#or On the Segregation of the Queen

[blackcentric]

[curseofdelos]

Thinking about the parallels and differences between Marie Levesque's relationship with Pluto and Maria di Angelo's relationship with Hades

In both flashbacks, we see Hades/Pluto trying to convince them to stay/go somewhere for their and their children's protection and both women refuse his request, but where those scenes differ is in how they respond to him

Maria is so patient and loving towards Hades. She never raises her voice, she repeatedly calls him my love, and yet is firm about not raising their children in the underworld. She only sees the good in Hades - calls him kind, generous, insists the other gods wouldn't be afraid of him if they saw him the way she does. She has unwavering faith that he will protect her, and won't allow any harm to come to Nico and Bianca. There is actual love there, and we get the sense that they did have a good relationship despite him being a god

Queen Marie, on the other hand, deeply resents Pluto. She's angry to the point of throwing and breaking things around her home, and blames him for all of their misfortune. It's Pluto's fault that Hazel is cursed, it's Pluto's fault that people around them are dying, it's Pluto's fault that the police thinks she's a murderer and her clients think she's a witch. Unlike Maria, Queen Marie doesn't believe that Pluto has ever protected them, nor does she want him to, not after how much he has ruined her and Hazel's life. There's little love there like with Maria and Hades, little trust - just bitter angry resentment.

And it makes sense that they would react so differently! We don't get the sense that Hades's godhood has affected Nico or Bianca in any tangible way (at this point, anyway). They're playing together when Hades visits Maria and seem happy. They're not cursed the way Hazel is. They don't have dangerous and harmful powers that they can't control (that we know of). Of course Queen Marie would resent Pluto in ways that Maria doesn't; the wish Pluto granted Queen Marie has actively made their life worse. The di Angelos were fine. The di Angelos were thriving. They had nothing to worry about until the Great Prophecy was issued, and Maria had no reason to believe that Hades couldn't protect them from Zeus when he had protected them thus far. He hadn't done anything to hurt her the way that Queen Marie believed Pluto hurt them.

But here's the thing though: Queen Marie was being manipulated by Gaia. Both she and Pluto tell Hazel that The Voice turned her against him. Just before Queen Marie and Pluto speak to each other in the first flashback, we see her push back against Gaia's request to go to Alaska precisely because Pluto told her it wasn't safe and that he wouldn't be able to protect her and Hazel there. Gaia was the one who convinced her that it was Pluto's fault that Hazel was cursed; after all, it's much easier to blame him than to admit to herself that it was her wish and her greed for "all the riches in the world" that lead to Hazel's predicament.

Gaia preyed on Queen Marie's frustration with herself and with Pluto to manipulate her into bringing Hazel to Alaska to raise her son from the earth. It was this manipulation that lead her to blowing up at Pluto when he tries to convince her to stay in New Orleans. Maria didn't hate Hades because the gods didn't torment her the way Gaia tormented Queen Marie.

Which raises the question: if Gaia hadn't messed with her head, would Queen Marie have loved and trusted Pluto the way Maria loved and trusted Hades? Could Pluto and the Levesques have played happy families the way the di Angelos did with Hades? It's more complicated because Gaia's absence would not have fixed Hazel's curse so it's entirely possible she still would have resented him, but I have to wonder:

Was there ever a world where the Levesques could have been happy?

[arcanumamorem]

"For my dear Watson - to whom I owe a thousand thanks." IM GOING TO CRY ???? ???

[juniepops]

I don’t have anything to say about it that other girlies haven’t but that one post complaining about trans women making egg jokes is irritating and I’m sick of seeing it. The one that’s like “"you are a girl, an egg waiting to crack and that’s ok" how about you are a boy and a man” likeeee. So this post isn’t really about egg jokes after all it’s about trans women trying to tell people it’s okay to be trans women. That’s what you think is bad and you think it’s more appropriate to stubbornly reaffirm cis men’s manhood. Good to know

[busysavingtheuniverse]

ohhh my fucking god i love my mom but she is such a transphobe sometimes it makes me want to kill her

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Anna May Wong (The Thief of Bagdad, Shanghai Express)—Wong was the first Chinese American movie star, arguably the first Asian woman to make it big in American films. Though the racism of the time often forced her into stereotypical roles, awarded Asian leading roles to white actors in yellowface, and prohibited on-screen romance between actors of different races, she delivered powerful and memorable performances. When Hollywood bigotry got to be too much, she made movies in Europe. Wong was intellectually curious, a fashion icon, and a strong advocate for authentic Asian representation in cinema. And, notably for the purposes of this tournament, absolutely gorgeous.

Josephine Baker (The Siren of the Tropics, ZouZou)— Josephine Baker was an American born actress, singer, and utter icon of the period, creating the 1920s banana skirt look. She was the first black woman to star in a major motion film. She fought in the French resistance in WWII, given a Legion of Honour, as well as refusing to perform in segregated theatres in the US. She was bisexual, a fighter, and overall an absolutely incredible woman as well as being extremely attractive.

This is round 6 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Anna May Wong propaganda:

"She so so gorgeous!! Due to Hollywood racism she was pretty limited in the roles she got to play but even despite that she’s so captivating and deserves to be known as a leading lady in her own right!! When she’s on screen in Shanghai Express I can’t look away, which is saying something because Marlene Dietrich is also in that film."

"SHE IS ON THE BACK OF QUARTERS also she was very smart and able to speak multiple languages and is a fashion icon on top of the acting/singing"

"Paved the way for Asian American actresses AND TOTAL HOTTIE!!! She broke boundaries and made it her mission to smash stereotypes of Asian women in western film (at the time, they were either protrayed them as delicate and demure or scheming and evil). In 1951, she made history with her television show The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong, the first-ever U.S. television show starring an Asian-American series lead (paraphrased from Wikipedia). Also, never married and rumor has it that she had an affair with Marlene Dietrich. We love a Controversial Queen!"

"She's got that Silent Era smoulder™ that I think transcends the very stereotypical roles in which she was typically cast. Also looks very hot smouldering opposite Marlene Dietrich in "Shanghai Express"; there's kiss energy there."

"Hot as hell and chronically overlooked in her time, she's truly phenomenal and absolutely stunning"

"A story of stardom unavoidably marred by Hollywood racism; Wong's early-career hype was significantly derailed by the higher-up's reluctance to have an Asian lead, and things only got worse when the Hayes code came down and she suddenly *couldn't* be shown kissing a white man--even if that white man was in yellowface. After being shoved into the Dragon Lady role one too many times, she took her career to other continents for many years. Still, she came back to America eventually, being more selective in her roles, speaking out against Asian stereotypes, and in the midst of all of this finding the time to be awarded both the title of "World's Best Dressed Woman" by Mayfair Mannequin Society of New York and an honorary doctorate by Peking University."

"Incredible beauty, incredible actress, incredible story."

"-flapper fashion ICON. look up her fits please <3 -rumors of lesbianism due to her Close Friendships with marlene dietrich & cecil cunningham, among others -leveraged her star power to criticize the racist depictions of Chinese and Asian characters in Hollywood, as well as raise money and popular support for China & Chinese refugees in the 1930s and 40s. -face card REFUSED to decline"

Josephine Baker:

Black, American-born, French dancer and singer. Phenomenal sensation, took music-halls by storm. Famous in the silent film era.

Let's talk La Revue Negre, Shuffle Along. The iconique banana outfit? But also getting a Croix de Guerre and full military honors at burial in Paris due to working with the Resistance.

She exuded sex, was a beautiful dancer, vivacious, and her silliness and humor added to her attractiveness. She looked just as good in drag too.

So I know she was more famous for other stuff than movies and her movies weren’t Hollywood but my first exposure to her was in her films so I’ve always thought of her as a film actress first and foremost. Also she was the first black woman to star in a major motion picture so I think that warrants an entry

Iconic! Just look up anything about her life. She was a fascinating woman.

[beekeeperspicnic]

So. Is Sherlock Holmes' monograph entitled 'Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with Some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen' because of a letter that Arthur Conan Doyle got from a rabid fangirl, or...?

[msallurea]

Things to manifest because you can pt 2 🎀🧁🌸

Becoming a top model

Sex appeal/pole dancer abilities

Be super strong/fast

Be a famous supermodel

Turning into a fairy on command

Having a fairy godmother/godfather

Being a mermaid/siren

Having your desired beauty

Ability to talk to nature/animals/being a natural bug repellant

Easily remembering trillions of info easily

Never ever failing at anything

Waking up with the perfect hairstyle/outfit

Being a master manifestor/shifter

Controlling time

Being able to grab stars out the sky and turn it to jewelry pieces

Making constellations move

Becoming a queen/king/princess/prince

Having perfect vision

Having magical abilities

Never being sick

Healing global warming

Healing worldwide diseases/sicknesses

Immunity to bullying, abuse, etc, others being immune to bullying abuse etc

Racism/colorism/misogyny/texturism/evil capitalism/negativity/war/slavery/abuse in power/terrible government n school systems/segregation/poverty/workd hunger/mass genocides/shootings/killings/generational trauma etc never existing/erased (my black and POC sisters and brothers in this LOA community baby it's time to stand up but generally just everyone we are all entitled to live in peace as human beings)

That's all folks, I love you darling stay tuned for more ♡ also I need more post ideas comment for any suggestions!

[i-dont-talk-for-days-on-end]

A list of Sherlock Holmes's Hyperfixations Monographs

"Yes, I have been guilty of several monographs. They are all upon technical subjects." (The Sign of Four)

Tobacco ash: Upon the Distinction between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccoes - "I have, as you know, devoted some attention to this, and written a little monograph on the ashes of 140 different varieties of pipe, cigar, and cigarette tobacco." (The Boscombe Valley Mystery) / "I have made a special study of cigar ashes—in fact, I have written a monograph upon the subject. I flatter myself that I can distinguish at a glance the ash of any known brand, either of cigar or of tobacco." (A Study in Scarlet) / "Here, for example, is one ‘Upon the Distinction between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccoes.’ In it I enumerate a hundred and forty forms of cigar-, cigarette-, and pipe-tobacco, with colored plates illustrating the difference in the ash." (The Sign of the Four)

Trailing/Tracking - "Here is my monograph upon the tracing of footsteps, with some remarks upon the uses of plaster of Paris as a preserver of impresses." (The Sign of the Four)

Hands and occupations- "Here, too, is a curious little work upon the influence of a trade upon the form of the hand, with lithotypes of the hands of slaters, sailors, corkcutters, compositors, weavers, and diamond-polishers." (The Sign of the Four)

Ciphers - "I am fairly familiar with all forms of secret writings, and am myself the author of a trifling monograph upon the subject, in which I analyze one hundred and sixty separate ciphers [...]." (The Adventure of the Dancing Men)

18th century?/historical manuscipts - "It would be a poor expert who could not give the date of a document within a decade or so. You may possibly have read my little monograph upon the subject." (The Hound of the Baskervilles)

Bees/beekeeping: Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with Some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen - "Alone I did it. Behold the fruit of pensive nights and laborious days when I watched the little working gangs as once I watched the criminal world of London.”

Articles:

Theory of criminology: The Book of Life - "Its somewhat ambitious title was “The Book of Life,” and it attempted to show how much an observant man might learn by an accurate and systematic examiniation of all that came his way."

To be written:

Malingering - "Malingering is a subject upon which I have sometimes thought of writing a monograph. A little occasional talk about half-crowns, oysters, or any other extraneous subject produces a pleasing effect of delirium.” (The Adventure of the Dying Detective)

Dogs - "I have serious thoughts of writing a small monograph upon the uses of dogs in the work of the detective.” (The Adventure of the Creeping Man)

Typewriters/Typewriting- "I think of writing another little monograph some of these days on the typewriter and its relation to crime." (A Case of Identity)

Please feel free to add what I missed!

[youareatragedy]

The audacity of people hoping Rhysand and Feyre will become High King and Queen. The person who enforces segregation among his own people, and the person who destroyed a whole country just because she wanted to get back at her ex. The audacity.

[wmarximoff]

𝐤𝐧𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐥𝐞 𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐭 | 𝐰. 𝐦𝐚𝐱𝐢𝐦𝐨𝐟𝐟

summary: to get what she wants Wanda will do anything - including hurting you.

warnings (18+): smut, strap-on sex (r receiving), non-con, a bit of dacryphilia, breeding kink, loss of virginity, forced pregnancy, toxic relationship, manipulation, heavy angst. MINORS DNI.

pairing: Wanda x fem!reader

word count: 3k

masterlist|

(please, don't flag the work)

༺ᱬ༻

At dawn, gray and foggy, the bitter winter temperature would arduously exceed the limitations of common sense degrees demarcated by popular thermometers.

The vehement peak of the serene dawn, as placid and peaceful as it ever was to be, had been swallowed up by a broad blanket of white, chaste snow; blizzard which had interspersed, crossing from north to south along the entire longitudinal extent of the ten thousand hectares located near the tiny town of Westview, New Jersey. You weren't born in there and, in fact, you barely knew that place at all.

The whiteness of sprays of snow in flakes of polished ice continued to crumble through the openings of the dense clouds, and a pale veil of frost took more and more possession of the tiles above the roofs and the tops of the enormities of the hills around the town, inferring a white and crystalline color.

You retained your own private assumptions about the phenomenon, however, and attributed it to increasingly distressing global warming (come on now Tony Stark, you could very well reverse global warming if you really wanted to!). But maybe you still held such a mundane concern at your core just to keep a sober dose of normality within you, and not give in to the long chants of long lonely days, as maddening as they could be.

The days that had passed gradually slipped one over the other, consubstantiating, consolidating into a single amalgam, and you no longer knew what to do to ward off the acute boredom that was consuming your nerves little by little like an autoimmune disease – there was no book to read or movie to watch that would wriggle your soul out of the lonely corners of a world you'd been segregated into, walls slowly closing in around you one by one. You were alone. Utterly alone.

Through the dim glass of the wide window of your solitary room, you gazed, with your gaze watered by the apathy that is intrinsically sprinkled in your irises and sluggish limbs and heavy in your joints like lead, the occluded sky of dawn – the few gloomy trees raised in the neighborhood surroundings like fortresses of dark, thick foliage, swaying on their own axes as the constant wind dictated outside their painted plaster walls.

With a sliver of fresh skin on your right temple pressed against the cloudy glass, so cold to the touch, your dead eyes followed the willow tree of snow outside as if it were natural, as if it was common to snow at that time of year and as if she wasn't using the situation to her whim, wherever she was at that moment, as much as she was everywhere at the same time.

Right, screw global warming. You were living like a little snowman cloistered inside your own particular snow globe – free from your point of view, but trapped inside the dome.

The truth was that Westview was a huge board full of pieces all situated in their proper squares, the vast majority composed of pawns as maneuverable and disposable as they could be, endlessly, always ready to be used and discarded and then replaced – and you were the queen of them, the most important piece to be cherished, but like everyone else, at your core, you would be just another component part of the grand scheme that Wanda Maximoff ruled with an iron fist. One wrong step and you were out, checkmate.

In a time that then sounded remote, an echo of a dream derived from a memory already forgotten, perhaps seven or eight months ago (you only calculated the passage of time by the gradual expansion of your belly, which then encompassed a larger roundness than a basketball), you were free. You were young and you were free and the world was a little less terrible than it could be.

But Wanda had kidnapped so much of you, in fact, disfigured you into a bizarre parody, a grim reflection of who you once were – but of your own free will you gladdened to the end in an elan worthy of praise, in the greatest pose of a soldier who is willing to kill and die for the glory of your people, despite the notion that you were fighting a vain, lost battle.

At the end of the day you were still her possession to be used and abused however Wanda saw fit. She saw everything, and everything she controlled.

You were nothing but a poor college student, still so full of spirit, and your captor was an esoteric entity versed in superhuman capabilities, the wielder of celestial powers who, according to herself, was also a multidimensional traveler – whatever meaning it held, or at least what she meant by such an eccentric statement as that.

All you knew was the things she could do and undo with a simple, banal hand movement, and how it affected you.

The fact was that you were alone, isolated, confined to an unknown town where escape was infeasible and outside contact was nothing short of scarce, subject to the pleasures, daydreams, paranoia and whims of a woman deeply troubled by her own inner demons, that you supposedly hated, but couldn't get away from even if you wanted to. Not when she was growing on you like a parasite, literally and figuratively speaking.

It was clear as the snow outside – conceiving Wanda's offspring in your womb (albeit at odds with your own individual desires at first, but attempts to shed such a burden proved, at first, flatly flawed and highly unnerving to Wanda's exhausted mind, who wasn't used to being a very reasonable person), whom she held so dear, there would be no way to nurture a flame of hatred for that woman that would not be extinguished quickly; no matter how little you knew about her for as long as your pregnancy lasted, Wanda's humanity, so disparate from the morbid cruelty at the bottom of those abyssal green irises, resided in the bosom of motherhood for which she cherished so much.

In the intimate caresses exchanged between her gentle blackened fingertips and your swollen belly, there was a kind of love so subtle and genuine that it almost erased from your memory the fact that you didn't want to be there in the first place. Her contact with that embryo was covered by a lapse of vulnerability, and that's why that witch once proved to have been as human as you were.

At a certain point, goodness was already given for those intentions, when there was not a shadow in her very existence. Deep down you just knew she was good. But it was no use if kindness was eclipsed by a haze of cruelty.

The faint gleam of her smile was enchanting, and the jadish irises were drowned in waves of tears that pooled behind long, thick dark lashes, right at the waterline of the one who so affectionately gazed at your belly by her rotten right fingers. At some point, you knew, you just knew that Wanda had given as much love to the world as she had to the unwanted child in your womb. You wondered what it was that had stolen Wanda's innocence so voraciously that, in the end, she ended up stealing yours too.

“Twins,” in one night she came, and Wanda had smiled at the utterance of her own words, never breaking her gaze from the skin stretched just below your navel, “My boys.”

Her touch felt cold, plastered like a corpse's hand. Everything about Wanda was somewhat cadaverous, reminiscent of the dead – although a veil of purity always overshadowed her dying features (for that witch was indeed beautiful), the dark, sharp circles under her eyes and the deep fleshed cheeks made her a spectral creature, unreal, with the waxy pale skin that so accentuated those emerald eyes that squandered a nuance of intense feeling.

You were never quite sure how to pinpoint what was going on inside her mind, although she always expressed that there was something there to look for.

“How,” you muttered with your eyes focused on anything but her, your shirt pulled up to expose your swollen stomach, not a smile found on your lips' commission to reflect that woman's.

The situation in which everything of the last few months had culminated in your stomach was in knots – the idea that it was done, and now you had nowhere to run from her.

“How can you be so sure, Wanda? Twin boys... that's a pretty... specific guess, I think. It could just be a boy, it could be a girl,” in the room lit by the orange flames of a fireplace that turned Wanda's hair as red as blood, you blinked, “It could be anything.”

“I just know,” lisped the woman who owned the long auburn locks that fell below her breasts, sketching a ghost of a vaguely nostalgic smile on her well-shaped lips, like someone wistfully remembering something that is gone and will never come back.

“I… just know it's them. My… our boys.”

There was a brief pause interspersed by the crackling fire in the dry wood, a breath held within bristling lungs.

“Thank you, Y/n.”

Your eyes finally turned to Wanda, who was crouched in front of you. She looked at you in gleaming green like she did the first time she made you bleed, when she emptied herself inside you, condemning you to that sick moment of intimacy with her.

“I know you don't understand this right now, not this version of you at least, but,” her jaw moved slightly, speaking at length in her speech, as if she were speaking like a child, seeking to express clarity. As if she had to plan her words carefully.

“I love you, детка . Everything I've done so far is because I love you, Y/n. You and our boys, our family. Everything I did was for you. I hope one day you can understand that and forgive me for what I did.”

Your eyes stung and sickly bile rose to the surface of your tongue at that controversial statement of hers. She knew it was wrong, she was fully aware of it. You could never imagine that whatever resulted from that one-sided relationship between the two of you could fall under the nominations commonly associated with the definition of “a family” .

You already had a family to call your own and belong to, a father and mother and siblings too, and from them you were usurped by her. That couldn't be a family, not that relationship structure, not you and her. Not when you weren't even twenty and barely even aware of what, say, Wanda's last name would be.

That night you cried yourself to sleep. And, like every night before that, Wanda listened until you fell into the softness of your own sleep clouded by layers of thick, salty tears.

But the warm, abstruse sweetness behind Wanda's hideous facade made her as seductive as the apple would have been to Eve, and the fragility that rarely saw the light of day made her seem so small compared to the times you feared for your life as she chained her hands behind your back and sternly brought her hips to meet yours over and over again.

You've also heard her cry before going to sleep. It just so happens that she was the one making you suffer, while you just had to put up with her external suffering.

Wanda was a complex puzzle to understand, so fluctuating, fascinating and unpleasant at the same time, like a new flavor to try, bad at first, but then becoming dangerously charming to the palate. And you didn't know whether you wanted to put those pieces together into one uniform image, or throw them in the trash and close the lid.

In fact, if traced back to the beginnings of your gloomy model of relationship (at least in the most primitive sense of the word, summarized only to the exchange of physical touches between two controversial animals, to, moreover, the imposition of physical contact from one part to the other), it was as if Wanda saw what she solemnly did to you as an artifice, a mechanism, a forced method to an end you never chose to have. It was as if she was just performing a necessary sacrifice that justified the means she chose to use.

She apologized again and again because that inside of you stung and hurt when she ripped something inside you, and she worked hard to make you like it too, even though you barely knew her at the time, and in fact just waking up from the stillness of your sleep to the uncomfortable feeling of a foreign body on top of you, with your legs spread wide and streams of fresh crimson blood dishonoring the sheets down your thighs, ripping you in half like no one before her had ever done.

“Shh, it's okay Y/n, it's okay. It's okay, you’re okay детка.”

She lisped that night with the palm of her right hand screwed to your lips, stuffing your protests behind your teeth (scorched-tipped fingers sweeping strands of your hair behind the shell of your ear, Wanda in a red tiara looking like would cry as much as you already did). The first time you saw her, that strange woman invading your room and also you, she seemed as uncomfortable with what she was doing as you felt with her tucked inside your innocence.

“I know it hurts, baby, I know, I…” Green eyes then pulled away from your face contorted in sharp pain, as if, for half a second, she couldn't even look at you in that state. As if, in your room, she would burst into tears with you.

“I'm very sorry. I'm really, really sorry детка , but I have to do this. It’ll pass, alright? Will pass. It’ll fit, we'll make it fit, okay? Just take a deep breath. This will be quick, I promise. I,” Wanda choked on her own words, “I'm so sorry, Y/n.”

And it went on for quite a few sluggish minutes – the headboard hitting the wall rhythmically, hard and slow behind your head, your white cotton underwear crumpled and discarded at the foot of your bed, your eyes focused on how much the sharp points of that scarlet tiara that seemed to protrude from the top of her skull resembled two demonic horns as they rose and fell in the dark of your room, above you.

When your conscience woke up, the very next morning and in a room you were not at all familiar with, the wet pain between your legs was the final sentence given that you were already her property. And you tried to run away, wander the streets of Westview, cry out for help from your new assigned neighbors, but they were smiling like machines, nothing was wrong. Nothing was ever wrong.

And the visits continued, scheduled for sunset; the fall of the veil of night was the apogee of your fate – in that house with dismal walls, dark shadows lightened by the tongues of fire that burned in the hearth, Wanda came in the form of that crimson specter to do what she had to do. And time had washed the regrets from her soul, when did the pleasures of the flesh begin to burn hotter on her skin.

“Dерьмо,” Wanda anathematized one night in a sigh under her breath, moaning in a thick accent in the roof of her mouth as she stood behind you, blackened fingers digging deep into the skin of your hips as hers pierced into yours.

“Dетка, you feel so good, s-so good, Y/n...” she gasped, your white-knuckled fingers screwed to the sheets moving beneath you both, “Fuck, I missed you so bad...”

“I-it hurts,” you squealed beneath her, your right cheek rubbing against your pillowcase, your teeth clenched, your jaw set, “W-Wanda, Wanda wait– go slow, you're– you're hurting me, Wanda, please slow down–”

“I'm going to come,” she suddenly announced, indifferent to your protests, “Fuck, I'm going to come inside you, Y/n.”

The cognition of such a sentence haunted the nerves of your spine. At that point, you already had basic knowledge accumulated about her – she was called Wanda Maximoff, she was from another universe and, as a factor of greater relevance to emphasize, she was capable of performing and handling magic, something that for you, until that moment at the time, was nothing more than a fictitious topic. And, if she was qualified to run an entire city on her own, she might well be able to turn something as frivolous as coming inside you with a fake phallus into a permanent action and one fraught with the most undesirable consequences.

“No-!” you immediately chafed then, trying to crawl your body away from hers on the bed sheets, “Wanda, don't– don't do that– Wanda–!”

But with a pull and a jerk she held you steady, your hips up, ribbons of scarlet energy restraining your wrists bound to the bed, just to the side of both your temples. And the notion that you couldn't even move caused warm tears to pool in the waterline of your eyes, clouding your view of the raised wall to the left of the double bed located in the heart of that partially lit room by the dull bulb of a bedside lamp.

“Hold still, детка, I-I'm almost,” she growled, her hips hammering against yours in essentially violent movements, “Almost there–!”

“No, pull out,” you whimpered, “Wanda, pull out, don't do that, don't do that, Wanda– Wanda, please–!”

“I need to do this Y/n, I fucking need to–!”

“Wanda, please–!”

She didn't pull out. She never pulled out – the point was not to pull out, it was that she emptied herself inside you, painted your insides with that magical secretion that only a few weeks later proved to be appropriate for the purpose Wanda had in mind. And she didn't touch you anymore, not that way, when her goal was achieved – with the plan completed, all she had to do was wait for your organism to do what it had to do. And so the months passed, snow fell on that simulated dome. Her visits weren't as frequent anymore.

“Why me?” you asked her once, as she stroked your belly through your thick crimson wool sweater.

Crouched down in front of the couch, Wanda raised her eyes to you like she always did when she was trying to communicate with the child she had shoved inside you.

“Because I love you,” was her answer, of course. A wave of ominous disgust twisted your insides at that oblivious response, as if Wanda were genuinely alienated from the reality of where she was your captor and aggressor.

“You barely know me, Wanda,” you spat, “And I barely know you. This isn't love, you're using me like a fucking incubator. You’re sick and you fucking know it.”

She lowered her head in front of your prickly speech, a lock of reddish hair piercing an emerald iris of hers, while Wanda's left fingers, dark as pitch, kept stroking your belly through a layer of clothing. She compressed her lips into a long line, and you held your breath. From your point of view, Wanda, stripped of that crimson armor she always wore and then tucked into casual clothes, sweatpants and a sweater as thick as your own, looked small and confused like a child, a little girl.

“You used to know me,” she muttered quietly, “Where I come from, you used to know me. We were married. We had our boys. You... for as long as it took in Westview after I had you back again, you were my world after I lost everything.”

You blinked once.

“Westview?”

She looked at you again.

“Yes, Y/n. Westview. They took you from me, more than once. But the second time they took our boys too. So I,” there was a pause in her speech, “I had to look for you in another reality. In a reality where nothing could ever get out of my control again.”

And for half a second you looked back at her.

“Wanda,” the palm of your right hand slowly snuggled against her left cheek, which approached your touch in an almost pathetic neediness, when was it that you looked into her eyes, “You’ll never have control over me, no matter how hard you try.”

She closed her eyes as a tear trickled down her cheek.

“I know.”

When the twins were born, you didn't want to hold them. And, begrudgingly, Wanda understood. She understood that she could never have you, not after what she had done to you, but to her consolation at least there were those boys left for her.

And she had been benevolent in letting you go, as if she had released a bird from its caged captivity, erasing from your memory any and all discernment of what your relationship had been like for ten months or so, abstracting from the confines of your mind the idea of how much she had harmed you by excluding herself from your memory. You went back to your old life, and she started a new one.

Time has come and gone. You had no sense of the past, and no one in your social circle even seemed to notice your absence for nearly a full year – it was like a dream, a memory, a lie. A kind of collective amnesia. You moved out of your parents' home after graduation and obtained a steady job in your field of work. And, after a while, you decided that it might be good to share your life with a second person – soon enough, a relationship blossomed between you and a dark-haired woman you met during a snowy winter day in a coffee shop.

Your girlfriend was a few years older than you and a single mom, but it turns out you got along great with her kids, and she was the best partner anyone could ask for. And when, on a warm summer day in the city park, Wanda offered you a strawberry ice cream cone right after presenting Billy and Tommy with their respective favorite flavors each, you genuinely smiled at her.

“Thanks, baby,” and then, you kissed her on the cheek. Billy asked Tommy to play tag, and the older twin accepted.

Wanda smiled at you. She smiled at you as if she didn't know how much she had already hurt you. “You’re welcome, детка.”

[dropoutconfessions]

it really bugs me when people say dropout doesn't have representation or "enough" representation. there's lots of women, poc, queer people, trans people, trans women, drag queens, neurodivergent people, stutters and (afaik one) physically disabled person just counting who shows up on screen, let alone the rest of the crew. they give every demographic a voice, a job, the ability to take risks with shows and to come up with ideas and to do something they love all at a relatively cheap subscription price with multiple weekly uploads. yes there could be more but you could be saying that forever. i'm not saying to sit down and shut up and not fight for representation, but some of the language people use really makes it seem like they're arguing that dropout has little to no rep which is just false. dropout shouldn't hire just to tick diversity boxes, the cast doesn't owe you their coming out or diagnoses. a lot of the cast are very open about their identity, sexuality and disabilities/illnesses/struggles and 90% of every single episode of any show on dropout is filled to the brim with queer people and characters. they know their audience is full of queer people. they've created a safe space both online and in real life at an affordable price and they're letting queer people experiment and take risks and do what they love. some of yous need respect. yes sam is a cis white man but what ever happened to "cis white people need to uplift the voices of the marginalised" and mismag is good, actually because jkr doesn't own the genre but we're at a place where it's good to talk about her when creating stories in said genre using a public platform. which they do. the show's both parodying hp and its own deep narrative about dismantling oppression and segregation through community, connections and love and both of these themes are about combating jkr's influence and rhetoric. you don't know who wrote mismag or who they spoke to or who they love, and a trans person literally plays in it and their character QUITE LITERALLY transitions their identity to something that was always there but they were hiding away in an effort to fit in and look cool, which is very trans of them to do. playing with the wizard boarding school genre should be un-terfed and that's the point of mismag and tumblr people shoot first and ask questions later media literacy is a sisyphusian task you need to constantly learn and check and re-check and adjust and learn you don't just "have it" because you can think past surface level on your favourite shows. context matters sometimes and this is one of those times.

anyway sorry for the rant reading this blog's posts make my blood vessels burst

-

[roseadleyn]

anyways i read the acotar series and it's the most godawful, horrendously written piece of ya fiction ever and the portrayal of faeries is downright disgusting cause babe those aren't faeries those are just really pretty people who you gave magic and slapped some cool features and called it a day. your know what ACTUAL fae are??? terrifying. otherworldly. ethereal. they break humans norms in a other-species way not should-be-a-convicted-felon way. look at holly black's books. the cruel prince portrayed fae so well, they were terrifying, they were ethereal, their disdain for humans was so well expressed not just left over racism from a 500 year old war and it was also wonderful fae love story because cardan and jude — actually screw it that essay will have to wait and rhys and feyre can't be on jurdan's level if they tried — but my point is that her portrayal of fae is just... immortal humans and then everyone hypes her world building up... BABE WHAT WORLD BUILDING. WHERE. the courts are never expanded on. do they have separate languages? religions? cultures? what does their traditional clothing look like? what does their traditional music sound like? what are their folktales? and i get it it's tricky to expand on this for seven courts but like we don't even know this about the night court or the spring court aside from a few dancing scenes and a few events. like aside from the solstices and starfall, what other events do they have? do they have any at all ( they should cause fae adore revels)? i just can't there's so much wasted potential in acotar it makes me mad

and all the lesser fae < high fae + prythian resembling britain and hybern resembling ireland ( honest to god this is creepy ) + extreme misogyny that is never fixed and the main male leads being misogynists themselves + women of color are plain and not as pretty as white women + the infantilization of pregnant women and reproductive abuse + the fucking faerie segregation that happened when hewn city civilians couldn't get into or access services from velaris... like i could go on and on. but i despise the series except for the first book because it's such goals, even if it had errors and i only even read all the way till the end cause 1) i just... kept hoping it'd get better (it didn't) 2) queen nesta archeron and my bbg lucien

so uh in short to everyone who recommended me acotar i don't trust you anymore

[karniss-bg3]

Sanctuary in the Darkness

The stale evening air hung heavy around Moonrise towers, darkness blanketing the entirety of the land from all sides. Kar'niss perched himself on the tallest of the towers with his moon lantern in hand, peering over the edge to maintain watch for any suspicious activity. It was one of the more lonely posts to take as the upper floors were quiet and most deserted at these hours. He was told it was the prime and most important position by fellow guards. In truth it was an excuse to segregate Kar'niss as far away from the others as possible, giving them a break from the non-stop tangents of praise for his Goddess. "Do you see, Majesty? Your faithful keeps watch, a sharp eye, unwavering," Kar'niss hissed. He'd shift nervously from side to side his many legs clacking against the surface of stone beneath him. He was particularly anxious this day, the remnants of his fractured mind in conflict. His breath hitched in his throat as he ran his clawed fingers through the wavy layers of his hair. A choked sob bubbled from the depths of his chest while moisture collected in his eyes, biting back the urge to give into the sorrow that had become his constant companion. "No! We are strong, we are loyal, Majesty! We will deliver more flesh to you." His voice wavered as if unsure of what he was saying despite the tone delivered with such conviction. His body language suggested a break down was imminent, the nervous energy palpable. That is until a foreign sound broke through the noise in his head. The upbeat melody of a flute cut through the heavy darkness and pulled Kar'niss from his self destructive cycle urging him to investigate. Kar'niss wandered to the other side of the watch tower to spot the strange individual he'd escorted through the darkness days prior. They were seated on the edge of the tower, legs haphazardly dangling off the side while they peered out into the darkness. Their fingers were busy tapping across the air holes of their trusty flute which produced a serene melody that didn't fit with their surroundings. It was enough to intrigue the drider who couldn't recall hearing such a lullaby before in his time. "What is this, my Queen?" He ventured closer with a level of caution in his steps clutching the moon lantern with both hands as if it were a shield from the cruelty of the world. Tav knew they weren't alone but didn't let that hinder their song. If anything it encouraged them to try harder with the knowledge that Kar'niss could be very temperamental. It was rare that Kar'niss had company when he was on duty, isolated and left to his own devices. Today was different and it bothered him that he couldn't figure out why Tav was here now. He came to the only conclusion that seemed reasonable to him; Divine intervention. "You sent them, Majesty? For me? Yes, your protection is infallible, infinite. Thank you, my Queen," he whispered to himself. Deciding that Tav and their music was no threat he deigned to skitter closer while maintaining some distance. Settling on one of the massive stone battlements just above Tav's position he'd allow himself a rare moment of reprieve. His large body lowered into a position of comfort, keeping his many eyes on the musician.

For the first time in too long the many voices that occupied his mind dwindled. The urge to weep or to give in to despair were pushed away allowing him a brief moment to enjoy something innocent. It was a sanctuary in the darkness, and as far as he was concerned, all for him. He was loved, he was protected, he was worthy. Wasn't he?

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

When Zoe-oneesama was still mapping out her plans for Scarlet Lady, she made an observation that two of canon!Sabrina’s biggest issues with her own personality are that she operates on both Mean Girl Logic AND Sidekick/Assistant/Slave Logic, which I agree with. This is evident in how, like you said, there are just as many moments — especially earlier on in the show — where Sabrina is gleefully going along with what Chloe wants as there are where she’s shrinking away or scared. Zoe also pointed out how this is highlighted in Evillustrator when Sabrina is trying to switch to being Marinette’s best friend and immediately tries to ingratiate herself by suggesting that they tell the teacher on Chloe and that she does Marinette’s homework. How would you handle a redemption or even just character growth arc for Sabrina with these main flaws in mind?

Here’s the OG post for reference (just for the Sabrina parts, not necessarily the SL parts since a few things were altered for the actual comic): https://zoe-oneesama.tumblr.com/post/180211248479/i-only-have-one-question-about-scarlet

(Link to the post that spawned this ask and a clickable link for @zoe-oneesama's post, which I'll also schedule to reblog the same day as this one if you don't feel like clicking a link)

Zoe is wise and makes excellent points. I've really enjoyed her comic's take on Sabrina and fully agree that people-pleasing Marinette is a poor choice for the character to help Sabrina be a better person in most situations. Marinette is great at standing up to those that she doesn't like, but once she cares about a person, she can be a bit of a pushover, which is a deeply relatable struggle. It's much harder to stand up to people when you care about them and want them to like you.

Adrien would be an even worse person to redeem Sabrina since he's even more of a people-pleaser! Marinette will at least stand up to her enemies, Adrien struggles to stand up to anyone.

This makes it hard to redeem Sabrina in canon because these two are our main characters. We want the plot and most of the subplots to revolve around them or the people close to them. We don't want Sabrina eating up screentime and elevating her narrative status to that of main character or major supporting character unless it benefits the wider story because the show isn't about Sabrina. She's an extremely minor character with zero ties to the leads outside of her role as Marinette's bully. No matter how much you like her, it makes no sense to give her serious narrative weight based on her established role in the narrative.

This means that Sabrina's path to the good side needs to either be very quick or somehow involve our leads and/or their core friend group without making them feel out of character. You could also somehow tie it to the villains and use it to develop them, but I really don't see that working for a redemption.

In spite of all of these issues, there are still a few ways that you might be able to make this work. Here's my pitch list. Note that the first three ideas could probably be mixed and matched into variants of each other where, for example, idea one's setup lead to idea two's plotline. I'm just keeping them separate to keep things simple and avoid repetition.

Idea 1: Remove Chloe and see what happens

Have season three end with Chloe leaving Paris because everyone blames her for Miracle Queen and Andre wants to protect his daughter. Without Chloe to be her leader, Sabrina is left adrift, so she looks for a new leader. She's already clung to Marinette once, so have that happen again, but with Alya more involved. Marinette will feel bad for Sabrina and Alya will be there to call Sabrina out on her bad behavior because you need a character who is willing to do that for this to work. Someone who won't try to sugar coat things like Marinette might if she's feeling sorry for Sabrina.

This path only works if you stick with the show's gender segregation issue where the girls and the guys don't interact much as it doesn't fit a setup where Sabrina is the fifth member of Alya, Nino, Marinette, and Adrien's little group. I don't even think it would work well in the larger group of girl friends. This plot line needs to really focus in on Sabrina and you simply can't do that with a large cast. The end result will probably be Sabrina becoming a pretty major character, pushing the guys even further into the background, so I don't really like this one, but it would work since canon is already giving Marinette and Alya way more importance than Adrien and Nino.

Idea 2: Self-Reflection After the Breakup

Have Chloe dump Sabrina. This could happen in several ways such as Lila not wanting Sabrina around as a witness or Sabrina failing Chloe in some way, leading Chloe to decide that she's better off alone. The cause really doesn't matter. What matters is the fallout.

This separation will play very differently from the one in the first idea. The separation is no longer forced on them, but an active choice made by Chloe, leading Sabrina to go into a full breakdown as she tries to understand what she did wrong. She may even try and fail to fix things. Chloe's continued presence will also make people wary of Sabrina, leading her to really have to face the bed her choices made.

Eventually Sabrina will reach a stage of self reflection where she wants to be better on her own. She will approach the rest of the class from the perspective of wanting help on her self-improvement journey, then someone who isn't a main character - and who hasn't suffered much from Sabrina's actions - will "adopt" Sabrina as their pet project. Sabrina's redemption will now no longer be a real plot line, instead it will be something we see hints of in the background. I liked the idea of this being Alix, that's a good fit. She would be very good at drawing lines in the sand. You could even make this a rabbit thing where Alix knows who Sabrina could be if she really works at improving and so Alix wants to help make that future happen.

Idea 3: Expand on Season Five's Speed-run Redemption

Stick with season five's plot of Sabrina switching sides because Chloe has gone too far, but instead of it being a one-episode thing, make it more drawn out. Make her and Marinette actually work together over multiple episodes and let Sabrina see what it's like to work with someone who cares about others. Someone who has lines that they won't cross. Marinette having a task to focus on will make her much less likely to baby Sabrina and give her Ladybug side a chance to really shine, which works since that's the side that inspires people to be better.

Idea 4: Paying it forward

Redeem Chloe, elevating her narrative role to someone who can have their own subplot, then have Chloe redeem Sabrina. Let their complex, but close friendship become a healthy and even closer friendship. This would let Chloe show how much she's changed and is probably the only path where I could buy Sabrina getting a miraculous as I just don't think that it makes sense for one of her main victims (Marinette) to give her magic powers. Just like Adrien should have picked Chloe, Chloe should pick Sabrina. "I know she's done wrong, but so did I and you still let me be on the team. Plus there's no one on this planet who is more loyal than Sabrina. This miraculous should be hers. She won't let us down."

You can also get real crazy and have Chloe pick Sabrina pre identity reveal so that Sabrina's redemption comes with a level of removal from the bullying baggage, making forgiveness much easier post-reveal. Identity shenanigans don't need to be limited to humor. They can be dramatic, too!

Personal confession time, that last one is my favorite. I just really love the power of love and friendship. I also really love the idea of the secret identities being used for more complex identity shenanigans such as easier redemptions. It's a lot easier to believe that someone has changed when you've become friends with their alter ego and seen the change first hand without the weight of the past hanging over you to bias your judgement. Option two is also pretty solid. Keeps Sabrina in her canon role while allowing her fans to see her grow into a good guy. Very best of both worlds.

I'll also note that the issue from my original post remains true: if you want to redeem Sabrina, then you need to stick to the version from the first three seasons. As soon as you add things like Derision to the mix, it becomes nonsensical to make her friends with her victims. She's simply gone too far with no complicating element to make her victims want a relationship with her.

For all Gabriel's awful actions, it makes sense that Adrien might want his father in his life, so you can potential make that redemption work if you handle it with extreme care, but Sabrina is just a random mean girl. There's no greater connection that would make the heroes want a relationship in spite of all that she's done. The only way to change that is to make Chloe a hero too because Sabrina is Chloe's best friend, so it makes sense that Chloe would want to keep Sabrina around (or at least these two were best friends in the first three seasons. I don't know what they were after that. It seriously felt like season four started with the introduction of Chloe's eviler twin).

[kowalskisjpgs]

5 days after what's quickly turning out to be the worst flooding in the history of Europe, Valencia's southern towns are still fighting. Some look a bit better than others - those located closer to the city get the most help - but the deeper in you go, the worse it is. "Madness" doesn't begin to cover it: streets flooded with mud, cars piled on each other, debris mixed with debris. It's street after street, one town becomes another, local stores and businesses turned inside out. People's lives, memories and objects of daily use float next to meaningless trash. It's all the same and it's all nothing. It's a whole bunch of nothing.

As we enter the town of Benetússer - one of the first ones coming from the city after having crossed the Turia river - the things look bad but somehow clean, organized. It's a cleaning party, and everyone's invited (except for the volunteers, who were actually prohibited from coming today; the official reasoning is the weather, it's supposed to rain today, but rumours are louder on social media: the Prime Minister, the King and the Queen are coming; others say there are too many bodies for anyone to safely do anything there). But we don't care, and hundreds of others don't care, either. Armed with cleaning tools we MacGyvered at home (stores have been out for a while, and social media is full of tips for what works best for the mud), we're here to help, and as we're moving through the town, we hope to find someone who knows someone who needs us. Small groups form: some know where to go, others wander around, randomly helping people on the way. We're the latter kind, but soon enough, we meet a guy holding a small kid holding a cookie who gives us a tip: go back to the main street, continue there, and when you pass the Consum supermarket, things get tough; the less fortunate live there, the damage is bad, and the help is needed. We follow him, the kid and the cookie and we end up in a cultural centre, converted into a donation hub. It's huge and thanks to the rooms located on the first floor, it survived. It must have been a school: the weird layout, corridors, spacious rooms, the smell of adolescence and bullying and now, tens of people running around, organizing. It's a beehive and we're in the middle of it, unloading the trucks with donated food, cosmetics, cleaning supplies. Christmas candles, shoes, cookies. A blanket, tampons, milk. It all goes up, gets segregated and turned into first-care packages that then go down. An hour, two, then four pass by: volunteers come and go, neighbours come and go. It's controlled chaos, and we somehow get things done. Nothing lingers around, so we guess it's a good sign.

Tomorrow's another day. And that's good, because we'll need a lot of them.

_______ If you'd like to donate to the victims of the Valencian flooding, please consider doing it here.