent.”

“But it’s hard not to think that, when that’s what every adult is telling you. Like, I can know logically that it’s all bullcrap and that teachers and school admins tell you that so you get good SATs and go to a good college ‘cause then they get better funding and reputation and stuff, I know all that. And that like, plenty of people turn their lives around when they’re an adult. But in a way it is kinda true for me ‘cause I have nothing else going for me right now, Doctor Bright.”

He sat up straight and, clutching his imaginary pearls, recited, “I’m seventeen, I’ve no money and no prospects. I’m a burden on… the state? And I’m frightened.” Accent and everything.

Doctor Bright’s eyebrows raised at that. “Pride and Prejudice?”

“Yeah. My si-. Um. I used to know someone who was obsessed with it. I could probably quote you the entire film.”

“Film? I thought it was a miniseries?”

“Oh. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, I don’t have a backup plan. If I flunk out now, I have no real future. I need to do well now to go to college so I can make money and have an actual life.”

“Unfortunately, your stress is understandable. Many of your personal circumstances - poverty, emancipation - these are significant obstacles. Whereas others your age can afford to spend some time finding their feet in their adolescence, you’ve had extra responsibilities placed on you, many that your peers could never understand.”

“Wait, so you agree? That I'm screwed?”

“Not at all, James. From what I’ve seen, you are more than capable of making your way in the world. You’re smart, driven, and passionate, and I believe wholeheartedly that you can succeed. You have a future, James. You’re right in that it will be more difficult for you than for others, but you need to allow yourself some grace. The occasional mistake, or even failure, will not doom you.”

Danny didn’t answer, and took a deep interest in the decor instead. There was a strip of sealant around the doorframe that was coming off, just slightly. He wanted to rip it off all the way.

It was moments like this that really drove home that therapy with the doctor could only get him so far. The occasional mistake will not doom you.

Only last week, he’d nearly had a panic attack when he’d seen another kid surreptitiously check their phone during a surprise test. Danny hadn’t even been the one cheating, but simply being witness to it had brought on visions of bombed-out cities.

Doctor Bright already knew more about him than he was comfortable with. His lingering terror-guilt-disgust over that one potential future would not be something solved in this office.

The doctor’s voice snapped him back.

“If I may, James, I’d like to come back to what you said earlier about the leaves stacking up in your mind during the visualization. Do you often feel like that?”

Danny scoffed. “Oh, a hundred percent. It’s constantly like - you know that thing, where if someone says, ‘don’t think about penguins’, all you can do is think about penguins?”

“I’m familiar with the concept.”

“I feel like that all the time. Like there are thoughts I know I should be having, like my internal to-do list, or concentrating on the lesson, or looking at someone in their face when they’re talking to you. And then there are the thoughts I really don’t want to be having, but I’m always aware of what I’m trying not to think about, so. I think about them. And then it all stacks together and it’s like everyone talking at once, the good and the bad and the necessary, and then it’s all ‘Hey, kid, you listening?’ and someone in the real world is snapping their fingers in my face.”

“That must be stressful.”

“It is. And even though the meditation was kinda the same, it was… less, I guess? Like rather than try and push the bad thoughts down, just having them sit there visually, I don’t know. They stayed more like surface thoughts than anything deeper. Like the leaves were still there, but I was holding them in my hands rather than having them sucked in through my ears into my brain. You know?”

“That’s excellent, James. I think if you can try to find any calm moments in the day to practice this visualization, you’ll get better and better at identifying and diffusing these discrete thoughts. Not to mention the physical benefits you mentioned.”

“Okay. I’ll try.”

Danny didn’t want to get into a discussion about how there were no ‘calm moments’ in his days. But this did bring him onto something he’d been wondering about.

“Um, Doctor Bright. I gotta ask - why are you teaching me meditation? I thought we were gonna work on my ‘scary thing’, now that I know you know that I’m a, um. An Atypical.”

“Ah, I should have explained better. While anyone can benefit from meditation, there is a wealth of evidence that it is particularly useful for Atypicals who are learning how to control their abilities - especially those that are linked to their emotional state. Which, to be honest, is most of them.”

Danny felt his eyebrows furrow. “‘Linked to their emotional state,’ how?”

Barely perceptible, Doctor Bright’s eyes lit up slightly. “Here’s one example. A fytokinetic is someone with the ability to control plant matter with their mind - it’s a very broad ability type, with many manifestations. Someone with limited control over their ability - say, a young person who’s new to their powers - would likely find the plant matter around them acting in direct response to their mental state. Intense sadness could cause wilting, or feelings of self-disgust and loneliness to plant matter rotting and decaying. Bursts of joy could cause flowers to bloom.”

“So, classic X-Men stuff, right? Powers as a metaphor, ‘show don’t tell?’”

“In a way, although I encourage my patients not to equate their lives with fictional worlds and people. You, your life, and your powers are real, James. Your ability isn’t a metaphor, it’s just a fact of life.”

“A shitty one.”

“Maybe so. But it doesn’t have to be.”

“How could it not be? Say I get full control, what then? It’s hardly useful, the ability to scare people sh- witless. It’s not something I need any more, but it’s still here, making me miserable. It’s stopping me from making friends, or keeping a job. The best thing I can do with it is stop it.”

“I wish I had more answers for you, James, but I don’t. Your ability is a part of you, whether or not you like it. And you have to learn to live with it.”

“Hah. Live with it.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Nothing. Never mind. So coming back to the mental state thing - if I can better control my emotions, I can better control my abilities?”

The Doctor looked like she went to write something, then thought better of it. “That's the case for most Atypicals, yes. Especially so for those whose abilities are of the psychic type, interacting with others’ minds, as yours is. I've already seen good evidence that your own mental state influences your ability.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yes. I'm pretty attuned to identifying when my mind is being influenced by an Atypical ability, as you might imagine, but even without that, I think I would have noticed a difference. My sense of fear and unease spikes when you appear to be agitated or distrusting; it eases when you're relaxed. You may not feel that our visualization exercise was working well, but I experienced a significant drop in my fear.”

“Oh.”

In all honesty, Danny had forgotten that his Fear was continuing to influence the doctor. She certainly didn’t act afraid of him - or any of the other manifestations he experienced. Scorn. Anger. Disgust.

Danny didn’t want Doctor Bright to be scared of him. That she so readily admitted that she still was, in such a dispassionate, clinical matter-of-fact way, was kind of a bummer.

“Does that surprise you?”

“I mean, it shouldn’t. I've always… um. Just like, everything else I do in life is harder when I'm anxious, so I guess the same goes for this. So are you saying the key to managing this is to just what, be happy?”

“That's an overly simplistic way of looking at it. No one can, or should, be happy all the time. But I believe that addressing the root cause of your own fear and anxiety may be the best course of action.”

“Wait, so this is still just like, normal therapy? Talking about my feelings and not like. Doing tests? Taking samples?”

“Yes, James. My therapist practice isn't some front for Atypical coaching, it's still therapy. It's simply that effective therapy for Atypicals is necessarily holistic - better mental health leads to better control over abilities, which improves living conditions, which in turn improves mental health.”

“But there’s got to be more to it? Like, you talk like there’s a whole science to studying Atypicals. Do you not have some kind of like. Um. Lab?”

Danny was not a fan of his voice crack at the end there.

“I don’t personally believe that is necessary, James. There is already a wealth of evidence on psychic-type abilities to reference. This is talking therapy.”

“Okay. So we just, what, talk about my anxiety at school? And boom, I’m cured?”

“‘Curing’ is not a model I subscribe to, James. You are not sick. What I’m here to help you with is control. But there are other things we can do, besides addressing your mental health.” She adjusted her glasses. “I find that discussing my patients’ experience of their abilities often yields fruit in opening up new ways to control them. Would you be up for that kind of discussion?”

Dangerous territory. You’re not a fucking ‘Atypical’, Danny, you’re dead.

What if the way he described his abilities was totally unheard of for the Doctor? What would she even make of that? He didn’t know the first thing about the people he was trying to mimic.

Play it cool, play it cool. You’re a scared little mutant with one inconvenient power, in a world full of scared little mutants with inconvenient powers.

“Um. Sure? But uh, I don’t know what’s normal. Like, how do other people describe their abilities? Actually, I know nothing at all about like… typical Atypicals. If that makes sense?”

“I'd encourage you not to dwell too much on being a ‘normal’ Atypical. It is, after all, a bit of a contradiction.”

Unhelpful, Doc.

“But I want to know about Atypicals in general! So I can know what's me-weird and what's Atypical-weird. Like, when do people get their powers? How many are there? How long have they been around? How does no one know about them?”

“Let's see… ability onset is incredibly varied, with some manifesting in utero, and some not developing until well into adulthood, though those are edge-cases. It is somewhat typical for abilities to onset at puberty or during teenage years. It's very hard to estimate numbers. Recent studies put it as high as four percent of the population-”

“Four percent?!”

“-but that is skewed in multiple directions: on the one hand, many people with abilities live in secret; on the other, some abilities are so mild as to not register as much more than unusual talents or intuition. I have a colleague who thinks as many as twenty percent of Olympians may be low-level Atypicals. Atypical abilities aren't strictly binary, but scalar, and cover a wide range of power and disruption. In terms of the number of people with abilities either powerful enough to be noticeable, or to cause problems in someone's life? Maybe one in one in five hundred people?

“And as far as we're aware, there have always been Atypicals. More than one time traveler has witnessed them at the dawn of human history.”

“... time travelers?”

She smiled. “Yes, James.”

“Doesn't that cause huge issues with like, the timeline? Paradoxes, evil futures?”

“Most abilities aren't powerful enough to disrupt the universe, and have some inbuilt fail-safes. Most time travelers, for instance, can only witness the past, not influence it. And the future is nearly always mutable.”

“That's… wild, actually.”

“It's certainly fascinating. But to bring us back again: how would you feel about discussing your ability with me in more depth?”

“I mean, what is there to discuss? I don't even do anything.”

Doctor Bright set her notebook on the table. “I want you to close your eyes for a second.”

Danny did so.

“Where's a place you frequently find yourself anxious?”

“School. Especially in crowds.”

“Okay. I want you to picture yourself in school. The bell has gone, and it's the crush between lessons. Your ability is influencing those around you, making them fear and distrust you.”

“Okay.”

“Could you describe what emotions you feel? Besides anxiety?”

“Um. Is ‘fuck off’ an emotion?”

He heard Doctor Bright let out a slight huff, as if amused. “I daresay it is. Describe it to me.”

“Like I want everyone out of my personal space, and the more they get in my face, the worse it gets, until I want to fucking bite anything that comes near my face.”

“How does this feeling move around you? Does it come from an outside source, or from within you, projected outwards?”

“Oh, the second one, for sure. Like I want a gust of wind to push everyone around me away from me.”

“If this feeling were visible, what would it look like? A gas, a liquid? Is it slow, fast-?”

“It's green. Toxic green.”

“Okay. I now want you to picture yourself alone, somewhere you feel calm. It can be a real place, or imaginary. Think about what it looks like. Imagine the sounds, if there are any. Think about your body in the space - are you sitting, standing, lying down? Think about the temperature, the smells…”

Easy. The roof of the observatory, on a clear night - he imagined it clearer than possible, really, in Amity. The Milky Way stretched thick and dense overhead, the constellations large and proud. The air was cool and fresh, a slight breeze blowing through his hair. He wasn’t sure what color it should be.

As Doctor Bright talked, it became more real, more solid. Her voice started to fade into the background, and his awareness of the office started to dull. He tried to lean into that fact, and not let it scare him.

The concrete sloped under where he was sitting, to the gutter below him. Small weeds and flowers grew from it, and moths flittered about, attracted to his soft glow.

Doctor Bright invited him to imagine a loved one, someone he felt safe with. He couldn’t pick one, so now Sam, Tucker and Jazz all sat with him, pressing on either side.

He couldn’t remember how they should smell. But he could remember that Sam’s perfume always reminded him of smoke.

A lone car rumbled by. An owl called.

His chest was a gaping wound, draining slick, green sludge down his front. It moved of its own accord, fingers rising and falling, surging outwards. He didn’t move, simply watching as it crawled down his stomach and up across his shoulders, grabbing and dragging itself across the others. They recoiled, sounds of dismay from their mouths and they scrabbled to escape, and the Danny of this vision didn’t move, didn’t even watch.

The ectoplasm became more violent, faster, pushing its fingers into their eyes, their mouths, stifling their screams. Tucker clawed backwards in fear, getting ever-closer to the edge, losing his balance, falling-

The vision froze. Danny held onto his friend, arresting his fall, fixing him in place. He started ripping the ectoplasm away from him, digging his real fingers into his mouth and pulling, and pulling, on and on.

He had to change the ectoplasm. Change how it looked.

It was red. No. Pink. Something between the two. And it was oily, and slick, and watery and moved according to his whim, not on its own accord. It was what held Tucker in place.

It was warm, and sweet-smelling, and giddy, and fascinating.

He turned to look at Sam and Jazz. Both were smiling, the glowing red-pink oil dripping from their bared teeth, their eyes pinned open-

Danny wrenched himself back to the office with open eyes and a gasp. “Doc, I’m not sure what-”

The Doctor was staring at him.

Her eyes were wide open, round as balls, and her pupils were totally blown. She leaned forward, way too far, but her body seemed relaxed. She breathed deep and even.

Danny stood up and stepped away from the couch. “Um. Doc? Doctor Bright? What are you doing…?”

Her posture didn’t change, but her eyes followed him, and she continued to take deep breaths. Her lips parted slightly.

“Doc, fucking, snap out of it. Doctor Bright? What are you…”

She started him down, totally entranced. The corners of her lips started to turn upwards.

Then she whispered, almost undetectable.

“Danny…”

Next thing he knew, Danny had thrown his untouched glass of water right in her face.

She spluttered and recoiled, taking in her bearings. Her eyes returned to normal.

“What. Where…?” Her eyes landed on him. “James…?”

Danny gripped his hair. “Doc, what the fuck was that? You were, I mean, it was totally freaking me out, I didn’t know what to do, oh my god you're soaked I’m so sorry, what was that?”

“James, calm down, I need you to calm-”

“What did you do? What did I do?! I’ve never done that before! Was that me? You called me- shit do you remember? Do you remember any of that? Shit.”

“James, please calm down-”

But Danny didn’t hear the rest. He ignored the receptionist, Sarah’s stunned cry (and she was also gasping, clutching her heart) as he slammed through the office door, and was halfway home before he remembered to breathe.

---

The Inbox of ‘James Jackson’

To: James Jackson

Subject: Checking In

Hello James,

Just wanted to check that you were okay and safe after our session - I could not get through to your phone.

I want to reassure you than Sarah and I are perfectly fine, and I cannot discern any noticeable ongoing side effects from the hypnosis.

While I have no memory of the experience, I know it must have been distressing for you.

I want to apologize for putting you in that position. I did not anticipate that the exploration exercise would yield such an extreme result.

Please let me know you’re okay.

Best wishes,

Dr. Joan Bright, PsyD, ABPP

Licensed Therapist

---

The Inbox of Joan Bright

To: Joan Bright

Subject: RE: Checking In

Hi Dr Bright. I’m safe. I’m really sorry about earlier. I don’t know what happened.

Sent from my iPhone

---

The Inbox of ‘James Jackson’

To: James Jackson

Subject: RE: RE: Checking In

Hello James,

I am glad to hear it. I want to reassure you we are still on for next week. If you want an emergency session in the interim, I would be happy to oblige.

Best wishes,

Dr. Joan Bright, PsyD, ABPP

Licensed Therapist

---

To: James Jackson

Subject: Are you okay?

Hello James,

I am concerned that I have not heard from you since last week. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

Best wishes,

Dr. Joan Bright, PsyD, ABPP

Licensed Therapist

---

To: James Jackson

Subject: RE: Are you okay?

Hello James,

I am following up on your missed appointment today. I am obliged to inform the school, but I do not want to do so yet, given your situation. Please let me know you’re alright.

Best wishes,

Dr. Joan Bright, PsyD, ABPP

Licensed Therapist

---

The Inbox of Caleb Michaels

To: Caleb Michaels

Subject: RE: Referred Patient

Hello Caleb,

I did not get a chance to discuss this with your classmate in our last session. However, I am worried, as he has not been responding to my emails, though I know he has continued to attend school.

I was going to suggest that you two begin some e-correspondence, so you could both talk without being affected by your respective abilities. I cannot share his details without his permission, so you might have to make contact in person.

Please bear in mind, he’s flighty. But I know he could do with a friend or two.

Best wishes,

Dr. Joan Bright, PsyD, ABPP

Licensed Therapist

[anghraine]

I'm trying to redirect my political thoughts from my fandom escape blog again, but I found something interesting enough that I thought I'd talk a little about it.

Occasionally I choose suffering (looking at the more granular 2024 exit poll breakdowns rather than the summaries that I mostly don't trust much at this point). Anyway, I did find something intriguing, if not particularly surprising, in the CNN exit polls, which were done in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin with a sample size of 22,914 voters.

(I mention the specific states forming the sample because this pretty notably excludes any blue states while including some reliably Republican ones.)

Anyway, most exit polls including CNN's let respondents identify their place on the US political spectrum: conservative, moderate, or liberal (reminder that "liberal" in US usage can be a pejorative for "less leftist than me" but also a shorthand for "radical leftist" but also for "anyone who doesn't seek a cishet white Christian ethnostate", but also can be a more neutral synonym for progressives and/or leftists and is often used that way, as here). So you can look at the election results for each of these ideological factions and what share of the overall sample size they represent.

The interesting thing: this "liberal" category accounted for very similar proportions to 2020 of the overall vote in the sample (24% in 2020, 23% in 2024—a difference well within the margin of error of exit polling). There is no need to explain liberals/leftists staying home in 2024: at least in terms of proportions of the overall electorate, they didn't. Just under 1/4 of voters in 2024 were liberals or leftists, just as in 2020.

Okay, if the most leftwards faction of the US political spectrum actually formed a similar proportion of the electorate, then who did they vote for?

Harris. In CNN's own exit polls from 2020, 89% of this faction voted for Biden, and (surprisingly!) a full 10% voted for Trump. God knows what motivated that 10% Trump share after four years of his hellscape of an administration at the height of COVID, but in any case, that support cratered in 2024. 91% of this group voted for Harris and only 4% for Trump. It's an estimate, but it looks like these very peculiar Trump voters had enough of him in 2024 and around half either voted third party this time or for Harris.

So which faction is Trump's victory coming from? Further consolidation of the far right?

In part, yes! 90% of conservatives voted for Trump in 2024, vs 85% in 2020—likely, some conservatives who voted third party or even for Biden in 2020 came "home" this year. However, conservative turnout was actually a little down in 2024, proportionally speaking: conservatives dropped from 38% of the sample in 2020 to 34% in 2024.

But there's one more major faction in all this: "moderates" or centrists. To be clear, we're talking about the US version of centrism, given that this is a US organization polling US voters about US politicians, not "Bernie would be center-right in Denmark" or whatever. This moderate faction jumped from 38% of the overall sample in 2020 to 42% in 2024, and they swung hard towards Trump, though Harris still won a plurality of them. In 2020, 64% of moderates voted for Biden vs 34% for Trump. In 2024, 57% of them voted for Harris vs 40% for Trump—that is, the Democratic lead among centrists dropped precipitously from +30 to +17.

Tl;dr—ideologically speaking, this data suggests that Trump owes his victory to gains among both right-wing and centrist voters rather than some faction of would-be leftists or progressives apathetically staying home or voting third-party or otherwise deserting Democrats (because they're insufficiently radical or for any other reason).

Oh, and if you're curious as to how this compares to CNN's 2016 exit polls, I also checked those! Harris's 84-point lead among the most leftwards faction is a significant improvement from HRC's 74-point lead in 2016. Trump also got 10% of that group in 2016, as in 2020, so it's this campaign—not Hillary's or Biden's—that managed to eat into whatever the hell is going on with that group.

Harris's +17 with moderates is actually a slight improvement on Hillary's +12 in 2016. Biden's jump to a +30 lead in 2020 represented either a backlash against Trump from centrists, or Biden's own rapport with centrists, or some mysterious issue some of those voters had with both HRC and Harris (I wonder what it could be!!), or some combination thereof. Regardless, there are a lot of actual ideologically centrist voters in the USA and not just would-be leftists who haven't heard the good news of Marx yet. And Trump has an iron grip on the right wing at this point: he beat Hillary with conservatives by +65 in 2016, then beat Biden with an even larger margin of +71, then leapt to a 81-point lead over Harris with right-wing voters this year.

[sandcobangevent]

Art by @tsukihasnolife Story by @scoobydoo-ghoulschool Read it on AO3!

INT. WATSON’S ROOM

JOHN Hello, Hello, Hello! It’s Doc Watson here to uh- or just John, John is fine too. Um, but I am here to share another spine chilling case with you lovely listeners. This was a dark one folks, so be cautious. Warnings for death, a couple of those, uh parental abuse, some light usage of the S word, and one inflammatory F bomb by yours truly. If none of that is enough to scare you off, well then, good luck and enjoy the adventure of the Speckled Band.

AUDIO CUT

INT. WATSON’S ROOM

Door opens with a bang.

SHERLOCK Your presence is required in the living room.

John gasps awake. Sherlock removes John’s bed covers.

JOHN Huh? What?

SHERLOCK We have a client. In the living room. Ms. Hudson informed me at 6:45, I let you sleep an extra half hour but you really must be up now.

John yawns.

JOHN It’s 7:15? And you’re awake?

SHERLOCK (darkly) Like I said, Ms. Hudson woke me.

JOHN Alright, alright, uh- let me just get some trousers on.

Sherlock moves to leave.

JOHN (CONT.) Hold on, is that my microphone?

SHERLOCK I assumed you’d want it.

JOHN (pleasantly surprised) Well, uh, yes, thank you.

SHERLOCK You’re welcome. Now come along, Ms. Hudson is bringing up tea.

Intro music plays

INT. 221B BAKER STREET - LIVING ROOM

John enters the living room, trousers successfully retrieved.

JOHN Hello there. John Watson, nice to meet you.

HELEN (quietly) Helen Stoner.

John takes a seat.

JOHN So you're a fan of the podcast?

HELEN Sorry, what?

JOHN Oh I just- the Sherlock & Co podcast. It’s my, well, part of our business. I assumed that’s how you found us.

HELEN No, uh I found you on Reddit actually. r/Holmes. I read about a case with these missing opals, from the account FarintoshRed. I thought Mr. Holmes might be able to help me too.

SHERLOCK I vaguely remember the name Farintosh, the opal tiara even more. Now Ms. Stoner what is it that brings you all the way from Surrey this early in the morning?

HELEN I- Did someone tell you I was coming?

SHERLOCK The return ticket is sticking out of your purse.

HELEN (nervously) Oh, right.

Mariana enters the room.

MARIANA I have several cups of very caffeinated tea and a couple of day-old scones. They're only half rock hard.

JOHN Ah, Mariana, you're an angel.

SHERLOCK Yes, thank you. Although I’d prefer something a little stronger than caffeine…

JOHN Not this early in the morning, please. I’d at least like to keep the substance abuse to an afternoon activity.

MARIANA (to Helen) You can just ignore them.

HELEN Um, thanks.

SHERLOCK So early train, and by the mud on your coat, a taxi before with an unexpected rain shower. A little dangerous to be out by yourself before the sun's up. I assume you took this trip without permission?

MARIANA (whispered to Sherlock) Sherlock, that's a little patronizing.

SHERLOCK It would be if our client wasn’t a teenager.

JOHN (also whispered to Sherlock) Mate she’s got grey hair.

HELEN No he’s right, I’m 17.

JOHN Oh! I’m- God, sorry I just didn’t. Blimey.

HELEN I get that sort of reaction a lot. The hair’s genetic or something. My sister had it too. But that’s sort of why I’ve come. Not because of my hair but um… My 18th birthday’s in a couple weeks and… I think maybe I might be dead before then.

MARIANA (tentatively) And… why do you think that?

HELEN Because it happened to my sister, 2 years ago.

Pause.

HELEN (CONT.) I live with my step father, Greg Roylott, uh in this old family estate of his, Stoke Moran. My mum married him when my sister and I were both two. And you know, everything was fine, we were a totally normal family, but when my mum died, when we were about eight, uh, well Greg got really depressed. We were all torn up about it, but he… he could get really, really angry. The last couple of years my sister and I had to get him out of a lot of bad situations. Julia- my sister, she had a really hard time with it. Kids at school could get pretty nasty about it all, and I mean everyone in our village talks. It was a lot, still is a lot. But she decided, two years ago, that she'd had enough. She snuck off one night to stay with one of my mum's old friends, Honoria Westphail, for a couple of weeks.

SHERLOCK And you stayed?

HELEN Greg is- he's the only father I've ever known. I thought you know- everyone deals with grief differently, if I just gave him enough time... He never touched me or Julia.

SHERLOCK But Julia ran away.

HELEN Yeah, and not just. Ms. Westphail was helping her file for emancipation. We were both 15, and she didn't even have a bank account yet, but she wanted to get as far away from Greg as possible. She needed the money from our mother's inheritance.

SHERLOCK Which neither of you receive until your 18th birthday.

JOHN Or you're legally declared independent.

HELEN Right. But then Greg, he, well he reached out to Julia, said he wanted to make amends, that he'd been talking with people, trying to get better. I thought he was telling the truth, I mean at that point it had been weeks since he'd gotten into a fight in town, or come home drunk from the pub.

Helen pauses.

HELEN (CONT.) (voice choked) I convinced Julia to come back when he asked her over for dinner.

MARIANA If you want to take a moment-

Helen sniffs.

HELEN No it's- I can keep going. Dinner went fine, I mean Julia and Greg were never the closest, but you could tell he was trying. He didn't even bring up the whole emancipation dealings. We all went to bed around the same time, but Julia had come into my room complaining of a headache pretty soon after that. Greg likes smoking these Indian cigars before bed, and Julia and his rooms have connected ventilation, and she, uh, was always sensitive to smells like that. I didn’t mind the company, there was this awful storm going on outside, and in a house as old as ours, it gets kind of spooky.

JOHN Old manor house on a dark and stormy night? I bet.

HELEN Exactly. And um, Julie only stayed for a bit but- she asked me if I'd heard any whistling at night while she’d been gone. Like a tea kettle going off, I remember her describing it. It was such a weird question, and I know I hadn't heard anything like it before, but like I said the house is really old, and we don't have the money for many repairs. I just told her it had to be some drafty part of the house. I don’t think she actually ever believed me… and then uh, that's when she went back to her room. I watched her lock her door.

SHERLOCK Did you both routinely lock your doors at night?

HELEN Yeah, force of habit I guess. When we were younger we were always scared the Cheetah or Baboon would escape in the middle of the night.

Weighted Pause.

JOHN Er- Cheetah and Baboon?

HELEN Sorry, yeah, Greg's dad, back in the 80's was mad obsessed with India I guess? He lived there for a while, and he decided to like- make an attraction of the old Manor. There used to be a pretty massive menagerie of Indian wildlife attached to the house. Honestly it's why Greg had no money coming into the marriage with my mum. His dad spent it all. These days all that's left are the Cheetah and Baboon. Just one more reason for people to talk, you know?

MARIANA I can imagine...

SHERLOCK So the door was locked.

Helen takes a deep breath.

HELEN I woke up to her screaming. It was- I've never heard anything like that scream. Then there it was, a whistle, like a tea kettle, and uh then this large metal clang, and it shocked me enough I was able to get myself out of bed.

SHERLOCK The locked door-?

HELEN She was able to open it herself. That’s how I found her, the door opened before I got to it. She was- her eyes were bulging, and I could- I could see the veins in her forehead. The storm had knocked out the power by then but she was holding her phone flashlight. I- I caught her there, in the hallway. She fell into my arms and I could tell she couldn’t breath, she couldn’t- but she managed to tell me “Helen! It was the band! The speckled band!” That’s how Greg found us, I don’t remember much after. I think he tried to do CPR, and I called 999… She was dead before they got there.

MARIANA (very sincerely) I am so sorry.

Helen continues as if she hasn’t heard.

HELEN I was… shell shocked. Everyone was pointing fingers at our step-dad, and even then I couldn’t, I couldn’t really believe. The windows of her room are barred, the fireplace was bricked up, the door was locked. There’s nothing he could have done to her.

JOHN The coroner couldn’t find anything? No foul play, no poison in her system?

HELEN I know they did a thorough search, like I said everyone was sure Greg had something to do with it. There wasn’t anything. Eventually they marked it down as a “cerebral embolism”.

Helen gives a very sharp laugh

HELEN (CONT.) She was 15!

Heavy pause. Helen collects herself.

SHERLOCK This all happened two years ago, you’ve had time to doubt him, to look for help elsewhere- but something changed recently. Ms. Stoner, what happened?

HELEN Last week, Greg said that- there was some work around my room that needed to be done. Structural stuff that needed to be fixed. He moved me into Julia’s bedroom and- (Helen takes a shuddering breath) I heard the whistle. Last night, Mr. Holmes, I heard the whistle again.

AUDIO CUT

Interlude music plays briefly.

INT. 221A BAKER STREET - MARIANA’S OFFICE

MARIANA I’ll make sure she gets to the train station alright. I have a bad feeling about leaving her alone.

JOHN Thank you, Mariana… God I can’t- doesn’t this feel a little wrong? That we’re her last line of defense I mean?

MARIANA I suppose, it is frustrating that it’s taken all this for something to be done. But there’s no one I trust more than Sherlock to help her. She only has us, but at least it’s us.

JOHN Right. No you’re right.

Pause.

MARIANA I’ll see you in a bit.

JOHN Be safe.

The front door to 221 Baker Street opens. The sounds of the street filter in. The door closes and it is quiet once more.

JOHN (to the listeners) So, we’ve taken the case. Obviously. There’s still a part of me that can’t quite believe it, but well- it was hard to say anything but yes.

John enters the flat.

INT. 221B BAKER STREET - LIVING ROOM

JOHN I’ve got us train tickets leaving in an hour. You better start packing.

SHERLOCK I’ve already finished. I’ve got noise canceling headphones, my pistol and my toothbrush.

JOHN (john laughs) Ah, planning on shooting your mouth off then?

SHERLOCK (baffled) What? No, of course not.

JOHN No its- it’s a joke from M*A*S*H. Ya know- Frank took his gun and his toothbrush, there he goes shooting his mouth off again… I’m realizing, suddenly, this was one of my more obscure references so I am… going to stop.

SHERLOCK Good.

Pause. John takes a deep breath in.

JOHN You don't think we're being pranked do you? I mean, that was all- a little mad. I mean the Cheetah and Baboon detail? It sounds like something that would go viral on TikTok.

SHERLOCK You’re only saying that because she’s 17. It was the truth, every detail of it, there's no doubt in my mind. Besides, the Indian menagerie in Surrey is about the easiest detail to corroborate, here look.

Sherlock hands over his phone.

JOHN “They Bought a Zoo Before it was Cool: the sordid tale of Surrey’s oldest family and their lost fortune” Jeeze, okay. So not a TikTok prank then.

John sighs.

JOHN (CONT.) Maybe I just don't want to imagine someone willing to kill a 15 year old girl. I mean… why?

SHERLOCK Why else Watson? Money. In both instances, Julia’s emancipation, and Helen’s 18th birthday, he loses the money from their mother’s inheritance.

Pause.

JOHN You don't think Helen was lying about Roylott not... not hitting them do you?

SHERLOCK (carefully) No, she was telling the truth there too, I assume that would leave too much evidence for the courts. There are other ways to keep someone under control...

JOHN Well Roylott better hope we don't meet up with him anytime soon, I swear I see his face and it's one, two lights out.

SHERLOCK You may be getting that wish sooner than later.

JOHN What do you mean?

SHERLOCK Greg Roylott is on our front stoop-

The downstairs door slams open. Muffled yelling. Heavy footsteps.

JOHN Oh God, I forgot to lock it when Mariana left.

SHERLOCK (harshly) Get back from the door. The heavy footsteps approach faster.

JOHN Well this one is locked- The door to 221B is thrown open with a crash.

JOHN Shit!

DR. ROYLOTT Where is she? Where the Hell is my daughter?!

JOHN Sir you can't just barge in here-!

DR. ROYLOTT Which one of you is Holmes?

SHERLOCK That would be me, but I'm afraid you have the advantage, I don't know you.

DR. ROYLOTT Dr. Gregory Roylott, as if you don't know you slippery bastard.

SHERLOCK Of course Doctor, please have a seat. We were just finishing our morning tea.

DR. ROYLOTT I'm not here for tea, my step-daughter's been here. I tracked her phone so don't try and lie Holmes. She was here not 4 minutes ago.

JOHN Now hold on-

SHERLOCK You know, it is a little cold for this time of the year.

JOHN (under his breath) What?

DR. ROYLOTT What's she said to you?!

SHERLOCK But I have heard we'll be getting an early spring, the crocuses are close to blooming. I have a feeling it's going to be quite lovely.

DR. ROYLOTT Oh come off it, I know what you’re doing! I looked you up online, you're a couple of con artists looking to make a buck off my girl, huh? Put her on your bloody podcast right? She's 17, what are two men of your age doing letting her into your flat? I could have the police-

Sherlock laughs. It goes on longer than it should.

SHERLOCK Your conversational skills are entertaining, when you leave, mind closing the door. Like I said, it is cold for this time of the year.

Pause. Dr. Roylott chuckles darkly.

DR. ROYLOTT Alright, have it your way. But hear this, stay away from my girl, I'm a man of means, I wouldn't take my threats lightly gentleman.

Dr. Roylott turns to leave.

JOHN (very sarcastically) Great meeting you Mr. Roylott.

DR. ROYLOTT It’s Dr. Roylott to you.

JOHN Yeah well, it’s Dr. Watson to you, you pratt.

Dr. Roylott leaves. The door is slammed with tremendous force.

John lets out a very relieved sigh.

Sherlock laughs again.

SHERLOCK Fine fellow, we’ll have to have him round again.

JOHN (not paying attention) I think he broke the door hinges!

SHERLOCK I suppose it’s best it didn’t come to anything physical, but I’m fairly certain I could have taken him. He lagged slightly to the right.

JOHN (still not paying attention) He definitely broke the door.

SHERLOCK Grab your stuff Watson, I think it’s time we were on our way as well.

JOHN You know I’ll have to call Mariana about this.

AUDIO CUT

INT. LONDON WATERLOO TRAIN STATION

The noises of a busy train station. The intermingling of engines, voices, and footsteps.

JOHN Yeah, I know- clear off the hinges. Forced the lock through the door frame- (pause) Alright. Thanks Mariana. Yep. Yeah. Talk soon, bye. (to Sherlock) The whole door’s gonna have to be replaced, can you believe that?

SHERLOCK Yes, I think you’ve mentioned it once or twice now.

JOHN Sorry, I’m just coming to the realization I live in a world where a man can literally break down my door in one go.

John sighs. A distant intercom plays.

JOHN (NARRATING) I suppose now is as good a time as any for some shout outs. I’m still new to Tumblr but the community on there has been nothing but supportive, so I’ve some awesome people I’d like to mention from there. So special hello to @tsukihasnolife who I’ve already commissioned to do some incredible art for this episode. We’ve also got @eardefenders, @starfruitsomething and @littleoceanbabe who I hear are all working hard on a flash bang for other fans of Sherlock & Co. Not sure what a flash bang is, but I appreciate the publicity and support! And lets see maybe some people from Twitter or er X now-

SHERLOCK Watson the train.

JOHN Oh God, yeah. Uh, bye! Thanks again.

AUDIO CUT

INT. UBER

The car drives alone on the road, engine humming softly.

JOHN We are back in Surrey listeners, you may remember the last time we were here was for the case of the Solitary Cyclist. (to Sherlock) You know maybe we should check in with Violet-

SHERLOCK I sincerely doubt Ms. Carruthers would enjoy seeing us Waston. We were at least slightly culpable in her brother's outburst.

JOHN (muttered) I wasn't the one with the gun. (John coughs) But Uh- yeah, yeah that's probably for the best.

DRIVER So where are you guys headed exactly?

SHERLOCK (in his just-one-of-the-mates voice) Stoke Moran, I've heard it's a real piece of work.

DRIVER Yeah, the place should be demolished if you ask me, it’s a death trap.

SHERLOCK Well that's why we're here, come to make a couple of estimates for the bloke who lives up there.

DRIVER Fair warning mate, lots of contractors have been through there. The Doctor, Roylott, he doesn't have the money to pay.

SHERLOCK Really? Big family estate like that with no money?

JOHN Sherlock, look-

SHERLOCK Sorry, would you mind stopping here?

DRIVER We're still a mile out-

JOHN We like the fresh air, thanks for the ride. Uh- five stars!

John and Sherlock exit the car. The car drives off.

EXT. THE GROUNDS OF STOKE MORAN

JOHN That is Helen over there isn't it?

SHERLOCK (in his normal voice) Yes. Probably best we catch her here, I don't want to get too close to the house until we're sure the good Doctor is nowhere near. (voice raised) Ms. Stoner!

Sherlock and John walk to catch up with Helen. Helen approaches, slightly out of breath.

HELEN Hi. I was hoping I’d catch your car on the way in.

SHERLOCK We had a visit with your step-father this morning, just after you left.

HELEN (taken off guard) What but I- he’s barely ever up by 11, and no one would have told him-

SHERLOCK You’re phone Ms. Stoner, I’m afraid he’s been tracking your phone. I would suggest checking your settings for the parental controls he installed without your knowledge.

HELEN If he knows that I- that I came to you-

SHERLOCK If he makes any motion to harm you Ms. Stoner we will personally escort you to Ms. Westphail’s house tonight. But I doubt with the way things are turning out he will try anything that obvious.

JOHN Like busting down a door.

HELEN What?!

Sherlock clears his throat pointedly.

SHERLOCK We’re getting ourselves a room at the village Inn, we have no intention of leaving you alone. Now Ms. Stoner is it possible we could enter the house undetected? I would very much like to see your sister and Dr. Roylott’s rooms.

HELEN Yeah, yeah I can manage that. He had work in London today, I thought- anyway he won’t be back till this evening.

SHERLOCK Lead the way Ms. Stoner

AUDIO CUT

EXT. STOKE MORAN

JOHN (out of breath) We are just now approaching the manor. It's uh- it really is something to see. Which since you can't see listeners, you'll have to take my word for it. Stoke Moran is uh grey, and big. Uh- I can do better than that, hold on. It's... lichen-blotched stone, with a high central portion and two curving wings, like the... claws of a crab. Sort of. Like if a crab had its pincers raised, you know? The left crab claw has broken windows blocked with wooden boards, and the roof is partly caved in, a uh picture of ruin. The middle bit- the body I guess? It’s in okay shape, it’s got some large observation windows near the ground floor. The right-claw looks to be the only section of the house that's still livable. Pretty modern, at least it's got blinds in the windows, and appears to be standing on its own.

HELEN What’s he doing?

SHERLOCK Narrating. He does it when he’s nervous.

JOHN I do it because a podcast is an auditory experience. Can’t exactly wave a camera around to show them- hold on, what’s this over here?

HELEN Oh I wouldn’t-

An animal screeches, a mammal howl, and it slams itself into its glass walled enclosure.

John screams.

The microphone falls. Helen and Sherlock break out into surprised laughter.

HELEN (through laughter) That's the menagerie. Sorry.

The Baboon calls out softly through the glass. There's rustling as John quickly retrieves the microphone.

Sherlock and Helen continue to laugh.

JOHN Seriously, how is this even legal?

AUDIO CUT

INT. STOKE MORAN MANOR - JULIA'S ROOM

A door creaks open slowly. Helen, Sherlock and John enter the room, footsteps echoing loudly.

HELEN So this is- this is Julia’s room. Mine’s just next door to the right, and then to the left is Greg’s room.

SHERLOCK And this is where you’re currently staying because of the restoration work?

HELEN Yes.

Sherlock walks around the room.

SHERLOCK These bed drapes- were they Julia’s?

HELEN Uh- no. No they weren’t really her taste. I think Greg had them put up when she was living with Ms. Westphail.

JOHN (darkly) He seems to have a habit of making living decisions for you.

Sherlock steps up onto the bed, bed springs squeal.

JOHN (CONT.) (pained) Sherlock, your shoes on the bed-

SHERLOCK (ignoring John) This ventilator, right above the bed, does it work?

HELEN Oh that, no, at least not since I’ve moved in. It’s completely freezing here at night.

SHERLOCK Interesting for such a recent refurbishment. Do you remember when this was installed?

HELEN Uh- it- it actually may have been around the same time as Greg hung the bed drapes. When Julia was gone.

Sherlock jumps down from the bed.

SHERLOCK I think I’ve seen enough here. Would you mind leading us to your step-father’s room?

HELEN Sure, like I said, It’s right next door.

Helen, Sherlock and John leave the room.

INT. STOKE MORAN MANOR - DR. ROYLOTT’S ROOM

The door to Roylott’s room opens. John gives a low whistle.

JOHN Well. This is- something.

HELEN Yeah, it’s a lot. Mostly stuff he inherited from his dad.

JOHN For our listeners, the Doctor has, well lots of… collectables lets say, I am presuming from India. Almost every wall and shelf is covered in Hindu icon paintings and sculptures.

SHERLOCK Murtis, not icons. They’re meant to be used in homes and temples for worship. Not... as collectables.

JOHN Yeah, so- it’s extremely distasteful. Not like I needed another reason to dislike this guy. Besides all of the uh- memorabilia in the Doctor’s room, there’s this massive safe- and uh, a bowl of milk is set on top. Helen, do you happen to have a cat around here?

HELEN (pause) No. I’m allergic.

JOHN Could be for the Cheetah, maybe?

SHERLOCK Perhaps… Helen, is it your step father that deals with the animals?

HELEN Er, not really. He feeds em, but he stays out of their enclosures. Honestly he doesn’t pay much attention to them these days. He’s got a vet who comes to see them every couple months or so- but she comes by with her own equipment.

Sherlock moves further into the room.

SHERLOCK Have you ever seen him use this?

HELEN No. What is that?

SHERLOCK It’s a catch pole. Normally these are used by professionals in animal control.

HELEN Right- well maybe the vet left it behind last time she was here?

Pause.

SHERLOCK Possibly… Well Ms. Stoner, I have seen what I’ve needed.

HELEN Well, do you know how it happened? How he did it?

SHERLOCK I can’t answer that quite yet. But we will be back tonight. Your old room, you can still comfortably sleep there at the moment?

HELEN (guardedly) I could…

SHERLOCK Good. Tonight, when your step-father falls asleep, shine a light through your bedroom window, and then leave to sleep there. Watson and I will be spending the night in your place. We will see for ourselves what plans he had for you.

AUDIO CUT

Musical interlude.

INT. SURREY INN - JOHN AND SHERLOCK’S ROOM

The room is quiet. John taps absentmindedly at the microphone. It is super annoying.

SHERLOCK You have a question?

JOHN No. Nope, just… thinking.

SHERLOCK (begrudgingly) I’m not certain what it is.

JOHN But you have a pretty good idea.

SHERLOCK I’ve been wrong before.

JOHN (skeptical) Rarely. If ever.

SHERLOCK You have theories I’m sure.

JOHN Not- not really. The new heating vent that doesn't work… that’s unusual, and purposeful. I thought maybe a nerve gas agent-

Sherlock makes a quiet noise of dissent.

JOHN But- I know that makes no sense, so I’ve got nothing. And then there's the whole issue of the speckled band... a clothing item, a poison...

SHERLOCK You’re picking up on the important details.

JOHN So are you going to share with the class what's actually going on?

SHERLOCK We’ll see tonight. Or we won’t.

JOHN (joking) I see how it is, plausible deniability. Can’t be wrong if you don’t say it out loud.

SHERLOCK John.

JOHN Yes?

SHERLOCK I think you should get some sleep before tonight.

JOHN Right, yeah. (pause) You’re not wrong though, whatever you're thinking, I know you’re not wrong.

Pause.

JOHN (CONT.) Goodnight.

Pause. John settles into bed.

SHERLOCK Thank you.

AUDIO CUT

Musical interlude

SHERLOCK Watson. Wake up, Ms. Stoner has given us the signal.

John shifts in bed. He yawns.

JOHN I really hope this isn’t a habit you're developing. Waking me up in the early hours of the morning I mean.

SHERLOCK Come along, Watson, no time to dawdle.

JOHN Dawdle. Funny word, dawdle. Dawdle. dawdle... and now it just sounds fake. (pause) Hang on… where did you get a cane?

AUDIO CUT

EXT. STOKE MORAN

JOHN (out of breath) We are back on the grounds of Stoke Moran, making our way up to the house. And- I am really wishing we could pick cases that didn’t require so much walking in the dark.

SHERLOCK We’re close to the door Helen said she’d leave open for us. Keep quiet, and keep your flashlight down.

JOHN Yep. Yep got it. Uh- aren’t we also close by to the-

Something thumps against the glass wall. Sherlock yelps.

The Baboon gives a howling laugh, tearing away from the window.

Sherlock takes in several gasping breaths. John snickers.

JOHN See? Not so funny when it’s you, the Baboon jumps.

SHERLOCK No. Comment.

John laughs quietly. He moves forward.

JOHN The doors over here by the way.

AUDIO CUT

INT. STOKE MORAN MANOR - JULIA’S ROOM

JOHN So we took a back entrance that Helen showed us early today. We have safely made it into Julia’s old room. So… now we just wait and listen for a whistle I guess.

SHERLOCK I’ll take the bed, under the vent. For your safety, the rocking chair in the corner is best.

JOHN You just don’t want me to accidentally fall asleep on a stake out again.

SHERLOCK (whispered) It is imperative we stay as quiet as possible now.

JOHN (whispered back) Of course.

SHERLOCK Which means we’ll be sitting in silence for a good portion of the night.

JOHN Yeah mate, I know how quiet works.

SHERLOCK I thought a warning might be nice.

JOHN Well, thanks, I appreciate that. (to himself and the microphone) Of all the things he chooses to warn me about and- oh Christ, the listeners, right-

AUDIO CUT

JOHN (whispered) It is… currently four in the morning. We haven’t heard a peep. I don’t know if we scared Roylott off today, or threw him off his game, but I don’t know if it’s happening tonight.

SHERLOCK Watson.

JOHN What? Did you hear something?

SHERLOCK No.

JOHN Alright. Yeah, quiet. I can do quiet.

SHERLOCK Watson...

JOHN Sorry yeah-

SHERLOCK No, listen!

A high pitched whistle blows softly from above.

SHERLOCK Stay back.

JOHN Hold on, let me get my camera light on, I can’t see.

SHERLOCK No, John the vent is opening!

A large CLANG as Sherlock’s cane hits the vent. A hiss, something slithers back through the vent away from them.

Dr. Roylott SCREAMS from the other room.

JOHN (panicked) What on Earth was that?

SHERLOCK We’ll need the light Watson, hurry.

INT. STOKE MORAN - DR. ROYLOTT’S ROOM

Rushed footsteps. A door bursts open.

Roylott moans.

JOHN Fuck! Is that-?

DR. ROYLOTT (strained and slightly slurred) Get it off me!

JOHN A snake, the speckled band was a snake?!

SHERLOCK Hand me the catch pole. By his leg, there!

JOHN Right-

John moves, he grabs the catch pole. Sherlock takes the pole. The snake hisses, Roylott blubbers in panic and pain.

SHERLOCK The safe, open the door to the safe!

JOHN The- oh! There’s a whole terrarium in there.

The snake hisses again. Louder.

SHERLOCK Watson!

JOHN Got it!

The safe is forced open more. Sherlock places the angered snake inside. John closes the safe with a loud METALLIC CLANG.

John gives a sigh of relief. Roylott moans again, and then tumbles to the floor.

DR. ROYLOTT (gasping) It’s- Swamp Adder- the venom- it bit me.

JOHN Oh God, right, okay, just, hold on- Dr. Roylott, I need you to stay calm. (to Sherlock) Call emergency services! He’s going into anaphylactic shock, I can’t-

SHERLOCK (seriously) They won’t have the anti-venom.

JOHN Just call! I don’t- Maybe I can do another tracheotomy, there’s got to be a pen around here, maybe a letter opener.

John stands. He looks frantically for tools to help.

SHERLOCK John-

JOHN I’m thinking!

SHERLOCK John!

JOHN What?!

SHERLOCK He’s dead.

JOHN But he- (pause) His pulse stopped.

SHERLOCK I’ll call now.

JOHN Um- yeah. Okay. (pause) I’ll- I’ll go get Helen. I’ll see if we can get a hold of Ms. Westphail.

Tense pause.

SHERLOCK He did it to himself, John. He did this to Julia, and he was going to do it to Helen.

JOHN (strained) You’re right, yeah. (John sniffs) I’ll go get Helen.

John leaves, the door closes softly behind him.

AUDIO CUT

Musical interlude.

INT. JOHN’S ROOM

JOHN Well folks, that is the end of the case. Say au revoir to the speckled band, which is now, along with the Cheetah and Baboon being safely handled by some animal conservationist group. Apparently cheetahs are a very endangered species so, Roylott was definitely keeping that illegally. Um, as for Helen, she is now happily settled with her aunt. Obviously, this was a bit of a shock for her but… she’s, she’s in a better place now thank God. And Roylott, well you all know how he ended up. I don’t uh- I don't have much else to say other than that. The Swamp Adder venom really-

The door to the bedroom opens. Sherlock walks in.

SHERLOCK Oh, you’re not done yet.

JOHN Nope, just doing the wrap up.

SHERLOCK Do you mind?

JOHN No, come on in. I was just talking about the Swamp Adder.

Pause.

SHERLOCK You know... there’s no such thing.

JOHN What?

SHERLOCK He misidentified the snake, there’s no such thing as a Swamp Adder.

JOHN But we saw it-

SHERLOCK We saw an Indian Saw-Scaled viper, Echis Carinatus if you want to be technical, and while extremely venomous, it is by no means the most venomous snake in India. That would be the Common Krait.

JOHN You know all that, but you couldn’t name one Madonna song last week at the pub?

SHERLOCK Well the next time Madonna gains the ability to inject 12 milligrams of venom into her victims in one bite, then I’ll try my best to remember her discography.

JOHN Right okay, well you heard it here folks, world class detective, violinist, podcast co-host, Sherlock Holmes, can also add snake expert to his list of accomplishments.

SHERLOCK Herpetologist.

JOHN What?

SHERLOCK An expert in reptiles and amphibians, a Herpetologist.

JOHN Okay that- that can’t be real.

AUDIO CUTS. OUTRO MUSIC PLAYS.

END OF PART ONE OF ONE

[purgemarchlockdown]

Shidou, Mahiru, Amane and Parenthood

(Also Known As: Shidou and Mahiru are paralleled with Amane's parents and I need to talk about it)

(CW: Child Abuse, Cults)

So the newest interrogation question came out and the question is this:

If you had to make one of the prisoners part of your family, who would you choose?

Amane's answer to it was this:

A: Mahiru Shina. Her innate goodness might have brought the two of us closer, maybe

This is an interesting response for a lot of reasons, especially since the last time we saw Amane and Mahiru interacting they didn't exactly have a pleasant conversation.

23/01/17 (Mahiru’s Birthday)

Amane: Happy birthday. Mahiru-san. How is your body feeling? Mahiru: ……ah, Amane-chan. Thank you. Yeah, I’m fine. Now I can move around if I use a wheelchair…… It’s all thanks to Shidou-san looking after me…… Amane: I’ll give you one warning. The two of you are dabbling in something tabooed. If you continue to go against the way of nature like this, you’ll just bring an early death upon yourself. Think hard about this. Mahiru: Amane-chan……? Are you really Amane-chan……?

If Amane believes that Mahiru is dabbling in something taboo then why does she think Mahiru should be apart of her family? Well let's take a look at how Mahiru and Amane parallel for a bit. At first it doesn't seem like they have much in common but there's actually a substantial amount of connections between them.

The one most important to this discussion is the usage of water and their views on love.

Now water for Amane is punishment, both symbolically and literally. She was waterboarded. However this torture was used to confirm something, her parents "love" for her.

But it’s not scary at all, because it’s love I can actually think of it as a good thing, see isn’t it a great thing?

The thing about Amane Momose is that she's sinful and impure. At least in the eyes of her cult. She's constantly messing up, constantly failing, constantly wanting to run from the trials presented to her.

Dear wise one, Is this ok? Is it ok to be weak sometimes?

In the eyes of her cult Amane Momose needs to be punished so she can become "better." A better girl, a better person, a better follower of god. Under this logic the punishments are her parents way of delivering...salvation, to cleanse Amane Momose's impure soul of it's faults and eventually turn her into a "good girl."

Pain is Love, for all intents and purpose, it means that her parents still care enough about her to try to purify her. Even though she herself knows that it's a lost cause.

Only if, only if, only if I could be a good girl

This is something she shares with Mahiru.

We fought sometimes, I was happy to get hurt Let's have matching pain, this sickness is pretty bad

Do you really think you know what love is? If you do, let's just overheat together

Mahiru believes that if you are in love you share everything, happiness, sorrow, joy, pain. Being together even if you are suffering and unhappy is proof of your "bond."

Giving you love to the point of pulling you down It's just because I still get worried, please forgive me Even when I test you, even the times we do the breakup ritual, Is because I love you

Using this lens we can read the water through a different lens we can see it as...love. Water is love, it is needed for people to live, it is rejuvenating and good.

Now multiple characters have this motif and I won't talk about it in too much detail but both Amane and Mahiru's boyfriend are covered in water, love. Metaphorically or otherwise. Except both of them are submerged in it, drowned even. The version of love Amane was given and the version of love Mahiru gave out was distorted and destructive. With Mahiru's love ultimately leading, in some way or another, to her boyfriend's death.

This makes two lines in their MVs super interesting.

My emotions are out of control, that’s inconvenient? I don’t care!

You’re sorry? I don’t care! Please, go ahead and die already

This is very similar phrasing but the context is completely different.

When Mahiru says this line she's talking about her love for her boyfriend. Her overly indulgent, suffocating, love. It doesn't matter if it's inconvenient to Him because this is how she shows Her love.

No matter how unaware she was of how unhealthy her relationship was (and I don't think she was malicious at all in her intentions), she was still Actively suffocating him by not taking his feelings into consideration.

Amane however is Reacting to her mother's abuse. Her mother's painful and horrible "love." "Love" that really could have killed her, people aren't supposed to survive waterboarding and electrocution without any medicine, or just in general.

When she goes to her mother and kills her she's doing this because she Hates Her. She doesn't care if she apologies because she never took Her Feelings into account when she punished her.

Not only that but we have this Timeline conversation.

20/07/06

Amane: You want to know about my family……? My father is a truly wonderful person. He’s honest, values fairness and justice above all else, and will work himself to the bone for other people’s sake……. Why do you want to know? Mahiru: Oh, I was just wondering what sort of parents you must have for them to have raised such a good child like you. Fufu, I’ll keep it in mind for the future when I raise my own family. Amane: I see. If it will be of use to you, I’ll tell you more. It’s still a long way off for me, but for someone your age the prospect of finding a partner and having a family must be feeling a lot more real. Now that I think about it, I recall my mother was around your age when she gave birth to me……

Amane's Mother was Mahiru's age when she gave birth to her? Mahiru thinks Amane is a good child and wants to use her parents as examples for how to raise someone like her?

To me, it seems like Mahiru is being paralleled with Amane's parents. Most likely her mother but you could probably argue the father too due to how Amane is (seemingly) on much better terms with him.

Now I've outlined most of the Mahiru-Parent parallels but we also have Shidou.

So, Amane hates Shidou, that's a well-documented opinion. Shidou violates cult rules and doctrine. He "steals" people's trials away. He's evil and horrible and needs to be destroyed.

Amane: Oh – speaking of which, there is one among the prisoners right now. An evil existence that’s trying to steal people’s trials away from them. Es: …! Amane: Shidou Kirisaki… His actions violate our rules. I have given him a warning. If he continues, I suppose it will be inevitable for me to intervene.

However this isn't the only reason why Amane dislikes Shidou, in fact she's disliked him since the start. For reasons completely unrelated to this.

Shidou makes Amane feel small.

Shidou: I…… I just don’t understand. If everything about MILGRAM is true…… why did a child like you have to become a murderer? Just imagining what sort of circumstances must have led to that, it makes me so sad…… Amane: ……*sigh*. Is that right. I don’t think I’m going to get along with you, Shidou-san. I don’t agree with the fact you refuse to acknowledge that I have my own free will, and that I should be held accountable for my actions, just because I’m a child. I may have only been alive for 12 years, but all the choices I’ve made, even if they weren’t the best ones, were entirely my own. What point is there in you getting sad when I have no regrets myself?

His actions are, for lack of a better term, triggering. It reminds Amane of her parents. The lack of control she had over the situation, and how her words meant nothing to them.

She cares about her free will because for most of her life her free will and choices weren't respected. So Shidou disregarding her feelings makes her feel disrespected and uncomfortable.

Is this done out of malice? No but it seems like Shidou is doing this more for his sake than Amane's.

22/06/27 (Amane’s Birthday)

Kazui: What’s up, Shidou-kun? You’re looking pretty down. I guess you must be tired, I’ve been relying on you a lot lately. Shidou: Yeah, I just remembered…… today is Amane’s birthday. I’m just getting a bit sentimental. Kazui: Hmm, it’s unfortunate, but at the moment we can’t worry about that. ……you understand, right? There’s something that you need to do right now. And if you tried talking to her your words definitely won’t reach her. Don’t look at me like that. We’ll just wait until the situation changes. Let’s do our best. Shidou: Yeah. I’ll do what I can. I can’t have a child making a face like that. Even though we’re “murderers”…… we’re also the adults here.

Shidou is Guilt Man. He's absolutely consumed with it, even now that he doesn't want to die his guilt haunts him. In a way, taking care of Amane is a way to "redeem" himself for whatever he did.

He's also presumably coping with the loss of his own children and is projecting that Onto Amane and also Es. You can see this very clearly in his T1 VD.

Shidou: I’m a fine specimen of what a murderer ought to be. I don’t mind when you hand down your judgement, but if it’s possible… Instead of being told by the law that I won’t be forgiven, I wanted a child like you, Es, to tell me that.

Shidou is condescending and makes both Es and Amane feel uncomfortable and disrespected, even if he doesn't want to. His actions harm them because Shidou cares less about them and more about the Idea of them being children.

(My emotions are out of control, that’s inconvenient? I don’t care!)

The clearest example of how the way he interacts with Amane is this scene in this Timeline.

Amane: I warned you. I can no longer turn a blind eye to this wickedness taking place right in front of us. You’re bringing ruin unto yourself. Do you understand? Shidou: No, I don’t understand. It’s my job as an adult to teach you that throwing a temper tantrum isn’t going to make everything go your way. If it’s a test of endurance you want, I’m happy to oblige, Amane.

Now as I've said. Amane likes having her opinions and choices respected, this comes from how they Weren't when she was living with her parents. Most of her positive interactions with people, especially in T2, come from people asking her about her opinions and how she feels about things. Shidou dismissing her emotions and calling them a temper tantrum was one of the worst things he could of possibly said to her. Outright confirming To Amane that Shidou doesn't care about how she feels.

Again that isn't exactly true, Shidou does care, but it doesn't change the affect it has on her does it?

Shidou makes Amane feels small and disrespected and Hurt. Like how her parents made her feel. Amane's just been given a righteous reason to hurt him now, like what she had for her mother.

(This is another reason why I can't exactly say Mahiru is paralleled with her mother and Shidou her father...it's possible we have a bit of a roleswap here.)

In short: 050608 family parallels haunt me forever and ever.

[samasmith23]

We need to talk about EssenceOfThought's ongoing bullying & slander campaign against Rachel Oates...

I normally don't make posts covering this kind of stuff since I mostly try to keep my Tumblr blog here relatively positive and cheerful. And I normally try to avoid YouTube drama in general. But recently I've become increasingly frustrated and angered by the behavior of a certain YouTuber whom I regrettably used to be a fan of awhile back known as "Essence Of Thought" (aka, Ethel Thurston), whom in the past 2 months has been continuously releasing multiple videos & shorts which slander and defame another YouTuber named Rachel Oates. I know that Rachel herself is currently trying to combat this situation and has even filed multiple claims against Ethel's videos, but I felt the need to try and show my support for Rachel by help signal-boost her story in response to Ethel's revived targeted harassment campaign against her.

Content Warning: Mentions of Transphobia, Cyberbullying, Self-Harm, Suicidality, and Child Abuse.

Also, while this post is going to be very critical of Ethel and her conduct, I will NOT tolerate any misgendering or deadnaming of her! Just because I think Ethel is a bad person does NOT excuse any transphobia that is directed at her, and I will immediately block and report anyone who engages in such reprehensible behavior!

Section 1: Confessions of a former fan, or my personal falling out with Essence of Thought

For those who are not aware, Ethel Thurston is a transgender atheist content creator who regularly produces video essays analyzing and criticizing TERFs and the broader far-right. This content greatly appealed to me as both a supporter of trans-rights and as someone who vocally opposes both TERFs and Neo-Nazis. However, exactly 1-year-ago I unsubscribed from Ethel's channel when she began made a series of videos accusing Lily Orchard of being a child groomer. While I do agree that Lily is an AWFUL person who has received multiple credible accusations of sexual abuse from both former partners and even her own younger sister Courtney, Ethel's videos which accused Lily of "grooming all minors in her audience" were actually heavily criticized by several former victims of Lily's abuse who have argued that the way Ethel & her editor "ABirdCalledLevi" (aka, Levi) presented their information against Lily was not only overly inflammatory, but only served to misrepresent and damage the testimonies of her other victims.

Specifically, critics like "Patchwork Heart" (aka, Shiloh Conner) took serious issue took issue with Ethel & Levi's constant liberal usage of the word "grooming" to describe Lily's actions towards individuals like Glade, who accused Lily of encouraging him on her Discord to watch a livestream where she repeatedly flashed her audience (Glade was still 17 at the time of this incident). Essentially Shiloh stated that while Lily was undeniably guilty of sexual harassment, neglectful misconduct, and indecent exposure, her behavior technically does not qualify as "grooming," since "grooming" is a term specifically meant describe the gradual breaking down of a victim's boundaries through manipulation and isolation from others (online it's usually conducted through private DMs rather than on public servers like Lily's channels). Furthermore, Shiloh and other fellow victim's of Lily's abuse also criticized Ethel & Levi's usage of the phrase "parasocial audience grooming" to argue that Lily was grooming her ENTIRE audience instead of individuals, as "parasocial audience grooming" is NOT a legally or medically recognized term, but was instead invented by the commentary YouTuber "Korviday" in 2020 to describe Shane Dawson's sexually abusive behavior towards several underage members of his audience. Essentially, it's impossible to groom an entire audience all at once since grooming is defined by the specific and deliberate targeting and manipulation of individuals in private or isolated settings with the intention of eventually sexually abusing them. But when criticized for the way they badly mishandled the testimonies of victims like Glade, Ethel & Levi instead doubled down by not only continuing to misuse the word "grooming" in their videos, but actively smeared and defamed their critics and other victims of Lily's like Shiloh as "abuse/groomer apologists.” Ethel even went as far as to compare Shiloh criticizing how she misrepresented Glade’s testimony to “defending Harvey Weinstein.”

Like... YIKES!

I'm not going to lie... when I saw the way Ethel & Levi actively bullied and slandered other victims of Lily Orchard, I was deeply disappointed and disgusted. While I was already starting to grow weary of Ethel's tendency to overly moralize in her arguments, and I knew she was unpopular in a lot of online spaces, for the longest time I tried to give both her and Levi the benefit of the doubt since I knew she had been harassed by TERFs like Graham Linehan past simply for being an outspoken non-binary trans-woman online. But the way Ethel bullied people like Shiloh Conner was simply inexcusable! And personally, I completely agree with Shiloh's criticisms against Ethel & Levi. Even though I dislike Lily Orchard and think that she's an abusive scumbag, spreading misinformation about issues as serious as CSA only serves to inflict further harm onto the people that Lily has hurt. Victims like Shiloh have very publicly stated that they either want their testimonies to be reflected as accurately as possible, or not at all. And I especially understand their concerns about misusing the word "grooming," especially because of how that word in particular has been so easily co-opted as an anti-LGBTQ+ slur by Republicans and the far-right in the past 2 years alone, which only serves to promote bigotry and obfuscate actual instances of child sexual abuse (Ethel claimed in their video that they "saw no harm in extending the definition of the word" BTW). Here's a link to Shiloh's video responding to Ethel if you want further details on the ways in which both she and Levi so badly mishandled the testimonies of Lily Orchard's victims BTW:

So how does Rachel Oates fit into all of this exactly? Well...

Section 2: Reevaluating Ethel's past conduct and the targeted bullying of Rachel Oates

Once I witnessed the ways in which EssenceOfThought bullied and smeared the victims of Lily Orchard's abuse, it honestly caused me to reevaluate and question a lot of their past content, especially because Ethel & Levi already had reputations of being overly inflammatory figures who've burned tons of bridges with lots of other leftist YouTubers. It was then that I was reminded of the biggest controversy Ethel's been involved in, and one I was only tangentially aware of before the Lily Orchard drama. That being Ethel's 4-year-long and currently ongoing defamation campaign against feminist and atheist British YouTuber, Rachel Oates.

The conflict between Ethel & Rachel all started back in 2019, when Rachel's friend and former atheist YouTuber "Rationality Rules" (aka, Steven Woodford), got into serious trouble when he posted a video arguing against the inclusion of trans-people in sports (which relied on heavily fallacious scientific data and even cited clips from Fox News, Ben Shapiro, and Joe Rogan). Unsurprisingly, the backlash against Woodford's video was enormous, and it even resulted in him being deplatformed from hosting a panel at an ACA conference in Austin, Texas that same year. However, a lot of Woodford's friends within the YouTube atheist community, including Rachel, argued that Woodford did not make his video out of intentional malice or bigotry, whilst fully agreeing that it was a terrible poorly-researched video that did serve to reinforce transphobic narratives even if it was unintentional. This led to Woodford not only delisting and demonotizing the original video, but also releasing both an apology and retraction video to try and help mitigate the damage his original video caused.

Ethel however, refused to accept Woodford's apology and retraction, and made several response videos accusing his apology of being fake and him continuing to spread transphobic misinformation. And while that's perfectly understandable if Ethel personally didn't find Woodford's apology to be adequate or genuine, where this crosses the line into unacceptable behavior is that Ethel then went onto repeatedly attack Rachel Oates simply because she was both friends with Woodford IRL and didn't want to get directly involved in the controversy. Essentially, Ethel is engaging in the "guilt by association" fallacy here. In actuality though, Rachel not only repeatedly stated that she disagreed with the content Woodford's original video and agreed that it was very bad and harmful, but that she is supportive of the trans community and felt unqualified to weigh in on the subject matter of trans-people in sports since she has barely any knowledge or interest about sports in general.

This response was not good enough for Ethel however, who instead misinterpreted Rachel's comments as a backhanded attempt at silencing Woodford's critics.

Things got even worse when a random fan messaged Rachel a screenshot taken from a private Facebook group from a trans-self-help group which compiled a list of public figures for the trans community to avoid following the Woodford controversy, and her name was included on that list. Rachel, not knowing that the list was from a private chat, immediately went on Twitter to defend herself, which led to Ethel accusing her of doxxing by publishing private information. This is in spite of the fact that not only did the screenshot already exist before Rachel discovered it, but she went out of her way to censor the names of the members of that Facebook group. Furthermore, Ethel had also blocked Rachel on Twitter which led to the latter asking some of her followers to show her what Ethel was stating about her so she could try to adequately defend herself, which in-turn resulted in Ethel accusing Rachel of sending her millions of followers to circumvent her block and harass her.

The situation escalated even further however, when Ethel posted a now infamous tweet to one of Woodford and Oates' friends' Lizzy Lang, not only described Woodford as a "violent transphobe intent on stripping away dozens of human rights,” but called Lang and others (presumably Oates) "members of Woodford's church a transphobia" before ending the tweet with the words, "do this world a favor and exit it."

That last line in Ethel’s tweet, “do the world a favor and exit it,” got a lot of people justifiably angry since it was very easily misconstrued as Ethel advocating for Woodford's defenders to commit suicide (she claimed it was meant to say “exit Woodford’s church of transphobia”). And while EoT later apologized and clarified the incredibly poor wording of that last comment, she still refused to apologize to Rachel after several months of targeted bullying and defamation. When Rachel saw the infamous tweet, it only served to amplify her pre-existing feelings of depression since she mistaken that tweet to be directed at her instead of Lizzy Lang. And a few days later, in an act of desperation Rachel posted an impromptu unedited video begging and pleading for Ethel to stop bullying her, not realizing that she was still badly bleeding from cuts on her arm due to feeling completely hopeless and isolated (Rachel already had a history of engaging in self-harm and cutting).

But not even Rachel engaging in self-harm nor her feelings of suicidality were enough to sway Ethel, who still continued to double-down on their harassment by arguing that Rachel "weaponizing self-harm, transmisogyny, and benevolent patriarchy," and was using "upper-class cis white woman tears" (even though Rachel has openly admitted to being lower-middle class). And to this very day, Ethel still continues to slander Rachel and falsely label her as a "serial transphobe" and "abuser" all throughout her videos, even going as far as to not only claim, "Rachel Oates' [abuse] was the second most psychologically destructive thing [she's] ever suffered, only being second to being raped as a child," but that she would rather relive her trauma of "being outed as bisexual, groomed at age 15, and sexually assaulted."

Seriously... FREAKING YIKES! Those are incredibly extreme and inflammatory statements to make! I do understand that Ethel is a CSA survivor (and on that level I 100% empathize with her because that is of course absolutely terrible and is one of the absolute WORST things anyone can suffer from), but claiming that someone circumventing a Twitter Block and or begging you to stop bullying her whilst feeling suicidal is even remotely comparable to “being raped as a child"?! That is so unbelievably insensitive on so many levels that I don’t even know where to start! It’s insensitive to not only Rachel herself, but to other CSA survivors as well since it trivializes their trauma! Ethel should know better than this!

Also, that screenshot of Ethel tweeting a link to a Guardian article discussing the weaponization of white woman tears? That was literally the top pinned-tweet to her Twitter account immediately days after Rachel posted that desperate video of her pleading to Ethel to stop her harassment campaign whilst feeling suicidal. What a truly vile and unempathetic thing for Ethel to do!

Section 3: Showing support for Rachel Oates

After I did more research into the whole EssenceOfThought Vs. Rachel Oates situation, as well as hearing Rachel's side of the story, I ended up subscribing to Rachel's YouTube channel and have since become a fan of her work. Before I eventually unsubscribed from Ethel's channel due to the way she similarly bullied several of Lily Orchard’s victims, I was given the impression by her that Rachel Oates was just another garden-variety TERF YouTuber based on he way Ethel constantly talked about her. But that’s NOT accurate at all… Rachel's channel from what I’ve seen is mainly just about discussions of secularism and religion, feminism, book reviews, and cute dog videos!

Seriously, her dog Kyra is so FREAKING adorable!

Look at her! Kyra's such a good girl! She's such a cute doggy!

But yeah, this is a prime example of how Ethel’s pattern of engaging in bad-faith moral absolutism while misrepresenting events and evidence can be seriously damaging to uninitiated viewers. And I say that not only as someone who was largely unaware of the full extent of what she had done to Rachel, but also because Ethel frames her content in a very pseudo-academic/intellectual manner and uses a lot of professional sounding words to try and disguise severely misguided and inflammatory arguments. She tries to portray her YouTube videos as if they’re akin to college-level essays with lots of citations and crap, which can easily fool people into thinking that her content is well-researched and sophisticated. Except looking below the surface, in hindsight Ethel’s videos are mostly just pretentious word-salad, cherry-picking evidence, and relying heavily on academic terminology in order promote her thinly-veiled absolutist black-&-white views on morality, attacking anyone who is “not progressive enough” for her (in addition to Rachel, Ethel & Levi have also done this to other leftist YouTubers like Lindsay Ellis, Philosophy Tube, & Suris the Skeptic). According to Ethel’s logic, you’re either an entirely good or entirely bad person, and there’s zero in-between and if you dare disagree with her to even the slightest degree then she’ll automatically consider you to be just as bad as the far-right. Basically, it’s moral absolutism.

All of Ethel’s fallacious claims against Rachel Oates are textbook examples of bad-faith moral absolutism, and I deeply regret the fact that I was ever once a fan of Ethel’s content. She is a bully and a liar. And that’s a conclusion I arrived to after seeing how Rachel’s stories about being repeatedly slandered & bullied by Ethel heavily paralleled the similar experiences of individuals like Shiloh Conner, thereby revealing a pattern of toxic behavior on Ethel’s part.

Section 4: Ethel’s renewed and current bullying campaign

So why do I bring all of this stuff up?

Well, even though the worst of the harassment Rachel suffered was back in 2019 and she has since tried to move on from this whole fiasco and continues making her usual feminist book reviews and dog videos (she even deliberately avoids mentioning EssenceOfThought by name in her videos...), Ethel has not only repeatedly tried to drag all of this drama back up, but has this singleminded obsessive vendetta to defame and destroy Rachel's YouTube career at all costs. For instance, in 2022 Ethel tried to further slander Rachel by yet again engaging in "guilt by association" fallacy because notable transgender TERF YouTuber "Rose of Dawn" (aka, the British equivalent of Blaire White) once tried to befriend Rachel in 2020 after the initial harassment campaign by Ethel, and later in 2022 Rose openly defended self-confessed genocidal serial rapist Lily Cade when the latter was platformed in an infamous transphobic BBC article. What Ethel completely neglects to mention however, is that Rachel had permanently stopped interacting with Rose when several members of her audience informed her that Rose is actually a TERF (and the way Rose suddenly tried to befriend Rachel after Ethel's bullying of her strikes me as very cult-like since TERFs sadly do have a history in engaging in incredibly abusive cultish tactics to recruit new members, as many people who have escaped that disgusting hate movement have reported...) and she has since apologized for ever giving Rose any attention. Regardless, Ethel still tried to falsely implicate Rachel alongside "Rose of Dawn" in a video condemning Lily Cade & the BBC, which led to Rachel rightfully filing a defamation claim to YouTube, getting Ethel's then-latest slanderous hit-peace against Rachel blocked in the UK.

But even worse however, is that starting in August 2023 Ethel has begun releasing a constant stream of videos continuing to smear Rachel even further by both repeating all of the exact same aforementioned slanderous claims along with a whole bunch of new ones. Like, not only has Ethel already released 3 main videos out of a planned 6-part series ranting about Rachel Oates, but she has also released 24 shorts taken from the main videos!

Geez! Not only is this beyond obsessive, but this is just straight-up targeted bullying and harassment on Ethel's part! And the new claims she makes against Rachel in these videos are equally slanderous as the ones before! For just one example, Ethel & Levi’s cite a now-deleted livestream of Rachel's that they re-uploaded as a mirrored-copy to their channel, accusing Rachel of denying trans-women's existence by making the offhanded comment of, “No, the only thing a man can provide me that a woman can’t is a p*nis. Only thing.”

Except… I actually went and watched the ENTIRE 3-hour mirrored livestream myself just to see the full context of Rachel’s quote, and it turns out that Ethel took that quote completely out of context! Not only are there lots of points in the livestream wherein Rachel repeatedly states that “gender is a social construct and that trans and non-binary people exist,” but during the stream she's doing a counter-response to a Christian fundamentalist incel who once responded one of her earlier videos. And that potentially problematic quote of Rachel’s, “No, the only thing a man can provide me that a woman can’t is a p*nis. Only thing,” was actually a sarcastic response to the incel’s homophobic argument that “women don’t want to love their equals [(aka other women)] because they actually all want what only a [dominant alpha male] can provide them.”

Essentially, Rachel was criticizing the incel’s sexist & homophobic “logic” that, “all women secretly only want p*nises,” in a snarky & sarcastic manner, but Ethel took Rachel’s comment out of context to try and instead paint it as some transphobic-slip-of-the-tongue/TERF-dogwhistle, accusing Rachel of “completely ignoring the existence of non or pre-op trans women,” in order to try and support the fallacious argument that, “Rachel Oates doesn’t actually view trans women as real women, but instead as props to objectify in order to make herself look like a better ally.”

Not once does Ethel ever mention the context that Rachel was responding to & mocking a bigoted incel during the livestream... at all...

I don't have time to go into all of the other new lies that Ethel & Levi are currently spewing against Rachel Oates since this post has already gotten incredibly lengthy (for instance, Ethel also claimed that Rachel “downplayed JK Rowling’s transphobia” simply because she used the words “incredibly problematic” to describe the Queen TERF’s bigoted views; which is such a weak and pedantic argument), but it’s a whole lot…

Conclusion

Overall, I just wanted to bring attention to this situation because EssenceOfThought's harassment campaign against Rachel Oates has been ongoing since 2019 and it shows ZERO signs of stopping anytime soon. Ethel & Levi are serial bullies and liars who regularly engage in bad-faith arguments, misrepresent evidence, and engage in moral absolutism in order to paint anyone who disagrees with them or makes even the slightest mistake as the worst people imaginable. So the more people who are made aware of this mess, the better.

Please show support for Rachel, whether that be through signal-boosting this post, subscribing to her YouTube channel, or even donating to her Patreon if you so choose.

And to EssenceOfThought, aka Ethel Thurston, (along with her editor Levi...) specifically, the famed basketball player Michael Jordan would have some choice words for you:

And I mean that sincerely. Seriously... just stop this targeted bullying & slander campaign against Rachel. It's incredibly unhealthy and obsessive. Just let it go already...

[shinygemstone]

HERE IS A LIST OF THE 30 MAIN KIPO AUs I WANT BUT WILL NEVER HAVE BECAUSE THE FANFIC COMMUNITY IS TINY IN ORDER OF SPOILERINESS (FEWEST SPOILERS FIRST OBVIOUSLY)

1. An AU where Kipo doesn't end up on the surface in the first episode, and has to go through the events with the mega monkey still looking for her

2. An AU in which all of Kipo's people are actually dead, and she's the only survivor. Depression for everyone!!

3. An AU where Margot never betrayed Wolf, and the two have a very close and codependent relationship. Bonus points if Wolf gets kidnapped by Scarlemagne

4. An AU where Wolf's wolf parents never actually betrayed her and raised her alongside the other children. Wolf girl wolf.

5. AU where the protagonists end up separated after Ratland, with Kipo and Benson trying their best to escape Scarlemagne's place without Scarlemagne realizing they're there while Wolf, Mandu, and Dave try to save them

6. AU like #1, except Lio fucking dies and Kipo's body now assumes it is in danger a lot more. So now she's dealing with the mega monkey and turning into the mega jaguar

7. Kipo gets along a little too well with the timbercats, and they kind of adopt her. Parental Yumyan and Molly. They're not surprised to find out she's part cat and teach her how to properly kitty

8. In which Lio turns out to be the mega monkey, somehow.

9. In which Kipo was raised on the surface, and is kind of known as the local feral half cat creature. Naturally, Scarlemagne kidnaps her for weapon usage and oops. Guess he has to teach the feral out of her

10. In which Jamack joins the protagonists (if you didn't think my man would be here you're wrong)

11. Let Kipo get upset about the whole mega jaguar thing PLEASE

12. Song and Lio raise Kipo, while Song is suppressing the mutagen and struggling more and more as she gets older.

13. Song turns out to fill Dr. Emilia's role, and is actually trying to end mutekind.

14. Emilia gets her hands on Kipo, but mistakes her for a normal human (somehow) so Kipo grows up in the science burrow believing mutes killed her parents and that what Emilia is doing is justified. Bonus points if she's Emilia's protege/assistant/intern

15. Emilia gets her hands on Kipo, knowing that she's Song and Lio's daughter, and decides she can use Kipo as a weapon. This would involve a lot of dehumanization and likely good brother Scarlemagne/Hugo. Also Lio? Totally dead

16. AU where Lio manages to yoink Hugo. That's the AU. Hugo and Lio and Kipo as family.

17. AU #16 with angst: Lio gets captured, so it's just Hugo and Kipo. Bonus points if Kipo grows up in Ratland

18. For even more angst, Scarlemagne kidnaps Kipo, raising her in his blooming empire. Except Scarlemagne has no idea how to raise a child, especially not one who's half mega jaguar.

19. Where Mulholland doesn't help Kipo, and Scarlemagne's coronation goes as planned.

20. Where Emilia kidnapping the mutes was a trap, and it works as planned. Kipo is in for such a bad time.

21. Where what Emilia did to the mutes she kidnapped mutes is a lot more horrific than in cannon.

22. WOLF BOTHERS TO REPLACE STALKY

23. Margot changes her mind about betraying Wolf sooner, and Emilia never captures any of the protagonists. Consequently, Emilia sneaks into timbercat village to conduct her evil plans.

24. Instead of Yumyan, Kipo gets hit by the cure. Consequently, the decision is made to have the mega jaguar deal with all subsequent human incidents. This prevents It's a Trap from happening.

25. Kipo gets hit by the cure, except it works. No more mega jaguar, but she gets back to timbercat village.

26. Kipo goes through with sinking the cruise ship. Insert huge crisis (and maybe Song, Lio, or both of them rejecting Kipo/treating her like a monster. Please. I live for angst)

27. AU where Dave kills child Benson, and is a reoccurring side character who's literally just a bastard

28. Fun Gus Monster Emilia. Like just IMAGINE if she took Gus' DNA instead of the mega walrus. Sludge monsters are underrated imo, and she could do so much fucking damage.

29. Emilia gets stuck as a half mute, and gets shoved in prison. Maybe with Hoag.

30. SCARLEMAGNE LIVES

[mofffun]

«Rita of Gokkan» Ch.19

eng translation by me

ch: [tag] [2-3] [4-6] [7-9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18]

timeline: ep5 (Toufu ch1)

Rita and Kaguragi test each other on what the other knows.

contains TV SPOILERS past ep5, assumed reader is up-to-date at ep43

*If you are a newcomer and wanted to read the manga along with its corresponding episode, you will only get context for what's hinted in this chapter much later in the show.

t/n:

p4: This bugnarok is pronounced "by-EH-jim" not "bae-jim" ... based on a fly (ha-EH)

Kaguragi addresses everyone as "-dono" but sometimes Rita as "Sovereign Rita". I'm putting Rita-sama and Rita-dono both as "Justice Rita". Normally I'd be inclined to keep the honorifics but since I already used the English form before I should stick to that and subs group conventions. ("-tono/-dono" is an antiqudated suffix that is only used in official documents nowadays. In history, it meant respect for those above you but nowadays it's used by the higher-rank to address those lower politely. Genderless, lower than '-sama'.)

Something about Rita's speech pattern is they tend to use a lot of kanji, as part of their solemn personality and regular legal jargon. I lack the context to evaluate how advanced Rita's kanji are to the average Japanese but the general sense of Rita having a more archaic/complex vocabulary is evident.

holding my urge not to put a ! in every Kagu speech bubble

p14: Kagu's reation to hearing Rita saw Suzume's figure: ……はて？ -> long pause, [lit. 1. well; let me see; now​ (used before sentences expressing a doubt) 2. dear me/good gracious]

ch19:

t/n part 2:

p9: わざわざお出まし恐縮（きょうしゅく）です [lit. my apologies for making you come all this way.] -> What an honour to have your persence!

Here it is! the east/west cultural difference! Keigo is a big challenge for me as a learner already, let alone a translator. There's no direct dictionary substitution and it really depends on your intuition with usage in either langugaes. The keigo here is humble-type, while to make it sound natural in English, instead of reflecting your own incompetence, you are flattering the other party. In the next line, Kaguragi says because Rita came unannounced, they were inadequate in failing to preapre a welcoming committee. I think the scarcasm is there in English too, but I just feel it's more insulting to imply Rita is not exactly welcome while initiatively taking the "weaker" side (Kaguragi's gaslighting, what's new).

p13: learner's note: the royal kitchen is called 厨房(chuubou) while the word for kitchen I knew was 台所(daidokoro). Research shows 厨房 is a professional kitchen like in a restaurant and 台所 is the one at home. Katakana Kitchen is also in the vocabulary to mean a modern, western-style industrical kitchen. Chinese has lost the distinctioin and uses 廚房 (note!: an extra dot above 厨) for both home or workplace.

p16: I interpret Rita's first concern is in maintaining equality between the kingdoms. A duo alliance between ❤🖤 is only detrimental to a five-kingdom one they are working towards: small circle, and increased hostility from 💛💙 if they believe ❤🖤💜 is their small clique. Yet it is interesting Rita raised the question out of personal curiosity. Remember in the beginning there was this, feeling, ❤🖤💜 are seniors and they've known each other for longer? Now we know Kaguragi is actually Rita's junior in terms of order of sucession. Now they could've what he was like prior to taking the throne. Notice how they never describe him as a liar. Maybe Rita does find it odd a man of his capability feels the need to bootlick Racules.

Onomatopoeia words this week:

スッ(Suu) an action done suddenly without sound

ボコボコ(boko boko) 1. sound of hitting a hollow object 2. uneven (surface) 3. to cause damage with full force

バキバキ (baki baki) hard objects shattering/breaking/cracking ポカ(poka) 1. repeated hit with something heavy i.e. fist/bat 2. feeling of warmth

よろよろ (yoro yoro) (adv., not a sound) staggering

もがく (moga ku) (v.) struggle/wiggle impatient -> here means eating frantically (because food is too god)

ずいっ (zui) (adv.) straightforwardly, readily, without hesitation

alternate translations:

p9: No careless msitakes… -> Better keep my guard up… / Better stay alert…

p11: No way any of that is true. -> What a load of crap. (intuition lol)

Script:

p1 (18lp) p2 「バサッ　バサッ」 「ガクン」 すみません～… バエジーム お騒がせしております～ 「ゴゴゴ…」 くそ…　バグナラクめ… どこにでも湧（わ）いて来る… p4 うるさくてすみません～　そして… 「ブ　ブゥン」 死んでいただけると助かります～ 「ス…」 「タッ」 p5 「ガッ」 「ボコ　ボコ　ボコ」 待ち伏（ふ）せていたのか p6 「ドドド」 「ガガガ」く…つ 「バキ　ゴ　ポカ」 p7 ギヤ 「ズンッ」 トウフ国の黒子軍団…！ 今だ！ p8 撃（う）たせていただきます 「パ　パ」 「タ　ドッ　タ　ボッ　ボ」 「タッ」 ギャ 「よろ　よろ」「ブブブ」 てっ…　撤退（てったい）です～！　 p9 いやいや…　素晴らし腕前 さすがリタ国王 わざわざお出まし恐縮（きょうしゅく）です 前もって言っていただければ迎えの用意いたしましたのに カグラギ‧ディボウスキ… こいつはラクレスと通しているようだが… 油断（ゆだん）は禁物（きんもつ）だ… p10 p11 して　ギラという男 強盗団（ごうとうだん）の親玉（おやだま）という噂がありまして 毒虫（どくむし）食にしている化け物なんていう話も もういい そんなわけないだろ もしやそのご様子まさかギラの正体（しょうたい）をご存じで…！ 調査（ちょうさ）中だ たとえ王でも外部の者に話すわけないだろう p12 さすがは絶対中立の王　素晴らしい！ 察しますに最高厳罰（げんばつ）処分（しょぶん）ですね …ただ一つ言えるのは…… おお！？言えるのは！？ —いや 調査の結果は法廷（ほうてい）で明らかにする 危ない…どうもこいつの前でもしゃべりすぎる… ラクレスに感づかれては厄介（やっかい）だ うまい…　「もが」 はっはっは　そうでしょう！ このトウフには世界中のあらゆる食が揃っております p13 ただ… 聞いたことない食事は出ませんが … そういえば　リタ殿 以前（いぜん）コーカサス城の厨房（ちゅうぼう）で 調べごとをされていた…とか 調べもの見つかりましたか？ 個人的な調査だ　結果を話すつもりはない そういえば　あの時… p14 お前とよく似た着物を見たが ！ ……はて？ ラクレス殿にご挨拶にうかがったときでしょうか？ p15 いや…　もっと小柄（こがら）な… それはリタ殿の見間違い��しょう なにか　隠しているな… お前はなぜラクレスに付き従う（つきしたがう） ラクレス殿は素晴らしい志(こころざし)をお持ちの方 であれば協力するのは当然です それにしてはまるで主従(しゅうじゅう)のようだ p16 国同士は対等（たいとう）な関係のはず… それに前王イロキの悪政（あくせい）から解放したのはお前の独力（どくりょく）だ それは… リタ国王！ これは仕方がないのです…！

[linesonscreens]

Let's Read Peanuts (Only 45 more years to go!) – December 1955

There are lots of great strips I just don't have room to comment on. I strongly encourage everybody to read the full month at the official GoComics page. Today's month starts HERE.

December 2 1955

Linus, that’s what we like to call “noclipping”. It just means that you live in a simulation and everyone and everything you’ve ever known or loved is a lie generated by an unfeeling algorithm. Once the novelty wears off though it’s really nothing to write home about.

December 5, 1955

Hey man, I get it. We’ve all fallen down the Wikipedia rabbit hole at some point.

December 8, 1955

Wait are those terms like, dog slurs? Am I going to wake up someday to find my inbox flooded with very angry call-out messages about my past usage of the M-word?

Look, I didn’t know OK!? That’s just how everybody used to talk!

December 17, 1955

Seems a bit mean, but I imagine you can only hear this speech so many times before you get numb to it and start thinking up zingers.

December 18, 1955

Oh. Good. The religion stuff is finally starting to work it’s way into the strip.

Yaaaaaaay.

December 20, 1955

Santa being a tragic figure with a checkered past is hilarious and I’m going to start telling this version to small children.

December 25, 1955

Oh piss off you two. Even if Snoopy was just a normal dog this would be an exceptionally cool thing to do.

Thoughts:

Sorry for the delay! I recently moved and it’s made doing anything beyond opening boxes a challenge. Let’s do our customary look at how the art has changed, shall we?

Charlie Brown

(October) 1950

(December) 1950

1951

1952

1953

1954

1955

Linus

(September) 1952

(December) 1952

1953

1954

1955

Snoopy

(October) 1950

(December) 1950

1951

1952

1953

1954

1955

At some point (I think around March) something I can't quite put my finger on shifted and the strip has felt a bit different ever since. I think a big part of it is how he draws his characters with the heads getting smaller and rounder while character's faces get much more tiny. It's not necessarily a bad thing but it does make them look a bit less cutesy and approachable in exchange for them feeling a bit more grounded. I'll let you decide if that's a good, bad, or lateral move.

Meanwhile, certain individual characters have evolved a LOT this year independent of everything else. The changes around Linus are the most obvious what with him growing up and becoming a proper character, now capable of walking, talking and constantly imagining the violent demise of his many enemies (#relatable). Visually, he's still got a big head and stubby appendages but he’s starting to reach a point where his look is more or less in-line the rest of the main cast.

Snoopy on the other hand is going through a much more interesting change where we’re seeing the entire visual aesthetic shift dramatically. He started as a stylized but fairly grounded depiction of a real world dog but over the course of this year he's transformed into some kind of Looney Tunes character. I suspect that this was because Schulz wanted to draw Snoopy doing goofy faces/impressions but his old design just just wasn't very flexible due to how blocky it was. Again, it’s not ~bad~ really, but I miss the cute simplicity of the original look.

Meanwhile, Charlie Brown’s changes are more subtle but in some ways more profound. While Snoopy has gotten more animated and expressive, Charlie Brown is actually a lot more deadpan with a tiny face on a smaller, now almost perfectly circular head and a more stocky frame that gives him a much more “neutral” or "static" feel (for lack of a better word). He's also almost completely lost that goofy edge he had early on in favor of an early version of the constantly depressed and put-upon personality he will have for the rest of the strip. Personally, I think it's a bit of a downgrade but considering how successful this version became that's probably just a me thing.

Finally, the background art continues to become more loose and less complex. Schulz is still capable of some incredible compositions, but intricate backgrounds are becoming rarer now in favor of minimalist options like using few lines to indicate grass. I don’t really blame him for that one though. That’s a LOT of saved time which is important in a daily comic strip where you constantly have another deadline looming. Still kind of sad to see it happen though.

Overall, this feels like the awkward early middle school years of the strip. It's a transitory period where Schulz is trying new things and figuring out a more sustainable long-term workflow. It's no longer the Peantus of 1953 but it's also not the "classic" Peanuts of the 1960s we're all familiar with yet either. Which is interesting in and of itself, I think.

-------

Thanks again to everybody for reading! It's been very heartening to see that I'm not the only one who finds digging through the archives of this silly strip interesting. I'll see you all in 1956!

[oathbreakerapologist]

Sortie Conlang Exploration 1: Oh God We're Really in It Now

EDIT THIS IS INCORRECT LMAO

There's really nothing to justify this project other than my sheer desire to peel back every layer I can find in this goddamn comic until I've burned it into my brain permanently. What's this project? There's a conlang in Sortie (et al) and I'm gonna try to figure it out the long way.

The first appearance of this script in SADS/Sortie is at the end of SADS #5.

Based on placement and context, I think this is a transliteration of "thank you for reading" (written right-to-left) because the letters line up where I'd expect them to be (e.g., see the repeated glyphs at the end of the third word from the right and the start of the fourth word from the right—that'd be the "R" in "for" and "reading", and see the repeated glyphs in the second position of both of the middle two words, that's the "O" in "you" and "for"). I'm going to use this as a key. This is a big assumption that I'm accepting for now because it's the best way I have to start, but I recognize that the rest of this project fails if I'm either (1) wrong about the meaning of this inscription or (2) wrong that the letters that show up in Sortie correspond to their usage here or (3) wrong about both. So with that liability in mind, I proceed.

The first part of this process is to collect all uses of the conlang in Sortie (#1–#3, for now) and figure out which of the letters that appear there are ones we now speculatively know (based on the key), and which ones we don't.

I went through and filled in blanks for all the ones I knew based on the key phrase—those are the ones in green next to each inscription. Then I went through the ones I didn't know from the key phrase and recorded them in the unknown box. I ended up with eleven unknown glyphs, which is not a terrible number (actually much lower than I expected, but more on that later). I might even have less than that, because some of them are quite possibly just slightly different forms of ones I have already seen; I was deliberately quite liberal about classifying things as unknown, as I'd rather artificially inflate my number of unknowns than misclassify something if I wasn't absolutely sure it was an instance of a certain letter. I numbered those unknowns and filled in the blanks with those numbers in yellow. If/when I reference a word like "H(1)(2)RD" (from Sortie #1 p. 121, and of course written RTL there—I flip words to LTR for my convenience when writing about them), read that as H-(mystery letter 1)-(mystery letter 2)-R-D.

Then I marked all the letters that appeared in the key phrase but not in sortie in orange in the known letters box. This is a surprisingly high number of letters; of the 14 unique letters in the key phrase, only 7 appear in the several bits of text taken from Sortie. The 7 letters omitted include all the vowels, except (infuriatingly) "O," which appears exactly once in Sortie #3 text. Jumping the gun a bit, but for reasons I'm about to get into, I suspect that the glyph I took to be "O" has actually been repurposed for something else, because I don't actually expect the letter "O" to appear in the text.

And that's because I think this conlang is an abjad, a writing system in which only the consonants are represented, leaving the reader to infer the vowel sounds. That explains the omission of vowels. And, for the record, I am fairly confident that the vowels are actually omitted, for a couple reasons.

Firstly (and most speculatively), our bank of letters from the SADS inscription gives us 6 consonants. Then we have at maximum 11 mystery letters, so at maximum 17 letters. Even if we're making use of an extremely limited vowel inventory (say, 4 vowels), that leaves us with at maximum 13 consonants. That's a much more limited consonant inventory than we'd expect, even if we assume there are a few uncommon letters that don't appear often enough to show up in the text taken from Sortie. Most European languages are in the mid-20s, so ~17 letters is quite short (there's several Pacific languages with letter counts in the teens, so it's not impossible, but it's unusual, especially considering the obvious Phoenician influence to the language). But ~17 is a perfectly reasonable number of consonants.

Secondly (and most concretely), there's just a bunch of consonant clusters that are probably unpronounceable if we assume they're supposed to be pronounced as written, i.e. without vowels, like "RFH," "RKR," and "DGD."

So I think it's an abjad. That's useful to know.

As for next steps, I think I'm going to write a quick script to count frequency of individual letters as well as two- or three-letter strings at the starts and ends of words, with the hopes of identifying commonly-occurring word parts. Without it, I can already pick out a few interesting words, but it'd be faster and more accurate to have a script for it. As for interesting words, "H(1)" is short and it shows up a couple times at the start of a sentence. If I can identify the word order (I think Phoenician was VSO, but I'm not going to assume that's true about the conlang), that'll help me figure out what part of speech "H(1)" is. There's also one string that seemingly occurs twice with an interesting variation: "H(6)(6)DGD" is said by the masked man on Sortie #1 page 123, then "H(6)(6)DGR" is said by him on page 124. A change of suffix? A verb tense? That's all pure speculation, but I'm guessing that is the same word root.

To be continued............

(Man, it'd be really fucking funny if I'm wrong about the key phrase I've been using to decode these.)

[hollywoodxwhore]

Ours | Chapter 17

Colson x Presley (Original Female Character)

Synopsis: Presley and Colson fell in love accidentally, but they were meant to be. Now that all the obstacles have been removed, they're moving in together in LA. Now, they have all the time in the world for Colson to teach Presley all of the things he knows. This fic is the sequel to Mine, which can be found in my masterlist!

Warnings/Content: Angst, Colson accidentally fucking up, sad/traumatized Presley, mentions of trauma and PTSD, panic attacks, swearing, M*gan F*x, frustrated Cash, marijuana usage, mentions of suicide

Colson

I wake up the next morning before Presley.

She sleeps fitfully, her brow furrowed. She mumbles something and shifts around. She must be having a nightmare. I frown and wrap her up in my arms, pressing a kiss to her forehead. My girl is a heavy sleeper, so she doesn’t wake up, but she does relax a bit. Satisfied, I let her go and get up to go to the bathroom.

After a shower, I brush my teeth and get dressed. Even though everything is over, there’s something I need to do. Maybe it’s petty, but I need it for closure. I leave a note on the kitchen counter to let Presley know I’ll be back later, and then I slip out of the house.

I don’t even play music on the drive. I sit in the silence, focused entirely on my destination. My heart races a little, but I need to do this. 

I drive up the familiar driveway and park my car, taking a steadying breath before getting out. I walk up the path and ring the doorbell. I’m a little nervous, I can’t lie. I never want to see her again, but at the same time, I need this closure desperately.

I ring the bell again but I know she’s home. I just have to be patient. After about 30 seconds, the door unlocks and cracks open. “Colson?” Her voice is timid and I can only see half of her face around the door. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to talk to you,” I answer. “I came to put an end to all of this.”

Megan hesitates, then finally opens the door enough so that I can fit through it. “Come in,” she says softly, and I do. I take off my shoes and look over at her, and my breath catches in my throat.

Megan is a beautiful woman. I can’t deny that. I dated her, after all; I can’t lie and say I wasn’t attracted to her. But right now, she doesn’t even look like herself.

Her hair is greasy and matted. Her entire face seems swollen from crying, mascara streaking down her cheeks. She wears a gigantic t-shirt and nothing else, but instead of it being endearing and sexy like it is when Presley dresses like that, it just looks sad. She’s like a teenage girl who had her heart broken. 

As much as I want to have empathy, my heart is so hardened to this woman that I feel nothing but smug satisfaction. She should feel miserable for what she did. She tried to ruin my life and she almost succeeded. 

“What do you want me to say?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest.

I scoff, shaking my head. “I don’t know what I ever saw in you,” I admit. I expect a sassy rebuttal but all she does is hang her head, her lip wobbling. I feel a tiny prickle of guilt but then I think back to what she did to me, the butterfly effect it caused. 

“I know,” she whispers. 

“What?” I ask, stunned.

“I know,” she says a little louder, finally looking up at me. “I’m fucked up. I know, okay? I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

I could answer that question in a lot of ways, none of them polite. But she doesn’t need me to pour salt in her wounds. “I just want to know why you did it,” I mutter.

Megan laughs humorlessly, shaking her head. “I thought it would get her to leave you,” she admits. “You’d have no choice but to come crawling back to me.”

“Jesus, Megan,” I say, wincing as I shake my head. It’s so fucking sad and pathetic that I actually start to feel a little sorry for her. 

“I know,” she whimpers, swiftly wiping away a tear. “I’m sorry.”

I blink at her. “You’re sorry.”

“Yes,” she says, meeting my eyes for just a moment before looking away again. 

“Do you know what you caused?” I snap, and the tight composure I had of myself starts to slip away. I’m furious at her for what she did to me and my friends, my family. “Do you know that I was going to kill myself?”

Megan’s head snaps up and her eyes widen. “Buddha, what–”

“Don’t you fucking call me that,” I say, voice quiet but seething with hatred. “You tried to ruin my life. My career would have been over if you hadn’t confessed to my wife.”

“I-I wasn’t thinking!” Megan tries.

“Exactly!” I bellow, my anger pouring over. “You weren’t! And now you have to suffer the consequences.”

Megan starts to cry. “I’m sorry, Colson. I’m so sorry,” she cries, covering her face. I don’t know if I actually believe the tears are real but I just shake my head, waiting for her to calm down a little. “What do you even want from me if it’s not an apology?” she whimpers.

I study her for a second. “I don’t want anything from you,” I admit. “I came here to tell you I won’t be pressing charges for defamation.”

Megan’s eyes go wide with shock. “You aren’t? But…but why not?” she asks.

I shrug. “Enough people have been hurt over this,” I explain. “I just want it to be over.”

Megan deflates. “Thank you,” she says weakly.

I shake my head. “You know how you can thank me?” I ask. She looks up at me. “By leaving me and everyone I love the hell alone. If I ever hear from you again, or if Presley does, or Cash, or anyone, Megan, I swear to god….”

“Okay,” Megan says, holding up her hands in surrender. “Okay. I’ll stay away. I promise. I’ll stay away.”

“Good,” I say, slipping back into my shoes. I pause at the doorway. “Megan?”

She looks up at me with those eyes, the ones that used to melt me. The ones that used to make me feel so loved and so special. I look into them and I feel absolutely nothing. 

I regard her for a second longer. “I truly wish you the best.” With that, I walk out her door for the last time, a weight off my shoulders. That was the last thing I needed to do to heal from this. Now, there’s nothing in my way. 

In the car, I turn on some music and turn notifications back on. Instantly, my phone starts blowing up. Panic sparks in my chest as I look at my missed call log: four missed calls from Presley, six from Cash. As I pull out of Megan’s driveway, Cash calls me and I answer. “Hey.”

“God dammit,” Cash curses. “You guys need to stop with the fucking do not disturb.”

“Sorry,” I say. “What the hell is going on?” I drive a little faster. 

“Where the hell are you?” He sounds pissed. 

“I just left Megan’s,” I answer.

“You just…what? Jesus Christ,” Cash mutters, and I can picture him shaking his head at me. 

“I needed closure and I got it,” I say simply. “Now what’s wrong?”

“You need to go home to your wife,” Cash says. “She’s upset, Kells.”

“What? Why?” I ask, frowning deeply as I speed up even more. What did I do wrong?

“I don’t know. She called me hysterical about half an hour ago wondering where you were,” he explains. “I told her I’d get ahold of you.”

“Fuck,” I mutter, guilt squeezing my chest. “I’ll be home soon. Can you text her and let her know?”

“On it. Get home safe, brother,” he says.

“Thanks, Cash.” I hang up and focus on getting the fuck home to my girl. 

I park haphazardly in the garage and hurry out of my car. I throw open the door to my house, my eyes wide and frantic. “Presley?” I call. 

A sob sounds from somewhere on the first floor.

“Presley? Baby I’m here!” I yell, shutting the door behind me and hurrying into the house, looking around. I find her in the living room and when I see her, my heart sinks. 

She’s on the floor, shaking so hard that I can see it from the doorway. Her eyes are wild with fear when she looks up at me. She scrambles to her feet and throws herself at me, and the sob that wrenches out of her is so broken and terrified that it breaks me. “Presley,” I breathe, holding her shaking body. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

“Y-y-you left!” she sobs, and all at once, everything makes sense.

Presley has been off since I came home from the hospital. I wrote it off as exhaustion from the craziness that has been our life lately. I knew we were both recovering, but I didn’t realize what was really happening. Presley is not okay. Far from it. She’s traumatized from what happened, and I haven’t been doing a goddamn thing to help. I left her alone without telling her I was leaving. Nothing but a measly note that didn’t explain shit. 

God, I should’ve seen the signs. I tried to go to the store the other day and she refused to let me go alone. Even when I leave the room, she gets upset. She has major separation anxiety and it’s my fault. 

“Oh Pres, oh god,” I say, sinking onto the floor. She’s wrapped around me like a second skin, sobbing against my neck. “I’m here, baby. I’m here. It’s okay.”

“Colson,” she wails. I’ve never seen her so upset before and my heart cracks in my chest. “I thought y-you were g-gone!”

“I’m so sorry,” I breathe, kissing everywhere I can reach. “Please, baby, just breathe. Breathe for me, Pres? C’mon, baby. Breathe in deep with me. That’s it. 1-2-3-4, now hold it.” I count to seven and then tell her to let it out for eight. Her breathing is ragged and shaky but I need her to calm down. She’s going to make herself sick with how upset she is. 

I lose track of time as we sit there, me trying to calm Presley down, but I can’t. My hands prickle with sweat and I’m suddenly terrified that we might have to do something drastic like go to the hospital. I don’t know how to calm her down. Then it clicks. I keep Presley in my lap as I scoot over to our coffee table where Presley’s weed pen sits. 

“Pres,” I say, stroking her hair with the hand not holding the pen. “Look at me.” She cries but does as she’s told, and the look on her face almost breaks me. Pure anguish. I put the pen to her lips and her scared eyes stay locked on mine as she inhales. I watch her, nodding encouragingly as she blows out the smoke. She takes one more hit and lets out a shaky breath. Instantly, she’s calmer.

“Good,” I soothe, cupping her face and stroking her cheeks. “You’re okay, baby, I promise.” I pull her closer, pressing kisses wherever I can – her nose, her swollen eyelids, her forehead, her chin, her cheeks, salty with tears. 

“Colson,” she says brokenly, her face crumpling. 

Jesus, I’ve never hated myself more than I do in this moment.

“Presley,” I say firmly, sliding a hand down her neck. “I’m here. I’m alive. I’m not going anywhere.” I shake my head to emphasize my point. “I promise.”

Her lip wobbles and she collapses onto my shoulder. I hold my breath but she doesn’t dissolve into sobs. It seems her panic attack is over, at least for the moment. She quietly sniffles on my shoulder and I rock her back and forth slowly. 

“I was at Megan’s,” I answer softly. It’s a risk, telling her. It could make her lose her absolute shit or it could explain things. She’s quiet, listening. “I got some closure. We won’t have to worry about her again.”

“How do you know?” Pres whimpers. “She’s…she’s…”

“Presley, that woman is broken,” I say. “I told her if she ever contacts us again…”

“You threatened her?”

“...Not in so many words.”

“Jesus,” Presley mutters. “You really think she won’t bother us again?”

“I really do,” I say. “I told her I’m not pressing charges. That’s my final gift to her.”

“Oh,” Presley croaks. “Okay. Do you feel better?”

Well, I did. Until I came home to my wife in shambles. “A little,” I mumble. I scoop her into my arms and transfer us to the couch. I lie down and settle her body on top of mine. Her warm weight is a comfort to me and I stroke her hair, holding her close. “Honey, we need to find a way to get through this,” I say gently. 

“I can’t just get through this, Colson,” Presley says, her tone clipped. “You were going to kill yourself and it would’ve been my fault.”

“No it wouldn’t–”

“Colson, yes it fucking would have,” Presley says firmly.

Anxiously, my fingers flutter on her back. “Can we not do this right now?” I ask quietly. “I promise we’ll figure it all out later. Not…not right now, baby. Not when you’re still recovering from a panic attack.”  

Presley is quiet for a moment and then she relaxes on top of me. “Okay,” she says quietly. 

“I love you,” I murmur against her hairline. “I love you so much. We’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay, Presley, I promise.”

Presley whimpers softly but nods. I hope she trusts me to help her because I’m going to until she’s better. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’m already thinking of people I can call. She needs therapy, possibly even a psychiatric evaluation for meds. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has PTSD from everything. 

But all that can wait. Right now, all I can focus on is the fact that Presley’s breathing is finally slowing, all the fight leaving her body. I grab a blanket and throw it over us, and Presley relaxes even more. “Go to sleep,” I whisper. “I promise I won’t go anywhere.”

Taglist: @triplexdoublex@jaxbreaker@mgklove99xx@jinx-on-mars-19xx@iamnotanearthlingmotherfucker@anonymousme86@whiteleoqueen@feroniakutenpuu@hxllywoodwhxree

I know this is all sad and angsty. Smut in the next chapter if that helps!

[inmarbleimmobility]

1.1.4 - "Works to Match Words"

well look who finally got caught up enough in their real job to do their les mis letters posts! (and figured out how to use the title feature!) oh boy there's so much here y'all.

the title immediately stands out to me - it reminds me of a bible verse, though I can't immediately pinpoint which one. a quick google tells me probably james 2:17 (faith without works is dead) but i think 1 john 3:18 fits better - "[...] let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth". this whole chapter is an exploration of what people *say* (or what their titles/positions say about them) vs what they *do*.

Pun Count is now 2 ("My highness cannot reach that shelf", maybe my fave pun in the whole book)!

Myriel refers to the Saint Augustine quote ("place your expectations in him to whom there is no succession") as being "something odd", just like Hugo later says he has his "own strange way of judging things" - driving home that point that for a priest to follow christ's actual words and intentions isn't the rule but the exception.

not sure how the anecdote about his cousin fits my words/works thesis but let me get to the end of this post and I bet I'll find it!

"using the tomb to feed their vanity" seems to imply there's something else these men should be using the tomb for - most likely a contemplation on heaven?

"A pennyworth of paradise" - lots here!! someone else brought up Myriel choosing to convince people to good acts through love rather than fear; we're seeing the fear approach work here, but only insofar as it gets Geborand to donate a single penny - a token contribution, a "work" that is more word than deed. he can say he was charitable, therefore he thinks he'll get into heaven. Myriel's saying it doesn't work that way - that a pennyworth of charity only gets you a pennyworth of paradise, perhaps also that the greater your works on earth, the greater your reward in heaven? this is a view I personally don't vibe all that much with as I feel like in practice it only encourages performative "works" instead of its intent (to reward fully those who were truly good). it *is* a very biblical take, though; see the beatitudes.

the Marquis de Champtercier - others have mentioned him as a kind of precursor to Gillenormand, which, yeah! the "words" here are the marquis claiming he's prioritizing his own poor while the actual work is to deny "Myriel's poor" his donation. Myriel (and I) disagree with the "my poor/your poor" distinction - the suffering of any person is the responsibility of all of us to alleviate, hence "give them to me". interestingly this was the first time i read this line as "give *them* to me" instead of "give them to *me*" - the latter is, again, Myriel saying he doesn't discriminate between "his" poor and the "Marquis' poor"; the former feels like an even cheekier followup to "you must give me something" - if it won't be money, it'll be "his" poor.

"God gives light to men, and the law sells it." Myriel is speaking literally here re: the door and window tax (which I know nothing about; what's the logic there??), but in a larger sense, he also isn't. Light is one of the things I'm specifically looking for on this read, and this feels like the setup for the points Hugo will make later with his other usages of light. God gives light - hope, love, education, belonging, whatever it is - to men, and the law - literally, but also just society and government - sells it (at a monetary cost but also a less tangible one - your soul? your humanity?) goddamn, I can't believe I never thought more about all the things Hugo is subtly setting up in these chapters and passing off as Sick Bishop Burns TM.

"My brethren, be compassionate; see how much suffering there is around you" - it says he's preaching this at "the cathedral", but I don't know much about the demographic of Digne at this time. are his parishioners mostly rich? mostly laborers? a mix?

I appreciate the inclusion of Myriel's knowledge of Southern dialects more now that I know a little about the context of Occitan/lenga d'oc/Provencal at this time! i want to spend some time researching the history and linguistics of Occitan here soon, it's fascinating to me.

lots of people have expressed that Myriel's doctrine of repressing the body so as not to sin as rubbing them the wrong way, and same. unfortunately it very much jibes with the Catholic view of sin. nothing'll give you Permanent Weird Feelings About Your Body And Specifically Sex like Catholicism! (this last to be read like a tagline on a commercial with, like, the Mr. Clean guy doing a thumbs up above it, only he's wearing a miter.) from a modern viewpoint I'd expect Myriel to think a bit differently on this point the way he does on a lot of other Church doctrine things, but I suppose if he really "got it from the Gospels" there's plenty of textual evidence to support that. ew, Catholicism.

also not the first person to point out "but be upright" as paralleling "un juste", the title of this book, but wow it's good.

gonna be vulnerable here and confess I don't really get what he's saying about the "offended hypocrisy" that's "quick to protest and run for cover". pot/kettle I guess? maybe it's just worded in a way I can't wrap my mind around.

again with the Big Three - women, children, and laborers (here "servants". Hugo via Myriel directly identifies the corresponding oppressors - husbands, fathers, and masters - but in this case I'm not sure how much I agree with those. masters certainly, but husbands and fathers? certainly they *can* be oppressive and create those conditions Hugo so strongly opposes, but not always - and in many cases those husbands/fathers are also laborers, so. I much prefer his followup of the strong, the rich, and the wise. once again Hugo says eat the rich.

"the guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness." alright everyone, pack it up, we're done here, we've found the Main Idea! lmao can you imagine if that's where Hugo stopped? hilarious.

the counterfeiter. the "word" here is claiming to uphold justice, when the "work" is actually just upholding the law. I especially like the wording of saying the prosecutor had "brought truth to light" here - going to have to go grab my French text and see if this is a Hugo wording or a FMA wording, but either way it goes back to that theme of light - in this case, how the truth of the case isn't necessarily the same as the Light, the good.

the condemned man. there's so much here. "[Myriel] called [the condemned man] by his name" - this brings to mind musical!Valjean's line "my name is Jean Valjean!" when Javert persists in addressing him as 24601, as well as his later surprise when the bishop treats him like a person. sometimes all it takes is treating a person like a person. i'm sure this won't be the last time I say that. Hugo also refers to death as "an abyss" here; that recalls "I am reaching, but I fall/and the night is closing in/as I stare into the void/into the whirlpool of my sin". I don't think this is the first time Hugo refers to the unknown as an abyss, either! in this case, it isn't just the unknown of death that the condemned man fears, but likely also the judgment after, which he knows won't go well for him (he's specifically said to be "not ignorant enough to be indifferent"), much like the abyss of Valjean's sin. Myriel sheds light on this abyss ("showed him the light") and teaches the condemned man not to fear death or the afterlife. fascinating also how we're specifically told Myriel stays with the man onto the cart and all the way onto the scaffold, literally accompanying this man to his fate, helping him not be alone to the very last moment.

the upper classes see Myriel's reaction to the guillotine as "affectation" - because if they were to show the same outward reaction, it *would* be affectation for them.

haha hey did you guys know there's a character limit on tumblr posts? because i do now!! so uhh part 2 in a second i guess.