#the show does NOT take place in the 1920s | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

doggone-devil · 3 months

Text

How (Not) to Summon a Demon: Chapter 4

Kind of nervous about this one. I'm trying to make sure I keep true to Alastor's character and his personality, but boy is that harder than it sounds, haha! Please don't mind the typos and such also; writing is not my primary trade skill XD But anyways, I hope you dear readers enjoy! Feedback is always appreciated! Pairing: Alastor x fem!Reader Warnings: not really any for this chapter, it's kind of a filler

As the bedroom door slams shut, you drop Alastor’s hand and begin pacing. You eye him a couple of times, trying to make sense of it all. You finally stop and face him, waving your hands at him. “The fuck is this?”

“What?” He’s smiling. No, correction. He’s smirking, amused by all of this. You would punch him if he wasn’t a demon.

“This,” you motion to his body, pointing out the obvious. “You look human!”

“My dear, you wound me,” Alastor says, placing a hand on his chest. “I was human once.”

“Yes, but you’re a demon now! How are you…?” you trail off, noting how his voice is no longer filled with static. It’s crisp and clear, soothing even which worries you, but you can’t place the accent. It does, however, remind you of those old talk shows from the 1920s.

Alastor fixes his bow tie, standing proudly. “I’m a demon, darling, it’s all part of the gig.”

“So you have powers?” You feel anger bubbling up. “You could’ve totally shown up like that instead of all demon-y and scaring me half to death!”

“Yes, but you wouldn’t have believed me had I not came out all ‘demon-y’, correct?” he shoots back, smirk widening when you realize he’s right. You would have thought him an insane intruder and called the cops.

“Touché,” you subside, letting it go. You move to sit on your bed in a huff, feeling drained from all that’s transpired in such short little time. Now the matter at hand was presenting itself and you had no idea how to handle it. “What do we do now?”

“I fail to understand the question,” Alastor responds, staying put by the door.

“What do we do? We can’t tell Veronica you’re a demon,” you whisper the last word, afraid she’ll hear or that she’s listening in, ear pressed to the door.

“And why not?”

“You serious?” You scoff and roll your eyes, throwing your hands up. “Yeah, sure! Let’s just tell my roommate that I summoned a demon and that it wants to take my soul for the price of one measly wish. That’ll hold over well.” Alastor raised his shoulders with a nonchalant ‘hmm’. You really wanted to punch him now, demon or no, the irritating bastard.

“How long you gonna hog him?” Veronica calls from the other door, startling you. You groan, not ready yet. You needed a plan, something to say or your roommate was going to get suspicious. Wait… that’s it!

“Ok,” you say, walking over to Alastor in a hurry. He steps back in habit, eyeing you quizzically. You ignore it, placing your hands on his chest and continue, “here’s the plan. We have a spare bedroom that’s been listed for over a year now. I’m going to tell Veronica that you’re here to apply as our third roommate and to rent the room, got it?”

Alastor lets out another amused hum, brows raised and eyes lidded. He’s having a blast from watching you panic. “I suppose I could go along with it, so long as you get to making your wish.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll talk about that later. First, we got a show to put on.” You open the door, Veronica nearly falling on top of you as she struggles to regain her footing. She smiles nervously like she just got caught and stands straight, fixing her shirt.

“So! Ready to let me in on what’s going on?” she asks. You nod and start moving to the living room, Alastor and Veronica behind you.

“Well, remember our spare bedroom we’ve put up for rent?” you start, taking a seat on the couch. Veronica sits next to you and Alastor takes the chair on the other side of the coffee table.

“The one that’s been listed for forever?”

“That’s the one! Well, Alastor here is applying for it, right?” You look to Alastor, hinting for him to take the lead.

“That’s right! I saw your ad and thought to myself, why this isn’t this just a charming little home? Perfect for me to live in as I reacquaint myself with good ol’ New Orleans!” Alastor spoke with ease, like he’d secretly rehearsed the whole thing. Meanwhile, you were sweating, nervous that somehow Veronica would know he’s a demon.

“Reacquaint, you from here?” Veronica asks.

“Indeedy! I use to, anyhow, some years back,” Alastor pauses to glance at you, smirking. “Though it’s been quite a long time since.”

“How long has it been? You see, girlie over there and I have lived here our whole lives.” Veronica leans in, smitten by Alastor already, you can tell. You want to gag, knowing she’d be shaking in her boots to know she’s trying to flirt with a demon, the stuff from nightmares.

Alastor crosses one leg over the other as he leans back a bit, getting comfortable in the chair. He seems to look off into the distance, making you wonder what’s on his mind before his attention snaps back. “I was born and raised here myself, though times were different, I’m sure. I’d say it’s been a few decades.”

Veronica looks at you before laughing. “Come now, Alastor, you make yourself sound ancient. You can’t be no older than twenty-five!” Alastor barks out a laugh, making you jump.

“My dear, you flatter me! No, I’m well in my thirties, but I appreciate the compliment.” You gawk at him. You, too, thought he was young. His complexion and features were sharp yet soft with youth. Then again, it shouldn’t shock your or him to be old. There’s no telling how long he’s been in Hell, been a demon. He could be well over hundreds of years old for all you knew.

“You certainly don’t look it,” Veronica states, breaking your train of thought. “So then, Alastor, what do you do for work?”

“I manage a hotel facility,” Alastor answers. It’s quick and you remember him mentioning a hotel when explaining Hell to you.

“Oh, sounds fancy! You must make a lot of money, then.”

“Veronica!” You smack her arm lightly.

“What? I’m just judging his financial stability, isn’t that what I’m meant to do? He’s going to rent from us, after all. I wanna make sure we get paid,” she defends. She speaks the truth, but she couldn’t been more subtle.

“Not to worry, my dear, any and all financial arrangements will be met.” Alastor shifts, grabbing something from his coat pocket. He voices your name, grabbing your attention. “I do apologize, may I ask again what the agreed amount was for moving in?”

“Right, the deposit,” you rack your brain for a number, trying to remember what you and Veronica set it at when listing the room. “Um, it’s $300 for deposit and $250 for first month’s rent.” Alastor pulls out an envelope, handing it to you.

“That should cover it, unless there’s anything further to finalize this?”

You look at Veronica, words escaping you. She just laughs, turning to Alastor. “Usually this is done a little differently but, what the heck! Welcome home!” She stretches out her hand and Alastor takes it, placing a quick kiss to the back of her knuckles. You frown at the blush on her cheeks.

“I don’t know where you found him, but bag him before I do,” Veronica whispers to you and now it’s your turn for your cheeks to redden. You want to protest, saying how you’d never, but you don’t want Alastor to know what she said. Though from the way he grins smugly at you, you have a feeling he heard.

“I’ll have your lease printed up by tomorrow morning,” Veronica says, standing from the couch. Alastor stands as well and she shakes her head. “Girlie, where did you find him? The 1930s?”

“You’re not far off,” Alastor jokes. Veronica shakes her head, checking the time.

“Good Lord, it’s that late already? I gotta get ready for work.” She steps out of the living. “Oh, why don’t you show him the room? I’m sure he’d enjoy that!” She winks at you and then disappears to her bedroom to get ready. You groan, letting your head hit the back of the couch.

“I think that went well, don’t you?” Alastor asks, that smile still plastered on his face. You wanted to punch it. You wanted to punch him. God, you were violent tonight, weren’t you?

“Come on, I’ll show you the room,” you say, pushing yourself off the couch. You move towards the kitchen, walking past it to a door that sat opposite yours. Veronica’s was next to it, the only other bedroom on this side while yours sat on the other. You liked yours cause it was on the wall with the bathroom, an easy walk to when nightly trips hit you.

You open the door and let him step in first. It’s a normal size bedroom, a full bed sitting in the middle with adequate space on either side to move. There’s a closet facing the bed, the hangers empty. The whole room itself is bare minus carpeted flooring and neutral grey walls.

“It’s not much, but I guess it’s something to be comfortable in while you’re here.” You pause, frowning. “Do demons even sleep?”

“Some do,” Alastor says, walking around the bed, his fingers ghosting over the comforter, “I find it difficult, so I usually don’t.”

“I feel ya there.” You rock on the balls of your feet, trying to kill the awkwardness you feel thickening the air around you. “Um, ok look.” You sit down on his bed with a sigh, running a hand through your hair. “I still don’t know what to wish for. I can’t wish for others and I really don’t know what I can think of that’s worth my soul. So, until then, you’re just gonna have to live here and play roommate until I do.”

Alastor, his smile tight, sighs and joins you on the bed. “It looks like I don’t have a choice, my dear. Can’t leave either way. You’re stuck with me just as much as I am stuck with you.”

“So it seems, Mr. Demon Boy.” You turn to face him a bit, bringing your leg to tuck under you on the bed. “Where are you really from, by the way? The way you talk is so…foreign.”

“Why, here in the bayous of New Orleans!” Alastor answers, spreading his arms wide. “A true, southern gentlemen.”

“But you have an accent, like some kind of talk show host.”

“No, no, my dear! A radio host, and I was quite the famous one during my time on Earth,” he says and you perk up.

“Wait, really? When?” Alastor raises a brow, seeming confused but amused at your sudden prodding. He seems to be in thought, weighing his options of telling you. You wait patiently.

“My last time on Earth was back in 1933. That is the year I died,” Alastor explains. He looks off towards the wall, disappearing into a flashback somewhere. You wish you could see it.

“So you’re from the 1920s then? That makes total sense now,” you say. The accent, the showman ship, the dramatic flairs. You were also right in thinking he was older than he said. Well over a hundred years. Amazing.

“Yes, indeedy! What a time to be alive it was. Say, what year is it now? Time gets a bit fuzzy when down in Hell.”

“2024.” Alastor’s eyes widen, no doubt shocked. You wondered if time even existed in Hell. Did it move just like on Earth? Did they have birthdays and holidays to mark the movement of time? You shouldn’t be so curious and, yet, if you were bound for it then why not learn all you could? It would certainly give you an advantage over others heading that way.

“My, my. I’m going to have to see New Orleans now. I’m sure she’s changed a bit.”

“You’d be surprised,” you say with a smile. If it’s one thing you loved, it was the historical preservation of the city. Sure, new buildings had popped up, but a lot of the old ones stood proudly along side them. “I could take you out to see them!”

“Darling, I would enjoy nothing more!” Alastor stands from the bed, moving to the side just as his door opens after a short knock. You see Veronica peek in, already fully dressed.

“Just wanted to let you know I’m heading off to work!” She looks to Alastor. “We’ll have you a spare tomorrow, too, when you get the lease! Too-da-loo!” She waves goodbye and a moment later, the front door shuts. You’re back to being alone with Alastor once again. Thinking of nothing else to do, you decide to say fuck it and ask.

“How about that city tour?” you ask, standing up off the bed.

“Are you sure, my dear? I would understand if you’d like to stay as far away from the demon as possible. Most in your situation would, but then again, most would have made a wish by now.” You chuckle at his comment, walking past him and out to the apartment entrance.

“I think we both know I’m not normal,” you say, grabbing your car keys. “I mean, I’m literally about to take a demon for a drive through the city. Tell me how that’d be normal?”

“Touché,” Alastor grins. He opens the door and steps to the side. “After you, my dear.” You feel your stomach flip, but push it back down, thanking him as you two leave the apartment.

taglist: @i-like-potatoes12533, @girl-nahh-two, @mcntsee, @projectdreamwalker, @sassmasterxx, @alsemain, @yunimimii, @noraunor, @justneo11, @dragonlover123a, @falsemain

If you want to be added to the tag list, just comment so below! :3 Thank you!

--- Masterlist --- Ao3 ---

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin alastor #alastor #the radio demon #alastor hazbin #alastor x you #alastor x reader #Alastor x Reader #Alastor x You #Alastor Fanfic #hazbin hotel fanfic #hazbin hotel fanfiction #alastor fanfiction #the radio demon x you

82 notes · View notes

olderthannetfic · 30 days

Note

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/749333039047442432/httpsolderthannetfictumblrcompost74884185043?source=share

Sorry, long rant incoming.

Someone in the replies said it, but I think it needs to be said again where everyone can see it: I think a lot of the attitude that anon is somehow secretly pro-censorship because they think certain preferences are skeevy, and strenuously insisting that bad attitudes can NEVER be media's fault.... idk, maybe take it out of the context of debates about sexually explicit/pornographic media for a moment?

There are works of media that had pretty direct effects on activist and political movements, good and bad. Uncle Tom's Cabin inspired a lot of people to fight against slavery. The movie Birth of a Nation, which showed a history of the U.S. with the KKK as heroic, is considered by most historians to be a major contributor to the revival of the KKK in the 1920s. The Nazis used films, books, music, art, and so on in their propaganda, knowing it would help their ideas go down more easily. The Soviets did too. Every dictatorship did. Even democratic countries have done it as well, usually but not always in more subtle ways.

Do none of those count, because "oh, people who were going to be convinced by Birth of a Nation would be racist anyway"? "Good, non-racist people wouldn't be convinced by it"? I mean, the latter is true: there were plenty of people, especially black Americans but plenty of white allies too, who boycotted the film at the time. The NAACP led a boycott. But do you really think NO ONE was convinced? (What about people who previously didn't feel any way about it one way or the other? Were they just innately more evil, even if it might've just been that they weren't aware? Do supposedly progressive people in fandom realize how much this sounds like Christian original sin rhetoric...) And does it matter purely about media fully changing minds, or also how it galvanizes people who already think one way? If it gives them new talking points, new ways of thinking about it and convincing others? If it helps them believe their cause is more important and worth fighting for?

So why does this all suddenly change when we're talking about sex? Is porn really this special class of media where somehow all the rules about how we can both like things and also be critical of how media (fiction, news media, whatever) influences us - "be critical of the media you love," as a tote bag sold by Feminist Frequency said - just stop applying for some reason? Or maybe if something is bypassing your rational brain entirely and going directly for the pleasure centers, there's all the more reason to think critically about what it's saying? Propaganda is designed to bypass all that, too.

Also, if media really has NOTHING to do with it, that just wouldn't explain why it's disproportionately anime that feature these specific elements that seem to attract more people arguing for why it's wrong to be upset by rape or child exploitation in real life. I don't believe that everyone who watches slavery isekai or lolicon approves of those things irl - I think for the vast majority of people, it IS a fantasy and that's the point - but I have noticed that in places like the Anime News Network or Crunchyroll forums, the comments become a cesspool of creepy people arguing for why ages of consent should be lowered and mean feminists who don't like watching media with rape in it just need to get over themselves, in a way they just don't when you're talking about Attack on Titan or My Hero Academia or Shoujo Romance #4891 or whatever.

As another person in the notes said, abusers ARE opportunistic. They'll use something like Twilight as easily as they'll use the most uwu, soft, "non problematic" ship to argue for why they're allowed to abuse you. But I don't think that means we can't be critical (not calling for censorship, of course! but like, writing op-eds and stuff) of media that makes their arguments a little easier, maybe even directly makes their arguments for them.

You can believe both that everyone has the opportunity to read, watch, listen to, play what they want and make up their own minds about it, and that it's wrong for the government to ever decide what media is and isn't "acceptable," and also believe that media often is saying things that aren't apparent on the surface and that you should be critical of those messages, *especially* with the stuff you like.

The point is just that porn isn't like, fundamentally different from other fictional media in this way. (Or, hell, I would argue that fictional media isn't functionally different from other mass media in this way. If anything, fiction's politics are often more insidious in a way that makes it easier for them to reach people who might not otherwise be open to those messages in the form of, say, blatantly right-wing news media.)

It's particularly strange to me when people jump all over someone for expressing how something can be insidiously creepy in a more mundane way. The line people are upset about that used the word "unpack" was just making the point that even if we can agree lolicon isn't outright advocating pedophilia, even if we agree the point is that it's a fantasy and they're not like real children at all and that's what people like, it's still working within an idealization/fetishization of helplessness, innocence, and dependence, and that still has a lot that you can critique from a feminist perspective. It's still a thing that plays into some crappy societal ideas about who women are supposed to be, and is selling that to men as a romantic ideal. There's still a lot we can talk about there! And it's still totally fair for women to be wary of men where that seems to be all they're into - because for some (and I believe this was what anon was initially trying to say was their experience), it does impact how they treat real women. It doesn't have to be everyone for it to have an impact.

There's a lot of anime that presents women that way, even way outside of lolicon. A lot of it's anime I like! I'm still critical of that aspect of it. I still wish that particular part of it were different.

I still don't see how this makes me "pro censorship" unless I believe some kind of institution should mandate that that not be included. And whether that's the government, or the industry itself (people do kind of narrowly focus on "the government" in a way that would make a lot of industry-run censorship that was still very harmful, e.g. the Hollywood Hays Code, not "count"), or anyone, I very much disagree with that. Creators should be able to create what they want. A lot of what creators are doing with this is unconscious, is reflecting societal biases they learned but haven't thought deeply about.... which is precisely the point of critiquing how those show up in a work.

People love to talk about "secretly 'anti' attitudes" but at the end of the day, support or opposition to censorship is pretty straightforward. You believe someone should be stopped from making a particular kind of media, or you don't. If you don't, you're not pro-censorship, no matter how much you personally may not like that that media or a particular aspect of it exists. Most people who care about media have some media they wish didn't exist. It's about what they do about it that makes them pro or anti censorship. Talk to people who donate to or even work for the ACLU or other anti censorship groups; most of them don't like racist or sexist stuff, but they also don't believe it should be banned and that's the point.

Bringing it back to the discussion at hand, I think the point was just that you can't be blind to how power dynamics influence this stuff. I wouldn't even say specifically cishet men are at fault here, since some people who read this blog seem to think that anyone saying that is automatically talking about bioessentialism as opposed to like, societal stuff (don't ask me why, this has been explained on here enough times in enough different discourses over the years, I think). I'd just say anyone with power in that particular context. There's a reason why it's specifically mainstream media, aimed at groups in power, that tends to draw in creeps excusing the real thing... in a way that just similarly is not true of people in fanfiction fandom, who are usually a member of one or more oppressed categories, exploring that in their own marginal work. Fans of rape fanfiction just don't act the way that fans of slavery rape isekai do. It's because there is fundamentally a difference both when you're someone whom society tells you are entitled to everything you want in this particular arena, and also when a work is mainstream, broadening its reach, and speaking a particular message from the lens of people with economic and social power (who are making these mainstream works) and given approval by publishers/media studios/etc. in a way that is not the case with amateur work with tiny audiences. And, frankly, there's a difference between something that eroticizes rape from the point of view of the perpetrator vs. the victim.

Not a difference in terms of how legal it should be. Not a difference in whether every single person who watches it or likes it is bad. But a difference in terms of what it's saying, how it's saying that, and often the effects they have as a result. That, too, is true with every topic, not just sex.

I feel like a lot of people getting mad at these do fundamentally agree with this, but just have a weird blind spot when it's put in any sort of terminology that reminds them of certain bad arguments they've seen in fandom, uses any words that can be dismissed as "radfem" or "anti" or whatever, and so just refuse to engage with the actual meat of what is being said.

If you do actually believe though that it's wrong to EVER think media can have a negative effect on what people believe about irl issues, because there was always something "already there" that was going to "come out anyway" if it affects you that way (again, people: this is "original sin" rhetoric), and if you ever privately judge people for the media they like you're secretly pro-censorship. You do have to recognzie that both you personally come up short and also most peopel doing real concrete real world things to fight censorship would also come up short!

I think sometimes of an editorial that said "if you love Return of the Jedi but hated the Ewoks you understand feminist criticism" in terms of how you can be bothered by the sexism of a piece of media in a way you'd be bothered by any one individual element of it, and still overall like the whole. And also, you can be offended by something, even wish it didn't exist (don't we as nerds all have entries in some franchise we like or another that we wish didn't exist for fannish reasons?), without believing that it should be officially made to stop existing or have never existed in the first place. That last part does actaully matter as like, its own thing. It is in fact separable from just being able to have personal judgey feelings about media and about the people who liked it.

And opposing it does not mean in any way that we have to just stop thinking critically about the media we love, or that we have to act like media can never have any influence on people. We on the left tend to talk about sexism, racism, homophoia and so on as being influenced by culture and society. Well, guess what is part of society and culture? Fictional (and other kinds of) media. That's part of that societal programming we get. It's why you'll see some of it even from people whose parents very much tried to resist teaching them certain things, because they get it from media anyway. I was raised by strenuously feminist parents: it was the media that taught me what gender roles were and how I was expected to adhere to them.

Look, I realize it's a bit rich of me to say this, but people are not going to engage with your actual points if you cannot be more succinct.

60 notes · View notes

procrastinatingsoicanreadfanfics · 11 months

Text

Vikings and their eras

Summary: what era would vikigns be in if they weren't in their own

Notes: I did a lot of text for this one, bc I loved thinking about this!! There are some pretty popular characters missing (Ragnar, Sigurd, Athelstan) where I just couldn’t imagine a certain era for them. Thank you so much for your request :)))))) Some of these eras aren’t wonderful or filled with positivity but that doesn’t mean these characters wouldn’t thrive.

tagged: @majesticwren @obsessiveformiyatwins @leithdragon @demon-of-the-ancient-world @alicedopey, @ivarlover @levithestripper @batmandallyboy @akayxo09 @vrtualfairy (hmu to be added!)

based on this request | masterlist | requests are OPEN!

Lagertha

Lagertha would thrive well in times of crises and war (lmao). The black death, WW1 or 2, or long periods of war/famine/sickness is where Lagertha does well. Think about her what you will, but she brings people together, manages them, and takes care of them. She’s a natural leader, and a fighter, so she’s able to protect her community.

We’ve seen examples of this in the series, think during the sickness in Kattegat, or when she takes over and completely builds up Hedeby. People tend to trust her, and especially women look up to/feel safe around her. When disaster strikes, she would be able to save/take care of them.

Aslaug

I had to think about this for a really long time because I think that Aslaug fits so well into the era the show is set in, however, I finally decided on the 1920s. Even as a feminine woman in Viking Scandinavia, she had a lot of authority over herself and knew how to grow a business (Kattegat) when Hirst wasn’t feeling sexist.

In the 1920s, she’d live in a big city, maybe Berlin or New York, and she’d own some sort of speakeasy. I’d love to think that her speakeasy would be a place for the very few pagans of the city to meet up in secret, and she herself would still be a norse pagan, völva, etc. Also, she’d dip her toes into wild jewellery design (think Schiaparelli). Definitely someone who attracts artists and would be considered a muse.

Rollo

Middle Medieval Ages for sure. He thrives being a knight because he’s a manipulative little hoe that I can’t stand. Gets to do his performative heroism during tourneys and woo women only to leave them all alone.

Rollo is not a good person, esp. towards women. He constantly gets into trouble with the church and with fathers whose daughters he ‘dishonors’. Definitely needs a wife like Gisla to slap some sense into him. I think that eventually (mid forties) he’d start to mature. Also, having children would help him become a better person (I think they should have put that into a show).

Bjorn

Bjorn thrives well in the late 2000s to early 2010s, when travel blogs were on the rise. He’s one of the early influencers, and travels the world together with Halfdan. This only works bc cancel culture isn’t real yet. Bjorn would say some stupid shit and get hounded for it let’s be real. Nonetheless, there is always some rumour about him and Halfdan being a thing (they would be if they both didn’t constantly say ‘that’s gay’).

Alternatively, Bjorn might make a good colonizer (can I say that?), but it’s not like he isn’t that already.

Ubbe

Ubbe would thrive during the late medieval ages (defo not the Renaissance though). He’s the type of man who would enjoy the idea of the charming knight. I think Ubbe would definitely enjoy the idea of quests/saving damsels in distress/having the arranged-marriage-turned-lovestory (he’s a booktok girly tbh).

This doesn’t mean that all of this is totally pure. Ubbe gets some shit twisted in canon as well (ESPECIALLY concerning Margrethe). Maybe his first war was something crusade-like, and he went into it thinking of heroic acts and blabla and then got fucked up by battle and gore. Also has a religion and Madonna/whore complex problem.

Hvitserk

In the show, Hvitserk was always seeking sense/purpose while also struggling with balance, which is why I think he would thrive in the 1970s. This is THE era for protests and social change. Climate change, feminism and sexuality all became important topics. Going to protests would be able to give him a sense of change, and I think it would be liberating for him as well, to be able to free himself of his restraints by changing something.

I’ll go into communes a little more for Helga, but I think Hvitserk would thrive in an early commune a lot. He needs to have people around him taking care of his mental health, and this would be great for his mental health. Yes, therapy helps a lot of people, but I think if Hvitserk lived in our time, he would think that talk therapy is stupid, and completely close himself off to it. This guy just needs a lot of love, okay?

Also, he needs to smoke some 70s weed every once in a while.

Ivar

Just like Hvitserk, Ivar would thrive during the 1970s. However, this is for completely different reasons and also means that no one else gets to thrive. I chose the 1970s because it’s THE serial killer decade.

That honestly sounds terrible but we all know it’s true.

Ivar would be bitter about being discriminated/not being able to fully take part in society/not getting any women and that would turn him homicidal. He definitely overcomplicated his killings and does shitty bloodeagles to get some cool name but all he gets is like “the Viking killer” or something and he’s so mad about that he reveals himself on his deathbed to change his title. It doesn’t work.

Floki

Floki just wants to be where Helga is, but he would not thrive in the 2020s. I think he’d get in arguments with Helga about vaccinations. However, I want Floki to be in the 2010s/2020s with Helga. He definitely has some kind of hallucination-related mental illness at the least. I think that especially the season where he acted out against Helga (season 4?) shows that his mental health was making him harmful towards others and probably towards himself.

I can’t diagnose Floki, but I think we can all see that he might have some kind of bipolar disorder/mania disorder on top of a schizophrenia. He needs some kind of meds, and he needs someone to help him taking them.

Helga

This is very specific, but Helga would do AMAZING during the early era of Covid (like March 2020). Yes, she’s a very social person, but I do believe that Helga would be part of a quite isolated commune if she lived during modern times, and even during that time be isolated with Floki.

I would like to think that the commune could be self-sufficient and Helga just gets to go ham making banana bread and care packages. She thrives in this time where she doesn’t really have to go to work (even though she loves being a kindergartener too) and gets to take care of the people in her commune, and even further than that from the comfort of her own home.

Astrid

This woman thrives where no one else does, and that is toxic 2020s twitter. All she does is tweet, get cancelled, tweet, get popular, repeat. She’s so so annoying and bullies a bunch of people who don’t deserve to be bullied. Is most definitely blocked by trump, hailey Bieber and the Kardashians at least.

Makes a living by selling feetpics.

Ecbert

Ecbert thrives in the 1980s. Now. Hear me out. Ecbert in neon Zumba clothes. There, that’s my reason.

I’m just kidding, there’s more. I’m not old enough to fully understand most of the decades I’m talking about in here but the 1980s, it seems, were this extremely colorful and wild decade. Literally everywhere, color just kind of seemed to explode, and I think Ecbert would thrive in this kind of chaotic atmosphere.

(are there people in their forties or older on this post that can verify?)

Aelswith

I’m really sad that we didn’t go into Aelswith more in the show, but I firmly believe that Aelswith would make an amazing Sufragette. Thinking back to her time on the show, she was always very firm in standing her ground, more so than Judith or even Lagertha in some ways (especially in the sense that she was SO YOUNG). She directed and strengthened Alfred, and I think during season 6, she used a beartrap to defend her baby?

Anyway, I imagine her as a rich/aristocratic lady in London who definitely steers the household while Alfred brings the money in (he likes art) and she decides that, if she puts in the work in the house, she should be able to decide over the country that house is in as well.

#history vikings #request #vikings #ivar #hvitserk #ivar x reader #ivar the boneless #ubbe #lagertha x reader #ubbe x reader #hvitserk x reader #aelswith #rollo #aslaug #floki #vikings ivar #ivar ragnarsson x reader #rollo x reader

101 notes · View notes

whinlatter · 6 months

Note

Hi! I wanted to ask you what's your take on clothes and how wizards dress? I've been thinking about this since the 'gettin ready fot the party' scene. What's a typical wardrobe for typical wizard in te 90's? I always imagined that they just dress like muggles (or maybe the younger generations?), and i when i read the books i always had a hard time imagining them when they are trying to pass as muggles, you know? Like what, they don't understans which clothes are for a specific event? Because Harry says that he could tell thay dress a bit diffrent, like out of place. I mean, it's probably just meant to be funny, but, how isolated are they to not knowwhat muggles wear? I guess it also has to do with how they are raised, i imagine blood-supremacists (is that how it's called?) use only 'robes' (whatever that is, and, also, what's under those robes? like, a thong? do they wear muggle underwear? SO MANY QUESTIONS)

So, i was thinking about this instead of working🤠.

I liiive for that part with tonks' clothes, i even got a litlle "oh i wanna be thereeee and try everything and make everything fit with magic!"

And this how i imagine wizards dress (according to jkr) in the muggle world

ok please know that this image made me howl

thank you for the super interesting question! i have thought a bit about typical wizarding wardrobes and familiarity with muggle fashion among wizards in the 90s as a worldbuilding question in beasts. it's definitely true that wizarding familiarity with muggle dress is another one of those worldbuilding points in canon where the text is unclear and at times inconsistent. i know people have different views on how much wizarding and muggle culture interact, especially in matters of popular culture and fashion. i've heard very convincing arguments that the cultural insularity and physical remove of the wizarding community from muggles would mean most children raised in wizarding households, especially pureblood families like the weasleys, wouldn't know that much about how muggles plausibly dress, what they listen to, or what forms of media are popular (books, music, sports, even less so tv and film).

while i do agree with some aspects of this, in my approach to wizarding youth culture in the 90s, i think young witches and wizards on the left know more about muggle fashion than they do about many other aspects of muggle culture, and that interest and ability to pull off muggle fashion depends on a person's background, politics, gender (because mostly, it does all seem to be about trousers - i reckon pureblood supremacists, as you say, are in their undies most of the time), but especially generation and the politics/patterns of consumption in the time period when they were a teenager. i think your desire and ability to wear muggle clothing varies a lot if you're born in 1950 vs 1980, partly because of changing wizarding politics and the difference between growing up in peacetime vs a world at war, but partly because muggle fashion changes as a market in the second half of the twentieth century.

basically, i think these young progressive millennial wizards would wear more muggle clothing because of changes in muggle fashions/consumption that allow for greater availability and access to muggle clothing by the 1990s, as well as access to information about fashion and trends, and i think they would want to because willingness to embrace muggle fashions would be a way of showing their commitment to their own politics and forms of teenage rebellion that were distinct from those practiced by generations prior living through the first wizarding war. a longer discussion with my reasoning for this is below the cut!

so - in general, in canon, gen X wizards and older (so the youngest of them born in the 1950s thru 70s, and everyone older than that) seem to dress in muggle clothing really only as a protective measure to prevent exposure/risk breaking the statute of secrecy. when bob ogden goes to the gaunts' house in the 1920s, even as the head of a major ministry department dealing with law enforcement, he does a terrible job dressing as a muggle (the bathing suit, pls bob, i beg). if you look at all the wizards trying to dress as muggles for the world cup, it's clear that the adoption of muggle clothing, for most wizards, is a strategic, defensive move more than anything else. in PoS, mcgonagall - herself a progressive woman in her politics - disdains wizards who are celebrating the end of the first wizarding war by celebrating in the street "not even wearing muggle clothes", which she thinks is reckless and risks wizards' exposure (love when mcgonagall dresses like a muggle briefly at grimmauld place in OotP and it freaks harry out lol). there is no enthusiasm or interest in it - there's just conformity for self-preservation.

for that reason, i think you can see why those on the wizarding right in the mid-twentieth century, especially those drawn to pureblood and wizarding supremacy, would come to see dressing like a muggle as a disgrace, a sign of submission to a lesser people, in a way that would become extremely loaded in the years preceding and during the first wizarding war (1970-1981). when harry sees snape in the flashback to his first trip on the hogwarts express in the early 70s, he notices snape is already wearing his wizard robes very early on in the journey, which harry's narration supposes is because snape's happy to be out of his 'dreadful Muggle clothes' (DH). those muggle clothes were a sign both of snape's poverty but also his outsider status in muggle tinworth: special, because he's a wizard, but otherwise socially inferior to other children in every other way. snape, of course, is raised in a wizarding household with knowledge of magic but has been wearing muggle clothing to avoid detection for his entire childhood, in ways that imbue the wearing of wizarding clothes and casting off of muggle garms with great political significance. in canon, we see that the vast majority of wizards, while not death eaters or rabid pureblood supremacists, tend to be small c conservatives in their view of wizarding cultural norms and tend to think they're better than muggles even if they don't necessarily want to go out and kill them all. for that reason, they remain loyal to wizarding traditions, and continue to wear robes, partly as a symbol of their proud cultural identity as wizards, in ways that they would likely only cling to as their society moves towards open war over muggle-wizard relations (as you say, robes seem to be worn without trousers underneath, so most wizards are just wearing underwear under their robes and going about their day. slay, honestly).

so, if the right hate muggle clothes, then the willingness of gen z+ wizards to engage with and adopt aspects of muggle attire and culture might map onto a progressive political outlook and a disavowal of wizards-first ideology. but a person's politics alone doesn't mean they know how to pull off muggle clothing, and in the years of brewing tension then open war, most wouldn't bother risking their lives to be caught wearing a pair of bell bottoms. arthur weasley is the best example of this. arthur is theoretically interested in muggle clothes because he's a progressive man who disavows wizard supremacy and believes in principles of tolerance towards muggles. now, he's not good at knowing how to pair a plausible muggle outfits. this is because he still lives at a reasonable remove from wizards, he's extremely busy with a demanding job and seven children to be staying up to date with changing fashions, and at the end of the day still spends most of his week among wizards in a civil service that demands a certain level of professional conformity. but i think it's also because arthur weasley is born in 1950 and therefore spent his young adulthood trying to raise a young family during a war. arthur instead channels his politics into support for muggle protection legislation rather than in wearing muggle clothing, which he might see as a limited individual act of symbolic resistance that would put his family at risk and also cost time and money he doesn't have. (if we look at the marauders, as an example of a progressive bunch in the interim generation between arthur and arthur's children, especially someone like sirius with greater financial freedom, it's very telling that sirius shows his politics off through riding a cool muggle motorbike and sticking up muggle soft porn on his bedroom walls, but not noticeably through fashion, as far as harry's photographs show).

but if you look at arthur's children, progressive wizarding millennials, it seems like more confident familiarity with muggle fashions and culture is generally more common. i think we can include someone like tonks in this, raised in a mixed marriage household by a blood traitor and a muggleborn dad. harry says that the weasley children are better than their parents at dressing like muggles. when harry sees bill weasley he doesn't think 'this is a man who looks like he's done a bad job dressing for a muggle rock concert' he thinks 'this is a man who looks like he could be going to a rock concert'. this suggests to me a difference, say, between bill and his dad. arthur likes muggles and believes engaging with muggle culture is important, but doesn't really succeed at it, but his eldest son manages to marry both a political commitment to embracing muggle culture with an ability to dress plausibly as a muggle so much so that he's able to ape a subculture in a way his dad doesn't really try to often and has never succeeded at.

why? i think there's a few things going on. one is that the majority wizarding millennials grew up in peacetime, after the fall of voldemort, in the 1980s and 90s, where wearing muggle clothing was less likely to get you killed and more likely to symbolise an individual act of rebellion against more low-level societal norms and cultural pressures rather than against a murderer in a mask. this, plus having the time and disposable income to follow muggle fashions more closely, as well as the opportunity to access about muggle fashions and celebrity styles, has a big part to play. bill weasley has more time and ability than his dad to stay up to date about muggle clothing tastes, as do his siblings. characters who went to hogwarts in the 80s and 90s also did so at the peak of a mass print consumer culture (one that was already on an upward ascent since the 60s) that was designed to be be accessible, inexpensive and create an appetite for following trends among consumers, and that could very easily be of appeal to progressive young witches and wizards. this is why in beasts i have ginny know about the spice girls and their iconic lewks from a copy of smash hits magazine because that seemed like the kind of inexpensive and highly portable source of information about muggle culture that a muggleborn or halfblood student (or even a pureblooded student with a parent with a progressive interest in muggle clothing) would be able to take to school and pass around a dormitory. on the gender point, too - donning muggle clothes, especially the more permissive and sexy clothing of the 80s and 90s would be a great way for a rebellious young woman raised in a wizarding household - eg. tonks or ginny - to stick it to the conservative gender norms in the wizarding world.

moreover, the changes in fashion as a market in the muggle world would make a certain base style of comfortable and inexpensive muggle dress much more readily available to younger witches and wizards than ever before. for kids born in the late 70s/80s, changes in muggle clothes consumption - aka. the globalisation of mass factory production of textiles, especially garments, and the early forms of fast fashion we now recognise today - would also have an impact on the ready availability of certain basic forms of cheap muggle fashion, including the ubiquity of cheap jeans and trainers/sneakers, that emphasise comfort and ease of daily wear at a low cost point produced in such high volumes such that if you wanted a pair of jeans, you could easily get your hands on one. this would have made a plausible muggle clothing a lot more accessible (there's only so wrong you can go if you're just wearing jeans, t-shirt, a jumper, and a pair of trainers, really), and explain why the clothes harry wears in the muggle world don't seem all that different from the clothes he wears in the wizarding world (admittedly usually under his robes), or indeed that different from what ron seems to wear most of the time. passing as a muggle in 1920 with little effort - à la bob ogden - would be a lot harder than doing so in 1990.

so - yeah. that's my take! i think it's mostly about generation, but also about politics, about war and peace, a bit about gender and a lot about capitalism. i hope this helps!

#wizarding culture #meta #analysis #wizarding clothing #beasts #hp meta #loved answering this thank you so much!

50 notes · View notes

optimisticsaladalpaca · 10 months

Text

What the fuck. Like, seriously. What in the fuck was this post back in April. Who in their right mind actually sat their ass down to go on a whole rant about how an indie animation is a clone of another show that came out after the first? You can tell that this person was born with an ability. And that ability is stupidity.

Ok, so let's recap on this major 'what the fuck' post. I'm just going to point out things that makes absolutely no sense.

Do you know how many shooting games tend use firearms as one of the weapons when you first play it? Do you not know that firearms existed waaaaaay before Helluva Boss was getting developed? Because I guarantee you, Helluva Boss was not the only one that referenced about firearms at all. There's no originality. It's just straight up inspiration. Who cares if Lackadaisy is using similar weapons! You're acting like Helluva Boss owns that shit, dawg.

So actors can't voice another character after the previous one? Wow! Didn't think that was a rule now. My fucking god bloody hell... Michael Dietz who voiced Vee from The Owl House was the same lady who voiced Amethyst from Steven Universe for gods sake. Why is Michael Kovach voicing Rocky a bad thing? All because he used to be Angel Dust? Be glad that he's actually voicing a character that doesn't constantly swear and bring up corny middle school sex jokes that take up almost half of the pilot.

...This right here was one of the most stupidest takes I've ever seen in media and it will forever stay in my memory. Because what. The actual. Fuck. MOXXIE AIN'T THE ONLY ONE THAT WEARS A BOWTIE, BRO!

SO MANY SHOWS AND MOVIES ALWAYS GOT THAT ONE FANCY PERSON THAT NEEDS A BOWTIE, ESPECIALLY GIRLS. THERE'S NO ORIGINALITY. ANY CHARACTER CAN WEAR A BOWTIE...HOW IS THAT COPYING? THAT'S LIKE SAYING A CERTAIN CAR IS A COPY OF YOURS BECAUSE IT'S THE SAME COLOR LIKE...HUH? WHY WOULD YOU JUDGE FRENKLE BASED ON CLOTHING? WHO DOES THAT??? DOES THE OP HAVE BRAIN DAMAGE? HAVE THEY SEEN DONALD DUCK? BECAUSE HE WEARS A BOWTIE TOO... WHAT ABOUT MUSICIANS? BUTLERS? BUSINESS WORKERS? THEY ALL WEAR A BOW TIES...

Lackadaisy has been worked on since 2006 and it has wonderful world building with enjoyable characters that you can actually love. It's also refreshing because it doesn't have unnecessary sex jokes or swearing just to prove that it's "mature." And it actually has funny humor. Lackadaisy is it's own thing and I love the concept of it being in St Louis and that it takes place in the 1920s. Not to mention, it took the Lackadaisy crew four years to work on the animation pilot. Fucking 4 and it hasn't changed it's story since it was first created years ago. It had it's own ideas and interesting plot, while Helluva Boss/Hazbin Hotel have been getting worked on AFTER that! Plus, they aren't even comparable. They are completely different.

Lackadaisy is about cats that wanna shoot each other until their eyes stop activating. Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel take place in literal HELL. LACKADAISY TAKES PLACE ON EARTH 😬....

These Helluva Boss, Hazbin Hotel fans make me sick. Lackadaisy is better than both of these trashy shows and that's my own opinion. The fact that an actual great western pilot is getting compared to a horny demon show is beyond me.

#helluva boss critical #helluva boss critique #hazbin critical #hazbin hotel critique #hazbin hotel critical #helluva boss criticism

103 notes · View notes

luv4fandoms · 2 years

Text

At Last-Ralph x FReader (ch 2)

Summery: Victoria suggests a shopping day! (Because of course she does). You and Ralph get to spend more time with one another.

Part 1, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Pairing: Ralph x Female Reader

Word count: 5,210

Warning: Ralph's adorableness!

"You look gorgeous- I mean, you always look gorgeous you just look especially gorgeous right now”

“that’s the sixth time you’ve complimented me today.”

I also have a Ko-Fi 😊

⚠️ 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠: 𝐈 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐠𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐬, 𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬, 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐞.⚠️

"Ooh yeah, yeah

At last, the skies above are blue

My heart was wrapped up in clover

The night I looked at you"

Victoria and Ralph had offered you all a place at their home, though after walking in you couldn't help but stand in awe at the luxurious decor, no wonder their party was as fancy as it was. Not to mention they had a room for each of you, though you watched Victoria quickly excuse herself to Jason's room, you and Lauren sharing an eye roll before Ralph made himself known, wishing Lauren a goodnight with a smile, before his eyes landed on you.

"Goodnight (y/n)" he smiled, eyes trying hard to keep eye contact, out of the corner of your eye you noticed Lauren let out a snicker before heading into her room.

"Goodnight Ralph" you spoke, hand resting on the doorknob, watching as his eyebrows knitted together, a confused expression replacing his timid one. You had purposely not used the nickname, afraid you would only cause yourself more embarrassment, but the look on his face said that perhaps not using it was not the right choice. The slightly crestfallen look nearly broke your heart as he slowly turned to leave, and you knew if you didn't speak up that look would haunt your dreams.

"Ralphie" You spoke quietly, he quickly looked back at you, the name causing him to give you his undivided attention.

"Yes (y/n)?"

"I…I just wanted to thank you again, for letting us stay here" you smiled, you were truly thankful, you were stranded in the 1920's and honestly all day you were stressing about the thought of you all having to find a place under some bridge just to catch some sleep.

"No thanks are needed (y/n), you're more than welcome here" he smiled back at you, you couldn't stop the smile as you nodded, slowly opening the door and making your way inside, but you looked at him over your shoulder once you were in the doorway, his eyes still on you.

"Goodnight Ralphie, may you have good dreams tonight" you told him, watching as he beamed at you, a light pink dusting his cheeks.

"You as well (y/n)" and with that he turned and left for his room, and you closed the door, slowly taking your clothes off and changing into the pjs Victoria had let you borrow.

The next morning you awoke to loud voices, Victoria happily chatting with Jason, Horace, and Lauren, it seemed Nick and yourself were the late risers. You peeked out of the door, looking at everyone in the hall and noticing that it seemed even in this time it was ok to wear your PJs to breakfast as everyone still seemed to be in theirs. Watching them all walk towards the dining room you noticed that Ralph was not among them, you wondered if he was still asleep as well. Closing the door you looked at your reflection in the full length mirror, the beautiful flowy (f/c) nightgown that Victoria had gifted you laid against your body in a way that didn't show off your curves or skin too much, not like ones from your time. You couldn't believe it when Victoria told you to keep it, stating that she "liked it at first but now it wasn't her style". You decided to add the matching silk robe atop it before heading out to greet your friends, both new and old.

"There she is" Horace smiled when you entered the room, causing everyone to look up at you, you had noticed Ralph was in fact already awake, sitting beside Lauren and smiling at her, his own pjs a baby blue set that you instantly thought suited him well.

"(Y/n)! Victoria beamed.

"Did you sleep well dear?" She asked

"Very well, thank you, I don't think I've ever slept in silk sheets before" you laughed while taking the empty chair beside her and Jason. Horace sat at the end of the table beside you, Lauren and Ralph across from you, and an empty chair at the other end for Nick.

"Oh dear do say you're joking, how would you ever get any sleep otherwise?" She asked, honestly shocked.

"After last night, I'm not sure if I ever will again" you laughed, causing her to laugh as well.

"You Americans have such a sense of humor," she smiled, before adding.

"But do try to get as much sleep as possible, those dark circles won't get you far dear" her words made your eyes widen a bit, eyes glancing at your friends in an almost embarrassed but also "did she just say that" sort of way. Finding Lauren she just gave you an "seriously?" Look, but it wasn't her voice that spoke up.

"I-I think she looks lovely"

Your eyes immediately met Ralph's, a small shy smile on his lips as he held your gaze, and you could feel the heat rising to your cheeks the longer you both held the stare.

"T-Thank you" you smiled.

"You look lovely as well Ralphie"

"Ralphie?" Both Victoria and Lauren asked, both with the same confused expression, though Victoria seemed somewhat happy, Lauren looked slightly disgusted.

"(Y/n) gave me the name last night" he beamed excitedly, before quickly adding.

"I would prefer it if only she called me it" in a more serious tone. The blush darkened even more at his words and you found yourself staring at the plate of food in front of you, the pancakes suddenly becoming very interesting.

"No objections there yeah" Lauren stated, drinking her tea while giving you a "you are in deep" look. Luckily Victoria started talking and distracted everyone, though when you looked up you caught Ralph's gaze once more, and you could only smile shyly at him, God maybe you were in deep? Victoria and Jason pretty much filled breakfast with a combination of constant conversation or making out, which was uncomfortable but at least it was a distraction. You all excuse yourself to go get changed, but not before Victoria suggested that you all go shopping, to which Lauren declined and Horace said he would love to but he wanted to bike around the town and have a "look see at what the good towns folk are up to". She had turned to you next and though you had a feeling shopping with Victoria would be a bit overwhelming, you agreed, she didn't even give Ralph a glance as she walked away, and you felt your heart ache as his face fell from not being included before he left for his own room. After a moment you made it to your room and quickly changed, splashing on a bit of makeup you still had in your bag from your time. Looking yourself over in the mirror you knew why Victoria had given you this dress as well, the plain blue was far too…calm for her taste no doubt, but it suited you fine. Making your way back to the living room you were greeted with music as you neared, the strum of a ukulele and a soft singing voice.

"L is for lovely, my lady love, you,

A is for always, my love to be true." You peaked in the doorway, watching as Ralph sat on the floor leaning against the sofa that Lauren was laying on…

'Of course he is singing to her' you thought, your chest tightening.

"Ralph, mate" Lauren started, causing him to quickly look at her.

"shut the fuck up, yeah?" She finished and you watched as his smile fell, his eyes darting away from her and to the ground.

'Lauren that wasn't called for ' you huffed at your friend through your thoughts, quickly deciding that you wanted to bring that smile back.

"Awe, why did the music stop?" You asked as you walked through the door, looking at everyone.

"You weren't really enjoying that, were you?" Lauren asked in tone that said she wanted you to shut up as well.

"Actually I was, I thought it was very beautiful" you told her.

"I-I wouldn't want to disturb anyone by playing more" Ralph said as he looked up at you, then to Lauren.

"Oh, well that is truly disappointing" you spoke, sitting down in the chair beside the couch, watching as his expression changed to one of not just sadness but also panic, as if he was afraid he truly had disappointed you, shit, that wasn't what you meant to happen.

"M-Maybe when no one is around, you could…play me something Ralphie?" You asked, earning a beaming smile from the brown eyed boy as he looked up at you.

"I'd love to, any time you wish"

"Careful, you could come to regret that" you laughed, but he adamantly shook his head.

"Never"

"Well I'm off…Hey I didn't realize we were matching today" Horace spoke when he entered the room, you all looked at him confused before he pointed between yourself and Ralph, it was only then did you realize that the color of your dress matched his blue vest perfectly.

"Oh…um…happy accident" you laughed.

"Well you lot have fun now" and with that he was off. You and Ralph exchanged a smile before Victoria and Jason entered, stating they were ready to head out, you stood to follow, but noticed that Ralph didn't move, instead looked at the floor.

'That's right, she didn't invite him'

"Aren't you coming Ralphie?" You decided to test the waters, watching as he looked up at you before looking towards where Victoria just left.

"I-I wasn't invited it seems" he spoke softly.

"Perhaps not by your sister but-" you started, wondering if you were really going to say what you were thinking, but one look down at his soft expression you knew you were.

"I'd very much enjoy your company" you smiled, watching as he looked up at you in complete awe before giving you a smile that made you very glad you spoke up. You spared a glance at Lauren as Ralph stood, and the look you recieved was a mixture of a teasing "I knew I was right", a slight disgust, and a thankfulness.

"S-Shall we go then?" He asked, standing next to you.

"Of course, have fun Lauren" you smiled, making your way towards the door.

"Have fun yourself" she snickered. You met Victoria and Jason at the door, Victoria looking at Ralph questionly before looking at you.

"I asked Ralph to accompany me today, I hope that's alright" you told her with a smile. She gave you a tight smile but nodded.

"Of course!" And with that you all left, to say you were thankful for Ralph's company was an understatement as Jason and Victoria couldn't keep their hands to themselves and you would have been feeling very much like a third wheel had you come alone.

"Not to assume that your sister has had a lot of…Suitors but, is she like this with every guy?" You asked, watching the two tongue wrestle.

"Ah that…Yes my sister is very…Affectionate with her suitors"

"I see"

"Emotions run very strongly in our family, it is just how we show our love" he stated, looking over at you. That you could already tell simply by the small amount of time you had spent around them, they definitely were the type to love with all they had, and that caused thoughts to flutter into your mind. Thoughts of Ralph leaning in and kissing your breath away, holding you against him as he showed you his affections. Of late night butterfly kisses as you laid across him, the sheet covering your bodies. Of heated kisses and shared breaths while your bodies moved in synch, a soft moan escaping him-"

"Nothing wrong with that" you breathed, your eyes quickly darting to the buildings and hoping that the heat rising to your cheeks didn't have color. Ralph on the other hand was watching you, watching as your breath caught at his words, watching as your eyes unfocused, telling him that your thoughts were racing, before you quickly looked away, a blush spreading across your cheeks. He couldn't help but wonder if you were thinking about him or were you thinking of a past suitor? He found himself growing bitter at the thought of another man with you, and he was unsure of why. He was planning on trying to court Lauren was he not? She was the object of his desire…Right?

"Oh let's go in here" Victoria excitedly spoke, dragging Jason towards a very fancy looking clothing shop.

'oh I'm going to be broke by day's end' you thought as you followed her, and fancy was right, not only were the walls dripping in fine architecture and gold, but there had to be at least 5 crystal chandeliers…and that's just the first floor.

"Fancy with a capital F" you breathed while looking around.

"Are you not accustomed to places like this in America?" Ralph asked and you couldn't stop the laugh before it flew past your lips.

"Sorry, um, no no definitely not. My budget doesn't really…allow for things like this, not unless I don't want to eat for a month anyways. I mean, the dress I wore last night came from a charity shop"

"A charity shop?! D-don't let my sister hear you say that please" he told you, looking around for his sister, ah no, Victoria didn't seem like she would be the type to take kindly to that information.

"Do your parents not have a lot of money?" He asked, following you as you walked around looking at all the dresses.

"Ah no, and I don't earn a lot either, at least not enough to have play money" You told him, looking up at a black and red floor length gown.

"Play money?" He asked, following your gaze.

"Yeah, money that's not set aside for things like bills and stuff, money that you can buy whatever you like" you explained.

"I didn't realize money was such a struggle in America" he replied.

"It is when you don't have a good paying job and your family's not rich" you laughed. Walking away from the dress, knowing very well it was well beyond your means.

"You have a job then, as what if I may ask?" He inquired.

"Well…I make custom dresses for people" you explained, causing his eyes to widen.

"So you're a seamstress then?"

"I am, my specialty is dresses though, I have made many gowns, ball gowns, costume gowns, even wedding gowns" you told him.

"How are you not paid well? Seamstresses here are paid fabulously"

"Really? I may have to start my business here than" you joked but Ralph was very serious.

"There is a sewing machine in the house, it was our mother's but you are more than welcome to it"

"Oh if it was your mother's I don't-"

"Please, I insist" he smiled before adding

"It would make her happy…If it didn't simply collect dust" his tone lowering at the end, eyes searching yours but you could see the held back emotion. He talked of his mother in a past tense and it only made you assume the worse, the way he talked about her though, even just a bit, she must have meant a lot to him.

"I'd be honored then" you smiled, earning that butterfly inducing smile from him.

"Brilliant!"

"Why are you two just standing around, find some clothes already" Victoria yelled over to the two of you, causing the both of her to look her way before making your way to more of those clothes.

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try something on right?" You wondered out loud.

"Please, anything your heart desires" Ralph smiled at you, before looking over at the suits,but his eyes kept darting to you.

Your eyes glanced back at the red and black dress, but decided to try on some that may be a little cheaper…whatever cheaper was in this store. You made your way to the changing room, and slowly, and carefully, slipped into the first dress; a black dress with teal fringe along the bottom and a bejeweled peacock design running along the front, it was paired with black elbow length gloves and a jeweled headband. Taking a deep breath you stepped past the curtain to look in the mirror but stopped as you saw Ralph standing there, his eyes cast downwards as he fixed the cuff of the suit jacket. Now you had never quite been on of those girls who went completely gaga over a guy in a suit but since meeting Ralph…Well suddenly you understood what ZZ Top meant when they said that every girl was crazy about a sharp dressed man. It was a simple black suit, but you noticed that the vest, tie, and handkerchief were a teal Paisley pattern…a teal that very much matched the fringe and peacock of your dress. Finally steadying your breath and mind enough to actually function, you made your way over to him.

"We look like we're going to the same party" you smiled while walking up behind him, he looked up quickly, catching your eyes in the mirror before slowly lowering them to take you in, his mouth slowly opening.

"I'll take that as a good sign" you laughed, and he spun around to take you in fully, mouth still opening and closing but no sound coming from him. Noticing that his tie was a bit crooked you reached to fix it, hearing him finally let out a breath.

"I apologize, I-I just, You're very…Stunning" he breathed. You could feel the blush blossom as you gave him a shy smile, unable to meet his gaze.

"Thank you Ralphie, you're quite stunning yourself" you told him, proud that your voice didn't shake. He chuckled shyly, a blush spreading across his face as he looked away, not knowing how to address your compliment other than to simply bask in it. You finished fixing his tie and smoothing down his lapels, you looked over to the mirror and watched as he turned his head as well.

"We do truly look like we are going to the same party" he smiled.

"We really do" you chuckled, smoothing your hands along your sides, the dress was definitely different than what you were used to, but you did like it. You were so focused on the dress though that you hadn't noticed Ralph's eyes following your hands, his own slightly clenching as he wished he could replace your hands with his own in that moment. That thought took him by surprise and made the blush only darken.

"Everything ok?" You asked, noticing his uncharacteristic silence.

"Ah yes" he cleared his throat.

"Yes just…should we try more on?" He asked excitedly, you couldn't help but giggle at his expression and nod before heading back to the dressing room. You tried on 3 more dresses, all of which you somehow ended up matching to the suit that Ralph was trying on, he said it must have been fate, you happily agreed, and all of which he complimented you on. But just as you were about to change back into the clothes you entered the store in, a hand slid through the curtain, the floor length black and red gown hanging from it.

"Oh!" You spoke"Clearly startled.

"My apologies, I didn't mean to startle you, I just….I was wondering if perhaps you would try this on?" He asked, his words sounding like the poor boy may simply die if you didn't.

"Oh, ok" you told him, taking the dress and watching as his hand quickly retreated.You couldn't help but sigh as the material slipped perfectly on your body, the silky material fitting against your curves as if it had been custom made for you. This was what you feared about trying it on…You loved it. You put on the black gloves, and headband that Ralph had placed around the hanger. Nodding as you looked down at yourself you slowly pushed back the curtains, Ralph was standing by the mirror again, this time in a matching black and red suit, though this time you knew he did it on purpose.

"Well, how do I look?" You asked while making your way over to the wide-eyed man.

"Gorgeous" he breathed, quickly adding

"You look gorgeous- I mean, you always look gorgeous you just look especially gorgeous right now” you couldn't help the shy giggle that left your lips, the compliments had been making you giddy all day, never before had a man lavished you with such words, and honestly you were not sure what to do with yourself.

“that’s the sixth time you’ve complimented me today.” You told him with a smile.

"Six isn't enough" he found himself saying before he thought it over.

"Ralphie" you started,

"Oh please tell me you're getting that!" Victoria's voice broke in as she and Jason suddenly appeared beside the two of you.

"Well don't you look fit" Jason smiled, eyeing you, which in return you gave him a confused look. Ralph on the other hand, had a look that said he would very much fight Jason right now if he kept looking at you that way.

"Oh I don't know, it's a bit out of my budget rea-"

"Oh dear, who said you were buying?" Victoria laughed.

"Victoria's I couldn't- you two have already been kind enough"

"And you will continue to let us be kind, and let us buy you that gown or we shall go into a state of deep sadness to which there will be no return from" she stated, causing your eyes to slowly look over at Ralph, seeming searching for help, but Ralph just gave you a smile in return.

"As I said before, anything your heart desires"

'what if it desires you?'

"Just let her buy you it (y/n) it makes her happy" Jason spoke.

"That it does! And how could I not when it fits so perfectly on you! I mean look at you! Any man in London would be crawling on their knees for you" she smiled, but her innocent words brought a not so innocent thought, just like today when Ralph had been still sitting on the floor while you stood ready to leave…Him on his knees in front of you, those puppy dog eyes looking up at you, waiting.

"O-ok, if you insist" you smiled, trying to shake off the thoughts.

"Good! And anything else you liked today, bring it to the front" she smiled before turning to leave with Jason's stack of suits.

"I've learned over the years that it is a bit easier to simply give in to what she wants" Ralph spoke up after a moment.

"Is that why you let her cut you off when you're speaking?" You found yourself asking, noticing his surprised expression.

"I noticed it the when we first met, everytime you would try to speak she would cut you off"

"Yes…I suppose I am simply used to it, it has been that way since we were children." He explained.

"That's awful"

"She is the oldest"

"Oldest or not you have a voice too" you told him, watching his surprised expression turn into a gentle smile.

"Thank you"

"For what?"

"For being concerned that I'm not being heard"

"Oh Ralphie, you don't have to thank me for that, being heard is a right everyone should have"

"Indeed" he sighed, both of you falling into a comfortable silence and you held each other's gaze, a gaze that made you long to simply walk over to the man and wrap your arms around him. But a loud ahem from the front broke your trance and you both quickly hurried to the changing rooms.

The next shop was of course a shoe shop, because according to Victoria you had to have "the right shoes" for the dresses. It seemed that Victoria and Ralph came in the shop quite often as the owner knew them well, but upon seeing you and Jason he said he would have to see if he had anything in stock, but first things first you had to know your size. He gave you two options, have your feet measured or try on shoes to see what fits. Jason decided on measuring, you decided to just try on, you knew your size in UK sizes, how hard could it be right? You grabbed a pair you liked and sat down, sitting the shoes to the side to unbuckling your shoe. But as you slipped off your shoe, the one you picked up came into view. Gasping you looked at the figure kneeling in front of you.

"Please, allow me" Ralph smiled, fingers lightly grazing your ankle before he gently grabbed it and brought it up, resting your foot against his bent knee before he brought the shoe up and slowly slid it on.

"Perfect fit" he smiled, looking up at you and your fully flustered face.

"Never thought I would feel like Cinderella til now" you laughed lightly, watching as he slightly tilted his head, confused by your statement and you suddenly remembered that Cinderella didn't come out til the 1950's

'shit'

"It's just a movie from back home" you tried to play it off.

"Oh? What is it about?" He asked, still looking up at you while his fingers lightly ran against your ankle.

"O-Oh it's um…it's about this poor girl who was treated very unkindly by her stepmother and stepsisters. Until one day a fairy godmother grants her the wish of being able to attend the prince's ball. She transforms her and gives her this beautiful dress and transportation to the event, but warns her that at the stroke of midnight the spell will break and she will return to her former self.. She gets there and dances all night with the prince, but as the clock strikes midnight she rushes out of the palace and down the stairs, losing one of her glass slippers along the way. The prince was so smitten that he ordered a search for the woman who's foot fit the slipper, and vowed he would marry whoever she was" you explained, not breaking eye contact as he listened intently, hands idly dancing across your flesh as he hung onto every word.

"Did he find her?" He asked in a whisper, hands stopping. You couldn't help but smile and nod, watching as a smile spread across his lips.

"He did, they married, and lived happily ever after" you told him.

"If..If you're Cinderella…Since I put the shoe on you does that make me-"

"Hello Miss, do you need any help?" The owner asked, suddenly appearing behind Ralph, startling you both out of the spell your story had put you under. You slightly jumped, your foot falling from Ralph's knee as you sat up straighter.

"Oh, n-no thank you, I was able to find my size quickly" you smiled, heart still racing.

"Very good, Ralph I have a new pair that I know you'll love, straight from Italy!" He said excitedly, not leaving til Ralph stood and joined him. You gave Ralph a small smile when he turned back to look at you, one which he quickly returned. The shopping was uneventful after that, the man kept Ralph occupied, Victoria and Jason shopped together, though every now and then she would find you and give you input on the shoes. In the end you left with a pair for each dress and a pair of tap shoes. The last stop was the jewelry store. A place you felt very out of place in since you didn't wear much jewelry, but alas, Victoria gets what Victoria wants, so here you were, looking at all the very fancy goods.

"Hello Madam see anything you like?" The man asked.

"Oh!" You spoke, started, having been lost in thought while staring at a ring that somehow looked oddly familiar.

"Ah Rubies are the ladies choice I see" he smiled, before leaning down and pulling out a tray that held rings, earrings, necklaces, and bracelets all adorned with Rubies. All of them were breathtaking and you knew, very expensive.

"Oh Rubies aren't as common as pearls and diamonds but they are lovely" Victoria said, appearing beside you.

"I've always had a fondness for them" you stated.

"Well dear, I think it's only proper then that you gets whole set" she explained excitedly

"Oh Victoria I couldn't-" you started but the look on her face told you otherwise.

"Couldn't walk away from such beauties" you smiled, watching her smile and nod before heading to Jason.

"Not gonna lie, she terrifies me at times" you told the man, earning a laugh while he packed up the earrings, necklace, and bracelet.

"I'll skip the ring, since I think it's an engagement ring, yes?" You asked

"You would be correct" he told you.

"Leave it for some lucky girl" you told him, watching him nod and place the tray back, your eyes never leaving the ring until he closed the case. You picked out a few more things, mostly pearls since you knew those would go with the other dresses, before you all headed out. You were surprised Ralph hadn't approached you in the store, in fact…you weren't sure how to feel about that. You were nervous he would continue his thought of you being Cinderella and him being the prince, even though you wanted that. But at the same time you already found yourself missing his presence, which also made you realize.

"Where is Ralph?" You questioned once you were all outside, you looked back at the store but couldn't quite see inside so you turned back to your other traveling partners.

"He'll be along shortly I'm sure" Victoria told you as she and Jason turned to leave.

"I'm just gonna wait here a bit" you told them, but they had just kept walking.

"I'm not surprised," you sighed, looking up at the setting sun, wow had y'all really been out all day? Suddenly the reality of everything began to set in, you were in the roaring twenties, a time you had held close to your heart due to an unknown familiarity with it, a longing of things you had never experienced. You looked at the people around, everyone making their way home for the day, happy to be done with the day's work, unknowing that there was a time traveler among them.

'Still wondering if I'll come across the Tardis' you joked, your eyes returning to the sky. It was off, though your soul felt a little more at ease than it ever had, there was still a longing for something.

"Oh! I didn't make you wait did I? You could have followed my sister"

Turning to look at the man who now stood behind you, it felt like everything suddenly was in slow motion and once again you found the world around you blurring into nothing, until there was just him. Maybe it was the day's events, or maybe it was the way the setting sun cast an ethereal glow on him, making his brown eyes change to an Amber color as he looked at you. But in that moment everything clicked….the something you still felt a longing for….

'oh'

Well there it is! Chapter 2! Let me know what you think and if you want to be added to the taglist ☺️

Taglist

@quirkyquartney , @the-a-word-2214 , @no-mercy-bby , @sav7689 , @vonschweetz , @greeny-kitten , @0x0spunky-monkey0x0 , @ladybug0095 , @takemetoneverland420, @serotoninenthusiast , @error-home-not-found @fujiihime , @peachymonsters ,@estrellitams , @ellalafrella ,@fictionlandslanddreams , @emmamooney , @eddiemunson4ever , @drmeghanjones

The dresses

The suits

#joseph quinn #chapter 2 at last #ralph #timewasters #ralph timewasters

505 notes · View notes

mariacallous · 3 months

Text

The prospects of a united front preventing Donald Trump returning to power in the US looked a little bleaker this week.

Let’s be frank they weren’t great to begin with. To an outsider Joe Biden just seems to be too old to be a viable candidate. He doesn’t pass the first impressions test. Look at him and you do not see someone capable of serving another four years.

True, he won Michigan's Democratic presidential primary a few days ago– but he was hit by a significant protest vote from left-wing and Arab-American voters angry about his qualified support for Israel's war in Gaza.

And at this point that second cause for worry, and, frankly, panic kicks in.

The left urged registered Democrats to vote for the "none of the above" category to express their opposition to Biden's Israel policy – and about 100,000 did. Their votes represent a wider chunk of the electorate who could well stay at home or vote for minor Green or left-wing candidates and deny the Democrats key states.

In a deeply divided country with a warped electoral system that favours the Republicans, it does not take many voters abandoning the Democrats for Trump to retake power.

I wrote at the weekend about how the Trump example shows how hard it is to unite against a dictatorial threat. People, or to be fair, many people, cannot put aside their commitments and ally with men and women they profoundly disagree with for the greater good of defending democracy.

On the one hand, they cry that Trump is a fascist and white supremacist. On the other hand, they refuse to use all available means to stop him. Mainstream liberals do not moderate their demands to win over wavering conservatives. The far left sees the Biden administration as its true enemy.

The history of the struggles against Nazism are highly relevant to the dilemmas and the dangers we face today.

As Hitler began his rise to power at the end of the 1920s, the European far left was in the same place as a section of the modern US left.

The threat of fascism was as nothing when set against its hatred of moderates.

In 1928 the communist movement adopted one of the cruellest and stupidest policies in its history, which considering the history of Soviet communism was nothing more than a history of cruelty and stupidity was quite an achievement.

Partly because it helped Stalin in his internal power struggles in Russia, Moscow ordered all Europe’s communists to follow an ultra-leftist policy. They were told to denounce moderate leftists as “social fascists”, and fight them to the death.

Communism’s triumph was inevitable, the party line went. No compromise was possible with anyone who stood in history’s path. Reformists were opportunists and traitors. They were social fascists who were as bad as the Nazi gangs which were already gathering on Berlin streets.

Or perhaps they were worse….

For an argument that is still heard today held that, say what you like against them, at least fascists were honest in their way.

By contrast centre-leftists were traitors who had been “bribed by the bourgeoisie” to deceive the masses, as no less an authority than Lenin had said.

They were hypocrites who pretended to want change while watering it down. Nothing could be achieved until they were swept away.

When Stalin’s enemy, Leon Trotsky, who was hardly a moderate, warned that instructing left-wingers to fight other left-wingers was a sure way of allowing fascism to “ride over your skulls and spines like a terrific tank”, Ernst Thälmann, the leader of the German communist party, denounced him for his ‘criminal counter-revolutionary propaganda’.

The result was a disaster. The communists and socialists fought each other instead of the Nazis, making Hitler’s rise easier. Thälmann went along with Stalin’s categorisation of social democrats as “social fascists” until actual fascists came to power in Germany. They taught him the difference by holding him in solitary confinement for 11 years at the Buchenwald concentration camp, and putting him before a firing squad in 1944 and shooting him dead.

Today there are plenty of Thälmanns who believe with absolute certainty that the discredited centrist mainstream is the enemy.

Here is a columnist on the Washington Post greeting the Michigan result

As I emphasised in my previous piece, his stance is absolutely fine in normal circumstances. US leftists are perfectly entitled to refuse to support the Democrats if Biden’s behaviour outrages them.

But surely only enormous levels of delusion prevent them acknowledging that Trump is a threat to democracy. If he wins, the American republic may be so gerrymandered and its civil service so politicised that it will be a Herculean task to remove Trump and his successors. There are plenty on the US far right who cite the rigged democracy of Viktor Orban’s Hungary as their model and dream, after all.

The alternative is to build alliances and once again history is a guide,

Having seen that their previous policy of treating moderate leftists as Nazis had resulted in Hitler coming to power 1933, the geniuses running the Soviet Communist party decided on a U-turn. Henceforth communists were instructed to support “popular front” movements where everyone opposed to the fascist threat would be welcome.

Some of the most interesting US writers have reached back to the 1930s to find ways of dealing with Trump. In How Democracies Die the US academics Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt found an example in the little-known story of how fascism was stopped in Belgium in the 1930s.

Belgium might have gone the same way as fascist Italy or Nazi Germany. In 1936 far-right outfits —the Rex Party and the Flemish nationalist party, or Vlaams Nationaal Verbond (VNV)—surged in the polls, capturing almost 20 percent of the popular vote.

They challenged the historical dominance of three establishment parties: the centre-right Catholic Party, the Socialists, and the liberals.

The leader of the Rex Party, Léon Degrelle, was a classic far-right figure. A journalist (like Mussolini, and so many other believers in simple solutions) he would go on to become a Nazi collaborator in the Second World War.

Levitsky and Ziblatt wrote that, “the Catholic Party, in particular, faced a difficult dilemma: collaborate with their longtime rivals, the Socialists and Liberals, or forge a right-wing alliance that included the Rexists, a party with whom they shared some ideological affinity.”

Unlike the mainstream conservative politicians of Italy and Germany, who brought Mussolini and Hitler to power, or the mainstream Republican leadership who collaborated with Trump, the Belgian Catholic leadership declared that any deals with the far right could not be contemplated.

"Catholic Party leaders heightened discipline by screening candidates for pro-Rexist sympathies and expelling those who expressed extremist views. In addition, the party leadership took a strong stance against cooperation with the far right. Externally, the Catholic Party fought Rex on its own turf. The Catholic Party adopted new propaganda and campaign tactics that targeted younger Catholics, who had formerly been part of the Rexist base. They created the Catholic Youth Front and began to run former allies against Degrelle."

Right-wing Catholics knew that they must ally with socialists and liberals they normally deplore in a popular front. And it worked. The far right was beaten.

I think popular front politics are essential. But they are not easy or even particularly principled. Go back to the 1940s and you find George Orwell was utterly repelled by communists and conservatives allying to stop Hitler

He looked back with mockery on

“The years 1935-9 were the period of anti-Fascism and the Popular Front, the heyday of the Left Book Club, when red Duchesses and ‘broadminded’ deans toured the battlefields of the Spanish war and Winston Churchill was the blue-eyed boy of the Daily Worker.”

To Orwell, the idea of covering up the crimes of communists for the sake of the greater anti-fascist good was horrific. But that was what the left of the 1930s did. And that was what the British and American governments did during the Second World War. Defeating Hitler came first. They were prepared to forget about the millions Stalin killed until the war was over.

It's a hard choice. But in the circumstances US progressives face, it is an obvious one. There is no argument against making every necessary compromise to prevent a second Trump term. You will have no right to protest, if you do not.

17 notes · View notes

solariumrph · 1 year

Photo

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐔𝐓𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐌 𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐑 🎭

a vintage playbill inspired doc!

it’s been a hot second since i’ve done anything docs-related but i wanted to share my latest adventure! i made this doc to house a version of my muse that’s a 1920s era actor, complete with sepia-toned faceclaim photos & an alt title page that’s been run through photoshop w some free textures & things. i tried putting the textures on the whole doc, but it made it extremely difficult to read, so i ended up leaving the textured title page as a header on the actual blog, and kept the doc itself unaltered. though, if you found the right texture pack, you could probably run it through photosh.op and set it as a pdf for your mutuals to get into. (make sure you have all the fonts installed on your computer, i Did Not)

this doc can be found here and in the source link if you want to take a stab at customizing it, though i recommend it only for people who have moderate to maybe advanced?? skill in docs. placing some of the object pngs inside the table was out of my skill range to begin with and the fact that it figured itself out in the end is a miracle. but anyway. all images are replaceable if you can get under the other images to them. i did my own coloring but docs does have a built-in sepia filter if you’re not about doing all that yourself

there is a title page, a rules page, a character page w images, and another sort of empty unformatted page at the end you could delete out or customize with extra information. i personally think the last page is the best place to put the backstory and the little squares can be all your info spots / connections / verses, but that’s not even what i did lmao so you do you!!

ngl i’m not sure if i will be much help about it but do let me know if you have any questions on formatting the doc. start by going to file > make a copy and renaming your new doc. docs are for personal, individual use only & credit must remain intact. i worked hard on my baby. also sterling is my oc plz don steal etc etc. specifically 'the cutting room floor' is my tagline on sterling's blog so that title belongs to him as well. but yeah if you make anything using my docs pls pls pls tag me or dm me and show me?? i wanna seeeeeee. ok ty ily have a good timezone 💕💃

#gdocs #google docs template #gdocs template #rpc template #rp template #gdoc #rp gdoc #rp resources #rph #character template #muse template #oc template #rpc #historical rp #history rp #mafia rp #1920s rp

113 notes · View notes

sparrowssally · 6 months

Text

I’m thinking about writing a Sally Sparrow/Tenth Doctor fanfic, so naturally I went and rewatched “Blink” tonight for the millionth time to get some inspo, and you know what kills me?

All the little details we don’t get. All the little stories that played out without us seeing.

Kathy getting zapped back to 1920’s Hull, directly in front of the cow farmer who will become not only her first friend in the strange new town she now has to call home, but also eventually her husband. When Kathy awakes in the night with her heart pounding and tears streaming down her cheeks, and simply chokes out “the angels…I dreamt about the angels again”, his arms are always there to comfort her. The dreams slowly subside over time as she adjusts to her new life, and soon there are other, more important things to worry about. Some good, like the birth of their children, and some bad, like the war. But Kathy survives and lives a full life, as do her husband and children, and with every picture she continually insists upon taking—one every time they have enough money to afford it—she thinks of her friend Sally Sparrow.

There’s also poor, lovely Billy Shipton, transported back to 1969 London—probably by the same Angel that sent the Doctor and Martha there. He’s just as unmoored as Kathy is, but—as strange as this Doctor guy seems to be—Billy finds himself liking him in a weird way. He makes a point to become Billy’s first friend in 1969, and he and his friend Martha help get Billy not only a place to live, but also a job working in publishing (even though Billy can’t figure out how the Doctor possibly managed to forge those papers that spoke to his “extensive expertise” in the field, or why he is so insistent upon splicing several videos of him talking in jargon into a bunch of completely unrelated DVDs once Billy moves into video production). Martha sets Billy up with a pretty girl named Sally who always comes into the shop where she works, and a few months later, the Doctor attends their wedding. Billy tries to find him afterwards at the reception to say thank you, but he’s already gone, leaving behind only a simple envelope inscribed “for the bride and groom”. It contains a pound note hefty enough to get Billy and his new wife off to a good start in their marriage, and simple card inscribed with a wedding blessing, written in a script and language neither of them can read.

The next time Billy does see the Doctor is many years later, when he’s old and grey, lying bedridden in a nursing home. Billy had never truly believed the Doctor’s claims of being an alien, but when he sees the same skinny, dark-haired young man walking across the room towards him—looking exactly as he had in 1969—he can’t help but cry in the midst of his wonder. The man who calls himself the Doctor is still a mystery, but as he pulls up a chair next to Billy’s bed and takes the latter’s outstretched hand, he’s as kind as he always was. He offers his condolences when Billy tells him of the passing of his wife, and smiles at the photos Billy shows him of his children, carefully dodging Billy’s question of whether or not he ended up having children of his own. But then he grows silent and his gaze grows sad as he looks out the window at the storm clouds brewing in the sky. “I’m sorry, Billy, I’m afraid I didn’t just come here to visit,” he says, and his voice is laced with a guilt and sorrow so deep that it sounds centuries old. “It’s time.” For a second Billy thinks he sounds close to crying for some reason, so he puts his wrinkled hand on the Doctor’s shoulder gently. “It’s okay.” he insists, giving him a soft smile. “This means I’ll finally get to see her again.”

#off to scream into the void for all the pain writing this has caused me #doctor who #sally sparrow #tenth doctor #Billy shipton #martha Jones #Kathy nightingale #doctor who blink #doctor who headcanons #headcanons #meta #doctor who meta #weeping angels #David Tennant #carey mulligan #Michael obiora #freema agyeman #Lucy gaskell

33 notes · View notes

mswyrr · 15 days

Text

bridgerton 2x01

Just started Kate & Anthony's season! Assorted comments below.

1 - Kanthony

What a fun start they're off too! Great chemistry and sparks with this Rivals to Lovers pair.

I feel for Anthony and his severe (!) Eldest Brother Syndrome, but oh gosh. When he spouted some of that nonsense about finding a lady with "child-bearing hips and half a brain" I wanted to kick him lol I am so eager to watch him absolutely come apart with love of Kate.

Their first meeting is perfect. We learn quickly, within about 2 scenes here and later, that Kate is an expert with horses and doesn't back down from a challenge, not from Anthony or Lady Danbury - her back and forth with both of them really establishes (along with her careful planning, research, and care for her little sister) that she will make a magnificent Vicountess

"does your maid know you're riding astride?"

-Anthony, you are not EVERYONE'S older brother

-Anthony.... does the thought of her.... astride... perhaps intrigue you hmmmmm????

There's something interesting about the way that, at the party, both Kate & Pen observe and listen from the edges, the duality of being not considered but keeping your ears open for insight? unexpected/feminine power moves 🤔

Kate likes to keep her secrets!! it's a way to keep control AND YET she feels drawn to Anthony enough to confront him directly about the shit he was just talking. it's a real risk, given his power and money. As much as he is already struck with her, SHE is struck with him too, to take that risk.

"your character is as deficient as your horsemanship. i bid you goodnight" LMFAO his face!!! it's clear the actors were having a wonderful time. love it!

I think it's great that Kate is telling herself she's trying to protect Edwina from him, but actually.... they're both already so struck by each other there's all kinds of delicious subconscious motives at play imo!

2 - Women's relationships

-kate's own Eldest Daughter syndrome oh honey 🫂

-kate & lady danbury's conversation & pen & eloise's conversation are so good? there's intimacy and stakes between the women that i really like. despite the society emphasis on m/f marriage and the ways it rankles and is part of patriarchy, the "marriage mart" is really a women run world in many ways.

-pen's family of women is SO NASTY which makes a good contrast - this thing being run by women doesn't mean it's good or nice.

-somebody let the queen and lady danbury have Old Ladies Yuri i beg of you

-it's.... kind of crazy how shippable Pen and Eloise are. though i am totally aware it is intended to be a platonic friendship and i think it's interesting on that level as well! the way Pen wants her column as Lady W to please Eloise, even to the point of revising it to suit Eloise's tastes... I'm really looking forward to seeing how their besties relationship came apart. The drama! oh it's gonna hurt (rubs hands together)

3- MISC notes

-diamonds weren't the highest valued gem at the time. that was a product of later debeers advertising (late 19th cent). the "diamond of the first water" slang is from Georgette Heyer in the 1920s lolllll Regency Romance is a Fantasy AU and always has been, which is why the way this show has adapted the books to create its own unique Fantasy AU is perfectly in keeping with the Regency Romance vibe!

-I love how relevant Pen's journey is to the plot and themes overall - how you can see the places (in her experience of family and society) her sharp edges come from, but also... her business savvy, her wit, and her decency (demanding a wage increase for the boys who sell her column!). ALSO even with her mother trying to dress her dowdy she still is such a cutie pie <3

#bridgerton #bridgerton meta #my meta

12 notes · View notes

simtleman · 1 year

Text

So The Palace Hotel is finally done, people! Took me a bit longer than expected, but I think it turned out pretty good!

Like I mentioned on my previous post, I decided to move the bar and hide it behind the library so it would feel more like a speakeasy, and while I was at it I also changed the deco a little bit:

On the other side of the lobby (where the bar used to be), I created a ballroom and a cabaret/stage area:

Before we move on to the first floor, I gotta show you the areas where the help and the hotel staff lives. If you go through the back of the building, you will access the help back door (remember it's the 1920s, so they're not allowed to go through the front)... which will take you to the basement, where the kitchen and the help dorms (greatly inspired, once again, by @antiquatedplumbobs's work in her historical save file) are located:

Moving on to the first floor, I did four rooms: two small ones and two big ones, having these last two an in-suite living room:

The bathrooms are all pretty tiny, but I always love to have an excuse to use @moon-simmers's Bonaerense vintage bathroom set (I literally had been looking for a set like that for AGES and couldn't believe my luck when he released it!):

Last but not least, the second floor is equipped with an extra four rooms (two small ones, two big ones... same as first floor) and, of course, a green room in your very own @felixandresims's Colonial style:

And finally, here's the floor plan so you can get an idea where everything is located within the building:

Basement -> Kitchen and help common area/dorms/bathrooms:

Ground floor -> Lobby, and to the right: library/smoking room, speakeasy/bar hidden behind; to the left: ballroom & cabaret/stage area.

First floor -> Hallways overlooking the lobby, two small rooms and two suites.

Second floor -> Two more small rooms, two more suites and the green room in the middle.

That's it for me today, I hope you guys like how the save file is developing and don't you worry, I'm already working on the next build... what is it, yoy may ask? A stunning green room inspired by one of my favorite places in the world (Palacio de Cristal del Parque del Retiro, in Madrid), turned into a glamourous restaurant in the hills of Del Sol Valley, overlooking the city!

I'll keep you all posted and, like I said before, I'm always open to your ideas! ❤

Oh, and thank you once again to @antiquatedplumbobs & @greatbritishsimchallenge for bringing The Sims 4 Tray Importer to my knowledge, I might consider sharing my save file with everyone once it's done if that program does the job of listing all CC items for me :)

#ts4 screenshots #ts4 retro #ts4 vintage #sims4cc #ts4 1920s #1920s aesthetic #ts4 1930s #ts4 1940s #ts4 simblr #ts4 decades challenge #ts4 legacy #art deco #ahs hotel

64 notes · View notes

deputy-buck · 4 months

Text

Need a Catholic school Hawk/Tim AU set in 1948.

Keep it where Hawk still served in '44 but Tim is younger (Sophmore-Junior year maybe). Since when Tim was 14, Hawk would have been 24-25 in Velletri, Hawk would have to get the teaching gig a year after that at 26. Which doesn't really make sense at all so maybe Tim is just aged down to where he's 2-3 years younger, and it gives Hawk time to get out at 27 and then establish himself as a teacher at 29 by the time Tim reaches his Sophomore year. I'll never write this, why am I doing all the work to make a workaround for age. Going off the suspected age-range given the tennis trophy Hawk got is dated 1936, him being born 1919 or 1920, I prefer 1919 so that's the year I use. And per Tim's enlistment paper, he was born 06/06/30, making him 13-14 in 44' in canon, but in the AU he'd be born 1933 or 1932.

I would love to write it but I don't know how Catholic schools work-

Anyway, history teacher Hawk x student Tim. Tim is a great student already but he goes the extra mile in Hawk's class, he's usually always the first to finish assignments and does extra research on time periods and events that Hawk shows more interest in (maybe he gifts a book to Hawk that way.) Hawk acknowledges it but never makes a show of favoritism like giving extra attention or praise to Tim, no after-class meetings alone in Hawk's classroom or office, NOTHING. But ofc Tim knows the feelings are at least somewhat mutual bc Hawk does look at him throughout the class period. He never makes a big show of that either, no winks or lip-licks or once-overs, he'll take a deep breath though, and blink real slow, maybe the slightest little smile but never enough to notice unless you look as closely as Tim does.

Maybe there's a time that he and Tim are outside, standing side by side in some sort of secluded portion of the courtyard, when Hawk touches him for the first time. Nothing that couldn't be written off as innocent if someone were to see the action. They'd been talking about the project Hawk had assigned that morning. Tim, always eager for more direction from Hawk so that his submitted work will be the best of the bunch, keeps inching closer and closer by """accident"". Hawk places his hand on the boy's shoulder and gently holds him still, and when Tim stops and his breath catches, Hawk slides his hand up Tim's trap to the nape of his neck, squeezing just a little to make Tim shudder and let out a whine. At the involuntary noise, Hawk smirks and runs his nails down Tim's spine, scratching the pristinely ironed white button-up of Tim's uniform, sending goosebumps all along Tim's skin, his legs a little shaky from the smallest touch and Hawk grabs his waist/hip to stablize the boy. Hawk leans down the slightest bit to speak lowly in his star student's ear.

"It's a rather large assignment, but I have no doubt in your ability to blow it out of the water," Hawk digs his fingers into the slight give of Tim's waist, indulging and giving himself something to fantasize about later. "I'll spend the weekend picturing you kneeling on the floor as you work on my project." His project, like this assinment isn't for a grade but for Hawk personally.

Tim thinks about it that night and can't help but touch himself. He'll never look at the Battles of Ypres the same after that day.

That's all I've got-

#is this?? fucked up?? yes but I get to treat fiction as fiction and adapt it in fictional ways : )#tim laughlin #hawkins fuller #hawk x tim #fellow travelers #buck builds #buck brawls

16 notes · View notes

isfjmel-phleg · 2 months

Text

March 2024 Books

Norby, the Mixed-Up Robot by Janet and Isaac Asimov

This one was a lot of fun! I should track down the rest of the series.

The World's Greatest Detective by Caroline Carlson

I was very confused about what era this world was mimicking (are they Victorian? 1920s/30s?), but it was a fun story and I enjoyed the dynamic between the protagonists.

A Dig in Time by Peni R. Griffin

I remember liking this one, but it feels like I read it years ago and I can't remember everything. Time travel with a family emphasis.

The Promise by Monica Hughes

Like Sandwriter, which this is a sequel to, I initially wasn't so sure that I liked this one, and then it went in an unexpected direction that took the themes in a more complex place, and I appreciated that.

The Yellow Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

I generally like fairy tales well enough, but this one was rather a slog to get through, and I ended up skimming a lot of it. There were some familiar favorites, but a lot of the tales were of the variety that consist of an interesting set-up followed by a seemingly incoherent series of events, and I regret I don't have enough interest in folklore to get much out of that.

The Romance of a Shop by Amy Levy

Interesting from a historic perspective mostly, but I didn't connect much with the story.

The Secret Garden of Yanagi Inn by Amber A. Logan (reread)

Reread so it would be fresh in my mind before the presentation. You already know how I feel about this one.

The Humming Room by Ellen Potter (reread)

Same as above. I have a post in drafts with some thoughts on this one that may eventually see daylight.

The Making of May by Gwyneth Rees (reread)

Already discussed this one.

A Bit of Earth by Karuna Riazi (reread)

Beautifully written and very readable and develops its themes well. Does fall into the trap of making the story about grief (Maria's late parents were frequently absent from her life, and she resents this, but she did have relationships with them in ways that her counterpart in the original book never did with her parents, so it's a completely different dynamic). I found this Colin to be somewhat underdeveloped, but I did appreciate the concept of his being fearful about failing to live up to family expectation, which is a reasonable translation of the original character's source of shame.

Charley by Joan G. Robinson

I don't remember much of this one. Didn't have any problems, just didn't have as much impact as other books by this author have for me.

Greenwild by Pari Thomson

A very derivative example of the Child Learns That They Are Magical And Special And Enters A Fantastical World Where They Must Take On The Villain sort of story. I wanted to enjoy it, but everything felt trite.

Doctor Who: A Brief History of Time Lords by Steve Tribe

This was a gift from my brother. I am a very casual DW fan and haven't really engaged with the show in quite a while (really should rewatch and catch up on new stuff but that's a pretty big time commitment right now). I think I would have got a lot more out of this if I were more than passingly familiar with Classic Who and all the lore in general.

Not Quite a Ghost by Anne Ursu

I was interested in this one because it's a retelling of "The Yellow Wallpaper," and the concept of comparing the difficulties of getting difficult-to-trace chronic illnesses taken seriously and diagnosed in today's world to the mishandling of women's medical and psychological conditions in the late nineteenth century intrigued me. However, this book didn't really know what it wanted to be. The young protagonist's struggles with her mystery chronic illness took up most of the book, but there was also a plot about a literal ghost in the wallpaper of her new attic bedroom that needs to be defeated in the end, and neither of these things fitted well together. One or the other of them would have been fine, but the combination left me confused about the nature of this fictional world and the themes of the book in general.

Comics/Graphic Novels

Benevolent Sisters of Charity (Over the Garden Wall)

This is the only one of the OTGW comics that I wasn't able to buy before it went out of print, so I ILLed it and realized that it was for the better that I hadn't. The story was incoherent and pointless and the characters were OOC. The art was much better than the story deserved.

Wayne Family Adventures Vol. 3

I've read these as a webcomic already but wanted it in book form too. These are entertaining; you just have to go into it aware that this is The Fluffy World version of everybody and they are characterized accordingly.

The Flash by Grant Morrison & Mark Millar

Not on a level with Waid's work, of course, but the highlight of this one was the storyline in which Linda dies and Wally manages to bring her back (some good Bart content here) and a delightfully meta short story in which Mark Millar meets up with Wally to figure out what story about him to tell next...and Wally is given a co-writing credit in the end.

The Flash by Mark Waid Books Seven and Eight

An effective end to this run. Waid points out in his Afterword that he's still got another story on reserve, so...anytime he wants to give that to us, that would be great. I'll be waiting.

The Secret Garden on 81st Street: A Modern Retelling of the Secret Garden by Ivy Noelle Weir (reread)

You know how I feel about this one. (I whipped it out at the convention to show somebody who was talking to me about CEN in the present day through leaving one's child to technology that that concept was used in this retelling, and somebody nearby oohed about what a diverse retelling it was as I flipped through pages. Which is, you know, more important than effective storytelling. It should have done both! We could have had both!)

Stephen McCranie's Space Boy Omnibus Volume 5

I've read this in webcomic form already, but it's a pleasure to have a physical copy of the latest omnibus.

Sinister Sons #1-2 plus additional material establishing the backgrounds of Lor-Zod and Sinson

A sort of response to the series Super Sons (which featured Jon Kent at his proper age and Damian Wayne), by the same author. This is going to be about a teamup of Lor-Zod (son of General Zod, was Chris Kent in another continuity, has apparently been Zukoed in this incarnation) and Sinson (a young, apparently orphaned thief who believes that his father must be Sinestro, the Green Lantern's arch-nemesis). So far the boys haven't done much more than fight, but I'm interested to see where this is going. (#3 is in the mail now!)

Lor is a horrid little piece of work, but his parents' recent treatment of him puts him in a more sympathetic situation, and I am hoping he'll get a redemption arc that would move him closer to his original version. Sinson is no angel either, but he's just a child who really, really wants a family and is clinging to the only hope for one that he has--and if that means he's a supervillain's son, then he's ready to follow in those footsteps to gain acceptance.

(Also he drew a mustache on himself with a black marker to look more like his alleged father, and that's so ridiculous and kind of endearing.)

#random personal stuff #it's been a weird month for reading but I'm hoping for both more time and more motivation this month #I'm at a point where I have plenty of unread books but don't feel particularly inclined to pick up any of them #and I need to get out of that

10 notes · View notes