#also the whole ''they were slave owners'' thing

[sh1-n0bu]

This anon know what is good, i guess i never make a ask so i'm doing now. Can u do that concept with any character (and mc of course) , may a hybrid? Idk, sorry if is confuse, a lil nsfw maybe?

-🍑

✿ 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙛𝙪𝙡 𝙩𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙖 𝙘𝙖𝙩 𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙩 ✿

characters: cat!6reeze x nb!reader

warnings: fluff!!!! fluff fluff fluff fluff fluff! also modern au!

notes: wanted to take a break from writing smut and take inspiration from my own fluffy bby for this one. also @junerixi , simping for only one☝️anemo boy is an illness. i hope you recover soon😚 honkai:star rail ver can be read here!

art by Mechodes on twt

oh gods

a menace

a complete menace i say

you know that thing cats do? when they just keep a direct eye contact with you as their little fluffy paw slowly pushes your potted plant or a cup full of drink to the edge of the table while you watch hopelessly bc your hands are dirty or busy doing smt?

yeah, it’s the 5th time the flower shop owner is seeing you this week and your wallet is crying

it’s almost as if you two were sworn enemies in your past life and scaranya is out for blood

doesn’t have that much of a zoomie episodes but when he does oh boy

you better retreat into a safe place but even then you’re not safe from scaranya’s terrifying zoomie powers

he’s literally running and jumping around everywhere

the table, on top of the fridge, the curtains, on top of the washing machine, your little bookshelf - everywhere

scaranya is such a little shit (affectionately)

his preferred way of waking you up is faking puking noises and when you throw your covers off and literally zoom into the living room, he gives you a look as if saying “finally awake, you silly human slave”

sometimes he even jumps on top of your chest harshly but that’s only used if you’re oversleeping with your alarm clock snoozed for the past 20 minutes and you’re running late to work

despises baths with a burning passion

if you’re taking him anywhere a large body of water is, he’s trashing around, kicking, hissing, biting, scratching - the whole pack

after a successful bathing time, with added new scratch marks on yourself, he would not approach you until you fall asleep

after you have fell asleep, he would quietly approach your sleeping figure and give small, shy licks to the angry red scratches he caused as if apologizing for being so aggressive

hates rainy days too, especially the ones with thunder and lightning

jumps up 5 ft into the air if a thunder strikes and runs into your lap, shaking small body curling into himself with all of his cockiness and pride out the window

scaranya appreciates you greatly but he’s just a bit too bad at communicating and so he shows his affection by lapping up the scratches he gave you

“scaranya, aren’t you gonna go out to the back garden and play with the rest? it’s nice outside today”

hmph! what do you mean by play with the rest of the cats? he’s a royal! he’s superior! scaranya has never heard of such bullshit befor- oh! a bird! must. catch!

scaranya and miao gets into fights sometimes and whenever you separate them, scaranya goes to sulk in the corner of the house silently

until you go over to him with a sigh and pick him up gently, he doesn’t even resist - just choosing to simply curl his tail around your wrist

a solid 9/10 kitty if he would just stop being a tsundere

art by Mechodes on twt

miao acts more like a guard dog than a cat sometimes

the smallest out of all the kitties yet also the strongest one. honestly the sheer amount of times miao has taken down a wild dog 10 times his size just keeps giving you more and more heart attack

doesn’t get zoomies, if anything he stops the other kitties’ zoomies if they go a bit too far - which most of the times escalate into scaranya and miao fighting

cleanse the land house through slaughter bug hunting

a sweet baby

miao’s preferred way of waking you up is to silently sit on your side of the bed and stare until you get that feeling of being watched and wake up to 2 piercing yellow eyes just staring holes into your soul

yes, you have yelled and fell off of your bed many times due to that

you found little miao at a dark alleyway, covered in blood and barely on the brink of death with his tiny paws twitching constantly

grew up malnourished on the streets with his 4 siblings dying out one by one, so due to that miao’s body is very small and he’s extremely territorial with you - his one and only sweet human

always leaves his scent on you by rubbing his head around your ankles

miao is indifferent when it comes to taking a bath, unlike scaranya, and he can be very obedient as well

when rubbing soap into his legs and washing his paws he would stretch out his limbs to make it easier for you to wash him - anything to lessen the load of his favorite human

he also seems to like your co-worker, zhongli a lot

one time you came home with zhongli due to a deadline of a great project coming closer and upon seeing him, miao immediately jumped into his lap, purring lowly, rubbing his head on zhongli’s hand

yes your heart broke at the betrayal and yes miao apologized with a dead rat in his mouth

but if it’s any other guests you’re bringing home, then miao would either get on top of the fridge and simply watch or hiss at the guest

oddly likes being in high places

one time, you made him a small necklace-collar thingy out of a few pearls and he wears that with pride, chest puffed out (a replica of his necklace)

loves sleeping on the lower parts of your bed at night. it’s soft, fluffy and he can keep an eye on you and keep you safe so it’s a win-win in miao’s book

“miao-miao, do you wanna come with me to the back garden to pick up the tomatoes?”

before you can even finish your question he’s already at the back door, staring at you expectantly with his tail thumping slowly against the floorboards

thanks to miao and kazunya your house will never get any bugs, roaches or mouses inside

if feeling incredibly vulnerable and soft, miao paws at your arm to ask for pets bc he just needs the comfort of his favorite human

literally a 9/10 kitty if he would just change his way of waking you up

art by ayon🌿 on twt

heinya is another little shit (affectionately)

he likes to cause trouble and drama here and there

also really enjoys spilling tea to you

it doesn’t matter if you’re waking up and is still groggy or just coming in through the front door, back from work - heinya is spilling all the drama of the shows he watched on the tv while you were away or the different birds he saw through the window - meowing away at you excitedly

another helpful hand

if you’re coming back from grocery shopping then heinya can take some of the smallest and lightest bagged things and dragging them to the kitchen alongside miao, kazunya and nyaether

heinya’s preferred way of waking you up is to make biscuits - you know that cute thing cats do with their paws squishing at their favorite spot over and over - on your stomach or lower back or! he just meows besides your ear over and over until you eventually wake up

the perfect alarm - heinya

he’s such a sweet baby

and heinya really likes watching real life crime documentaries for some reason

at first when you found this out, you couldn’t help but think heinya is going to murder you in your sleep but soon you realized he just loves crime related things

and bc he like crime related things, you bought heinya a cute spy glass shaped squeaky toy

when getting the zoomies, heinya decides to bite and kick at the spy glass shaped squeaky toy - making the toy let out squeaks at every little kick

heinya enjoys spending time outdoors, sniffing at the different scents wafting in the air, tracking down all different sorts of footsteps and paw marks with great interest - you sometimes wonder if heinya was a detective in his past life

loves to bring you all sorts of interesting things he found - an old ripped part of a newspaper article, a weirdly shaped leaf, a flower he has never seen before, a half bitten chicken still warm - wait where’d he get this?

loves to sleep using your hand as a pillow my cat does that to me so rip bc you have been captured by the amazing detective heinya and you won’t be moving for hours on end, let’s hope you had a nice snack and a toilet break beforehand

chose to wear the smooth, black satin you tied around his neck as a collar - either bc he loves to wear soft things or he just loves it bc you gave it to him

heinya is an incredibly affectionate kitty, always meowing for you for pets, cuddles and perhaps his favorite soft wet food? he’s been really good!

doesn’t really mind taking baths as well, if anything he uses this opportunity to shake bubbles everywhere!

for some reason, also loves to groom your hand. maybe it’s just something your kitties all share?

overall another solid 9/10 kitty, if you don’t mind being splashed with water and bubbles while bathing him

art by @bbadtime on tumblr

kazunya, me beloved

literally an angel, how could you ever be mad at him even as he took a whole bite out of your potted plants’ leaf?

another kitty that loves staying in high places like miao and stay outdoors like heinya

joins miao on his duty to cleanse the land house through slaughter bug hunting from time to time

a lazy, sweetheart of a cat that loves to sleep on warm places and the sunlight - you literally had to buy a window sling just for him to nap under the sunlight

another helpful hand!

will drag the lightest and smallest bagged things to the kitchen whenever you come back from grocery shopping - more so if it’s cat food

isn’t a picky eater but sometimes, just sometimes, prefers food with fish in it’s ingredients

kazunya is mostly tasked to wake you up by the other kitties bc he’s the sweetest

wakes you up by purring and snuggling with your face, neck, hands - anything just you in general

soon enough, the small fluff purring and cuddling you wakes you up and as a reward for waking up, kazunya gives you a small kiss - a lick to the tip of your nose - making you laugh

doesn’t meow a lot, only when he has to or if it’s an emergency such as the litter boxes not being cleaned, the food trays being empty etc

always gives you a kazunya kiss as a thank you

a gentle baby, even to the guests

whenever a guest comes over to your house, they always gush about the cute white cat with a small red streak in his fur

kazunya doesn’t get zoomies. even if he does it’s rare like only once a week

always grooms himself to keep himself clean, not to mention his white fur sparkling as well

surprisingly enjoys bath times, would even suggest you to bathe him by tugging on your sleeve then pointing to the bathroom with his fluffy paw!

however there’s just one thing that kazunya does that makes you shiver

it’s that he always, always! brings you dead animals or bugs. birds, rats, mouses, cockroaches, crickets - anything that he managed to hunt - he brings over to you with his tail swishing happily behind him

it’s considered a gift in cat language, you know that! but it’s just a bit dirty especially if he brings over different bugs. the rats, mouses and birds you can handle but the bugs brrr

one time, kazunya proudly brought you a dead wolf spider as you held back a tear and a screech, deciding to take his gift with a forced smile

you never recovered from that

a 10/10 kitty if he would just stop bringing you dead spide - kazunya is that a mf dead tarantula in your mouth?

art by os_Amaniwa on twt

another best kitty!

a sweet kitty that never complains!

helpful, never complains, never picky with his food - a literal angel

however sometimes nyaeather disappears randomly, coming back after a day or so

he always seems to be searching for something - his twin - you soon found out, by registering him and getting his pet password

and so you decided to help him reunite with his twin by putting up posters, articles, news on the internet, tv, radio - anything to make nyaether happy

after a whole half year of dedication and endless search, nyaether’s twin was finally found!

turns out the person who adopted nyaether’s twin was your co-worker, dainsleif, the quiet and mysterious tall man

after talking to him about the situation of the twin kitties, you both have come to an agreement to let the kitties have a play date once a week

when the day of the first play date has arrived an someone knocked on your door, your kitties gave you a confused look

upon taking nyaether in your arms, you walked over to the front door before unlocking it and letting dainsleif inside. as the blond man placed down the catbag and opened it, from inside stepped out a cute, similarly blonde furred kitty with a baby blue colored collar

upon seeing the kitty, nyaether jumped out of your arms and tackled his twin. cuddling her and licking at her face with a teary eyes - you and your co-worker dainsleif couldn’t help but laugh at the adorable situation

since then nyaether had made a silent oath to always be beside you and be your best kitty! you have done a lot for him by helping him reunite with his twin - nyumine - so he would do anything in his power to lessen your load!

nyaether’s preferred way of waking you up is by giving a gentle meow beside your ear and give your cheek three kisses - repeat the process on the other side until you eventually giggle and wake up

another kitty that doesn’t mind taking baths! however he just prefers the water to have a bit of bubbles to soothe his nerves

likes to sleep in your arms since he has separation anxiety like scaranya - due to the incident with his twin

“nyaether, keep the others in check okay? i’m going out on a quick grocery shopping!”

“myaaa!”

such a sweet baby🥹

his meows are higher pitched and not full “meow” like kazunya or miao’s instead it’s a short “myaa!”

a solid 11/10 kitty. highly recommend, get yourself a nyaether today!

art by os_Amaniwa on twt

a little shit AND a menace (affectionately)

very hyper too! sometimes you wonder if nyenti has ADHD but in cat version

it’s like he’s always in his zoomie mode as if to make up for having 2 kitties that barely has zoomies - which are miao and kazunya

his affectionate attitude doesn’t help as well

twirling, rubbing himself on your lap, hand, bageling his way around you - he’s always sticking close to you 24/7

one time as nyenti was rubbing himself on your hand while you were working on your computer for an important document, he tripped and fell on your keyboard - deleting your entire progress of work with a “myeeew!”

yes, you cried that night

unlike heinya, nyenti doesn’t really enjoy being outdoors - he just prefers to stay on your lap, lazily bathing in the sun - as he sometimes meows with heinya about some dramas

another kitty that loves to spill the tea to you

him and heinya meows your ears off with the things they have seen, watched, witnessed and heard - sometimes even adding some dirt on the other kitties such as kazunya eating leaves from your potted plants, scaranya sleeping on your hoodie bc he missed you, miao destroying the pantry during his duty to cleanse the land etc etc etc

nyenti’s preferred way of waking you up is to play with your hair. whether it be grooming at your hair, playing with them, tugging on the ends gently - it doesn’t matter which form - as long as nyenti wakes you up, that’s all

he also doesn’t do much hunting either, preferring to watch from the sidelines as the others chase some bugs and small animals they found

for some odd reason nyenti likes you to put flowers on top of his head or a flower shaped charms as a collar - his most favorite and preferred one being the white lily

cut the flower's bud and place it on top of nyenti upside down like it's a cone hat and nyenti would give you the biggest, affectionate "myew!" while rolling around on the ground, showing you his tummy

a sweet kitty if he would just stop being a little zoomie induced shit

nyenti is another kitty that hates taking baths

doesn't react as aggressive as scaranya but he likes to yell his defiance a lot and i mean a lot

overall, a solid 8.5/10 kitty if he would just stop meowing loudly in your ears everytime you take him for a bathtime, making you more and more deaf

#nobu.writes #genshin impact x reader fluff #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader fluff #genshin x reader #genshin fluff #genshin x you #genshin x you fluff #genshin x y/n #genshin x y/n fluff #genshin drabbles #xiao x reader #xiao x reader fluff #xiao x you #xiao x y/n #scaramouche fluff #scaramouche x you #scaramouche x reader fluff #scaramouche x you fluff #scaramouche x reader #scaramouche x y/n #kazuha x y/n #kazuha x reader #kazuha x you #genshin imagines #aether x reader #aether x you #traveler x reader #heizou x reader fluff #heizou x reader

[cerastes]

Do you think at some point early on in Arknights the intent was to be a buildup to a more critical look at Rhodes as more morally grey than it first appears? Because when I started the game I was so sure that's where it was going. Popukar probably being one of the first characters you get, the idea of SWEEP, the understanding I had at the time of darknights doctor and y'know, the villains being who they are. I just thought it would be more of a thing.

I don't think necessarily, I think the intent was always to posit Rhodes Island as "as good as you can get while still being a relatively major power but not quite as big or resourceful as a state". I do think it bears mentioning that child soldiers/children and teenagers with a job as a concept don't seem to really carry a stigma as they do in the real world: The only real times in which these are painted in negative lights are when the conditions or results of these decisions end up in something negative:

Popukar was clearly indentured labor at the lumberyard. The part that's condemned is that she was miserable and practically a slave, not really that she was working per se, and she's given a job by RI later after Kal'tsit personally gets her out of there.

Frostleaf's being a child soldier even before Rhodes Island isn't really all that condemned, the effects it had on her psyche is.

Absinthe, just orphaned, is made a Rhodes Island Operator. This notion isn't rejected or truly contested, no more than "maybe we can send her somewhere proper for care". Hell, all the Ursus kids also get made into Operators.

Even outside of this, we hire children frequently: Bubble, Suzuran, Shamare, you name it. Sure, each has a context, especially Shamare who is Fucking Haunted, but the matter of the fact is that Rhodes Island isn't just housing them, it's also showing no real qualms with them taking the Operator Testing Battery and, if they succeed, hiring them. It's mentioned several times that Rhodes Island has many non-combat roles -- Angelina used to be a Messenger for Rhodes Island before taking the Operator test, Orchid was offered a desk job at Rhodes Island initially, and Weedy was a Rhodes Island researcher who explicitly worked out and trained so she could pass the physical components of the test -- but there's no real turn of eyes when a child says mmmm yeah I'll do the Battlefield Supporter Battery please, thank you.

Amiya is, you know, the CEO of Rhodes Island, and that IS pointed out in a "damn, fucked up" way, but what's being lamented is not her having a job, it's her having a BIG difficult job. I think no one would bat an eye if Amiya was a regular Operator under Theresa instead (granted, because she's the owner's daughter, but even without that link).

These are some examples of in-universe logic regarding the whole child soldier and kid with a job. I'd wager it's because life expectancy in Terra is pretty damn low from what we've gathered: Armed conflict, crime, Catastrophes, Oripathy, there's plenty of ways to kick the bucket in Terra, much like it was in Ye Olde Ages in real life, which is coincidentally an era in which by 16 you already were an adult and were expected to start having adult responsibilities.

Pre-Amnesia Doctor was definitely not a stellar person but it's always understood that they weren't bad as much as broken: Scout put it best that it broke his heart to have seen this kind educator and fun, loving individual become a heartless tactician. Even when described this way, though, it wasn't like Doc became this Brooding Evil Mass, it's still mentioned plenty that they were pretty beloved by most people and a person they liked being friends with -- Ace, Scout, and Amiya all corroborate this, and in flashbacks, you have Theresa being pretty warm with Doc -- but if you were a footsoldier, Doctor was probably your worst nightmare because you were disposable -- W, Ines, Hoederer and Flamebringer can tell you as much -- so we had less a villain or a vile individual and more a broken individual who was remolded into someone that could withstand the immense psychological pressure that came with having their role. That's not to sanitize pre-amn Doctor, it's to echo the game's own words on them as per the characters in the setting that knew them from back then, and who held both positive and negative opinions on them.

Looking at all of these from an in-universe lens, they all have coherent in-universe explanations. I also think they would have foreshadowed any sort of Rhodes Island Insiduous Vileness with characters or actions by now: Less than stellar, antagonistic high command, dubious orders to do some vile stuff, other such things. The closest we get to this is Kal'tsit hating Doctor's guts, but also Kal'tsit is a really good person and her hatred of Doctor stems from her knowing them pre-amnesia, seeing how that happened, and what Doc did in those times, particularly one big event that's pretty lore relevant.

You may have noticed the elephant in the room [SPOILERS FOR PEOPLE NOT DONE WITH THE REUNION ARC YET]: I didn't address the enemy part yet. That's because that's the part that I still have some conflicted feelings over: The real enemy, in the end, isn't Reunion's ideals -- which are shared with Rhodes Island -- but rather it's what Reunion has become, a false flag operation for the Ursus Empire to justify a war. On one hand, I like that, on the other, I do think it's something that should've been more graciously hinted at in the very early chapters, because in those very early chapters, you REALLY are rent-a-cops in essence, putting down the people you set out to help. Of course, it's not that simple and there's a nuance as to why and the business dealings and all that, but given the relative simplicity and pace of the early chapters, it really is easy to see it come across that way.

It does, however, ring consistent with what we were previously talking about, though: The essence of, more than the act or thing in itself. Or, in other words, in Terra, the onus of things seem to be placed on the result or context surrounding something more than that something in itself: Child soldiers are fine, unhappy and in-risk child soldiers are not. Teenagers with jobs are fine, teenagers with huge stressful jobs way out of their league are not. Revolutionary movements are fine, revolutionary movements with civilian casualties are not. And so on. There is DEFINITELY commentary that can be had about this, mind you, but that can be for another post in another blog.

With this in mind, I go back to what was first said in this post, I think the idea was always to posit Rhodes Island as "as good as you can get while still being a relatively major power but not quite as big or resourceful as a state".

#arknights

[ayeforscotland]

Ah wait, I've got something for you in relation to white American fetishisation of Scotland and other European countries (because unfortunately it's not just Scottland, it's everyone.)

(And this is just an opinion, I have no science to back this up. That must be stated first and foremost.)

To achieve American Whiteness ment that many Europeans immigrating to the states had to shed their cultures in order to be accepted by Anglo European decendents. If you weren't the 'right' type of white then you weren't good enough and were often pushed out.

As such, these people, too, were forced to shed their cultural identity in order to make a living here.

Now, these diverse cultures are celebrated (to a point.) There's celebrations that come from these iterations of faith, foods and dress that come from these homelands, but they're strange derivatives of themselves. Xerox of a xerox of a xerox, made only by a cultural machine that doesn't really understand or want you, but loves the aesthetic of some small component of you, so it takes that, all while simultaneously craving it could be more.

And so NOW that it is no longer 'bad' to be decended from these places, NOW people try to claw their way back, like they're attempting to undo the damage the previous generations did to themselves in order to fit into White American Society, but they have no idea how and so it becomes a crass and ugly thing, often monetized by the same origional Anglo European sphere of influence that put them in this predicament anyway, and then further pits them against NEW people trying to make it here in the states.

(And to that last point, I have to recommend reading an amazing comic in the Nib by Dawson, Why Did They Come, in order to touch on how fucked up that whole thing is (not that we don't already know.) https://thenib.com/why-did-they-come/

But yeah... to summarize- immigrants now seen as acceptably white in the states originally WASN'T and so these people bleached themselves culturally to achieve the Anglo vibe, and now generations later, their decendents cling to fabrications of a culture they were denied in the most grotesque ways imaginable because they know nothing else.

It's like white bread trying to reintroduce culture to itself to become whole wheat again, only to end up giving itself mold.

Some great points there, particularly around the bastardisation of forgotten traditions etc.

I'd be keen to see some evidence of Scottish immigrants to the US being perceived the same way as, for example, Irish or Italian immigrants who eventually became accepted into 'American Whiteness'. Also while many Scottish immigrants who moved to America were poorer, I've never heard of them facing the same challenges as other European immigrants who were perceived as non-white. I expect a large part of that was being part of the British Empire. There was also a disproportionate number of Scots were plantation owners who owned slaves in the south. And while some historians dispute it's origins, I think it's mostly accepted the KKK was founded by descendants of Scottish immigrants , or at the very least, founded by people who drew heavily on that aesthetic. So even if modern Americans who fetishise Scotland are saying they can finally start celebrating their "native homeland's" traditions again - I think there's an element of 'wanting to be seen as victims with a rich history' about it.

[marvelstars]

So I was thinking about a post I saw a while ago and it made me realize that I believe it didn´t really occur to Anakin that Padme was too young as a 14 year old Queen because he was a 9 year old slave and already making adult decisions, like:

Sure, I will risk my life to give you the ship parts you need new friends.

I will sacrifice the pod I built with many sacrifices that I wanted to use to escape with my Mom once I got her and my slave chip out of her body with my self made slave chip detector.

I know exactly how to cheat on my owner, I have know him all my life actually and he loves gambling.

Sebulba, leave Jar Jar alone, you could kill me instead but then you would have to pay for me so go away.

I built a droid to help Mom around the house and I am also looking after grandma Jira here, fixing her things so the heat doesn´t get too much for her.

Do you need the droid army that is invading Naboo stopped? No problem, I will just destroy their main star chip and I didn´t even get out of place as Master Qui-Gon Sir asked me to.

Then Anakin became a padawan and was send to missions in which he had to use his lightsaber to get out of "negotiations"

So of course he defended Padme being a Queen at 14, to him her words about being happy for being relieved of so much responsibility sounded as if she thought she was doing a bad job with her planet, that´s why he told her he heard people were so pleased with her they wanted to keep her more time as their Queen. He thought she was selling herself short.

I believe the whole, "too young to be doing this" only beat Anakin in the face when he was send Ahsoka in the middle of a war zone.

I mean, he called her a "youngling" not even a padawan, he most definitely didn´t want to be training a 14 year old youngling in the middle of a war zone and he only accepted because he saw how sad Ahsoka looked when she thought he didn´t want her.

Ahsoka just had to invoke a little bit of tears and she already had him grapped around her little finger.

Anakin: Sure I am supposed to be your Jedi master and you should call me master but we are in the middle of a war zone, we both could die tomorrow, your situation sucks Snips and you are too young yet to notice it so of course you may call me skyguy to your heart content.

He is actually worse with Luke, honestly, it didn´t matter to him his little boy already destroyed the death star in ANH and his Master was calling for his head because he could become a Jedi and try to kill both of them, to Vader he was just "a boy"

In ESB Vader was at the parenting stage of thinking about Luke like, that´s my baby, nobody can touch him or his friends until I say so ok?

So he can recognize when someone was too young to be send to war, slavery or fight his Sith Master and he was right most of the time, except when it´s about himself and his perfect Queen Padme, they were veteran kids just doing their jobs.

Love him honestly :D

#anakin skywalker #padme amidala #ahsoka tano #luke skywalker #anakin has oppinions about ages #anakin“protective brother/father” skywalker #tpm #sw aotc #empire strikes back #star wars #anakin: childhood trauma what childhood trauma?

[siryouarebeingmocked]

Carter and Lovecraft, by Jonathan L. Howard (2015)

I really wanted to like this book.

I've read a few Lovecraft novels and stories, and I liked them. So when I saw this on my friend's bookshelf, I borrowed it, and read it.

Tried to.

The first real fly in the ointment? NYPD protag sees his partner take a 9mm retirement in front of him on a creepy case, and becomes a private detective. Mysterious lawyer shows up at his office one day and says there was a bookstore owner in Providence, Rhode Island, who has been missing and just declared dead.

The protag gets the bookshop. He's not sure why.

Protag goes to the bookshop. Owner's niece, Emily, is there. She's been running the shop alone since the owner vanished, and she co-ran it when he was alive. Also, she's biracial. Would be played by Zoe Kravitz in the movie, he thinks.

Her name is Lovecraft.

As in, she's a descendant of ol' Howard Philips.

She notes the irony; a black-ish "mulatto" descendant of an anti-black racist.

"Okay," I think, as I checked the publication date. "You've gotten that token bit out of the way. Now, can we move on?"

Apparently not.

As protag starts looking into the disappearance and other weird stuff, he decides he needs to get his eye in. So he goes to a gun range, where he needs to sign up for the NRA first

and ends the session by "re-engaging the safety" on his Glock.

Fun fact: stock Glocks don't have manual safeties, AFAIK.

In the next chapter, protag thinks about how he used the gun. He hates the NRA and the whole "gun fetish" thing, but he needs the iron, just in case.

Two strikes. Three if you count the safety thing.

Yes, I know an NYPD cop might be a bit bigoted about the issue, especially considering how his partner died. But it really feels like the writer's opinion.

In fact, let me just-

Yep. The writer is British. This sounds awfully familiar.

It was about this time that I realized something. The protagonist has no traits that aren't directly related to being a cop or detective. Absolutely none.

I don't think we know what he does in his off hours. No friends. Nothing but the job.

Heck, Miss Lovecraft has more personality than him, and she takes up a lot less screen time.

Protag decides to give Lovecraft half the business, so he can become a silent partner. People start dying in physically impossible ways - like the dude who drowned in his dry car in a parking lot - our hero looks into it.

He also ends up learning about a local family, the Waites. Rich, keep to themselves on their own land, been around since before the area was officially settled, apparently.

The local who tells him about all this says the younger ones are oddly attractive. The family has distinctive big eyes.

Anyone remotely familiar with HP Lovecraft just went "Oh, right, they're fishmen. Got it." I've seen this trope done better before, like in the comic Shadowgirls.

Hero looks into the archives, finds records of a racist Town Council rant by an early Waite, back when they were still into trading. Including slaves. Specifically, patriarch Newton Waite went to a council meeting and said black people should serve others, and shouldn't have self-determination.

The archivist intern says it's was "a different time", and that's just how people were back then.

Of course, he adds "People who talk like that now - no pass for them."

End scene.

Like this extremely mainstream, boring opinion is some kind of

In the next scene, protag chats about the fit he had near the Waite place. Learns about another mysterious death. When he chats about it with Emily, he suddenly realizes she's hot.

Then the narration tells us that he was a racist bigot in his teens, though he thought he was being sensible at the time. He now knows he was wrong, but he still feels sparks of it when he reads about some black kid doing some stereotypically black thing, which gives certain white people "a hard-on of righteousness".

And, of course, his time spent walking away from "instinctive racism" means his dating pool opened up. Like Emily Lovecraft, for example.

The most stereotypically black thing would probably be crime. Or being a single mom or deadbeat dad.

 Sadly, I know of plenty of black people - from my black majority home country - who fall into one of those categories. Or two. Three if you include "poverty", but we're Developing, so that barely even counts.

Also, this basically came out of nowhere. Not Emily being hot - I mean, look at Zoe Kravitz - but his unsolicited thoughts on racism.

All of these issues have also been issues for many concerned black people. For decades. The 'stereotypically black things' might be bad themselves, not because they make racist white people feel smug.

This is precisely where I closed the book for good. I would've put away the bookmarks, but I needed the page so I could write this rant.

Honestly, writing all this made me realize that I should've given up long before I made it halfway through the book. But I just kept hoping it would get better.

Doing the same well-worn cliches in a modern setting doesn't really make them interesting. Neither do the little 'racism is bad, mmmkay?' bits.

#books #personal #lovecraft #long

[s4dstr4wberry]

As a practicing muslim i'm guna have to disagree with you! Islam is actually a very beautiful peaceful religion. Arabian culture has made it such a horrible thing, forcing girls 2 dress how they dont want, do what they dont want and preaching it to be religion. It's hard to break out of cultural habits i personally see this in my daily life. Im not saying ur wrong or that u should be muslim or anythin jus sayin that the culture is not the religion and these 2 things should be distinguished between each other. <3

Islam is shit. Your prophet married a 6 year old and banged her at 9. The quraan gave men dominance over their women and allowed men to beat women. The prophet had a whole harem of women and allowed his followers to have 4 wives, he also told them they could rape the slave women they obtained in wars.

Mohammad spread islam with the sword. Those who surrendered had to join islam, if they were Christians or Jews they could keep practicing their religion by paying a tax and were treated like lower grade humans. If he was met with refusal, Mohammad would eradicate entire tribes and leave only the women and girls alive so they could be taken as sex slaves. Free women were told to wear hijab and cover their chests whereas slave women were forbidden from covering their chests and got beaten if they wore hijabs.

Slavery continued to thrive under islam. Some argue that islam encouraged the freeing of slaves in order to eradicate it over time. That’s not true, if a slave woman give birth to a child, that child would be the PROPERTY of her owner, so new slaves were constantly being born.

Argue as much as you want that “this is not the real islam” but it is. Muslims represent their book. They use it to justify their beliefs and actions. I live among muslims. Most are kind-hearted well-meaning people like you’d expect, but at the same time they’re antisemitic, homophobic, misogynistic and they see nothing wrong with it.

In a lot of muslim majority countries today, adulterers are stoned, apostates and blasphemers are killed, thieves’ hands are chopped off, homosexuals are thrown off of rooftops, and women are beaten and killed by their husbands, fathers, brothers for the stupidest shit.

Beautiful peaceful religion my ass. Also if you want proof of what I said lmk and I can give you quraan verses and verified hadiths. The peace and love is a facade to let islam fester in western countries and protect muslims as a “poor oppressed minority”.

Progressive muslims and ex muslims are the ones who are being oppressed because they want to reform and change islam for the better but islam does not accept change.

#🎀ask🎀

[the-baby-storyteller]

Cw: minor whumpee, mentioned abuse, fear, slave whump

Whumpee was used to being sold, but it didn’t make the process any easier.

They kept their head down in the back of the car, their wild heartbeat contrasting the tight way they held themself. They thought about who their next owner would be. They wondered if they might be...kind. A wishful thought, they knew. They weren't foolish, they knew they would take anything; they didn’t have a choice. They just hoped….

They just hoped they wouldn’t be as bad as their last owner.

A shudder ran through them. Whumpee didn't...they didn't know if they could deal with someone like that again. If they did they might...might...-

Stop that, they thought with a frown, mentally slapping themself.

They didn’t have the luxury of dwelling on the past. They had to focus on the now, focus all their attentions on making sure their new owner was satisfied with them. That meant looking appealing, pleasant, and not wholly petrified from the scars of their last owner.

So many scars.

They sighed and fought to quell their quivering. They just- they couldn't. They couldn't deal with another-

And then the car jerked to a stop.

Their heart jerked to a stop as well.

Get a hold of yourself, they seethed internally. They couldn't be trembling and whimpering over memories.

Even if those memories could become their reality again.

They plastered a smile on as the seller pulled them out of the car, roughly enough to be domineering but not enough to harm the merchandise. Not before the real buyers could anyway. It doesn't matter, they thought to themself.

This is who they were, this was their life, they thought as they walked to the door of the house. They were an object, an amenity. A thing to be sold and used as others pleased. They didn't get to decide what happened to them, and if someone wanted to hurt them and use them and shatter them until them-

Whumpee choked.

Until they were so terrified they cowered and begged and cried and they still would never stop?

They would take it. It was not their choice to make.

They realized their smile had dropped. They took a deep breath. They smiled. It was shakier then last time. It was best they were going to get.

They opened the door.

-

Inside was nice. It was a regular looking house. They never got any information about who they were going to beforehand, (obviously not, who would tell a thing like them anything of importance, they only deserved taunts and threats), so they had no idea what to expect. They didn't know how many people they would be serving, if it would be one person, a whole family.

Whumpee didn't need to know or be told. They would adapt to them or be made to adapt.

The only thing they knew was that they needed to keep smiling and looking pleasing, and that's what they did. They weren't new at this.

A man walked over to them. He didn't look especially high-class; he held himself loosely and his clothes looked vaguely old. His face seemed to be stuck in a permanent tired-bored look. He also didn't look especially interested in Whumpee.

That was very okay with them.

They knew never to get their hopes up, though. They dropped their head. No speaking unless spoken to.

"I expect," they heard his strangely laid-back voice from above them, "you to not ask questions and just do as you are told. Understand?"

"Y-Yes, Master," they answered.

"Good. I'm sure you have experience in this anyway. Now follow me."

"Yes, Master." They said briskly, immediately rising and hurrying to catch up with him as he started walking further into the house.

He showed them around the house, the rooms, the closets, all the places they would need to be for their chores. He got a little close sometimes and they cringed from fear of being hit, but it didn't seem like he noticed as he just continued on with the pseudo-tour.

He took them to the dining room where they saw a man (man? He kind of looked more like a boy) sitting at the table, distracted on his phone. He looked up when they arrived. It didn't matter his age, Whumpee thought, Another Master. they instinctively looked down.

"This is my younger cousin." Master said, "He's staying here for a week."

They tried for a smile, albeit a weak one, and bowed. "H-Hello, Master," They ground out.

The man boy master looked at them a little inquisitively, and they froze, frightened, but he just went back to his phone without saying a thing.

They held back a sigh as they moved on. That would not be welcome in front of their new Master.

Master took them to the back of the house and then down a few steps towards a door. He opened it and suddenly a gush a cold air rushed out.

"This is the basement." He said, walking in as Whumpee physically resisted shivering.

"It's where you will be staying." He pointed idly to a bell that seemed to connect outside the room. "Stay here unless we call for you with this bell or if it's time for you to clean or cook something." He looked them up and down, then left the room

"Y-Yes, Master." They rasped, quickly bowing. They stayed in that position, not looking up, until the door closed, and then sighed and sagged down to the floor.

Everything threatened to come out, then. Tears pricked their eyes and they began to tremble as they couldn't hold anything in anymore Memories of writhing on the floor in pain, starved and beaten, came to mind and they paled. They were just so, so scared. They couldn't stop thinking about pain and their past master and what would be done to them and what if they were just like him-

Whumpee grasped their arms, digging their fingernails into them until they were on the brink of bleeding. They took a deep breath. They were fine. It was fine. It was good to be scared. Slaves like them were meant to be scared, they were meant to live in fear. They should be afraid of their masters, of what they could do. It should make them that much more set on serving their masters and doing what they said. What they could not do was let it affect their work.

They were fine. And yet, they trembled.

They steeled themself, stood up, and started to muse as they walked, exploring the small room of the basement. There was no bed or blankets, so Whumpee chose a small corner of the room to be their sleeping area. One lamp barely illuminated the whole room. Despite the cold, hard floors with no rug, the forbidding metal walls that trapped in the cold and didn't allow for any warmth, and the constant sound of wind blowing, they weren't upset. They never expected good conditions, and honestly the place had been pretty good so far. They were surprised none of the masters had done anything to them yet. They'd only ever been with one other person like that before, and even he got violent when drinking.

B-But what if they don't actually want to hurt me and just need me to work?

They shook their head violently, trying to expel the thoughts from it. That's ridiculous, stop dreaming. Just act as you normally do and hope they aren't anything l-like t-the last g-guy.. They grimaced painfully, looking away.

They came to a small clothing closet and pulled on a outfit suitable for cleaning. Their legs were mostly barren, offering them no protection in the frigid room, and they shivered. They had just finished fixing themselves up when the bell rang. They jumped, startled, then composed themself and entered into their servant mode, blank-faced and controlled. They quickly exited the freezing basement and climbed up the steps, trying to simultaneously hurry to get their orders, yet not look rushed or frantic like a novice slave.

They'd done this before.

They could do this.

#whump #conditioned whumpee #whump writing #traumatized whumpee #slave whumpee #basically #its technically not that but it might as well be so #servant whumpee #scared whumpee #minor whumpee #the baby storyteller

[aphroditesmoon]

golden (part iv)

jacaerys velaryon x reader

part 3 part 2 part 1

summary: the prince bumps into an escaping slave and offers her his protection.

warnings: mentions of slavery, mentions of abuse and assault.

a/n: this one's a bit short but I hope it makes up for how long I've left y'all😭 also PLEASE tell me if y'all want NSFW content or not

taglist: @idontreallycareanymorebrooo @hiatuswhore @priyajoyy @capellaadara

@happinessinthebeing @cosmic-lovrs

°°°

She was gone. That was what they're telling him. The slave, the imposter, the whore he had brought in, have escaped.

A part of him breathed a sigh of relief, the other part of him wants to bolt out the meeting room to find her. His eyes do a one over at his uncle's, both with broken noses, both caused by her.

"Are you listening to me?" Alicent snaps at him. "Bringing strange women inside the castle is one thing, do you see what she has done to your uncles?" She chastise.

Jace fakes a sympathetic look. "It won't happen again, my queen."

Her face almost looks insulted at the title, but she should know, after all the rumours that she started herself towards his mother and family, he wasn't going to start getting all familiar and affection with her.

Before she could open her mouth to respond, he cuts her off. "Look, I understand, my behavior was unacceptable, but the girl is in gods knows where now and since I was the one who bought her in, I should be the one to find her and make sure she's alright."

He can hear Aegon's snicker and ignores him easily as he maintain eye contact with the queen. Alicent cocks her head at him as if in question.

"How kind of you to take accountability, but that won't be necessary, I've already asked my guards to track her down so we can return her to her owner, your grandsire's ruling is already in question enough with the whole Driftmark issue, we needn't any enemies from outside of Kingslanding."

Surely she had seen the look of shock and horror painting his face, as she gives him a provocative fake smile.

"Where is my mother." He asks finally.

°°°°

-12 hours ago-

It was during times like this that you wish you would've never agreed to follow Jacaerys back. Your breath quickens as you hear Aegon's footsteps nearing you, his heavy breathing, tiredness the wines must be caused.

"Did you hear what I asked?" He asks louder, his voice filling the corridor.

You turn your head slightly towards him. He's towering over you now. Dark confused drunken gaze meeting yours. "You going to my nephew's room?" He repeats the question, more quiet this time.

You nodded, knowing there's no point in lying. You were a rat trapped in a maze, with Rhaenyra's gentle hands no longer guiding you through the halls, you're out of lies.

He snorts out a hideous laugh that makes you frown as his face leans closer towards you. "What- does he needs to tuck him in too?"

It was a terrible joke or insult, but you oblige him by keeping your frown tact.

"Tell me, what is your relationship with him, I wish to know." He tries again, calming down at last. When you gave him no answer he rolled his eyes and shoved you by your arm, making your head bump againts the wall.

"You imbecile." You cursed him spontaneously, grasping the back of your head wile eyeing him cautiously as he walks closer. "Yes, yes. We know that, but what are you to him?"

You spit at his face. "I'm fucking him."

Instead of punching you through the seven hells like you expected, he suprised you by a loud laugh he seems to give around easier than expected.

"Oh and I thought you couldn't speak our language, or maybe you're just a quick learner." He replied sarcastically.

I learned that word from you,

you wanted to point out at first, but it was no point, Aegon wasn't a friend or someone she could converse him, just earlier that day he had made her his punching back towards Jace.

You brave yourself by trying to push him away, but his grip on your wrist was strong

He gives no reaction to your aggressiveness and instead pushes up the sleeve of your dress, cursing when he sees your brand.

"I fucking knew it, I already saw it but I needed to make sure- you rat, you little mouse, gold- digging whore, you snake woman incarnate-." It was getting harder to keep up with his nicknames.

All you know that his voice was getting louder and you can hear other footsteps entering the corridor.

"Fuck you." You punched him your free hand, the blow making him let go of his grasp on you, giving you a chance to run, something you learn to never hesitate to do.

There was something freeing in using someone's words againts them, along with the fresh reminder that you was no longer in a slave ship to be whipped or beaten for every wrong word or action you ever does.

You can hear him try to run after you, his drunkenness preventing him from walking straight, and the guards suddenly aware of your presence, alerted to catch you.

°°°

There were guards guarding every side of the halls near his rooms, too much of them that it was becoming suspicious.

He knows he can't go to his mother, for even if she's done with his grandsire, she's probably being held up by the queen.

All he could hope for is that Daemon will be by her side to keep her strong against that sharp tongued woman.

The secret back door in his room was always an option, but he's wondering where could you even be. What confirms you're even outside of the castle?

It was a gamble to check if you were at the first place you met eachother. But he'd take it for if it's not him that'll find you, it'll be the queen's guards.

The hood covers half his face as he slowly pushes the back door open and closing it back.

Once he made it out, there was no time to be relieved or take it slow. He slithers through the road of Kingslanding, shops and children with their marble stones and playing games, blind to his presence.

When he reaches the spot, a low sigh releases him, of course you wouldn't be here, you weren't that stupid to be somewhere quite easy to find.

He turns to look around him, eyes glaring at every corner violently.

Where would he have gone if he were you? That was a difficult one, considering you both had barely more than 3 full conversations, thanks to his stupid uncles.

You didn't know the hooks of these streets yet. If he didn't find you fast, he'd blame himself for whatever fate the queen would order upon you, for not only being an escaping slave but for punching her two sons so hard their noses kept bleeding for two whole minutes.

He was further away from the abandoned spot, towards the more isolated side of the streets.

Surely anyone trying to hide would opt for a quieter place. But you weren't just anyone.

He halts on his steps, taking a deep breath as he squeezes his eyes shut for a good few seconds. And then he turns around and walk right back towards the busy streets of the red keep.

Jacaerys prioritizes the shops more than stalls, eyes perking up on anyone that resembles you.

Begging his eyes kot to deceive him, he walks into the clothes-filled seamstress shop. A woman in dark large hood stands behind a cot of coats, distracted by the racks of gloves by her side to notice him.

He could almost feel his heart burst as he takes you in. Safe, and too distracted for his liking.

You flinch strongly before meeting his eyes when he's finally a few steps near you. "You're getting better at this, you know." He speaks quietly, a small smile on his face.

When your body relaxes and your eyebrows furrows, he continues. "Hiding, I mean. Good one with the change of clothes."

Your face gives up no expression but your hands immediately intertwining with his gave him a sense of relief. "It's not my first time hiding" You tell him, making his already pained heart hurt more.

Before he lets himself indulge in your presence, the loud reminder in his mind that your in danger hits him hard.

He turns his head towards the doors and windows to make sure no familiar faces were near.

"We need to get you out of here." He whispers to you, leaning in closer, almost shielding you completely away from sights of others. "We're leaving to Dragonstone tonight, my mother's promised you a safe travel in the ship-"

"And then what?" You cut him off. He looks blankly at you, as if not understanding your words.

"If I follow you, where will my place be? Surely no longer by your side?" You ask nervously. He opens his mouth but no words escape him.

"Jacaerys I am no meer slave, I have the blood of old Valyria in me and I am the last of my family, if you don't buy me from my slavers, they will hunt me down and they will demand a price be paid. "

He stared at you for a long time, you notice the shopkeeper stealing glaces at the both of you, making your stomach twists nervously.

Your eyes glances back and forth from her and the prince. He finally speaks after the shock passes away. "You could speak our language all along" He stutters in suprise.

You can't help it and let out a short laugh. "I told you, it's not my first time."

When the answer seems satisfy him he moves on to the important part.

"You're a fucking princess, good gods." His eyes were no longer staring a yours, instead, they look into nothing, he was all but lost in his thoughts and panic was surrounding him.

"Jacaerys please, listen to me- They'll kill me if I'm found, if I go with you what's to say I'll be perfectly safe, your words means a lot, but I see you do not speak for your mother or the prince consort."

His eyes snaps to yours once again. "I will kill him before he ever tries to take you."

The intensity of his words ran through the back of your spine, making you shiver at his all- in seriousness.

"Jacaerys..." You start again, gently. "I'm being serious-" "I'll marry you."

There it was again. The insane spontaneous acts of Jacaerys Velaryon. Promises he's been making to you that so far he's been keeping somehow.

Your eyes widen before they turn into a frown. "Are you insane-" He shakes his head vigorously before pulling deeper into the shop. "I'll do whatever it takes to make it happen, A betrothal to the royal family member must be enough time cut off whatever hold your slavers have on you."

You say nothing and only look up to him in amazing wonder. "Gods you are insane." You speak out softly. "Is that a good thing?" He asks nervously, his intensity going down.

You let a smile slip out of your face and nod.

#house of the dragon #jacaerys velaryon x reader #jacaerys velaryon #hotd x reader #jace velaryon x reader #game of thrones #house of the dragon x reader #jace targaryen x reader #hotd #jacaerys targaryen #aemond targaryen x reader #aegon ii targaryen x reader

[omgthatdress]

In the books, Nellie was an Irish-American servant girl that Samantha befriends and teaches to read. Because Samantha is nine and has had a fairly sheltered upbringing, she doesn’t quite have the understandings of class structure that separates her and Nellie, she just sees a friend. Nellie opens Samantha’s eyes to the broader world beyond Grandmary’s mansion and helps her understand the social issues facing turn-of-the century America.

In Changes for Samantha, Grandmary has finally married Admiral Archibald Beemis, and Samantha has gone to live with Uncle Gard and Cornelia in New York City. There, she finds out that Nellie’s parents have died and she is living with her uncle Mike in the city. Samantha sets out to find her, only to find that she’s been abandoned and is living in an orphanage. Eventually, she helps Nellie and her sisters escape, and they come to be adopted by Uncle Gard and Cornelia.

I always thought that felt like an unreasonably happy ending for Nellie, given her social inferiority and that adoption was actually fairly taboo in the era of social darwinism and eugenics, but I also know that rich White progressives of the era LOVED doing shit like that, so I guess it’s not completely unreasonable.

Reading the summary of the book Nellie’s Promise made me sooooooo fucking happy. It gets into all those issues of social inequality and gives Nellie a lot more agency in being more than just a lucky orphan. I especially loved the parts about how Nellie was unhappy going to Samantha’s private girl’s school where she was learning nothing practical and only being trained in how to be a rich society wife. Nellie knew she needed a practical education so that she’d be able to secure a job in the future and fulfill her promise of taking care of her sisters. In the end, she’s able to enroll in a vocational school that fits her needs. I love it. I love it so fucking much.

Before I go any further, I should probably just go ahead and say that in this era, the Irish were still very much considered White. The definition of Whiteness in the 1900s was very different from what it is today (plz read The History of White People by Nell Irvin), and some people were Whiter than others, but the Irish were White. White*, if you will. They would be listed as White on all their legal documents, and weren’t faced with segregation the way that Black people were. The Irish were never slaves (they sure as shit were slave owners, though!) and don’t ever fucking compare anti-Irish discrimination to anti-Blackness and anti-Semitism. They are all their own unique things and playing the oppression olympics does no one any good. And YES I know about the history of the colonization of Ireland by England and anti-Irish attitudes in the UK, but I’m talking about American history. Anti-Irish American history and Anti-Irish British history are very, very different.

There’s a lot of raging ongoing debate about the extent to which the Irish were discriminated against in the US, and yes, there was discrimination. But literally EVERY immigrant group in the US faced discrimination and even violence. There’s a lot of academic debate about the whole “No Irish Need Apply” thing, but it was like that for EVERYONE. Italians, Poles, Greeks, Germans, Swedes, you name it, immigrants in general were all treated as unwelcome and less-than by the Anglo-Saxon Protestant powers that be at some point, the Irish were just another part of that. The idea that the Irish were somehow unique or special in their discrimination in America is a myth.

The point I’m making is that a lot of conservative Irish-Americans LOVE to make big maudlin claims of Irish victimhood and Irish slavery (THE IRISH WERE NEVER SLAVES) that somehow means they’re somehow exempt from having White privilege and taking personal responsibility to not be a racist fuck. That is pure bullshit, Irish-Americans have been White as fuck ever since JFK.

ANYWAY. All that being said, I love Nellie’s little outfit. It’s actually super accurate! A lovely little summer dress, perfect for visiting the ice cream parlor!

(The Museum of London, credit @in-pleasant-company​)

Again, like with Samantha, the hat should be more perched on the hair and held in place with hat pins rather than fitted to the head. But that’s probably beyond your average 7-year-old’s patience, so I guess I can give them a pass.

#1900s #American Girl #Nellie

[optimisticlucio]

Growing up Jewish means that, among other things, you get used to a passive but everpresent dread that the rest of the world will eventually want to see you dead. Passover is about that one time the Egyptians enslaved all of the Jews, and despite trying to kill us, we survived. Purim is about that one time a Persian minister tried to have us all killed, but we survived. Hannukah is about the time the Greeks destroyed our holy sites and tried to have us all killed, but we survived. Tisha Be'Av. Holocaust Remembrance Day. Tzom Gedalia. It's gotten to a point where we commonly joke about how 90% of our holidays are just "they tried to kill us, they didn't, let's eat."

If it was merely historical, that'd be one thing, but this sort of fear is far from merely being a story passed down by your elders. My great grandma's entire family was burned alive in the Pogroms. My uncles were beat up for speaking up about antisemitism. My brother was bullied relentlessly in school for being circumcised. "Generational Trauma" is the correct term to define this, but I do think it's important to highlight how every generation re-experienced this trauma. Luckily, I haven't experienced this sort of violence yet beyond some dickheads online, but I don't believe this'll stay the case for much longer.

I want to be clear that despite this all, I'm not pessimistic about my future as a Jew or of the Jewish People as a whole; I'm a hopeless idealist, whether it's about individual life choices or about broader political change in general. We've made it this far, I don't think we'll be taken out that easily, and we can certainly build a better world without having to hide in a gilded cage of our own making. But holy shit, have I heard some concerning things from people recently.

Antisemitism is no longer the Cain's Mark it used to be. Saying this I now realize that it never was this sort of mark it was made out to be, but atleast while I was growing up, it felt like it was atleast socially unacceptable to be openly against the Jews. In the past few years I've had to come to terms with the fact that even if this was the case, it very much no longer is, and the past few months had this process exacerbate significantly.

You guys have heard about the Houthis, right? Paramilitary organization in Yemen, not the official government but controls enough of the country that they function as the government, been blocking trade through the Red Sea as of the time of posting? Those guys. Their logo has "A Curse Upon the Jews" written in big red letters. There is no other way to read that sentence, it is very explicit. Seeing people cheering for this group openly on social media made me somewhat uneasy, both for the... well, the antisemitism, and also that this group is infamous for its blatant human rights violations, including but not limited to bringing back chattel slavery. So, I brought this up to people.

I was expecting some sort of shock, right? Even if they fundamentally believe blocking the red sea is good, that they'd readjust their position on the group itself. "I think it's a cool thing to do, but wow what assholes." I shouldn't have to explain why antisemitic slave owners are bad guys, right?

Right??

The sheer amount of people who responded with one justification or another for why it's actually totally fine blew my fucking mind. "Oh, it's not actually slavery, they're treated very well." "Well, they don't really mean they hate the Jews." "It's just a different cultural form of labor!" "Well, when you have a country like Israel oppressing your people-"

Yeah I think I should probably address the elephant in the room real quick. Israel, and its fascist-adjacent government, has nothing of relevance when someone brings up the issue of worldwide antisemitism. Antisemitism has been thriving for years now. If you open a map Yemen is nowhere near Israel. There's certainly a conversation to have about Israel's abhorrent treatment of palestineans in the west bank and gaza, no doubt, but, frankly speaking, that's not the goddamn conversation we're having right now, and I feel the need to specify this because I've had multiple people derail such conversations consistently. If your first response to someone talking about antisemitism is to bring up Israel, for the love of god reexamine your biases.

Antisemitism has been growing, a lot, and we're scared. According to polls, 7% of the US thinks that the holocaust did not happen, with these numbers increasing to 20% if you sort the results to only the 18-29 age group and 9% of Americans think it's acceptable to hold neo-nazi views. Trust me, I wish these numbers were flukes, but I have seen these same numbers in multiple polls by numerous sources in the past 5 years.

7% of the US is about 23.2 million people.

There are only 16.2 million Jews in the entire world.

You, do not, have to justify antisemitism, I fucking promise you.

#politics #yeah I have a blog #like not this one #one where I actually write rather than just reblog #it's mostly casual but #I had to get this out of my system. #judaism #jumblr

[ltwilliammowett]

Women in ancient seafaring

Well, as one or the other of you may know, I have also been dealing with the topic of women and seafaring, and in the sparse literature that exists, I have noticed an aspect that is almost never highlighted. And that is antiquity. well, some people might say that in antiquity there were only men who had the say and women had nothing to say there anyway. Well, that's not true, women had more rights than we would like to believe today, there were women in ancient Egypt who were viziers, doctors and even queens (even if there weren't many of them). What I'm getting at is that women also had their own businesses, which completely upset poor Herodotus when he saw that. But women had even more, they had their own ships. Egyptian tax documents from the old empire show that there were women ship owners and that they sometimes even had whole fleets of merchant or transport ships under them.

This papyrus fragment shows a wheat receipt stating that the captain of the ship  is the brother of the female ship owner. 2nd or early 3rd century A.D. (x)

And this continued until Roman times, where Suetonius reports that the Emperor Claudius (10 B.C. - 54 A.D.) granted a mother with four children the right to deliver wheat to Ostia for six years with her own ship, which was large enough to transport large quantities of wheat (Suet. Claud. 19). Likewise, the jurist Ulpian said that it does not matter whether man or a woman, both are allowed to manage a ship in commercial relations and that even the daughters of female slaves are allowed to manage a ship.

Parvi autem refert, qui exercet masculus sit an mulier, pater familias an filius familias vel servus: pupillus autem si navem exerceat, exigemus tutoris auctoritatem. - It is immaterial whether the shipowner be male or female, head of a family, son-in-power, or slave. But a pupillus requires his tutor's authority to manage a ship. (DIG. 14.1.1.16)

This also meant that the owner of the ship chose the captain himself, but could also be captain himself. This meant that women could also serve as captains. Even though there are voices in the research community that believe this is generally not possible. But I suspect that it was, and we have proof from Suetonius that there were female captains, even if the number of ship's owners tended to predominate. In the trading business, women were therefore not uncommon, although we must not forget that it was rather a matter of short distances that were covered, i.e. not ocean-wide distances.

If we go a little further back in history and look at the Vikings in the early Middle Ages, they had no reservations about women and ships. Here too, women had their own ships and carried out independent trade missions and even raids, even if their crew was a mixture of male and female.

The banning of women from seafaring occurred with the advent of Christianity, which gave women a completely new role in social society, and the previously common merchants, ship owners and captains disappeared almost entirely, except for a few exceptions. It was only in the middle of the 19th century that things became normal again, if we take things very seriously, with the women whalers who not only accompanied their husbands but also learned the trade from them.

#naval history #women at sea #ancient times

[yesthefandomfreakblr]

Oh yeah, the shiners.

So in @returntoregalia's podcast, they address early on something I've been turning in my head. How deeply have the humans impacted destroyed the natural balance and cultures of the underland?.. The synopsis of Gorger calling himself king being found strange and Ripred making a whole bit about it and the crown thing.

And... Isn't it weird that COINCIDENTALLY every species we actually hear about/that interacts with humans regularly and lives around them/ or seems to speak english as a species regularly, is organized in a way the humans acknowledge and respect? Having a king or queen and set borders? The shiners clearly aren't made for it if photosglowglow and Zap are the most peaceable of them and they want to kill each other and everyone 24/7. They are not a species made for cohabitation. Family dynamics or parenting. They're just not. CRAWLERS are. Their quality of life DOES NOT benefit from a society or social arrangement. So WHY Would the shiners make borders for their whole species and claim to be an organized civilization?

Well...

The Regalians were english colonizers. Genocidal awful people. Let's not forget the diggers. Or their constant warring with the gnawers just because they aren't like them and won't let them steal every life sustaining resource for themselves and do not want to associate let alone bow to them (OBVIOUSLY) And slave owners. That was also a part of their culture before they came down to the underland.

Did the Regalians try to enslave the shiners early on?.. Very beneficial. Ethics isn't in the equation for the Regalians. The shiners likely held out as best they could, but their ONLY option would be to band together and mimic what the humans did to take the target off their backs. The Fliers certainly did it. The gnawers did it. Crawlers. Spinners.

When the humans arrived they wanted to destroy everything for the sake of 'progress' and 'civilization.' They saw every race as wild beasts to be tamed and controlled. So everyone who didn't want to end up like the diggers had to conform as not to be treated like a potential fur coat or beast of burden.

The history of humans and fliers bonding and allying is absolutely way more sinister and one sided than the modern Underlanders recall in history.

The Shiners only tolerate each other and have a facade of human societal structure and offer services to the humans to stay out of cages.

#the underland chronicles #gregor the overlander #ripred #tuc #gto #oh yeah this

[billyrussohaven]

Into My Web

Bonus chapter!

Dark!Vampire!Billy Russo x Female Reader

Cowritten with @the-cult-of-russo

Ratings: Explicit 18+ ONLY

Warnings: Although this chapter might not include it, this fic will include; Sexual situations, swearing, human slave, biting, blood, murder, obsessive thoughts, dub con, Stockholm syndrome, gaslighting.

A/N: A bonus epilogue-like chapter for you all to soothe your wounds from the last chapter...😘❤️

Billy had felt true grief only once in his life, when Maria and the kids were gunned down. He knew there was a chance he'd feel it again sometime since he was pretty attached to his mismatched family. Attachments made you weak after all, and he knew if Frank or any of the others died, it would destroy him. The fact they were all vampires though made it less likely to happen so he didn't find himself worrying about it too much. He never thought he'd feel grief over a human, a pet no less. He never thought he'd feel grief over you. Yet here he was, slightly drunk, miserable and drowning in grief.

At the time, he felt like it had been the only solution. He couldn't have you the way he wanted, couldn't keep things as they were and he couldn't let you go. What other option did he have? There was also the issue of Frank's words getting under his skin, at realising that you didn't deserve the life he'd inflicted on you yet he knew he couldn't change it. At the time he felt like he was doing you a favor, putting you out of your misery. He couldn't even blame it on the booze he'd consumed before because he knew he'd have probably come up with the same plan even sober, yet if he was honest he wasn't sure he would have been able to go through with it without the alcohol dulling his senses. Even with it, the whole ordeal had been painful and he kept hearing your voice, your last words, on repeat as you begged him to stop. But he'd let the beast take over him completely, there was no stopping. He never shied away from the fact he was a monster and he usually relished in it. But right now he felt more of a monster than he ever had and he didn't like it. 

Two days had passed since he'd murdered you and he felt like he was adrift at sea with no life raft in sight. He'd buried you in the garden but he'd not put you with all the others that he didn't know the name of. He made sure you had your own place. He'd dressed you in a pretty white sundress, one of his favorites on you, before laying you to rest next to a large rose bush. He'd reached out to someone he knew and pulled some strings to get a coffin sent right to his place, extra money to not ask questions. He'd gotten you a pretty one, spending far more than he needed to for someone that wasn't even around anymore. But he wasn't just going to throw you into a hole in the ground. After that he'd done nothing but lay on the sofa and be miserable. The only time he'd moved was to go to the vampire bar and throw money at the owner until he was able to take home some of the alcohol that could actually get him drunk. 

He hadn't been able to go into the bedroom since it happened, his mind tormenting him. If it wasn't replaying your death it was replaying times you'd both spent together actually happy and it ate away at his sanity. The whole house still smelt like you but the bedroom was worse and he knew he couldn't handle it. He was even considering moving. There wasn't a damn thing in the place that didn't remind him of you in some way.

He hadn't been to work, hadn't spoken to any of his family. Hadn't done anything but miss you so much it made him sick. He hated every second of it. He hated that he felt this way at all. He'd considered killing you plenty of times in the time you'd spent with him, even thought of how he'd do it too. Sometimes he'd get the urge to snap your pretty little neck for the smallest of things because he'd get sick of going round and around in circles with you. But somewhere along the way it had changed and he hadn't noticed until it was too late. He'd gotten attached to his little human and then he'd done the unthinkable. He'd killed you and now you were gone. Even though he didn't exactly have any other solution on hand to the issue of the feelings he'd developed or how yours weren't even real, he couldn't help but wish he could turn back time and still have you here with him. Remorse wasn't something he was used to. Would it have been so bad for him to just pretend your feelings for him were real? To pretend he could be good for you? 

He was lying on the sofa, not as drunk as he'd like due to his metabolism but still quite drunk as he glared at the ceiling with unseeing eyes. The TV was on loud to drown out the torturous silence that permeated the place since you'd gone. He'd never minded silence before but now he couldn't stand it. It was unbearable. He was well aware the hunters could come bursting in at any moment and he'd be a prime target in his state but he couldn't bring himself to care. His head was swimming thanks to the booze and also his messy brain and he didn't know which way was up. He couldn't believe how in the span of just a few days, everything could go so wrong. 

Maybe this was karma coming back to bite him in the ass. Life giving him something beautiful and precious and letting him destroy it like everything else he touched. Not letting him see what he had until it was gone. Not giving him any other fucking option to his problem. Maybe this was payback for all the atrocities he'd committed in his life, his penance for his sins. Maybe he deserved this gut wrenching suffering and maybe, just maybe, Frank was right all along.

***

White hot pain was the first thing you felt, like your blood was acid running through your veins burning everything inside of your weakened frame. You woke up with a loud gasp, heaving air in your lungs, your eyes wide open in the darkness. You looked around but couldn’t figure out where you were. Your hands flew upwards and hit hard wood, you moved your arms and legs around furiously trying to find the way out.

“No, no, no, no,” you said over and over again realising you were stuck inside the smallest of boxes. Pure panic took over you and you punched and kicked through the wood surprisingly easily as dirt filled in. You kicked and clawed your way up and out into the open.

You crawled out of the ground, shaking and confused. A needle sharp pain in your skull made you hiss and cradle your head with both hands. You shut your eyes tightly. Your senses were overloaded with information and hit you all at once. Everything was heightened to an unbearable degree and you couldn’t filter out any of it. Between the pain and the chaos inside you, there was an astonishing realisation. You could see, hear, taste, smell, and feel everything. Like there were now things you could understand and experience that your human mind would not have been able to.

You whimpered, sitting down and tugged hard at your dirt covered hair trying to make it all stop. 

“Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop,” you mumbled over and over again rocking back and forth on the ground. You looked around you, you remembered this place, it was in the backyard, Billy’s backyard. You turned around, the realisation slowly sinking in, as you looked back to the spot where you crawled up from.

Your own grave.

You heard him then, Billy. Your head snapped to the house, memories quickly coming back to you. You hissed, pure anger like you've never felt ripped through you and made you gasp. It was gone as fast as it came, your own head confusing you, everything heightened, even your own emotions.

You got up so fast you stumbled forward, like you were trying to walk through somebody else's body. You marched forward feeling on edge, like you'd snap at any moment. You opened the backdoor with so much force you almost tore it from its hinges. You walked to the living room where you were sure he'd be.

Billy jumped up on unsteady feet from the sofa when he heard the door fly open, looking around for the threat. He didn't expect to see you come into the room. He blinked dumbly for a moment as he took in the state of you. Your white dress now covered in mud as well as the rest of your body. But something was far more distinct than any of that. The lack of heartbeat. You weren't alive, you were very much dead. He shook his head and closed his eyes as if to clear the vision from his mind. It had been creative in torturing him with thoughts about you but this one was new. Yet when he opened his eyes again you were still there and his brain started to hurt not understanding what was happening. Was he finally going insane? 

The moment you laid your eyes on him you pounced. In the blink of an eye you were on him flying to the floor with him under you.

“You! YOU! Y-Y-You put me in a box! You put me in a b-box!” you screamed in his face so loud it hurt your own ears. Your hands flew to cover them up with a whimper. You broke down in sobs, sadness turning into raw despair, replacing the pure anger you felt seconds ago.

Billy looked up from where he was laying under you, watching you with wide eyes. You felt very much real and he suddenly sobered right up with the realisation that he wasn't hallucinating. You were here and you were turned. He wracked his brain to try and figure out just how the fuck it had happened, replaying that God awful night in his head at rapid speed. He somewhat remembered you biting him, you must have drawn blood. He'd turned you. The guilt he felt at killing you increased to overwhelming proportions. He'd not only killed you but then he'd put you in a box and made you dig yourself out of your own grave, and he knew you were claustrophobic. The pain that ripped through his chest was unimaginable. He never wanted this for you. 

"You killed me! Why?! Why did you do it?! Why did you hurt me?!," you asked him with a voice filled with heartbreak and rejection. Your dirt covered hands closing into small fists to hit him as you wailed.

Billy's throat constricted and his nostrils flared as he felt his eyes sting. Despite everything he'd been feeling, he'd not shed a tear. But now seeing you here suffering like this, seeing you so betrayed and hurt by what he'd done, he could feel the tears fighting to escape. He didn't fight you as you hit him, too shocked by what was happening.

"I… I'm sorry," he lamented, not able to offer you anything else in that moment. He didn't know what to say. He didn't have a good enough reason for what he'd done, even if it had felt right at the time. He reached out his shaky hands, cupping your cheeks as he felt his heart shatter. You were finally back here with him but at what cost? There was no telling how different you'd be now. Your skin was cold yet still as soft as he knew it to be and his lower lip quivered a little as some relief washed over him at you being here with him. The more selfish part of him not able to hide that he was happy you were back. He never thought he'd see, hear or touch you again.

You stopped and buried your face in his chest. His scent was now even stronger, sweeter than before. It filled your heart with mixed feelings, but you couldn't deny the love you still felt for him. He didn't waste a moment to wrap his arms around you as he breathed you in deeply. Your scent was a little different now but not too much. He enjoyed the feel of you in his arms again and he buried his face in your hair as he held you tightly, scared if he let go he'd find out none of this was real.

“Why am I not breathing? What’s happening? I woke up buried alive, am I dead?” you asked sniffling back your tears.

“And why is everything so bright?!” you complained, shielding your eyes from the lights. You got back up on your feet moving erratically, in jerky movement and mumbling nonsense looking everywhere around you.

Billy stood quickly, moving to turn the lights off. Vampires could see in the dark so you both didn't need them anyway. He didn't know how to tell you what had happened. That he'd turned you and he hadn't even meant to do it. How you were still supposed to be laying in your coffin and resting peacefully. 

“I. Am. So. Hungry!” You snarled, looking around for food. You whimpered at the piercing pain in your gums at the mention of it. You brought your shaky hands to your mouth and touched what was now definitely fangs instead of the usual human canines. You whimpered, looking up at Billy, your eyes filled with vulnerability, pleading for help, for answers.

His heart was breaking all over again at seeing you this way. He remembered how scary it was to be turned and he hated that you were going through it. He walked over, cradling your face in his hands as his mind was still reeling that you were really here.

"You're a vampire, kitten," he murmured, not able to hide the sadness in his voice.

You looked up at him, stunned for a moment before breaking into a fit of giggles. The sound of it was eerie in the darkness yet you couldn't stop giggling. Of course you were a vampire now, it wasn't like life was gonna cut you a break in the afterlife. You paced around, small giggles filling the silence here and there as his words sank in. What would happen now? Would he still keep you around? How would you cope with the change on your own? And there were hunters out there now looking for vampires.

You felt all the remaining life and strength leave your body and you dropped to your knees on the floor. There wasn't any giggling now. You truly were destined to suffer and now you had nothing but the cold, dark, wasteland of eternity in front of you.

Billy looked at you, his whole body tense as his dark eyes couldn't move from you. He really wasn't sure how to fix this and he was starting to worry all of his mind games were about to come back to haunt him. He moved over to you, crouching in front of you as he tucked some of your hair behind your ear.

"Get on the bed and rest. I'll get you some… food," he muttered quietly. He hated how lost you seemed and he knew it was all his fault. He'd wanted to put you out of your misery and now he'd trapped you in it forever.

"B-but I'm covered in mud," you said weakly, thinking just how far away the bedroom was. Yet you staggered to your feet holding on to him.

He heaved a heavy sigh before scooping you into his arms.

"I got you, sweetheart. You don't gotta worry about nothin', I'll take care of you," he said softly as he carried you upstairs. He just wanted you to feel better. Wanted the pain in his chest to go away. He knew the blood would help but he couldn't help but wonder just how you'd react. Not just to your first time feeding but after too. He didn't like the uncertainty of the whole thing, not knowing just how you were going to be now you were turned.

You nodded and whispered thankful words to him, closing your eyes.

"So tired," you said, wishing you could sleep forevermore, ironically.

He walked to the bedroom, holding you with one arm as the other hand pulled the covers back on the bed. He didn't care about the mud. The sheets could always be changed. He lay you down before he pulled the blanket over you and perched on the bed next to you. His hand stroked your hair as he looked down at you, still feeling shocked you were here.

"I gotta go out and get you somethin' to eat. You gotta promise to stay here and rest, alright?" He asked softly. The last thing he needed was a baby vampire going out and feeding. First feeds were intense and you'd end up exposing yourself. But he knew you were weak and tired so he hoped you'd just stay in bed 

"Will you come back to me?" You asked, anxious he was just gonna go away, get rid of you for a second time.

"I'll always come back to you, kitten," he murmured, voice wavering a little before he leaned down and pressed a kiss to your forehead. He loathed himself for what he'd done to you. You gave him a weak smile and nodded, making yourself comfortable in his bed, letting his smell wash your worries away.

He gave you one last look before he stood and left the room. He was wearing sweats and a t-shirt, his hair all over. He hadn't been looking after himself. He slipped on a hoodie and some sneakers before he quickly left, locking the door behind him. When he got to his car, he sat there gripping the steering wheel as he blew out an unnecessary breath. He's spent the last two days wishing he could take it all back. Wishing he could have you back with him. Now he had and he wasn't sure what to think. It was the typical case of be careful what you wish for. You were back but you weren't… you. Not fully. You were different and he wasn't sure just how different you'd be. He didn't like the uncertainty of the whole thing. He felt like this was more of that karma bullshit. Just more suffering on top of everything. Now he had to watch you going through all of this with no idea just how fucked your head would be. He tried to push all of his thoughts away, tried to focus on the fact you were back. He started the car as he pulled out, his goal to go and find someone for you to drain. 

When Billy got to the bar, he was well aware he wasn't his usual pristinely dressed self. He hadn't exactly had time to change and make sure he looked presentable. But despite the fact he looked like he'd been living in the gym for a couple of days, he knew he would still be the best looking guy in the place. He walked in with his head held high, making a beeline to the bar. He ordered a drink and when it came, he sipped it leisurely as his dark eyes scanned the place for his target. The place wasn't exactly classy but it was full to the brim. He'd thought quite a bit on his way over to distract his mind that was going a mile a minute. He'd thought about what kind of victim he'd pick for you. Guys were out of the question or course. Not only did he just really dislike the idea but girls were much easier to subdue. Easier to lure and reel in. 

There was a blonde woman at a table by herself. Big breasts and tiny everywhere else. A typical little Barbie. He'd fucked plenty of girls like that in the past though he'd admit they were never really his favorite. Then you came along and nobody was good enough. He didn't think you'd be fond of that one so his eyes looked elsewhere. Each one ended up a firm no and he was getting frustrated as he drank his drink, but then his eyes met a pretty redhead's across the bar. Her clothes left little to the imagination and Billy could see quite clearly just why she was in a place like this. She clearly had a goal in mind herself. She was attractive, although nothing compared to you, but she was the only one who'd piqued his interest. And yeah maybe the red hair was what sold him since he'd always had a thing for redheads. If he had to watch you feed then he could at least make it entertaining.

He had mixed feelings about the whole you being a vampire thing. He hated that he'd done this to you when the whole point of killing you was so you'd finally find peace after suffering your whole life. But the beast inside of him was strangely pleased at the revelation. Not only because it meant you were back but also because he couldn't wait to meet your own little monster. The rational side of him was worried about it. A lot of people when turned would end up with their worst traits enhanced and he was worried about your mental state after all the trauma you'd been through. The more primal side of him couldn't wait to watch you bare your fangs and feed and he knew his body would have a certain reaction to seeing it. He felt all mixed up, more divided by his nature than he'd ever felt before. He'd always felt one with the beast since he'd turned but now he felt like Billy and the monster were two different people.

He pushed all of the thoughts out of his head. He was here for a reason. He gave the redhead a sly smirk before he turned back to face forward as he sipped his drink. Just as he knew she would, she came over and sat next to him.

"Hi, my name's Louisa," she purred, fluttering her lashes flirtatiously. Billy glanced at her, flashing her his best charming smile as he finished the rest of his drink off in one go. It was regular whisky so it wasn't like it did anything.

"Billy," he supplied, his dark eyes purposely sweeping over her body. He wasn't disappointed and it had the desired effect when she smirked widely and leaned closer to him.

"Nice to meet you Billy," she said softly. 

He licked his lower lip before twisting in his seat to face her better.

"I'll be honest… I've had a real shitty day. Usually I'd turn on the charm and buy you a coupla drinks, but right now all I wanna do is take you home and show you a good time," he murmured smoothly, lips tugging into a smirk. She looked taken aback by his boldness for a moment before she giggled, biting down on her lower lip.

"Sounds like a plan to me," she grinned, wiggling her brows at him. His smirk widened but only because of how easy it was. He needed to get back home to you. The idea of you laying in bed hungry and sad didn't sit well with him. 

Before long he was pulling into the driveway of his house. Louisa had been pretty handsy on the way back here but he'd successfully avoided her advances with the excuse of wanting to get somewhere private and comfortable. He unlocked the door and let her go through first before he walked in and locked the door. He grabbed her wrist and tugged her to him, leaning in like he might kiss her.

"Don't fight back and don't scream. You're not scared and you wanna be here," he muttered lowly, using his compulsion on her. It would be messy enough as it was since it was your first feed and the last thing he needed was her causing a scene. He took her hand and led her up the stairs to the bedroom.

You opened your eyes the moment you heard the door close. You could hear the steady heartbeat, pumping rhythmically but the sound wasn’t what woke you, the smell was. It had you sit up in bed moaning, the mouthwatering smell getting stronger and stronger, following Billy to the bedroom. The door opened, your eyes flickered to Billy then to her. She reminded you of the first girl he brought home to make you jealous, a low primal growl escaped your lips, fangs descending with a hiss as you glared back at her. You glared so intensely  from the bed it was a miracle she didn’t burst into flame.

Billy watched you for a moment with rapt attention, taking in your reaction. If he wasn't a big bad vampire himself then he might have been intimidated by the look on your face. It was a good job he'd compelled the girl or she'd be making a run for it.

"What do you think, kitten?" He asked softly, wondering how you felt about his choice. If he was honest, he didn't really need to be so fussy. Anyone would have done, blood was blood. But he'd tried to put some thought into who he brought back for you.

You stayed perched on the edge of the bed like a wild cat studying her prey, your head tilting this way and that way, not hearing Billy. The only thing your brain was processing was her, more specifically, her blood, every cell of your being zeroing on her.

Billy's eyes darted from you to the girl and then back again. The girl was looking around curiously, completely relaxed and not sensing the very real danger literally right in front of her. He didn't say a word, just waiting for the other shoe to drop as he watched you. Waiting for you to pounce.

You were standing in front of her in the blink of an eye, your small hand grabbing her by the throat at a painful angle like she was a ragdoll. You tilted your head to one side, your unblinking empty eyes on her, the beast in you making small chirping like noises.

Something washed over Billy and he wasn't quite sure what. But he watched you with slightly parted lips and dark eyes, taking in everything about this new version of you. It was strange. You'd gone from acting like a scared little girl to a predator and he didn't think he'd ever be able to get used to that.

You pounced, sinking your fangs deep and hard in her neck. You gripped her so tightly you felt her shoulder bones snap with a loud wet noise. The moment her sweet blood touched your tongue, you fell into a bottomless frenzy. You dropped to your knees, taking her down with you as you gnawed at her neck for more blood. Her precious heart pumped all the blood into your mouth without you even having to suck, making you purr and moan in ecstasy. You looked up at Billy with your crimson eyes adorned with dark protruding veins.

He felt his own eyes change as yours met his. A small part of himself was devastated to see you this way. That he'd done this to you. But most of him was overtaken by the primal tugging he felt pulling at him for you. His beast reaching out to yours. Seeing you vamp out like this and feeding had arousal flooding his system hard.

You pulled back to spit a piece of muscles to the floor and went back to suck the last drops her feeble heart could give you. Her neck finally snapped at the rough handling, the final straw making her poor heart stop completely. You hissed, shaking her body like an empty bottle of ketchup, biting her wrists to get every last drop of it. You wanted more, you needed more, more, more...

You tossed her to the side, a new faint smell reaching you after feeding for the first time, completing the process. In what felt like two steps, you were kneeling head first in the kitchen fridge, ripping apart one of the blood bags Billy kept in case of emergencies.  

Billy looked at the door where you'd vanished from and growled. He'd tried to grab you but even with his fast reflexes, you were faster and he hadn't been able to stop you. Baby vampires were a bitch to deal with. He used his vamp speed to follow you down to the kitchen, knowing full well your hunger wasn't sated yet. He remembered that feeling well. It would ease over time and the blood lust was easier to control after a while. But you were newly turned so he'd have to deal with that for a little bit. 

You spit back the first sip, choking on the disgusting stale taste of it yet going back to gnaw at the bag. You emptied two more before finally feeling satiated. You finally stood up, heaving a long sigh, feeling your body mend itself with the blood. Your thoughts were now clearer, your body felt strong yet agile, fast. It felt like electricity in your veins. You turned to Billy, looking even more handsome and flawless with your vampire sight, licking your lips.

You looked like you felt better and Billy's body relaxed a little, despite the arousal still coursing through his veins. The small part of him that was conflicted over the whole thing seemed to get quieter and quieter the more he felt his need for you grow. The more his animalistic side to him took over. You had blood all over your chin, dripping from your mouth, dirt all over you. Yet to the monster in him, you'd never looked more perfect.

“Shower?” You suggested, licking the blood off your fingers, giving him an innocent-like look as if you didn’t just crush and drink a human dry and three bags of blood. He blinked dumbly at you for a moment, eyes red and intense as he watched you licking the blood from your fingers.

…What has he done

[wandringaesthetic]

Shooting from the hip review of Castlevania Nocturne:

(vague spoilers)

This is an even more loose adaptation of Rondo of Blood than the first series was of Castlevania III with the only significant consistency being Richter and Maria and their character designs and abilities.

This is, imo, fine. Castlevania games are 90% vibes and nothing significant is lost here.

I might be more interested in Olrox, mysterious ancient third camp vampire very unimpressed by the main villain, and warrior priest Mizrak than I am in Richter, but Richter's mid act breakdown is still pretty compelling and Juste's whole deal makes a potentially interesting can as to paint on.

The best sequences in this make good use of music.

Linking vampires, decadent French nobles and plantation owners makes sense and linking up vampire hunters, revolutionaries, and Caribbean slave rebellions..,. Works. I was afraid of this feeling forced, but the writers seemed to mostly know what they were doing. The writers also seem to understand religion better than Warren Ellis, so the corrupted priests this time around feel more realistically self deluded rather than straight up cartoon villains.

The tone of the first series is mostly maintained, with less of the weird, stretchy pacing. I kind of liked the weird pacing of the first series (at least.... most of the time) because it allowed for a lot of meaningless dialogue between my OT3 and things like Isaac having a bunch of long, spiritual conversations with characters who never appear again. This is somewhere between risky and just bad writing, so I quite understand that we're going at more of a brisk and steady pace this time around. It might have been nice to breathe a little more, though. Wasn't 100% convinced by the hints of Richter/Annette romance to the extent that I feel like I might have missed something. But so far it's just in the blushing stage so fine.

This is a weird vehicle for its themes, but the first series was also a weird vehicle for pretty much all of its themes so it feels right, feels natural.

I liked it. Would like to see some things explored more but can't think of any major criticisms. We'll see where it goes from here.

#Castlevania #Castlevania Nocturne

[lestatthebrat]

About the Racists, Homophobes, and Purists Reviewing amc’s “Interview with the Vampire”

To put it bluntly: the people giving this show bad reviews are racists and homophobes. This is a damn good show that breathes new life into an old story, and the fan reviews claiming that this adaptation is “horrible” and a “disgrace” to Anne Rice’s work are simply bigots who cannot stand to see two men kissing on screen and/or who are ridiculously offended that Black actors are playing Louis and Claudia. 

Don’t believe me? Look at what fan reviewer joshua g had to say on Rotten Tomatoes: “Of course they would take a classic that does not need change, and turn it into a homosexual love story.” Obviously, his 0.5-star rating (the lowest rating possible on Rotten Tomatoes) was not motivated by the quality of the show but by his own homophobia. P W is another fan reviewer who gave the show a whopping 0.5 stars, because he has a problem with People of Color playing some of the leading characters. He says: “At some point, the intentional casting of minorities in reboots is going to end. History will look unfavorably at the practice.” Fan reviewer Rich G says it even more bluntly: “I dislike this show for one very specific reason. The race swapping of Louis and Claudie” (the misspelling of Claudia’s name is his mistake, not mine). Meanwhile, a fan reviewer on IMDb, GeorgeWHAMMYBush, gave the show a 1/10 (the lowest possible rating on IMDb) and this review: “They made the whole thing a dismally shot propaganda piece and it's painful to sit through… The plot gets obliterated completely in this and it's barely about vampirism at all and is now about race and sexual orientation. The whole thing is a waste of time. They then go after religion because while it was touched on as offensive to vampires in the books here it is clearly the target of the hacks who made this abomination. This could be studied in school as a part of a series on why American media failed when it had every chance to succeed. Whoever made this should be banned from the media industry entirely. Do not bother watching this. It will just aggravate you.” Most of the very low reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and IMBb are reminiscent of these examples, and it’s cringingly obvious these people just hate the show because they are racist and homophobic.  

It amuses me that some of these bigots are attempting to use their alleged “love” for the source material as a mask for their racism and homophobia. Like “HOW DARE THEY CHANGE ANNE RICE’S BOOK AND MAKE LOUIS A BLACK MAN INSTEAD OF A SLAVE OWNER!?” or “HOW DARE THEY MAKE LOUIS GAY JUST TO SEEM WOKE!?” But if these so called “avid fans” actually read any of Anne Rice’s books, they must have stopped after book one, because if they got even to book 2 they would have known that Louis and Lestat have ALWAYS been an LGBT couple. If you read book 1, “Interview with the Vampire,” and missed the pretty-hard-to-miss subtext, go re-read it. To recap: Louis talks about how Lestat “had me mesmerized, enchanted” (direct quote); Louis explicitly compares Lestat turning him into a vampire to sex; he and Lestat live together for over sixty year; and they adopt a child together. By book 2, “The Vampire Lestat,” Lestat has male lovers both before and after becoming a vampire, and he confirms that he and Louis were lovers. He and Louis also have a heartfelt reunion in the 80s, and they kiss multiple times on the mouth. (I know, too gay for people who didn’t get past the Neil Jordan film.) By the time we reach the final book in of series, “Blood Communion,” Louis and Lestat are again living together, and in the final chapter of the book, they dance together at a ball, embrace, kiss multiple times on the lips, and profess their undying love for one another. Sorry, homophobes, but these vampires ain’t never been straight, and you’d know that if you actually read the books.  

Aside from the raving racists and homophobes, there are some fan reviewers who seem to genuinely love Rice’s “Vampire Chronicles” but have a problem with the amc series diverging from the source material. Again, the “race swapping” is commonly mentioned, so I wonder how many of these people are also motivated by prejudice, but they have other problems too, such as changes in the time period, the ages of the character’s, the dialog (come on, what tv show preserves all of the dialogue from the books?), and even tiny unimportant details like the vampires “spilling blood” when they kill people. I understand when you passionately love a book series (and I myself passionately love “The Vampire Chronicles”), you imagine the story and characters a certain way, but what these people need to realize is that it is not unusual, uncommon, unfair, or disrespectful for tv reboots or movies to make changes from the books. “Interview with the Vampire” was already made into a very successful and well-known movie in 1994, and most remakes/reboots that do NOT try anything new but simply repeat what has already been done fail miserably. “Psycho,” “Nightmare of Elm Street,” “Carrie”... these are all movies that took a classic and remade it more or less the same as the original, and all of these films were brushed off and forgotten because they offered nothing new and exciting, nothing updated and relevant, nothing thought-provoking that would allow the audience to think of things in a different way or see things in a new light. In simply repeating the original with different actors, they failed to live up to the original. The same thing has happened when books have been made into movies and then later into tv series: look at “The Shining.” Most people don’t even know the inferior miniseries exists, even though it is more accurate to the book and Stephen King wrote it himself. On the contrary, some of the most successful remakes, the kind of remakes that make people say, “This is better than the original!”—which, by the way, the majority of critics and fans ARE saying about amc’s “Interview with the Vampire”—are remembered and beloved because they do not just rehash the same old material but because they put a spin on old characters and content; they make changes and updates; they offer the audience something new, exciting, current, and relevant, something more and something deeper. Some examples: “The Fly,” “The Thing,” “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” This is what amc is doing with “Interview with the Vampire.” 

So, if you earnestly love the original books, that’s wonderful, but you have the books, and you can read them as many times as you want. You also have the Neil Jordan film which you can re-watch to your liking. Now, the amc series is remaking/rebooting this series, and it is not a crime for production teams to take creative liberties, and I honestly do not see this as a disrespect to Anne Rice’s work either. She SOLD the rights of her work for this television series, which means the production team can make whatever changes they want. That’s how it goes for any author whose book is being made into a movie: they sign the contract, they get paid (and Anne Rice most likely got paid millions of dollars for this series) and they don’t have any say over what changes are made to the production. Even most script writers who spend months or years creating characters and writing a story, if they are lucky enough to sell their script to a production company, they lose creative control over that story. That’s just the way it works. It’s nothing new. It’s nothing shocking. And it’s not a “disgrace.” This has been going on literally always since movies and television shows have been made based on books. Have you ever seen the “original” 1931 “Frankenstein” movie? Ever compare it to Mary Shelley’s book? So like I was saying, movies/tv shows departing from the source material is nothing new and nothing to be “furious” or “disgusted” about. 

Now, if you love the show, please go leave a review on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes, because it’s being review-bombed by racists and homophobes and purists who want to see it tank! But we won’t let that happen because they dumbass bitches and love wins! ♥️ 

#amc's interview with the vampire #AMC+ #AMC #amc plus #interview with the vampire #Lestat De Lioncourt #lestat #Louis de Pointe du Lac #lestat x louis #loustat #homophobia #racisim #rotten tomatoes #imdb #reviews #critic reviews #the vampire chronicles #claudia