#what i have to do to get it back) is like. zero. but anyways i have to go to college without a phone

[drdemonprince]

am i being stupid by refusing to invest any of my money? i just don’t find it ethical (lots of people have 0 idea what theyre actually invested in with typical low risk investments and it would actually drive me nuts to have to investigate every single thing thats on there) and i also have zero faith in the stability of the economy or the world i just literally don’t trust like that. and fear that with climate change i’m not going to have a traditional future or retirement anyway. is this incredibly stupid i’m being so genuine because i dont know

I think your ethical concerns are totally reasonable. Any investment in the stock market is pretty inherently fraught, even if you choose index funds that exclude the especially bad stocks of like firearms/military contractors/etc. Even something like a bond can be easily said to be bad, because it's a loan to the government, and most money market or high yield savings are not untainted either, because most banks themselves invest in fucked up shit like oil pipelines. The one avenue I think that would be mostly okay is a high yield savings account for a credit union, or a bank that you've researched and know doesn't invest in that kind of shady shit. I have also argued previously that it's not wrong to invest in an apartment or house -- as long as you're not landlording, vulnerable people having more secure housing and the ability to share that housing with others in their community is good and understandable. So on balance, I get where you are coming from, though I think having a financial safety net makes people less likely to have to take on unethical jobs and makes them less vulnerable to financial abuse and exploitation, which has merit ethically.

I tend to see the doomerism question a bit differently. If the US empire falls or the economy collapses, you'll either have much bigger problems than your 401k bottoming out (problems like the complete obliteration of the supply chain), OR we will be living in a financial paradigm so dramatically different and more just that you wont MIND that you dont have that money anymore. Whereas if the US economy continues to exist, you're gonna be fucked if you dont have a retirement to fall back on, so why make yourself needlessly more vulnerable by not saving? The ethical rub with this, though, is that it creates the moral hazard of rooting for the US empire and economy to never fall, and that rendering you more conservative... which is a possibility, but like, as i said, i think it's possible to have some money saved for a rainy day under capitalism while still praying for capitalism's downfall. if anything, being more financially independent makes it EASIER for me to risk unemployment & etc by doing more radical political actions and speaking my mind and saying no to things. but ymmv

[aingeal98]

Arcane spoilers and musing

It's so interesting to me that Vi and Jinx are both not big picture people, always focused on their loved ones around them, meanwhile everyone else in the cast from Ekko to Cait to Mel have ideals and ambitions to shape society. Vi and Jinx are both aware of their place in society of course and they have thoughts and feelings about it, but it's not what drives them for 99% of the story. Jinx blows up a bridge full of enforcers and hums the song she sang to distract herself when years ago on the very same bridge enforcers killed her parents. And yet she wouldn't be doing any of it if not to get the gemstone back, which she only really wants as a means to prove to Silco that she can be strong and useful and deserving of her place by his side. Her drive is all personal and focused on the people around her, the karmic retribution towards the enforcers is a nice bit of icing on the cake.

Similarly Vi grew up hating and resenting topside but the one time she lead others in a decision to steal from them the resulting domino effect left her so weighed down by guilt that she has spent the rest of her life desperately trying to protect her loved ones from more hurt and harm and either failing or getting rejected by said loved ones every time. She is driven by guilt and the determination to make things right and being unable to see beyond that has now left her with no one and nothing. She was living for Powder and Powder said I'm a monster called Jinx now that you created. She was living to stop that monster and make things right for Caitlyn because Jinx deliberately kidnapped Cait due to her bond with Vi, and that led her to ignore every red flag and cross every moral line only to get rejected by Cait anyways. She can't go back to Ekko after what she and the enforcers did. She has no one now.

And their S2 arcs are so interesting to me because Vi finally hits rock bottom, zero hope, and now has to find a reason to start living for herself. Her decision to just make a living fighting and drinking away the pain makes so much sense but I'm so curious how they're going to get her out of that pit of self loathing and depression.

Meanwhile Jinx has accidentally tripped her way into becoming a revolutionairy symbol due to personal hijinxs and spite. Which is amazing. You never focused on the greater implications of your actions and harmed your community for years but congrats you're an inspiration and a figurehead now. You mean something on your own. There's no one person, Vi or Silco or Mylo, who you need to prove yourself to. Everyone is now determined to prove themselves to be like YOU. How do you handle that?

(sidenote if I was Ekko I would be so salty like what do you mean I spent years actually helping my community with a vision for a better Zaun fighting against both Silco and enforcers, and these two sisters who I know for a fact are nowhere near as committed to Zaun as I am and have both actively harmed citizens accidentally spark a revolution while working out family drama. Cool cool cool fuck you all I'm inventing time travel.)

[noonaishere]

Online/Offline [C.S] - one hundred and three | I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing

“Aww!” You said as you spawned in and saw that Virtual Byeol was on the floor next to your bed. “Our digital furbaby!”

San spawned in a second later. “Oh she of ones and zeroes~” he sang.

“She of ones and zeroes~” you echoed.

You both laughed.

“Shall we take a tour about the grounds, my former fake boyfriend?” You asked.

“Mmm, indubitably,” he said like a fancy rich man.

“Do they have monocles in this game? You need one.”

He laughed.

The two of you walked around your palatial estate and checked on everything. The world was on the Realms servers, so it’s not like anything could change since neither of you had logged on since the last time you played together on stream, but it was nice to see that everything was in its place. You, also: didn’t remember exactly where everything was, and you wanted to get a look at it all to refresh yourself.

“Hmm.” He said.

“What?”

“I think I want to change the garden a little.”

“Why’s that?”

“Youtube recommended a video to do a kind of… hanging gardens thing, and I kind of want to do that with some of it.”

“Ooh, that sounds nice. Do you want to send me the video and we can start working on it?”

“Oh-- yeah. Do you want to change everything? I remember you liked the way it was before.”

“A lot has changed between then and now. I’m up for a remodel.”

You couldn’t tell, but because he paused for a moment before saying, “Okay,” you thought he might have smiled. 

The two of you got to work: he sent you the video to watch, but he streamed it privately for you to see anyway. The two of you making note of what you wanted to do and where it should go in the landscape.

“You know… what I think?” You asked.

“You hate it?”

“What? No! I already told you I liked it.” You laughed.

“Then what are you thinking?”

“Wait a second, why did you think I’d hate it?”

“Because it’s kind of a project.”

“You-- you’re silly. Were you not involved in my months-long sting operation?”

He laughed. “Yeah, I guess you’re not afraid of complicated things.”

“I invented complicated things, pal. The world was so simple before I showed up.”

He laughed again.

You chuckled at him. How could he have forgotten your - if anyone else knew about it - most famous antic so quickly?

“So what were you thinking?”

“I’m thinking… The hanging gardens will cover the house, right? Like if you look at it from far away.”

“Mhm. Should we not do it then?”

“NO. We should, but we raise the house as well.”

“Raise… the house?” His avatar moved away from you and ran backwards a few - whatever the in-game equivalent of yards is - as he looked at the front of your house. He stared at it a few more seconds before turning back to you--

“This is very dramatic.”

“The suggestion makes me feel dramatic.”

You laughed at him.

He looked back at the house and back at you. “You realize this would mean changing everything about it, right? We’ll have to break all the lower blocks just to move it up.”

“Yeah. But I think we can do it.”

He looked at the house again.

“We have nothing in the world but time. And you don’t stream anymore so how else are we supposed to hang out outside of work?”

“True… we could just hang out in person.”

“That’s true too. But I like building things with you.”

He paused. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Let’s do it.”

“Yesss!” You ran towards the house. “Com’on, let’s break shit!”

“Wait! We need a plan!”

Somewhere in the neighborhood of two hours later, the two of you were breaking blocks to redo the garden, since that would be the easier of the two projects. The house itself would need a big replanning that you might actually have to break out a pencil and paper for. Breaking blocks was easy at least.

You talked about anything and everything as you both ran around tak-tak-tak-pop!-ing blocks. 

“Yeah, so apparently she’s liked him this whole time.” 

“Woww…”

The conversation lulled into a comfortable silence, and you knew now was the moment where you could finally bring up what you wanted to talk about.

“So, uh, I wanted to ask you about something I was told.” You started. tak-tak-tak-pop!

“...Oh.” tak-tak-tak-pop!

“‘Oh’? Why do you sound like you know what it is?” tak-tak-tak-pop!

“Because… you had to find out at some point.” tak-tak-tak-pop!

tak-tak-tak-pop! “Uh-- did I?”

tak-tak-tak-pop! “Yeah.”

“Well, you haven’t said anything this whole time, so…” tak-tak-tak-pop! “I guess?”

“I guess.” tak-tak-tak-pop! “But with Quack around, it was bound to happen.”

You paused. “Wait, I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing.”

tak-tak-tak-pop! “I-- no?”

“What are you talking about?”

“What are you talking about?” tak-tak-tak-pop!

“I asked first, you have to answer.”

“I… I thought we were talking about how I’ve been watching your streams for years.” tak-tak-tak-pop!

You were silent. You heard a few more tak-tak-tak-pop!s as you stared at San’s avatar and processed what he had said. The noise stopped. He turned to you. 

“Y/n?”

“WHAT???”

   previous | main cast | masterlist | next

a/n: The penultimate secret! What will she think about it?

Send an ask or leave a comment if you want to be added to the tag list! 🧋 Any comments, reblogs, or asks are appreciated! I love talking with you guys and seeing what you’re saying about the chapters, it keeps me going 🥰

@rachs-words • @stayatinykatsy • @dinossaurz​​ • @conwunder​ • @tinyelfperson​​ • @anythingrelatingtojinyoung​ • @jaytheatiny •

[joyride-time]

Why’d Gil Snitch On Tarvek: Theories

Gil inherited a few things from Klaus. One of them is a tendency to avoid expositing. Among other things, he’s very closemouthed about his childhood. Because of this, we don’t know much about Gil as a kid or his mindset from Gil himself.

So why did he snitch on Tarvek about his intel stash and believe Klaus was right about him for over a decade? Some theories:

1. He’s Just Not That Into Him Theory

Why does Gil refuse to believe Agatha is the Other, but decide his father is right about Tarvek when they got caught looking for Gil’s family tree? Occam’s Razor (that thing can cut through anything!): Gil didn’t like Tarvek as much as he likes Agatha.

It’s hard to disprove it because there's no one else to scale Gil's relationships with back then except Von Pinn and Klaus, whose relationship with Gil is totally different. Gil didn’t know Agatha as long as he knew Tarvek at those points, but you can like someone you don’t know. Nothing requires Gil to have liked Tarvek as much as Agatha. Tarvek was Gil’s best friend… out of zero other friends. How much does Gil have to like and trust Tarvek to recruit him for the family tree search? Who knows. Tarvek is the one who cracked the safe in the flashback, and we don’t know if Gil could do that himself back then. The information they were searching for was something Gil probably wanted to tell everyone anyways. And they have their Paris interactions to get to know each other better in the future.

2. Klaus-Gil Dynamic Swing Theory

Klaus is always right… that’s something Gil doesn’t seem to have questioned before he discovers Klaus’ mistake with Agatha. At seven years old, Gil trusts Klaus’ judgment more than his own. At twenty-two years old, Gil is more critical of taking everything Klaus says at face value. He’s also got a whole decade of change and growth behind him. In Book 2 Gil and Theo have this exchange: “You sounded just like the Gil I grew up with.” “I’m not,” Gil said flatly. “Too many things have changed. I’ll never be that person again.” He smiled and punched Theo in the arm. “But I can remember the important bits.”

So it's a different Gil making different judgment calls.

3. Suspicious Sturmvoraus Theory

It’s Tarvek. Even when they’re on better terms Gil (and Agatha) are suspicious about him working at multiple purposes. Tarvek initially approached Gil to make him his minion at the age of seven. Tarvek also thinks that Klaus told Gil about Tarvek’s family, so Tarvek himself may have told Gil very little about them, or censored what he did share. If so, having a sudden info dump about their many sins probably didn’t help anything. We also don’t know what kind of schemes Tarvek got into where Gil could see them, but Gil does know that he got a secret hiding spot. And that he’s extremely good at lying. So he looked at Tarvek and decided yeah, he's probably lying to him.

4. Trust Issues Theory

Before Tarvek, Gil had really poor relationships with his peers. Or at least, any positive ones he used to have were broken off. Present day Gil is a very friendly guy, so it wouldn’t surprise me if Gil tried to make friends… maybe even succeeded… and then they fell apart. If so, it wouldn’t be strange if part of Gil was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Something made Gil want to custom-build his own, very dependent friend construct. Definitely not a surfeit of healthy relationships with his peers.

5. Perceived Vulnerability Theory

Agatha needs protection from what Gil can see in the first arc. She’s a female Spark in an Europa where they all disappear if not well-protected. He meets her at one of her lowest points and works to build her up. Their second meeting had him pluck her from her house after she got sedated. She gets more dangerous afterwards, but Klaus does a poor job at explaining things and is very clear that leveling the town she's in to kill her is an option. Tarvek is a prince and the son of a powerful Spark, on a ship where both qualities are enormously important to their peers. They may be hostages but neither felt very endangered by it. Book 4 also states that Gil had “done his best at the time to get Tarvek sent away”, which could just be referring to ratting him out, but could also be a sign that Klaus’ first impulse was not to send Tarvek back to his family, which makes Tarvek seem even less in danger. Gil thinks if he sides against Tarvek Tarvek will just get sent back home, where he’ll continue to be a prince… and how bad can that be? Whereas with Agatha he saw a little fledgling who was going to be someone’s personal property fighting hard to avoid that. They're very different perspectives.

I'm curious what other people's theories are, so please share if you feel like it.

[tinystepsforward]

ngl it makes me want to die a little bit that it's so often trans people who feel that sex is mutable but oppression is always-forever based on asab in ways that allow them to demand that information from other trans people. like it feels fucking bad. it feels bad when it's people holding up someone who posts a lot of selfies as transition goals to a degree they have to clarify what they have or haven't done or what "direction" they're going in, it feels worse when people are out there like "caster semenya is not tma" or whatever the fuck. i am, as always, not a trans woman, but here's a sentiment echoed by many of the trans women around me who log the fuck off, quoted directly from one: "people who draw a clear line where they say that semenya or khelif are tme and then call me tma are just calling me male at this point".

like i get it. i really do. we seek community and shared experiences, and we feel betrayed when people have less in common with us than we thought they did. [*more on this later.] but that's not those people's faults and my god in the case i'm seeing play out on twitter rn this poor person did absolutely nothing to intentionally mislead people, just posted pictures of their actual kid self. who looks a lot like i did, because shockingly enough "we can always tell" doesn't fucking work for trans people either!

on the one hand i move in intersex circles which are unapologetically welcoming in cis "dyadic" people with pcos, because it serves nobody to draw a clear line where mutilation or genetics or some ineffable childhood suffering are what make somebody intersex, especially when most of us (esp in places like nz) have never been karyotyped and are being treated for symptoms without a pinned-down cause anyway. the more of us there are the stronger we are, the more pressure we can exert on a medical profession which doesn't like to consider how common outliers are, how uneasy sex is at all. and then on the other hand there's dyadic trans people on the internet who've yelled me out of spaces because a couple of traumatised incarcerated trans women i worked with as a prison abolitionist assumed i was also a trans woman and i didn't immediately tell them my entire csa-involved history of being sexed in varying ways as an infant and child and/or exactly how big my phallus was at birth or where in my junk config my urethra lives so they could decide i was tme or whatever.

returning to the * for a related but not identical thought: i think presuming shared experiences leads to some fucked shit in general! "oh we all had a radfem phase" or "oh we all were channers" no we fucking weren't and it's particularly obnoxious when me & mine are trying to build trans community locally to organise and resist the growing wave of far-right backlash against our existence, and there's just white people in there on a spectrum from "straight up being antisemitic and trying to get the n-word pass" through "handwringing about how they need to make space for people who aren't politically correct" to "handwringing about how brown people are right to be mad at them but doing shit fuckall". and then the other fucking brown people in the space are on some identity politics shit where they're like "trans joy inherently excludes those of us who could get deported" or "big city white queers are killing us by being visible instead of going stealth bc it stirs up the discourse" or whatever the fuck i've heard pulled out this year. there's a bunch of reasons i primarily organise outside of trans spaces and that's one of them. i've never felt more alone in spaces where people claim we're all the same than being left as the brownest moderator or organiser in a space full of people to whom "this is a safe trans space" apparently means they get to abdicate all other responsibilities not to lapse into presumed shared patterns that are fucking racist or otherwise alienating. i've never felt more alone than surrounded by exclusively trans people who sort people into boxes and assume everyone in those boxes has the transition goals they have. like i was on cypro until it disagreed with me to the point of endocrine crisis and now i'm on t and at both those points people were so fucking presumptive or entitled to my reasons or journey or personal relationship w my body

literally just submitted on (and was invited to consult on) the nz law commission's review of the human rights act and like. it's straight up fucked how many nz trans people fully do not comprehend that any "sex assigned at birth" type definitions fundamentally exclude migrants who have no way of proving it and many intersex people who happen to have been reassigned later or many times or never assigned at all as a baby. we can't make law with this shit and that's why we have to have symmetrical protections for all genders/sexes/expressions/presentations, bc naming and defining a protected class here often leaves the people who already are left out from those shared experiences of marginalisation out in the cold when they face violence

[lovecolibri]

Unpopular opinion time maybe. But because I have BT shit blocked to hell and back and actively avoid seeing anything they're saying if I can help it, I seem to be having the opposite experience from everyone else? Because I keep seeing the "oh, T is getting praised and adored for things the female LIs were hated for. It's such a double standard! All those women deserve apologies!" And like, fair, that praising probably is happening? But from MY side? All I'm seeing is people hating T for shit they LOVED and still love and praise Tay Kay and L for. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Like, people are still out here claiming Tay Kay should come back because her and Buck would be besties and he needs someone to call him on his shit??? As though Hen, and Maddie, and Eddie, and Bobby, and Chim aren't all RIGHT THERE, loving Buck, and gently calling him on his shit when needed?? As though having someone who calls him "needy" around would be GOOD for him? As though that woman ever gave one single fuck about anything that didn't get her a leg up on the job? Like, you CANNOT complain that T is vaguely dismissive of Buck, and then claim to miss Tay Kay who was actively SO much worse to Buck and for Buck in every single way. And we all know the only reason the firefam wasn't allowed to actually say anything about her or mention Buck looking miserable all season 5 with her was because FOX shut down the planned storyline with bi Buck, gay Eddie, and Buddie and they needed to give Buck something to do and MW came cheap so they kept her on.

It's so weird to me that half of everyone is defending T for shit they hated with the other LIs and half are throwing T under the bus for things they actively encouraged from female LIs. Because I guess watching "strong" female characters "put Buck in his place" is okay and he needs to be brought down a couple pegs by them, but T is just a mean man and dismissive and poor Buck doesn't need that???

Sorry, but I don't enjoy watching a character like Buck who we KNOW has the issues he does be brought down, dismissed, and treated badly by ANYONE, regardless of gender. Sorry, I don't think it's funny and fun to watch women talk down to him and make him feel bad about himself. Sorry, I don't think dragging others down to pull yourself up makes you a "strong" female character. ESPECIALLY in a show chock full of ACTUAL strong female characters.

ANYWAY

I am an equal opportunity hater and I will absolutely call T out for the same exact shit I called out other LIs for because I don't have a double standard, and that's my salt gremlin thought for today.

[goldensunset]

in general i roll my eyes at people who complain about all the new quality of life improvements in modern pokémon games bc inconvenience and genuine challenge are two very different things. but the one thing i would definitely agree on that i don’t like in sv is the ability to access your pc boxes any time. it sort of cheapens the experience of having to carefully choose which six pokémon you’re taking before venturing into unknown danger. like i don’t think you should be able to catch a pokémon in the depths of area zero and immediately put it in your party i think you gotta be loyal to whoever you took initially. it’s about being forced to have a plan for all outcomes

[airenyah]

it's really funny seeing everyone salty posts about the hidden agenda finale and i actually agree with everyone but the thing is!!!! i'm just vibing!!!!

i went into this show with absolutely ZERO expectations (and in fact, i would have been extremely surprised if this show ended up being actually good dkfjkfddf), i've never given a single shit about the plot and/or the writing bc i came here for the joongdunk vibes and the joongdunk vibes alone and i had a blast watching this series

like, i'm not even gonna bother criticising this drama bc from the beginning i didn't expect it to be very impressive anyway and so i'll just keep sitting here in my pile of garbage and vibing with it <3333

[airanke]

Every day I sit here or lie in bed thinking about how much purity culture destroyed me.

[bibiana112]

There's nothing wrong with people having their dearest most specialest blorbo be Eric ztd it is unironically good for the ecosystem and I always love seeing the different perspectives from other fans but what I am here today to ask is why is no one like that about Mira. whatever happened to feminism.

[raksh-writes]

Maybe this doesn’t need to be said, but Im feeling awful about it, so -- to any mutuals that might notice Im not following them anymore, I'm sorry about that. I've just seen too many posts on my dash that I have no way of blocking because they're not tagged in any way and they're distressing enough it's turning one of the only places I considered a safe space not safe for me anymore. So for my own mental health, I had to unfollow. I Will refollow in the future and I still love y'all, but I just-- I can’t. Ive been noticing some very worrying stuff about my mental and emotional state and it's just too much currently. I hope it's at least an understandable decision, and I wish y'all are having a good day out there 💗

[kavehater]

I cannot fathom the level of self importance some people must have to behave this way

[appreciatingtokrev]

the thing abt the pain my scoliosis/kyphosis causes me (mostly left side of my ribcage, then left side of my back, then left shoulder, then it slowly starts spreading to the right side + my hip, the more physical anything apart from lying i do the worse it gets) is that it started and worsened so slowly that i just. didn’t realise it. now it’s been a normal part of my life for a few years and. i hardly notice it. i hardly notice that half of my body aches. it’s normal. now that my knees hurt i’m truly aware of it for the first time in months, and— that’s not normal. it shouldn’t be normal that my ribcage & back hurt every day just because i go to school. what the hell. what the fucking hell.

[thedevotionaltour]

Daredevil #18 - "There Shall Come a Gladiator!" (May 1966)

Written by Stan Lee and Dennis O'Neil Art by John Romita Sr. (pencils), Frank Giacoia (inks)

[galacticlamps]

actually ascension needs its own post since that's the one with the most details to speculate over and im starved for soho talk so i will talk to myself if need be

First the cover again, because I kinda can't get over it:

my only thing is that I had been hoping we might get Lizbeth on a cover again since she's never been on one of the boxsets before, despite being the 2nd person credited on all 4 of them (even if that's just alphabetical, still, she's the only one of the four main characters who never makes the cover)

But letting that go...

I know we already kinda knew the brief for this one but damn I didn't expect it to go quite this hard. Maybe that's just because the Parasite & Ashenden covers were (comparatively) similarish to each other and I was so pleased with Unbegotten's, and then got so used to it as the placeholder for Ascension while they kept postponing it, I wasn't expecting anything this colorful or detailed or with what I can't help but register as Fun New Outfits even though these are still like, pretty damn basic as far as costumes go. Still, it's a different vibe from everyone in suits and trenchcoats on every cover, technically. (Oh the woes of being an audio fan such that two characters owning sweaters actually does qualify as new information)

On top of just being visually delightful though, I know we knew religion was gonna be a fairly big part of this one, but I didn't actually expect to get quite this much of it - though I'm glad of it for a number of reasons. The BF twitter already made the ineffable joke so I don't have to, but also yeah I did very much spend all of season 2 episode 4 of good omens half convinced Samuel Barnett & Dervla Kirwan were about to pop up around any given corner (if you will go around being gay supernatural and horrible at your messy bureaucratic jobs in midcentury soho then I'm sorry, this is where my brain's gonna go) - so, fuel to that fire. But in terms of actual important things, at least one of my Soho wishes looks to be being granted because we have a Rev Edward Folgate on the cast list, which must mean we're finally meeting Norton's father, even if his mother & brother don't appear (which they could, technically, I've definitely seen BF not list all the doublings on their cast tabs before). Religion, domesticity, and the nuclear family are all things that absolutely fascinate me when it comes to Norton's character, so getting any amount of story involving his father & his church is something I've been actively hoping for for a long time now.

(I will say I'm a tiny bit bummed Saffron Coomber isn't on the cast list to play Mia again, but I kinda figured she wasn't going to be since Greg Austin's Armitage, who's making his first recurring appearance after originating in Unbegotten, was listed ever since the boxset was announced - presumably if she was also returning, that would've been handled in the same way. But since Unbegotten ended with Lizbeth and Mia going on a date, I still held out hope. Who knows though, maybe things did go well for them and Lizbeth just has a better work/life balance than Norton so she can date someone without them getting dragged into every scifi plot. I know that's not a very common accomplishment for any Torchwood agent, but a gal can hope)

At this point I know I'm completely in the realm of speculation & even wishful thinking, but I'm really really hoping we get some more clues as to Norton's overall timeline in this one, and I have a feeling that even if there's nothing as direct as dates given, the events of a plot like this one are going to heavily influence my personal interpretation of it.

To say that life & death are major themes for the soho crew feels wildly reductive, but even by Torchwood's standards and taking into account its origins as a piece of media with Jack Harkness & his newfound immortality at the heart of it, the living/dead status of this bunch has always been fantastically up in the air to me. Obviously Ghost Mission introduced Norton as kind of a ghost before revealing more obvious ghostly characters later on to which the title might have been referring, but his being from the past did beg the question of his survival into Torchwood's present era all the same, which Outbreak later alludes to much more directly, and his habit of showing up via hologram in multiple stories only further obfuscates any certainty we might have about where & when he definitely can be said to be alive and well. Then you've got Lizbeth and Gideon both being effectively 'brought back to life' via paradoxes that prevented them ever having died in the first place. Again, they are very very far from being the only Torcwhood characters this happens to (for a sprawling EU, it's really rather impressive how often & in how many different ways Torchwood as a whole manages to circle back to being about like. chaotic undead queers at the end of every day. though I suppose that consistency is part of why I keep falling in love with its different iterations again and again). That's without even getting into the question of Norton's dubious fate in God Among Us - and I say dubious because I know some people take that to be his ultimate death, but I personally think that reading something as vague as that as having any kind of finality rather goes against the spirit of this whole world/series, not just because I want him to live. (There are obviously other ways to make him survive/reappear, but I don't see this as a River Song scenario where we can safely assume one of his earlier-released adventures had to happen at the end of his personal timeline). But wherever God Among Us falls for him, he does very much meet God in it - or at least, a god, since the sentinel in Unbegotten is also described as a god of sorts, and even if he doesn't ultimately have the status of the god Jacqueline King is playing there, Unbegotten is still full to bursting with ghosts/undead/came back wrong/echo characters to continue underscoring that life/afterlife theme.

So all things considered, even allowing for the fact that we know Norton's twin hobbies are lying about himself and abusing time travel to suit his own ends/ever-shifting alliances, I find it difficult to believe we could get through a whole 6-part boxset about religion & death without something providing some kind of compelling evidence about where this adventure fits in among his other run-ins with apocalypses and gods and ghosts and dead-but-still-here characters/creatures, so I'm very much looking forward to any further exploration on that front.

And lastly, and least intellectually, I really want to know what the hell 20th-century Torchwood's obsession with Reginalds is. Reading through the cast list, I had to do two separate doubletakes over the character 'Sir Reginald Peebles' - firstly, because I had Reginald Rigsby on the brain, this being Soho (and the other Troughton brother being so active on BF's releases for this same month) - and secondly, because reading this in conjunction with the announcement for the July monthly adventure in which the new main Torchwood guy of the 20s is apparently called Sir Reginald Dellafield, there was a brief moment where I took that monthly release to be a tie-in with Ascension. I don't expect it to be, but damn. was it really so popular a name?

anyways, catch me thinking about those stained glass windows for the next couple months I guess (and knowing Torchwood Soho, for a long long time after it comes out as well lol)

[lucalicatteart]

Poll adventure (paventure? lol) Day 11: read the small story tidbit below the poll for more details, OR just vote based on initial impression

(✦ see past poll results + further information HERE (link) ✦)

Yesterday's poll decided that The Adventurer should curiously socialize with a few of the boat travelers ...

~

"The Adventurer grabs one of the ornate glass bowls near the buffet table, meekly gathering some cheese and vegetables as he scans the crowd. For the first 15 minutes of the lunch, he mostly crouches in a corner seat, nibbling on his food and nervously fielding the occasional drunken question from a passing party guest..

Knowing he should.. probably... actually socialize at some point, he begrudgingly chooses conversational partners, squeezing his eyes shut and pointing around randomly until he lands on someone.....

The first is a scrawny man in a flashy suit, wobbly from wine but still keeping a vaguely charming demeanor about him. He proudly introduces himself as a "legal expert", then goes on to ramble for a while about the laws in the area, how drastically they vary from city to city (plus a few veiled hints on how to safely break them), and that if you travel a lot it can be hard to keep up with it all.

He mentions, quite conveniently, that he's recently published a book on the topic, a legal guide for local explorers, and offers to give The Adventurer a copy for a special discounted price... but... then soon recalls that the crate of books he'd planned to sell on the boat sadly ended up falling into the river earlier during a "silly little mishap"..

In place of a book, he simply slides The Adventurer a glossy mint colored paper swirled with golden floral motifs, supposedly serving as some sort of business card, though the actual contact information seems obscured beneath the cluttered design. The Lawyer also pulls off his scarf as he rises to leave, wrapping it around The Adventurer's shoulders with a little waving flourish (not the first time someone has confused his anxious shaking for cold shivers). The Adventurer stutters out a confused thank you, then watches as the Lawyer stumbles off, mumbling to himself that he's been drinking too much and "truly must find somewhere to piss"......

The second person he approaches is an older woman, hunched over a table fidgeting with a handful of colorful glass dice, spinning and stacking and arranging them into patterns whilst her thoughts drift elsewhere. Initially, she gives evasive answers when asked personal questions, but soon grows more talkative once the topic of local flora and fauna arises. She apparently used to adventure as well, roaming the lands to document various elements of nature relevant to her mysterious "private research" - though, at her age, she's now resigned to casual boat rides rather than riskily hiking alone through uncharted wilderness. Gently laying a worn leather journal of watercolor paintings out onto the tabletop, she points at various berries, leaves, and animals, eagerly describing their significance...

After chatting for a while, she abruptly changes topics, mentioning that sometimes she can "sense things which she should not" (whatever the hell that means), then asks him to pick one of her dice. He hesitates, but she just stares, refusing to elaborate further.. Finding even 30 seconds of awkward silent eye contact physically impossible to bear, he hurriedly plops a finger down in front of an iridescent yellow die. She chuckles..

Scooping up all of the dice from the table, she rattles them in her clasped hands, then brings them up to her ear as if to listen... to something?? A few moments later, she turns back to him, speaking in a raspy whisper: "There are others, melding your footprints with their own, seeking a gift you do not yet know - this is what I see."

Before he can ask her for any elaboration, the Captain returns, grumbling that The Adventurer has already stayed 5 minutes past the time limit and swatting at him with a broom to shoo him off of the boat. Apparently an hour can go by fast....

After climbing back into his dinky raft, he sails mostly successfully down the river, finally making it to a point that, at least based on his map, SHOULD be where the main road picks back up past the detour. He crashes into a small grouping of rocks whilst trying to navigate back to the shore, but he was planning on disassembling the raft to get his rope and supplies back anyway, so.. aside from a scraped knee and possibly broken pinky toe, he decides it's actually fine. The cat is okay, which is all that really matters, anyhow.

By the time he's taken apart his boat, eaten a quick meal, and bandaged his leg, the sun seems to have nearly set. It's later in the night than he'd usually like to travel, but, where he's going is a pretty commonly used road, so maybe it's safe? He's exhausted from socializing, but could probably muster enough energy to walk for at least a while. Or perhaps he should just call it a night and find a place to sleep.. But.. where??? What should he do?

-

Additional information

acquired a long, warm, expensive scarf

acquired slightly increased knowledge of local plants

acquired vague information from the 'dice based fortune teller', or whatever that was meant to be

acquired a business card (+ ability to get away with one minor crime free of legal consequence)

acquired mild nausea for the next 5hrs from weird buffet cheese

acquired badly scraped knee and sprained toe (will walk slightly slower for the next 2 days)

the adventurer's current main goal: follow his map to reach the abandoned castle ruins and see the rare animal specialist about the mysterious egg he has