#Scarlet Letters | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

scarlet-cavern · 4 months

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I am curious about the world in which you all live in:

Is the population all animal and animal-folk? Are there towns and cities? If so, how come you decided to live in a cave?

jade: well.. as far as I know, the population couldn't really get more diverse! there's humans, elementals, birds, kobolds and dragons, mantises, cats, jackalopes. you name it, basically. most any species can either be feral, or a 'folk. both live pretty seamlessly together, you'll find.

walk through any village and you'll see over a dozen different species before leaving, I'd reckon. everyone, no matter what they are, has a place in most towns and cities. and many buildings are made with this diversity in mind. accommodations for small, four-legged folk such as myself, or vice versa!

Maddie: and yeah we've got cities. Tlen on its own has two pretty big ones— Landering and Shellat, not to mention the port town Parvanni that's basically the nexus of trade on Tredan. Cooperation is a sign of civility, after all.

phy: as for why we're camping out in an obscure cave north of Landering, lemme give you a brief history lesson.

Old dragon is actually a retronym you know, we used to just be called dragons up until about 33 decades ago. The Hunters' Guild was — still is, kinda — a group dedicated to killing all the "monsters" in Atheria. They really meant any species, sentient or not, that might oppose the rule of humaniforms. So when they had built up enough support and strength, they decided to start killing dragons.

That war lasted 2 decades, and did lead to the deaths of most dragons. A few hatchlings survived that became new dragons, but 31 decades ago the remaining Old dragons gathered together to fight back. The end of the Hunters' war was hardly even a battle, but it was so late. Only a handful of Old dragons exist anymore.

I was born 31 decades ago, in this cave. I spent my first years hiding, remaining unseen. I'm probably one of the youngest Old dragons, but they don't really talk to me much. Besides, if there is a younger Old dragon than me it's probably best that they're kept secret. This cave, however, has always been my home; I've just been lucky enough to get to share it.

jade: if anything, I feel lucky that you trust me enough to let me stay here, love.~ this is better than any burrow I've ever lived in. bigger, too. more stony.

eli: GAY

eli: same tho

#cave talk #jade #maddie #phy #eli #cw violence #cw death #scarlet letters

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his-saiko · 5 days

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Saw you in the tag talking about Orter (and his hands) Have you seen this art!! https://twitter.com/ka2radamonguy/status/1776595620771348867

Call me a hypocrite for I am no better than a man. A man's hands are something very suggestive to look at for me.

And if it looks like that?! Mm- You mean to tell me I gotta act normal when my walls want to know how the knuckles feel? How my throat constricts as I gulp down at the thought of it around me? How every simple touch from the pads of his fingers can send me reeling? Hah. Gloves aren't gonna save this man from my thoughts.

ALSO HIS GLASSES! THE WAY HE FIXES HIS GLASSES— THAT SUBTLE MOVEMENT—Ay mami...

And the suit. The goddamn suit. I wanna mess it up. Istg.

And his personality? I'm not gonna hide it. It makes my blood boil but... I have a thing for that. If you make me mad and I like you for it. Done. I'm done. I'm cuffed.

#scarlet letters #orter madl #alfi thirsts #just the thought of getting a moment where I got the upper hand on this person #it's a drug #and i'm willing to do what he wills me to do for it

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scarletspider2the2ndpower · 2 years

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So that resurrection scene kind of brings up something for the general Kaine vs Ben and Peter debate- it looks like the Jackal did enhance his powers/mutate them beyond what Peter could do? I know there's the argument over whether Kaine is meant to look exactly like Peter/have the exact same powers but this seems to support the idea that he was deliberately designed differently from Ben. And the Other would have resurrected him perfectly; so these secondary mutations he's initially resurrected with are implied to be part of his natural powerset? I've been trying to figure this out for years and no one can agree lmao

Oooooh, thank you so much for sending in an ask, because this is a topic I could talk about endlessly. :D

Disclaimer: the continuity surrounding Kaine and the Clone Saga as a whole is uniquely snarled even beyond typical comic book whackiness, so while I will do my best to back up my reasoning using comic book evidences, I am, at the end of the day, just a person on the internet and you should take everything I say with a grain of salt hahaha Oh, and another disclaimer is that I’ll mainly be drawing from the material I have read for this read-through so far. It has been a couple years since I last read Scarlet Spider vol. 2 or any of the more recent works Kaine has been in, so I may go back and add to this post in the future if I stumble upon any more interesting and relevant material. 👀

The shortest and most direct answer to your first question of if the Jackal specifically made Kaine differently from Ben with the aim of the former being “stronger” than Peter is from the “Echoes” story in Web of Spider-Man (Vol. 2/2009), #1 by J. M. DeMatteis.

Further supporting evidence in this vein can be found in the story I believe you’re referencing in your ask, “What I Did for Love,” Spider-Island: Deadly Foes (Vol. 1/2011), #1.

All of these can be editorially explained by the staff scrambling to answer the question of “wait, if we’re going to bring Kaine back in the year of our Lord 2009, how on earth are we going to explain how he, out of all the Parker clones (including Ben at this point), didn’t degenerate when degenerating was one of Kaine’s defining characteristics???” That’s where I believe the narrative of “the Jackal designed Kaine to be stronger” is most definitively explicated; however, I have further “evidences,” musings, and discussion of how The Other changes spider people beneath the cut if any one would like to read more. :D

There are other, even earlier indicators, however, that Kaine was built to be stronger than Peter. The first examples that come to mind are Kaine’s precognitive flashes and the infamous Mark of Kaine. The latter is a more easily defendable claim as, while Peter has demonstrated that in moments of extreme rage like in Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1/1963), #598 and #637 he is not above sticking to someone’s face, those instances seem to be more like examples of extreme adhesion as opposed to the unique burning/acidic quality of Kaine’s “Mark.”

Peter in Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1/1963), #598 vs. Kaine in Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1/1963), #631 and #636, respectively.

Now, Kaine’s precognitive flashes actually being Peter’s spider-sense amped up to 11 is a bit harder to defend, as that requires near-apocryphal material as evidence. Specifically, Marvel editor and writer Glenn Greenberg described Kaine’s pre-cog flashes as such in part nine of The Life of Reilly, a joint project with Andrew Goletz and various other Marvel insider interview subjects on the complicated editorial history surrounding The Clone Saga. Greenberg goes on to state in that same part that “it was well established in the stories that Kaine was physically stronger than Peter, and he was clearly much taller and more massive” (qualities we will get back too), but that all of Kaine’s abilities directly paralleling Peter was never actually explicitly stated in the text, much to all of the writers’ chagrin.

So, in light of that statement, I would like to throw my hat into the ring on the “is Kaine stronger/bigger than Peter” debate (what could possibly go wrong hahaha).

As early as when Kaine first revealed himself to be a Parker clone, he was described by multiple sources, including Kaine himself, the aforementioned Jackal, Ben, and Peter, as being stronger.

Spider-Man (Vol. 1/1990), #60 by Howard Mackie.

Spider-Man (Vol. 1/1990), #66 by Howard Mackie.

Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1/1963), #634 by Joe Kelly.

Now, whether Kaine is actually stronger or just more willing to cut loose and use his strength to its full lethal capabilities is an argument I am definitely willing to entertain, as there is no doubt that Peter is strong, but willfully holds himself back (I don’t think I’ll ever forget that time Peter held up the entire Daily Bugle building on his back in Spider-Man (Vol. 1/1990), #98 or the time he beat Firelord, a herald of Galactus, in Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1/1963), #270, and he is a self-proclaimed juggler of cars according to Peter Parker: Spectacular Spider-Man (Vol. 1/2017), #6). (…and then there’s that whole debacle with the “““superior””” Spider-Man and the Scorpion’s jaw).

As for if Kaine is physically larger, I stand by Greenberg’s statement that Kaine was consistently drawn as larger than Peter throughout the 1990’s and most of the 2000’s, with even the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Spider-Man (2005) listing Kaine as being 6’4” while Peter has reliably been 5’10” for ages (or as listed in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: A-Z (2009) if you want a specific source hahaha).

In fact, from what I have gathered, Kaine wasn’t portrayed as being physically similar in size to Peter until Slott’s Spider-Island event in 2011 (which,,,I feel like critics might be able to make a snide comment from that about how much Slott cares about the Spider-Man franchise, but that is WAY too far afield hahaha).

Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1/1963), #672.

Okay, so after all that, I also wanted to discuss what you brought up about the Other and resurrecting Kaine with his innate skill set. The facetious answer would be “yes, kind of???”, but considering Peter’s own experience with being connected to the Other, the powers Kaine developed post-resurrecting are not all actually as unique as, say, his precognitive flashes or his Mark.

Interestingly enough, a lot of the powers we associate with post-encountering-the-Other Kaine were actually explored with Peter in the early and mid-2000’s, with each power being unlocked after investigating Peter’s connection to the Spider-totem concept or other inherent spider-related matters.

Namely, Ezekial Sims first hints that by tapping into the totem Peter could communicate with spiders in Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 2/1999), #32 by J. Michael Straczynski.

That concept is further expounded upon and made to be a reality in Spectacular Spider-Man (Vol. 2/2003), #20 by Paul Jenkins, when the Spider-Queen enhanced existing spider-like qualities and DNA in Peter (in a rather horrific arc that solidified my hatred for the Spider-Queen but that’s just me hahaha)

During that same arc, Peter also got organic webbing.

Finally, Peter did briefly have a pair of Kaine’s infamous wrist bone blades (pictured here from Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (Vol. 1/2005), #3 by J. Michael Straczynski), but, being the kind of guy who typically tries to avoid disemboweling people (Morlun here is an exception since he broke MJ’s arm), Peter just didn’t use them all too often.

So anyway, tl;dr, what happens with Kaine post-resurrection could definitely be described as “enhancing powers that were already there if perhaps inert,” but there is a compelling argument (if you take all comics from all eras as equally valid/canon), that those powers are buried within Peter’s DNA/totemic connection(???) as well and were thus passed onto his enhanced clone.

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larouge444 · 6 months

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Haven or Heaven? Either.

La Rouge; Scarlet letter 01

⋅˚₊‧ ୨୧ ‧₊˚ ⋅

Diay Dar-Awan

Where my comets struck and my stars shine,

Souls of these peaceful leaves are touching mine,

Barefooted on this green hill,

With bursting feelings the same as the sky’s colors.

Scent of after-rain, gleam of a silver line

Melody of nature and echoes of memories intertwined

People riding those two-wheel ride—

Our favorite spot during bukang-liwayway.

Where my heart and eye belong,

Picturesque hill humming many life’s song,

“Nagpintas nga aramid ng apo”,

As he painted this wonder, as I ponder, this heaven takes me further

#scarlet letters #poetry #literature #red

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siplick · 4 months

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Late night letter

#pokemon #kieran #kieran pokemon #the teal mask #the indigo disk #furret #mochi mayhem #pokemon scarlet violet #pokemon sv dlc #this is referencing the letter he writes you btw #someone on twitter said he'd be writing that under candlelight and i was like oh....... let's do it #give this poor kid a phone number please

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zackisontumblr · 1 year

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$8 to get a scarlet “A” next to your username

#life #the scarlet letter #books

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224bbaker · 1 year

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important reminder that holmes and watson transitioned from polite roommates to friends because watson read one of holmes's articles, called it and the writer a hack piece of shit, and holmes went "tell me more. btw i wrote that--no don't stop" and proceeded to call all watson's favorite detectives hack pieces of shit in return

#sherlock holmes #john watson #acd holmes #we were robbed of the granada holmes version of this scene #letters from watson #a study in scarlet

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republicansexscandals · 1 month

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#marjorie taylor greene #marjorie traitor greene #Marjorie Three Toes #Marjorie Trailer Queen #adultress #scarlet letter #fake christians #sex scandal #extra marital affairs #republican sex scandal #republican hypocrisy #republican family values #hypocrisy #republican values #republican sex scandals #republican assholes #tantric sex guru

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petorahs · 3 months

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a look into the healing properties of ▆▆▆'s power

[prelude]

...some notes from the "White Book"! Will you read it? >Yes

when I started this second comic, it was primarily to address these plot beats GameFreak left in their writing of the Hidden Treasure of Area Zero Epilogue that I found to be "immersion-breaking":

why didn't the protag tell anyone about Kieran? (my answer: they had to keep it a secret)

why did the protag travel from Kitakami to trigger the epilogue, then fly back to Paldea real quick before going back barely a week later? (I can't justify it for GameFreak lol so for me there are two protags and one of them was already in Kitakami, while the other got the call from Arven.)

I know in game this was done from a gameplay perspective, but it's fun to imagine an intricate story and reasoning for all this :] With this, my version of events can still play out in the games themselves without being too au-y. (It's even in-line with my previous pkmn art, which I'm semi-particular about.)

Of course, it was also to give my version of Florian and Juliana as well as Nemona some form of closure. I wasn't planning on healing them, but a kind comment from someone led me to this little brief passion project. Although the characters aren't mine, they seem to have taken hold of me anyway, driving me to finish telling their story.

Making this was what I call "wish-fulfillment" art. It has shippy elements, a bunch of specific exposition a nerd like me would care about, JP text for a character raised in fictional rural Japan that I'm aware not many would enjoy as I do? Or, idk. It's fanservice for me alone, and it was extremely fulfilling to draw, which is what matters. Believe it or not, it's been a while since I've been unapologetically able to enjoy drawing like this.

Basically, I blacked out and boom. These silly guys took over my life. I enjoyed it. I hope you guys do too.

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scarlet-cavern · 5 months

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Hello! I have a question for Jade that's kind of not a question..

Your shattered horns are so rad... How come they look like that, if it's not rude to ask?

jade: thank you!! I'm quite fond of them myself.~ i'll allow you to gaze upon them head-on, since you're so intrigued!

jackalope antlers are these crystal fractals that catch and store magic for later use. they tend to shatter if you store too much magic in them! I, however, am not a physicist.. Maddie! did I get all of that right?

maddie: uhh... basically? i went ta school for engineerin not biology. way i understand it, with castin stuff, more surface area means more power, and more expensive to make. magical fractals are great at both catchin lotsa magic and gettin bloated from too much. too much bloat without lettin it out means it breaks.

jade: yeah, I think what happened with me specifically was that I passed by someplace.. or someone? something? with a lotta magic that my antlers simply could not handle.

now, what jackalopes do with a set of broken antlers is up to them. some like to grind up the shards into a fine dust, which can be used as a secondary in some mana-recovering medicines and potions. some sell them off since they're a rather useful component for creating self-sustaining magical items.

me personally? I use what little magic I have left (and whatever magic they're able to draw now) to have them float and reform. I can reform them into tools, weapons, armor. or floating platforms, which can support my weight. or in this case.. Maddie's weight!

maddie: it is somehow not the least comfortable place i've had to sleep

#cave talk #jade #maddie #scarlet letters #godzillas-pet-human

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his-saiko · 1 year

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@his-saiko @nkogneatho Toji’s worm 👀 (Tw nsfw twt pr0n)

Ah shit. Here we go again.

Ella... Mylabs... Owbfobsjcjshfihsifjskfekfk

My brain in breaking so bad right now.... 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I just woke up. 😩😭🤣

I CAN'T EVEN PLAY THE VIDEO! JUST ONE LOOK AND I— MN! NOPE! I CAN'T WALK ANYMORE!!!

#scarlet letters #🍷ella #🍷pasi #i can't handle this #alfi thirsts

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scarletspider2the2ndpower · 1 year

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I don't know how caught up you are in the current spider-comics, but... is it odd to you that neither the Ben Reilly event in ASM nor Dan Slott's current Spider-Verse series have Kaine? Your reread reminded me that Slott definitely doesn't have a history of forgetting about him, and the villain there is Shathra, but Kaine has been neither seen nor mentioned. I don't recall him dying after Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider, but I also can't recall seeing him since. I'm a little concerned.

:’))))))) On all levels except physical, I am at Marvel Headquarters going full Jack Bauer (“WHERE IS HE??? WHERE IS KAINE????”). I’ve been hoping for Kaine to show up and set Ben straight ever since Ben’s spectacular crash and burn with Beyond and particularly with this whole Chasm business (which is a whole kettle of worms that I’m happy to kvetch about to anyone who will listen hahaha). Judging by what little I’ve seen from my few ventures into the actual Kaine tag here on tumblr, I’m not alone in thinking so.

To address that last bit of your ask, Kaine does survive Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider and makes an appearance in Spider-Geddon, particularly being featured in the Spider-Force tie-in comic. You are, however, correct in that, besides having a small cameo in the very far corner of one page of Edge of Spider-Verse (Vol. 2/2022), #1, Kaine hasn’t shown up in anything since. :’))))))

⚠️Personal Opinion Incoming⚠️

As much as I would love to see Kaine again….considering Slott’s current direction of Spider-Verse and its established pattern (i.e. turning characters into Shathra’s drones and killing off “excess” spider characters, respectively), combined with the current attitude of Marvel Editorial being, “there may be tons of Spider characters, but there just isn’t room for Ben, so we assassinated his character turned him into a villain :/”….I’m frankly a little nervous about how they would handle bringing Kaine back. But, c’est la vie, that’s just how it is when you read comics, you’ve just gotta roll with the punches raining down on your favorite character hahaha (To paraphrase Deadpool (2016): “fake laugh, real pain.”)

#Scarlet Letters #sorry for the bit of tirade at the end there alshsjsk #If you can’t tell I am practically yerding the impulse to be the classic ‘bitter comic fan’#I enjoy comics!!! I really do!!! Some character decisions just make me a little sad #also the entire time I was writing this response I was thinking about the image which actually introduced me to Kaine #it was a mockup of a ‘have you seen me’ poster for Kaine hahaha #what hooked me was under date of birth it had something like ‘idk ask the Jackal’

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flowerytale · 6 months

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Nathaniel Hawthorne, from The Scarlet Letter: A Romance

#the scarlet letter #nathaniel hawthorne #lit #literature #american literature #typo #typography #novel #1800s #fragments #this is so me coded #*

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a-door-to-somewhere · 1 year

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Sometimes I wonder how much fanfic of classical/iconic literature exists because of school projects. Just floating out there. In a drive somewhere. Not to mention that nothing is more unhinged than bored middle/highschoolers being forced to liven up books they might not care about. For every deranged ao3 crossover fic there is an infinitely more deranged crackfic written for the great gatsby or antigone or to kill a mockingbird or whatever by a bored highschooler and his friends for 10th grade English. I wanna read it

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thelaurenshippen · 1 year

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#polls #yes these are all true #in order:#I hold my pen between my middle and ring finger #and yes it has caused both fingers to curve in weirdly #I had scarlet fever when I was 23 #benedict arnold's wife? peggy shippen #so yeah #(I'm descended directly from her sister sarah #hence related to benedict by marriage but his children by blood)#two cross country road trips #two coastal road trips #several 12-14 hour drives #I have a typewriter now! and send my friends letters!#when I was 16-20ish #I used my older sister's old learner's permit to get into 18+ or 21+ concert venues in the city #I only used it to drink at one of those shows ONCE #mostly I just wanted to see music #the last CD I burned for someone was in 2019 don't look at me #I ran into a family from my very small hometown several thousand miles away #small world and all that

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224bbaker · 3 months

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idk maybe the "dark, cold, and brooding holmes" just doesn't sit right with me because I remember that the first introduction to holmes in the canon is him doing the victorian equivalent of running down a row of people high fiving everyone because he finished his science project

#sherlock holmes #letters from watson #acd holmes #I JUST LOVE STUDY IN SCARLET OK #a study in scarlet #he's just a weird little guy

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