#women who make each other worse women who are using each other to doom themselves

[mokadevs]

day 12: karma

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Sympathy for the spammer

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

In any scam, any con, any hustle, the big winners are the people who supply the scammers – not the scammers themselves. The kids selling dope on the corner are making less than minimum wage, while the respectable crime-bosses who own the labs clean up. Desperate "retail investors" who buy shitcoins from Superbowl ads get skinned, while the MBA bros who issue the coins make millions (in real dollars, not crypto).

It's ever been thus. The California gold rush was a con, and nearly everyone who went west went broke. Famously, the only reliable way to cash out on the gold rush was to sell "picks and shovels" to the credulous, doomed and desperate. That's how Leland Stanford made his fortune, which he funneled into eugenics programs (and founding a university):

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/malcolm-harris/palo-alto/9780316592031/

That means that the people who try to con you are almost always getting conned themselves. Think of Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) scams. My forthcoming novel The Bezzle opens with a baroque and improbable fast-food Ponzi in the town of Avalon on the island of Catalina, founded by the chicle monopolist William Wrigley Jr:

http://thebezzle.org

Wrigley found fast food declasse and banned it from the island, a rule that persists to this day. In The Bezzle, the forensic detective Martin Hench uncovers The Fry Guys, an MLM that flash-freezes contraband burgers and fries smuggled on-island from the mainland and sells them to islanders though an "affiliate marketing" scheme that is really about recruiting other affiliate markets to sell under you. As with every MLM, the value of the burgers and fries sold is dwarfed by the gigantic edifice of finance fraud built around it, with "points" being bought and sold for real cash, which is snaffled up and sucked out of the island by a greedy mainlander who is behind the scheme.

A "bezzle" is John Kenneth Galbraith's term for "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it." In every scam, there's a period where everyone feels richer – but only the scammers are actually cleaning up. The wealth of the marks is illusory, but the longer the scammer can preserve the illusion, the more real money the marks will pump into the system.

MLMs are particularly ugly, because they target people who are shut out of economic opportunity – women, people of color, working people. These people necessarily rely on social ties for survival, looking after each others' kids, loaning each other money they can't afford, sharing what little they have when others have nothing.

It's this social cohesion that MLMs weaponize. Crypto "entrepreneurs" are encouraged to suck in their friends and family by telling them that they're "building Black wealth." Working women are exhorted to suck in their bffs by appealing to their sisterhood and the chance for "women to lift each other up."

The "sales people" trying to get you to buy crypto or leggings or supplements are engaged in predatory conduct that will make you financially and socially worse off, wrecking their communities' finances and shattering the mutual aid survival networks they rely on. But they're not getting rich on this – they're also being scammed:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4686468

This really hit home for me in the mid-2000s, when I was still editing Boing Boing. We had a submission form where our readers could submit links for us to look at for inclusion on the blog, and it was overwhelmed by spam. We'd add all kinds of antispam to it, and still, we'd get floods of hundreds or even thousands of spam submissions to it.

One night, I was lying in my bed in London and watching these spams roll in. They were all for small businesses in the rustbelt, handyman services, lawn-care, odd jobs, that kind of thing. They were 10 million miles from the kind of thing we'd ever post about on Boing Boing. They were coming in so thickly that I literally couldn't finish downloading my email – the POP session was dropping before I could get all the mail in the spool. I had to ssh into my mail server and delete them by hand. It was maddening.

Frustrated and furious, I started calling the phone numbers associated with these small businesses, demanding an explanation. I assumed that they'd hired some kind of sleazy marketing service and I wanted to know who it was so I could give them a piece of my mind.

But what I discovered when I got through was much weirder. These people had all been laid off from factories that were shuttering due to globalization. As part of their termination packages, their bosses had offered them "retraining" via "courses" in founding their own businesses.

The "courses" were the precursors to the current era's rise-and-grind hustle-culture scams (again, the only people getting rich from that stuff are the people selling the courses – the "students" finish the course poorer). They promised these laid-off workers, who'd given their lives to their former employers before being discarded, that they just needed to pull themselves up by their own boostraps:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/10/declaration-of-interdependence/#solidarity-forever

After all, we had the internet now! There were so many new opportunities to be your own boss! The course came with a dreadful build-your-own-website service, complete with an overpriced domain sales portal, and a single form for submitting your new business to "thousands of search engines."

This was nearly 20 years ago, but even then, there was really only one search engine that mattered: Google. The "thousands of search engines" the scammers promised to submit these desperate peoples' websites to were just submission forms for directories, indexes, blogs, and mailing lists. The number of directories, indexes, blogs and mailing lists that would publish their submissions was either "zero" or "nearly zero." There was certainly no possibility that anyone at Boing Boing would ever press the wrong key and accidentally write a 500-word blog post about a leaf-raking service in a collapsing deindustrialized exurb in Kentucky or Ohio.

The people who were drowning me in spam weren't the scammers – they were the scammees.

But that's only half the story. Years later, I discovered how our submission form was getting included in this get-rich-quick's mass-submission system. It was a MLM! Coders in the former Soviet Union were getting work via darknet websites that promised them relative pittances for every submission form they reverse-engineered and submitted. The smart coders didn't crack the forms directly – they recruited other, less business-savvy coders to do that for them, and then often as not, ripped them off.

The scam economy runs on this kind of indirection, where scammees are turned into scammers, who flood useful and productive and nice spaces with useless dross that doesn't even make them any money. Take the submission queue at Clarkesworld, the great online science fiction magazine, which famously had to close after it was flooded with thousands of junk submission "written" by LLMs:

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/24/1159286436/ai-chatbot-chatgpt-magazine-clarkesworld-artificial-intelligence

There was a zero percent chance that Neil Clarke would accidentally accept one of these submissions. They were uniformly terrible. The people submitting these "stories" weren't frustrated sf writers who'd discovered a "life hack" that let them turn out more brilliant prose at scale.

They were scammers who'd been scammed into thinking that AIs were the key to a life of passive income, a 4-Hour Work-Week powered by an AI-based self-licking ice-cream cone:

https://pod.link/1651876897/episode/995c8a778ede17d2d7cff393e5203157

This is absolutely classic passive-income brainworms thinking. "I have a bot that can turn out plausible sentences. I will locate places where sentences can be exchanged for money, aim my bot at it, sit back, and count my winnings." It's MBA logic on meth: find a thing people pay for, then, without bothering to understand why they pay for that thing, find a way to generate something like it at scale and bombard them with it.

Con artists start by conning themselves, with the idea that "you can't con an honest man." But the factor that predicts whether someone is connable isn't their honesty – it's their desperation. The kid selling drugs on the corner, the mom desperately DMing her high-school friends to sell them leggings, the cousin who insists that you get in on their shitcoin – they're all doing it because the system is rigged against them, and getting worse every day.

These people reason – correctly – that all the people getting really rich are scamming. If Amazon can make $38b/year selling "ads" that push worse products that cost more to the top of their search results, why should the mere fact that an "opportunity" is obviously predatory and fraudulent disqualify it?

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/29/aethelred-the-unready/#not-one-penny-for-tribute

The quest for passive income is really the quest for a "greater fool," the economist's term for the person who relieves you of the useless crap you just overpaid for. It rots the mind, atomizes communities, shatters solidarity and breeds cynicism:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

The rise and rise of botshit cannot be separated from this phenomenon. The botshit in our search-results, our social media feeds, and our in-boxes isn't making money for the enshittifiers who send it – rather, they are being hustled by someone who's selling them the "picks and shovels" for the AI gold rush:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/03/botshit-generative-ai-imminent-threat-democracy

That's the true cost of all the automation-driven unemployment criti-hype: while we're nowhere near a place where bots can steal your job, we're certainly at the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no

The manic "entrepreneurs" who've been stampeded into panic by the (correct) perception that the economy is a game of musical chairs where the number of chairs is decreasing at breakneck speed are easy marks for the Leland Stanfords of AI, who are creating generational wealth for themselves by promising that their bots will automate away all the tedious work that goes into creating value. Expect a lot more Amazon Marketplace products called "I'm sorry, I cannot fulfil this request as it goes against OpenAI use policy":

https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/12/24036156/openai-policy-amazon-ai-listings

No one's going to buy these products, but the AI picks-and-shovels people will still reap a fortune from the attempt. And because history repeats itself, these newly minted billionaires are continuing Leland Stanford's love affair with eugenics:

https://www.truthdig.com/dig-series/eugenics/

The fact that AI spam doesn't pay is important to the fortunes of AI companies. Most high-value AI applications are very risk-intolerant (self-driving cars, radiology analysis, etc). An AI tool might help a human perform these tasks more accurately – by warning them of things that they've missed – but that's not how AI will turn a profit. There's no market for AI that makes your workers cost more but makes them better at their jobs:

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

Plenty of people think that spam might be the elusive high-value, low-risk AI application. But that's just not true. The point of AI spam is to get clicks from people who are looking for better content. It's SEO. No one reads 2000 words of algorithm-pleasing LLM garbage over an omelette recipe and then subscribes to that site's feed.

And the omelette recipe generates pennies for the spammer that posted it. They are doing massive volume in order to make those pennies into dollars. You don't make money by posting one spam. If every spammer had to pay the actual recovery costs (energy, chillers, capital amortization, wages) for their query, every AI spam would lose (lots of) money.

Hustle culture and passive income are about turning other peoples' dollars into your dimes. It is a negative-sum activity, a net drain on society. Behind every seemingly successful "passive income" is a con artist who's getting rich by promising – but not delivering – that elusive passive income, and then blaming the victims for not hustling hard enough:

https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2023/12/blueprint-trouble

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[loveyhoons]

I’LL SAVE YOU ૮ ․ ․ ྀིა | p.sh

pairing: park sunghoon x f! reader

genre: non idol au! childhood friends to to implied lovers! reunited after a long time type of scenario!

synopsis: when y/n gets unexpectedly saved by one of the country’s national treasures in the most popular live annual dating show

word count: 1.9k words

warnings: none

author’s note: hi hello! this is my first short written on here, please bear with me!! i wrote aus & short stories before but never published them on tumblr, enjoy :)

ps. this is loosely based off of a scene from the thai drama called ready set love. i have been hooked on that show ever since i finished it. who knows maybe i’ll turn this into a fic with multiple chapters, we will see!!

Y/N sat in the yellow chair, facing the large mirror in front of her.

She glanced at the wooden box hooked onto the mirror, peeking inside to find a pair of earbuds. Y/N grabbed the earbuds and took in a deep breath, unsure of what to say once the “lucky” guy walked in through the other side of the room.

Y/N was at her limit to say the least. She, in just one day, already embarrassed herself in front of one of the men participants, get a call from her aunt saying her younger sister was in the emergency room, and almost lose the last round in the first game.

Out of pure luck, Y/N and other contestants were given a chance to go to the second round. She needed to try her best in order to secure a spot- after all if the guy who chooses her does not save her, she is doomed.

It did not help that this entire game show Y/N was competing in was broadcasted on national television. Everyone, as in everyone in the entire country, was watching the show at the present time.

After the country faced a deadly pandemic in the 1970s, the men population started to decline rapidly. The pandemic seemed to only affect the men population while the women population withheld the illness and later deemed themselves immune.

The amount of men started to become scarce, leaving them to become “national treasures” of the country. With women barely giving birth to a baby boy and the numbers growing worse, men were then placed inside a private area called “The House”.

Men were never allowed to see the world outside “The House” and stay within the walls. With only 200 men remaining in the past 10 years, the government and the elite decided to create the annual game show called Ready Set Love.

Every year, 50 contestants are chosen to woo over the 5 most popular men of the “House”. Through each round, contestants are asked to play games whether it be through a team or alone. After each round, there can be only one winning team and whoever loses will be sent home immediately.

This year was different for the game show; the rules were changed in order to make things more “fair” and for everyone to have a chance to participate.

10 lucky participants who were not of the elite class were given a chance to win a spot on the game show as a contestant. Usually, chosen contestants would be those who were born into a rich family or have a high status within the country. But now, 10 lucky women were able to have the chance to try and also win.

And that’s exactly what happened to Y/N. With her younger sister buying at least 10+ cartons of milk every week at the convenience store, she got lucky and was able to secure her sister the 50th spot as a contestant.

Y/N, to say the least, was hesitant. She thought to just decline the offer and just ignore the results of the lottery. Except, the cash prize was huge. Bigger than she’d ever imagine. And that money can be used to help pay for her sister’s medical bills and expenses.

Now, Y/N is nervously sitting in her chair, waiting for someone to walk in. She bit her nails a little, feeling nervous about the outcome.

All she wanted was just to win, grab the cash prize, and nurse her sister back to health.

It was at least 20 minutes since Y/N sat in her chair. So far no one showed up, leaving her to walk around in circles in the room, scared.

What if the guy she needed to woo in just 5 minutes will never show up?

“Does Y/N not know there’s multiple rounds of this minigame?” One of the announcers raised her eyebrow, looking at the screen. ���Seems like she’ll be chosen in the last round.”

The current mini game consisted of the 5 men picking a random room to walk into. The chosen participant would sit on the other side, waiting to start a conversation with them. The pair has 5 minutes to interact as the contestant needs to woo the man. If the man thinks that the contestant is fit to move into the next round, he will then do a little dance in front of the mirror and say, “I save you.”

“I guess not, but look who’s about to walk in!” said the other announcer, pointing towards the right corner of the room.

Sunghoon opened the door, walking straight into the right side of the room. Closing the door quietly behind him, he walked towards the wooden box and grabbed the pair of earbuds, stretching his arms a little.

He snickered to himself, already over with this mini game, ready to go home.

The first 2 rounds of the mini game was an automatic fail.

The first girl he chose pretended to be someone she was not. He could sense she only wanted to fit his needs and not put herself first in certain situations, and Sunghoon did not like that.

The second girl just giggled uncontrollably and ended up passing out. Sunghoon was confused and just hoped she was okay. She must have been a bit too excited, he thought to himself.

Y/N saw the mystery man take a seat on the other side, bewildered by his sudden entrance. She then took a seat, fixing her hair and her posture. As she settled down on her chair, she realized who was right in front of her.

“Your 5 Minutes start now, good look girls.” The intercom through the room spoke.

As the intercom was turned off and the 5 minutes started, Y/N snapped her fingers and pointed towards the mirror, “Oh, it’s-”

“It's you again?” Sunghoon grunted. He leaned back into his chair, rubbing his chin. “Are you stalking me or something?”

“Hey, you picked this room, okay? Did I ask you to pick this room?” Y/N said in annoyance, fed up with Sunghoon’s question.

Sunghoon reached into the pocket of his jacket and brought out his phone. He put an image on the middle of the mirror and pointed towards it. “Do you know what that is?”

On the mirror, a picture of a figure was placed in the middle. Y/N sighed, “It’s a person.”

Sunghoon then pulled up another image from his phone and asked another question. “About this?”

“It’s also a person.” Y/N replied, unaware of the point Sunghoon was trying to make.

Sunghoon put his phone away, shocked by Y/N’s responses.

“You see that the first image is the symbol for men, the second is for women. You walked into the men’s restroom earlier.”

Y/N gulped. She blinked her eyes rapidly, feeling even more embarrassed than the first time she ran into Sunghoon.

“Where I live we don’t have those signs. I apologize again and I’m not a stalker.”

The silence deafened between the both.

Sunghoon crossed his arms, not batting an eye towards Y/N.

He already knew what to do at the end of the 5 minutes: he was already ready to tell her she would leave and not get through this round.

Y/N was stumped. She already messed up the first time and what more now?

“Sunghoon, listen, I need to win.”

“Okay and? Doesn’t everyone?” Sunghoon replied. He glanced towards the other side of the room, looking at Y/N.

“I need to get into “The House”, it’s the only way I can survive right now.”

“Listen to me,” Sunghoon leaned in a little, shaking his head. “You don’t want that, trust me.”

Sunghoon hated to admit to himself but he envied the women who lived in the outside world. He wanted to know how it felt like to actually be outside and not held in captivity. If only the contestants knew how lonely it was within those metal walls.

Y/N bit her lip, holding back her tears and raised her voice. “You don’t know how privileged you are. You don’t know how life is for me right now. You don’t know.”

Sunghoon stayed silent. He was unsure of what to say. He never saw someone cry in front of him, let alone a girl. A girl pleading for him to help her.

Y/N wiped a tear off her face and looked up to Sunghoon. “I’ll just leave. I already know your answer if that’s the case.”

Removing her pink sash with the number 50 decorated on it, Y/N sniffled a little. She looked at it in despair, setting it down on the chair.

Sunghoon looked at her, in silence. As Y/N removed the sash, a black thread necklace was brought out from beneath her shirt, noticeable.

Taken aback, Sunghoon looked at the necklace that adorned half an emblem on it. He blinked his eyes rapidly, shocked by what he was seeing.

It couldn’t be.

Y/N was the young girl he’s been looking for ever since the government officials found him and captured him. She was the one who saved him for a bit, hiding him in her secret hideout away from the city when they were kids.

She was the girl who might be able to save him from his destined faith.

“Y/N wait,” Sunghoon stood up.

Y/N ignored Sunghoon’s request, removing her airbuds and placing them back into the wooden box.

Sunghoon walked towards the door and ran towards the middle of the game room. He walked straight into Y/N’s side of the room.

Opening the door, Y/N looked at him in confusion.

“Sunghoon-”

“The 5 minutes is now over, please give your answer.” The intercom spoke.

Sunghoon let out a little cough, regretting what he was about to do. He did the little dance, feeling like his life was already crumbling before his eyes. He swore he never was going to give any of these contestants a chance but now Y/N was the lucky one in his eyes.

After Sunghoon finished his little dance, he pointed towards Y/N and gulped. “I save you.”

Y/N looked to him in confusion. She stood there quietly, shocked by Sunghoon’s actions. She thought he was going to let her lose but why? Why did he let her go through to the next round?

“Sunghoon, what is the meaning of this?” Y/N asked.

“Don’t question it. But please Y/N, try and win.” Sunghoon walked closer to Y/N and spoke softly. “You’re my only hope of getting out of here.”

Y/N looked up to Sunghoon as his facial expression became soft and calm. It was as if the person who he was just now, left, vacant in his spot,

The two stood there face to face, basking in each other’s presence. Y/N thought about her own reasons to why she was there. She nodded her head, in response to Sunghoon’s words.

It was only then the intercom would then announce for the contestants to go back to the main room and for the 5 men to go back into their waiting room.

As Y/N parted ways with Sunghoon, she was curious to why he had a sudden change of heart. It made her question if this game show had a deeper meaning to it, deeper than just trying to woo a man and win a date with him each round.

© loveyhoons , 2024

landing page | masterlist

[beevean]

I'm so happy that I get the chance to rant again, because the subreddit just gives me so much inspiration <3

I don't really care about Carmilla. She was, at the end of the day, a villain from a kid's cartoon, who wanted to conquer the world because she was just so eeeevil, with only the barest of backstories to pretend she had good motivations. In fact, it's hilarious to me that when you think about it, the N!Isaac vs. Carmilla epic fight, one of the climaxes of this show that has touted itself on being so deep and nuanced, has all the emotional depth of an average Sonic vs. Eggman boss battle: the impossibly cool superhero wants to stop the nefarious supervillain and her world domination plans.

(no shade to Sonic and Eggman, who are far better written than those two assholes could ever hope to be. you know what I mean)

yeah yeah she became what she depised, after a whole season of sitting on her feminist ass lol and then randomly going insane at the last minute. peak writing, as per usual.

No, it's as usual Lenore who has my attention.

She's the most human of the sisters, they say. And they're right. She is a terrifyingly realistic depiction of an abuser.

She's not a cackling madwoman who only serves as a caricature, and she doesn't exist only for shallow representation like Striga and Morana who have no objectives or personalities outside of each other. Lenore may not want world domination like Carmilla, but she absolutely longs for power over other people. I went about it here, how once you read between the lines, Lenore only wants to feel powerful and important, and she's willing to steep as low as she can to get her way because she folds like a coward the moment she doesn't have the upper hand. While Carmilla would just beat people for shit and giggles because look at how Evil (but in a Cool way) she is, Lenore is genuinely convinced that everything she did, all of her physical, mental, emotional and sexual abuse, it was all for a good cause, and she did nothing wrong, and anyway you were enjoying it too so what's the issue?

So yes, in this, she's human. She's a cruel, cunning, vile human like many women in the world who know that they can use their charm and take advantage of emotionally starved men to feel powerful, all while still painting themselves as cute and lovable. Her vampiric nature doesn't come into play until the very end, where she realizes (in theory) that she's nothing but a disgusting evil creature and she's doomed to always be so; but until then, you could write her as a human and little would change in her personality and the way she played with N!Hector.

And that's what makes her scary to me. Yes, Dracula and Carmilla are more dangerous on a wider scale, but we are much, much more likely to fall into the trap of one of the many Lenores around the world.

(I usually don't like making it all about gender, but Lenore's abuse of N!Hector is absolutely gendered. Her entire character revolves around what I can only call toxic femininity.)

And that's why the takes I see about her deadass trigger me, because what the fuck do you mean, she's the less cruel of the bunch????

I don't give a shit about the Lesbians, but at least they realized that what they were doing was wrong! Sure, their motivations were mainly self-centered because they didn't want to waste their existence fighting, but they also took pity on the humans they were meant to kill!

I just fought fucking farmers. Saw the fear in their eyes. Not fear of dying. Fear of not having fought. Fear of not saving their people.

It's more empathy than Lenore ever showed for N!Hector, with her filthy "you were having fun"!

"Found her strengths" yeah, instead of physically torturing N!Hector, she used manipulation, abuse, coercion, gaslighting and rape by deception to "solve his problem". Wow, such strengths, many power. And then the second things got worse for her she immediately decided to peace out of life rather than wait a few decades until N!Isaac died, sorry N!Hector if you grew to care about me but my own bratty feelings are more important. I'm sorry, I know it's in bad taste to paint suicide as the cowardly way, but it's what the story did!

The Lenore apologism creeps me out more than anything else. I can stand the Carmilla stans who think she's so cool and badass and #grrlpower. I'm annoyed but resigned to the N!Isaac stans who believe he's the most complex character of all time and forgot about all the petty murders he commited. I'm baffled by the N!Dracula stans who genuinely believe he had the right to start a mass slaughter because some peasants didn't take him seriously enough. But this rhetoric that Lenore is the least evil of the sisters, that she was ultimately a poor broken woman who only did what she thought was the right thing, terrifies me. She's a realistic, human female abuser... and just like many female abusers, her crimes get brushed off because she's cute, because she looked sad enough, because women who sexually dominate men are inherently hot. And I know that fiction is not reality and you can enjoy villains without being a bad person, but the arguments the stans use, not to paint Lenore as cool like Carmilla but to actually downplay her very realistic crimes, just hit too close to home for me.

I just wish that "human" didn't become shorthand for "good deep down", because it's not true. Sometimes a "human" villain is far more evil than a villain so shallow they don't quite feel real.

[awoooooubliette]

Braiding Sweetgrass : A Review

By: Someone Who Cares Way Too Much About Everything

Braiding Sweetgrass (by Robin Wall Kimmerer) is an amazing book, and I genuinely enjoyed reading it.

However.

I have thoughts.

The whole book is a collection of very easy-to-read personal essays, and they delve into Native Americans' relationships with plants, her relationships with plants and what they’ve taught her, stories about her family, and more. Pretty much anyone could pick up this book and be able to read it without much difficulty. It is non-fiction, so all of the essays are true, but it isn’t dry or filled with high-level and inaccessible language. It talks a lot about the messages that plants share, and how they interact with each other and the environment.

This book was written in order to share knowledge to try to help heal the world. In the introduction Kimmerer writes: “So I offer…, a braid of stories meant to heal our relationship with the world. This braid is woven from three strands: indigenous ways of knowing, scientific knowledge, and the story of an Anishinaabekwe scientist trying to bring them together in service to what matters most. It is an intertwining of science, spirit, and story…”. Her essays are very motherly and kind in feeling, I believe she genuinely wants to help people help themselves and the earth in turn. Braiding Sweetgrass is a labor of love and it shows.

Kimmerer often will write her essays in a way that feels intended for an audience that is unaware of the climate crisis, or at the very least unaware of how deep it all really goes. For better or worse, it seems to mostly be found by middle-aged, mostly white, women. My own mother, as well as my aunt and a few of my mom’s friends, have read and really enjoy Braiding Sweetgrass. It can be a very impactful text, and it seems to give a new perspective on life to a lot of people.

The fact that Kimmerer is a scientist definitely helps the impact of the book, because there is heavier weight put on voices with more/higher degrees. Additionally, she is speaking of her own research and experiences and this adds to her reliability as a storyteller. This section in part 2, Tending Sweetgrass, chapter 3: A Mother’s Work upholds this point: “Being a good mother meant fixing the pond for my kids. A highly productive food chain might be good for frogs and herons, but not for swimming. The best swimming lakes are not eutrophic, but cold, clear, and oligotrophic, or poor in nutrients.”

Despite her being a scientist, there is a repeating theme of climate doom, and yet a lack of actual solutions in the text. It’s frustrating to read as a person who is constantly bombarded by climate, social, economic, and political doom on the internet and in daily life. The tone of the text shows that Kimmerer is trying to inform the audience of Braiding Sweetgrass on the state of the world. It implies that she believes her audience is unaware of the reality of human impact, or how deep the problem goes.

For instance, in part 3, Picking Sweetgrass, chapter 6: The Honorable Harvest, Kimmerer writes, “Lionel went to work in the mines at Sudbury, Ontario, left the woods to work underground, digging nickel ore from the earth to be fed into the maw of furnaces. Sulfur dioxide and heavy metals poured from the stacks, making a toxic acid rain that killed every living thing for miles, a gigantic burn mark on the land. Without vegetation, the soil all washed away, leaving a moonscape so bare that NASA used it to test lunar vehicles. The metal smelters at Sudbury held the earth in a leg-hold trap, and the forest was dying a slow and painful death. Too late, after the damage was done, Sudbury became the poster child for clean-air legislation.”

This is the sort of thing that anyone (especially those in the younger generations) who has been on the internet long enough will already be exhausted by. There is so much constant doom culture around everything with not enough discussions of solutions. The earth is dying. We know this. It is because of the capitalist, self-driven culture we live in. We know this. But it is not the end of all things, and there are actually steps we can take to heal our world, which is actually something that is heavily outlined in the text. This is something that was pleasantly surprising to read. Kimmerer would often speak on the importance of reciprocity and how it is something that can (and should) be practiced by anyone. In part 2, Tending Sweetgrass, chapter 4: The Consolation of Water Lilies, she writes “Our work and our joy is to pass along the gift and to trust that what we put out into the universe will always come back.”, which is a great example of this fact.

I will often see people have similar methods of discussion on various social medias- tumblr, twitter, etc.- and any attempt at suggestions of solutions is so violently fought back against that people can't do much else other than vent their frustrations on the crises, which is fine, venting is healthy, you shouldn't hold onto things and bottle things up, but it is hard to exist in a space where all of the talk is just about what's wrong and not what we can do to fix things.

I feel like Braiding Sweetgrass is the kind of book you buy for your parents or relatives to inform them of what's going on in the world outside of twitter, but in the best way possible. Anyone who wants to can pick it up and understand the text. The whole book has a very sweet, personal feeling, it’s like Kimmerer is speaking directly to the reader, sharing all of these stories with the reader.

I would really want to see what a book of hers would be like if it was written to a younger audience. It makes me think about how adults tend to just share information with each other, and not really even consider how things will affect the younger generations, or even their own children. Younger generations have to think about these things all the time because it directly affects us. For better or worse, a lot of the generations that caused the various crises will be dead before anything is truly fixed.

Long story short, while Braiding Sweetgrass is an amazing start, I want to hear even more adults helping. I want to see them doing things to try and change things. We cannot do this by ourselves. We are still children. We need help. Please.

[loving-villanelle]

Having been religiously following all the cast interviews and reviewers' thoughts since the start of S4, I'm now like 99.99% certain that either V or Eve kill each other. All this talk about the scorpion and the frog since the start fits perfectly with that dynamic.

It also aligns with how Sandra and Jodie have emphasised that "the story led them there truthfully/it's true to the characters" etc. etc. because let's be honest, the KE team never believed these two could have a lasting romance. They've repeatedly said they're doomed from the start.

Imo, that's gonna be a worse ending than the two of them dying because of the Twelve. Surely some of us expected the Twelve being the death of them, and it would've been plausible but we'd never expect V or Eve to turn on each other again so that's the surprise factor they're going for. I think they firmly believed the Eve and V would always be the death of each other and they're now simply acting on it. (Remember Sandra's interview? "Eve realises that to reach her end, it must be with V" or something along those lines)

And it'll be oh so disappointing to see that play out because it'll throw all the character development out the window and quite literally tarnish their entire relationship once we see how it ended. I mean if they had to kill each other, could've just done it in Season 1 and call it a day, y'know? Sure that would've been disappointing in its own right cuz it wouldn't have the ~build-up~ but would've saved us the agony of this back and forth for more than 4 years.

I'm betting that's what's gotten everyone so disappointed.

Also, sorry to put this negativity in your asks but I've just got SO many thoughts and theories and have no one else to share them with :(

"The story led them there truthfully/it's true to the characters"

If one kills the other, you will never in 197064469 years be able to convince me that their story truthfully led them there or that it's true to the characters.

Even in season 1, Eve didn't really want to kill Villanelle. The second she stabbed her, she immediately regretted it and was saying "let me help you."

When Villanelle shot Eve, she was so clearly struggling to move on after and was so relieved when she found out that she was still alive.

These are not two women who have ever truly wanted the other dead. So if KE brings us to that conclusion, it'll be the biggest joke in the history of television because I can't think of anything that would be more untrue to the characters. That wouldn't be where their journey truthfully led them, it would be the show literally just erasing 4 seasons of growth and connection and discovery and development.

If they wanted to go the "they'll be the death of each other" route, why not at least make it beautiful? Why not make it that they were so drawn to each other and found it so impossible to stay away from each other that they just couldn't help themselves, even knowing they were risking their lives. Then have them go down together. I have said from the beginning that I could live with that happening. If they died but it was with each other, that would be truthful because we already know how impossible it is for them to stay out of each other's orbits.

What I couldn't live with is one of them betraying the other and killing them. Not after everything they've been through. Not after 3x08, which they can't just pretend didn't happen because it did. If I stuck with this show for 4 years for an ending like that, I can't think of a worse ending quite honestly and how anyone on the KE production team could've greenlit it would absolutely boggle my mind. How anyone could think an ending like that is glorious or triumphant or funny or "a little bit" heartbreaking. That would be a lot bit heartbreaking. That would be ripping out the heart of your audience, stomping on it, and giving them the middle finger for good measure. No one wants that. Even casual viewers who don't necessarily view Villaneve as romantic (all 2 of them) are rooting for them and don't want to see their dynamic and their relationship be destroyed by something that ridiculous.

But this whole season has been ridiculous, in my opinion, and I never thought Eve would betray Villanelle. So what the hell do I know

[scaip]

When villainesses take the lead

We are the generation that grew up watching shows such as Digimon, Inuyasha and The Vision of Escaflowne. There is something attractive about works that involve journeys to other worlds with fantastical settings and exciting adventures. Let’s say, you have your normal fantastical plot: a common person falls into another world. There, they may develop or discover the possession of magical powers, live lots of magical occurrences and even may end up finding love! Magic Knight Rayearth, SAO and Zero no Tsukaima come to my mind, among others.

What’s so interesting about this type of fictional works? We receive the chance to explore themes of our interest, fulfil personal fantasies and escape from our common lives (the real world is already complicated on its own). This article shows how Escapism has its value.

There is a very interesting paradigm going on on Asiatic media concerning travels to other worlds. In fact, according to TV Tropes, this type of fictional work is called Isekai in Japanese media and it’s treated as a genre of its own. And yet, nowadays I find a very interesting twist in this type of media, a twist that makes things very entertaining.

The names of the works I’m talking about sound cliché and melodramatic: ‘My Next Live as a Villainess’, ‘Death is the Only Ending for the Villainess’, ‘The Villainess Lives Twice’, ‘The Villainess reverses the hourglass’. Others are more indirect, such as ‘The Abandoned Empress’ and ‘Your Throne’. Most are told from the point of view of females who have a traditional antagonist role.

I’ve always enjoyed ironic consumption, and these titles worked as magnets to me. What I ended up finding was a refreshing surprise: common women who fell into fantastical worlds made from the plots of novels and games they consumed in their free time, or more traditional ‘villainesses’ who travelled back in time to fix what was wrong in their first lives. In the first case, we would see normal girls who found themselves inside the bodies of ‘villainous’ characters and desperately trying to avoid their bad endings by the use of their knowledge of the plots while commenting on clichés and traditional tropes. In the second case, we see female characters who more or less identify with their ‘villainous’ role and try to change their bad outcomes while learning about themselves and what drove them to make their bad choices.

What do these types of works have in common? They are genre deconstructions. According to TV Tropes, deconstructions happen when a fictional work takes its elements apart and shows how certain elements would work in real life, by contrasting them to ‘real situations’ or parodying them. Sarcastic main characters help, too.

There is a very interesting trend among Asian Media (mainly works made by Korean authors, but there are Japanese too) concerning the deconstruction of traditional stories directed to the female public.

Why is this expression of the isekai genre so interesting?

First, because most stories deal with settings of historical fantasy, where we can indulge ourselves with beautiful Period dresses, gorgeous mansions and attractive love interests. One can’t help but remember the works of Jane Austen or the Brontë Sisters.

Second, because the twists of these works feel refreshing. We consider other points of view. We see why villains become what they become. We get to learn new plot points. Deconstructions give an interesting dose of realism and pragmatism to stories. They are refreshing because they give new angles to an old genre and we can identify with the situations.

But let’s not forget: the focus of this essay is villainesses. We get to see the story from the point of view of female characters who don’t portray themselves as good people and some even feel content with their roles.

Raised in a world where women receive lots of double standards, being pressured from young ages to be proper and good and yet receiving worse punishments than guys for doing the same things like them as a result of unrealistic expectations, along with some unhealthy extremes of social justice culture, where we are oddly pressured to change ourselves and learn from our mistakes yet we are not allowed to fully grow from them, it isn’t hard to identify with villainesses. After all, it is unavoidable to find ourselves as the villains of someone else’s life events. We are not perfect people and we fuck up sometimes. Especially when we are young.

So, why are villainesses so interesting? Because they fuck up, too. These characters don’t try to be saintly good girls and they acknowledge their situations. There is an interesting dose of cynicism underlying these works, in some, it’s more open than in others, such as ‘Your Throne’. Some female leads are noble demons who try to not drag third parties into their schemes, like Medea Belial in the work I previously mentioned. Others define themselves as villainess yet behave as anti-heroines are their worst, such as Aria Roscente in ‘The Villaines Reverses the Hourglass’. And others are heroes who still place themselves in the roles of villains, like Catarina Claes in ‘My Next Life as a Villainess!’’.

What do these three have in common? The leads also have internalized in themselves some moral standards about good and evil.

I don’t think it is surprising to find these types of works during the current fourth wave of Feminism we are living in. Terms such as internalized misogyny, double standards and deconstruction are concepts I learned these past years thanks to social media. So, why do I believe these types of Isekai novels that focus on villainesses are so relevant? Because we see other females’ points of view, we understand their positions and sometimes get to see that the true villains are other characters. Most of the villainesses of these works are, in fact, women with terrible social reputations who behave as anti-heroines at their worst.

There is a reason why the social settings of these stories are during past times. The authors of these works are deconstructing tropes from both old and new media. They are giving voices to Other Characters and show them in a realistic light, they write about flawed women who try to survive in a world full of unrealistic expectations, and that is true for both past and actual times.

It isn't hard for me to recall works such as Northanger Abbey or Jane Eyre. There are reasons why Period novels are still relevant these days, but that it’s not the topic I want to address in this essay. Here is this interesting article that analyses the success of Jane Austen works, while this note from the Guardian does the same for the Brontë sisters. Of course, experts and critics would get annoyed at me for putting Jane Austen and the Brontë Sisters on the same page, but please, bear with me: I’m talking about fictional works that deal with abuse, machismo, dysfunctional families and difficult childhoods, subjects still relevant to today. So, what’s so interesting about recalling these themes? It’s the way some Asian authors knew how to retake these stories, added some fantastical elements and still deconstructed others, providing us with a refreshing result.

Most of the isekai works I mentioned above are told from the point of view of young girls who are isolated for their social positions, because they come from other worlds and know that their ‘new bodies’ are doomed to die and more.

Imagine being reincarnated as the pretty daughter of a noble family and yet... you find yourself hated and isolated from others, in a situation you cannot control. And you can be murdered in cold blood if you don’t make the right choices. These works make it very clear some situations are ugly and dangerous. They are not painted in a romantic light. And the main characters acknowledge it.

Naturally, there are aspects we could criticize of these works. For example, the main leads usually are white thin ladies in gorgeous period dresses, who despite their issues still benefit from privileged backgrounds. And few of these works address LGTBQ+ representation, as most of the endgames are attractive male leads.

But then, this is not about pitting people against each other. It’s about acknowledging a new paradigm in story-telling, one that subverts and parodies plots.

Change is brought over by small steps. And I think we are going on a good path.

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Update (July 22nd): I see this post is reaching some people. If you feel like it, what about buying me a coffee?

[amethystpath-writes]

The Society

(NOT A PROMPT)

The grandiose room would have been extravagant had Nahzi been seeing it from anywhere other than the stage. She was a prop- no. A prop was hardly noticed. Nahzi was the whole exhibit, ready for viewing, prodding, and throwing insults at.

“She looks uncomfortable.” I’m stuffed in a too-hot dress.

“Her hands shouldn’t be covered in those gloves. They are for the elite class- for the Society.” My hands are scarred and Garnor thought they would be too ugly to look at- said it would distract from my ‘pretty, scratched face.’

And what did it matter anyways? Nahzi was a Society member’s property, so the gloves should have made the elite class feel well. This lady had no right. Then again, Nahzi didn’t want the Society gloves. She didn’t want them. She wanted them off. Now. Goodness, she never even thought about the meaning behind it. Nahzi was adorning their clothing, becoming more and more like them. Her stomach twisted.

“Is she capable of lifting her lips at all?” Into a snarl, perhaps, but that would only get me into trouble. “Garnor must have found the perfect routine. I should ask him about it after the Gathering. Misfortune befall you, Creature.” You used to be a Creature, too.

Did he say ‘routine?’ If unpredictability was routine, then yes. If Garnor was so great at what he did, why wasn’t Nahzi his wife yet? And why wasn’t he the one with special abilities?

The gloves were itchy now. So was the dress. The pins in Nahzi’s hair. They didn’t belong on a Creature.

Most of the critics were women, ones all dressed up in uncomfortable gowns and with faces powdered themselves. Looks like they fell right into their new roles. Women with pale, olive, chocolate, and all skins had fallen victim- had all been manipulated so easily by those around them. There were a few men who had fallen prone to a woman’s influence, too, but they were much fewer than the alternative. There was no particular reason- only an easy pattern Nahzi noticed too soon as she stood broadcasted on the stage.

A hand landed on Nahzi’s waist. Her first reaction being to pull away was a mistake as it rattled the chains hanging from her wrists, drawing the attention of all the hungry sharks. Nahzi dropped her gaze, but kept her chin angled high. She had nothing to be ashamed of as long as she defied Garnor. He would want her to speak; she wouldn’t.

“You have received many compliments, I heard.”

Nahzi nearly hummed mockingly, but that was just as close to speaking as deliberately saying, ‘Go screw yourself.’ She swallowed, taking a small breath. Still, Nahzi said nothing, but she did turn her chin to make eye contact with Garnor. He hated it when she did so. Hated it because it meant she didn’t acknowledge him as a threat. Garnor forgot Nahzi wasn’t a puppy dog like the rest of the bitches here- literally and metaphorically speaking.

“You know what happens when you ignore me.”

Ignore you? Is that what you call this? Nahzi made a tss sound, one that gathered more attention than she meant. Everything she did was an attraction. Everything. It was why she remained so silent, and otherwise so obedient- despite her grandest wishes. It broke her- literally- to be so docile. However, fighting the guests would have caused a ruckus that Nahzi would not be able to survive later. The silence, on the other hand, that she could deal with the consequences of- because Garnor didn’t understand the importance of it.

The chain was grasped at Nahzi’s left wrist, and she was pulled into Garnor’s chest. Hating the gasp she gave, Nahzi turned her head away, her arms becoming riddled with chilled bumps. Contact be damned. Looking him in the eye usually caused him discomfort. That was…until the reason it happened was because she’d been frightened by him enough that she glanced.

“Look at me.”

Deep breaths, deep breaths. Tongue on roof of mouth. Nahzi plastered a look of contempt on her face- the same expression she always bared until slip-ups like the one just now. She faced him again, blinked, and nearly smiled when Garnor frowned at her self-control.

“You will regret making a fool of me.”

Nahzi shrugged. Maybe I will, maybe I will not. See, as horrible as the punishments sometimes were for not being Garnor’s little trophy-power wife, it was always somewhat satisfactory to watch him stomp around like a toddler throwing a tantrum. That satisfaction was all she needed to protect herself.

“You are going to perform.”

For the first time this night, Nahzi’s lips parted. What? she almost said but caught herself and snapped her jaw shut, lips forming into a defiant frown. No. You can’t make me. But Garnor could, and Nahzi knew that; she just liked to tell herself better.

“Your hand.”

She shook her head, stepping back. The stage was large, but not large enough that Nahzi could outrun Garnor. Of course, she had chains on, anyway. Nahzi thought even without them she had little chance- especially when surrounded by so many people who saw her as nothing other than an animal which needed taming.

Not here, Nahzi thought. Do not turn me into a performer in front of them. Them- all the people a part of the Society. A bunch of rich brutes and their dainty and lesser partners, taking in people like Nahzi to starve to death if only for entertainment. It was a vicious cycle that Nahzi wished to someday put an end to.

“One of them will take me,” Nahzi said, and her voice was rasp and unpractised from her long hours of rebellious silence. “You know they will.”

“Good, then you will smile when you receive your next compliment.”

As horrible as Garnor was, she didn’t trust that others in the Society weren’t worse. Nahzi heard stories of Miss Meighleen’s Creatures being damaged so far beyond repair that the husband smashed it with one of those meat mallets used in the kitchens- killing it once and for all.

At least its life was ended before it could become such a horrible and mindless contribution to the Society. Still, Nahzi had no wish to die. She preferred this constant fight and struggle over an endless motionlessness.

It. Nahzi used to be called that…before Garnor assigned her a name and gender. How unfair? Nahzi never paid attention to that change before but now…now as the gloves itched, and the dress scratched her skin…as she spoke to Garnor as a plea to remain as she was…it was all this which made Nahzi realize with raised brows…she was becoming one of them. It was this change, she realized, which was the cause of her misfortunate state now- the reason she had ever been able to be put in these horrendous chains, ones that pushed her fingers into unusable fists.

“I could not perform even if I wanted,” she whispered. Nahzi touched a closed, useless, and restrained fist to her lips, then to her eye as a tear slipped and she tried to hide it. The sniffle was unconcealable, though.

Was this it? Was Nahzi finally broken in after months- or was it years- of a hard, dreadful silence? After rebellious glares and jerks away from touches? But she still felt Creature-esque. Still felt angry at this change, at this sudden transition of sacrifice.

All this time, Nahzi thought, and whimpered in the back of her throat, I thought I was making such strategic sacrifices. Not fighting the visitors because it might have meant more torture behind-the-scenes, which would have meant submission. When all along…those sacrifices were acts of submission, and they were adding up- so quickly that Nahzi didn’t even see it coming until this very moment.

“Your hand,” Garnor said again, and this time Nahzi didn’t even have the capacity in her mind to reject him, to- to defy him, even in an aggravating glare. She stood still, sniffing with eyes wide open as she recounted each of her small sacrifices, only realizing that she doomed herself, and that Garnor hardly had to step in to do it.

As her hand was involuntarily lifted, Nahzi began to wonder, Is this my species’ fate- to become slaves to the Society? Have we no way to eliminate the threatful parts of ourselves?

The restraint around Nahzi’s fists fell away, clattering to the ground in a way that the sound ricocheted across the room, ringing in all Societal ears, ringing their attentions to the stage where an unrestrained Creature now stood sobbing to herself.

Nahzi clenched her fist at her own free will, but as she released her fingers to reveal her palms, a string of glowing white light slithered out, skittering across the air in bounded hops…right towards Garnor.

The Society, which had congealed into a massive, crowded audience erupted into cheer, laughter, and applause as the white caressed Garnor's hand, gliding across his knuckles and around his shoulders before steadily sinking into his skin.

Meanwhile Nahzi fell to her knees, head in her hands as she sobbed at her loss of powers, at her sense of being having been so cruelly ripped from her with hardly a moment’s notice.

Now, if Nahzi ever wanted her abilities back, she would have to do to a Creature what Garnor did to her. Or rather, what she did to herself. Could she do it? Could Nahzi continue the cycle of thievery and grievances just to reclaim what was stolen from her, even if it meant stealing from another?

Would she become a part of the Society, or would she find a way to tear it at its seams from within its gates?

[jackcinephile]

LO Fans: "I love Lore Olympus because it deals with serious themes, like sexual assault, abuse, gaslighting, trauma, and mental health issues!"

Me, who spent my life discovering and obsessing over masterpieces like this:

"You're gonna have to try a lot harder than that to impress me."

Yeah, I never understood that kind of praise. For one thing, people act like LO is groundbreaking for that reason, despite there being countless movies, books, tv shows, comics, and video games that also deal with the same themes. That isn't to say there can't be more stories like this, however. I, for one, am begging for another video game that comes close to the emotional resonance of Silent Hill 2, or for a faithful adaptation of Dracula and/or Phantom of the Opera, or for a horror movie as unsettling as The Howling! But to say any new story that deals with these themes is unique for doing so, is just simply not true. Lore Olympus is no more unique than any of these stories. Also, I don't understand the praise that Lore Olympus is great just by virtue of having these themes in the first place. Just because a story has serious themes, doesn't automatically make it good. Far too often does LO use its themes as a crutch for a plot that is standard issue among romances, as opposed to stories like The Howling, which has a very intriguing, outlandish plot that serves as a catalyst to explore themes of very real and relatable horror. Lore Olympus, without its intense themes, is just another story about the CEO falling in love with his intern. And don't get me wrong, I LOVE those kinds of stories, but Lore Olympus just doesn't really do it for me. And the poorly executed themes just hamper it even further for me.

If it wasn't already apparent, has anyone noticed a pattern between these titles? All but one are horror stories. In my opinion, that is one of the key differences between them and LO: Horror! The themes within, are ones that illicit terror, and the stories reflect that (even Phantom of the Opera--don't listen to anyone who says it's a romance). Starting with Dracula, one of the scenes that horrified me the most in the book was the one where Count Dracula sneaks into Mina's bedroom. The book describes him slitting open his own vein and forcing her to drink his blood. Mina then expresses feelings of violation, much akin to what rape survivors feel. It doesn't pull any punches in its shocking, horrific portrayal, but it never comes off as exploitative. That's because the best horror stories rely on the audience's empathy. In this case, nobody wants to feel violated, so we feel as horrified as the characters do when we read about this grotesque event. And because it is about illiciting fear through empathy, Dracula succeeds where Lore Olympus fails. Lore Olympus, before all else, is a romance. And rape should not be in a romantic story. Especially not when the narrative of LO uses this trauma to validate the relationship between the two leads. I'm not a fan of stories that use trauma to validate a relationship between romantic interests, and I think that partly stems from reading the Phantom of the Opera.

If you ask me, Phantom of the Opera is one if the best books to discuss abuse and gaslighting ever written! Despite misconceptions generated by the popularity of the musical, PotO is very much a horror story with hardly any romance at all. And it's one of the best examples about why using trauma to validate a romance is a very bad idea! You see, all the conflict of the story begins with The Phantom and his trauma. He was born with multiple physical deformities that cause him to look like a living corpse. Because of this, he is despised and rejected by the world in order to escape the hatred of the world, he commissions the construction of the Paris Opera House, complete with intricate catacombs where he can live out the rest of his miserable days. Then one day, a woman named Christine comes to work at the Opera as a chorus girl. She is sad and alone due to her being orphaned, without a friend in the world. She too is emotionally damaged and the Phantom thinks this means she'll understand him. The trouble begins instantly when he claims to be a character from a folktale that Christine's father used to tell her. This is when the manipulation and gaslighting begins. Part of what makes this so effective is how we see it from an outside perspective. The protagonist, Raoul, is in love with Christine and we get to see his confusion and growing concern when he starts realizing Christine is showing signs of an abusive relationship. What makes the relationship even worse is the fact that Christine actually does understand The Phantom. So she doesn't run away not only out of fear, but also compassion. She knows what it's like to feel isolated and dead to the world and The Phantom uses that against her. The more I describe this, the more parallels I begin to see to Hades' and Minthe's relationship. Yes, Minthe abused Hades in much of the same way as The Phantom abused Christine. Notice how Minthe keeps convincing Hades that they're the only people who understand each other, even going so far as to say, "We're the same." The funny thing is, that's exactly what the narrative uses to validate Hades' and Persephone's relationship! It tries to establish that Hades and Persephone relate to each other and they say, several times, "We're the same," to each other. But this is exactly how Hades got stuck in a toxic relationship with Minthe, so why is it suddenly okay now? Relationships that use shared trauma to validate themselves are almost always doomed to become toxic, in one way or another.

So what about the healthy relationship in Phantom of the Opera? Well, it's kinda interesting actually. You see, Christine eventually comes to realize that she needs help, so she turns to the protagonist, Raoul, to get her away from the Phantom. Raoul has an interesting character arc because he starts the novel being pretty immature and kinda selfish. He doesn't really take Christine's feelings into consideration. It's more like a boy chasing his childhood crush (actually that's exactly what happens). However, over the course of the story, as he becomes increasingly concerned with her well-being, he learns to care more about her feelings and her needs. This culminates in the climax, when he's willing to crawl through hell itself for her sake. I bring all this up because I wanted to compare Raoul with Hades as well. Hades is a very consistent character. He doesn't need an arc like Raoul because, from the very beginning, he's willing to put all of Persephone's needs before his, to a fault! That is his entire purpose within the narrative of LO. He exists to serve Persephone. Raoul didn't exist to serve Christine. He had his own journey of growing and maturing. And Christine didn't exist to serve Raoul either. It bothers me that a novel from 1910 has a more well-rounded relationship than a modern comic! Actually, now that I think about it, isn't Persephone's entire character arc supposed to be her learning that she shouldn't exist to serve others? Well, that totally contradicts Hades' role in the story, doesn't it? He exists to serve her! I guess, in the eyes of LO, it's only okay if men serve women, but not for women to serve men. Newsflash: neither is okay.

Now Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) remains, to this day, one of the most terrifying movies I've ever seen! That's all thanks to its brutal depictions of domestic abuse. So Dr. Henry Jekyll believes the solution to enlightening the human race is to separate the good and evil in our souls. He solves this problem by creating a drug to do just that, which transforms him into Edward Hyde, but he becomes addicted and starts terrorizing a woman who was once a former patient of his. I think what makes this so effective, when compared to LO, is one simple factor: Fear. I am terrified of Edward Hyde, but whenever Apollo shows up, I'm just annoyed. That's because Hyde isn't being used to sell an agenda, while Apoll is. Apollo is all about making a statement about toxic masculinity, which always bothered me from the very beginning! Being an abusive cunt who rapes women has nothing to do with masculinity! It doesn't matter if you're masculine or feminine, anyone can be a cunting abusive rapist. If you are a rapist, it's because you're a monster who lacks empathy, not because of masculinity. And if you think masculinity has something to do with a lack of empathy, fuck off! Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is not about toxic masculinity. It's about how drug addiction can often hurt other people around us just as much, if not moreso, than ourselves. It also doesn't use rape to validate a relationship between characters. I'm sorry, but that is just the laziest storytelling technique. When the antagonist is a rapist OF COURSE the male love interest is going to look better by comparison! But when you take Apollo out of the equation, Hades stops looking like a desirable love interest real fucking quick.

So yeah, I think Hades makes for a bad love interest. That's mostly because he's so much like Shinji Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Yeah, the one title from the list above that's not a horror, but is no less relevant. The thing is, both Hades and Shinji have a lot in common, such as hating themselves, having a bad relationship with their father, and not caring at all about their own wants and needs. Oh, also Asuka's a better written character than Minthe, but that's a whole other topic. What makes Evangelion work, in my opinion, is that Shinji's whole journey is about learning to love himself, while Hades is portrayed as being perfect the way he is. Hades in LO is like a flawless beacon of virtue, solely because he worships the ground Persephone walks on. But the guy just doesn't care about himself at all! Like I said earlier, Hades guilty of the same self-destructive behaviors as Persephone but he's praised for it, while Persephone is encouraged to look after herself more often. Compare this to Shinji, whose life only gets worse the more he neglects himself. The only time Hades does something beneficial for himself is when he breaks up with Minthe, but immediately after that, he starts devoting every ounce of energy to Persephone! All that matters is her! He doesn't give a single fuck about himself. Sorry, but that's not good qualities in a male love interest. In all fairness, this is a problem with the romance genre as a whole. Most romances give priority to the protagonist (in this case Persephone) while neglecting the love interest (Hades). It's why I have a serious problem with the entire genre.

Now what could Silent Hill 2 have that is in any way relevant to Lore Olympus? Two words: Nightmare Fuel. Personifying trauma as literal demons is one of the smartest ideas anyone's ever had, because speaking from personal experience, that's how it feels. I just don't feel like the trauma experienced by the characters in LO is a waking nightmare like it is in real life. For one, the characters' trauma only pops up when it's convenient for the plot. Like whenever Persephone starts experiencing ptsd, it happens when she's with Hades so we can get a scene with Hades cuddling her. After that, it shows up in a scene to make her look badass by confronting Apollo. No, just no. The Howling did it better too, by making the protagonist's trauma such an inconvenience in her life! I never felt that way in LO. When you uss traumatic encounters to make your character look like a badass, kindly fuck off.

[miyanom]

CHAPTER TWO | READ CHAPTER THREE HERE

SOKKA X PRINCESS!READER

WARNINGS: Fighting, mentions of death

NOTES: This is a very Y/N centric chapter, going into how she can’t see herself as Chief.

The Fire Navy flare still remained high in the sky, even after Aang and Katara had returned to the village, resulting in the boy’s banishment.

Sokka and Katara stood on either side of Y/N, the siblings unable to look at each other in their anger. With Sokka mad that Katara would willingly leave her tribe and her family for Aang, and Katara upset that Sokka banished one of the only other benders she had ever met.

Honestly, Y/N was just thinking that Katara’s news of wanting to leave the Southern Water Tribe with Aang couldn’t have come to Sokka at a worse time.

She had just finished saying her own goodbye to the boy, and then they come back to the village and suddenly Katara is wanting to leave too?

Y/N hadn’t even said goodbye to Katara yet, how was she supposed to do it now? Katara would probably try and leave with her, hoping they could catch up with Aang.

“Princess, what should we do?” One of the women questioned, stepping forward to confront Y/N, hoping the Princess would know what to do when the inevitable attack happens.

“I-”

“Princess, what will happen to us?”

“And the children?”

“Where do we go?”

Y/N froze where she stood, unable to get a word out as she was bombarded with questions from the village. She was their princess, probably a few years away from being their Chief, and yet she had no idea what to do in this situation.

Was she supposed to comfort her people? Or plan an attack of her own? How were they supposed to defend themselves, these people didn’t know how to fight… Y/N didn’t even know how to fight.

“Princess, I-”

“For now, return to your homes,” Y/N ordered the people, cutting off a woman who was about to ask her another question. “Stay inside. Sokka, we need a plan. We must be prepared.”

Sokka, who had been staring at Y/N (surprised to see her talking in such an official way), was snapped out of his trance. “Right. Let’s do that.”

Y/N nodded with a deep breath. She needed to be ready for this, because whether she liked it or not, the Fire Nation was coming. And though this may be her last act as Princess of the Southern Water Tribe, she was going to protect her people, no matter what.

Sokka and Y/N headed into a small tent, and while Sokka applied his war-paint, Y/N attempted to come up with a plan. “We have no waterbenders, no one who can actually fight,” she whispered, crossing her arms as she stared at the ground. “We’re doomed, aren’t we?”

“Of course not,” Sokka stood up, his war-paint now applied and his club held tightly in his grasp. “My dad told me to protect everyone, and that’s what I’ll do, Princess. Even if it’s the last thing I do.”

Y/N frowned at that. “No, no, no, no. You’re not risking your life, Sokka. Do you hear me?” She stepped forward. “I’ll deal with them, maybe we can talk things out.”

“Talk things out?” Sokka scoffed. “It’s the Fire Nation! They don’t talk things out!”

She paused, trying to think of a plan that would ensure everyone’s survival. “You know, things would be looking better for us if you didn’t banish the Airbender. We could use his help right about now.”

“Aang is the reason the Fire Nation will be knocking on our front door any second now,” Sokka pointed out. “He was dangerous, he could’ve gotten Katara hurt, or worse-”

“You’re right,” Y/N said softly. Her answer surprised Sokka, who had expected to fight back like his sister did just an hour earlier. “I know you’re right, Aang could’ve gotten Katara hurt. But he’s also capable of airbending, and in a time like this, we need every fighter we have.”

Sokka had seriously never seen Y/N like this, though he had to assume she was always like this back in her own village. Never in his life had he seen her as Princess Y/N, she was always just their friend, just Y/N.

But now, it was like she was a whole different person. Maybe things really had changed over the past year, maybe the girl in front of him — the girl so willing to run away from her duties — wasn't the same girl he used to know.

Maybe there was no going back from this.

Y/N began to fidget with her gloves as she looked down. “I’m scared… so scared of the Fire Nation.”

Sokka wanted to comfort her, to say things would be alright, but it was like he had no control over the words he said. “So… this isn’t convincing you to stay with your tribe? Your people? You’re still going to leave?”

“Sokka,” Y/N sighed.

“Princess Y/N,” Katara rushed into the tent, her eyes widening slightly when they fell onto Sokka. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t realise-”

“It’s fine, Katara.” Sokka pushed past his sister and left the tent, heading out to prepare for the upcoming confrontation.

“What is it, Katara?” Y/N asked, her eyes flickering to the girl.

“Well, everyone’s getting restless out here,” Katara answered. “And I know you told them to stay inside, but they’re scared. And well…”

“It reminds them of the raids,” Y/N whispered.

Katara nodded her head. “My mother died the last time they were here, Y/N.” She raised a hand to gently touch her necklace.

“Katara, we aren’t losing anybody today,” Y/N said confidently, a reassuring smile gracing her features. “I promise. We’ll make it through.”

Before another word could be said, the ground beneath them began to shake. “Oh no,” Y/N gasped.

The two girls ran out of the tent as the shaking got worse with every passing second. Katara came to a stop, staring at her brother who stood on the snow. wall surrounding the village.

Y/N’s eyes followed Katara’s line of sight, just in time to see a large war ship emerging from the fog, headed straight for Sokka.

“Sokka, get out of the way!” She heard Katara shout.

Though Katara’s voice was drowned out by the screams of a child who had fallen over. Y/N immediately took off running, picking the child up from the ground as the large crack in the ice headed straight for them.

With the child in her arms, Y/N ran towards the tents, handing the child off to his mother.

The front of the ship came into contact with the walls, causing the snow to crumble as it brought Sokka safely down to the ground.

Instead of being relieved that Sokka was okay, Y/N couldn’t take her eyes off the war ship that had now opened up, revealing a crew of Fire Nation soldiers as they began to walk down the bridge.

Katara, who had been standing just a few steps behind Y/N suddenly stepped forward, taking the Princess’s hand into her own as they both tried to calm their nerves.

Fear was coursing through Y/N’s veins as she stared the soldiers, continuously opening and closing her mouth as she attempted to speak. But no words came out.

She could remember years ago, during the raid that killed Kya, when her father shouted for the soldiers to leave their home or face the consequences of attacking the Southern Water Tribe.

Y/N had never wanted to be like her father, so distant and cold as the war took a toll on him, but right now… she wished for nothing more than to be as brave as him. To look these men in the face and tell them to leave.

Before she had the chance to do anything, Sokka was lifting himself for the ground and charging at the soldiers as a war cry ripped from his throat.

Y/N’s eyes widened as the crew’s captain simply kicked Sokka off the bridge and continued his way down to the tribe.

This wasn’t going to be easy, she knew that, but Sokka was right, she had a duty to her people. She had to protect them.

Letting go of Katara’s hand, Y/N took a step forward, a determined look appearing on her face even though her hands were trembling as the men got closer and closer.

“What do you want from us?” She demanded, hoping her voice didn’t give away how utterly scared she was.

“Princess,” Katara whispered, her eyes widening slightly.

The Captain of the ship simply stared at Y/N for no more than 5 seconds, before his eyes scanned the crowd.

Had Zuko not been on an important mission to find and capture the Avatar, perhaps he would’ve greeted the Princess with more respect, even answered her question — as a Prince himself, he knew that much.

But he was on an important mission, and these people were the enemy. Especially if they were hiding the Avatar.

“Why are y-”

“Where are you hiding him?” Zuko shot back, cutting Y/N off. Her brows furrowed in confusion as he turned to look at her.

“Who?” She questioned.

“Don’t play games!” Zuko shouted, suddenly reaching forward and pulling Gran-Gran out of the crowd.

Katara gasped in fear as she reached out for her grandmother, only for Y/N to pull her back, not wanting to see the girl get hurt by these foreigners.

“He’d be about this age, master of all elements,” Zuko explained, shaking Gran-Gran back and forth.

“The Avatar?” Y/N stared at him in confusion. “The Avatar hasn’t been seen in decades. Please, let her go.”

Zuko stayed silent for a moment before releasing Gran-Gran’s hood from his grasp, causing Katara to quickly hug her grandmother. Zuko remained stiff in position, before his fist suddenly shot out and a burst of fire was flying out over the people of the tribe.

Y/N’s eyes widened as she was pulled down and out of the flames range by Katara. Y/N’s eyes flickered down to her hands, which were still trembling with fear.

She swallowed the lump forming in the back of her throat, before standing back up, hiding her hands behind her back as she glared at Zuko. “Leave,” she ordered. “I don’t know what you think you stand to gain here, but we don’t know where the Avatar is. He hasn’t been seen in a long time, surely you know that.”

“Stop lying! I know you’re hiding him!” Zuko told her.

“We aren’t hiding anyone!”

Before Zuko could get another word in, Sokka was running back at him. The Fire Nation boy ducked, causing Sokka to go flying overhead. As Sokka landed in the snow, he quickly rolled out of the way before Zuko’s flames could hit him, and as soon as he was at a safe enough distance he was throwing his boomerang.

Only to miss completely.

“Sokka,” Y/N breathed out, staring at the boy with a frantic look in her eyes. Provoking the Fire Nation wouldn’t be good for any of them, they just needed to convince them to leave. That had to be enough, right?

“Show no fear!” One of the younger boy’s called out as he threw a spear in Sokka’s direction.

“N-” Y/N cut herself off as Katara quickly grabbed the hand she was about to raise in Sokka’s direction.

As Y/N turned to Katara, she was surprised by the look in the younger girl’s eyes. A look telling her that even though Sokka wasn’t the best fighter, he was also their only hope right now.

When Y/N turned back to Sokka, he was on the ground just as the boomerang flew back and hit Zuko on the back of his helmet.

Regaining composure, two knife-like flames appeared in Zuko’s hands as he walked menacingly toward Sokka, who had shuffled back toward the tribe in fear.

In the blink of an eye, a boy was sliding past Zuko, knocking the Prince back onto his butt before he came to a stop in front of Y/N, Katara and Sokka.

“Aang!” Y/N grinned, watching as the penguin knocked the Airbender off its back.

“Hey, Princess,” Aang smiled softly as he turned to them. “Hey, Katara. Hey, Sokka.”

“Hi, Aang,” Sokka waved slightly, unable to greet Aang with the same enthusiasm as Y/N. “Thanks for coming.”

However, even in their excitement, a shadow loomed over them. “Aang, we could use your help,” Y/N spoke, nodding toward the soldiers.

The soldiers formed a circle around Aang, causing him to use his staff to knock the snow in their direction. “Looking for me?” He questioned.

“You’re the Airbender?” Zuko asked in surprise. “You’re the Avatar?”

“Aang?” Katara gasped quietly.

“No way!” Sokka’s eyes widened.

Y/N stared at the boy in complete silence, shock taking over at the sudden news. Aang was the Avatar? And he didn’t tell them?

Though Y/N wanted to be happy knowing the Avatar had returned to save them, she couldn’t help but realise that Sokka was right. Aang was dangerous to the Tribe, and Y/N had blindly accepted him.

She put her people at risk. How was she supposed to be Chief one day if she couldn’t even see danger when it was five feet in front of her?

This was why she had to leave.

Aang giving himself up for the water tribe had surprised them all, and while it was probably a bad time, it also gave Y/N the push she needed to finally leave.

No matter how hard she tried, she just wasn’t cut out for this. If she became Chief one day, she’d destroy everything her ancestors had worked so hard for. Y/N wouldn’t be able to protect her people like this, she wasn’t meant to be a crowd speaker - someone who could influence others with just words.

No, Y/N was meant to fight. She was meant to be learning waterbending and fighting alongside the Earth Kingdom to put an end to the Fire Nation’s reign of terror. That was the only way she could help her tribe without destroying them.

That’s why she was here, waiting beside Katara as the girl stared into the distance, still worried about Aang.

“Katara,” the princess spoke up, making the younger girl glance at her.

“You’re leaving too, right?” Katara frowned.

Y/N blinked in surprise. “You know?”

“Gran-Gran told me,” she nodded. “Last night. She said you came to say goodbye.”

“I’m sorry,” Y/N whispered. “I just… I’m supposed to be out there fighting, Katara. You saw me before, I can't protect the tribe like this.”

“Let me come with you!” Katara pleaded. “When we save Aang, we can go North and learn waterbending together, and then we can go find our dad’s and help them.”

Y/N stared at her friend. “Save Aang? How are we supposed to fight real soldiers, Katara? And how are we going to find the ship?”

“I don’t know,” Katara sighed, looking back into the distance. “But we have to try! He sacrificed himself to save the village, we owe him!”

He sacrificed himself for the tribe… Y/N couldn’t help but wonder if she would do the same when it came down to it. Could she willingly give her life for her people? Or would she find herself being a coward, like she was when watching Aang fight the soldiers?

She wanted to fight, but how far was she willing to go?

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[mst3kproject]

Invasion of the Star Creatures

I promised you guys something truly awful this week, didn’t I?  Well, how about a space invasion ‘comedy’ (big emphasis on the air quotes there) produced by Samuel Zarkoff to be a double-bill with The Brain that Wouldn’t Die?  The closest thing it has to a star is Frankie Ray, whom MSTies might know as the writer of Laserblast.  He also wrote Zoltan, Hound of Dracula, which I really, really need to see one of these days.  Film Historian Bill Warren described Invasion of the Star Creatures as ‘so helplessly bad it’s almost unwatchable’.  Let’s find out if he was right.

Fort Nicholson is the world’s center for atomic research, despite apparently being staffed entirely by idiots.  The two biggest idiots are, unfortunately, our main characters.  Their names are Philbrick and Penn.  No, I don’t know which is which.  No, I don’t care.  I’m gonna call them Rick and Rick With The Squeaky Voice.  The first ‘comedic’ sequence involves Rick With The Squeaky Voice sitting in a barrel pretending he’s going to space, and getting his ass set on fire.

That sets the tone for the whole movie quite nicely. It’s stupid and it’s not funny, and it never gets any better.  In fact, as we shall see, it gets significantly worse.

For some reason, Rick and Rick With The Squeaky Voice are assigned to a mission to explore a cave recently exposed by a nuclear test.  This turns out to be the base for two seven-foot space women, Tanga and Pona, and their tuberous minions, the Vege-Men, and the entire party is soon in their clutches.  The aliens say that they have come to save humanity from destroying ourselves through nuclear war, but naturally the army isn’t into that.  Rick With The Squeaky Voice discovers that kissing the women puts them into a daze, allowing the two idiots to escape, but of course nobody back at Fort Nicholson believes their story.  Is it really up to these two to stop Tanga and Pona from heading back to their home planet with their report?  We’re doomed.

I don’t remember which review it was, but I once invited you to imagine a movie in which every character is Dropo or Watney Smith.  This is that movie.  This is proud of being that movie.  The aliens try to read the two Ricks’ minds and one is completely empty while the other is full of superhero fantasies.  Pona calls what she sees ‘completely illogical and infantile’, which is a fair description of the whole movie.

There’s a sequence where one of the army men shoots a rattlesnake that was about to bite one of the Ricks, and then cries because ‘he might have had a family’.  They try to lampoon the thing in old movies where the characters walk through the same set from different angles by doing it without cutting away or changing the camera angle, but it just looks dumb.  The Colonel gives a long-winded speech about the merits of getting straight to the point.  A forced march stops for a lovely picnic and wine tasting.  A guy gets his ass kicked by a Vege-Man and declares, “that’s the first time a salad ever tossed me.”  There’s a running ‘gag’ about fans of ‘Space Commander Connors’ recognizing each other’s secret decoder rings and immediately going into a full-on geek-out.

None of this is funny, much of it is downright embarrassing, and the worst part is that the writers have no idea how to include their attempts at comedy in the story.  Rather than the hijinks advancing the plot, every time something that’s supposed to be funny happens, the whole thing comes to a dead halt.  This gives the impression that the movie is stumbling around in the dark with no idea where it’s going.  It finally seems to settle on a plot when we find out that the spaceship is about to leave and must be stopped.  After some bullshit the Ricks convince the Colonel (and only the Colonel) to help them take on the aliens.  At this point I was thinking that this movie was pretty terrible but it hadn’t actually pushed me to the point of being tempted to turn it off…

And then it got racist.

The last ten minutes or so of Invasion of the Star Creatures are a downward spiral in which it seems like they gave up trying to be funny in favour of being actively offensive. First, they encounter what’s supposed to be a group of Native Americans on horseback.  Rick With The Squeaky Voice tries to get their attention by saying “hey, Kemosabe, I wanna buy some blankets!”  The Natives don’t speak much English but they do a lot of grunting, and threaten to kill the Colonel because they think he’s General Custer (?!).  Then they kidnap everybody and force them to smoke the peace pipe and drink firewater and the white guys only escape once the Natives have passed out.

Holy shit.  Not only is this repulsive, it is, as previously noted, irrelevant.  It has no effect on the plot other than to waste time.  The Natives do not help them defeat the aliens and neither does the Colonel, who is also in a drunken stupor.  And then, just when we think this can’t possibly get any worse, the defeated alien women declare that they must throw themselves on the mercy of the Earth Men.  This turns out to mean marrying them, and the dialogue specifically likens marriage to slavery, which Tanga and Pona seem to consider a point in its favour!  The end of this movie left my head spinning.  It’s like I watched a guy get ‘comedically’ knocked over by a punching bag for forty-five minutes and then he suddenly turned around and punched me in the face.

(Hey, I just realized… remember how I said the cave was exposed by a nuclear test?  The dialogue emphasizes how this whole area is irradiated and dangerous – and then totally forgets about it.  It’s never mentioned again and the characters take off their protective gear and never put it back on.  So… that was useless, too.)

There is stuff in this movie that could have been funny.  The secret decoder ring stuff almost got a smile out of me once or twice, because the characters seemed so earnest in their love for ‘Space Commander Connors’ and his lore.  The ‘Vege-Men’ also had potential.  We get to see a greenhouse room where they’re grown to be the women’s slaves, and the seedlings are hands or feet sticking out of flowerpots with a few leaves around them.  This is fairly amusing and I could see it being the juvenile form of a sentient plant on Star Trek TOS.  Adult Vege-Men are actors in stupid carrot costumes that they obviously can’t see out of very well, which should have been funny just because it’s so terrible, but Invasion of the Star Creatures is so bad you can’t even laugh at it ironically.

The idea of using a bumbling idiot as your main character, let alone two bumbling idiots, frankly baffles me.  Rick and Rick With The Squeaky Voice are supposed to be the guys we, the audience, identify with.  We’re supposed to like and root for them and to perhaps be able to imagine ourselves in their places, but the only thing I feel for them is contempt.  Why would anyone want to see themselves in these guys?  Perhaps it’s an attempt to say that anybody can be a hero, but the two Ricks don’t even qualify as that.  When they save the world, it’s basically by accident.  The ending, which rewards them with promotions, medals, and beautiful wives from outer space, actively makes me angry because they didn’t earn any of that!

Invasion of the Star Creatures works very hard at being pointless, and there’s very little in it that comes anywhere near a theme.  If any such thing exists, its in Tanga and Pona’s insistence that they’re here to save humanity whether we like it or not, and how the humans react to that idea.  The women say it would be a shame to see a young civilization destroy itself because nations were too stupid to work together.  Rick and Rick With The Squeaky Voice reject this entirely, which is supposed to be a joke: these guys are in the army, so if humanity transcends the need for conflict they’d be out of a job.  The rest of the plot then seems at pain to emphasize that humans cannot work together, and do not want to.

After all, the two Ricks’ attempts to summon help come to nothing.  The Native Americans never understand that these men want assistance, and the Colonel thinks it’s all a Space Commander Connors game before sliding under the metaphorical table, having never done anything useful.  The Ricks themselves spent most of their time arguing and complaining and in the end succeed only through good luck on their part and poor timing on that of the invaders.  Usually a story that begins with ‘aliens want to save primitive humans from ourselves’ would end with ‘the aliens were wrong about us’.  Invasion of the Star Creatures seems to want to say the aliens were right the whole time!

So there you have it – Invasion of the Star Creatures.  It started off kinda bad and not funny, then swirled down the cinematic toilet into outright offensive, racist, sexist drivel.  I’m trying to think of some small thing I can say about it that’s nice, but I’m having a very hard time.  I guess I kinda liked the rumbly noises that represent the alien language – that was more fun than just having the actresses spout random gobbledygook.  Other than that, I’m at a loss.  The actors suck, the sets suck, the effects suck, the costumes suck, and everybody involved was a bigoted dickweed.  Fuck this movie.

[destieltropecollection]

Destiel Trope Collection Day 25: Slow Burn

The difference between living and existing (WIP) | @lucy-is-alive

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 6052 Main Tags/Warnings: John Winchester's A+ parenting, College AU, Sexuality crisis, PTSD, Childhood trauma, Recreational drug use, Angst and hurt/comfort Summary: As soon as he got the chance, Dean left his father behind and went to college. However, he never anticipated that the absence of the person who had disrupted his entire life would make it worse. With the help of his friends, he tries to navigate through the emotional hurricane that comes with complex PTSD.

Celestial | @deservetobesaved

Rating: Mature Word Count: 10585 Main Tags/Warnings: slow burn, mutual pining, fluff, emotional affair, bottom!dean Summary: Dean is in a less than stellar marriage, but he assumes things will work themselves out. At the same time, Mr. Castiel Novak becomes his new co-worker at school and Dean has to rethink everything he thought he had figured out.

Welcome to the Badlands (WIP) | @cr-noble-writes

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 15386 Main Tags/Warnings: graphic violence, dystopian au, fusion, into the badlands au, slow burn Summary: The wars were so long ago, nobody even remembers. Darkness and fear ruled until the time of the Barons, seven men and women who forged order out of the chaos. People flocked to them for protection. That protection became servitude. They banished guns and trained armies of lethal fighters they called Clippers. This world is built on blood. Nobody is innocent here. Welcome to the Badlands.

Profound Kisses | @verobatto-angelxhunter

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 20700 Main Tags/Warnings: Destiel, post 8x07 canon divergent, mutual pining, explicit sexual content, angst with a happy ending, clueless! Castiel, pining!Dean, Top!Dean, Bottom!Cas, slow burn, love confessions, first kiss, french kiss, Sammy knows. Summary: Dean knows he's screwed. He discovers he is in love with Castiel in Purgatory, and now he can't even have the angel in front of him, because he knows it's a one sided love. It’s Valentine's day and Dean tries very hard to hook up as always, but he can't get Cas out of his mind. So he drives back to the motel, drunk, and he finds Castiel trying to help him. Then, when Dean asks Castiel for some experimental kisses and the angel accepts, Dean starts a very dangerous game… finding in Castiel's kisses the most delicious experiences, but also, his own perdition. Will Castiel fall in love with him? Or will he stay emotionless as always?

Hate me, but love me too | @notfunnydean

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 23310 Main Tags/Warnings: Virgin!Dean,f hate spell, hate curse, younger!dean, older!sam, Grace Sharing, First Kiss, First Time, Hate Sex, Dubious Consent, Mildly Dubious Consent, Cas is cursed, (not really MCD but Cas isn't alive in the beginning), Castiel has sex with somebody else in the beginning(and Dean sees it), Heartbreakbut I will fix it! Summary: Dean’s whole life changes when his mother tells him that John isn’t his biological father and he needs to save the world from his sibling Adam, who is the King of Hell. But he can’t do that alone, he needs the best Hunter earth had, Castiel Novak.

Starstruck (WIP) | @peanutbutterjelly-pie

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 40860 Main Tags/Warnings: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Slow Burn, Actor Dean, Single Parent Castiel, Pining Summary: From the outside Castiel Novak looks like a regular guy: a good job, two teenage kids, a nice house and a crappy car he’s way too attached to. But there’s one thing no one knows about him: that, over twenty years ago, he used to live next to no other than Dean Winchester – back then a brash and loud-mouthed boy and nowadays a huge movie star and Hollywood’s sweetheart. Castiel never bothered to tell anyone about his childhood friend because frankly, who would believe him? Probably even Dean himself already forgot about his former awkward and weird neighbor, so Castiel seriously doesn’t see any point in mentioning the whole thing ever. But then an interview on national TV happens where Dean reveals way more about his past than ever before … and Castiel - as well as the rest of the world - suddenly realizes that he left a much bigger impact on Dean’s life than he originally thought.

Letter to Dean Winchester (WIP) | @castielsangel-blade

Rating: Mature Word Count: 44182 Main Tags/Warnings: Past Lisa/Dean, Past Aaron/Dean, Past Castiel/Dean, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Mentions of Past Cheating, Mentions of Past Toxic Relationship, Gray Romantic Castiel, Asexual Castiel, Epistolary, Bisexual Dean Summary: Castiel writes and sends a letter to Dean Winchester. He wants closure for the toxic relationship they had in high school.

Falling Apart | @cr-noble-writes

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 49204 Main Tags/Warnings: minor character death, sam deceased when fic starts, alcoholism, drug misuse, addiction, rehab au, soulmate au, flashbacks, ptsd Summary: Sword & Cross Resident Rehabilitation is a last-ditch effort for Dean Winchester to move past the drug and drinking problems he developed to bury his guilt over the fire that killed his brother. Not to mention the wild visions and smoky, sentient shadows that have plagued him his entire life. It's supposed to be the best Savannah has to offer, but one look at the crumbling tile floors and dangling crown mouldings, and Dean has his doubts. Enter Castiel Novak. He’s rude, aloof, and a total dick from the moment they lay eyes on each other but Dean can’t help but feel a mysterious connection to the man. Maybe he really has lost his mind. But when Castiel starts making appearances in Dean’s vivid visions of the past, he knows there is more to their link than meets the eye. Even if Cas keeps telling him otherwise. It seems everyone at Sword & Cross knows what’s going on except for Dean. Trying to conquer his mountain of guilt and doubt and figure out the connection he is certain he shares with Castiel is only made harder by the “accidents” that seem to follow him. Not to mention his attraction to Gadreel. Whatever secret Castiel is trying so hard to keep, Dean knows he has to uncover it.

Will you be my ten inch hero? | @notfunnydean

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 57468 Main Tags/Warnings: Bullying, Homophobic Language, Abusive John Winchester, Canon-Typical Violence, Smut, giving a baby to adoption (not between Destiel), Rape/Non-con Elements, John kicked Dean out, Virgin!Dean, surprise guest appereance, Minor Crowley (Supernatural)/Bobby Singer, Minor Charlie Bradbury/Jo Harvelle, Minor Rowena MacLeod/Gabriel, two surprise pairings, not Ketch or Mick Davies friendly Summary: When John Winchester kicks Dean out, after he saw him kissing another boy, and Dean sees that Sam has a perfect life at Stanford without him, Dean starts a new life in Santa Cruz. He works at a tiny shop as a cook, has found some friends there, and is overall happy enough. That changes when Castiel comes into his shop and his Co-worker Azara, who has a different man every night, starts flirting with him right in front of Dean. Not that he would be jealous or anything, but there is something about Castiel that makes him weak in the knees. Only that Castiel would never want him back, right?

Roll With It | @saltnhalo

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 72818 Main Tags/Warnings: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Boss/Employee Relationship, Secretary Dean, Alternate Universe - Not Hunters, The Proposal AU, Alternate Universe, Romantic Comedy, Romance, Editor Castiel, Fluff and Angst, Sam Winchester at Stanford, POV Alternating, Geek Dean, Russian Castiel, Sharing a Bed, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Top Castiel, Bottom Dean, Misunderstandings, Tattooed Castiel, Love Confessions, Slow Burn Summary: For two years, Dean’s been slaving away beneath his boss – many label him a secretary, but he fucking hates that and feels like it only applies to someone wearing a pencil skirt, so he insists on his title of Executive Assistant. And for what? In the vain hope that one day he’ll manage to become an editor for Sandover Publishing, and that he’ll see the manuscript that he’s slaved over since college finally realized in print. That’s the dream, anyway. Right now, he’s fucking late. Dean wants to be an editor. Castiel just wants to stay in the country. ‘The Proposal’ – as you’ve never seen it before.

When the Magnolias bloom (WIP) | @flurryflair

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 92951 Main Tags/Warnings: slow burn, angst with a happy ending, mutual pining, human!Castiel, divorce, infidelity, middle aged destiel, explicit sexual content, top Castiel/bottom Dean Winchester, top Dean Winchester/bottom Castiel, POV alternating, unresolved sexual tension, denial of feelings, porn with feelings, anxiety attacks, manipulative relationship, unhealthy coping mechanisms, canon-typical violence, case fic, bisexual!Dean, demisexual!Castiel, semi-canon, minor Castiel/OMC, minor Dean Winchester/Lisa Braeden Summary: It's been ten years since the Apocalypse. Ten years without talking, without knowing one another. Castiel has a company to handle and a wedding to plan, Dean has a broken marriage and a decision to make. They have separate lives, lovers and families of their own, they aren't supposed to meet again, to mess it all up. And yet they do, when they least expect it, and maybe when they most need it. A story about second chances, about hope and resilience, and a love that feels both doomed and inevitable.

Unsung Melody (WIP) | @toomanyships-sendhelp

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 177617 Main Tags/Warnings: Canon Character Death, AU Slaves, Slow Burn Summary: Dean runs a busy bar and grill in Lebanon, Kansas. Semi-retired from hunting, he'll still catch a case when one blows his way or the urge to hunt strikes him again. It isnt until a case that opened decades ago claims another victim and Dean has to get back in the game a little more than he expected.

[wthtorke]

Honorbound -Oneshot- (Commission)

Life was lonely, as he intended it to be. A worn, wandering warrior with the weight of his battle scars exhausting his soul, stopping from village to village, living from the very soil that his horse trotted on. Little were the things he still had possession of. His horse, his sword, and the very scrape that was left of his honor, each battle and happening seemly chipping away at it, as it did to his will to go on. 

Word got to him in one of the villages that several honored warriors came to an abrupt end in a clearing. Their bloody robes and sometimes sword shards were the only proof that they were defeated by someone. The families grieved and every time, a new warrior would stand up to the challenge, arming up and setting to the very same clearing, only to be found days later by barking dogs and gasping children. 

At first, he wasn’t impressed. Cocky warriors died every day, thinking themselves to be great and undefeatable only to stare in horror as the blade that sealed their fate came down upon them. But something was different this time. No one knew who was behind all the murders. It couldn’t be the foreigners with their guns and powders, there were no holes in the bodies they found, what they found was much worse.

The bodies were often missing the head and the spine and when the head and spine were not taken, the sword was gone, a complete disgrace. Taking a fallen warrior’s sword was asking to be cursed for life.

So he decided to ask around, not like he had anything better to do other than to wait for his death. Coming across a child that swore to see a red demon on a tree close to the clearing. ‘Big’, ‘Ugly’, and ‘With fangs pointing out of its mouth’. Now, he figured most demons probably looked like that, but it was the ‘it mimicked me’ that reminded him of a very old tale, a summer horror story, one his very grandmother told him every time he refused to come inside for the night, saying that old demons would snatch him and carry him off into the darkness, disappearing forever.

It sounded dumb. Stupid, even. To go after the very same place where at least five other warriors had perished. He once had judged himself to be a good warrior, quick moves, fast-thinking, and deadly strikes. Now his shame made him heavy on his feet, the regrets in his chest making it hard to breathe sometimes. He only drew his sword to tend to it, to make sure it was in pristine condition, ironically. 

He thought about turning his back and keeping going with his pointless journey. To once again just leave it behind him. He was no better than any of the warriors that fought and died.

But fate was against him, it seemed. 

On his way out, from up a tree, a glint caught his eye. But it was no ordinary glint.

The light seemed to catch up on whatever magic that demon used, trying to reveal to the world that pure evil was walking on its very ground, unnoticed.

But not by him. 

The child had not lied. The demon was massive from what he could tell from the shifting form. It's eyes flashing a yellow glow before it vanished completely from sight, either jumping to another tree or just disappearing. No shifting, no sound, nothing.

It was taunting. Of course, to kill and to lure yet another imbecile to its trap, sounded every bit like a demon.

Making a decision, he asked the families just where exactly was the clearing.

-

Five tokens of his kills hung on the wall of his ship. Three skulls with their spines perfectly attached to them and two swords. 

At first, his clan didn't really understand his objective here. The will to learn and to adapt going far deeper than just hunting different races of humans. 

Out of every race on this wretched planet, he respected these more. He watched as they taught their children to be honored. To fight with respect and bravery. To know when you're defeated and when to strike. 

Things they had taught them themselves once.

While most motherships hovered above hot countries in the south. Two distinct clans took home in the Orient. Both clans despised each other greatly, going as far as to keep away from one another in order not to harm the still learning human population. His clan chose the islands known to humans as 'Wa', which would later become 'Nippon'. 

It had been centuries, of course. The humans had forgotten them just as they had forgotten the filthy beings that first generated them, who cowered in their home planet. When the clans decided to abandon Earth at once, so did the two clans. Leaving everything behind, only coming back rarely to hunt, forming the only negative memory of being demons to beings some of them actually came to love.

He'd heard everything about humans, he knew other races and even had trophies of some of them. Hunts so boring and forgettable that sometimes he caught himself checking just from where that skull was from. It was ridiculous.

But not here. He was having the time of his life here. And he might be having even more fun soon, it seemed. 

He knew human badbloods existed and were total scum. Waking trash.

But what he did not really see coming was a bad blood that….Wasn't really a bad blood.

He'd been observing when the warrior had come, his horse tiredly walking into the village. He looked out of place. His clothes were old, but not unkept like his beard. Humans had a different kind of 'beard' than yautjas had, and with the time, he could tell the difference between a cared for beard and one that was just a rat's nest on someone's face. 

Disgusting. 

So he did not belong there, or anywhere, it seemed. He carried a sword that he could also tell was in good form. Good. Another match, perhaps.

While badbloods were to be taken out quickly from life, he found himself weirdly curious about this one. He had the same instance and breathing of clan leaders. Tired, exhausted from years of making decisions but still carrying on nonetheless. It was puzzling. Humans did not live that long to live this type of experience. But that one apparently did.

You could say he was angry when after hearing about all the murders and happenings, the human just walked off with his slightly rested horse.

But it wouldn't do. No.

Despite being well over a youngblood's age, he sure acted like he was one. Taunting his prey from up a tree, daring him to come forth and challenge him. 

You could also say he was more than satisfied when it worked. The human walking right back to the widowed women to ask where the battles had supposedly happened.

He practiced harder that night, his blade extra sharp, wielded with much more precision and care than the first time he touched it. His style bettered with each battle, his adaptation proving to be, yet again, perfect. 

Words could not describe would eager he was for his next battle.

-

You may have fought before, many times even. But surely never with a Demon. He had not.

Unsheathing his blade felt bittersweet. Wielding it felt rusty, almost. But the tingling in his fingertips was still there, the rush of the blood in his veins as he breathed in and out, remembering every move, every technique, every battle he had both won and lost.

Sharp as your blade maybe, it won't fight for itself, your mind must be just as sharp and deadly as your weapon, he came to learn. Raw potential was nothing without guidance.

Closing his eyes, the wind hustled the trees around him, going into the general direction where he was told the clearing was. Almost luring him there, to his death, like it had done to the others before him. He was no different, no better. And yet, he'd face the challenge. Fight for people he didn't know, against something that wasn't natural, not from this world.

At dawn, he left his horse in the village, striding into the dense forest, armed with his sword and nothing else.

1400

He walked for what felt like forever, feeling his back burning under someone's gaze. The hairs of his neck stood on end, every instinct in his body told him to leave while he still could, foolish. He had doomed himself the minute he decided to ask about the funerals, the minute he decided to rest at that village. There was no escape. Only forth, only future, whatever might it hold for him.

Reaching the clearing, he knew he was in the belly of the beast when he saw the remnants of the past battles that took place there. The dried blood in the grass, the blade shards here and there along with some bushes cut the way only a speeding katana would slice into. The trees had similar cuts to their barks, scratches that looked like a dragon had nested in this area for years.

His mouth closed again when he heard the growling coming from everywhere and nowhere at all, his hand instantly going to the hilt of his sword, searching the trees as the clicking sound circled him from the shadows, teasing him, trying to instill fear into his heart and soul. He could see past it.

It wasn't long until a loud thud snapped his attention to his front, a few feet ahead, he watched as the Demon decided to show itself. It's skin slowly materializing itself into view as it switched from the astral plane into the mortal one to fight him. 

It was surprisingly as the child described. Big, red and ugly. It's jaws spreading to reveal sets of sharp tusks as it roared, the birds that hid from them flying off in desperation.

Studying it, his eyes fell to something unexpected. A blade that might have looked like his, only it was corrupted by the creature's evilness, twisted into dangerous ridges, made to maul and bleed instead of clean slicing and striking.

Disgraceful.

He scowled, not holding back his disgust at the sight, the Demon snarling right back to him before lifting his blade and getting into battle stance as he did the same.

Long seconds passed as his breathing fell into place with the rhythm he would set when fighting, staring into the creature's eyes, piercing yellow like the fires of the underworld that it would try to drag him into.

But it wouldn't work.

Taking a sharp breath, he lunged forward, his sword aimed at the beast's arm as he went. Said beast roared again, meeting him halfway through the blow, swords locking as he felt the impact of the greater body coming at him, his right foot digging into the dirt with sheer force to keep his balance. 

So close to it, he noticed it wore a necklace made of fabric, braided into loops around its thick neck. He frowned as he pushed back with all he had, the demon grunting as it forced back into him.

Realization downed him when he caught it looking at his sword sheath, the braided cords that tied it to his belt. Eyes snapping back to its necklace, he recognized the pattern in them, the different colored loops belonging to different victims.

Trophies. It collected trophies.

The scream that ripped from his throat was out before he could stop it, forcing the creature to back off as he all but swung his weight on it, their blades sliding free from one another as he lunged again, grunting his effort as he managed to block the Demon's counterattack, missing his eye by an inch, he panted as he felt his arms begin to burn from the sheer force the beast pressed him down with, its muscles bulging as it snarled at him, tusks dangerously close to his face.

He grunted as he turned, sweeping low as the creature's blade whizzed past his head, his own blade finding its calf and slicing it open, bright, green blood painting the grass under them and a perfect line on his sword.

He took the opportunity to jump back and gain space as the Demon roared its pain, eyes set on him as it lunged blindly in rage at him. 

His sore arms not resisting the impact on time, he felt the searing cut as his right shoulder almost gave out under the pain, his face scrunching up as he couldn't afford to close his eyes in pain.

He looked up to see the creature's almost smug expression as it retracted its blade, piercing it forward again, aiming for his chest, for his heart.

He sucked in a gasp as he forced his legs to give out under him, dropping his body to the ground like a rag doll, the blade sinking into the ground dangerously next to his eye. 

The Demon's eyes widened as he tensed to pluck the blade from the ground, the warrior already moving again, his blade slicing the beast into its right side, under its first rib, green blood once again oozing out of it as it struggled to keep its balance, it’s free clawed hand coming to clutch its side while still trying to fight him with the other. 

Still, in the rush, the warrior rolled to the side, feet turning as his legs worked to get him up straight again, robes dirty with green strands from both grass and green blood, his own shoulder tainted red with his own clotting blood. His breathing was heavy as he got in stance again, shoulder squaring, wincing as he felt the wound ripping open again, even more blood coming out of it. But it was either his shoulder or his life and between them, he chose life.

Before the creature could process swinging at him again, he lunged. Face scrunched up in anger, fists firm around the sword's handle as he dived into the beast, blade cutting it through the chest downwards to its belly, the hard spikes it had there being cut off like wood chips out of tree bark.

His blade moving down and out, he spun again, stepping back to have the creature in full view as it finally lost its balance and kneeled, its legs giving out as the green blood soiled more and more of the ground under it.

He could hear the blood rushing through his veins, the ringing in his head crisp and clear as he struggled to control his breathing, eyes never leaving the demon. 

Precious seconds passed before the creature tried getting up again, to no avail. Its arms and legs shook as it tried using its sword as support to get up.

He steadied his hands again and took a step closer to it, not sure of what to do. End it? Spare it? Could demons be spared? Could demons die?

He jerked back slightly as the demon roared at him, clearly angry for being outmatched. He frowned, taking another step forward as the creature bent over again, the thick dreads falling over as it stared at the ground, he pointed the blade at the beast, opening his mouth to speak to it, not really knowing if it understood him or not when its left hand whipped up and gripped his chest, claws sinking in on his robes and all but tearing the skin of his chest apart, leaving hot bloody trails behind as the claws closed in on his robes. He yelled as he was pulled forward, his foot straining against the ground as he refused to buckle. 

Staring into the flaming eyes of the beast, he would not become another string on its necklace. 

The warrior growled as he brought the hilt of the sword up, connecting it to the creature's face three times as its grip loosened on his robes, bringing his knee up the Demons jaws, making its head snap back up, eyes disoriented briefly as it shook its head, looking up to find the warrior already on his feet, his blade ready to sink into his head anytime.

"You have lost." The warrior said, voice firm and unwavering as if his chest wasn't almost ripped open and the gashing wound on his shoulder didn't exist. "Take your leave of this village or perish by my hand." He finished, tone as sharp as the feel of his weapon. 

The demon cackled, taking a few more breaths, wheezy and wobbly as it got up, stumbling slightly as it clutched its right side, blood oozing through its fingers. 

The warrior wasn't sure if it had understood him as it reached for something in the back of its belt, pulling a dagger that was an otherworldly shape. He braced himself for a final attack when the thing laughed again, holding the dagger out in its open hand. 

'..ta'Ke iT', it said, voice raspy and breathy. 

The warrior narrowed his eyes, thinking it to be another trick from the demon, deceiving and dirty. He didn't move, still in battle stance as the beast roared, clearly regretting it as its grip tightened on its side briefly, hand coming up again as it frowned harder.

'Ta'ke', it hissed and the warrior stepped forward, hand cautiously coming to meet the demons own, grabbing the dagger from it, inspecting it quickly, sword still pointed at the creature.

'De' feat' It croaked, its blade retracting as it did. Pointing next to the trees behind him, 'Go', it said, 'Su'mm er, re' turn', it growled, pointing at the warriors head, 'Ta'ke'. 

The warrior merely huffed, "I'll be waiting, now vanish, Demon." He snarled. The Demon chuckling before turning on its heel and walking into the forest, its skin shifting into the forest's skin once again. .

“I’ll be waiting”, he repeated, sheathing his sword.

-

This Oneshot was commissioned and the buyer kindly allowed me to post it! Just an example of the kind of work I can do ;) Hope yall like it!

https://ko-fi.com/wthtorke My ko-fi in case anyones feeling generous and wants to help a broke college student lmao

[theowlandthekey]

Embracing Hel

Embracing Hel

Three roots standon three ways under Yggdrasil’s ash: Hel under one abides, under the second the Hrimthursar, under the third mankind. -Poetic Edda, Grímnismál, Stanza 31

Who is Hel? In the vastness of Norse mythology, she is rarely given much due. She does not go on adventures for glory and fame as many of the other gods do. She does not seem to bother overmuch about the future of the world like Odin, nor does she stir up trouble like her father, Loki. She’s content in her dominion of the death, Niflheim, and seems well placed out of the troubles of men and gods. So much so that it often feels she is neglected when compared to the rest of the pantheon.

Hel is featured as a character only once in the Prose Edda, when the god Hermoor rides to Hel on behalf of Frigg and offers her a ransom for the return of the god Baldr. Hel agrees, stating: “If all things in the world, alive or dead, weep for him, then he will be allowed to return to the Æsir. If anyone speaks against him or refuses to cry, then he will remain with Hel.” Baldr was well loved and so it was thought this would be easy to accomplish. But when the jotunn Þökk refuses to weep, Baldr is consigned to remain in Niflheim in service of Hel.

In nearly all other mythos, Hel is mentioned only in passing, referenced rather than focused on. Every other god gets a myth where they are the protagonist of their own story. So why is Hel overlooked? Because of the fear she inspires at the prospect of a life lived without note or valor? Because her appearance was considered so repulsive that, while acknowledged as a goddess, she was put as far away from Asgard as physically possible so as to avoid offending the others with the sight of her?

As much as I love Norse paganism and link myself to it, I find plenty of people who speak with Odin and Frigg, Loki and Thor. Never once have I met someone who says with a smile that they speak to Hel. That’s fair. How many people do you know talk to Hades or Osiris or Mictlantecuhtli on a regular basis, even among the gothiest of pagans? Why even bring this up at all? Last December (2019), I was doing a Krampus Walk with a bunch of women from the International Wenches Guild. (That’s a whole other story.) At the end of the walk we gathered up in a local alternative religion shop to warm up and grab a few things for the pre-Yule rush. Up on the shelf, something naughty my attention. It was something I'd never seen before in all my years of goblin-like hoarding of witchy stuff. A statue of Hel looked back at me, sitting on a throne with a knife in one hand and a bowl in the other. By her side was a wolf, and her skull seemed to be grinning at me with interest. I went back to that statue three times, telling myself I didn't have the money to be spending on things right now. But when I picked her up to examine her, I knew I wasn't walking out of the store without this statue. I brought her home, placed her on my altar, put a few coins in her bowl, and there she stayed.

And then Covid-19 hit.

I've never been one to rely on religion in times of trouble. It's never done much for me one way or the other. I've long held the belief that witchcraft involves handling your own shit before calling on anything else to help out. But this? This is one of those things that is well beyond the control of most humans to handle alone. It's emotionally exhausting, mentally taxing, and physically dangerous. We're all doing the best we can, wearing masks, sanitizing, washing, distancing, doing all we can to prevent things getting worse despite the best efforts of the world to remind us that we are inevitably only human and the risks are infinite. It's humbling to say the least. So, it's in this time of stress and disorientation that I find myself drawn to Hel.

Family Ties

“The following night the goddess of death appeared to him in a dream standing at his side, and declared that in three days’ time she would clasp him in her arms. It was no idle vision, for after three days the acute pain of his injury brought his end.”

-Gesta Danorum, Saxo Grammaticus (12th century)

Hel's name means 'to hide/to conceal', giving it a cruel humor. She was, after all, respectfully banished from Asgard due to her physical appearance, or perhaps because Odin foresaw her part in future events. She is described as being half blue and half flesh colored, though the depiction has altered over the years to mean half flesh and half corpse. Hel is said to be gloomy, dour, and even fierce looking, which suggests a woman with little time for nonsense within her realm. Despite all this, she is said to have a vast hall called Éljúðnir and many servants as befits her station. Everything that surrounds her seems to speak to the fears of the people who believed in her. She has a bowl called 'Hunger,' a knife called 'Famine,' curtains called 'Misfortune,' and a bed named 'Disease'.

On the plus side, she does have a dog named Garmr, said to be the 'goodest of boys'.

The best of trees | must Yggdrasil be, Skíðblaðnir best of boats; Of all the gods | is Óðinn the greatest, And Sleipnir the best of steeds; Bifröst of bridges, | Bragi of skalds, Hábrók of hawks, | and Garm of hounds.

-Poetic Edda, Grímnismál

Her father, Loki, is well known for his mischief and chaos. But her mother, Angrboda, remains largely overlooked beyond being acknowledged as the mother of Loki's three 'darling' offpsring. Angrboda, being a jotunn, is not well looked upon as the Aesir seemed to find themselves constantly at odds with the jötnar. The Aesir and the Vanir form the two principal tribes of gods within the Norse pantheon, the forces which held the world together and brought forth order in which life could thrive. While the Jotunn were more elemental, primordial beings who were born from chaos and presented challenges to the structured order of the world.

It's important to note that Hel is not the only goddess who fits within the overlap of Norse mythos complex Venn diagram between the Aesir, Vanir, and Jotunn. Loki himself is Jotunn as is Skaði, while Freyr and Frejya are Vanir. However, Hel's connection to Angrboda as her mother and Loki as her father seem to be enough to condemn her in the eyes of the ruling Aesir, as well as make her a subject of fearful respect.

Her brother, Jormungandr, is the infamous Midgard Serpent. The middle child of the brood, Jormungandr was tossed from Asgard by Odinn into the ocean where he was said to grow so large he encircled the earth and bit his own tail. If you're familiar with gnosticism (or Full Metal Alchemist) you would recognize the ouroboros symbolism inherent in the mythos as connecting Jormungandr to the cycle of life, death and rebirth, another primordial concept. At Ragnarok, the serpent will be said to release its own tail and fight Thor, both of them doomed from inception. Thus, the old world will end, and a new cycle will begin.

Fenrir, Hel's younger brother, is likewise doom driven, foretold to devour Odinn at the end of the world only to be killed in turn by Odinn's son Víðarr. The theme of the bound monster, I believe, is connected to the concept of man trying and failing to forestall his own fate. Another primordial concept of change as an inevitability.

And yet there is Hel. Out of all her family she seems to stand alone as the most consistent of her bloodline. The black sheep in a family of black sheep. No sagas recounting her heroic adventures, no epics building to the rise and fall of greatness. Only a goddess fulfilling her function to take in those who died of sickness or old age. It is not known for certain whether she survives or dies during the events of Ragnarok, only that Loki will have 'all Hel's people with him' during the final confrontation.

Symbolism

Throughout my research into Hel's mythos, it's clear she was viewed with begrudging respect by her own people. As a goddess, one couldn't afford to be less than deferential when dealing with her (assuming of course that they dealt with her at all). But how they felt about her can be discerned from the associations given to her through her items and surroundings. I began to collect a series of symbols associated with her. Each one tells us something about how she was perceived among the Norse people, and gives us some interesting modern-day interpretations when applied.

50/50 – In all the descriptions of Hel, she is said to be half flesh and half either discolored or corpse-like. Like most cthonic deities, she has a liminal quality to her, being representative of a transitional state of being. Balancing neatly between life and death, Hel is a crossroads deity, guarding over the boundary lines (though not traditionally associated as such). She has the ability to release those sheltered under her threshold, although she demands a price as is her right. This also puts her squarely in the category of a liminal being, one whose mere existence challenges the social classifications of the time. Liminal beings are often described as both immensely powerful and dangerous, depending upon the situation and perception of society. They are undeniably eerie, and yet inspire awe for the way in which they transcend limitations of the self.

Hel's Hall – Éljúðnir is the hall of Hel, located within Niflheim and aptly named as her realm is said to be barren and cold. It's said to be a mansion, and it would have to be considering that she is responsible for sheltering everyone who didn't die gloriously in battle. Her hall then becomes a symbol of her status, a recognition of her as a goddess with her own realm and duties. With hospitality being such an important social factor to the Norse people, I find myself hard pressed to believe Hel is needlessly cruel to her guests. Like any mead hall, it is a center for social activity as well as her residence, if a somewhat foreboding one.

Hunger, Famine, Misfortune, Disease – It seems Hel is often deemed responsible for all of the troubles that plague humanity. A rather dire proposition, but isn't it better for someone to oversee these things rather than letting them run amok? Given her connection to the primordial forces of chaos, it seems fitting that Hel, the stable one in her family, is relied upon to control the disorder that society faces from time to time. The objects deemed as a part of her entourage are significant to her personality. Even in the modern times, these troubles are never far from humanity’s mind, with much of the world facing them on a daily basis. *A bowl (Hunger) is often symbolic of receptiveness, or of fertility, neither of which seem to fit Hel herself. For many the bowl represents a scrying tool, portending to the future. It's not unusual for cthonic deities to be connected to omens and portends. So, it may well be that the 'Hunger' her bowl represents has less to do with wanting food and more to do with our hunger to know our own fates. An empty bowl representing the unknown fate of humanity as a whole may present as a bit nihilistic, but it does seem to fit. *The knife (Famine) as a tool which represents the ability to defend or attack. A knife can help fix a meal or it can protect a family. In this case, 'Famine' represents not only the absence of plenty, but the seeming inability to provide for one another, thus weakening everyone as a result. Famine is not just about food, it's about the failure to provide. For a society that was heavily reliant upon all of its people to survive day to day, this would have been a terrifying concept.

*The curtains (Misfortune) are used to draw over the windows and shut out the light. This is what 'Misfortune' does. It clouds reason and empathy and makes it difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Curtains can also be symbolic of one’s desire to hide from the world, to shelter themselves or to keep others from finding out something they find shameful. It may feel safe, as if we are only protecting ourselves. But Hel's curtains are, I believe, named Misfortune for the sake of choosing whether or not we draw them closed or open them up.

*The bed (Disease) is often used as a symbol of intimacy or rest. A bed named Disease could also easily be a colorful metaphor for STIs, though in this case I believe it was meant to represent the fear of dying in ones bed of old age or disease, thus missing out on Valhalla. For Hel to have a bed named Disease suggests an unexpected nurturing aspect to the goddess, as the sickbed is often where we find ourselves the recipient of the most care from others.

In this way, I believe Hel's tools exist as a reminder to society that these things will always exist, and that in order to combat them, people must constantly struggle against them to better survive together.

Garmr – Another in the long list of ferocious subterranean hounds associated with cthonic deities, Garmr was said to be her guard dog, standing bloodstained by her side. He is her faithful protector, as well as the guardian to the underworld. The hound is often a symbol of loyalty and ferocity, but in this aspect I believe it relates more to the black dog associations with death and ill omens. Again, I've yet to see anything relating to Hel being a seeress or an oracle of any sort, but there always seems to be some connection between death gods and omens of the future.

Hel in Practice

Change is uncomfortable. Humans have always preferred stability, even if it's inequitable, because we'd rather function in practice than succeed in theory. Hel is a paragon of balance within chaos, affording the opportunity to change and progress through the inherent suffering of life as it is. And yes, I'm aware of how nihilistic that comes off. But here within the instability of our current world, I find a kind of comfort in that rational. Change is eternal. Tomorrow is an unknown. Control what you can and stay by the people you care about. Keep moving. You are not dead yet.

Rune: Hagalaz “Hail”

- The rune of Hagalaz is practically unanimous with misery. Which makes it's appearance less than desirable during a reading or when found in the day to day. That being said, some degree of unfortunate occurrence is unavoidable in life. It is unalterable. However I find it's distinction kind of like finding a crack in a dam. You now know there is a problem. Maybe you can't 'fix' the problem, but you can stem the damage and keep the outcome from being worse than it absolutely has to be. Hagalaz is about weathering the storm and coming out the other side of it knowing the work that must be done.

Realm: Niflheim

- Niflheim is one of the nine realms of Norse Mythology. A world of coldness, fog, and the primordial darkness. Ymir was born here. Hvergelmir, the source from which many rivers flow, begins here. Níðhöggr the dragon/serpent dwells here, gnawing at the roots of the World tree Yggdrasil. So it would seem Niflheim is a a place of beginnings, endings, and ultimately change. According to the mythology this is where those who died too old, too young, or on the sickbed end up. And yet for all it's forbidding geography and weather, Hel is said to be put in charge of caring for those who arrive. Hall: Éljúðnir

- If Hel is meant to care for those who did not die in the glory of battle. Many times we see this as crowds of dead souls wandering endlessly in the freezing mists. But when I think of Hel's hall of Éljúðnir, I think of a place which is a respite from the cold. It is said to be sprayed with snowstorms, meaning that it stands against the raging storms of the realm, providing shelter to those who dwell within. What if her hall stands alongside Valhalla and Fólkvangr? What if she is the world-weary and cunning inn-keeper who offers bread and mead to those brave enough to find their way to her doors?

Appearance: Dour and fierce looking in expression. Half flesh and half dead.

Tools:  knife (Famine) bowl (hunger) curtains (Misfortune) bed (Disease)

Color: black white grey/silver blue dark purple

Animals: wolves/hounds serpents ravens worms

Plants: yew/ash wormwood rosemary mistletoe mustard seed blackthorn

Offerings: tobacco garlic figs mushrooms rye bread black cherries dark chocolate mead coffee, black espresso

[kuronekonerochan]

Random rant about Court Lady (ps: if you like the drama just don’t read it pls, or if you do, don’t @ me)

Disclaimer: I personally hate this drama and I almost never post about dramas negatively, just for the ones I like and ignore the ones I dislike. This one annoys me and I am aware that my criticism is probably only partially objectively valid and also partially nitpicks that irked me but are not “wrong” per se.

Also,just bc I don’t like it, if others like it, I have nothing to say about it except that liking it is as valid as my opinion and If you’re enjoying it, I’m glad and in no way judging bc in the end it’s just fiction and to each its own :)

I started watching this and dropped it at about ep8 bc I didn’t really enjoy it, despite the fact that I did find the production and technical aspects of the drama good and a bit different from the usual (including costume choices, etc). I even liked some of the characters like the Lu Daughter, the Pirate and the Princess (the one who hooks up with the ml’s brother). Mostly I liked Xu Kai, even as a bratty dude. Still, not enough stuff to keep my interest. After that I saw a random ep and realized the leads barely show up (and not even together) and that the screentime was dedicated to way too many  secondary characters, none of them the least interesting or likable.

But then I got bored and watched the latest eps of court lady,and tho pirate, princess and enemy daughter all show up, it's still boring and although it has  tons of characters, 99% of them are entitled psychopaths, and not even interesting psycho types at that, or masterminds that are enjoyable to watch. Nope they are all just annoying bullies and horrible ppl, men and women alike and what enjoyment can I get from this drama where the leads are almost never on scene together, there is a million subplots and characters yet almost no characters are likable and worth rooting for?

(Also, on nitpicking stuff, even tho they are probably historically accurate, I  ended up really disliking those stupid male hats and that terrible female wig style updo that looks terrible on almost every actress, while also making most of them impossible to tell apart. Besides, I changed my mind about the costume design...it ended up being a mess (not bc I don't like it personally) but bc you have scholars, penniless retired pirates, nobleman and royalty all wearing the exact same type of clothes with no difference in fabric, or embellishments or accessories to tell apart their hierarchic rank. Truly, one of the royals was addressed as your majesty and I'm like "dude, your clothes seem cheaper than the extras and servants around you".)

I ended up watching one of the latest ep where the leads finally have decent screentime...and omg it's not only the 1000 side characters who are unlikable, the leads are awful too...why would anyone do a drama with just terrible people? I kind of wish them all the equivalent of period White truck of Doom ending (maybe a collective corpse bridge like 2ha or TGCF?).

And for final exit rant on the latest eps:

Idk what I was thinking checking this drama out  again...seriously all the chars in this are either plain bullies, or that plus rapists (both genders, really...dudes all try to force themselves on the women and all the women take advantage of the men being drunk/poisoned, etc to sleep with them without them being able to give conscientious consent)...this might be the worse char ensemble drama I've ever seen. not a single relatable/likable char on sight, and they give us a million of them too.

 This is truly bizarre... this type of behavior dramas usually give to their villains, so you know, of those actions they're showing are morally bad. In this one all the characters are bad doing shitty things but the drama itself is so blase about it it kind of treats all of this stuff as normal and okay?! 

It's not as if I'm usually an sjw on fiction...I enjoy my bastard characters, but the whole vibe of this drama is...off, like completely disconnected from regular human behavior, as if they all got their moral compass set to fucking awful, so fucking awful became the new normal. It's very weird bc it's almost as they don't care if there isn't anyone worth rooting for.

 And it's not just the actions of the characters...on some (much better) dramas/novels, the "heroes" are also just as morally grey as the villains and the only reason we root for them is because we're on their side (e.g. Joy of Life, Qi Ye, WoH, The Advisers’ Alliance, Ever Night S1), but usually on those dramas the characters have their own personal reasons for "ends justify the means" and from their perspective, whether doing bad or good stuff they don't think of themselves as villains, and likewise the “true” villains in those dramas also have their own narrative and reasoning which makes them somewhat relatable even if we disagree or hate them. In this ppl act shitty, fully aware that they are shitty and without remorse, for very weak reasons and honestly most of those actions are more bc they can than to serve a purpose. They are all amoral idiots. I'm weirdly fascinated by this drama's mindset.

Basically they are all that dude friend from To Rule in a Turbulent World on the first chapter beating Sanado to death just bc, but instead of giving him a context and character depth showing different sides to him (and I ended up really liking that character), the ppl in this drama just have their characters doing that shit again and again and never try to give any sort of dimension to them.

I am the Ryan Reynolds "but...why?" meme watching this.

PS: I am very aware of how repetitive and unfocused and messy this rant is, but this is a compilation of my watching experience at various stages blended into this one post and honestly this drama does not deserve me wasting my time to make this text any more cohesive, so rambly barely comprehensive mess it is.

[fresh-outta-jams]

Tale as Old as Time - Part 1

Namjoon x Reader Author: Admin Mo Summary: At the hands of an evil enchantress, Prince Namjoon has been struck with a beastly curse. Love is the only way to break the spell, but who could ever learn to love a beast? Note: Wow my brain really said “All you can think about now is Namjoon in Beauty and the Beast and you MUST WRITE IT NOW.” Warnings: None? Word Count: 1.7k

Prologue - 1

Prince Namjoon spent weeks in his wing of the castle, lamenting Rosaline's curse. He avoided the mirrors, spoons, and standing water. He couldn’t stand to look at himself or the others. Guilt ate at him. It was his fault Rosaline had come in the first place. It was his fault he’d doomed himself and his friends to a fate so grim with no hope of ever returning to normal. Not without dooming his kingdom, at least.

Jungkook brought Namjoon meals, as he was one of the few who didn’t have mobility issues due to his new...condition. Though the prince barely wanted to eat, it was important to him that his friend was taken care of, especially in his new form.

“How can you stand to look at me?” Namjoon had asked on one of the first nights of his self-inflicted exile. “I’m a monster.”

“You’re no monster, your highness. You’re my friend. This curse isn’t your fault. None of the others hold any anger against you.”

“They should. They should all hate me. It’s my-”

“It’s not your fault.” Jungkook repeated. “It could have been any of us. It’s not your fault the witch wanted you.”

Namjoon sighed. “I suppose not…”

“Will you please come see the others? They all miss you.”

“Why don’t they come here?”

“You see, it’s...not that simple.” Jungkook replied. “Many of the others...can’t walk, your highness.”

Namjoon was struck silent. He closed his eyes and bowed his head. It was even worse than he feared. “I’ll come see them. Lead the way.”

The first stop on the tour of the cursed castle was one of the bedrooms down the hall. Jungkook pushed open the doors and Namjoon followed him inside. It was a large bedroom, often used for guests. He knew, however, that Taehyung had been in the room, organizing the clothes in the wardrobe.

“Taehyung?” Namjoon asked. He stared at the wardrobe, waiting for it to respond to him somehow, but instead, it was the full length mirror beside it that came to life, Taehyung’s form trapped within the glass, as though it was a painting of his friend.

“Namjoon! You finally came.” Taehyung’s face lit up, but once he finally got a good look at their prince, his eyes widened. “She...what did she do to you?”

“It’s not worse than what she did to you.” Namjoon’s eyes watered, his voice so very deep and growly. “I’m so sorry, Taehyung.”

“It’s not your fault.” Taehyung shook his head. “I’m fine. I’m alive, aren’t I?”

“You’re trapped in a mirror.”

“It’ll be okay.” Taehyung wasn’t sure if his words were true, but he also didn’t know how to make the prince feel better. He put his hand against the glass, pressing against the invisible boundary trapping him inside. Namjoon raised his giant paw and matched it to Taehyung’s hand.

“I’m going to get you out of there.” Namjoon decided. Although, he wasn’t quite sure how he’d be able to accomplish that.

Next, Jungkook led Namjoon down to the smaller ballroom, the one that had been vacant during the party. He heard piano music coming from the small room, but once they got inside it, he noticed there was no one sitting at the piano bench. No one was in the room. Or so he though. He remembered that Yoongi had been absent from the party because he’d been practicing.

Suddenly, the music stopped. The keys stopped pressing themselves and the piano tilted slightly towards them.

“Your highness…” Yoongi’s voice emitted from the top of the grand piano, the strings reverberating slightly as he said it.

“Yoongi.”

“How are you...holding up?”

“Not well.” Namjoon sighed. “How are you?”

“It’s not all bad. I always did want more time to practice.” Yoongi chuckled darkly. “I was practicing in here during the party, and the next thing I knew…”

“That must have been terrifying.”

“It was at first. It...still is, sometimes when I wake up.”

Jungkook led Namjoon onwards to the kitchen, where he half expected to find the castle’s cook, Jin, making something. And he was, technically. Except there was a pot on the stove of the oven, which was stirring itself.

“Namjoon?” The oven asked.

“Jin?” Namjoon asked in return.

“It’s me.” The oven replied. “Just making dinner, your highness. It’ll be done soon.”

“I’m in no hurry.” Namjoon shook his head. Each room he walked into, he just felt worse. He’d seen four of the six staff members, all that were left were Hoseok and Jimin.

Jungkook led Namjoon out of the kitchen and into the den, where there was a candelabra and a teacup sitting on the table. At the sight of him, the candelabra lit up, hopping closer to the edge.

“You’re here! You’ve finally come out of hiding!”

“Hoseok?”

“In the flesh! Er, wax…”

And so the teacup must have been Jimin, Namjoon deduced. He sat on the couch, facing them, and picked up the cup gently. There was indeed a face painted into the cup’s surface where there hadn’t been one previously. When the golden painted eyes opened, the cup screamed, quieting down quickly.

“Jimin?”

“You scared me, your highness, I’m so sorry.” Jimin replied. A pink blush spreaded across his painted cheeks. “I didn’t mean to scream. I’m...I’m not scared of you.”

“It’s okay if you are.” Namjoon said, sullen. “I’m aware my new form is quite...frightening.”

“It doesn’t matter what you look like, you’re still the same Namjoon I grew up with.” Hoseok said, resting one of his candle-bearing hands carefully on Namjoon’s. “We know you’re not a monster.”

“I doubt anyone outside the castle would think that, though.” Namjoon sighed and carefully set Jimin back on the table. “None of you deserve this fate. Maybe I should just-”

“Go to Rosaline? Don’t.” Jungkook shook his head. “If she did this to us, what do you think she’d do if she was in charge of the kingdom? Besides, you don’t love her.”

“I don’t.” Namjoon agreed. He stared at his giant fur-covered paws, still in disbelief that they belonged to him. “But like this, I doubt anyone will love me either.”

***

Five Years Later

***

From birth, you had always been a little...different. And if there was anything your village hated, it was different.

“Witch.” An old man muttered under his breath as you passed.

You only sighed and pulled your cape further around yourself. You were used to the treatment, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with. Your boots crunched the autumn leaves beneath your feet as you walked to the baker’s cart to pick up some bread for the week.

“The usual, (Y/N)?” The baker asked, a genuine smile on his wrinkled face.

“Yes, please.” You nodded.

He picked up the parcel he had waiting on the counter and handed it to you. You set the large paper bag in your basket. You handed a small bag of coins to the baker and he smiled. “I’ll see you next week, then.”

“Of course!” You walked out the door and wandered further through the market. You bought some jam from one merchant, some thread for another, and you stopped, staring at the most gorgeous yellow fabric you’d ever seen. What a beautiful gown that’d make. Unfortunately, you knew you definitely wouldn’t be able to afford it. After all, your craft as a seamstress only made so much money. Barely enough to keep you fed, let alone any other expenses. No, a yellow gown would have to wait.

So, on you walked through the village until you finally arrived at your little house. Since your parents had passed a few years before, you had the place to yourself. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. You walked inside and set your basket on the table before walking back out to tend to the three chickens you kept. You collected their eggs and then walked back into the house.

For a moment, you just sat in silence, enjoying the moment of peace before getting back to work on your latest piece, a long blue gown. You took orders from neighboring villages as well as your own, creating unique dresses for the women in town. Every once in a while, you’d receive a generous tip for your labor, but most of the time, you only made enough to afford your food for the week.

You sewed seam after seam, dressing your bodice slowly until finally, you had a finished dress. You’d have to deliver it to your customer in the next few days to collect your money.

You exhaled a long sigh, leaning back and finally letting your muscles rest. You’d need to save energy for tonight. There was going to be a meteor shower, and you were determined to stay up and watch it until its completion. Much to the village’s dismay, you took after your mother. You’d inherited her gift, just a touch of magic that seemed to be more powerful under the stars.

However, due to powerful enchantresses like Rosaline, who tortured the people of the outskirts of the kingdom and bent them to her will, magic users were feared, sometimes even persecuted. You were lucky the people of your village hadn’t burned you at the stake. Honestly, you wouldn’t be surprised if they tried at some point.

It was still nice out and the sun was beginning to set, so you walked outside your house to take a little stroll in the twilight. It was then that you spotted the baker, on his way home from work.

“Hello again, (Y/N). What are you doing out so late?”

“I’m headed to the field outside of town to watch the stars.”

“A beautiful night for that.” He nodded, thinking for a long moment before he added. “I heard beyond the forest, there’s an abandoned castle. Rumor has it, there’s an observatory in its tower.”

“You don’t say…” You murmured, looking out towards the woods. Perhaps you’d have to wander out there and find out for yourself. “Thank you for the tip.”

Tagged: @thetofuartist​