#to borrow an excellent tag :P

[sleepyfan-blog]

Jam two

Author’s Note: This is the next part in Cedric’s adventures in the husbandry AU! Thank you to @kit-williams for allowing me to borrow Arnault, Roland, Bakerin and Angela, thank you to @c-u-c-koo-4-40k for allowing me to borrow Pyrus and @gallifreyianrosearkytiorsusan for allowing me to borrow Hura. First. Previous. Next

Tagged: @egrets-not-regrets @kit-williams @bleedingichorhearts @i-am-a-dragon34

@the-pure-angel @gallifreyianrosearkytiorsusan

Warnings: none, please ask me to tag you if something bothers you

Summary: Cedric drops off the thank-you jam with Angela and Arnault. He then swings by the bakery run by Roland's bonded for some pastries and bread before returning to base.

“Thank you for the homemade jam, Cedric… But I can't eat this much jam on my own before they go bad. And you've worked so hard on making them, keep a couple for yourself.” Miss Angela instructed Cedric as she gently pressed five of the jars back into his hands.

Brother Arnault, who had picked up and opened one of the jars as she had spoken, stuck a spoon inside of the jar, scooping up a mouthful. His eyes lit up and he said “Don't worry, my Angel, it won't be a chore to finish off these jars. This is delicious! Here, have a bite.” He offered her another spoonful of jam.

Angela sighed “Arbaukt, you're not supposed to eat jam by the spoonful! It's meant to be spread on bread or toast, or as a filling for pastries.”

“Ja, ja, jam. I am eating it incorrectly. But try it! So good.” Arnault playfully answered back, smearing the jam on a piece of bread and presenting it to her with a small grin.

Angela hummed and took the piece of bread, swiftly eating it “Oh! This is really good. Where did you get the blackberries? I know they're in season right now.”

“I went foraging for them in the forest nearby. I made sure to leave plenty for others.” Cedric answered, a small smile on his face, delighted that they both liked his gift. “Are you sure you don't want all of the jam?”

“It's very delicious, but as I said before, we wouldn't be able to eat through all of the jars of jam before some of them went bad. Which would be a shame, since you made such tasty preserves.” Angela explained, gently reaching up and patting one of his shoulders. “That was not a challenge by the way, Arnault. I can see you eating the jam from the jar.”

Arnault gives his bonded a small, devious grin as he deliberately brings the spoon of jam to his mouth and eats it, ice blue eyes shining with mischief "We have five jars of this delicious jam, and I could eat an entire jar of jam all by myself with no trouble. It must have taken Cedric hours to make this much jam, not counting however long it took him to gather the berries in the first place. I am merely enjoying the jam in it's purest state as a compliment to mein little brother who worked so hard to make this for us, liebling."

Angela sighed, though she was also smiling "You make excellent points. And I haven't had home-made jam like this in a long time. Was there anything else that you needed or wanted, Cedric?"

The young apothecary shook his head "No, I just wanted to drop off my thank you gift... Are you sure you don't want all ten jars of jam?"

"Yes, truly. While I suppose Arnault could eat most of them, and he probably will anyways, you should also enjoy the fruits of your labor, Cedric. Have you saved yourself a jar?" Angela explained with another small smile.

"... No, I hadn't saved any for myself. I went out to collect the berries and went through all of this specifically to make food gifts for others." Cedric answered, shuffling his feet a little. His mentor had taught him a number of food preparation techniques as well as how to hunt and forage in a number of different environments and worlds. While Astartes required several times the number of calories baseline humans did and normal human food did little to sustain them, even what little that did provide nourishment could be the difference between life and death. Also, preserved and shelf-stable goods like this were always a hit on worlds where bartering was the norm - and even one jar of jam could provide a tremendous boost in morale on an otherwise shit mission when shared between brothers, or shared with mortal troops. Sweet things like this weren't necessarily good for the body, but did nourish the soul.

"Keep one of the jars for yourself, and I'm sure that you can get good trades for the rest of those. This is excellent." Arnault advised Cedric, reaching out and ruffling the larger Black Templar's short silvery blond hair. 

"Yes sir." Cedric answered with a nod, heading off.

~

Cedric swung by the bakery that Brother Roland's bonded ran, waiting in the line that often formed as soon as she opened the doors. The smell of freshly baked bread made his stomach rumble in appreciation as his mouth watered. While he wasn't as... Focused on bread as his older brother, he definitely appreciated how tasty and varied bread could be in the third century. It far outshone most of the bland and tasteless starch rations that he'd had being trained by the Mechanicus and during his time with his fellow Black Templars in the 41st millennium. 

He was content to wait for as long as needed, holding onto the basket with the five jars of jam in one hand as he looked at the many delicious baked goods on offer. Cedric had been given some of the local currency to spend and planned on getting some of the very delicious sourdough bread... But there were so many other delicious things to try as well! It all looked so good, and the young space marine was having difficulties deciding what he wanted to eat. 

There was a large group of teenagers in front of them, their voices overlapping with one another as they rapidly spoke in one of the native languages, looking at the selection of goods for sale with clear glee and joy. The blue hair of one of them caught Cedric's attention, and it took him a moment to realize why.

Plucking up his courage, he cleared his throat, moving a little closer to the group, hopefully without seeming as if he was trying to loom over them "Excuse me... Is your name Crystal?" 

The teenagers turned to look up at him, as well as one middle-aged baseline human. The baseline human puffed up a little, their eyes narrowing as they looked him up and down, stepping in front of Crystal as they spoke "And just who is asking, space marine?"

Cedric hadn't expected to be met with this much open hostility and flustered "I... I was just... Asking. One of your charges seemed familiar to me, as we met briefly. They seemed worried the last time we met, and I wanted to reassure them that I am fine and doing well."

The middle-aged baseline human's eyes narrowed a little further "And just why would they be concerned that you could potentially be in trouble? Don't most of you go stomping around in packs? Then again... It's rare to see one of you lot running around without any armor, either."

Crystal elbowed the adult baseline out of the way, beaming up at him "Hi Cedric! It's good to see you again. Thanks for getting me out of that tight spot a month or so ago. Ignore Mrs. Spencer, she's always like this. You look good! What's in the basket?"

"Don't mention it. We all get into tight spots from time to time. I'm just glad I was able to help you before things could get out of hand. And I'll show you what's in the basket!" Cedric responded with a bright smile, pulling out one of the jars of jam "I spent most of today picking, cooking and canning these. I've brought a couple for Bruder Roland and his bonded as a thank you gift."

"That's really thoughtful of you, Cedric? Is it for anything in particular, or just something you felt like doing?" Crystal asked curiously.

"Brother Roland has been very kind to me, and welcoming as I've been adjusting to life here on Terra." Cedric explains, a small smile appearing on his face as he thought back on fond memories with one of the kindest and most patient firstborn Black Templars he'd ever been blessed to meet. "His bonded has been equally kind to me as well."

"I'm glad to hear that, you can talk to him if you're having any issues with anyone on that base you live on?" Crystal asked, peering up at him, concern in her voice.

"Of course." Cedric answered, making sure to keep the smile on his face. He suspects that miss Crystal is referring to his panicked reaction to a certain first-born brother, but considering that particular Older Brother has left the city, quite possibly the immediate area within a couple of days of visiting the base, it's not like he needs to trouble Roland or Arnault about Petras just yet... Hopefully Petras won't come around again while he and his fellow primaris brothers are on base and everything will be fine. 

Just then, Roland walked up to them from behind the back counter. "Hallo Cedric. Misty said that there's an Astartes in the shop, and went to go get me. Are you here for a particular reason, or for brot?"

"I came here for both brot and to give you and your bonded this." Cedric answered, handing him two of the jars of blackberry jam. "I've made this myself. The date it was canned and it's contents are written on the label right here."

"Danke, we will enjoy this. If you're willing to wait for another ten minutes, there will be sourdough rolls freshly baked from the oven." Roland offered, smiling a little at his younger brother.

"That sounds wonderful! Thank you very much. I was also thinking about getting the... Erm.. Hazelnut-chocolate filled croissant? That sounds tasty. And one of those savory pies. I'd like six of the sourdough rolls once they're ready, please. I've got the money for all of it, give me a moment." He answered, shifting the basket so that it was in the crook of one of his arms as he patted his pockets, pulling out the roll of currency he had been given, counting out the tiny paper bills out. "I think this is correct?"

Roland took the bills, reading the numbers "Ja, you are correct. I'll get the other things packed up and ready for you to go." He walks back around the counter and calls out, his voice warm with love "Lieeebliing~! Cedric is here and he wants five of the sourdough rolls once they're out of the oven! He also came with a present for us both."

Miss Bakerin comes out from the kitchen and beams as she spots Cedric. She walks over to where he's standing and gives him an affectionate pat on the shoulder "Thank you, Cedric. I'm sure we'll very much enjoy the blackberry jam. It's good to see you again."

Cedric ducks his head a little, smiling "Thank you, miss. I hope you both enjoy the jam." He tilts his head a little and says after a moment "I hear a timer going off?"

Roland is already in motion, with his bonded following after. Roland explaining as they both head back to the cooking area "That would probably be the macarons, which are these very small, but delightfully snappy and light sandwich cookies. They are very fiddly to make properly."

"Ah. Good luck with the macarons!" Cedric answered with a small smile, content to wait until his requested rolls were ready.

The middle-aged human spoke up again "How were you able to hear the alarm? I can't hear it." 

"Hmm? Oh, I have very sensitive hearing." Cedric answered honestly. 

They hesitated for another moment or two, before one of the other teenagers they were accompanying called for their attention, as the group had made it to the front of the line. 

~

Cedric made his way back to the base after getting the pastries and bread he had ordered, nibbling on the croissant he had purchased, enjoying the buttery taste of the pastry as well as the sweet and nutty taste of the filling. He still had three jars of gift-jam left, though technically he supposed he had two. He had tasted the jam during the creation process and had found it quite delicious...Perhaps it wouldn't be selfish if he kept back a jar for himself? But who should he give the remaining two jars to? He hummed in thoughtful consideration as he headed through the main entrance of the base before stopping dead in his tracks. 

He could hear all sorts of arguments, all over the base. He could see Pyrus running through the main entrance hall, one hand curled around something, the other giving his brothers a rude gesture as he yelled over his shoulder "I'm not going to be sharing this! It's clearly a gift for me, and it's delicious."

Cedric backed up a couple of steps so that Pyrus wouldn't possibly run into him and called out "Hi Pyrus... What's going on?"

"Hmmm? Oh, someone left me a jar of the jam that they've been making for hours. Some of my brothers are trying to bother me into sharing, but since it's a gift, and I don't feel like it, I'm not going to." The Salamander Scout explained, slowing down to a stop, revealing the jar of jam that he'd left for Pyrus. The lid was off and some of the contents had already been eaten. "I think a lot of people were hoping that the mystery jam-maker was going to leave some of whatever they were making in the communal pantry, but that hasn't happened. Some people were gifted jam and there've been some... Heated arguments as to whether or not those gifted with jam should share with everyone else. I'm of the opinion that if those without jam want some, they can either go buy or trade for their own jam. Or make it themselves, following one of the many recipes that are available on ancient terra to use."

"Oh... Oh dear. I hadn't expected that the jam would cause such chaos..." Cedric murmured, his eyes wide as he shifted from foot to food, feeling his ears warm. 

"You were the one who made the jam? Thanks for a jar, it's really good! Am I supposed to eat it right out of the jar, or are there other ways to eat it?" Pyrus asked, dodging several of his brothers' grabby hands gracefully.

"Yeah." Cedric answered, briefly explaining how he'd gotten the berries to make the jam, and that he'd made thank you jam for those to whom he was grateful for their help in one way or another, finishing with "I really wasn't expecting the base to be in such an uproar... I do have a couple of jars of jam left over... Maybe I should leave it in the communal pantry, so that hopefully the squabbling settles down?"

Pyrus hummed a little as he shoved a couple of fingers inside the wide-mouthed jar, scooping some of it up and licking it off of his fingers as his brothers loudly protested around him "I suppose you could, but it's your jam, you know. You could keep it for yourself. Its' really good."

"I... I suppose I'll think about it?" Cedric offered, mildly overwhelmed and deeply guilty as to just how much chaos he had inadvertently unleashed. 

"Good! See you later, Cedric!" Pyrus answered before running off elsewhere into the base, his brothers on his heels. 

~

Cedric had made it most of the way to the communal pantry when he heard his name being called out. He turned, spotting Apothecary Hura making his way down the hall. "Yes, sir?" The young Black Templar called out, making his way over to where the ancient Death Guard was.

"Hello young Cedric. I wanted to thank you for the jam. It is most delightful!" Hura purred at the younger apothecary.

"I'm glad that you like the jam, sir. I. Uhm. Did not expect the jam to be such a... Contentious thing." Cedric admitted.

"You'd be hard-pressed to find an astartes who doesn't crave fast carbohydrates, especially when hungry. Especially since the smell of you cooking the jam was lingering around the base for hours, there were many hopeful marines wishing for a taste. Not that you should feel guilty, of course! You made it, and therefore you should decide who does and does not get the jam." The Chaos marine murmured serenely, dripping a finger into his jar of jam and eating it. "Things will settle down in a day or two, worry not."

"I... Alright. Thank you, sir." Cedric mumbled. He still felt bad for unintentionally causing trouble among the ranks of his firstborn brothers. It was something to keep in mind about how much uproar had been made over a little bit of jam....

"If you do feel the urge to make jam again, I encourage you to do so, and if you need a taste taster, I would be happy to volunteer." The death guard offered with a small grin.

"I'll keep that in mind. Do you have anything that you'd change about this jam, if you could? Is it too sweet, or too sour?" Cedric asked, hoping that the food was good, but that could be just his own tastebuds. 

"Only how much is in the jar, though that has more to do with the size of the jar, rather than it's delightful contents. The jam itself is wonderful. I will be storing my jam in this base, as some of my more impulsive chaos brethren would try to take this and then I would have to gut them for their foolishness." Hura hummed "I have labeled this jam jar as mine and I suspect no one here will touch it, especially as I have clearly eaten some already."

"I'm really glad that you like the jam sir. I worked hard to make it." Cedric answered, beaming at the praise. 

"I can taste the care and effort you put into making this. Mmm, I hear a fight starting nearby. I am going to go watch. See you later, youngling!" Hura called out before casually turning around and leaving.

Cedric sighed internally and continued to the communal pantry. Inside were a couple of bickering Space Wolves and twice as many Ultramarines all arguing with one another. All six of the firstborn brothers seemed very focusing on whatever argument they were having, so Cedric slowly and carefully made his way around them. 

Unfortunately, they were in the middle of the jam section, so Cedric was forced to wait until one of the Space Wolves lunged at an Ultramarine before swiftly placing two of the three jars of blackberry preserves on the shelf on the spot where B-named fruits or berries were to be placed, as it was currently empty, and had blueberry jam there previously.

The young apothecary slowly made his way towards the exit, doing his best to pretend that he was invisible and that none of them could see him, if they did happen to look in his direction and hoped for the best. 

"And just where do you think you're going, pup? Don't think I don't see and smell you sneaking around." One of the Space Wolves growled out. He was huge for a firstborn loyalist, with scars that crisscrossed his face and neck, and disappeared under his shirt collar. 

"Uhm... To my assigned room, sir? Why?" Cedric answered earnestly. 

"And why were you in the pantry, if you're headed to your room? You're a big fucker, too. I don't recognize you." The same large Space Wolf rumbled. 

"... I grabbed some crackers?" Cedric answered, showing him the box of plain crackers he had grabbed - he thought that they would pair nicely with the jam he had stashed in his room for his fellow primaris brothers, along with the fresh bread he'd purchased from Miss Bakerin. "I've been on the base for about... Seven months now, sir? Which is pretty much the entire time I've been on Ancient Terra."

"Hmph. Scouts running about out of armor, only do so because of mischief reasons. What's your name, pup?" Large Space Wolf huffed. 

"... I was brought to ancient terra without my armor, as I had been brought here in my sleep in a place where I could sleep out of armor." Cedric countered, sulking a little at the idea that he was out of armor because he wanted to cause trouble. It's not as if he could be in his armor, anyways.

"... Ah. Tough luck there, lad. Well, off you get." The large Space Wolf huffed, dismissing him with a flick of one of his hands. 

"Yes sir." Cedric answered with a silent sigh of relief, quickly leaving the pantry and returning to his room. 

Once there, he flopped down onto his bed with a low groan, rolling himself up into the wonderful, weighted quilt that Miss Angela had made for him, drifting off to sleep. 

[faggotry-enjoyer]

General

One of the most helpful things for me has just been osmosis. I didn't start off seeking out resources - I just stumbled across jumblr somehow, lurked on there for a few years, and followed up on starting points I came across. Follow Eden (OP), follow more Jews on here, listen to what they have to say. Not tagging publicly in this section because I don't want to direct any harrassment their way, but feel free to DM me or shoot me an ask for recommendations.

One of the fastest ways to being antisemitic is thinking you're immune to antisemitism. You're not. It's everywhere. Know that you have ingrained antisemitism and decide, in advance, how you're going to react when you discover it or when someone points it out. Take note of when you find yourself feeling defensive, and don't let yourself respond/speak while you're still in that defensive state. Give it time to sink in. Take note of when you find yourself suspicious or (internally or otherwise) pushing back, and interrogate that reaction. Know that you are going to fuck up, and be prepared to correct yourself. A lot. Thank Jews who teach you, thank Jews who show you your own antisemitism, and take their words to heart.

Avoid conspiracy thinking. Be wary of implications of secret/shadowy/etc. control, "it's all connected" and variations, "wake up" and variations, unspecified "they" and variations, attributing intent to everything that goes wrong, and so forth.

While antisemites are broadly becoming increasingly bold, most still deny at least publicly. A lot will deny that they're talking about Jews at all. Be on the lookout for euphemisms, dogwhistles, and "find and replace" - if somebody says, for example, "Zionist" or "globalist" or "elite" or a brand new euphemism of their own, but follows an antisemitic trope, that's still antisemitism. That's (part of) why it's important to be familiar with said tropes - it will allow you to recognize red flags even when the words themselves are outside the scope of the dogwhistles you already know.

For cultural xtians (xtians, ex-xtian atheists, just about anyone growing up in a xtian-majority country): A lot of things you associate with xtianity were actually appropriated from Judaism, and Judaism is not xtianity minus Jesus. I haven't seen much discussion on this variety of antisemitism on my dash since 10/7 when the focus shifted to I/P and the left going mask off, but I do think it's worth thinking through and reading up on. Antitheists and ex-xtian atheists read this one as a starting point. For more on xtian antisemitism, common culturally xtian misconceptions about Judaism, and xtian hegemony in general, I highly recommend checking out @didyoumeanxianity.

Be aware that there are outliers, and make sure to be listening to a number of different Jewish voices/sources in order to get an impression of the majority. Take any and all claims of antisemitism by all Jews seriously, but don't take the word of fringe factions (e.g. JVP, Neteuri Karta) or small numbers when they say something's not antisemitic. Don't just borrow the first opinion you see or the one that most closely matches what you think already, actually take the time to synthesize from direct information and from more than a couple takes.

Listen more than you speak.

Specific

More media literacy: here is another of Eden's answers to yours truly. It's linked in a couple posts already included here, but I wanted to highlight it specifically.

More dogwhistles and the like: Web version of the AJC Translate Hate Glossary (pdf linked in previous reblog), ADL Hate Symbols Database

Jews Don't Count by David Baddiel is an excellent short read (took me 2 or 3 hours cover to cover) on the long tradition of leftists excluding Jews from their activism. Check it out from your local library.

rootsmetals (instagram, website) makes in-depth, thoroughly sourced posts on primarily Jewish and Israeli history. If you're talking about I/P, I particularly recommend her posts on emotional extortion (instagram, blog), replacement theology (instagram, blog), double standards (instagram, blog), and asking questions (instagram, blog). Actually think through (and research) those questions, too.

For those who like video as a format, I highly recommend the youtuber Pinely. Selling Anti-Semitic [sic] Theories to Teens uses Sneako as a case study of conspiratorial + right-wing + antisemitic radicalization. Selling Dangerous Theories To Kids looks at Shane Dawson's conspiracy theories. How to Fetishize a Religion uses Trisha Paytas as a case study of philosemitism. How to Radicalize a Celebrity is what it says on the tin and most of the examples used are antisemitism.

Short (4:26) captioned video on Holocaust inversion

When the right and left fight over anti-Semitism, Jews are caught in the middle

myjewishlearning.com - link here is to the antisemitism 101 article for a starting point but the entire site is excellent

For a friend who wanted links to some posts I made about antisemitism, allyship, and how to support Palestine without being antisemitic—which is both possible and easy to do!

How do you know if you’re antisemitic?

How to be a good ally for Jewish people. I responded to a wonderful ask from @faggotry-enjoyer about how to be a better ally and to discuss Israel/Palestine with people who are inclined to distrust Jews due to unexamined antisemitism.

Important post about the dangers faced by Jews as an extreme minority. There are good examples in the reblogs and replies and tags—both of great ways for non-Jews to provide support as well as if antisemites denying their own antisemitism. Therese even one example of ways Jews can and do disagree with each other while remaining respectful without delving into antisemitism OR Islamophobia OR denying the rights and dignity of Palestinians. Jews can do this and so can non-Jews. But that can’t happen if people hate us too much to listen to anything we have to say.

The emotional toll of antisemitism on Jewish people.

Example of the death threats we get that are designed to make us look like bad guys.

If Jews can learn about the Holocaust in detail before we even reach the age of ten, you can and should too.

Don’t trust people who rely on bad sources. People do make genuine mistakes. Here’s an example of bad faith link sharing. Especially when Reblogging things. Even I don’t have time to always check every source in a post. Also, it’s possible that a link seemed legitimate when it was originally posted but the source is either no longer trustworthy or the OP got better at assessing sources. If an error in their original sourcing is pointed out, they should correct it publicly. If they are sharing a link as an OP they should always take time to be as responsible as possible.

There are plenty more posts under my #leftist antisemitism tag to look into about a variety of ways that antisemitism manifests in left wing circles.

Allies, please reblog with any posts you think relevant for a someone new to dismantling their antisemitism.

[elizabethrobertajones]

I'm so sorry that you are getting all this wank. It's unfair for people to be hating on you and other meta writers just because their opinions doesn't match yours

Thank you

And yeah, they just have jumped ship so hard from enjoying the show and from wanting Cas to have anything to do with it any more that they’re curling defensively around him and seeing pretty much everything, fandom, show, whatever, as an attack on Cas or people not loving him enough because they’re not AS hurt on his behalf because they’re not displaying various defensive behaviours about him as well. 

I can talk quite cheerfully about Cas dying because I have confidence that the show loves Cas (they were all up his ass in season 12, I mean, seriously, trying to imagine how people who hated Cas felt about a THIRD Cas-centric episode on the go was making me giggle in glee, so these feelings just do not compute to me :P) so I don’t feel like anything happening with Cas’s death was meant as an insult to Cas fans or disrespectful to his character. I’m really looking forward to what putting him centre stage again next season while he bravely explores the Empty for us or whatever will look like. And because I am a Cas fan as much as a Destiel fan, I’m not bummed out he’ll be separated from Dean for this period; Cas being on his own means he’s having a self-sustaining storyline which is AWESOME for a Cas fan because it means they’re letting him do stuff for his own sake. Killing him off was an excellent idea because the way he comes back is going to be deeply personal and Cas-focused and on the other hand back on earth everyone’s gonna be eulogising him and I’ll get my shipper hit that way of Dean being all Dean about dead Cas :P

So the idea that we’re not caring about Cas because we’re happy with him being dead is totally bizarre to me, unless you understand that people who feel this way are SO protective of Cas, probably because of times he was mistreated by the narrative, that they’re going to see any “it’s literally so much better for the Cas fan these days guys” posts as over-optimistic and not understanding how much the show shits on Cas. I’ve not thought the show was shitting on Cas from the beginning of Carver era, but I can see it loves him even better now.

I can also see that I could have had this wank with Sam or Dean fans, depending on who got riled up by whatever I said. It just so happens that those fans keep their own company for the most part, but Cas fans often rely on Destiel fans for their wider fandom needs and just hope they aren’t shitty towards Cas, except they go in with their hackles up, and read stuff they don’t understand because they’re EXPECTING the worst, and tada, misunderstanding that suddenly ends up on my dash where I’m the villain of the year for hating Cas and spreading lies and misinformation.

So idk if it was HATE per say towards me, rather like complete and utter misunderstanding because of their own issues towards ANYTHING other than me and the things I say, but they just take my posts as being symptomatic of something completely opposite to what I believe - aka that Cas is amazing and I love him and I’m so proud of him right now and seeing how his story goes from here is going to be so good - and taking that last part as a sign that I ascribe to The Evils Of The Show That Hates Cas and therefore everything I say and do is wrong because I’m not condemning them completely for their choices or something. 

(I mean the other misconception is that meta writers are uniformly positive instead of the fact we’ve pretty much all spent the last season groaning in horror about main plotline nonsense, especially where it’s all handed to Buckleming for FIVE episodes, which they bungle pretty dramatically in their own special ways each time >.> Like, trust me, the fact a bunch of us are still hype about season 13 does not mean we didn’t find parts of season 12 completely shitty, wrote about it at length, and are holding on for different reasons - like, for example, that the character focus was excellent, the MotW from the new kids were pretty much all amazing, and since character investment usually carries us twice as far as plot stuff on a GOOD day, those of us who gelled with the character stuff in season 12 are feeling pretty positive that THAT side of things will be good enough again to watch the season and carry on rooting for our favourites.)

Anyway inter-fandom bitchiness sucks, but it’s a new sunny day, so I’m much less pissed off to be in the middle of that witch hunt out of the blue, and much more forgiving of the fact that these people have just been hurt so badly by the show in the past that they are completely out of fucks to give and unfortunately are just passing on the hurt now by starting ridiculously defensive witch hunts, where they see Cas and Cas fans as utterly victimised, because other people, even ones who claim to love Cas, won’t talk about him like they want, which is as far as I can tell, standing in front of him threatening to shiv any supernatural writers who come close. 

[justthehiddleswrites]

Accidently Married | Tom Hiddleston x OFC | Chapter 2 | Be Careful with Clive, I Have Grown Attached to Him

A/N:  Tom makes certain comments about an ex (who is unnamed).  It is a fictional girlfriend, take from it what you will.  Keep your hate to yourself.  

SERIES MASTERLIST HERE

Pairing: Tom Hiddleston x OFC (Molly Bishop)

Summary: Tom is stuck in a news cycle from hell; Molly is stuck in the dead end job of bartending with a pile of student and credit debt.  Tom has an idea to solve all their problems.  Get married, get the paparazzi off his back, divorce after a year and Tom pays off Molly’s debts.  Tom has everything figured out, that is until he sees Molly as more than a just a friend and so does someone else.  In this vying for affections who will win, the handsome Brit or the boy from Boston?

This Chapter: Tom and Molly are now married.  Surprise! These two talk about the logistics of Tom’s half-baked plan.  And Molly moves to London to face the firing squad, aka the paparazzi.  

Warnings: fake marriage, smut (vaginal sex), mentions of:  child abuse/neglect, foster care, substance abuse, cheating.

TAGLIST IS OPEN! PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANT TO BE TAGGED!  THANK YOU FOR READING!

–

After they signed the license along with the apostille, there had been dancing. That much Molly remembered. And drinking. Specifically drinking champagne. Tom danced with abandon, pulling Molly into the whirlwind of activity he created around him.

But now it was morning, and Molly woke up in a bed that wasn’t her own. She groaned as her head pounded, having forgotten that champagne and her have a love-hate relationship. Molly saw the faint outline of Tom asleep on the couch, his long body stretched out, still wearing his suit from last night. After glancing at the alarm clock, Molly fell back asleep.

Several hours, Molly woke up again and headed to the bathroom, not noticing the now opened curtains.

“Hey good lookin, Whatcha got cookin,” Tom’s voice twanged as he stepped out of the shower. His head pounded a bit, but not the worst hangover he had.

“AHHH!!!” Molly screamed as she stepped into the bathroom.

They both froze, which was more embarrassing for Tom, as at least Molly was still wearing her dress from last night.

“You’re naked.” Molly blinked, her head darting around the room until she focused on an interesting corner of the room.

Tom chuckled, grabbing a towel and wrapping it loosely around his waist. “I don’t normally shower in my clothes. You can look back now.”

She slowly turned back around. “Sorry.” She shuffled her feet. “I should have knocked.”

“It’s quite alright.” He moved towards the door. “Shower is yours and we should talk things over.”

Molly nodded. “We should.”

While Molly showered, Tom dressed in the other room. After finding a clean t-shirt for Molly to wear over her dress until she could change, he called the airlines and changed his single ticket for that morning to a later flight for two, fishing Molly’s ID out of her wallet.

“Thanks for the shirt.” she stepped out.

“It looks good on you.” Tom gestured to the sofa. “Sit. Would you like some breakfast?” Her stomach growled. They both laughed. “That would be a yes.” Tom shoved the room service menu. “Order what you like.”

She selected an egg white frittata while Tom got the pancakes. Tom put in the order and returned his attention to Molly.

“So let’s talk about how this will work.” Tom shifted in his seat.

“An excellent idea. You mentioned living together in London. When do we leave?”

“This afternoon.”

Molly coughed. “That quick?”

“I’m afraid so.” Tom’s hands fidgeted in his lap. She noticed he was still wearing the spider ring. “I have work obligations back home and in order for it to be believable you would need to live with me.”

“Naturally.” Molly slapped her thighs. “So after breakfast, I can head back to my apartment, pack up what little I have, say goodbye to my roommate, and change into appropriate clothing. And you need to get us some proper rings.” She waved her hot pink ring in the air. “Unless of course you intend for your bride to wear a ring from the top of a cupcake.”

“Only if I get to keep my ring. I’ve grown quite attached to Clive.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You named the spider?”

“Yes.” There was a knock on the door. “That will be the food. Allow me.” He disappeared and returned shortly with a rolling table, ladened with food. Tom poured a cup of coffee and offered one to Molly.

“I don’t drink coffee.”

“I can have them bring up a teapot.”

“I’m pretty sure there are some complimentary ones in the room. Now,” She cut into her food and took a bite. “how will everything else work? Living with you, your life, the paparazzi? That is the whole point of this charade.”

“You do get down to business. So yes, I would expect you to live in my home. In a separate bedroom, I can set up another room as an office for you. We would need to attend events together and generally appear as a loving couple on the outside.”

“And my debts? That is part of the deal, right?”

“Right,” Tom gazed over at her while eating his pancakes. “I would assume the payments while we are together, and after the divorce is final, I would pay off any balance. I would also take care of your daily expenses while we are married. You are welcome to work if you want, but I will give you spending money.”

“So I would be a trophy wife?” Her brown eyes glinted.

Tom waved his hands in front of him. “Not that is not what I meant… I…”

“I am kidding, Tom. If you prefer, I can not work. I don’t mind. Give me some time to figure things out.” A thought came to her. “What about…” Molly searched for the words. “… other needs? Or if you wish to engage in a romantic relationship?” Her cheeks blushed as the words fell out of her mouth.

Tom blushed as well. “I have great self-control and I think if either of us get to that point, we can discuss it. I don’t want you to feel trapped.”

“And I don’t want you to be trapped either. I guess that is as good of an answer I could expect. Anything you want to ask me?”

Tom stared at Molly. The air hung heavy. “Do you regret saying yes?”

“No. Do you regret asking?”

“No.”

Molly downed the rest of her juice. “Well then, it is all settled. I am going to take off to pack. And you have some shopping to do. My ring size is a 7.”

Tom finished up the last bite of pancakes. “Right. We need to leave here by 3 to make it to the airport.”

“I shouldn’t be more than a few hours. Do you have a key to the room I could borrow?”

Tom fished one out of his discarded jacket’s pocket. “Here I will have the front desk make me another one.”

She tapped the key against her nails. “Thanks, Tom. For the help and for being a decent guy.”

“I should be thanking you.”

“You already have.” She grabbed her purse and headed out the door.

-

Tom headed downstairs, asked the front desk for a new key to the room, and also inquired where the nearest jewelry store might be. The front clerk handed him a key and directed him to a small collection of luxury stores in the hotel. He found Tiffanys and purchased a classic platinum solitaire engagement ring and plain platinum band for Molly and a yellow gold band for himself.

Molly wasn’t back when he returned, so he set about packing up for the flight. His phone buzzed. Luke.

It appears you had a good time in Vegas. The papers say you are drowning your sorrows. Looks like the story is here to stay. Call me when you wake up from your nap at home.

Tom typed back.

I did have a good time. I have a feeling the papers will soon find another story soon. Still in Vegas, taking a later flight. Talk to you soon.

His phone rang. He clicked it off, seeing it was Luke. Rather to get all the yelling done in person. The door opened and Molly came in, dragging a suitcase behind.

“Sorry! My roommate had questions.”

“So does my publicist.”

Tom took in Molly for the first time, really. Outside of the light of a casino floor. And not in a wedding dress purchased for fifty dollars on the way to the chapel. She wore faded jeans, a pair of beat up black Converse and a boxy white tee tucked in. A large black cardigan tucked under her arm. Dark hair in a bun. Quite lovely, if Tom told the truth.

“Are you in some sort of trouble?” Her brows knitted together.

“Not yet.” Tom tucked his phone into his jean pocket. “Here.” He pulled out the little blue bag.

Molly gasped. “I thought you would go buy some costume jewelry. This is too much.”

“Nonsense. This marriage may be fake, but the jewelry will be real.” Tom opened up the boxes. “May I do the honors?”

Molly held out her hand, and Tom slipped off the plastic ring before replacing it with the wedding set. “Much better. And yours?”

Tom slapped the box into her hand. “Be careful with Clive.” Molly pursed her lips as she pulled off the spider ring and replaced it with the gold band, putting the plastic ring in the Tiffanys box. “Here you go. Clive’s new home.”

Tom tucked the box into his luggage. “Ready to go?”

Molly rocked back on her heels. “Yep.”

Tom held out his arm. “Let’s go home, Mrs. Hiddleston.”

-

The flight back was uneventful, Molly and Tom dozed off, leaning against each other for support. Molly woke up first. She stared down at her rings. This was not how she expected this weekend going. Molly thought she would scrap together enough tips to make an extra payment on her credit card. Not flying to London with a Tiffany diamond ring on her finger and a famous actor as her husband.

“Life does throw you curveballs from time to time.”

“What was that, darling?” Tom muttered, stretching in his seat.

“Just commenting on the craziness of all of this to myself.” She held out her hand again. Tom laced his fingers with hers.

“I have done the same thing myself. Now when we land, there will probably be paparazzi around. Are you up for getting this whole thing off and running?”

Molly perked up. “What do I need to do?”

-

Tom tightly gripped Molly’s hand throughout the concourse and baggage claim. They eyed the doors.

“Ready?” she asked, squeezing his hand.

“I promise to be gentle.” Tom squeezed back, smiling.

As they stepped through the doors, Tom flashed a killer smile and Molly did as well, giggling as his arm wrapped around her waist. He leaned over and pressed his lips to hers. Molly melted against him, making sure her rings were visible as she cupped his cheek. She was right, Tom was an excellent kisser. After making sure any photographers had plenty of time to snap a pic, they parted.

“Think they got my good side?” Molly giggled.

“Do you have a bad side?” Tom asked.

“Just wait and see. Now take me home, darling!” She threw her arm over her eyes dramatically.

“Drama queen.” Tom pinched her side.

-

Tom’s home was cozy and clean. Definitely a bachelor’s home, as evidenced by the empty fridge except for a few bottles of beer and some questionable brown sauce.

“I can go shopping later.” Tom dragged a toe along the kitchen floor.

“I can go shopping later.” She reached up and smacked his face playfully. “What kind of wife would I be if I didn’t feed my husband?”

“Fair point. I will call the bank tomorrow and get a card in your name. Just run any big purchases past me first. And we will need to get your name changed, passport, etc. I can have someone help you.” Tom prattled on.

“Why don’t you show me the rest of the place first?”

Tom held out his arm. “This way.”

Tom’s book collection was impressive along with his collection of movies.

“I clear some space if you need it.”

“I only packed clothes. My roommate is selling the rest, including my car and wiring me the money.”

“Oh.” Tom’s face fell. “Let me show you the bedrooms.”

He showed you a small guest room. “This could be an office for you and next door is a bigger bedroom for you.” Tom hustled along the hallway to open the next door. “Here.”

It was a bigger room with a queen bed and a wardrobe. Spare and clearly used for company.

“It will do just fine. And the bathroom is across the hall which is nice. Where’s your room?”

Tom made his way to the end of the hall and opened the door to his room, decorated in tones of grey and navy. A large king sized bed taking up most of the room along with a dresser. A bathroom en suite and a small closet completed the space.

“Very nice. Do you mind if I steal the color palette to decorate my room?”

“Please do. I never got around to decorate it. My sisters and mother are the only ones who stay in there.”

Molly paled a bit. She hadn’t thought about Tom’s family. “I supposed I will meet them soon.”

“I supposed so. It would be odd for my wife not to meet them. I hadn’t thought about it.”

Molly rocked back and forth. “Now why don’t I go shopping and you unpack and relax?”

“I would feel better if I came with you. You are in a different country, a strange city. And what if you have problems with the card?”

“Then let’s go and you can point out some of your favorite foods.”

“It’s a deal.”

-

“When I said pick out your favorite foods, I didn’t expect it to be only sweets. Did I marry a seven-year-old?”

“I’m 35, thank you. and I enjoy those sweets.”

“You eat like a college frat boy.”

“Guilty.”

“That is definitely changing now that I am around. You can’t continue to eat like that. There are things called vegetables.”

Tom snapped his fingers. “I’ve heard of those.”

“Get out of here!” Molly swatted at him. “I am certain you have things to attend to, and I need to familiarize myself with the kitchen.”

“Are you kicking me out of my kitchen?”

“Our kitchen. And yes.” Molly smirked.

“I yield! I yield. I’ll be in my study if you need me.” Tom walked out of the kitchen and towards his study.

He spied his phone sitting on the desk, still off from the flight. By now, any pictures should have been posted somewhere. Tom collapsed into his desk chair and clicked the phone on. While he waited for it to start up, he could overhear Molly puttering about in the kitchen, muttering to herself as she put away the groceries.

Buzz. Ten messages and eleven missed calls. He didn’t bother to listen to them and instead dialed Luke.

“Luke, I’m back in town. Thought I wou—” Tom started in as soon as Luke picked up.

“I WASN’T FUCKING SERIOUS WHEN I SAID TO GET MARRIED??! HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FUCKING MIND?!”

Tom pulled the phone away from his ear. “No, I haven’t. But I am married. To a wonderful girl. Her name is Molly. Molly Bishop. You should meet her, Luke.”

“YOU ARE FUCKING RIGHT I’LL MEET HER. AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! SHE CAN HELP IDENTIFY YOUR BODY, THOMAS!” Luke continued to scream on the phone.

“Can you dial back the volume, Luke? I would like to preserve my hearing. Is there something wrong with marrying the woman I love?”

Luke cleared his throat. Tom understood Luke was doing his best to collect himself. “Apologies. There is nothing wrong with marrying the woman you love, Tom. Nothing at all. Except I don’t think you love this woman, since until a few weeks ago you were in love with—”

“Don’t say her name, it will ruin my marital bliss. I’m a hopeless romantic, Luke.”

“Hopeless, yes. Romantic, the jury is still out. And your fans don’t count, they are blinded by you. But I see the truth.”

“Which is?”

“You are not as smart as you think you are.”

“Did any of the articles mention her?” Tom inquired, spinning his wedding band on his finger.

“No.”

“Then I am exactly as smart as I think I am.”

There was a clatter from the kitchen.

“Tom!” Molly called out. “I need your help.”

“Got to go, Luke. My wife needs my help.” Tom emphasized the word “wife.”

“This isn’t over, Tom.”

“It never is. Bye.”

More clattering and another cry. “Tom!”

Tom rushed into the kitchen to find Molly perched on top of the kitchen counter, reaching high into a cabinet.

“Why is everything so high in here?”

Tom chuckled and reached around her, pressing his torso against her back. Molly jumped for a moment at the touch.

“I’m not used to sharing my space. I’m six two, I put things where I can reach them. What are you grabbing?”

“The roasting pan.”

Tom pulled it down and placed it on the counter. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it.

“Thank you. Well, I am five six, so unless you want me climbing counters for the next year, we need to rearrange some things.”

“But you’re so cute climbing around like a little monkey.”

Molly frowned. “Is that supposed to be a compliment? If so, then try again.”

Tom opened his mouth and closed it. “I’ll pull things down after dinner.”

“Thank you.” She rubbed his arm. “Now to try my hand at a roast dinner. Did you get stuff done?”

His phone buzzed again.

“I called my publicist. The pictures posted.” Tom pulled out his phone to shut it off.

“Oh good. So I take it, I had the desired effect.” Molly crunched on a carrot and offered one to Tom, who wrinkled his nose.

The two of you. My office 8 a.m. tomorrow. No excuses. I want to meet the blushing bride.

Tom frowned at the screen.

“It would appear so. I suggest you go to bed early because you are meeting Luke, my publicist tomorrow.”

Molly’s mouth fell open. “Should I be worried?”

Tom smiled at her. “No, I should be.”

[lingthusiasm]

Transcript Lingthusiasm Episode 52: Writing is a technology

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm Episode 52: Writing is a technology. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the Episode 52 show notes page.

[Music]

Gretchen: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Gretchen McCulloch.

Lauren: I’m Lauren Gawne. Today, we’re getting enthusiastic about writing as a technology. But first, do you wish there was more Lingthusiasm to listen to? Even though this is Episode 52, we have almost a hundred episodes of Lingthusiasm. Some of them exist as bonus episodes over at our Patreon.

Gretchen: If you want to listen to those and have more Lingthusiasm in your earballs, you can go to patron.com/lingthusiasm. This also helps keep the show ad-free. If you like listening to a show without ads, help us keep doing that.

Lauren: The Patreon also fosters this wonderful linguistics enthusiastic community. In fact, we have a Discord server, which is basically just a wonderful chat space for people to talk about linguistics. There are over 350 people on the Lingthusiasm Discord right now.

Gretchen: If you wish you had other lingthusiasts to talk to to share your interesting linguistics anecdotes and memes and general nerdery, and you want more people like that to talk to, you can join the Patreon to also get access to the Discord. We launched the Discord community just a year ago, and it’s been really fun to see it grow and thrive and take on a life of its own since then. If you are already a patron, and you haven’t linked your Patreon and Discord account together, it’s there waiting for you. Feel free to come join us.

Lauren: We have Patreon supporter levels at a range of tiers. Some of them include additional merch. One of my favourite perks is the very scientific Lingthusiasm IPA quiz where we send you a short quiz and then we give you your own custom IPA character which is enshrined on our Wall of Fame.

Gretchen: It’s a fun quiz. We have fun looking at people’s answers.

Lauren: Our most recent bonus episode is a collection of some of our favourite anecdotes from interviews and from other episodes that didn’t quite make it into the original episode. We’re delighted to share those in that bonus episode.

Gretchen: You get to see a bit behind-the-scenes with that episode. Also, do you want more linguistics on your favourite other podcasts?

Lauren: Always.

Gretchen: Constantly. We’re also very happy to do podcast interviews on other shows about various topics. If there’re other podcasts that you like that you wish would do a linguistics episode and interview one of us, you should tell them that! We’re happy to come on. Tag us both or something on social media or tell your favourite podcasts that they could do a linguistics episode because we’d be happy to do that.

[Music]

Lauren: Gretchen, do you remember learning how to read?

Gretchen: Not really. I mean, I remember encountering the alphabet chart in my first year of school, but I already sort of knew the alphabet at that point. I guess there was some point when I didn’t know how to read, and there was some point when I did, but I don’t really have concrete memories of that. Do you remember learning how to read?

Lauren: I feel like I have more memories of learning how to write, just because that’s such a mechanical thing. I remember sitting there writing out a row of As. I definitely wrote the number “five” backward for way longer than I probably should have, which is a really common thing that happens when kids are learning to write because it is a combination of brain skills and fine motor skills. But reading in English is something I feel like I’ve always just been able to do. I mean, I guess in comparison learning to read Nepali, which is written in a different script – it’s written in the Devanagari script – I have more memories of that because I did that in my 20s. Even now, I still feel the real disconnect between being relatively able to chat and really struggling to read and write. I still have to put my finger under the words as I’m going through, whereas with English it just feels like the words are beaming straight into my brain because I learnt to read that language so early in my life.

Gretchen: Yeah, I read at this automatic level. I can’t see a sign that says, “Stop,” on it and not read it in Latin script. But in undergrad I took both Ancient Greek and Arabic. In Greek, I got to the point – because the script is sort of similar enough and I was familiar enough with the letters previously-ish – that I got to the point where I could very slowly sound out words as I was reading them out loud because we had to do a lot of reading aloud in Greek class. But in Arabic, I was very much at that hooked on phonics level where you’re like, /p/-/t/-/k/-/a/. There are a few words that I have as sight words in Arabic. One of them is the word for “and,” which is “waa”, and one of the words for “the,” which is “al”, and one of them is the word for “book” because “kitaab” just shows up all the time. But most of the words I had to painstakingly sound out each letter and then listen to myself as I was saying them. I’d be like, “Oh, it’s that word,” even if I knew it, which is this process that I must’ve gone through in English, but I don’t remember doing it for the Latin script.

Lauren: I think that is one of the things that makes it really hard for people who grow up in highly literate, highly educated societies to tease writing and reading apart from language. But actually, when you step back, you realise that writing is actually super weird.

Gretchen: It’s so weird! It’s this interesting – it really is a technology. It’s a thing you do on top of language to do stuff with language, but it’s not the language itself. There are thousands and possibly millions of languages that have never been written down in the history of humanity. We have no idea. We’ve never met a society of humans, or heard of a society of humans, without language. But those are spoken and signed languages, which are just kind of there. Writing, by contrast, was invented somewhere between 3 and 4 times in the history of humanity.

Lauren: That we know of.

Gretchen: That we know of.

Lauren: There might’ve been a society that did a very ephemeral form of snow writing that we have lost forever. But we have records of 3 or 4 times.

Gretchen: It’s been invented a handful of times. There are a few other cases where there are scripts that haven’t been deciphered by modern humans. Maybe they’re scripts, maybe they’re not – it’s not quite clear. But it’s definitely a handful of number of times. And then once other cultures come in contact with the technology of writing, they’re like, “Oh, this is cool. Let’s adapt this to our linguistic situation,” and it gets borrowed a heck of a lot. But it only got cemented a few times.

Lauren: It’s worth saying that “3 to 4” is a bit squishy because it’s not entirely clear if cuneiform, which is a very pointy form of writing from Babylonia, somehow inspired the Egyptian system that became what we know as the hieroglyphs or if they just happened around the same time by coincidence are something we may never really fully put together. That’s a very contested situation. That’s why we can’t even pin down the number of times we think it was invented.

Gretchen: Cuneiform is the one that’s made with the sharpened reed that you push into your clay tablets or, if you’re some people on the internet, into your gingerbread because there’s some really excellent examples of cuneiform gingerbread tablets people have made, which I just wanna – yeah, it’s really great. The Egyptian hieroglyphs people have seen. But yeah, it’s unclear whether they were in contact with each other and kind of heard of each other in a very loose sense and were inspired by each other because there was some amount of contact between those two areas, or if that was elsewhere. The other two – one is in Mesoamerica, in modern-day Mexico and that area, where they had a writing system there that, again, developed into lots of different scripts as it got borrowed from different areas, of which the best deciphered is the Mayan script from the 3rd Century BCE. There’s also the Olmec script, which is probably the oldest. The Zapotec script is also really old. There’s a bunch of scripts in the modern-day Mexico area that also developed independently.

Lauren: Then the final system arose in China around the Bronze Age a couple of thousand years BCE. Because this script was mostly found in its most earliest forms on oracle bones, it’s known as the “oracle bone” script.

Gretchen: What is an oracle bone?

Lauren: They are turtle bones that are used in divination.

Gretchen: Oh.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: And, again, the Chinese script, once it developed further, it was also, yeah, influenced a bunch of the other writing systems in the area.

Lauren: I find it super fascinating, with absolutely no historical knowledge or insight to bring to this, that in these three different places that were completely separate and going about their own cultural lives writing arose at a similar time around 3,000 to 4,000 years ago.

Gretchen: Yeah! You wonder what was in the water or something. Well, and it’s partially, I think, that there’s a certain level of writing makes it easier to do things like administrative bureaucracy if you’re trying to keep track of whether people paid their taxes or – it’s a very empire-y thing to have is to develop a writing system.

Lauren: Oh yeah. And it’s absolutely worth stating that it’s not like three people in these three different locations all woke up on the same Tuesday 4,000 years ago and were like, “I’m gonna write a long letter to someone.”

Gretchen: Did they have Tuesdays 4,000 years ago?

Lauren: What you see is this emergence of, “I’m just gonna make a couple of notes so I know how much money you owe me.” Some of the earliest cuneiform tablets we have are just, like, beer supply stock takes.

Gretchen: Like, “Three oxes and this many baskets of grain” or whatever.

Lauren: I feel like it’s very human to be like, “We love writing because it’s poetry, and I can send letters to people I love,” and it’s like, no, it’s actually, “I just wanted to know how much you owe me.”

Gretchen: The king just wants to know if these people have paid their taxes.

Lauren: So, what you get is – although I’m like, “Oh, it all happened within similar millennia,” it is actually centuries of development from just keeping tabs on a few items to a fully fleshed out written system.

Gretchen: What types of things people thought were important to write down – things like legal codes and stuff like that – one of the interesting things that I came across when I was looking this up was that there’s a person named Enheduanna, who is the earliest known poet whose name has been recorded. She was the high priestess of the goddess Inanna and the moon god Nanna in the Sumerian city-state of Ur. There we go. But authorship shows up much later than some anonymous civil servant keeping track of who’s registered which grain or some anonymous priest or something keeping track of who’s made various offerings. This idea of like, “Oh, you’re gonna write poetry,” is a step later.

Lauren: Filing your tax is what is actually one of the best links you have to those ancient civilisations.

Gretchen: There’s this Egyptian named Ptahhotep – that’s “Pta,” P-T, even though I know I’m not pronouncing it that way – he was a vizier in Egypt. He’s also one of the first named writers, the first book in history – or people call him the first book in history – because he wrote these Maxims of Ptahhotep. There may have been people who were writing on more perishable materials that didn’t get recorded and stuff like that. It’s this whole process of, “Okay, I’m going to draw these little diagrams of oxen or something or draw these little diagrams of this plant or this animal or whatever to record what types of things get recorded.” But then in order for it to actually become a writing system, there’s also this step of abstraction that has to happen. This is when you start saying, “Okay, well, the word for this very easily visualisable thing” – so I’m thinking of oxen because the word for “ox” in one of the Semitic languages, I think, was something like /alef/. And so, this “ox’s head” gets transformed into, “Okay, what if this is the sound at the beginning of the word for ‘ox’s head,’” which is /alef/, and it gets transformed into our modern letter A, which is “alpha.” “Alpha” in Greek is just the name of the letter. It’s not “an ox’s head” in Greek anymore because the Greeks borrowed it form the Phoenicians. This level of abstraction that has to go from, “Okay, I’m gonna draw an ox’s head” – if you turn a capital A upside down, it kind of looks like an ox’s head.

Lauren: It’s got its little horns, which are the feet of an A.

Gretchen: Yeah, and there’re all these related languages. You know, Arabic’s got alif at the beginning, even though it doesn’t look like an ox’s head anymore. Hebrew’s got an alef, and Greek’s got an alpha, and all of these alphabets that begin with A. It’s this level of abstraction where you can use this thing to stand for this thing that was associated with an ox.

Lauren: There’re a couple of main different ways that you can relate these abstract images that you’re putting down in writing to the language that you are trying to capture. Of course, being a linguistics podcast, I was gonna bring this straight back to the structure of language.

Gretchen: Well, I think it’s interesting to look at the structure of languages in different areas of the world, and how people reflect those in the writing systems that are developed for those languages. When they borrow a writing system for a language with a very different structure, they end up doing certain adaptations to account for not just like, “Okay, languages have different sounds,” but also those sounds are organised and structured in different ways with relationship to each other. The writing systems often reflect some of that history.

Lauren: The Latin alphabet that both of us are most familiar with has a very approximate correspondence between each character of the writing system and a sound in the language. And I say “approximate” because English spelling is a wonderful historical record of how some of those sound changes have changed over time. I’m just gonna keep this upbeat. You can fall down a giant well of English writing system problems, but to get to a point where the majority of letters have a pretty stable correspondence to sounds that we recognise as phones in the language, and that allows us to write out the words of English.

Gretchen: One of the things that’s true about a lot of the Indo-European languages is that they have a particular ratio between consonants and vowels in the words, where they have a fair bit of consonants in relationship to their vowels but not a ton. You can see this in the writing system because the writing system represents consonants and vowels separately. And yet, when the Greeks were borrowing the alphabet from the Phoenicians – Phoenician is a Semitic language like modern-day Arabic and Hebrew – that alphabet only had consonants in it – letters for consonants – because the vowels were not that important. This is still true of modern-day Semitic languages is they’re often written in writing systems that don’t represent the vowels or kind of optionally represent the short vowels, or sometimes they represent the long vowels, but they’re often written in writing systems where the vowels can be omitted. That’s not really a thing you can do very well in Indo-European languages and still have things understood because the vowels carry enough information that you need to represent them somehow.

Lauren: Even when you have a phonemic script, it’s not necessary to always represent all of the sounds to convey the language.

Gretchen: Right. Then conversely, there are other languages where the vowels are even more important and, in fact, every consonant comes with a vowel or virtually every consonant comes with a vowel. In those, you often get what are called “syllabaries,” where they represent one syllable at a time, because why bother with representing each of these things separately when in every context where you have a consonant there’s gonna be a nearby vowel – or in virtually every context there’s gonna be a nearby vowel – and so you can have a symbol that just represents the whole syllable there. That’s also a structure that doesn’t work very well for Indo-European languages because they don’t have that many vowels. There’s this spot of like they have important enough vowels that you need to represent the vowels somehow but not so important are vowels that you have to represent lots of vowels all the time, whereas languages like Japanese or Hindi – well, Hindi’s Indo-European, but it’s got more vowels, I guess.

Lauren: The Devanagari writing system is inherently focused on the syllable, which is a very different approach to reading. Each character of this writing system, if there’s no vowel specified, it just comes with a bonus vowel. It’s like, “Buy this consonant, get this free letter A sound.”

Gretchen: Right. That’s partly a feature of the writing system, but it can only be a feature of the writing system because it’s already a feature of the language. A similar thing goes for a language like Chinese, where a lot of things are based around a syllable.

Lauren: Then you can go a level of abstraction further where your character in the writing system represents a word-level thing and doesn’t have a direct relationship to the sound correspondence, which is what happens with the Chinese script.

Gretchen: I think it’s important to recognise that there is a phonetic component to Chinese characters. They often make use of – especially for words that are more abstract – it’s not just like, “Oh, here’s a bunch of little pictures that we’ve drawn,” because that’s not capable of conveying abstract concepts like grammatical particles and words for things that don’t come with easy pictures. And so, making use of, “Okay, a lot of our words are one or two syllables long, so here’s a word that’s relatively easy to visualise that sounds very similar to a word that is not as easy to visualise.” We can just add a thing to be like, “It sounds like this, but it’s got a meaning more related to this,” and you can be like, “Oh, it must be this more abstract word.” The classic example, which I’m definitely gonna do the tones wrong on, is that the word for “horse” is /ma/, and the word for mother is also /ma/ with a different tone, and you can add the little horse semantic component with the woman semantic component and be like, “Oh, it’s the word that sounds like ‘horse’ but has to do with something with a woman,” and then you end up with “mother.”

Lauren: This works for languages in China because they tend to be not as long as words in English. We like to add all these extra bits of morphology within our grammar, whereas, again, you get – not a direct rule force – but you get this general tendency where the writing system kind of fits with the vibe of the grammar of the language.

Gretchen: One example of that is in Japanese where they were heavily influenced by the Chinese script, but Japanese actually does have suffixes and other little grammatical words and things you need to change about words. They made some of the Chinese characters that had formerly only had semantic things into just like, “Oh, this makes this sound, and this makes this sound,” because they needed to be able to represent that morphological information that’s not super important in Chinese but is very important in Japanese. You end up adapting a script into something else when it gets borrowed in a different context. Another interesting example here is Farsi or Persian which is an Indo-European language that’s conventionally written with the same script as Arabic except it’s also had a couple of additional letters added because Persian has a P and Arabic doesn’t. They had to create a symbol for the sound P, which is why you get “Farsi” instead of “Parsi” because Arabic doesn’t pronounce that P. So, it makes the P into an F. Sometimes you get people adding additional letters like adding a letter for P. Sometimes you get adapting whole sets of a script.

Lauren: Sometimes you lose letters. English had distinct characters for /θ/ and /ð/ until it was technologically easier to just use the characters in the printing press that English had borrowed. It’s makes me a little bit sad. But also, it makes international people – maybe it’s a little bit easier.

Gretchen: We used to have a thorn for the /ð/ sound, but those early printing presses from continental Europe didn’t have thorns on them. I mean, Icelandic still has thorns. One of the things that I think is more interesting in the closer to modern era – not strictly modern era – is cultures and peoples that are familiar with the idea of writing yet take the idea of writing and say, “We’re gonna make our own homegrown script that actually works really well for our particular language.” One of my favourites is the Cherokee syllabary, which was invented by Sequoyah, who was a Cherokee man who didn’t know how to read in English, but he’d encountered the Latin-based writing system in English. He thought it was cool that the English speakers had this, and so he locked himself in shed for several years and came up with a syllabary for Cherokee. Some of the symbols on the Cherokee syllabary look something like Latin letters, but they stand for completely different things because he wasn’t just learning to read from English. Some of them are completely different. This became hugely popular among the Cherokee in the area. There were newspapers in this in the 1800s. There was very high literacy in Cherokee country. It was really popular. It’s even still found on modern-day computer keyboards and stuff like this. You can get Windows and stuff in Cherokee. It’s this interesting example of that’s one where we can say a particular person was inspired by writing systems but also created his own thing that became very popular.

Lauren: The thing that makes Cherokee so compelling to me is not only did he come up with an incredibly elegant, well thought out, suits the language system, but that he actually got uptake as well – that the community decided to use this as the writing system that they would learn to read and write in, and that it had uptake. It’s very easy to come up with ways of improving the technology of writing but, as I think you’re fond of saying, language is very much an open-source project. You can come up with really elegant solutions, but if no one else is gonna take them up, that’s not gonna be very helpful. So, Sequoyah’s work is doubly amazing for that reason.

Gretchen: People actually made printing presses with the Cherokee symbols and were using those. Another interesting case of this disconnect between a person or people coming up with a system and actual uptake of it is Korean, which has what I think linguists generally agree is just the best writing system.

Lauren: Yeah, we’re like, “Writing as a technology is amazing. All writing systems are equally valid. But Korean is particularly great.”

Gretchen: “But Korean’s really cool.” The thing that’s cool about it from a completely biased linguist perspective is that the writing system of Korean, Hangul, the script, is not just based on individual sounds or phonemes, it’s actually at a more precise level based on the shape of the mouth and how you configure the mouth in order to make those particular sounds. There’s a lot of, okay, here are these closely related sounds – let’s say you make them all with the lips – and you just add an additional stroke to make it this other related sound that you make with the lips. Between P and B and M, which are all made with the lips, those symbols have a similar shape. It’s not an accident. It’s very systematic between that and the same thing with T and D and N. Those have a similar shape because they have this relationship. It’s very technically beautiful from an analysis of language perspective.

Lauren: I love this so much that when we were prototyping a potential script for the Aramteskan language for the Shadowscent books, when I was constructing that language, I also started constructing a script that we never used anywhere, but it was helpful to think about how the characters would write and what writing implements they would use. If you look at the script, you’ll notice that the letter P and B are very similar, but B has an additional stroke. T and D are very similar, but D has an additional stroke. Very much feature driven. And then for the vowels – it’s roughly a quadrant in the writing space – the /i/ vowel is in the top left of the quadrant, the /u/ vowel is in the top right of the quadrant, the /a/ vowel is in the bottom left of the quadrant.

Gretchen: So clever!

Lauren: It was actually just for really selfish reasons that I decided to go with a feature-based system, and that is that it was easier for me to remember if I used the features of the language and made sure that the voiced sound was always identical to the voiceless one but just with an additional stroke. It meant that I only had to remember half the characters.

Gretchen: That’s very elegant. The easy to remember bit is also true about the Hangul script because it’s got so much regularity. The famous quote about Hangul is something like “A wise man can learn it in an afternoon and a foolish man can learn it in a day.”

Lauren: So catchy!

Gretchen: There’s probably a better version of that quote. What’s interesting about it from an adoption perspective is that Hangul was invented by Sejong the Great.

Lauren: Appropriately named.

Gretchen: Who has a national holiday now because of the script. But it was created in 1443. It’s not quite clear whether it was him personally doing everything or whether he had an advisory committee of linguists, but it’s really extremely well-adapted to the linguistic situation of Korean in particular. Even though it’s just also really cool for how it represents the inside of the mouth, but it’s really well adapted for Korean. It was invented in 1443, but it wasn’t popularised in use until several centuries later because for a long time Korean was also using, like Japanese, this adapted version of the Chinese script or adapted version of the Japanese script because of the cultural influences. In the early 20th century, they were doing a much bigger literacy push in Korea to be like, “What want everyone to learn how to read.” And they said, “Okay, we’re gonna have an orthographic reform, and we’re gonna use this script which has this very nice historical pedigree but also is much easier to learn than this complicated thing that we had done that wasn’t really designed for Korean.” It’s got this historical antecedence but also it came back in the modern-day. Now, everything in Korean is written in it. It’s because it’s really easy to learn how to read and write in. The historical uptake wasn’t immediate. It wasn’t during King Sejong’s lifetime where they were like, “Oh, yeah, now we’re all gonna use his script,” people were like, “Okay, king, you’ve got this hobby,” but it wasn’t popularised until later.

Lauren: Even when there is really strong abstraction, humans have this unavoidable tendency to think about the relationship between sounds and other senses. In sound-based writing systems – Suzy Styles, who has been on the podcast before and works on perception across the senses, did an experiment alongside Nora Turoman where they looked at whether people can guess, for writing systems they’re not familiar with, which character was the /u/ sound and which character was the /i/ sound. They found that for a whole variety of scripts there is a much higher than chance – because there’s only two choices. If was completely arbitrary, it would be 50/50. But people do tend, across the evolution of sound-based writing systems, to have /u/ that has a more rounded, bigger sound has properties in the writing system that re-occur. People continue to unavoidably link the sounds of the language to the written properties of the script in a very low-level way. I’ll link to that study. It’s really great.

Gretchen: That’s interesting. It’s not gonna be 100%, but there’s this slightly better than chance relationship.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: Visual representation of physical information is also something that shows up in ways of writing signed languages.

Lauren: Yeah. Everything we’ve talked about so far, I think, we’ve talked about for spoken languages, but it is possible to write signed languages as well.

Gretchen: There are several different systems in place. Some of them are language-specific like, “Oh, this is the system for writing ASL in particular,” and some of them are kind of like your linguist, International Phonetic Alphabet trying to provide a language-agnostic way of writing signed languages for research purposes but, in a way, that’s sort of impractical, like the IPA for general use. There’s an interesting set of systems. There isn’t as much agreement among representers of signed languages in writing which amounts of information are crucial information that has to be written down and which are optional bits of information that the reader can fill in from their own knowledge of the language and the signer.

Lauren: I think it’s worth flagging that that’s not just a discussion that arises for signed languages. It’s just that those conversations got thrashed out for spoken languages four millennia ago, and we weren’t around when people were arguing about whether intonation had any role in the – or people probably were arguing because it was an emerging thing.

Gretchen: Well, when people were arguing about like, “Do we write vowels or not,” which was a big thing. Do we write vowels? Do we write intonation? And punctuation followed quite a bit after – you know, punctuation wasn’t as much of a thing for several of the early centuries and millennia of writing. They didn’t do punctuation. There’s some level of ongoingness that’s still there. If you think about the internet efforts to try to write tone of voice very precisely and communicate sarcasm and irony and rhetorical questions very precisely, there’s some level of ongoing debate that’s still happening in the spoken language context but not nearly as much as is still happening in the signed language context.

Lauren: Also, just because of the way that signed language communities tend to be embedded within larger spoken language communities, people who sign as a primary language tend to also be educated in the mainstream spoken language, and so literacy gets developed in, say, a language like English.

Gretchen: I think that’s the case for a lot of smaller spoken languages as well where sometimes there’s this imperative of, “Okay, we want to be able to write things to each other” or something, but if there hasn’t been a history of a lot of published literature in that language that you’re trying to read, then it becomes a question of, “Should we teach this in school,” because there isn’t literature there, even though there would be oral literature. It becomes a chicken and egg problem of which comes first, or which do you start teaching first, when you’re constantly comparing stuff against a few very large spoken languages that have this very long writing tradition. It shows up in languages with a newer writing tradition.

Lauren: Education systems have a massive influence there. My grandmother, actually her strongest written language is German. Even though she and her sister speak to each other in Polish, they would write to each other in German because that’s the language they had been educated to write in. Even with people who don’t speak minority languages, the influence of the education system there is so massive.

Gretchen: Reading and writing, they’re separate skills even though they’re often taught together. Sometimes you can read a language that you can’t write or something like that. But it’s a big question. With signed languages, because video technology is now available, if we’d had good audio recording technology 4,000 years ago, the pressure to develop writing systems for spoken languages might not have been as strong – probably wouldn’t have been as strong – even though there are other useful things that writing can do even in the audio-video era. It’s easier to be like, “Well, you can just make a video of the signer,” and then you’d know exactly what they were trying to say and exactly how they wanted to say it. You wouldn’t have this level of abstraction of are you gonna try to write it down in a way that imperfectly represents what a person is gonna do when they’re producing it. It is still interesting looking at some of the signed language writing systems. Some of them, like Stokoe notation and HamNoSys, which stands for “Hamburg Notation System,” they try to very physically represent the characteristics of the signer – where their hands are, where their face is, and things like that. There’s another one that I can’t find the name of that is based on the ASCII alphabet, so you can type it into search engine boxes, which has some advantages as well but represents things more abstractly. It’s got this link with Korean, which was representing this very physical aspect of what the mouth is doing. Several of the signed language writing systems like Stokoe and HamNoSys also have this very physical representation what the body’s doing when it’s being produced. But I think they’re more popular among researchers than they are among actual D/deaf users who tend to use video a lot.

Lauren: I encounter Stokoe and HamNoSys in the gesture and signed linguistics literature. I haven’t really seen them too much outside of that.

Gretchen: I think that it’s easy to conflate a language with its writing system because we’re so used to thinking of English as sort of inextricably linked to the Latin alphabet. But there isn’t a reason, in theory, why you couldn’t write English in the Greek alphabet or in the Arabic alphabet or in a very adapted version of Chinese characters where you’d have to do a lot of adaptation. The same thing is true when you write languages that don’t originally use the Latin alphabet and you have romanisations of them. Writing systems are just as much political and contextual. Some of them have this very tight structural relationship to the properties of the languages they represent and some of them have looser relationships because they’ve been adapted to it later.

Lauren: It’s this slightly looser relationship to language as it’s spoken or signed that means that linguists don’t always include writing systems in, say, an Introduction to Linguistics course. We don’t often talk about writing systems. But when we were putting together the Crash Course series, we ended up making writing the topic of our final episode for the series.

Gretchen: I think partly because people are really interested in it, so why not do something about writing, and also because I think that you can use writing systems as a window into some of the interesting structural features of different languages and how the writing systems represent that. As somebody who’s really interested in internet linguistics and the rise of informal writing and how we represent tone of voice and things like that in modern-day writing, and that’s still a moving target evolutionarily speaking, I think it’s interesting to give that linguistic lens on writing systems even though they are imperfect representations of the languages that they represent.

Lauren: “Writing Systems” is Video 16 of Crash Course linguistics, which is wrapping up this month. If you’ve been holding out to watch all 16 of those episodes, you’ll be able to do so very soon or perhaps even now thanks to the temporal vagueness of podcasts.

Gretchen: Crash Course is the YouTube series that we’ve been working on basically all of 2020. It’s especially popular with high school or undergraduate teaching. If you know people that age, or who teach people that age, that may be a useful thing to send to people. We hope that people find it useful as a resource for self-teaching or for instructing in various capacities.

[Music]

Lauren: For more Lingthusiasm and links to all the things mentioned in this episode, go to lingthusiasm.com. You can listen to us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, YouTube, or wherever else you get your podcasts. You can follow @Lingthusiasm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr. You can get IPA scarves, “Not judging your grammar, just analysing it” mugs, and other Lingthusiasm merch at lingthusiasm.com/merch. I tweet and blog as Superlinguo.

Gretchen: I can be found as @GretchenAMcC on Twitter, my blog is AllThingsLinguistic.com, and book about internet language is called Because Internet. Have you listened to all the Lingthusiasm episodes and you wish there were more? You can access to 48 bonus episodes to listen to right now at patreon.com/lingthusiasm or follow the links from our website. Patrons also get access to our Discord chat room to talk with other linguistics fans – like, do you remember learning how to read – and other rewards as well as helping keep the show ad-free. Recent bonus topics include an AMA with a lexicographer and our favourite stories and anecdotes that we just didn’t have time for in some of the earlier episodes. Can’t afford to pledge? That’s okay, too. We also really appreciate it if you could recommend Lingthusiasm to anyone who needs a little more linguistics in their life. And, hey, tell your other favourite podcasts that they could a linguistics episode, and get us on! It’d be fun.

Lauren: Lingthusiasm is created and produced by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our Senior Producer is Claire Gawne, our Editorial Producer is Sarah Dopierala, and our music is “Ancient City” by The Triangles.

Gretchen: Stay lingthusiastic!

[Music]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

[sarasmallmanwrites]

A-Level Playing Field

Nobody wanted my opinion on this, but it’s hard growing up poor. 

1988. It’s that damp kind of evening outside, clouded by condensation on the single glazed windows, and the smoke from my Nan’s Benson and Hedges. We’ve just had tea – this is North, of course – and everything is accompanied by slices of springy bread heavily lacquered in ‘soft spread’. The gold foiled butter is, usually, saved for my grandad, who works at a fibreglass factory. It’s a very long way away (actually 3.7 miles) and he leaves on his bike every evening with three rounds of tinned ham sandwiches in his bag. Tonight, my mum is out until half nine, working in the care home in the next town, picking me up at ten-ish, depending on how fast she walks. My mum is 27. Five years out of a loveless marriage, living in a council house, she has no qualifications but is working for her City and Guilds and her English ‘O-Level’, GCSEs haven’t hit our vocabulary yet, and won’t until my second cousin Mark does his two years later.

Tonight is Thursday. Nan goes out on a Thursday, which means she will leave the house at half seven in a haze of Vitapoint, Elnett and Lily of the Valley, to play Bingo at the local club. I am being looked after by Alan, my mum’s younger brother, living at home, working in the Mill that overlooks the town below like a stern Victorian overseer. He’s always grumpy, stuck in a town that has no opportunities, and no visible exit. The eighties have been cruel to young, working-class men. The vehement cry of ‘get the fuck out’ hasn’t reached our town but will do in eight years time, on a wave of Britpop, New Labour, cigarettes, and alcohol.

My uncle looks to the television for nightly escape. Thursday is Blackadder, it’s Not The Nine O’Clock News, it’s Comic Strip, it’s A Bit of Fry and Laurie, it’s Red Dwarf, it’s shipwrecked and comatose, and me engrossed on the couch, not sipping mango juice, but milky tea (the North!), as my uncle laughs his head off in between cigarettes. My mum returns, smelling like TCP and the outside, with salty, vinegary chips, and we eat them as we walk the newly tarmacked paths under the orange street lights. I ask her what a goldfish shoal is. She tells me to shush.

I decided that weekend that I wanted to be funny. I mean I could make people laugh when I did my Cilla Black impression, so surely that was a start, and thank to Carry On films I was brilliant at ‘Infamy, Infamy!’, I knew this because my grandad (the cleverest man I knew) had told me so. Even though I was only in Junior One, I knew that you had to be taught how to be funny, that there was definitely some kind of class that you would have to take to learn it, because I had never really been a natural at anything; apart from whistling, which I did with gusto in shrill, high- pitched tones wherever I could.

I read a lot, especially the paper – particularly the Daily Mirror, which probably explains why I am always heavily weighted to the left, and not just because of my ineptitude in heels – and found out that Hugh Laurie, who is obviously the funniest man I have ever encountered, went to Cambridge and was in something called ‘The Footlights’. Then was it, I decided. I was going to go to Cambridge and join ‘The Footlights’ and be funny like Victoria Wood and Dawn French. I imagine ‘The Footlights’ to be a rag-tag theatrical group living on their wits, humour, and more importantly, Pot Noodles. I tell my Grandad that I want to go to Cambridge. He tells me not to be daft.

Now, when I think about it, wanting to go to Cambridge was not a preposterous idea for any child at the age of seven; you are at the start of your education journey. There is plenty of time to get better at things, to practice, to be coached, to improve yourself; but for a working-class girl, who would eventually be the first member of her family to go to university, I might as well have said that I wanted to fly to Mars on fairy wings. But, children who attend private schools are told from the age of four that Oxford or Cambridge are the end goals for their education, with any of the higher-performing Russell Group universities being something that they could settle for, at a push. I didn’t even know what a Russell Group University was until about three years ago, and why would I? For me, in my small artsy primary school with forty children across four year groups, a dismissive attitude towards formal English education, and a liberal fancy for devoting the whole of the summer term to the end of year show, this was not something that was even thought about. Oxford and Cambridge were places printed on the back of books, they weren’t places that you went to university. In fact, most of my primary school teachers hadn’t even been to university but received their qualifications at the local teacher training college; the only exception is a brown jumpered gentleman with a penchant for using cupboards as a disciplinary technique. 

We’ll skip forward a few years later, and high school is a vigorous mixing bowl of talents, it takes until at least year nine before anyone even notices who I am amongst the squall of kids churning about in KS3. Dinner is pink sausage meat wrapped in a translucent puff pastry duvet, a treat even on the hottest days when the fat sticks to your lips; and the terms pass in a haze of cheap cider (the kind that tastes like sick), the floral pout of Cherry Lypsyl, and Chris Evans on the Radio One Breakfast Show; who is hastily snoozed every morning before I smell the lukewarm coffee my mum has left by my bed before she goes to work.  At this point my mum is a newly qualified nurse at the hospice two towns over, her fingers raw from hand sanitiser, but with rolls of antiseptic scented micropore tape that I use for a cacophony of projects. She is on nights right now, spooning gravelly granules of instant coffee into a mug, blurry from sleep, I am cobbling together a mask out of old Cornflake packets, stuck together with nursing supplies and painted with nail varnish that went past its best around the same time as the Thompson Twins. It is 1995, and the country feels like it is on the cusp of something.  I don’t know what, but I’m looking forward to the Year 2000 because I will be fully grown. Well, nineteen.

But what about Oxbridge? Well, for starters, if you attend a state school you have to be so immediately impressive to your teachers that they discuss you in the staffroom. It’s not enough to be good at one particular thing, you have to excel across the board. You have to be so amazingly shiny, that even the most jaded teacher in the school cannot fail to be dazzled by your brightness. For state school kids, Oxbridge is not something that they suggest to the average 10 A*-C kids, it’s not something that they even dangle in front of 10 A*-B kids who are pretty good. At state school, you have to be exceptional for your teachers to even consider you as a candidate, and then you have to achieve enough A*s in your GCSEs that you might as well open a Planetarium. Even then, all they can really do is say ‘I think you could go to Oxford or Cambridge, you know’, or flag you up to the local authority careers service as ‘potential Oxbridge’. There is no Oxford Fast Track programme in state schools, even for exceptional kids.

In a recent social media fracas, one lady proclaimed that if you gave kids a level playing field then poor kids would always triumph because they were more resilient - all those Crispy Pancakes, surely? But for children from a working-class background, we’re not even on the playing field yet; we have to borrow trainers with non-marking soles, scrape around for a quid for the bus. By the time we get to the playing field, we have already been running around for half the day trying to get there, we miss the warm-up because we were late and, honestly, by this point, we’re just knackered because we’ve had to work so much harder just to get there in the first place.

The warm-up is a given to those whose parents have been able to pay for their education – they even get complimentary orange slices for afterwards, just for extra pep and vigour. There are Oxbridge prep classes, extracurricular activities slanted towards the Oxbridge admissions interviews, and chances to take unpaid internships during the summer using family connections. It’s not just that though... it’s little things like knowing it’s pronounced ‘Barkshire’, not Berkshire, it’s when you use a napkin, it’s spending a week skiing at Courchevel. It’s olives. 

In 1998, I don’t know any of these things and, even if I did, my accent with its flat vowels and its Lancashire intonation would give me away in a heartbeat, because I sound like I’ve fallen off a pit pony on my way back t’mill. Things change quickly though. My mum has a baby. A screaming, mewling little boy born during The Simpsons on a Friday evening in October. Now there is absolutely no money for luxuries, and when our TV gets nicked, we end up using the small portable from upstairs. My Nan lends me money here and there to get to college, but it only covers the bus fare, and the small endowment that I receive  - supposedly to cover driving lessons - gets swallowed up with everyday things that seventeen-year olds shouldn’t have to pay for. I’m working for 4 hours a week in Woolies too, £3.10 p/h to stand around the toy department in a slippery polyester blouse the colour of synthetic mint ice cream, before skulking off to the bookshop to spend that money on things for college.  Nothing fancy but, by this point, I am well on my way to being a ‘Funny Girl’, studying a raft of ‘arty-farty’ A-Levels and English thrown in for good measure. The Cambridge Footlights hardly crosses my mind anymore, because Oxford and Cambridge are reserved for the kids doing the hard sciences, maths, law, politics, things that you need a calculator for. You don’t get into Oxford with A-Levels in Theatre Studies, Media, and Performing Arts, despite what they tell you about diversity.

Oxford or Cambridge do not offer a typical British university experience, and how can teachers who have never passed through the rigorous and exhausting Oxbridge admissions procedure be expected to offer any kind of advantage to their gifted and talented students? If you are a working-class parent relying on underfunded, underpaid and overworked FE lecturers to help coach your child through this, then you are immediately on the backfoot compared to a child whose parents can afford private tutors, admissions booklets, and interview coaches. This is no reflection on sixth form teachers in FE establishments across the country, who do all they can to nurture the kids with Oxbridge potential, but when some classes haven’t received new textbooks for two years, where students are encouraged to photocopy their own materials to save costs, you can see where the class difference begins to draw attention to itself without the need for neon yellow highlighters.

My UCAS book arrived in September; an impressive, thinly papered tome with a glossy black and white cover, University Colleges and Admission Services stamped across it in orange. It smells like a cross between the Argos catalogue and a phone book, which I feel is rather apt given that it contains the codes of institutions and courses that will break me out of this godforsaken town: a cypher that I etch out on the application form in black biro.

London

Southampton

Buckinghamshire

Preston

Liverpool

Manchester.

I don’t want to go to any of the bottom three, of course, far too close to where I came from to be relevant.  My second cousin Mark’s stint at Sheffield Hallam seemed to be an excuse for his mum to visit his ‘digs’ once a month with catering sized tins of Nescafe, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t quite looking forward to edging the lid off with a knife and stabbing through that ridged foil. My mum writes a cheque out in her secondary modern handwriting, crossing her fingers that they won’t cash it until after payday.

The discrepancies between low-income working-class families and those with a better income also show here too - this can be something as simple as slow internet connection, not having a working laptop and doing work on smartphones, access to transport, costs for travel to visit universities. Things like this are not included when factoring in costs for students from low income. How can you visit all the different university campuses, with all the travel costs and maybe even overnight accommodation, when your parents can barely afford to keep the lights on? There was only one institution that I wanted to go to. London Institute, a glamourous collection of art colleges that included the London College of Fashion, Central St Martins, and, more importantly for me, The London College of Printing.  The competition was fierce, but I was shortlisted for an interview in the capital with a former editor of the Daily Mirror. My house was showered in happy expletives that day. Even in 1999, tickets from Wigan to London were over £50 for a pre-booked return. My mum cashed in all of her Clubcard points for the ticket. But, just for me, because she hadn’t bought enough milk to cover the cost of two tickets. However, I must have impressed Tony Delano in that office in Clerkenwell, because he gave me an amazingly lowball offer meaning that my A-level results became a terribly graded self-fulfilling prophecy.

Oxford is different from usual universities in that there are colleges, thirty-nine in total. You might have seen them on University Challenge – Balliol, Trinity, Emmanuel, Brasenose – or from reading the Wikipedia pages of any of our last three Prime Ministers, including the incumbent Boris Johnson, who graduated with a 2:1 in 1987. That’s the other thing – you don’t study something at Oxford, you read it – you don’t start your studies, you matriculate, for which you need a robe. Now, I have been told by helpful and obstinate alumni via social media that Matriculation Robes are £25, ex-hire. However, I have also been told by a current Oxford student that the robe cost is £50 minimum, and no-one would dare wear a secondhand robe as ‘everyone would know’. It’s immediately singling yourself out as a Weasley in a room filled with Malfoys.

The accommodation costs are comparable to London prices; however, this does not cover the Christmas break, which means everything needs to be packed up and stored. Not only do you pay for the storage, but you pay for the boxes too. Much to my disappointment, no-one nips out for a Pot Noodle either, students are expected to dine ‘in hall’ (again, more cost!) where you can choose between an informal and a formal sitting – where your gown is required. I imagine for a working-class kid attending Oxford or Cambridge is very much like cosplaying on a Harry Potter set, but without the magic of a bottomless purse. There are balls too at the end of each term, formal affairs with ticket prices over £50. Again, said the former alumni, you don’t have to go! It’s not obligatory!

But let me tell you a harsh reality. Nothing ostracises a poor kid more than not being able to join in because they can’t afford it. Nothing. And we might have great friends who would all chip in and pay for our ticket, or lend us the money, but there is something very working-class about not wanting people to know that we can’t afford it. Surely we should not be asking these young adults who have studied and worked against all odds, to have a second class university experience because they know their parents won’t be able to help. You can’t even get a job to supplement your income either; the majority of colleges stipulate this, and as someone who had to work two term-time jobs at a much less prestigious university to live (even with the glorious student overdrafts of pre-austerity Britain), this really hit home at how much I would have struggled financially if I had gone to either of these institutions.

Recently my daughter applied for university. We get in the car and visit a university each week, driving miles up and down and across the country. We fight over choices and analyse each course based on employability, and whether or not she would like it. The process is completed in clicks and feels much more clinical than twenty years earlier, but rather than heading into unchartered waters, I have a map. It might be old and tattered, but I have a much better idea of where we are going now. My daughter believes that the meritocracy is a lie, and she tells me this in sharp, pointed tones as we receive her A-level results on a rainy Thursday morning. She goes to University in September and spends the autumn sending me videos of the Minster, or tutorials on how to swear in Japanese. She is only the second person in our family to continue on to higher education. I don’t just mean in her generation. I mean in total. We are the exception, not the rule.

One of the first questions someone at Oxford was asked by a fellow student last year was ‘private or state’, she replied ‘private’ and was met with a smile. There was no need to ask who the state school entrant was, as she queried the partridge and asparagus served for dinner – ‘this chicken is tough. Is that grass?’- and arrived for the formal sitting with her gown covering a denim skirt and shimmery top underneath. Private school teaches these things, no desperate faux pas for Isobel or Jeremy, whereas state schools do not have the resources or the knowledge to run classes on etiquette for the small number of their students that make it through the intense application procedures. This is not saying that low-income children should be discouraged – not at all – instead, it is saying that there is something inherently wrong with the system. At private school, you are disappointed if you don’t get into Oxbridge, whereas the state school child who gets in is an extraordinary anomaly talked about for years in hushed tones of reverence by the faculty.

And this is the issue with saying that children are on a level playing field, that everyone is measured on their own merit; because it is not true. For children on very low incomes, the odds are unfairly stacked against them, and the issues such as 2020’s disastrous A-Level results just add more bricks to an already near-insurmountable wall.

[anonymous401]

TAG 9 PEOPLE YOU WANT TO GET TO KNOW BETTER

I was tagged by @shockapella-sweet. I’m usually terrible at these, but I’ll give it a go:

Top 3 Ships: That is an excellent question... I can’t recall much at the moment, so here are some from Overwatch I know I have enjoyed at some point: Mercy x Genji, Hanzo x McCree, Ana x Reinhardt.

Lipstick or Chapstick: I don’t wear makeup of any kind except on extremely rare occasion and then it’s generally just a bit of coverup; however, I will use chapstick for dry lips on occasion.

Last Song Listened To: This would technically be Sam and Ashley’s D&D Beyond advert from Critical Role, Campaign 2, Episode 37 Live from New York. XD

Last Film Watched: Actual film? Gretel & Hansel. If other things count, then a couple episodes of The Dark Crystal: Age if Resistance on Netflix. I think we’re on episode 6 now.

Currently Reading: Tailchaser’s Song and The Overstory. Technically also The Last Wish, as I started it again to read the rest of the Witcher series (it had been awhile and I don’t recall details well) but got distracted. I just finished Slave to Sensation for a book club and the only reason I haven’t started book 2 in the psy-changeling series is because I’m borrowing The Overstory and should really read/return that first.

Tagging: I’ll avoid tagging by saying whoever wants to participate. :P

[empyreanwritings]

300 FOLLOWERS CELEBRATION

Guys, GUYS I cannot believe I have 300 of you following me. I woke up this morning, saw that, and literally almost burst into happy tears! I won’t get too sappy because I’m a mess and no one needs to read through me trying to process all that sap in my head :P But I will say thank you x 100000, I appreciate all the likes, reblogs, and comments that you guys leave me! It always makes my heart happy when something pops up on my phone.

Anyways, to celebrate, I’m opening up drabble requests! Below the cut will be a long list of prompts/AU/tropes that you can select! Just send me an ask with the number and pairing (and if you want fluff or angst or something, let me know too), and I will write you something around 500 words (which should be fun knowing my 3k writing self)!

If there is a prompt you don’t see or you found something and went “GASP, STEPH PLS WRITE THIS I’M BEGGING YOU” feel free to send it! I will gladly take requests that aren’t on this list (: x 

I’ll be tagging all of the people in my taglists as a signal boost. I’m sorry in advance if that’s not what you guys were looking for. Pls don’t hate me!

***DISCLAIMER: I found these prompts on Pinterest, so credit goes to whoever the original creator is***

Prompts

1. “911. What’s your emergency?” “I don’t know if it’s an emergency exactly, but there are, like, 800 penguins running around in Central Park. Just through someone should know.”

2. “Give me a chance.”

3. “Your hair is really soft after you wash it.”

4. “Would it be all right if I borrowed your sweater? It smells like you.”

5. “I think I love you.”

6. “We’ll do dishes together.”

7. “You can call me whenever you want. Even if you don’t have a reason to.”

8. “Can you please come and get me?”

9. “How long has it been since you slept?” 

10. “You need to eat something.”

11. “Do you want me to leave?”

12. “Just admit it, I’m right.”

13. “I found this really cute meme, and it reminded me of you.”

14. “Be more careful next time. I don’t want to bandage you up again.”

15. “Well, when you say it like that, it does sound crazy.”

16. “I loved you first.”

17. “You’re my best friend! You’re supposed to deal with the secondhand embarrassment!”

18. “Can I sleep over? My parents are fighting again.”

19. “Ugh, you’re sweaty - get off!”

20. “You’re a horrible liar. I’ve known you far too long to be able to tell.”

21. “I miss her/him. I know I shouldn’t, but I do.”

22. “Don’t listen to them. They’re just jealous of how cute you are.”

23. “Let’s go somewhere. I’m tired of this town.”

24. “Sir, we’re surrounded.” “Excellent! We can attack in any direction!”

25. “Excuse me. I have to go make a scene.”

26. “You didn’t get in trouble for lying. You got in trouble for lying badly.”

27. “She’s hot, but she’s evil.”

28. “Why should we date?” “Because we are attracted to each other.” “I’m attracted to pie, but I do not feel the need to date pie.”

29. “My ex? Yeah, I’d still hit that. Except with a car or a baseball bat this time.”

30. “I don’t need anger management! I need people to stop pissing me off.”

AUs/Tropes

31. Mob Boss AU

32. Soulmate AU

33. Friends to lovers

34. Enemies to lovers

35. Coffee Shop AU

36. College AU

37. Fake Dating

38. Secret Relationships

39. Biker AU

40. Cop/Detective AU

A Weapon No More Tag: @iheartsebastianstan @38leticia @scarhades @smilee-happyness-willcome @sxvfia @for-the-love-of-the-fandom @werosies @officiallyunofficialperson @xrosegoldwolfx 

Marvel Tag: @killcomet

Christmas Spirit/Sam Winchester Tag: @chelseawinchester92 @frostygilbert @whovianwholikesgirls @tamales4 @love-nakamura @sherlockedtash88

[aprettystrangeblog]

Not sure what you meant by organic but..Prompt: The Cloak of Levitation pulls a renaissance floating cloth impression about Stephen's hips when he walks out of his room at the Compound to announce that someone had stollen all of his clothes.

I meant it to mean original prompts, which this definitely is! If anyone wants to illustrate this, P L E A S E  feel free to reblog this/tag me in your art because HOOOO BOY

——————–

By the usual standards of the typical compound chaos, it had been a pretty uneventful day.

A handful of team members were taking advantage of the peace in the common area– Thor and Bruce were crashed on the couch huddled over a small screen and sharing earbuds, Tony was hanging off the back of his armchair checking his email, Peter was lying on the floor half asleep on top of a thick history textbook, and Sam and Bucky were in the corner arguing over a game of Sims on the desktop computer. Something that was clearly Steve’s tiny sim on the screen shouted gibberish, breaking the silence in the room and making Sam slap Bucky on the arm, producing a hollow clanging noise and a glare. Pretty typical afternoon.

But this was the compound, so no one was particularly surprised when a strangled shout came echoing from the hall that led to the team’s private rooms.

“What was that?” Bruce mumbled, plucking his earbud out and squinting upwards from the screen held between him and Thor.

“Eh, maybe Clint and Nat are up to something,” Tony suggested, merely raising an eyebrow and idly swiping upwards on his tablet. “You know how they are.” He sat upright and cupped his hands around his mouth, rolling his eyes before shouting– “HEY, YOU IDIOTS, pipe down back there. You better not be breaking something!”

A string of obscenities was the only reply.

“Clint? Wow, where’d you pick up that kind of language? I’m blushing.”

“I am most certainly NOT Clint,” a deep, irritated voice shouted back. Oh. That wasn’t Clint.

“Mr. Strange?” Peter piped up from the floor, cracking his eyes open and pushing himself up in curiosity. “Is everything okay?”

“What do you think?” Heavy, quick footsteps thudded down the hallway towards the common area. “Look–”

Stephen Strange stuck his head out from behind the door frame, an impressively deep scowl on his face. “I don’t know what kind of hazing rituals you guys pull on new members of the compound, but this isn’t remotely funny.”

The scattered occupants of the room all exchanged confused glances with one another. Tony opened his mouth, only to tilt his head to the side and close it again. Even Bucky poked his head up to give Stephen a sort of bemused shrug before returning to the computer to drop sim-Steve into a sim pool without a ladder.

“Wizard, I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Thor spoke up, breaking the baffled silence. “We would never… what is the word you used? ‘Haze’? A new member of the team. At least, I would hope we’re all above that,” he added lightly, glancing around in an almost accusatory way, as if someone in the room was thinking about doing it.

Stephen gave a derisive snort from the doorway. “Oh? Well in that case, explain this–”

The sorcerer stepped out from behind the frame of the door, and everyone else collectively, to put it lightly, lost their shit.

Stephen was wearing absolutely nothing but his cloak, which hung from its usual position about is shoulders, and both of them were very clearly pissed off. To its credit, the Cloak of Levitation was doing a spectacular job at keeping its master decent; it was doing a wonderful impression of some Renaissance-era drapery, and was carefully and cheekily floating about Strange’s waist, keeping anything inappropriate from peeking out. It didn’t, however, cover the rest of Stephen’s not-so-hard-on-the-eyes body. Or a majority of his ass, as Tony seemed to notice in the reflection of the window, as he raised a hand to cover his view of the sorcerer’s body with a high-pitched ‘oh!’” Peter slapped his hands over his eyes like some kind of giggling twelve year old, Bruce had gone bright red, and even Bucky and Sam had their mouths hanging open slightly, Sims game momentarily forgotten. Only Thor let out a hearty, unembarrassed guffaw.

“I wholeheartedly approve of this new look! A needed improvement on those dusty old robes of yours,” Thor said, grabbing his half-empty mug from the coffee table and raising it in a ‘cheers’ motion.

A muscle in Stephen’s jaw twitched as he crossed his arms, looking to all the world like some kind of scorned deity. The soft glow from the windows and framing of the door behind him didn’t help but to reinforce the ethereal image of the sorcerer standing there, much to the chagrin of certain people in the room.

“While I appreciate the compliment,” Stephen started carefully, his voice low and strained, “it doesn’t change the fact that someone stole all of my clothes.”

“Stole. All. Your clothes?” Tony asked haltingly, his eyebrows threatening to travel straight up towards his hairline in disbelief.

“My entire wardrobe is gone, and I don’t particularly remember relieving my closet of all my worldly clothes.”

“You’re… sure?”

“Do I look blind to you?” Stephen shot back, a soft crackle of magic sparking to life in his fingertips at his rising levels of irritation.

“No, no, I just–”

“Wait,” Bruce interrupted, raising one hand and desperately trying to avoid looking at the reflection of Stephen in the window. “Do you have more clothes back at the Sanctum? Can you portal there and, and find a spare outfit?”

“I admire your quick thinking, Doctor Banner, but my spare clothes there are gone as well.”

Bruce’s eyebrows squished together in a confused frown. “How’s that possible?”

“I don’t mean to offend you all, but hardly any of you are permitted into the Sanctum without me present, and Wong hasn’t reported any visitors to me. So,” Stephen concluded, crossing his arms more tightly over his chest, “one of you is either stealthy enough to fool Wong and the Sanctum, or there’s some sneaky magic involved here.” Stephen eyed each person in the room, suspicious.

“While I do enjoy you in this form, Sorcerer Strange, I’m innocent in this,” Thor said defensively, raising his hands. “My brother is the trickster god, not I.”

“I’m new here too! I would never prank you, at least, uh, like that,” Peter chimed in, one hand searching around for his phone. He wouldn’t sink low enough to steal Stephen’s clothes, but he was definitely plummeting to the level of posting this to Instagram.

“Bruce and I, we have an alibi,” Tony added, motioning between the two of them hurriedly. “We’ve been working all morning together, and just left the lab an half hour ago.”

“Mhm. Well. Sam? Bucky? Any information?” Stephen asked, raising his gaze towards the corner of the room.

“Hey man, I’d never steal another dude’s clothes,” Sam said defensively, shaking his head. “Majorly uncool. I ain’t some college frat guy.”

“Right,” Bucky agreed simply, a slight undercurrent of sarcasm in his voice as he eyed Sam.

Stephen grunted, unconvinced, but uncrossed his arms after a moment, seeming to deflate a bit.

“Anyone else have any inclination of what might have happened?”

“…Clint and Nat can be, um, kind of childish sometimes,” Bruce suggested, glancing over at Thor. “They set Thor’s cape on fire one time.”

“Ah! Now that was an eventful party!” Thor grinned, clapping Bruce on the shoulder. “But yes, the two of them do cause mischief from time to time.”

Stephen shifted his weight from foot to foot, weighing his options as his cloak swirled around his waist. “So I’ve heard. Do you know where they are?”

“No, I haven’t seen them in a couple hours,” Bruce admitted, shifting so that he was sitting up a little taller, “but Thor’s pretty good at finding them when they’ve, uh, hid.”

“Think you could lead me to them?” Stephen asked, appraising Thor lightly.

“Certainly. Though I would advise perhaps seeking out some more clothing beforehand. They tend to gloat quite heavily upon seeing the product of their mischief.”

“Well, you’re roughly my size, Stephen,” Tony spoke up, getting to his feet. “You can borrow anything you’d like from my own closet. Just, y’know, keep the underwear.”

Stephen’s cheeks flushed, but he seemed to soften a little. “Really? Thank you. I’d appreciate a pair of pants right about now.”

“Sure thing, magic man. Follow me,” Tony said, motioning for Stephen to follow him down the hallway. “Bruce, Thor, you’ll go find Clint and Nat?”

“Most certainly,” Thor assured, clapping a fist over his chest and tugging Bruce to his feet. “It’s a dishonor to shame such a man like this.”

“I’m flattered,” Stephen replied, a glint of appreciative amusement in his eyes. “Sam, Bucky, can you tell us if you find anything?” he asked as he followed Tony towards the bedroom hallway.

“Sure, sure,” Bucky mumbled, waving a hand as he returned to clicking at the computer screen. “Sam’ll have his eyes out.”

“You will too, you lazy dumbass,” Sam retorted, giving Bucky’s metal arm a shove. He didn’t budge. “You shouldn’t have introduce him to the Sims, Pete, he won’t get off the goddamned computer.”

“Sorry,” Peter grinned, pulling himself off the floor and abandoning his textbook. “I’ll come back later to check out the sim house he built, but I’ll go help Thor and Mr. Banner for now.”

“Ah! Extra help! Excellent,” Thor grinned, holding out an arm to Peter as he tripped across the room. “Alright. Let’s check in the laundry area first, Clint rather enjoys hiding in the industrial washing machines, if my memory serves me.”

“Really?!” Peter asked excitedly, his voice jumping up an octave of disbelief as he followed Bruce and Thor towards the other doorway. “I can’t believe that–”

Their voices faded away along with their footsteps, and after a moment it was just Sam and Bucky left in the room.

“Bucky,” Sam whispered, glancing around before lowering his voice. “Bucky!”

“What?” Bucky murmured, raising his eyebrows innocently as he put down the mouse.

“What did you do?”

Bucky cracked a smile and reached into his pocket, pulling out a small, diamond-shaped artifact and pinching it between two metal fingers. “Remember this thing you nicked from the Harry Potter’s magic fun house?”

“Ay, I didn’t nick it, it was just lying on the floor, I figured I’d return it at some point–”

“The point is, I figured out how to do stuff with it,” Bucky interrupted, absolute mayhem dancing in his eyes. “But I didn’t know it was gonna do… that.”

Sam blinked, a slow grin starting to spread across his face. “…do you have all of Strange’s clothes somewhere?”

“Uh huh.”

“…wanna show me?”

“Oh, definitely. C’mon.”

[thisweekingundamwing]

This Week in Gundam Wing 15/16-22 December 2018

Here’s this week’s roundup!

Remember to give your content creators some love! And join in on the events at the bottom!

So, tumblr has made it LITERALLY impossible for me to get things from some source blogs. So I apologize profusely if something you sent in isn’t in here... I tried.

~Mod Hel

Fanfiction/Snippets/AU Ideas:

@anaranesindanarie

It’s a Small Town (Ch. 2) https://archiveofourown.org/works/16430819/chapters/39776022?view_adult=true

Chapter Summary: Duo and Trowa’s first time

Chapters: 2/? Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Trowa Barton/Duo Maxwell, Long Meilan/Hilde Schbeiker, Catherine Bloom/Abdul Kurama, Chang Wufei/Duo Maxwell

Characters: Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, Long Meilan, Chang Wufei, Hilde Schbeiker

Additional Tags: What happened before Tequila, Breakups

Series: Part 1 of Small Town Boys

Summary: The events before the start of Tequila. Not necessarily in order

The Name on my Arm (Ch. 2-5) https://archiveofourown.org/works/16845340/chapters/39546805

Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Trowa Barton/Duo Maxwell, Long Meilan/Hilde Schbeiker

Characters: Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, Hilde Schbeiker, Long Meilan, Quatre Raberba Winner, Heero Yuy, Chang Wufei

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, and they were neighbors, Unwilling soulmates, bound bonds, mentions of abuse, mentions of domestic abuse, just be aware that there are mentions of abuse

Summary: Soulmates. A person ideally suited to another as a close friend or romantic partner. Everyone has a soulmate, or so it is said. But what happens when you hate the idea of your life being predetermined by just a single name?

@fadedsepiascribbles

Snippet Sunday https://fadedsepiascribbles.tumblr.com/post/181232810992/snippet-sunday

I might to finish this at some point. Out of the blue, a Sally something is perking in my brain.

@gundamwing-ellesmith

Snippet Saturday http://gundamwing-ellesmith.tumblr.com/post/181280761903/snippet-sunday

Another snippet from my current 3x1 WIP “Penumbra” - Chapter 4

Summary: AC 206. Preventer agent Heero Yuy lives his life in the shadow of the Moon, repressed memories forever eclipsed by powerful shadows.When offered a chance to discover what horrors lie in the darkness plaguing his dreams, Heero willingly throws himself into a dangerous game of self-destruct. He’s about to go down hard, but he won’t be doing it alone.

@lemontrash

Tuesday 300-ish https://lemontrash.tumblr.com/post/181229942369/tuesday-300-ish

Because I post WIP updates just basically whenever these days… Here’s a bit from the Jellyfish-kinda-college-AU 2x5 fic.

@lifeaftermeteor

Saturday Snippet https://lifeaftermeteor.tumblr.com/post/181333565499/winner-family-compound-l4-v05001-25-december-210

Winner Family Compound

L4-V05001

25 December 210

@noirangetrois

Snippet Saturday Sunday https://noirangetrois.tumblr.com/post/181169190112/snippet-saturday-sunday-so-its-been-several

So, it’s been several months since an update to “Waves and a Wedding,” but I’m finally working on it again (yay, end of the semester). Here’s a snippet from the next chapter.

WIP Wednesday https://noirangetrois.tumblr.com/post/181248427917/wip-wednesday

Here’s another sneak peak at Chapter 6 of “Waves and a Wedding,” in which Treize makes a cameo. It’s been slow going on this but I’m making progress, slowly but surely!

ShenLong1

Bound, Bonded and Betrayed (Ch. 76) https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9726683/76/Bound-Bonded-and-Betrayed

Genre: Drama/Romance Rated: M

Character: Heero Y., Duo M.

Summary: Heero is the eldest son of the King of Colonia. His 21st birthday is approaching and as tradition dictates his betrothed is soon to arrive. However he is also bound by tradition to select his own personal slave. The events that unfold lead him down a path that not only tests his sanity but his humanity and love as well.

Oh Little Colony Known As L2 https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13151382/1/

Time for the annual butchering of a Christmas Carol. This year the muse chose "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem" and did a complete 180 on his usual butchering. This one is a lot more tame, but sweet in its own way ( I think so anyway). No offense is intended with this 'fic'

Rated: Fiction T - English - Romance/Drama - Duo M., Heero Y.

Shinigamiinochi

A Stagnation of Love (rewrite) (Ch. 76) https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10433322/76/A-Stagnation-of-Love-rewrite

Genre: Romance/Angst Rated: M

Character: Duo M., Heero Y.

Summary: Duo Maxwell has been stuck his entire life. With an abusive father, a mother who doesn’t even realize he exists, severely bullied at school, and hiding his sexuality, he has given up all hope for a better life. When he falls in love with his bully’s boyfriend, he needs to make a choice about his future. Will he continue to let himself be abused, or will he fight back?

@simulacraryn

Out of Depth (Ch. 9) https://archiveofourown.org/works/7773760/chapters/40225538

Duo Maxwell/Sally Po

Sally Po, Duo Maxwell, Auda, Kadal (OMC), Relena Peacecraft, Howard (Gundam Wing), Roche Nattono, Aretha Walker, Ralph Kurt, Zechs Merquise, Vingt Khrushrenada, Hilde Schbeiker, Original Characters, Lucrezia Noin, Abdul Kurama

Gundam Wing Rare Pair Big Bang, Rare Pair, War, ATAN Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Borrowing Stuff from FT, Friendship, Eventual Romance, Slow Burn, Age Difference, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Coercion, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, headcanons galore

‘You can’t do this alone’ is a line that has started many a stories, but for all intents in purposes, Relena had been right. Well, everyone. Duo could not lead a search and retrieve mission that could potentially endanger not just himself, but Sally. With Une at the helm of the ESUN’s corruption, Duo and his rag tag group must tread carefully.

@terrablaze514

Risk (9x11) ★Snippet Sunday★ https://terrablaze514.tumblr.com/post/181176778987/the-entire-oneshot-series-will-be-cross-posted-to

The entire oneshot series will be cross-posted to WP, AO3 and Pillowfort.

Timeline: Post-EW (canon divergent)

Rated E ((Warnings: Yuri, slow burn, non-graphic violence, angst, dark memories, mentions of character death, smut))

Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and its characters belong to Sotsu/Sunrise. I am just borrowing them.

Heart to Soul (3x4) ★Snippet Sunday★ https://terrablaze514.tumblr.com/post/181179147602/heart-to-soul-3x4-snippet-sunday

This will be cross-posted to WP, AO3 and Pillowfort.

Timeline: AC195

Rated T ((Warnings: Shonen-ai, mentions of past violence/displaced childhood, amnesia.))

Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and its characters belong to Sotsu/Sunrise. I’m just borrowing them.

Risk (9x11) ★Snippet Saturday★ https://terrablaze514.tumblr.com/post/181335279732/risk-9x11-snippet-saturday

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing characters.

Rated M ((This is a flashback scene where Une recalls the moment that brought her and Noin closer… Contains bits of violence.))

Fanart:

@christianmswanson

http://christianmswanson.tumblr.com/post/181327777104/i-finally-finished-sandrock-im-so-happy-and

Sandrock, model

@lemontrash

https://lemontrash.tumblr.com/post/181128226491/day-15#notes

Advent Calendar Day 15, Quatre

https://lemontrash.tumblr.com/post/181158331522/day-16#notes

Advent Calendar Day 16, Relena, Noin, & Dorothy

https://lemontrash.tumblr.com/post/181189958153/day-17#notes

Advent Calendar Day 17, Hilde & Duo

https://lemontrash.tumblr.com/post/181212662096/day-18#notes

Advent Calendar Day 18, Heero & Duo

https://lemontrash.tumblr.com/post/181237339930/day-19#notes

Advent Calendar Day 19, Trowa

https://lemontrash.tumblr.com/post/181261721470/day-20#notes

Advent Calendar Day 20, Quatre

https://lemontrash.tumblr.com/post/181286772033/day-21#notes

Advent Calendar Day 21, WuFei & Duo

https://lemontrash.tumblr.com/post/181312189493/day-22#notes

Advent Calendar Day 22, Duo & Heero

@shinigami-of-excellence

Bury the Castle https://www.instagram.com/p/BpV8_AZlSHx/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1cqz8dhodlevi

I don’t remember if this is actually old or not... so here it is.

Relena & Zechs

@thenumbersoftomorrow

https://lifeaftermeteor.tumblr.com/post/181148626213/lifeaftermeteor-thenumbersoftomorrow

WuFei & Relena

Head Canons:

@lifeaftermeteor

https://lifeaftermeteor.tumblr.com/post/181307776742#notes

Trowa Barton

Chats/Discussions:

@bryony-rebb

https://helmistress.tumblr.com/post/181255176004/bryony-rebb-bryony-rebb-claraxbarton

Lady Une & Obnoxious Mariemaia... >_>

@claraxbarton @fadedsepiascribbles

@fadedsepiascribbles

https://fadedsepiascribbles.tumblr.com/post/181242228922/terrablaze514-ransomedbard-jalaperilo

A recurring problem.

@terrablaze514 @ransomedbard @jalaperilo @angelsmystique @universal-ren-kin

Quotes/Dialogues:

@fadedsepiascribbles

https://fadedsepiascribbles.tumblr.com/post/181248736177/on-a-lighter-note

On a lighter Note.

@bryony-rebb @la-femme-noelle/@noelleian @simulacraryn @kangofu-cb

@incorrectgundamwingquotes

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/181131818588/trowa-i-think-we-should-adopt-another-kid

Trowa & Quatre

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/181151590548/trowa-in-the-middle-of-a-battle-duo-quatre-duo

Trowa, Duo, & Quatre

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/181161845958/heero-did-anyone-loot-the-base-trowa-we-all

Heero, Trowa, & Duo

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/181162027379/dorothy-heres-a-fun-christmas-idea-well-hang

Dorothy & Relena

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/181182588990/wufei-youre-like-the-league-of-nations-in-36

WuFei, Quatre, & Duo

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/181226474809/quatre-actually-i-need-to-talk-to-you-guys-its

Quatre, WuFei, Trowa, Heero, & Duo

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/181255843116/duo-a-positive-and-a-negative-combined-is

Duo

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/181285640729/at-preventers-hq-noin-what-are-you-smiling

Noin & Sally

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/181285569433/duo-i-still-dont-get-it-trowa-nobody-does

Duo & Trowa

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/181289895405/wufei-insults-any-of-the-other-gundam-pilots

WuFei & Someone

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/181311067569/relena-why-are-you-wearing-that-mask-zechs

Relena & Zechs

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/181312833389/duo-wait-for-it-wait-for-it901-heero-is

Duo, WuFei, Trowa, & Quatre

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/181315196331/wufei-why-do-you-have-a-knife-sticking-out-of

WuFei & Trowa

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/181332407655/quatre-no-offense-but-all-my-friends-deserve

Quatre

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/181337173533/at-preventers-hq-heero-at-the-beginning-of-a

Heero & Zechs

Calendar Events:

@gwcocktailfriday

Cocktail Fridays!

Post responses on Friday, during Happy Hour between 3 & 5 pm in your own timezone.

Here’s the prompt for Friday December 28th! https://gwcocktailfriday.tumblr.com/post/181321035665/cocktail-friday-post-responses-on-friday-december#notes

@our-summer-of-zechs

Summer of Zechs 2019 Ideas https://our-summer-of-zechs.tumblr.com/post/181230468726/we-appear-to-still-be-up-and-running-folks

Come let us know how we should proceed for next summer!

@simulacraryn

Heero Yuy Month https://thisweekingundamevents.tumblr.com/post/177808907580/iso-more-heero-yuy-fanpeople

The Month of January (obviously, as it’s 01 *winks*)

Stay tuned for more news!

@thisweekingundamevents

Gundam Wing Holiday Gift Exchange 2018!

Beta Readers! https://thisweekingundamevents.tumblr.com/post/181220822967/beta-readers

Posting: Will be any time between January 1st and January 5th!

Some Q&As https://thisweekingundamevents.tumblr.com/post/180333815165/important-questions

[levifold]

Tagged by @shinobidog

Rules: tag nine people with excellent taste

Colors I’m currently wearing: purple, white and black (my pj’s)

Last band t-shirt I have bought: P!nk Truth About Love tour shirt back in 2014ish?

Last band I saw live: Also P!nk, but her Beautiful Trauma tour last year (2018)

Lipstick or chapstick: chapstick, but we call it lipbalm here

Last song I listened to: 3人の秘密 (secret of 3 people) on the My Hero Academia 2018 Original Soundtrack album

Last movie I watched: Dragon Ball Super: Broly

Last three tv shows I’ve watched: Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card Arc, Sword Art Online: Alicization, and I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here

Last three characters I identified with: Midoriya Izuku, Aizawa Shouta, and Kinomoto Touya

Books I’m reading right now: not physical books, but a hell of a lot of fanfics. Ones coming to mind include Wisdom: To Understand by RogueDruid (Icarius51), Erased Potential by theslytherinpaladin, Something Borrowed by ThisCat, and Another Butterfly Effect by ScribeOfRhapsody. There are definitely more, but way too many to list

Tagging @enigmachevalier @spudinksi @sarawrath @ariaalways @sendmcnuggetsnotnudes @magichuenicorn @jadedarsonist @syn-ven @gryffindorbrowncoat

Have fun!!

[rachelkaser]

Stay Golden Sunday: It’s A Miserable Life

An attempt to save a neighborhood tree somehow results in the death of the Girls’ most misanthropic neighbor. The Girls decide to pay for her funeral.

Picture It...

The Girls all meet up in the living room to compare numbers -- they’re trying to get the residents of Richmond Street to sign a petition to save a 200-year-old oak tree, which the city wants to cut down to widen the street. Rose is upset because she tried and failed to get the signature of Mrs. Claxton, their misanthropic neighbor on whose property the tree is growing. Despite the Girls agreeing that Mrs. Claxton’s just a terrible human being, Rose is convinced there’s some good in everyone, telling a St. Olaf story to make her point. She’s going to be extra nice to Mrs. Claxton to get her signature.

SOPHIA: *as the Girls run into the kitchen* Boy, that was a close call. BLANCHE: If I have to listen to one more story about the colorful people from St. Olaf, I think I’ll explode. ROSE: *coming in* Ernest T. Minky was St. Olaf’s librarian... BLANCHE: Kaboom.

Blanche, Dorothy, and Sophia arrive at the courthouse to block the proposal and discuss their options. Sophia wants to bribe the commissioners, which Dorothy and Blanche shoot down. Blanche, however, did sleep with two of them (but, to borrow a line from a later episode, she probably would have anyway). Rose appears and proudly announces that, through persistent application of delicious Danishes, she managed to extract a promise from Mrs. Claxton to save the tree.

Mrs. Claxton arrives at that moment and the Girls attempt to be friendly. Mrs. Claxton quickly proves her reputation is entirely deserved when she tells Blanche she’s taking blackmail pictures of her bedroom activities, which she can see through binoculars, and makes a snide comment about Dorothy’s comparatively inactive bedroom. She quickly goes back on her word to Rose, and says she only said she’d help to get the Danish. She even says straight to Rose’s face that she hates her assumption that she just needed to be shown some kindness to change her mind.

In the courtroom, the Girls attempt to present their petition to save the tree, only for Mrs. Claxton to shout them down, being as nasty to them as possible. Rose finally snaps and lets loose on Mrs. Claxton, who has the audacity to look shocked at Rose’s shouting. She says she’s done indulging Mrs. Claxton and tells her to sit still while the rest of the neighbors have their say, finishing with, “And if you don’t like it, just drop dead.” When she walks away, Mrs. Claxton promptly collapses to the ground, and Sophia confirms that the old woman apparently took Rose at her word.

Two days later, Rose is moping in the kitchen, convinced her shouting at Mrs. Claxton was what killed her. Dorothy tries to comfort her, saying that the woman was 83 and just had a heart attack. Blanche also attempts to comfort her, saying she should just have a cry at the funeral. Rose says there won’t be a funeral, which neither Blanche nor Dorothy are too broken up about, given how awful she was. Blanche tells a story about faking her death as a teenager just to see how many people showed up at her funeral.

SOPHIA: What’s everybody talking about? DOROTHY: Ma, I can honestly say I have no idea. ROSE: We started out talking about Mrs. Claxton’s funeral. DOROTHY: Yeah, but somewhere along the way we segued into Blanche: The Miniseries.

Sophia comes in and asks when Mrs. Claxton’s funeral is going to be, and they’re surprised she wants to go. She says it doesn’t matter how horrible Mrs. Claxton was -- going to the funeral shows regard for human life. When they point out that Mrs. Claxton had no friends or relatives and so won’t have a funeral, Sophia says they should pay for it for the same reason. They all agree to go in on the funeral.

At the Forever Peaceful funeral home, the Girls confer with Mr. Pfeiffer (the “P” is not silent) about the funeral arrangement -- he initially thinks they’re planning ahead for “mother” (meaning Sophia). He tries to give them the hard sell on the most expensive casket in the house, but they balk at the $6,000 price tag. They finally settle on an inexpensive pine box for Mrs. Claxton. They decide on a Friday night funeral based on the TV schedule and leave.

ROSE: *about Blanche* You’ll have to excuse her. Funeral homes make her a little nervous. MR. PFEIFFER: Golly, they used to make me nervous too. At a traditional funeral home, all they want to talk about is caskets, burials, dead people. Here at Forever Peaceful we’ve gotten rid of all that morbid death stuff. SOPHIA: What are you running here, a sushi bar?

Friday night, the girls are sitting in the pews at the otherwise empty funeral. Rose is surprised that no one else came, but just as they’re about to leave, a woman shows up who claims the deceased was a dear friend. She gives a heartfelt eulogy about the virtues of the dead woman, and the Girls are tearing up, until the woman says the name “Celia Rubenstein.” She’s at the wrong funeral, and kicks the casket when she finds out whose funeral it really is. Rose runs out in tears, and Mr. Pfeiffer walks in with a golden urn and reveals Mrs. Claxton was cremated by mistake. Now the Girls have to take her home.

Later, Blanche is convinced that Mrs. Claxton’s ghost is haunting the house -- it was actually Sophia. Rose comes home and reveals that she found a place to put Mrs. Claxton’s ashes: She spread them at the base of the old oak tree and told the committee they can’t disturb the old woman’s final resting place, so it looks like they won’t cut the tree down. They go out to gaze at the oak tree.

SOPHIA: What are you all looking at? DOROTHY: That beautiful, old oak tree, Ma. ROSE: Mrs. Claxton’s spirit’s part of that tree now, Sophia. SOPHIA: That’s really lovely. *looks at the base of the tree* And it’s touching how that Great Dane is paying its respects.

“Hey P-Feiffer, how would you like a punch in your P-Face?”

Rose headlines this excellent, memorable episode about the value of life, which has some of the best scenes in the series. It may not have a B-plot to speak of, but it doesn’t really need one when all the Girls play such a balanced role in the episode. I really can’t overstate how good everyone is in this episode, from Sophia’s outward apathy masking internal softness, to Blanche’s funeral home jitters, to Dorothy’s struggle with the name P-Feiffer. The brief appearance of the excellent Nan Martin at Freida Claxton is the cherry on top.

This marks the second time Rose has been in close proximity to someone who’s died and blamed herself for it (the first being Al from “In a Bed of Roses”). This time it’s funnier because we see the character die onscreen -- that doesn’t sound like it should be funnier, but it is. Nan Martin’s two-scene performance makes Mrs. Claxton’s death funny if only because she’s just the worst, and Martin’s clearly having a blast playing her.

DOROTHY: *about Sophia’s bribery attempts* And don’t tell us that’s how you got things done in Sicily. SOPHIA: That’s not how we got things done in Sicily. Bribing people with money is how we got things done in New York. In Sicily, you cut off a horse’s head and put it somebody’s bed. BLANCHE: Sophia, you’re making that up. SOPHIA: Like hell. Our garbage commissioner, Fredo Lombardi, went on strike once. He woke up the next morning sharing a pillow with National Velvet. At 7 a.m. he was out cleaning the street with his tongue.

The other Girls aren’t wrong when they describe Mrs. Claxton in horrible terms, and Rose’s insistence that there must be some good in her is thoroughly punctured, not just in the courtroom but during her empty funeral. As funny as it is to see the Claxton clashes, poor Rose gets a big knock on her positive worldview, which adds a hint of sadness to the episode, even if she does improve by the end of the episode after she spreads the ashes.

There’s even one serious moment where Mrs. Claxton tells Rose that she hates that Rose assumed that just because she lived alone, that she must want “company and a few kind words.” This tendency of Rose to try and insert her sunny demeanor into the lives of people who neither like it or want it will come back to bite her later. As nasty as Mrs. Claxton is, she’s not wrong that Rose assuming she must be a lonely, misunderstood person is kind of patronizing.

ROSE: Oh Sophia, I think you’re a wonderful person. It’s a lovely idea to share Mrs. Claxton’s funeral expenses equally. SOPHIA: Equally? I figure your share should be about half. After all, you’re the one who killed her.

The question of whether Mrs. Claxton’s life was pointless because she didn’t have anyone who cared about her is a bit of a thorny one, and definitely not something I think Mrs. Claxton herself would have cared about. But the episode makes it clear that it’s not a philosophical or moral question -- it’s only important in the episode because it’s important to soft-hearted Rose. And even though the use of her ashes to protect the oak tree they were originally trying to save is a little trite, I do think it works because at least one of the Girls -- Sophia -- isn’t taking the whole thing very seriously.

The tree is also a nice plot point. We’ve seen the Girls describe their charitable endeavors before, most notably in “Flu Attack.” Here we see them actually doing their charity work, in this case saving a 200-year-old tree. All four of the Girls are part of the endeavor, even though Blanche can only get men to sign up for the petition one at a time the old-fashioned way, and Sophia put the names of a few dead people on the petition.

To harp on my favorite topic, the episode is very fairly balanced, with each of the four Girls having almost equal screentime. Sophia’s role as the person who badmouths Mrs. Claxton the most and yet encourages the others to pay for the funeral because she feels bad for her.  Remember what I said weeks ago about how the show gives the least active member of the cast a big monologue in the middle of the episode to keep it even? In this case it’s Blanche with her long, ridiculous monologue about how she faked her death at age 15 because she wasn’t crowned Miss Magnolia Blossom. This time Dorothy even lampshades it by saying she has no idea how they got to that topic.

The comedy really culminates during the funeral scene, when an unnamed mourner shows up and speaks about the deceased in glowing terms, speaking about her anonymous charitable work and giving the Girls the brief impression that Mrs. Claxton was secretly the greatest person. Then she discovers that she’s in the wrong funeral, and when she discovers that the funeral is for Freida Claxton, delivers a kick to the casket in the ultimate wordless indicator of exactly how bad of a person Mrs. Claxton was.

I feel like Forever Peaceful is really lucky the Girls didn’t actually like Mrs. Claxton, because cremating someone who was supposed to be buried is a lawsuit waiting to happen (not that I’m a lawyer, but still). Also, I know they had to do it for story/comedy reasons, but I’m not sure why they gave the ashes to the Girls. Presumably they’ve already paid for the casket and the plot in which Mrs. Claxton was to be interred -- why not just pop the urn in the casket and bury it that way? 

But I have no regrets about its inclusion, because the scene where the Girls confer with Mr. P-Feiffer about the funeral arrangements is one of the funniest scenes in the whole series. Everything from the strangeness of the name to the Girls rejecting his hard sell to the decision not to have the funeral on Thursday because it conflicts with the Cosby Show is just solid comedy gold.

DOROTHY: Thank you, Rose. That was a wonderful story. ROSE: I’m only half-done. SOPHIA: I passed a kidney stone once that was less painful than this.

Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this is the first instance of a St. Olaf story being acknowledged as such. Rose has told scattered stories of the other residents of her hometown in Minnesota before, but this is the first time the other Girls give such a strong, disgusted reaction to it, even running out of the room in an attempt to escape hearing about the life of Ernest T. Minky. This is the reaction they’ll generally have to the stories of St. Olaf throughout the rest of the series, and it’s hilarious every time.

Episode rating: 🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰 (five cheesecake slices out of five)

Favorite part of the episode:

[evaceratops]

tag games

there are like 10000 of these in my drafts so i’m going to do them all at once in one big post, organized by who tagged me

tagged by @leopoldjamesfitz

name: eva

gender: female

height: 5′0″

sexuality: ace as heck

what image do you have as a wallpaper? fire emblem awakening cutscene screenshot

where do you see yourself in 10 years? livin the dream as a researcher at the monterey bay aquarium

if you could be anywhere right now, where? yosemite national park, or monterey

what was your coolest halloween costume? ... is it weird that i legitimately can’t think of one

last kiss: uhhh i’m assuming this is in a romantic context, so never

have you ever been stood up? this would require having been planning to go on a date in the first place, so no

what’s your favorite 90′s show? is kim possible from the 90s

favorite pair of shoes: there’s these black and gray tennis shoes that i really like

favorite fruit: cherries

stupidest thing you’ve ever done: download fire emblem heroes i legitimately forgot about chem lab once and missed the entire thing and didn’t realize until a week later

favorite book: .. you come into my house and ask me to choose One, you absolute fool,, just to spite you my answer is all 35+ books of the warriors series

colors i’m currently wearing: black, brown, denim

last band shirt i bought: 5 seconds of summer, like 2 years ago

last band i went to see live: the oh hellos!

last song i listened to: masterpiece theater III by marianas trench

lipstick or chapstick: definitely chapstick, i’ve always hated makeup

last movie i watched: pacific rim uprising

last 3 shows i watched: i think i watched a few episodes of total drama island and pretty little liars with my sister recently, and the third... probably voltron?

3 characters i identify with: arc trooper echo from star wars, ricken from fire emblem awakening, pidge from voltron

books i’m currently reading: the song of roland for my medieval history course, aaaand i’m in between the first and second books of my reread of the dawn of the clans arc of warriors

what’s your favorite song(s) to sing/hum? probably willow tree march by the paper kites

what’s your favorite flower/tree/plant? italian cypress,, and most other evergreen trees tbh

favorite colors? navy and pretty much any shade of blue/grayish-blue, dark red, gold

what do you always doodle? it varies depending on what i feel like that day but yesterday it was cats and dinosaurs

how do you take your coffee/tea? i can’t have caffeine so i don’t drink coffee at all and i rarely drink tea, but with tea i’ll use like 3 entire packets of sugar and nothing else

favorite candle scent? pine, or the ocean

sunrise or sunset? is this referring to the warriors books with those titles or the actual times of day sunset

what perfume do you wear? none

what’s your go-to dance move when you’re alone? ... i don’t even know

favorite quote? shrug emoji,, i just don’t think about this stuff i guess

favorite self care routine(s)? taking a long bath/shower and then going to bed early or reading a book i like

what color are your eyes? grayish-blue

what’s your favorite eye color on others? i’ve always thought brownish-green looks pretty cool

favorite season? why? fall/winter because i like cold weather and rainstorms

cheek, neck, or nose kisses? cheek kisses but also why aren’t forehead kisses on here

what does your happy place look like? anywhere in the sierras or along the coast of california

favorite breed of dog? i’ve always thought huskies are really pretty even though being around big dogs makes me a little nervous (i am 110% a cat person)

do you ever want to be married? if so, what colors would you pick for your wedding theme? no

cursive or print? print

favorite weather? THUNDERSTORMS.

Rules: Choose any three fandoms (in random order) and answer the questions.

i choose: heck, let’s go with the 3 i’ve been most into recently!

star wars | fire emblem | warriors

the first character you loved: 

anakin skywalker. i still remember being indignant when ahsoka talked back to him in the tcw movie | either lissa or frederick | probably dovewing (i borrowed the fourth apprentice from a friend and read that first before going back and reading the rest of the series)

the character you never expected to love so much:

probably ezra bridger, tbh! i started watching rebels purely for ahsoka and rex and did not expect to get so attached to the ghost crew literally within the first 5 minutes of spark of rebellion | TAKUMI | ... god, it’s so hard to remember these things, the first time i read these books was so many years ago... squirrelflight, maybe?

the character you relate to the most:

echo! i used to read encyclopedias for fun as a kid so i understand his love of the reg manual | probably sumia? i don’t quite have self-esteem issues like she does but i do tend to downplay my strengths and kinda write myself off. plus we both love reading and even tend to prefer the same genres (mostly fantasy and fiction) | leafpool because i too spend a good deal of my time pretending everything is fine even if it’s not and trying to fix my mistakes,

the character you’d slap:

wat tambor | fernand | clear sky. i’ve had enough of that dude

three favorite characters (in order of preference):

anakin, kanan, rey | gaius, takumi, lissa | JAYFEATHER, lionblaze, bramblestar (if i’m being totally honest jayfeather alone is favorite characters #1 through 10 for this series i love him SO MUCH no one else even comes close)

a character you liked at first but don’t anymore:

... i don’t really care for ventress? i don’t dislike her, but i don’t seem to like her as much as everyone else does. i thought she was cool the first time i watched tcw all the way through, but now... | cherche, maybe? i don’t think i’ve ever really disliked a fire emblem character - at least not one from any of the games i’ve played - but i’m not as interested in cherche as i used to be | sorry, dovewing

a character you did not like at first but now do:

ahsoka, believe it or not. i don’t remember caring about her too much when tcw was first airing, but i really like her now | camilla | as usual i never really disliked hollyleaf but i like her more now than i did the first time i read the books

three OTPs:

anidala, kanera, ultimate rarepair™ arcmaiden | the Original Rarepair™ ricken/lissa, chrom/sumia, gaius/robin | bramblestar/squirrelflight, lionblaze/cinderheart, hollyleaf/fallen leaves (honorable mention for bluestar/oakheart bc i do love me those classic and tragic Forbidden Relationships but hollyleaf falling in love with a literal ghost is just too good of a concept and is therefore slightly higher in the rankings)

tagged by @minhoruns

rules: bold your aspirations!

AIR: I have small hands • I love the night sky • I watch small animals and birds when I pass them by • I drink herbal tea • I wake to see dawn • The smell of dust is comforting • I’m valued for being wise • I prefer books to music • I meditate • I find joy in learning new truths from the world around me

FIRE: I don’t have straight hair • I like to wear ripped jeans and overalls • I play an organized sport • I love dogs • I am not afraid of adventure • I love to talk to strangers • I always try new foods • I enjoy road trips • Summer is my favorite season • My radio is always playing

WATER: I wear bracelets on my wrists • I love the bustle of the city • I have more than one set of piercings • I read poetry • I love the sound of a thunderstorm • I want to travel the world • I sleep past noon most days • I love dimly lit diners and fluorescent signs • I rewatch kids’ shows out of nostalgia • I see emotions in colors and words

EARTH: I wear glasses • I enjoy doing the laundry • I am a vegetarian or vegan • I have an excellent sense of time • My humor is very cheerful • I am a valued advisor to my friends • I believe in true love • I love the chill of mountain air • I’m always listening to music • I am highly trusted by the people in my life

AETHER: I go without makeup in my daily life • I make my own artwork • I keep on track of my tasks and time • I always know true north • I see beauty in everything • I can always smell flowers • I smile at everyone I pass by • I always fear history repeating itself • I have recovered from a mental disorder • I can love unconditionally

rules: spell your url out with song titles

exeunt - the oh hellos viva la vida - coldplay anna sun - walk the moon caves - haux earth - sleeping at last red hands - walk off the earth all the right moves - onerepublic the royal we - silversun pickups ophelia - the lumineers pompeii - bastille stay frosty royal milk tea - fall out boy

tagged by @autisticpadme

rules: list the top ten songs you’ve been listening to lately

masterpiece theater III (by marianas trench), willow tree march (by the paper kites), 3. wake up (by arcade fire), valley - reprise (by the oh hellos), you of the light (from the fire emblem: fates soundtrack), the royal we (by silversun pickups), the last of the real ones (by fall out boy), alight (storm) (from the fire emblem: fates soundtrack), where is your rider (by the oh hellos), enishi (from the fire emblem: fates soundtrack)

[pkmnjesus]

P J’s ranking of Pokémon movies (Top 5)

                                                     *DISCLAIMER REGARDING MY RANKINGS*

#5 Pokémon: Lucario and the Mystery of Mew (Original Japanese title: Pocket Monsters Advanced Generation the Movie - Mew and the Wave Hero: Lucario) *8th Pokémon movie*

Personal thoughts and why you should watch this movie: And from the Advanced department, we have my favorite right here! Any movie with cute Mew in it automatically goes to the top, but that isn’t really why I liked this movie. This movie is first time we laid eyes on the aura Pokémon, Lucario. Eventually we see Lucario lots of times in the main-core anime used by many different trainers DP and beyond. The story of Sir Aaron’s legend and renaissance theme (the outfits, tournament, dancing) is why I love this movie so much. The bond that Lucario had with him is implanted in Lucario’s aura and cannot be forgotten. His relationship with Ash had a rocky start, but eventually softened up after seeing how much Ash is determined to find Pikachu until its death sacrificing himself to the Tree of Beginning. AND THE REGIS…THE LEGENDARY TITANS! My goodness were they intimidating with their super strength and robotic sounds (as they should!). The scene where blobs in the cave sucking in everyone was pretty scary as well. Lodd summers is one of my favorite movie exclusive character with that cool chick sass <3 And on a production side of things, this was also the final movie with the original 4Kids voices. Moving forward from this movie with the new voices really did take a while to adjust to back then, but I’m totally fine with it now.

#4 Pokémon Heroes: Latios & Latias (Original Japanese title: Pocket Monsters the Movie - Guardian Gods of the City of Water: Latias and Latios; a.k.a., The Guardians of Altomare) *5th Pokémon movie*

Personal thoughts and why you should watch this movie: My memory with this movie is a bit blurry since it’s been so many years since I’ve seen it, but I remember Latias’s liking towards Ash was super cute, especially when she would transform herself into looking like Bianca. The infamous tease at the end that questioned fans if Ash got kissed by Bianca or Latias is still a mystery to this day. The the animators did that intentionally (you can see Bianca’s hat being left behind in her room) that got everyone thinking. I still think it was Latias, and Bianca probably really did forget her hat, though she could be the one that drew the nice sketch for Ash…unless Latias learn how to draw? AHHH ANYWAY! Moving on from that topic, Annie and Oakley, a.k.a. Team Rocket baes, served as the villains with their skeleton Gundam device (forgot what it’s actually called lol) that held poor Latias & Latios hostage. They really weren’t much of a threat but they were focused with their objective that made an even bigger threat to the water city of Alto Mare…A TSUNAMI! Also this movie featured the the first ever permanent death of a Pokémon…which Latios ;_; It became a beautiful new Soul Dew to protect the city.

#3 Pokémon: The First Movie - Mewtwo Strikes Back (Original Japanese title: Pocket Monsters the Movie: Mewtwo’s Counterattack, a.k.a. Pocket Monsters the Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back!) *1st EVER Pokémon movie*

Personal thoughts and why you should watch this movie: IT’S THE FIRST MOVIE DUH…nostalgia man I can’t even lie about it. I didn’t see it in theaters but mom got me VHS tape for my 5th birthday, and I remember watching it a lot as a kid using the VHS rewinder (remember those?). I now have the Blu-Ray version (along with movie 2 and 3) of it and seeing it again recently made me realize it was a good movie but not that great compared to others (nostalgia aside), but it was iconic and I know I needed it to be in my Top 5. I loved the storytelling of Mewtwo’s anger and pain towards humans. It would have been even better if they included the sad Amber flashback, but it was only seen in the Japanese version. They truly made Mewtwo OP proving it be the most powerful Pokémon ever. The highlight of the entire movie is when Mewtwo’s buffed clone Pokémon faces off against real Pokémon from trainers. Fergus is probably my favorite trainer from this movie with his water Pokémon team (in which Mewtwo rekt) Also the battle between Mew vs. Mewtwo gave us the most depressing scene of Ash turning into stone. That scene a lone already an iconic “90s kid” symbol that any old school Pokémon fan would recognize. When I recently watched the movie with my friend, HE STILL CRIED..a grown man in his 20s Ladies and Gentlemen that’s how powerful this scene was to us who grew up with it. It’s also good to mention that this is possibly the only canon movie with the main-core anime, as this ties with the episode when Ash got his Earth badge. This movie also got a special sequel afterwards in “Mewtwo Returns” where we got to see a kinder side of Mewtwo after the mistakes he made in the first movie. (which I own on VHS too). I could honestly go on and talk about this movie but I just wanted to make this brief…for new fans that haven’t seen it yet, just go watch it!

#2 Pokémon the Movie 2000: The Power of One (Original Japanese title: Pocket Monsters the Movie - Mirage Pokémon: Lugia’s Explosive Birth; a.k.a. Revelation-Lugia) *2nd Pokémon movie* (ha it’s ranked #2)

Personal thoughts and why you should watch this movie: Probably watched this movie MORE THAN ANY OTHER POKÉMON movie! Funny story is that I actually borrowed my cousin’s DVD of this movie, and I NEVER RETURNED IT for like 2-3 years, I think? Legendary birds were my favorite growing up (even more than Mewtwo) so I was really happy to see them get their own movie along with Lugia. I really liked the concept of Ash going into each island putting the spheres back into place. Lawrence III’s flying ship was one of my favorite things about that movie because of how it was beautifully animated for something that was released in the year 2000. This was also the only movie Tracey was featured in, but the focus was more on Ash, Misty and Melody. Way before Latias (or Serena), she was actually the first girl to kiss Ash on the cheek. Throughout the movie Misty was jealous of Melody but eventually found camaraderie with Ash’s stubbornness haha! And thanks to that friendship, they were able to save Ash when he was unconscious in the middle of the sea. Melody’s tune of Lugia’s song is something that definitely needs to be heard! This movie feels like a tradition to me, I need to at least watch it ONCE A YEAR.

#1 Pokémon 3: The Movie - Spell of the Unown: Entei (Original Japanese title: Pocket Monsters the Movie - Emperor of the Crystal Tower: Entei; a.k.a. Lord of the “Unknown” Tower) *3rd Pokémon movie*

Personal thoughts and why you should watch this movie: My FAVORITE MOVIE <3 This isn’t really a surprise for those that see my tags when I reblog GIFs from this movie. I just like the story of a Entei becoming Molly’s dad…a fairy tale come to life! Molly Hale is probably my favorite movie exclusive character EVER. TO THIS DAY, Molly is my #1 character I wish they would bring up in the main-core anime so that we could get more history between her family relationship with Ash’s. All Molly wanted was a mother, and you can’t really hate her as one of the antagonists (though she really isn’t) because of how innocent her intentions are. With her dad suddenly disappearing, and no one to play with her, she was desperate to have a complete family again. The real antagonists, the Unown (CGI looked pretty scary on them…was actually scared of Unown as a kid seeing this movie) got to being her “friends” and granted her a Papa in the form of an Entei which is based on one of the stories her dad read to her. The dream scenes were excellent showcasing her fantasies in each floor at different ages. For Ash this was an adventure to save his mother, after being kidnapped by Entei. My favorite part in the movie was when Charizard returned (was already staying at the Charicific Valley during these events) I JUMPED AND YELLED AS AN 8 YEAR OLD WATCHING THIS. With Ash on his back, they chased and fought Entei through the crystal terrain. This movie literally only had 1 legendary (and it’s not even a real one) but it still delivered a great tale of adventure, fantasy, loneliness, and the most important theme of all…FAMILY.

All movie ranking posts: 20-16 | 15-11 | 10-6 | Top 5

Movie 21 and beyond…

So who here is as crazy as me watching ALL 20 movies throughout the course of his/her life since 1999? Well, I’m still GOING!

As a new era of Pokémon movies come in the next few years, starting with the unnamed 2018 movie premiering this July in Japan, we can only hope that Ash stays alive in all of them, and that every story, battle and adventure is as hype and beautifully animated as all the movies have been over past 20 years. I will probably have to update my list in the next 5 years lol

I’M READY BOYZ (and galz)

[thewritingsofafemalehunter]

Unknown Part Two

Tags: @donnaintx , @clea-nightingale

Warnings: blood, swearing, werewolf

Word count: 3201

Pairings: Jensen Ackles x Reader, (eventual) Dean x Reader

(Y/N) collapsed onto her bed with a satisfied groan her entire body was stiff and sore from spending all day in a variety of chairs taking midterms for several hours, and on top of that, she was mentally drained from it all as well. She yawned as she stretched cracking a few of her joints in the process which caused her to moan in satisfaction at doing so. Sitting up she rolled her neck, before standing up, all she really wanted to do right now was to curl up on her bed and sleep for the rest of the day that wasn’t going to happen though until she put on her pj's. 

“Hey, you still up?” Jensen’s voice sounded through the door and she jumped slightly at his sudden appearance.

“Yeah I’m still up, you can come in if you want.” She called out as she walked over to her dresser and pulled open the first drawer searching for her pajamas.

“I’m a little surprised that you’re still up actually.” Jensen’s voice filled the room and (Y/N) looked over her shoulder at him as he stepped into the room her heart spiking a little at the sight of him and she mentally slapped herself for her heart doing that.

“Well I wouldn’t be if I had just worn my pajamas to my tests today but I hadn’t so here I am, anyways what do you want?” (Y/N) asked turning back to her dresser to continue looking for her clean pajamas.

“I was wondering if you wanted pizza for supper tonight or if you were up for it?” He asked and (Y/N) glanced over her shoulder at him to see him leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Pizza night and chilling on the couch?” (Y/N) suggested and Jensen smiled at her nodding his head.

“Sound perfect to me, the usual pizza toppings?” He asked and (Y/N) nodded smiling at him.

“Fantastic, now leave me to get dressed in better clothes.” She fake commanded and he gave her a little sarcastic bow before he backed out of the room and closed the door behind him. Smiling to herself (Y/N) pulled out her largest pair of sweatpants that she owned which happened to be a pair that she stole from Jensen Junior year of college after they decided to get an apartment together to help each other pay rent. Next, she pulled out one of her long sleeve shirts and quickly changed into those, a small sigh of satisfaction leaving her when she took off her bra and threw on the shirt. Fully dressed she grabbed one of her blankets off her bed before walking out of her room and into the kitchen just as Jensen was hanging up the phone.

“Alright, we’ve got thirty minutes to finish getting ready,” Jensen said upon noticing her and she saluted.

“Aye captain! I’ll prepare the drinks, you go get change.” (Y/N) stated and Jensen nodded once.

“Excellent plan soldier.” He said and he started walking to his room. (Y/N) giggled at the extra swagger he put in his steps as he walked to his room and she rolled her eyes, throwing her blanket over her shoulder she walked over to the fridge. Opening it up she grabbed a beer for Jensen and then went about making herself a hot chocolate. Minutes later (Y/N) was curled up on the couch with a blanket over her lap, a steaming mug of hot chocolate in her hands, two plates and a bottle of beer on the coffee table in front of her, with the TV playing some random tv show that she was too lazy to change.

“Well don’t you just look comfy?” She turned her attention towards Jensen as he walked into the living room sitting down beside her and she smiled at him.

“Oh, I am very much so, care to join me?” She asked lifting up the blanket with one hand and Jensen hesitated for a moment in thought before he slid over towards her and took the hot chocolate mug out of her hand and set it down on the coffee table. Before he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her against him, throwing the blanket over his lap while she snuggled into his side. (Y/N) sighed in content as she laid her head on his shoulder wrapping her arms around him as he grabbed the remote and wrapped an arm around her the two of them happily cuddled up on the couch watching some random horror movie.

A blissful smile spread across (Y/N)’s face as she watched the movie the stress from today seemingly melting away in that moment like it so often did when she and Jensen spent time together. There was always something about Jensen that to her felt like home and it just wasn’t the fact that they had grown up together, there was just something else there. There was something about him that just not only seemed to feel like home to her every time she was with him, but that seemed to always calm her down as well whenever she was on the point of breaking down from school or stress or life in general. And whatever that something was for the life of her she couldn’t figure out what it was that caused that in her, sometimes she thought that it was just because they had grown up together but most of the time she knew that wasn’t it. She chuckled when Jensen jumped beside her at a sudden jump scare from the murder.

“Don’t laugh at me!” Jensen whined poking her, which only caused (Y/N) to laugh more.

“I’m sorry but it’s funny.” (Y/N) said as she looked up at him smiling and he rolled his eyes, faking a great deal of his annoyance with her.

“I don’t understand how you aren’t scared by horror movies.” He grumbled and (Y/N) shrugged or at least made a small motion that would have been a shrug if she wasn’t currently leaning against Jensen’s side.

“I just don’t find them all that scary, I mean if you break down the movies like half if not all of the jump scares in them are exactly the same and always happen around the same time no matter what movie you’re watching. Plus humans who are hard to kill aren’t scary.” (Y/N) said removing herself from his side and grabbing her hot chocolate off the table while he stood up to answer the door.

“You’re only saying that because you’re a mythology major who has read about things a thousand times worse than a machete-wielding kid who didn’t get hugged enough as a child,” Jensen said before he answered the door and (Y/N) chuckled looking over the back of the couch at him.

“See you know they’re not scary too, and yet you get scared by sudden jump scares. Hey Misha!” (Y/N) called lifting up a hand and waving at him when Jensen opened the door.

“Hey (Y/N), long time no see, how are midterms coming?” He asked and (Y/N) faked a shiver.

“Hey! No shop talk! This is pizza and horror movie relax night, there will be no talking about those accursed tests.” Jensen said in an overdramatic way that had (Y/N) giggling.

“Yeah what he said.” She responded and Misha laughed, shaking his head.

“Of course, of course, shame on me. Anyways that’ll be $15.90.” Misha said and Jensen nodded pulling out his wallet and giving him a twenty.

“Keep the change man, I’ll see you tomorrow for football practice?” Jensen asked and Misha nodded.

“Yep see you tomorrow, hope you get better (Y/N),” Misha said as he leaned around Jensen and waved (Y/N) waved back.

“Thanks, Mish! Next time try to take thirty minutes!” (Y/N) shouted back and Misha laughed.

“Ah no thanks, I like my job, throw some traffic my way and then maybe!” He shouted back and Jensen laughed as he closed the door behind Misha as he walked off.

“You know that’s a good idea maybe we should find a way to do that next time.” (Y/N) said as she stood up from the couch and walked towards the kitchen grabbing some paper plates out of the cupboard before returning to the living room as Jensen was setting down the pizza.

“And what have cold pizza? No thank you.” He said as he took the plate that (Y/N) offered him.

“What are you talking about? You eat cold pizza all the time?” She stated her stomach growled as she watched him open the pizza box revealing the (f/p/t) topped heaven.

“Yeah in the morning, not when I order it.” Jensen shot back as he took some slices before plopping back down beside her.

“Fine, fine, fair enough.” She muttered leaning forward and grabbing a couple of slices while Jensen hit play on the movie. Sitting back up she settled into the couch with her pizza in her lap watching as the chick in the movie ran away from the killer.

(Y/N) its heart was beating rapidly in her chest as she pushed herself faster and she could hear her blood rushing through her ears as she pushed herself faster and faster. She had to get away, had to get somewhere safe and regroup, had to find a way out of this situation. Behind her, she could hear the werewolf crashing after her as she leads it through back alleys away from the major part of the city. Narrowly (Y/N) took a corner and ducked into the back of a random building only to come into the back of a small restaurant or cafe kitchen. Chest heaving she looked around at the kitchen, so far no one had noticed that she was standing with her back pressed against the door. Weapon. She needed a weapon. Nothing in here was going to help her in here but she just needed something to defend herself until they could catch up if they ever found her. On the other side of the door, she could hear the werewolf crashing through the alleyway and she took a couple more deep breath before dashing forward into the kitchen.

“Sorry! I need to borrow this!” I shouted as I grabbed a knife off the counter.

“Hey! Thief!” One of the chef’s shouted but (Y/N) didn’t stick around to get caught by them as she rushed back out into the alleyway, banging the door closed behind her.

“Hey! Ugly!” (Y/N) shouted squaring her shoulders and standing her ground as she looked at the werewolf who’s attention whipped towards me.

“There she is!” The door to the kitchen whipped open and a bunch of the chef’s hurried out into the alleyway.

“Get back you idiots!” (Y/N) shouted glaring at them as the werewolf snarled and slowly started advancing towards me. The chef’s looked towards the werewolf and all of them screamed and hurried back inside, (Y/N) rolled her eyes at them she turned her attention back towards the werewolf.

“Come and get me.” She motioned with the knife and the werewolf roared, pure and animalistic rage as it launched towards her. (Y/N) ducked away from the attack, slashing out in a wide arch as she did cutting the werewolf in the stomach, she rolled to the side when she hit the ground and jumped into a crouching position as the werewolf turned back to her a snarl on its face. (Y/N) didn’t let the werewolf make the next move as she launched herself at the werewolf taking it by surprise as she tackled it to the ground. Raising the knife she quickly brought it down, stabbing it in the shoulder, there was no way she could kill it with the kitchen knife all she could do was piss it off and make sure to keep its attention on her. The werewolf clawed at her as she rolled off of it catching her in the side and tearing into her shirt and skin, white-hot pain flared in her side and she forced her scream into a hiss as she landed on her knees. For a few life-threatening seconds, she stayed there kneeling and trying to overcome the pain while the werewolf struggled to pull the knife out of its shoulder.

Composing herself, (Y/N) forced herself to stand up there was nothing she could do about the wound in her side she still had to get away as fast as she could. She still had to get somewhere safe this little act may have cost her a shirt and given her a wound but it brought her just a little more time. Pressing a hand against her side she began to run again, heading towards the road since that was the most likely place they would be. Behind her, she could hear the werewolf snarling and then a loud bang as the knife was throw away from it and into a nearby dumpster.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit.” (Y/N) cursed. Her strides slowing as she ran the action causing her to lose more blood than she should be and she could sense the werewolf getting closer. She had just reached the end of the alleyway, the light from one of the streetlamps illuminating the entrance to the alleyway, aided by the lights from the restaurant. The next thing (Y/N) knew as she entered the ring of light, she was on the ground and the pain in her side was renewed tenfold. Above her, the werewolf dug its claws into her shoulders and she struggled against it but that just forced the claws in further, her breath was ragged as she struggled to breathe through the pain and the blood loss as black dots clouded her vision. Hot, moist, breath fanned out against the back of her neck causing her hair to stand on end and she felt a drop of saliva land on her neck. If she had the energy she would have felt disgusted but at this point, she wasn’t even sure if she could feel her fingers let alone an emotion. Distantly she heard someone shouting her name and then the sound of a gunshot just as the darkness overcame her.

“(Y/N)! (Y/N)! Come on wake up! Wake up!” Jensen’s voice was full of worry as he gently shook (Y/N) attempting to wake her up. (Y/N) it's eyes snapped open and she sat up suddenly her heart pounding and her chest heaving, her eyes were wide and frantic as she looked around the apartment like she expected the werewolf to suddenly show up and her hand flew to her side expecting to feel the wound there but there was nothing. With her hand still on her side, she began to calm down as she came back to reality the dream fading to the back of her mind as she looked back at Jensen who was watching her with a worried expression.

“(Y/N) are you ok?” He asked and (Y/N) stared at him for a few more seconds mentally telling herself that it was just a dream, none of it was real, but god had it felt real.

“Y-Yeah I’m fine.” She finally said and Jensen looked at her skeptical.

“You sure? You were moving around like you had a nightmare.” His voice was calm and soothing as he reached out and placed a warm hand on her surprisingly cold shoulder. (Y/N) hesitated before nodding.

“Yes, I’m sure……….I think I’m just going to head to bed Jay.” She told him her voice small and soft as she stood up.

“Alright, need me to do anything?” He asked and gently she shook her head.

“No, I’ll be fine on my own, I’ll see you in the morning. Good night.” (Y/N) said and he nodded.

“Alright, goodnight (Y/N), let me know if you need anything.” He said watching as she walked to her room and she gave him a thumbs up over her shoulder before entering her room and collapsing on her bed. (Y/N) didn’t end up falling asleep though, instead she laid there under her blankets and staring up at the ceiling above her, the dream replaying before her mind’s eye and for some insane reason she couldn’t shake the feeling that it seemed familiar to her like she had seen it before, or experienced it before. Which was crazy because none of that was real it was all just a dream.

~Elsewhere~

“How’s she doing?” Dean asked as he walked into his rooms, his eyes briefly going over Sam before landing on the sleeping form of his girlfriend and staying there. Sam looked up from his laptop and over at Dean who was standing in the doorway a cup of coffee in his hand, and Sam had to admit Dean looked a little more rested than he had a few hours ago which was good.

“Nurse came in and told me that she’s doing fine physically but there’s been no significant change in her brain activity,” Sam informed him and a disgruntled sigh left him as he ran his fingers through his hair.

“Son of a bitch.” Sam gave his brother an apologetic look as he looked towards the bed again. He missed his best friend the bunker didn’t feel the same without her, it was lonely and quiet without her, without Dean for that matter because he hadn’t left her side since this all happened. That was another thing, while he was hurting he was sure that Dean had to be hurting more there was no way he wasn’t, this was the love of his life they were talking about. At least Sam was pretty sure she was the love of Dean’s life, he had never seen Dean act the way he does around her when he’s around other girls.

“I’m sorry Dean,” Sam said as he closed his laptop and stood up from the chair but his words seemed to bounce off of Dean as he walked into the room and took his usual seat at her bedside. Sam walked up to his brother and patted him on the shoulder.

“I’ll go and get you a change of clothes, and some deodorant, you could use it,” Sam stated trying to get some sort of reaction out of Dean.

“I don’t smell but thanks, Sam,” Dean responded, leaning back in his seat. Not exactly the rise he was looking for but at this point, Sam would take it, it was better than anything else he’d gotten since this all happened anyway. With a heavy sigh, Sam walked out of the room to head back to the silent empty bunker, and he couldn’t help but stop outside the cathedral sending a silent prayer to God hoping that just once he would listen because lord knows that he and Dean needed a miracle at this point.

[oddyssea-a]

━━━   CHARACTER   DETAIL.

GENERAL .

NAME.    Karter Anderson Cornelius Kane Fengaropolous NICKNAME(S).     Taz, Kart, Kane, Shrimp ( Johnny Anderson Only ) AGE.     25 SPECIES.     Human

PERSONAL .

MORALITY.     lawful  /  neutral / chaotic.     ━━━ good  /  neutral  / evil. RELIGIOUS BELIEF.   Loose practice Buddhist SINS.     envy  /  greed  / lust  /  gluttony  /  sloth  /  pride  / wrath VIRTUES.     chastity  / humility  /  charity /  diligence /  kindness /  patience  /  temperance. PRIMARY GOALS IN LIFE. To make his legacy LANGUAGES KNOWN.     FLUENT- English, Greek, Spanish SECRETS.     Too many to count SAVVIES.     treasure hunting, being a grade A asshole, climbing

PHYSICAL .

BUILD.     scrawny  /  bony  /  slender  / fit /  athletic /  curvy  /  herculean  /  pudgy  /  average  /  muscled. HEIGHT.     5ft 8 in HAIR.   messy, curly, often times disheveled SCARS / BIRTHMARKS.     single scar across the bridge of his nose, a scar on his right eye brow, numerous bullet hole scars ABILITIES / POWERS.    Quick, gifted with History, Mythology & Treasure Hunting, excellent climber RESTRICTIONS.     tinnitus effecting his general hearing, PTSD, short

FAVOURITES .

FOOD. Chili Cheese Fries DRINK.    Vodka PIZZA TOPPING.     Pepperoni COLOR(S).     navy, silver, dark brown, gold MUSIC GENRE.    50′s classics BOOK GENRE.     history MOVIE GENRE.     mystery SEASONS.     fall SCENT(S).    cigarettes , blood, dirt, freshly fired guns, sweat

FUN STUFF .

SINGS IN THE SHOWER.     Occasionally LIKES BAD PUNS.     N o p e CURSE WORDS.     All of them

tagging; Anyone who wants to!  tagged by: borrowed from @lcstthief