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simpingforbots · 1 month ago

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Hello! I'm kinda new here in your blog and I saw those "what if a human ended on Cybertron" and I just love those stories they're so good

No need to do it now cuz idk if you are taking requests but could you make More of them? A part 6 with souls prime and amalgamous prime

hello there! thanks for letting me know that you like my stories and i will try my best as i am sort of new to Transformers. i got in to transformers thanks to Bay movies, Transformers prime, transformers animated and now Transformers One. So please forgive me if i might be incorrect. i will do my best.

What if human ended up in Transformers one.

part 6 (requests)

Solus Prime

(reade in this situation are female)

Being the first fembot of Cybertron is nothing easy, especialy when you have this much weight on your shoulders. Even if she found joy in creating things, the constant need for weapons was becoming exhausting. thankfully Megatronus were there to comfort her, even if they had some fights here and there, it was something good. So when something small and week showed up on surface of Cybertron, being chased by Quintessons, the injustice towards such pathetic creature fired Solus right up and they took care of those pathetic, ugly, disgusting bug creatures. They smashed them all with their hammer, letting their fiery side out along with all the frustration, all while YOU scrambled for safety to let those huge creatures duke it out. Though you did not stayed hidden for long as you wanted. A servo reached in to the hiding spot you were in, apparently not small enough for them to reach in at all, easily puling them out. After expecting this small creature they were shocked to see that it was as same frame as her, meaning she must be not the only fembot, even if in weird fleshy body. A small creature with no clear way of defending them self against harsh environment of Cybertron. So she takes you with to Iacon to keep you safe from anything dangerous and started working on creating something to help communicate. it is a bit hard as your little chirps were hard to decipherer, but signs were easy to learn. And let's just say you were also subjected to her little experiments as now SHE had a whole new reason to create.

Amalgamous Prime

Being the most unserious of all thirteen, Amalgamous felt a bit out of place time to time. he just wanted others to be a bit more... unserious all the time, this constant monogamy of data pads, meetings and fighting was surreally exhaustion for every one. He did felt a bit jealouse a bit of Solus and Megatronus since they started seeing each other, even if it was "privet secret" between 13 primes, he still wanted something else. He would venture to surface time to time, just exploring away, watching strange deer creatures "graze". Or change in to something else and joing his "subject" and wonder around Iacon. he found you in one of dark markets that he knew was illegal, yet still something about you caught his single optic. Purchasing you along with some book about "hoomans" he returned to the palace, knowing that now he had something to break the rutine. At first it was hard as you most of time hid away, to scared, but overtime you grew used to this strange bot, snickering quietly at his "tricks". after some time you were comfortable enough to laugh along side him at his little pranks.

Zeta Prime

So much responsibly for one bot - having matrix of leadership, being leader of 13 Primes, taking care of entire civilization and defending them from quinteson will be a tool to any one, no mater if they were born to do this. at first Zeta refused to believe that HE - the matrix bearer - was tiered, but in the end no one can escape the truth. It did not helped that a suden raid on Quintessons ship brought a small flesh being in to his existence. so much needed to be done so taking care of something so small and fragile was really not in his plans. But he was sort of stuck with you and just kept you in a cage, for your own safety of course, he does not want any bot to step on you by excident. If you behaved and did not flipped him off or yell something in strange language - you would be reworded by being let out of the cage and let to wonder his table while he was buissy. He would drift away from data pads just to play with you, rolling pen between him and you, chuckling seeing how hard you had to push just to roll it towards him, or simply watch you doodle inside one of the pads he would push towards you, giving the smallest pen he could find to doodle in, finding that it was one of a few ways you can communicate with him through doodles. and apparently he has a new name - Crown, about which he did not complain about.

part1 part2 part3 part4 part5

#transformers #transformers x reader #transformers one #transformers x human

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laundryandtaxes · 2 months ago

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It really highlights how deeply unserious, superficial, and functionally random the populist conservative bit is for Trump (the alternative explanation is being surrounded by enough real conservatives to tame his populist impulses, but I think Trump actually learned his lesson on that even by the end of his first term) that his idea of boosting American manufacturing involves just placing tariffs on basically everything Americans purchase day to day when the vast majority of Americans cannot afford the American made alternatives where they even exist. Perhaps a shift at McDonald's didn't teach him this, but it is obvious to me that the manufacturing capacity of the country itself is a fraction of what it once was- it's not that American goods are just being outcompeted in the global market AND in the domestic market, they often just don't exist at all, or are too expensive for most American consumers to consider purchasing (which they largely have to be, in order to support anything like a living wage for the workers who produce those goods because the person making your T shirt has to eat food).

If the end goal was actually just to make more stuff here, we could just pay people to manufacture here via financial incentives- carrots such as nearly free money. This would still not solve the math problem of the cost of making goods here, but it would mean more factories and workshops making shirts and boots and plates and such, and it would mean employment in those jobs. He could tax an incredibly small population of unimaginably wealthy people to fund it and even call it an "elites tax" if he wanted. He could run it through Congress and brag that it was bipartisan whether it needs to be (due to the makeup of the House) or not. And he could actually inject money, meaningfully and directly, into American manufacturing and its growth. And I genuinely think that would be great- even if it wouldn't solve high prices, it would mean new jobs and it's possible that prices could come down a bit on products if they became more widely purchased generally, and there are enough people interested and able to purchase American made to, I would guess, sustain real growth for those manufacturers.

But that would mean that Elon Musk and literally just 800 other people would be given a new tax burden, and we can't have that because it would squash innovation. Offshoring was an innovation, once. We just ended one of the longest periods of basically free money for them in my lifetime and have seen how much good that does for working people- none.

So no, instead let's give even more tax cuts to the corporations that intentionally decimated America's manufacturing capabilities so that they could pay almost nothing for labor and have almost no accountability for workplace conditions offshore. Thanks for offshoring the work that sustained whole communities and never got replaced in many places- here are some juicy tax cuts for you in return. It's actually a joke.

#and now americans think paying more than 60 dollars for jeans is crazy when someone has to sew the denim by hand either way

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poppurini · 1 year ago

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FIVE LOVE LANGUAGES ：with lilia ヾ( ˃o˂ )◞

note. doing all five for this man bc i’m greedy

wc. 1566﹐gn!reader mostly but fem!reader in one small part of a section ig? in giving gifts!

giving gifts — for some people, receiving / giving a heartfelt gift is what makes them feel most loved.

this one’s a given! he loves travelling, so he’ll definitely bring you lots and lots of souvenirs. i feel like lilia’s definitely the kind to give you rings / bracelets / necklaces stored with the sand from the beach you two went to or something similar teehee. the kind to randomly gift you something even when there’s no special occasion. “this reminds me of you” kind of bf <3 definitely remembers the things you like / your preferences to make you even happier!

i also think lilia would gift you handmade crafts! the moment he finds out there are such creative ways to express one’s love to another? oh boy, he’s purchasing all the colour papers, glue sticks, popsicle sticks, whatever! yknow those diy cube thingies that could be opened and pictures are stuck to each and every side? yeah those. he’ll definitely make it colourful and sparkly! maybe even a little messy / some errors here and there but it’s just so lilia to do that, one look at it and people can guess who it’s from. it’s definitely much more endearing than picture-perfect ones.

flowers flowers flowers! he never forgets them. you might even need to remind him that you’ve ran out of vases! i’ve said this so many times in my lilia posts but i will die on this hill he gives you flowers native to briar valley, his homeland. not to mention the scented letters written in perfect cursive? the poems? just him spilling out all his love for you on ink? search for the meaning of those flowers and you’ll run into his arms crying and peppering his face with kisses, swear.

also loves matching with you! matching keychains, bracelets, necklaces, anklets, phone cases, rings (wink), pretty much everything. will buy “she’s my queen” “he’s my king” neon coloured couple t-shirts, ironically or not it’s up to your sanity. he’ll also give you rocks he finds cool looking he’s so stupid (i want to exchange vows with him)

acts of service — for these people, actions speak louder than words. these are nice things you do for your partner that make them feel loved and appreciated.

he likes doing things for you. trouble with homework? let him help! going somewhere? let him fly you! oh, your laundry’s piling up…let him play his favourite horror movie on the tv first! wanna take a drink but too lazy to get up from the bed? fine, fine, but you gotta give him a kiss as a reward later, kay? even though he could just use magic to float it towards you, he just wants an excuse to steal kisses.

definitely offers to cook but who would want that. so he’ll try his best to assist you in the kitchen upon your orders! no five tablespoons of salt or frog slime in the soup? tsk. he does dishes most of the time since he’s not allowed to cook in your kitchen anymore :(

this sounds so unserious but it gets me on my knees. he orders food / inquires concerns—“they asked for no pickles” that kind—for you if you’re too scared or shy to do it. no i will not elaborate further. also very casually swipes a few tissues, grabs your jaw gently and wipes the crumbs at the corner of your mouth while continue to hum to your words. if you complain about how you were planning on doing it yourself later he just chuckles and gives your cheek a teasing pat. oh, just let him take care of you, would you? he doesn’t mind, you just keep taking about your day and tell him about the kitten you saw. taking care of others is one of his best feats!

quality time — this is all about giving the other person your undivided attention. they feel loved if you are present and focused on them when you are together.

he will always, and i mean always, make time for you. he’s already old and gets a wild card to do whatever he wants in his life so ofc he’d want to spend it all on you! especially if he had no choice but to put you second hundreds of years ago back when he had royal duties (if you guys are already together then) he’ll definitely make it up to you now.

i feel like lilia is HEAVY on quality time due to his race as a fae and former general status, he knows far too well how fleeting time can be and how much you could lose from it, so he really appreciates time with you no matter how it’s spent. even lazing on the couch and having simple cuddles would be enough to make his old heart melt! him lying stomach down in between your legs and resting his cheek on your stomach; just wrapping his arms around your figure and snuggling in, he’ll groan like he’s getting a professional full body massage when you play with his hair / massage his scalp.

but of course he still wishes to travel around the globe with you, his darling love. just think of the amount of things you two are going to experience! witnessing new cultures and sights, the inevitable small arguments during vacations, sliding the curtains open fully at the break of dawn to let the sun shine on your sleepy figure and hearing your groggy groans, catching the pillow you throw at him, they’ve got lilia’s heart thumping loudly in its cage.

psst, as a bonus, tell him you want attention while he’s gaming and he’ll immediately log out for you <3 eh, he can tackle this raid later. sorry user gloomurai!

words of affirmation — this language uses words to affirm other people. it’s about expressing affection through spoken words, praise, or appreciation.

SCREAMS TILL MY VOCAL CHORDS BREAK he has no qualms repeating his affection and admiration for you, especially if you’re someone who constantly craves it; he’ll gladly remind you every minute of the day. lilia would cradle you in his arms, humming a calm tune while caressing your skin and pressing chaste kisses to your forehead / hair every now and then.

pats your head reassuringly and lets you bury yourself into his shoulder / chest if you’re feeling particularly clingy that day; telling you how pretty you are, how cute you are, how your silly little jokes and laughs got him feeling like a schoolboy in love—“you know, like those, what do you call it? shoujo mangas?”—and how you got this legendary former war general completely wrapped around your finger.

i think there’s something so beautiful about one accepting your flaws and aiding you to solve the problem if it’s possible instead of just brushing you off by singing false praises…and that’s what my interpretation of lilia is. what’s that? you feel bad for being a “burden” and not good enough for him? nonsense. he loves you with his entire heart and soul, that also includes loving your flaws and helping you through it.

now, that doesn’t mean he thinks you’re a burden or unworthy of him, but he’ll find the root of the problem together with you to know why you feel this way so he could truly help you through it and make you feel better about yourself, it’s what you deserve. it really aches the man’s heart to hear you speak of yourself so negatively when all he thinks of you is everything good and butterflies in his stomach.

physical touch — to this person, nothing speaks more deeply than appropriate physical touch. they feel love through physical affection.

lilia loves having an arm around your waist, caressing it gently with his thumb while he nods and listens attentively to you talk about your day. he’ll gently brush a stray strand of hair out of the way or tuck it behind your ear to get a better view of your— what, you look better with your hair framing your face? wrong! you look good whenever and right now he wants to admire your pretty face with no obstacles in the way.

his hand, although small, is firm and heavy against yours. absolutely loves intertwining your fingers together and rubbing his thumb on your skin, he’ll kiss the inside of your wrist while looking into your eyes with a warm gaze, always the romantic.

one of the things that makes him absolutely go weak is you sitting on his lap!! probably likes you straddling him most because he gets to be closest with you that way. it isn’t even about being sensual he just adores holding your body close against his, melting into each other’s warm and secure embrace with no care in the world.

when you’re in this position, you’ll find him speaking in a softer tone, perhaps even a little deeper than his usual voice (see: general lilia times). maybe he’s doing it on purpose because he knows it flusters you or maybe he just feels safe and allows himself to be vulnerable around you. he’ll do reassuring caresses on your thighs, waist, or both; drawing random patterns and sometimes even telling you to guess them with a small chuckle.

he’s always holding you with such tender love and care it undoubtedly makes you melt each and every time, and he’s not even trying. his hold just harbours such genuine love and affection for you, it’s another way of exposing his feelings bare to you if he wasn’t speaking up about it already. he’d love to touch you at all times if possible, it’s a solid reminder that you’re still here, with him.

he cups your cheek benevolently with one hand, caressing the heated skin and giving chaste kisses to those lips he’s addicted to, murmuring promises and affection that holds true while the other hand wraps reassuringly, tightly, perhaps even desperately around your waist, he’s not going anywhere and neither are you.

written and posted by millie. copying, reposting, rewriting, or uploading on other platforms are strictly prohibited.

#lilia vanrouge x reader #lilia vanrouge #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #gender neutral reader #the 4am effects #lili :( i love lili

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alwaysmky · 5 months ago

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Phantom Brave

I started Phantom Brave maybe a month+ ago and I've been playing every so often, as of writing I have 20 hours on it and I've been enjoying it a lot.��

I remember trying to play this years ago on the Wii but I didn't play it much because... I got extremely confused...? Or something like that, along with some frustration with the summoning of characters during battle, specially coming fresh from Disgaea.

Back then, I think one issue I had was that I didn't know why the game was asking me if I wanted to "Skip the demo", so I probably thought something along the lines of "Why would I want to play a demo at the start of the game?", proceeded to skip and then was just put on the island, completely confused on what had happened. From there I probably was just completely confused and frustrated that I wasn't just another Disgaea haha.

But the announcement of a new Phantom Brave made me immediately want to give it another go and see if I would be interested in playing the sequel. By this point I'm sure that I want to play it and I am extremely interested to see what kind of quality of life changes a sequel would have.

Just from my time playing I've noticed so many cool things that I hope return better than ever and others that I hope are given some "modern" love.

One of my favorite things right now is how customizable everything is, at first I didn’t know if I was really feeling the weapon system and how it is extremely tied to what abilities your characters get but now that I have more experience with the fusion system I feel that it is such a genius and fun idea, especially with the type of humor that this game and it's siblings has. Like, you want to use a fish as a weapon? Sure, get the shark summoning ability. A vase? Poison your foes with its gross water. A weed? A brick? A road sign? All objects types have unique abilities that you can choose to give to the weapon that you character uses or to the character itself. And even if I like the wackiness of a lot of the ideas it's not at the cost of any 'cool factor' that most animations have.

The thing I hope is given a more modern design is 'menu-ing'. For this game I've enjoyed a lot thinking how I want to improve my weapons, but navigating the menu for fusioning, black smith and purchasing is annoying as everything is a text list, sometimes with a sprite. It's functional but it can definitely be better.

Some other things that I am looking forward to are improved enemy AI and pathing, better clarity on battle systems; as in, ability targeting, clear in game explinations of ailments, less confusion over camera perspective.

I'm sure that not everything that I want will come true but just the posibility of seeing improvements on an already great game is exciting to me, as I don't think I have ever been in this position before where I want to kind of compare a game and it's sequel while I'm playing the series for the first time.

Also, I love the story, it's a big change on how unserious Disgaea's Netherwolds are but it always retains a charm that makes it obvious that they are related beyond art and RPG mechanics. A fun idea to think about with these two series is how obviously cruel and wacky the Netherwold outwardly appears to be (and is, really), while hiding and hating everything kind about its world and its denizens; while the human world wants to appear outwardly kind and underestanding, but always harbor prejudice and hate just waiting to express it. I might be mistaken but I think in both series it's the children that are usually the exception to how their worlds are, in that, they haven't yet been shaped by how their world wants them to be.

Watch some clips of my playthrough if you would like:

youtube

#phantom brave #disgaea #experience #Youtube

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hachichimitsu · 3 years ago

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About Me

🕊 Zoe 🕊 She/They 🕊 23 🕊 INFJ 6w7 🕊 Filipino-American 🕊 Commissions Open 🕊 Available for Freelance Work @ Fiverr / VGen / Artistree 🕊 Email: [email protected]

Hello! I’m Hachi! I’m a freelance artist that likes to dabble in other creative outlets in my life. Below are some of the tags I generally use:

1. #hachichiart —> Art Tag

2. #hachichiposts —> Original Text Posts

3. #hachichimitsu’s cognitive functions series —> Typology Posts

4. #hachichifics —> Fic Tag

5. #hachichishippinglogs —> OTP Tag

6. #hachichimeta —> Meta / Analysis Tag

7. #hachi answers —> Ask Tag

My art commissions are fully open! If you’re interested in commissioning me, all the commission details and info can be found right here —> click here.

I'm also available for freelance work, so if you’re interested in having me work with you on your projects, you’re free to contact me via email: [email protected]. I also take on freelance orders on Fiverr, VGen, and Artistree.

I also have a children’s picture e-book that I self-published on Amazon. I made it as a requirement for my high school thesis, so while the art there is definitely a representation of my past, I still stand by the message I was trying to send. I hope to eventually branch out this series in a form of a webcomic of sorts, for people who can’t afford to purchase my e-book for financial reasons. These characters are extremely dear to me, and I can’t wait to expound on them when I have the time lmao. Here’s a tag regarding the series: #behindtheartistichand

I also sell art merch (mainly of my sheep mascot), in which you can find here: https://www.redbubble.com/people/Hachichimitsu/shop

You simply just want to donate me cash for the fun of it? Here’s my ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/hachichimitsu. Perhaps once I hit a certain amount of followers, I’ll open up a Patreon.

Some note-worthy things to mention, this blog is generally 15+, but I do make sure to tag any NSFW content and general triggers out there. I often post and retweet adult animation, so I’d say tread carefully if you’re a minor. I can be pretty critical with the media I consume, but most of the time, I like to expound on the positives of my favorite things. I am also very unserious.

Please let me know privately if I did or say anything wrong. Sometimes I say things without meaning to, and I’m not the brightest crayon in the box, so constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. If you take offense with anything I posted, feel free to send a DM or an anonymous ask so I can be educated regarding the subject. I’m also available for any questions, DMs and a genuine chit-chat.

Want to check out more of my stuff? Here’s my LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/hachichimitsu

MAIN INTERESTS

1. Found Family Narratives

2. Emotionally Impactful Character-Driven Storytelling

3. Western Adult Animation (e.g. yes, including the trashy kind)

4. Adult Swim

5. Well-Written Children’s Media

6. Coming-of-Age Stories

7. Magical Girls

8. Psychological Horror

9. Video Essays & Film Studies

10. Metal Bands (Primarily Doom Metal, Technical Thrash Metal, Power Metal and Progressive Metal)

11. K-POP / J-POP / Western Girl Groups

12. 4LT (MBTI), Typology, Cognitive Functions

13. All Types of Artistic Endeavors (OCs, FanArt, Comics, Film, Music, Fanfiction, etc.)

TOP 6 ANIME SERIES (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)

1. K-ON!!

2. Hunter x Hunter

3. Neon Genesis Evangelion

4. Ojamajo Doremi

5. Revolutionary Girl Utena

6. Serial Experiments Lain

TOP 6 CARTOON SERIES (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)

1. South Park

2. Bojack Horseman

3. Moral Orel

4. Code Lyoko

5. Metalocalypse

6. Spongebob Squarepants

FAVORITE MOVIES

1. Interstellar (Favorite Sci-Fi Movie of All Time)

2. Nacho Libre (Favorite Guilty Pleasure Movie of All Time)

3. Johnny Got His Gun (Personally, this is my pick of the scariest movie of all time due to the sheer hypothetical existential dread I experienced while watching it.)

4. The Shining (Phenomenally eerie from start to finish. The movie in itself was stellar. What Stanley Kubrick did to Shelly Duvall wasn't.)

5. The Mist (I hear this movie surpasses the novel, but you and I both know that I haven’t touched a book in Aeons, so I’ll keep you posted if this is #true.)

6. The Green Mile

7. Shawshank Redemption

8. Studio Ghibli Films (Particularly Ponyo, My Neighbor Totoro & Grave of the Fireflies)

9. Perfect Blue (Favorite Anime Movie)

10. One Cut of the Dead (It’s hard to recommend this movie without spoiling it, but it’s an absolute must that you finish it in its entirety before you proceed to make any further judgments)

11. Coraline (Very typical of me, but I remember this being one of the very first movies I’ve ever watched in theaters, so naturally it has a tight grip on me)

12. Interview with the Vampire (Favorite Vampire movie of all time that doesn’t seem overdone or cliché. It’s also really gay)

13. Shrek

14. The Lord of the Rings Franchise (My dad is the biggest LOTR fan out there, and so it’s natural that he converted me to his ways.)

15. Get Out

16. Us

17. Soul (Favorite children’s movie of all time.)

18. Up

19. Ratatouille

20. Toy Story 2 (I have never cried at a movie until this one.)

21. Hereditary

22. Audition (Went into it blind and came out a changed man.)

23. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Greatest slasher film of all time in my eyes.)

24. Liz and the Blue Bird (Even if you aren't familiar with Hibike! Euphonium, I highly recommend checking this movie out.)

25. Office Space (Great in a sense that I actually want to see a series out of this.)

26. Zoolander (I reference this movie 24/7. Orange Mocha Frappechino <3)

27. The Warriors (I legit want an expansive universe of this storyline. It’s too good to pass up.)

28. Turning Red (Encapsulated my 13-year old weeby self perfectly.)

OTHERS

1. Homestuck (It’s been a good while since I read Homestuck, so my memory of the general storyline is fuzzy. I’ll re-read it once I have the chance)

2. When They Cry (Currently up-to date with the Higurashi anime and watched the live-action movies. Finally started to tackle the sound novels. Have yet to encounter Umineko and Ciconia)

3. Age of Youth (Favorite K-drama of all time.)

4. Squid Game (Battle Royale-type thriller series that tackles capitalism and the illusion of choice and free will? Sign me the fuck up)

5. Kaiji (Same reason as above, though I like Kaiji a tad bit more)

6. Majisuka Gakuen (Favorite J-drama of all time. Honestly, this series is like the movie “The Warriors”, but totally unserious and with an all-female cast plus. Also, yes, I’m biased because of my love for AKB48.)

7. Flight of the Conchords (Favorite live-action series of all time.)

8. Adult Cartoons (Bojack Horseman, Rick & Morty, The Boondocks, Camp Camp, Superjail, The Oblongs, The Simpsons, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Home Movies, Beavis & Butthead, Daria, Smiling Friends, Aggretsuko, F is for Family, most shows from Adult Swim really 🤷‍♀️)

9. Mockumentaries + Sitcoms (The Office, Flight of the Conchords, Three’s a Company, Spinal Tap, iCarly)

10. FilmCow (I absolutely love everything they put out.)

11. The Eric Andre Show (A good friend recommended me this show, and I haven’t stopped since.)

12. Nathan for You (My humor condensed into one show.)

13. Undertale (Will pick up Earthbound, Omori, LISA: The Painful eventually)

14. The Haunting of Hill House / Bly Manor (Don’t let the jump-scares deceive you. It’s a genuinely good character-driven horror series.)

15. Fictional Children / Adolescents Overcoming Dangerous Scenarios (Digimon Tamers, The Promised Neverland, Alice Academy, Code Lyoko, The World Ends with You, Total Drama Island, Danganronpa, Infinity Train, Stranger Things)

16. Shounen Anime (Hunter x Hunter, Yu Yu Hakusho, Mob Psycho 100, Dragon Ball Z, Soul Eater, Fullmetal Alchemist)

17. Magical Girl Anime (Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Tokyo Mew Mew, Mermaid Melody, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, RWBY, Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, Princess Tutu, Powerpuff Girls (Including Z), Bee and Puppycat, Star vs. The Forces of Evil, Steven Universe)

18. Melancholic / Bittersweet WLW Media (Liz and the Blue Bird, Adachi to Shimamura, Sugar wa Otoshigoro)

You know what? Check out all of my favorite type of shows at my Trakt.tv account: https://trakt.tv/users/hachichimitsu

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cassandraclare · 5 years ago

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Cassandra Jean’s illustration for this month’s Chain of Gold flash fiction — this one’s about Will and Gideon, and features James, Thomas and Jesse as little kids. It’s a two-parter, so here’s part one!

LONDON, 1889

Will Herondale was full of Christmas spirit, and Gideon Lightwood found it very annoying.

It wasn’t just Will, actually; he and his wife Tessa had both been raised in mundane circumstances until they were nearly adults, and so their memories of Christmas were of fond family memories and childhood delights. They came alive with it when the city of London did, as it did every year.

Gideon’s memories of Christmas were mostly about overcrowded streets, overrich food, and over-inebriated mundane carolers who needed to be saved from London’s more dangerous elements as they caroused all night, believing all trouble and wickedness was gone from the world right up until they were eaten by Kapre demons disguised as Christmas trees. Just for example.

Born and raised a Shadowhunter, Gideon, of course, did not celebrate Christmas, and had always borne London’s obsession with the holiday with bemused indifference. He had resided in Idris for most of his adult life, where the winter had a kind of Alpine profundity, and there was nary a Christmas wreath or cracker to be found. Winter in Idris felt more solemn than Christmas, so much older than Christmas. It was a strange facet of Idris: where most Shadowhunters ended up celebrating the holidays of their local mundanes, at least the ones that spilled out into street decorations and public festivals, Idris had no holidays at all. Gideon never wondered about this; it seemed obvious to him that Shadowhunters didn’t take days off. It was the blessing and the curse of being one, after all. You were a Shadowhunter all the time.

No wonder some couldn’t bear it, and left for a mundane life. Like Will Herondale’s father Edmund, in fact.

Perhaps that was why Will’s Christmas spirit annoyed him so. He’d come to like Will Herondale, and consider him a good friend. He hoped that when their children were older they too would become friends, if Thomas was all right by then. And he knew Will deliberately presented himself as silly and rather daft, but that he was a sharp and observant Institute head, and a more-than-capable fighter of demons.

But when Will insisted on taking them all to see the window displays at Selfridge’s, he could not help but worry that perhaps Will had a fundamentally unserious mind after all.

“Oxford Street? Days before Christmas? Are you mad?”

“It will be a lark!” Will said, with the slight lilt into his Welsh accent that meant he was a little too excited for his own good. “I’ll take James, you take Thomas, we’ll have a stroll. Have a drink at the Devil on the way back, what?” He clapped Gideon on the back.

It had been a long time since Gideon was last in England. As one of the Consul’s most trusted advisors, Gideon not only lived in Idris but rarely found opportunity to leave. He also remained so that his son Thomas could breathe the healthy air of Brocelind Forest, and not the air of this filthy, foggy city.

This filthy, foggy city, his father’s voice echoed in his mind, and Gideon was too weary to silence his father’s voice as he usually did whenever Benedict crept in. More than ten years dead, yet he had not shut up.

His brother Gabriel lived in Idris, too, and for less obvious reasons. Perhaps it was not only the bad air; perhaps they both were happier with a good distance between them and Benedict Lightwood’s house. And the knowledge that its current resident would barely speak with either of them.

But now Gideon had come to London, with Thomas, just the two of them, leaving Sophie and the girls behind. He needed advice about Thomas, people with whom he could discuss the problem discreetly. He needed to talk to Will and Tessa Herondale, and he needed to talk to a very specific Silent Brother who was often found in their vicinity.

Just now he was wondering if that had been a good idea. “A good bracing walk” was exactly the kind of English nonsense he’d half-expected Will to suggest for Thomas, but “a good bracing walk down the most crowded shopping street in London three days before Christmas” was a level of nonsense he had not been prepared for. “I can’t take Thomas through that crowd,” he said to Will. “He’ll get knocked around.”

“He isn’t going to get knocked around,” said Will scornfully. “He’ll be fine.”

“Besides,” said Gideon, “we’ll get looks. Mundane fathers don’t usually walk their babies in prams, you know.”

“I shall carry my son upon my shoulders,” said Will, “and you carry yours on yours, and Angel protect anyone who complains about it. Fresh London air would do all of us some good. And the windows are meant to be a spectacle, this year.”

“Fresh London air,” said Gideon dryly, “is thick as molasses and the color of pea soup.” But he acquiesced.

He had left Thomas in the nursery, where Tessa kept a watch over him and James. A full year older than James, Thomas wasn’t always good at understanding what James could and couldn’t do or understand. Tessa had been concerned that James would end up hurt. Gideon, though, was more concerned about Thomas, who was still smaller than James, despite the difference in their ages. He was paler than James, too, and less sturdy. He had only recently recovered from the latest of his terrible fevers, which had brought a Silent Brother, unfamiliar to them, to their house in Alicante to examine him. After a time the Silent Brother declared that Thomas would recover, and left without any further conversation.

But Gideon wanted answers. As he picked up Thomas now, he couldn’t help but think about how the boy was hardly any weight at all. He was the smallest of all “the boys,” as Gideon thought of them – of James, and his brother’s son Christopher, and Charlotte’s son Matthew. He had been born early, and small. They had been terrified the first time he caught fever, convinced it was the end.

Thomas hadn’t died, but he hadn’t fully recovered either. He remained delicate, weak of constitution, quick to illness. Sophie had fought harder than anyone to drink from the Mortal Cup and become a Shadowhunter, but now she was forced to fight a far worse battle against death by their son’s bedside. Over and over again.

Sighing, he took his son to fetch their coats for their bracing Christmas walk.

As expected, Oxford Street was a madhouse of pedestrian shoppers, carriages, gawkers, and menacing groups of roaming carolers. Gideon would just as soon have glamoured them all invisible from mundane eyes (although one of the groups of carolers were obviously werewolves, who had exchanged Acknowledging Looks with Gideon), but Will of course wished to bask in the experience.

James also seemed mostly intrigued by the noise and lights, giggling and yelping at the merry scene around them. A London boy from birth, thought Gideon, and then thought, well, but I was a London boy from birth, and this is too much commotion for my liking. For his own part, Thomas was quiet, watching with wide eyes, clutching onto his father’s shoulders. Gideon wasn’t sure how weakened Thomas still was from the last fever and how much he was overwhelmed by the crowds. In some ways, when he wasn’t sick, Thomas could be guilt-inducingly easy to care of; he rarely made a fuss, just looked out into the world with those large hazel eyes, as if aware of his own helplessness and hoping not to be noticed.

Will waited until after they had already joined the crowds at the windows of Selfridge’s and Will had made a number of nonsensical exclamations of delight of the “By Jove!” variety. He had held James right up to the glass to examine the scenes in detail, which seemed to revolve around some blond children ice skating on a river. Gideon had pointed things out to Thomas, who had smiled.

Only once they had stopped to purchase some hot cider from a man hawking it down a side street did Will say, “I heard about Tatiana’s son Jesse. Dreadful business. Have you spoken to her?”

Gideon shook his head. “I haven’t spoken to Tatiana in nearly ten years, or been back to the house.”

Will made a sympathetic noise.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence,” said Gideon.

“What?” Will said.

“A coincidence,” said Gideon. “That both her and I have children who are—sickly.”

“Gideon,” said Will reasonably, “forgive me for saying so, but that is a load of codswallop.” Gideon blinked at him. “For one thing, you have your beautiful daughters, neither of whom were more than usually ill when they were babies. For another, all of what happened to your father was his own doing, and happened long after you were born, and neither you or Gabriel were sickly.”

Gideon shook his head. Will was so kind, so eager to spare him the consequences of his family’s sins. “You don’t know the extent of it,” he said. “The extent of Benedict’s experiments with dark magic. They were ongoing, from as long as I can remember. The demon pox just sticks in the memory, because it is rather lurid.”

“And also we were there,” said Will, “when he turned into a giant worm.”

“Also that,” said Gideon grimly. “But two sickly sons, small and frail—I cannot say with certainty that it is a coincidence, that it has nothing to do with the depredations of my father. I cannot risk the possibility.” He looked at Will imploringly. “It took Jesse years to become ill,” he said, “and Thomas has been ill so much already.”

There was a profound silence. Quietly, Will said, “You sound as if you mean to do something.”

“I do,” said Gideon with a sigh. “I must look at my father’s papers, his records of what he called his “work”. They are at Chiswick, and I must go and ask Tatiana for them.”

“Will she see you?” said Will.

Gideon shook his head again. “I don’t know. I hoped her anger would cool, over time, and her resentment. I hoped the fact that the Clave gifted her with all my father’s wealth and possessions would help her find peace.”

“Well,” said Will, “if you go, you absolutely must leave Thomas with us.”

“You wouldn’t want him to meet his aunt?” Gideon said innocently.

Will looked at him seriously. “I wouldn’t want him, or any of my children, on the grounds of that house!”

Gideon was taken aback. “Why? What’s she done to it?”

Will said darkly, “It’s what she hasn’t done.”

Gideon could see Will’s point. Tatiana hadn’t done anything to the house. Nothing to change, or clean, or preserve it in any way. Rather than restoring it or redecorating it to her own tastes, Tatiana had simply allowed it to rot, blackening and collapsing in on itself, a ghastly monument to Benedict Lightwood’s ruination. The windows were clouded, as though fog were seething indoors; the maze, a black and twisted wreckage. When he opened the front gate, the hinges screamed like a tortured soul.

It did not bode well for the emotional state of its resident.

When Benedict Lightwood died in disgrace from the late stages of demon pox, and the full history of his infamy was revealed to the Clave, Gideon laid low. He didn’t want to answer questions, or hear false sympathy for the damage done to his family name. He shouldn’t have cared. He’d known the truth of his father already. Yet it stung his pride, when he shouldn’t have had any pride left in his besmirched name.

The houses and the fortune were taken away from Benedict’s children by order of the Clave. Gideon could still remember when he had found out that Tatiana had brought a complaint against him and against Gabriel for the “murder” of their father. The Clave had first confiscated their possessions, and finally laid out the situation: Tatiana Blackthorn had petitioned the Clave for Benedict’s fortune to be given to her, as well as the Lightwood’s ancestral house in Chiswick. She was a Blackthorn now, not the bearer of a tainted name. She made many accusations against her brothers in the process. The Clave said they understood that Gideon and Gabriel had had no choice but to slay the monster their father had become, yet if they were to speak of technical truth only, Tatiana might be considered correct. The Clave was inclined to give Tatiana the full Lightwood inheritance, in hopes of settling the matter.

“I will fight this,” Charlotte had told Gideon, her small hands tight upon his sleeve and her mouth set.

“Charlotte, don’t,” Gideon begged. “You have so many other battles to fight. Gabriel and I don’t need any of that tainted money. This doesn’t matter.”

The money hadn’t mattered, then.

Gabriel and Gideon discussed the matter, and decided not to contest her claims. Their sister was a widow. She could live in the former Lightwood manor at Chiswick in England, and at Blackthorn Manor in Idris, and welcome. Gideon hoped she and her son would be happy. As it was, Gideon’s memories of the house were, at best, ambivalent.

Now he waited at the front door, its paint mostly peeled off, with deep gouges here and there, as though some wild animal had tried to get in. Maybe Tatiana locked herself out at some point. After a time it swung open, but waiting behind it was not his sister but a ten year old boy, looking somber. He had the midnight black hair of the father he’d never met, but he was tall for his age, willow-thin, with green eyes.

Gideon blinked. “You must be Jesse.”

The boy narrowed his eyes. “Yes,” said the boy. “Jesse Blackthorn. Who are you?”

Jesse, his nephew, after all this time. Gideon had asked so many times to see Jesse when he was a child. He and Gabriel had tried to go to Tatiana when she had the child, but she turned them both away.

Gideon took a deep breath. “Well,” he said. “I’m your Uncle Gideon, as it happens. I am very glad to make your acquaintance at last.” He smiled. “I was always hoping for it.”

Jesse’s expression did not improve. “Mama says you are a very wicked man.”

“Your mother and I,” Gideon said with a sigh, “have had a very…complicated history. But family should know one another, and fellow Shadowhunters, as well.”

The boy continued to stare at Gideon, but his face softened a bit. “I have never met any other Shadowhunters,” he said. “Other than Mama.”

Gideon had thought about this moment many times, but now found himself struggling for words. “You are…you see…I wanted to tell you. We have heard that your mother doesn’t want you to take Marks. You should know…we are family first, always. And if you don’t wish to take Marks, the rest of your family will support you in that decision. With the—the other Shadowhunters.” He wasn’t sure if Jesse even knew the word Clave.

Jesse looked alarmed. “No! I will. I want to! I’m a Shadowhunter.”

“So is your mother,” murmured Gideon. He felt a slight twinge of possibility there. Tatiana could have disappeared like Edmund Herondale, abandoned Downworld entirely, lived as a mundane. Shadowhunters did, sometimes; though Edmund had done it for love, Tatiana might do it out of hatred. That she had not gave Gideon hope, although, he was sure, foolish hope.

He knelt down, to be closer to the boy. He hesitated, then reached out for Jesse’s shoulder. Jesse stepped back, casually avoiding the touch, and Gideon let it go. “You are one of us,” he said quietly.

“Jesse!” Tatiana’s voice came from the top of the entrance stairs. “Get away from that man!”

As if prodded with a needle, Jesse leapt away from Gideon’s reach and retreated without a further word into the shadowed recesses of the house.

Gideon stared in horror as his sister Tatiana drifted down the stairs. She wore a pink gown more than ten years old. It was stained with blood he well knew was more than ten years old as well. Her face was drawn and pinched, as though her scowl had been etched there, unchanged for years.

Oh, Tatiana. Gideon was flooded with a strange amalgamation of sympathy and revulsion. This is long past grief. This is madness.

His little sister’s green eyes rested on him, cold as if he were a stranger. Her smile was a knife.

“As you can see, Gideon,” she said. “I dress for company. You never know who might drop by.”

Her voice, too, was changed: rough and creaking with disuse.

“Have you come to apologize?” Tatiana went on. “You will not find exoneration, for the things you have done. Their blood is on your hands. My father. My husband. Your hands, and your brother’s hands.”

And how was that? Gideon wanted to ask her. He had not killed her husband. Their father had done that, transformed by disease into a dreadful demonic creature.

But Gideon felt the shame and the guilt, as well as the grief, as he knew she intended him to. He had been the first to cut ties with his father, and with his father’s legacy. Benedict had taught them all to stick together, no matter what the cost, and Gideon had walked away. His brother had stayed, until he saw proof of their father’s corruption he couldn’t deny.

His sister remained even now.

“I am sorry you blame us,” said Gideon. “Gabriel and I have only ever wished for your good. Have you—have you read our letters?”

“I never was fond of reading,” murmured Tatiana.

She inclined her head, and after a moment Gideon realized this was the closest she would get to inviting him in. He stepped across the threshold nervously and, when Tatiana did not immediately shout at him, he continued inside.

Tatiana led him to what had once been their father’s office, a sculpture in dust and rot. He averted his eyes from the torn wallpaper, catching a glimpse of writing on the wall that read WITHOUT PITY.

“Thank you for seeing me,” Gideon said as he took a seat across the desk from her. “How is Jesse?”

“He is very delicate,” said Tatiana. “Nephilim like yourself wish to put Marks on him, because they are intent on killing my boy as they have killed everyone else I love. You sit on the Council, do you not? Then you are his enemy. You may not see him.”

“I would not force Marks on the boy,” protested Gideon. “He’s my nephew. Tatiana, if he is that ill, perhaps he should see the Silent Brothers? One of them is a close friend, and could come to Jesse at our house. And Jesse could know his cousins.”

“Mind your own house, Gideon,” Tatiana snapped. “Nobody expects your son to live to Jesse’s age, do they?”

Gideon fell silent.

“I expect you want Jesse to marry one of your penniless daughters,” Tatiana went on.

Now Gideon was more confused than offended. “His first cousins? Tatiana, they are all very young children—”

“Father planned alliances for us, when we were children.” Tatiana shrugged. “How ashamed he would be of you. How is your grubby servant?”

Gideon would have struck any man who spoke of Sophie so. He felt the rage and violence he’d known as a child storm within him, but he’d desperately taught himself control. He exercised every bit of that control now. This was for Thomas.

“My wife Sophia is very well.”

His sister nodded, almost pleasantly, but the smile quickly became a grimace. “Enough pleasantries, then. You came to Chiswick for a reason, did you not? Out with it. I know what it is already. Your son is like to die, and you want money for filthy Downworlder remedies. You’re here as a beggar, cap in hand. So beg me.”

It was strange: Tatiana’s obvious, undeniable insanity made her insults and imprecations undeniably easier to bear. What was she even saying? What Downworlder remedies? How could remedies be filthy?

Had Benedict destroyed Tatiana as well? Or would she always have been like this? Their mother had killed herself because their father passed on a demon’s disease to her. Their father had died of the same sickness, in disgrace and horror. Will Herondale could dismiss it all as nonsense, but could it be a coincidence that Tatiana’s son, and his son, were both sickly? Or was it some weakness in their very blood, some punishment from the Angel who had seen what the Lightwoods truly were and passed his judgment upon them?

“I need no money,” Gideon said. “As you well know, the Silent Brothers are the best of doctors, and their services are always freely available to me. As they are to you,” he added with emphasis.

“What, then?” Tatiana said. Her head cocked slightly.

“Father’s papers,” Gideon said in a rush of expelled breath. “His journals. I think that the cause of my son’s illness might be found there.” He found he didn’t want to say Thomas’s name in front of his sister, as though she might decide to conjure with it.

“A man you betrayed?” Tatiana spat. “You have no right to them.”

Gideon bowed his head to his sister. He had been prepared for this. “I know,” he lied. “I agree. But I need them, for the sake of my child. You have Jesse. Whatever our differences, you must understand that we could both love our children, at least. You must help me, Tatiana. I beg you.”

He’d thought Tatiana would smile, or laugh cruelly, but she only gazed at him with the impassive, mindless stare of a dangerous snake.

“And what will you do for me?” she said. “If I do help?”

Gideon could guess. Get the Clave to leave her alone, to let her do as she wished with Jesse, for one thing. But in Tatiana’s madness, who knew what she would come up with.

“Anything,” he said hoarsely.

He lifted his head and looked at her, at his mother’s green eyes in his sister’s pitiless face. Tatiana, who would always break her toys rather than share them. There was something missing in her, as there had been in their father.

Now she did smile. “I have just the task in mind,” she said.

Gideon braced himself.

“On the other side of the road from this estate,” Tatiana said, “is a mundane merchant. This man has a dog, of an unusual size and vicious temperament. Quite often he lets the dog run free in the neighborhood, and of course he comes straight here to make mischief.”

There was a long pause. Gideon blinked. “The dog?”

“He is always making trouble on my property,” Tatiana snarled. “Digging up my garden. Killing the songbirds.”

Gideon was utterly positively sure that Tatiana did not keep a garden. He had seen the state of the grounds on his way in, left to crumble as a monument to disaster no less than the house itself.

There were definitely no songbirds.

“He’s made a disaster of the greenhouse,” she went on. “He knocks over fruit trees, he throws rocks through windows.”

“The dog,” Gideon said again, to clarify.

Tatiana fixed her piercing gaze on him. “Kill the dog,” she said. “Bring me the proof you have done this, and you will have your papers.”

There was a very long silence.

Gideon said, “What?”

#gideon lightwood #will herondale #tlh #the last hours #chain of gold #cassandra jean #flash fiction #cog2 #november

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whitehotharlots · 5 years ago

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Girlboss energy and the Big Collapse

As I sit before a Facebook Marketplace listing and seriously contemplate giving a stranger 10 dollars for a single roll of paper towels, I think back to my high school government teacher. The man referred to the Civil War as “the war between the states” and said the assassination of Huey Long should have been a national holiday. He once, I swear to god, regaled us with a story of how Bill Gates has a room in his mansion that’s nothing but trampolines, and explained how that’s proof that capitalism is the best imaginable system and the United States is the best imaginable country.

Snapping out of it… What I am doing? I don’t need paper towels that badly. Feeding into the system is only going to encourage more hoarding, drive prices up even further. So I begin to fantasize, not entirely unseriously, of perhaps scheduling a meet up with this seller in their home, murdering them (quickly, I’m not getting any sadistic thrill out of this) and then distributing their misbegotten bleach and paper products to people in need. Oh I’d save a roll or two for myself, sure. Who wouldn’t? But the rest I’d, like, hand out to poor children, children whose hands and faces have grown sooty.

I click the seller’s profile. A woman, surprisingly. Young-ish and well composed. Looks employed. She’s… she’s got a Rosie the Riveter avatar. Her feed is a mixture of posts encouraging her e-friends to vote for Elizabeth Warren and extolling them to purchase Mary Kae products from her. This trend of selling hoarded cleaning supplies began only recently, it seems. She refers to them as “care packets,” photographs them all nicely allayed and accompanied by handwritten notes, and her sales pitch leans heavily on girlboss-style “self care.” In these troubling times, she says, you owe it to yourself to let me swindle you. And this all makes perfect sense.

Anger gives way to confusion and then sadness and disgust. What kind of society is this, that produces people this broken?

Because the woman is doing what she’s been programmed to regard as emancipatory. This is the “side hustle” the rich people on TV encourage us all to cultivate (the implication being, of course, that any poverty or unhappiness or lack of fulfillment you may suffer is due to you not working hard enough). That’s how the Multi Level Marketing swindle works: tantalizing psychologically vulnerable people with images of financial and emotional freedom--they always use that word, freedom--combined with an aggressive regimen of shaming. Happiness is so close. If you don’t have it, it’s because you’re not doing enough to get it. Don’t you want your children to be free?

Only the very most sociopathic succeed in this climate, as success by nature involves preying on those around you, not just making sales but actively swindling others into falling into the same sad state as yourself, maxing out credit cards and taking second mortgages to buy tacky overpriced crap no one wants. In America, there is no freedom without predation. In America, only the cruel succeed. And this assumption is not solely the provenance of cultural conservatives. Liberals have internalized it just as deeply.

Hoarding is as American as apple pie and endless war. Regulating it would be like wiping your ass with the flag. And when we emerge from the other side of this tunnel, rest assured that the only lesson we’ll have learned is that the weak had been culled, and the predators are now deservedly more powerful.

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tlhnetwork · 5 years ago

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NOVEMBER’s Chain of Gold Flash Fiction by Cassandra Clare

A Lightwood Christmas Carol, Part 1

LONDON, 1889

Will Herondale was full of Christmas spirit, and Gideon Lightwood found it very annoying.

No wonder some couldn’t bear it, and left for a mundane life. Like Will Herondale’s father Edmund, in fact.

But when Will insisted on taking them all to see the window displays at Selfridge’s, he could not help but worry that perhaps Will had a fundamentally unserious mind after all.

“Oxford Street? Days before Christmas? Are you mad?”

“He isn’t going to get knocked around,” said Will scornfully. “He’ll be fine.”

“Besides,” said Gideon, “we’ll get looks. Mundane fathers don’t usually walk their babies in prams, you know.”

“Fresh London air,” said Gideon dryly, “is thick as molasses and the color of pea soup.” But he acquiesced.

Sighing, he took his son to fetch their coats for their bracing Christmas walk.

Only once they had stopped to purchase some hot cider from a man hawking it down a side street did Will say, “I heard about Tatiana’s son Jesse. Dreadful business. Have you spoken to her?”

Gideon shook his head. “I haven’t spoken to Tatiana in nearly ten years, or been back to the house.”

Will made a sympathetic noise.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence,” said Gabriel.

“What?” Will said.

“A coincidence,” said Gabriel. “That both her and I have children who are—sickly.”