#which makes sense she's my guy

[violant-apologia]

An Appointment at the Parlour of Virtue

aka marian's homoerotic antagonistic extravaganza

words: ~1k

it's on ao3 or literally right here!

Marian stalks the Veilgarden streets, shifting in discomfort. She chafes against the aroma of spices, bristles at the discordant music and scowls at passing lovers. This is far from her usual haunt, as any onlooker would be well aware. It would perhaps undermine her authority were her crew to find her here: a captain so severe in this den of intemperance. Luckily, after so many recent brushes with watery demise, they’ll all have better things to do than tail their captain to this meeting.

The Parlour of Virtue is a large building for Veilgarden, where buildings often run squat or narrow. Its services are desired enough – and its clientele rich enough – to finance the grand facade. Speaking of the clientele, they look almost as out of place in Veilgarden as Marian. They loiter around the entrance, checking watches and tapping feet and clad in classy suits and frocks. Some have faces Marian remembers from the margins of Slowcake’s; the rest are masked. The Parlour caters to tastes expensive and eclectic – those wealthy enough to afford its premium services are also those least likely to want Doubt Street catching wind. Marian is not notable enough to go masked; besides, her face is already obscured with ragged bandages. The expressions on the unmasked faces as she skips the queue are ones of jealously, not recognition.

The inside of the Parlour is comfortably warm. More masked clients mill around the lobby or whisper to receptionists at polished wood desks. Marian is nodded through by stockinged women she recognises but couldn’t name. She climbs scarlet-carpeted stairs to the gallery of suites, doors numbered and, for the most part, occupied. As she follows the usual route, her attention drifts to the sounds behind the doors. Many are the typical affair for such an establishment, but as she traverses deeper into the building, the noises get odder. Recorded music and staccato tap-dance. A screaming argument. Chewing. The Parlour caters to all tastes.

Eventually Marian reaches the customary room and lets herself in. She takes a seat on the luxurious bed (shared by most rooms) and observes the neatly-folded pile of silks that lays on it (not shared by most rooms). Sinning Jenny is late. She is often late. But she always comes.

“You’re late,” Marian says as the door opens at almost ten minutes past the hour. “Again.”

“And I apologise again,” replies Jenny. Her cheeks are a little red and her breaths come heavily, fluttering the veil that hangs before her eyes. “I’m not as spry as I used to be. You’ll have to teach me your methods sometime.”

“Here’s an easy one: don’t work yourself to the bone on a hundred lost causes,” Marian replies.

“Ah, so you’d rather I didn’t make it here at all,” Jenny grins.

“Shut up,” Marian retorts, “and sit down. Lets get this over with.”

Jenny laughs (infuriatingly) and takes a seat on the bed next to Marian. She takes the silk bandages in her hands – seafoam blues, this time.

“Lovely colours,” she mutters to herself, “must remember to mention that to Ruth…” She lets the silks flow onto her lap. “Shall we get started?”

Wordlessly, Marian hold out her arm.

The process is painfully slow, and Jenny agonisingly gentle. She takes the right arm first – the one with skin beneath. She unwinds the ragged bandages like an expert. Marian doesn’t know whether Jenny has other tomb-colonist clients; nor does it concern her. The pair’s relationship is one of debt and repayment, nothing more.

Jenny works in silence – soon the old bandages are gone and Marian’s pale skin is left bare. Jenny takes one of the darker silks from the pile, secures it up the forearm, and begins to wrap. As she does so, her fingers graze Marian’s skin; Marian jerks her arm away.

“Watch it,” Marian spits, breaking the silence.

Sorry, Jenny mouths. Marian bristles. Despite the decade between them, Jenny still manages to make her feel like a child. It’s insulting.

“Done,” Jenny soon says. Indeed, the arm is covered. Marian flexes her fingers beneath the bandages: not too tight, not too loose, and the colours complement her old uniform well.

“Acceptable, ma’am?” Jenny asks with a smile. A coy twinkle plays beneath her veil.

Marian rolls her eye. The eye in question is still not visible, but she hopes Jenny gets the message anyway.

“Other arm?” Jenny offers. Marian shuffles over and Jenny moves to her left side. The bandages here are significantly more damaged, poked and pierced from within. Jenny barely has to work them before they fall away in scraps, revealing the mass of brambles beneath.

“Don’t prick yourself, princess.”

“I’ll be careful,” Jenny chuckles.

The process is even slower on this arm – the bandages have to both hide the vegetation and restrict its shape to that of a more traditional arm.  In her many visits here, Marian has noticed that Jenny gets more stressed – and more likely to make mistakes – when she works in silence. It is for this reason and no other that Marian clears her throat.

“I made it to Polythreme.”

“Oh!” Jenny says. “I’m glad you’re following those leads!”

Marian scoffs. “I couldn’t fairly come back here if I didn’t keep my end of the bargain, could I?”

Jenny laughs. “I suppose not. Anyway, did you find the surgeon? Did he help?”

“Yes,” Marian says, “and no.”

Jenny’s face falls. “I’m sorry, Marian.”

“Oh piss off,” Marian responds, “you don’t care a jot. You just want me out of your hair.”

“I’ll remind you that there’s no actual obligation for me to make these meetings.” Jenny pulls a bandage tight around the vine.

“You want me off your conscience, then.”

Jenny sighs. “I’m also not responsible for the Campaign. Is it so difficult to imagine that I just want the best for you?”

“Yes,” Marian responds. “You’ve made a whole business profiting off of devotion. Forgive me for guarding mine.”

“Do you mean the Parlour or the Church?” Jenny asks. “It doesn’t matter, you’re wrong either way.”

She fastens the final bandage and trails a finger over her work. Marian shivers. “It’s been fifteen years, Cook. Why do you think we do this?”

Jenny’s fingers drift to the final set of bandages. She takes the end of one  at the base of Marian’s neck.

“Guilt,” Marian mutters. “The Church did this to me.”

“I’m not the Church,” Jenny murmurs, beginning to unwrap. Her breath tickles the slivers of newly-exposed skin. “War’s over, soldier,” she breathes. “You’re safe now.”

“I—”

A rose petal flutters onto the sheets.

Marian jumps up, snatching the last silks from Jenny’s lap.

“I think it’s best if I do the last myself,” she stammers. “I’m more practised, and all, and you’re obviously not focused on quality.”

“Oh,” says Jenny, “perhaps I was wrong. We can return to a purely professional relationship, if you’d like?”

“I— no, I’d—” Marian struggles, “Aurgh!”

She storms out of the room. Light, infuriating laughter rings out behind her as she stamps down the hall. Then Jenny calls out.

“See you next month!”

[soosoosoup]

treasure planet au, last of the batch (Poppy & Floyd)

[petr1kov]

here's the scene i've mentioned before where nemesis and melinoë talk about hypnos, for those who wanted to see it!

[doctorsiren]

he’s mad she ratted him out

[lunarharp]

shirahama-sensei reminded me she has a thing for the teacher from pokemon s/v so i randomly went off on an au where qifrey is the professor. etc

[mazojo]

Anyways XO Kitty love interests summarized

Dae

Min Ho

Yuri

[ganondoodle]

kind of expected that the ability breakdown wouldnt get that much traction (especially on twitter bc if it doesnt do well in the first few hours it might as well be dead) but what i didnt need to wake up to was looking at my twitter notifications and thinking there was a long comment on it at first but then i read it and it turned out to be some guy having dug up one of my old totk tweets where i talked about how zelda was treated-

and if a quote retweet with a thread attached already starts with "this entitled brat didnt understand that zelda was being a history nerd by being in the past and getting to experience it herself" with two screenshots attached of the end of totk with zelda staring at the cam all uwu (which has ??? to do with their point??) i dont even want to know what else was in that thread

if thats how the majority of the fandom is then im even less surprised that nintendy doesnt even have to try to write anything good :I

ah yes, i am a game nerd, and by putting me in a game where i stand around doing puppy dog eyes while being shoved around by NPCs is me being a game nerd OBVIOSULY

[bacchuschucklefuck]

it just idea .......

[teddybeartoji]

o wait before i start posting any pics.. i was thinking that maybe.. you guys could help me liquify this gender some more by switching up what you call me.... DON'T GET ME WRONG I LOVE . LOVE LOVE LOVE WHEN YOU USE HE/HIM AND JUST OVERALL LIKE MORE MASC STUFF THAT'S SOOO MMMMMMMMMSO FUCKING GOOD like i don't get to feel that irl at all so it really does make me so happy but i've just been thinking abt TRYING to switch it up more yk? does this even make sense...... . hhhh anyway i might won't even like it and i'll want to just go back to hehim but i wanna try... JUST TO SWITCH IT UP.

[joinmeinjoy]

Very interesting to me that Abigail preferred Hannibal over Will, but Will had an emotional connection to her that Hannibal didn't - or at least not to the same extent.

I think maybe one day he could've found a stronger bond considering she had also killed and eaten people, but during the series she's really just a tool. Hannibal uses her to like... babytrap Will. And tbf it worked, Will didn't tell Jack what he knew when he discovered Abigail murdered that guy - if he was willing to cover for her, maybe eventually he'd cover for Hannibal too, the 3 of them too intrinsically tied for him to separate, I mean that's the trapping part. But she was just a means to an end, a relationship Hannibal nurtured for his own gain with Will....whereas Will really did view her as his daughter.

Very interesting to me...off-put by Will (especially towards the end of s1), but he had the most vested interest in her well-being out of the pair...

[moeblob]

They're soulmates in every single universe and I miss them at the most random times.

[mettywiththenotes]

Crack theory that this guy is Sevika's dad

Edit: Post cancelled I just found out her age and it wouldn't work so nvm 😅

[deoidesign]

.

[radioroxx]

ok hi tumblr. thought. while i understand that technically yes people have all the freedom to assign clover a gender + pronouns based on personal headcanons… i dont really get WHY people do it

dont get me wrong im all for a little fun and for messing around with pronouns, but… isnt it more fun to let them keep the they/them?? whats the point of taking that away?

iiii dunno. i just think its strange lol

[blackhholes]

Teen Wolf's Canaan

Lenore by Gottfried August Bürger (trans. by Dante Gabriel Rossetti) / The Fate of the Canaanites and the Despoliation of the Egyptians by Menahem Kister / Who’s Afraid of Canaan’s Curse? by Jennifer Knust / The Faith of the Canaanite Woman (Mt. 15.21-28): Narrative, Theology, Ministry by Dorothy A. Lee

Written for @teenwolf-meta‘s Meta May Monday theme: place.

in the sixth episode of the sixth season scott, lydia and malia go to canaan, a place which has become a ghost town after the wild hunt came through in the 80s with only one inhabitant still there. there are two major references being made in this episode, the first being that to the both biblical and real bronze age location of canaan and the second being to the ballad lenore by bürger.

in genesis 9:25 noah curses canaan, the son of ham, that he and all of his descendants, the canaanites, will be servants for the rest of time. the conquest of canaan in the book of joshua as well as the curse of canaan are mirrored in the episode with the ghost riders' attack on the town and is further expanded on when, at the end of the episode lydia explains that the people taken by the wild hunt become ghost riders themselves, effectively making them servants of the hunt.

the only person left behind by the riders is a woman named lenore. her name draws the viewer back to the 1774 ballad of the same name, in which a ghostly rider comes to a woman in the disguise of her dead lover and takes her on a ride. the poem culminates when lenore realizes that the rider is indeed death himself come for her. teen wolf's lenore as all other banshees has a close connection to death and the dead, for her the spectral entity shown to her is not her deceased lover but instead it is her son who drowned as a child. bürger's lenore dies at the end of the poem, where teen wolf's lenore decided to stay in canaan with the apparition of her dead son, a kind of death in itself.

[corviiids]

THANKS @kimdokjafan you are so kind and generous. ok im cashing in the first of three blank checks to talk about faith trust and pixie dust (most recent chatfic) because the last two directors commentaries were too serious so let's do a silly one.

some p5r spoilers, and this is mostly about sumire, and it's long again. do i need to keep disclaiming that these are long? you should know me by now.

i had this written for a while before i started formatting it because i wasn't really sure if i should post it? i feel like silly chatfic is something people go to for predominantly lighthearted nonsense so i was like, maybe there's too much plot and dramatic misunderstanding and i should just keep this one for myself. but then i was like well nothing matters and maybe someone will have fun with it. it's kind of terrible how much fully or mostly completed fic there is my docs that just doesn't see the light of day lol. write for yourself etc but i like sharing! too bad it comes with the mortifying ordeal etc. anyway that was a tangent

potato counter is a neopets game. there's no deep lore i just like neopets. i guess in this universe ryuji doesn't play neopets? or maybe he's just never played potato counter specifically. i also have a different fic where ryuji DOES play neopets. it's about neopets and ryuji and goro talking on neopets.

i think this might literally be the first time ive written sumi in a fic because i haven't actually written that much fic for royal, like, now that im looking, literally almost none? and none that had a group dynamic. so it was kind of fun to find her voice for the first time in a silly groupchat like this. i was worried people would find her exclamation marks annoying but i personally thought it was endearing so i added it in there.

every time i do a gag where a character corrects their own typo i have to code more stupid little bubbles to make it happen but i think it's worth it. all the effort that goes into making tgis look as much like a real chat as possible

this obviously doesnt take place in the canon p5/r universe, but im imagining sort of a postcanon sumi personality where she's more comfortable being herself and isn't borrowing kasumi's brand of confidence, but she's visibly a really anxious person without that kasumi veneer. i also think in this universe sumire is a fairly recent addition to the friend group, and while everyone likes her a lot and she really likes them, i kind of wanted to emphasise that feeling of being in a friend group where everyone's established and you're sort of a plus-one? you don't really fit yet. part of that is her being new, part of it is her anxiety, part of it is just the kind of person sumi is where she's so polite and self-conscious she ends up taking herself out of things with her own good intentions. stuff like her interrupting the flow of an existing conversation by greeting everyone instead of jumping straight in because she doesn't feel comfortable inserting herself, which means everyone else stops to greet her even though that doesn't normally happen in a friend group, or making a point of thanking everyone for being invited to events while the others take it as a given.

idk i love that she feels a bit out of place with the phantom thieves in p5r. and part of that is a natural consequence of being a new addition in royal who can't be naturally integrated with an existing dynamic but i honestly feel like the writing team realised that and acknowledged it, and really leaned into it, and that made it work incredibly well for me. like, it's part of her character that she's sort of an outsider. it's not like p4g's incredibly clumsy integration of marie and subsequent attempt to shove her down everyone's throat as the canon love interest in p4ga (knife). sumi has that outsider vibe on purpose and it makes me really like her dynamic with the thieves as an individual

goro also feels slightly out of place in these chats, but his conversational style blends more naturally with the other thieves at this point and he even uses their codenames sometimes. i keep saying my chatfic series isn't a real Series because the lore keeps changing, but if we accept that they're all kind of following a General Continuity, assume this takes place some time after the last fic in which ren added goro to the groupchat and they made an effort to integrate him into their friend group. he's kind of there now and has settled into being the weird boyfriend. that's his role.

every time goro says something like "ren and i" assume it's the text equivalent of him talking to the group with his arm around ren's waist.

ok i got really fond of this silly running joke where sumi brings up the weather when she's feeling uncomfortable. she's so polite. i like this thread because setting it up meant i got to tie it off like this:

this just made me happy lol i liked writing this. i tried to use it to demonstrate that despite goro's abrasiveness he obviously knows sumire pretty well, he's attuned to her quirks and knows how to tell when she's having a bad time with her anxiety, so he uses her little weather habit to ground her.

i honestly dont think goro and sumire could be considered close in p5r and as much as i like the "royal trio" in canon they're not really... like... friends? with each other? they're both attached to ren, so it' more a V shape than anything else. but that said, i really LIKE goro and sumi's canon dynamic. he takes a really grouchy but politely attentive supervisory role to her during their few forays into the palace as a trio where he doesn't really know her well but clearly identifies her as a harmless little tryhard who needs some guidance and steps into that role grudgingly, and she immediately looks up to him despite being very wrong footed by his ruthlessness, which i find incredibly charming. i think given time they could be good friends, they just didn't get much chance to know each other very well in canon. so i tried to kinda do that here.

once goro stops being evil and joins the group they all kind of tiredly accept that his role is to occasionally push a cup off a bench while smirking and refuse to clean it up. emotionally, i mean.

wait i need to backtrack chronologically to talk about akeshu.

in this scene they're in the same room lol talking and snickering while typing. im trying to get at that vibe of the annoying couple who is flirting with each other, via you. you know? like ostensibly they're talking to you (sumire) but everything they say to you is part of their stupid game. sumi is incidental to goro and ren teasing each other about flirting with someone else, goro is reporting everything ren says because his boyfriend is so eye-rollingly foolish in a cute way. they're very tickled by how amusing and charming they are. gross. disgusting. sumire im so sorry for putting you through this

anyway here are too many of my favourite jokes from the fic