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yume127 · 5 days

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I find it interesting how Roxas is often described as the “angry one” or “short-tempered one” when compared to Sora or Ventus, mostly because I always felt Sora and Ven have a shorter fuse than Roxas.

The association between Roxas and anger is understandable, because many of Roxas’ most poignant moments in the series happen when he is very (and understandably) angry, but I also feel like it’s a disservice to his character to only reduce him to his anger, especially when it’s far from who he is in normal circumstances.

For example, during Days, many Organization members treat him poorly and insult him to his face and, for the most part, Roxas doesn’t react at all. In Halloween Town, Lock, Shock, and Barrel throw bombs in his face multiple times before Roxas finally snaps at them. He senses that many people around him are keeping things from him, but it takes him months before he confronts someone about it. That’s far from someone I’d consider short-tempered or easy to anger.

The only situation I can think of when we see him get upset quickly is if anyone does or says something bad to Xion and, even then, the most of his reaction is verbally snapping at Saix to make him stop disrespecting her. In Axel’s case (when Roxas is upset with him for attacking Xion), Roxas doesn’t confront him at all, he just avoids him altogether. Also, I think it’s important to note that every moment in which Roxas is very angry happens when his entire life is falling apart, which is a situation in which, I believe, everyone would be upset.

Roxas seems the kind of person who bottles everything up without much reaction until it becomes too much and he explodes, and that’s when he has a hard time controlling his anger/emotions. Having spent most of his life in the organization probably plays a part in it as, every time he brings up any emotion, his feelings are invalidated and suppressed. That’s not an environment that gave him the tools to process strong emotions in a healthy way.

Let’s compare that to Ventus. Ven is the definition of short-tempered in BBS. He’s ready to throw hands with Vanitas the moment he says something remotely bad about Terra, which was minutes after he met him for the first time. He fought the dwarves without a second thought just because they refused to talk with him. His first reaction when he becomes small and is trapped in a mousetrap is to shout. These are just some examples from the top of my head, but it’s clear Ven has a shorter fuse than Roxas.

Ventus usually expresses how he feels in any given situation and has a short fuse. On the flip side, he doesn’t seem to hold on to these feelings at all. He externalises them the moment he feels them, but then he lets it go and it doesn’t bother him anymore. Out of the three of them, Ventus seems the most open about his emotions and, from what I remember, when he opens up about feeling a certain way with his friends, his feelings are usually not invalidated nor brushed aside. In UX, Ventus seems calmer and doesn’t have much anger in him, but he’s still open to expressing his feelings of low self-worth and sadness with the other union leaders.

Sora, I think he falls in the middle? He seems to have a shorter temper compared to Roxas, which was especially clear in KH2, where he snaps at the Organization multiple times, but he also bottles up his emotions more than Ven, especially around his friends. This happens mostly with his sadness, which he always tries to hide or brush aside, but in KH3 we can also see, for example, how much he’s bothered by everyone constantly bringing up him not passing the Mark of Mastery, even if he tries not to show it.

I think Sora feels like he should always be happy for his friends’ sake, and even during the rare moments when he tries to express his sadness, his feelings are not truly welcomed (“No frowning. No sad faces. This boat runs on happy faces”), so he just tries to brush it off as a joke. He’s loud in expressing any kind of positive emotion, and he openly expresses his anger against his enemies (and to his friends too, sometimes), but he also doesn’t hold on to that anger and is pretty forgiving. However, he usually bottles up his sadness, low self-esteem and other negative feelings, and then explodes when he can’t hold it together any longer (like it happened at the Keyblade Graveyard when he thought all his friends were gone forever).

#roxas #ventus #sora #kingdom hearts #kh #i wonder if this misconception about roxas happens because most of his personality is shown in days #like in the actual game not in the movie #and maybe people who didn't play days don't know his characterization during the game #even if i would argue sora and especially ventus suffer from the same problem but opposite #where they're often described as always happy and sunshine when there's much more to their characterization #anyway i just wanted to talk about them #sorry for any mistakes #long post

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miley1442111 · 27 days

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I don't even know you anymore- s.reid

a/n: this is kind of short so sorry, also it is deeply sad because i clearly love hurting my own feelings :( intended for fem or male reader, so imagine what you like:)))))))))

summary: you anniversary should be a night between you and spencer, right?

pairing: spencer reid x reader

warnings: general angst, cheating and breaking up

It was a cold night. You were supposed to see a show but as usual, ‘something came up’. You had been working with Dr. Spencer Walter Reid for 4 years, 5 months and 3 days. You had been dating Dr. Spencer Walter Reid for 3 years, and 4 hours. It was your anniversary. You walked up the stairs to your shared apartment, ready for a night of feeling sorry for yourself and eating a sad, lonely dinner. You had sent your tickets to see ‘The Mousetrap’ to Jj, she said Will and her would go instead since Spencer had ‘something to do’. You couldn’t help but feel dejected and unimportant. Why wouldn’t he tell you what he’s doing? Why didn’t he call you back? You tried to push those thoughts out of your head as you turned the key to your apartment and walked inside. Inside,you saw Spencer and you saw Jj. Jj and Spencer were kissing. Your boyfriend was kissing someone else. Your boyfriend was kissing the woman he had a crush on for years.

Fuck.

“Am I interrupting something?” You said, bitterness punctuating every word. You dropped the groceries on the counter as they pulled apart, Jj looking nervous and Spencer looking… upset? Is that the right way to put it? Like a child that broke something after being told not to touch it.

“It’s not what it looks like-” Jj started.

“Yes, yes it is. You two were kissing, and I really don’t fucking care who kissed who, I just want you to get out of my house.”

Jj starts to gather her things and Spencer stands there, looking down.

“That includes you Spencer,” You smiled sourly as he looked up and stared at you. “Maybe you two can catch a show? I already sent you the tickets for tonight. Have fun!”

“Please-” Spencer started, tears in his eyes.

“No. You made your fucking bed, lay in it.” He went to touch your arm, “Don’t touch me,” You spat out, he retracted his hand.

“Just, let him explain it, please,” Jj pleaded as she left your apartment.

You walked back to the kitchen and started putting the groceries away. “So that was what you were busy doing? Didn’t realise you thought so little of me.”

He touched your arm to stop your movements and you stared at him. He’s crying, like you’re the one who’s hurt him. “Please,” He begged. “Just listen to me.”

You scoffed but nodded, allowing him to continue.

“She texted me saying she was in trouble… so I went to find her. She said she’d been mugged outside the club like a block away, so I went to find her. I know now that she hadn’t been but she just asked to come back here, and ‘calm down’ so I let her. We came inside, then she started saying all this weird stuff about how me and her were ‘meant to be’ or something. I shut her down immediately and she just kissed me and then…”

“But you didn’t stop her from kissing you,” You sighed, allowing the hurt he’s caused to be shown.

“What? She had just kissed me-”

“Spencer I’m not stupid, your hair is ruffled, so is your shirt, and you have her lipstick on your lips. Don’t try to lie to me about this. I’m a profiler, remember?”

He looked down, ashamed. Then he wiped his lips. “I’m sorry.”

“I am too.”

He looked up, alarmed, his hands holding your waist in place so you couldn’t move. “What?”

“Spencer, I don’t trust you. I can’t. I don’t know who you are anymore.”

His face broke, a tear falling down his cheek. “Please, I’m begging you, I love you.”

“Spencer, get your hands off me,” You sighed. “Just let me go.”

“Please. I’m begging you-”

“Spencer! Enough, just stop!” You pushed his hands off of you. “Have you not done enough?!”

“Please-” You moved past him and went to your bedroom, locking the door behind you. You lay in bed, thinking about how you’ll deal with this. You didn’t want to break up with Spencer. But you just couldn’t trust him anymore.

#criminal minds #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds fic #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid x reader #doctor spencer reid #criminal minds fandom #dr spencer reid #criminal minds fanfic #bau team

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che-bur-ashka · 1 year

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“you are a good nurse” (knives out and great men)

***(this is extremely spoilery for both knives out and glass onion. read with caution)***

In quarantine, in a smaller apartment than you might expect, Benoit Blanc is playing Among Us. This is a game—like Clue—which the celebrity detective hates. It’s too simple, too obvious, and too easy to resolve. Although he holds himself to be better than these “stupid things,” they are also a weakness—later, we will be told that he nearly failed to solve a case because it was too simple all along. For now, the gentleman sleuth is doing poorly in isolation, suffering from an all-consuming boredom which descends between cases (a trait he shares with his literary antecedents in Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes). This is, all in all, a tremendous reintroduction to Blanc, the detective who, in 2019’s Knives Out, solved the murder of James PattersoHarlan Thrombey and who—in 2022’s Glass Onion—will attend a murder-mystery themed weekend getaway of the innermost circle of tech billionaire Elon MusMiles Bron. Blanc shares DNA with the classic sleuths—but he is both more and less of a hero than they were. Much of that has to do with the communities he finds himself in. Murder mysteries have always run on high-energy casts of colorful characters—most especially in the works of Agatha Christie, whose Mousetrap, Murder on the Orient Express, and And Then There Were None feel like important steps on the road to Knives Out. Working with big tropes and cliches makes sense in a genre which is, in many ways, about developing and subverting reader expectations, and the two Knives Out films certainly build on that mold, establishing a set of stock characters drawn from the here and the now. Whether we’re dealing with a wealthy college student who sets her political beliefs aside to bow to the demands of her family (Katherine Langford as Meg Thrombey, Knives Out) or an internet micro-influencer about to explode into the mainstream screaming about the downfall of western masculinity (Dave Bautista as Duke Cody, Glass Onion), the supporting casts of both Benoit Blanc murder-flicks are fresh tropes for a fresh culture. They’re also—critically—all drawn from a particular world. Children of wealthy families, publishing executives, influencers, lifestyle models—these are people given a huge privilege, not only in the quality of their lifestyles but in the degree of their control over the direction of their lives. Although Knives Out and Glass Onion both depict circles dependent on the charity of individual, powerful men—Harlan Thrombey and Miles Bron, respectively—they are also circles made up of people who society grants decision-making power, imbuing them with the belief that they are the protagonists of life granted the god-given right to personhood in contrast to those in sidelined roles—the help, medical staff, and “Derol.” The heroes of both films, however, are the odd ones out. They are neither the suspects (the colorful ensembles of those who “could have done it”) nor the celebrity sleuth himself (on whom everyone depends to solve the mystery and straighten things out), but rather those who are pushed to the side—assumed to be objects, not actors. Marta and Helen are the Watsons of both movies—the characters through whom we view the story, whose experiences frame and color our own (Helen takes on this role predominantly in the second half of the movie, once her true identity has been revealed to the audience). Unlike Holmes’s Watson or Poirot’s Arthur Hastings, however, these two characters are not neutral “straight characters” but individuals who suffer an active isolation, people who—however “normal” they might be in comparison to the cast—are marginalized and assumed to occupy a passive space. This positioning impacts their perspective, skewing things for viewers, reminding us that there is no apolitical way to view these events—and not to normalize the antics of the elite. In both cases—as Marta is Harlan’s long-term nurse and Helen is dedicated to seeking justice for her sister—they are presumed to, and in many cases do, act without ego, functioning solely as objects and in the ecosystem which surrounds the powerful decision makers (Harlan Thrombey and Miles Bron) and support systems on which the protagonists of life can lean. Although the films work to counteract this assumption—reminding us of the fundamental personhood of both Helen and Marta—it is also partially through their dedication to serving others that both Helen and Marta succeed. Blanc puts this clearly in Knives Out when he reveals that he knew Marta was involved in the murder from the start: “I want you to remember something very important:” he says “You won not by playing the game Harlan's way, but yours.” The heroes of these films do not succeed by using their invisible status to their advantage in playing “the game Harlan’s way,” getting one up on everybody by being the cleverest person in the room. Rather, they succeed by staying true to their values and doing what they know is right—even if that means sacrificing themself to the cause of another because it is right. For Marta this is attempting to save Fran—for Helen it is running out of clever ways to seek justice for her sister, and setting fire to theb building instead. By working against their own self-interest in the “game” or “puzzle” of a murder mystery, both Helen and Marta defeat their antagonists. In Knives Out, the Thrombey family spends much of their time bickering over who really deserves to inherit Harlan’s legacy—and the film is clear that none of them can truly claim to have built success themselves, as each was granted the privilege and security of their family’s wealth. None are truly as independent—we might say, “protagonal” —as they believe. Glass Onion takes this a step further, attacking the “source” of the cycle of wealth. While Harlan Thrombey seems to have been a generally good man, a skilled storyteller, and a strong judge of character—it was his decision to reward Marta, and not his kin, with the inheritance—Glass Onion’s counterpart in Miles Bron is explicitly framed as lacking substance (being a “Glass Onion,” which appears deep but is in fact easy to see through) and having simply been in the right place in the right time to steal someone else’s work. There is no “self-made man” or “good billionaire” in Glass Onion—only people who were lucky enough to be given the opportunity to step on someone else on their way up the ladder. This developed critique of “great men” plays directly into the events of Glass Onion’s climax. Unlike Knives Out, where the police are presented as broadly interested in justice and glad to work alongside Blanc although their investigation has already ended, Glass Onion demonstrates explicitly how systems of power—the courts and the police, but also social dynamics and community pressures—can be bent to the defense of those assumed to be powerful decision makers (like Miles Bron or Ransom Thrombey). There were allusions to this in Knives—where Ransom claims that Benoit solving the murder means nothing, since he has good lawyers and will avoid a significant sentence—but they are eventually unsubstantial, as Marta tricks Ransom into confessing in front of two officers and he is arrested as a result. When, in Glass Onion, when the only evidence to Bron’s crime is burned, Blanc himself seems to surrender, claiming that “This is where my jurisdiction ends” before leaving the room (though not before handing Helen the physical and emotional material she needs to literally burn Miles Bron’s island home to the ground). Although Helen eventually manages to set fire to the Mona Lisa—defeating Bron by ruining his public image, not through criminal prosecution—this does not seem to be her intention when she begins destroying the mansion. In this, Glass Onion seems to develop a second critique of Knives Out—not only do we come to question the validity of the narrative of “good” billionaires, we are shown that, faced with hostile powers insulating themselves within systems of law and order, the only path to justice may be working outside the law and our basic (i.e. carceral) assumptions of what “justice” is. As the emergency services arrive to pick up a body, Benoit sits on the beach, smoking a cigar. His hands are clean, and he has inspired Helen to the heroic action that she must take. He is as smart as any Holmes, but he did not do his part in this adventure in the way Holmes would, by playing the game, solving the puzzle, and handing things over to the police. Rather, Benoit has himself taken on a supportive role—supportive to Helen, who has, in turn, taken action and found justice for her sister. He understands the limits of his jurisdiction—in other words, he knows when it is actually his turn to be the protagonist, and when it is his role to inspire others. In a world full of people who claim to have risen to power by their skill and focus, Blanc actually has remarkable skill—but he uses them, ultimately, to ends of uplifting the meek, not simply restoration of order.

#knives out #glass onion #benoit blanc #glass onion spoilers

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socialshakespeare · 1 month

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With you guys doing Hamlet as your play your reading this month, it aligns with my performance of Hamlet (and so sadly couldn’t read in) but I thought I’d share some tidbits from this performance:

- there are two Hamlets as Hamlet speaks so much, they do share To Be or Not To Be and it’s glorious - Both Hamlets are played by queer women. As a result, Hamlet is by no means straight. It’s been agreed in the cast that Hamlet has slept with Laertes, Horatio, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern. - The ghost speaks through the tannoy system - Claudius and Gertrude first entrance is to Donna Summer’s Hot Stuff. They have a choreographed dance number too. - We only have one prop knife. It is known as “the communal dagger” since it’s used by Both Hamlets, Laertes, and Guildenstern. Not all at once thankfully. - Speaking of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, they’re both being played as frat bros. Claudius can’t tell them apart. - The dumb show is done with masks and a paper crown made out of the script. - Instead of The Mousetrap, Hamlet recites a poem (one the actor wrote herself) with heavy bass playing while Horatio stares down Claudius menacingly. - Hamlet also gets a sick recorder solo. Or at least it would be sick, but she can’t play the recorder. - During one scene, Hamlet gets tied up and dragged onstage by Guildenstern. She also runs off and Guildenstern has to make chase - The gravedigger is Icelandic and they sing the songs in Icelandic. - Yorick’s skull does not exist. Hamlet mimes holding one. - Ophelia also doesn’t have a grave. But Laertes and Hamlet fight in top of her regardless. - Hamlet and Laertes don’t fence. They play the Wii instead. We still have Hamlet’s line of “Since he went into France I have been in continual practice.” So it just sounds like he’s been playing games while he’s been mad. - The communal dagger makes its return. However the idea was floated around that instead it would be a poisoned Wii remote. - And finally and most importantly: Hamlet dies in Horatio’s arms. When she does, Horatio collapses on her dead body out of pure grief.

It’s been overall a fun performance to be a part of and I thought you’d enjoy these little notes.

- from Emi

#submission

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foone · 1 year

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Random physics pet peeve: when people make jokes about splitting an atom and there being a big explosion. NO! Angry science ranting under the readmore

so the energy you get from splitting a uranium atom is something like 32 trillionths of a joule. For comparison, eating one calorie provides your body with about 4 joules of energy. A tennis ball served at you by a professional has 70 joules of energy.

An atom of uranium is basically NOTHING when split.

So the reason why nuclear weapons work is that uranium (and other radioactive materials) are constantly decaying all the time, emitting alpha, beta, and gamma particles/rays. These particles contain energy, and they hit things, warming them up. This is how radioisotope thermal generators work: you basically have some radioactive materially that constantly produces heat. They're very handy for deep space missions where you're not close enough to the sun to use solar panels, and it's a real pain to refuel probes once they're out flying past neptune.

But here's the trick: if you have a U235 uranium atom and it gets hit by a neutron, it'll absorb it, becoming the less stable U236. U236 will rapidly decay, emitting gamma rays. And when other uranium atoms get hit with a bunch of gamma rays, they undergo induced fission, emitting more gamma rays and neutrons.

So think of it like this: each uranium atom has a tiny bit of energy in it, but will give it up if triggered. And when triggered, the energy released is partially in the same form needed to trigger additional uranium atoms.

So it's an amplification process. Each decay or fission event can cause more fission events to happen. If your uranium is distributed far apart, or it's mixed with some other atoms that absorb the energy without continuing the process, you get a little heat and that's all.

But there's a critical mass: once you have enough uranium (or other nuclear material) together in sufficient density, the chain reaction becomes self-sustaining. If you are careful with how fast you let this happen, you get a source of a lot of heat that you can control by moving around your fuel and your neutron-absorbing material. Congrats, you have a nuclear power plant.

And if you want it to happen as fast as possible, you compress your sub-critical mass of uranium so that it becomes supercritical. Every decay or fission event causes ten more to happen. Those ten cause a hundred to happen, those hundred cause a thousand to happen. Nanoseconds later, much of your uranium mass has turned to angry gamma rays and heat shooting out in every direction, because that is an atom bomb.

And that's the thing you need to understand: it's not that splitting an atom releases a ton of energy. It's that you can set up certain materials (made of septillions of atoms) such that they cause an avalanche effect where each energy release event causes more events to happen, and it rapidly accelerates until you run out of atoms (or more realistically, your uranium mass is no longer close together enough to continue the reaction, because it's just been blown across many square kilometers of blasted landscape)

Tl;dr: Here's a fun visual demonstration of this effect, explained using mousetraps and ping-pong balls.

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smolghostbot · 29 days

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Battle Against A Real Threat (Part 1/2)

Part 2 Here

A Non-canon AU where Contralto’s neighbor wasn’t Clay, but the worst possible person it could be. A vent piece/character study of sorts. Part 2 will be posted later today, heads-up that this ends on a low note.

Word Count: 3.8k Content warnings: Whump, tiny whump, kidnapping, injuries, threats, alcoholic whumper, snapping Contralto’s psyche like a glowstick.

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Chapter 1: Showtime

Finally, Contralto had made her way to the apartment downstairs. The one that would be the start of her heroic journey, to slay all humans so that sprites could rightfully live without fear! She just… needed to get outside the wall. Wait, perfect! An exit! Based on her apartment, this should lead to the kitchen. Not an ideal place for a heroic speech, but she could try to get somewhere higher up once she’s inside.

Messy is the first word that came to mind as Contralto entered the apartment. Several full-to-bursting trash bags were in the corner of the little kitchen, and boxes were all over the counter with a variety of logos that the sprite couldn't read. The floor wasn’t dirty, but clearly hadn’t been swept in a while, and the area under the cabinets that Contralto had found herself in was especially dusty. As Contralto looked around, she shuddered a bit at the sight of a mousetrap, which is thankfully still primed and ready. Humans… more proof that they’re monsters, the sprite thought to herself as she made her way through the apartment. It was dark, as planned, but her night vision made it a trivial trek to the living room, which was equally as disorganized as the kitchen was. Whoever lives here seemed like… not the most proactive person. This could work in her favor, as if all goes to plan they’ll be an easy target.

Finally, with some effort, she climbed up to the top of a bookcase in the corner, using a power cable to assist her. Of course, the top was covered in dust, but she quickly tried to clean up enough of an area to rest and eventually give her big speech without being covered in dust.

This apartment was… very different from her home. No posters of brave heroes, or statues in their honor… just blank walls, some simple furniture, and mess. There was a game system plugged into the TV at least. As Contralto waited, she idly wondered if they played the same games as her human… not that it mattered much, considering they’ll be slain soon.

After a quick nap and a few hours, the apartment started to become lit by morning light. Contralto jumped up, awaiting the human… who didn’t leave their bedroom. She had heard noise in the night coming from there, clearly somebody was home.

Finally, after a few impatient hours, she decided to climb down from the bookcase and make her way into the bedroom itself. Normally, this was taboo for sprites, but what does privacy matter if they were going to die soon anyways?

However, it wasn’t long after she hit the floor that a creaking noise was heard as the door to the bedroom door opened. With nowhere to go, Contralto climbed up the nearest furniture, being the coffee table in the center of the room. Not the height advantage she hoped for, but it would do. She closed her eyes quickly and took a few deep breaths as she rehearsed her speech. Finally, the human walked into the room, and their bleary, deep blue eyes met with the lime eyes of the little hero. It was showtime.

“Human-”, the little sprite started to say, before being instantly interrupted by a very blunt “What the fuck?” as the wide-eyed human stared at her.

“Ahem,” Contralto said, clearing her throat, “I was saying… Human, prepare yourself for a fight! For centuries, sprites have lived in the darkness, fearing your kind. Well no more! Today is when that changes! That's why it is my goal to eliminate all humans, starting with you! Now, draw your weapon, human! And prepare as I, Contralto, Hero of the Sprites, Defender of the Helpless, the Hero Who Never Gives Up, will defeat you and free my people! Prepare to be struck down by the combined hopes and dreams of all of spritekind!”

As Contralto shouted her speech, which she had rehearsed for days, she noticed the human was slowly moving, first to the kitchen and then getting closer to her. She paid it no mind at first, but after she finished, she noticed the human was particularly close to the table, leaning down over it, their hands behind their back. Were they… planning something? She’d have to be on guard for them to draw a weapon.

“Contralto… a sprite, you called yourself?” The human finally said, their voice slightly alluring to the little hero.

“That’s what I said! You stand before Contralto, Hero of the Sprites, Defender of the Helpless, The Hero Who Never Gives Up!”

“Fascinating… so, tell me, little hero, have you come here alone?” The human replied, tilting their head inquisitively. This question seemed to confuse Contralto, who took a second before responding.

“Um… Yes, it is the way of the hero to travel alone… most of the time. If I find a mage or a good enough thief I’ll reconsider…” she started to say, before snapping back into her bold persona. “But that’s of no consequence to you, human!”

“Of course, of course, excuse me for prying, I just… wanted to know what I was up against… a little hero, who thinks she’s going to defeat the big bad humans… breaking into my apartment, alone…” Their sapphire-blue eyes seemed to glimmer for a second, as if they had an idea.

“I don’t just think so, I am! Now, are you ready to fight?” shouted Contralto as she struck a heroic pose.

“Hm…” the human said, before flashing a grin that instantly made Contralto nervous. “No, I don’t think so.”

And with that, the human quickly slammed down the plastic container they were holding behind their hands, trapping Contralto underneath it.

“Wh-hey! This is cheating! Let me go!” cried the muffled voice of the hero, as the human slid the container to the edge of the table, flipping the container over and trapping Contralto inside by putting the lid on three of the sides, leaving just enough of an opening for air.

“H-hey! Stop it! This isn’t how this is supposed to go!” The sprite cried out. “I’m a hero! You’re supposed to fight me!”

“Oh, why would I want to fight something like you? No, I think we’ll have a lot more fun instead, little Connie.”

“That’s not my name! It’s Contralto! Hero of the Sprites! Defender of the Helpless! The Hero Who Never G-” she started to exclaim, before the container was roughly shaken from side to side, throwing Contralto against the walls.

“Sorry, I think I missed that. Care to repeat it?”, said the human with a smile as they stared into the container.

“I… I said I’m Contralto, Hero of the Sprites, Defender of-”, Contralto started, before the container was jostled again, this time with a bit more force.

“Ooh, I think you got cut off there, try one more time?” The human said, still with a smile on their face.

There was a moment of silence and stillness before Contralto began to shout. “You dare mock me?! I’m Contralto, Hero of-”, she started, but this time the container was moved vertically, slamming Contralto against the lid before she was thrown back to the bottom of the container. The human simply smiled at her, blinking blankly as if they had done no wrong, as Contralto felt her nose starting to bleed from one of the impacts.

“I’m Contralto… Hero of-”

Thump.

“I’m… Contralto, Hero of th-”

Thump.

“I… I… y-you heard it before! You know who I am!” cried the sprite, not wanting to repeat this little “game”.

“Of course, Connie. Now, if you’re done trying to fight me, I think we have some things to do. After all, I’m assuming you don’t want to stay in this container.” said the human, with an almost cooing tone to their voice.

Chapter 2: New Home

It had been a few hours since Contralto’s capture. After their little ‘game’, the human had left the container on the counter as they left their apartment. Contralto had struggled to escape for a while, attempting to use her needles to remove the lid to no avail, and then throwing herself into the sides of the container in an attempt to push it off the counter, but after a while she had grown sore, and was now laying on the bottom of the container, tired and defeated. Was this how it ended? No, this was the part of the story where the hero was at their lowest… right?

Eventually, the human returned, holding a suspiciously large box. Contralto eyed it curiously as the human greeted her. “I’m back, Connie. Did you miss me?”

“I promise you my blades won’t miss once I’m let out of here!” spat the indignant borrower.

“Oh, Connie, there’s no need for that. You’ll learn that I’m a friend soon enough,” they said as they opened the boxes to reveal a hamster cage, to Contralto’s growing horror. She knew the rumors… the risks… this was why she became a hero, after all.

“I… you’ll never get away with this, villain!” cried Contralto, as the human put a hand over their heart in mock pain.

“Oh, you know, it hurts to be called a villain, after I bought you this nice new house and everything. Here I am, just wanting to take care of a lost little hero like you…”

“You… you dare try to put me in a cage? I’m a hero, I’m going to defeat you and save the world!” cried Contralto.

“Of course you are, Connie. Now, it’s time for you to get moved into your new home. Are we going to do this the easy way, or the hard way?”

Contralto drew her blades, staring daggers at the human, who only chuckled before replying. “Ah, I see you’re still doing things the hard way. I guess we’ll have to work on that.”

The human approached the container, picking it up and removing the lid, before giving it a little shake to disarm Contralto as she fell to the ground again. The sprite quickly went to reach for her weapons, before the container was tilted over, sending her tumbling into the hamster cage before the door was quickly shut. As the human began to carry the cage into their bedroom, they spoke to their enraged captive, who was trying her best to climb the bars and stab at their hands.

“There we go, see, that wasn’t so hard, was it Connie?” cooed the human, to Contralto’s growing rage.

“I… I swear, when I’m out of here, you’ll pay for this, human!”

“You know, I’m not so sure I’m a fan of being called ‘human’ all the time… but I suppose I’ll have plenty of time to think of a new title for you to call me, hm?”

Contralto’s cage was placed on the human’s dresser as the sprite took in the room. If the rest of the human’s house was messy, this room was downright sloppy. Clothes lay scattered everywhere, and the bed sat unmade with even more clothes on the end of it. Contralto’s eyes turned behind her to the nearby window, which the cage was in front of. She made a note that the window could be a good escape option, although they were pretty high up in this apartment, even to a human. Her thoughts were interrupted by the human, who seemed unusually lost in thought.

“Now then, let me ask you something. What do sprites eat? Since you’re my guest and all. After all, we have to keep a little hero in tip-top shape, right?”

Contralto weighed her options here. On one hand, she doesn’t want to sound like she’s submitting to the human. On the other hand… she will need food eventually. Finally, she spoke, still trying her best to keep up her hero persona.

“I… I’ll have you know that we sprites don’t eat meat, unlike you heartless humans. Not that I’ll accept any food from you, you monster!”

“Hm… that won’t be too difficult… I guess the hamster cage was more fitting than I thought… Okay, Connie, I'll be sure to get a little hero like you plenty of greens so you can grow up big and strong! Well… a bit bigger, I suppose,” the human mused, to Contralto’s growing frustration.

“You… you…” Contralto started to say in rage, her fists clenched and trembling as she stared at the human.

“Yes, me, me. Now, is there anything else I should know about taking care of a little helpless sprite?” The human said, once again using that soft, infantilizing voice that Contralto had grown to loathe.

“You should know that I’m going to destroy you when I get out of here, human!” shouted the sprite.

“My, you really do have quite the temper. We’ll have to work on that, Connie,” they said with another smirk. “But for now, I still have to go to work this afternoon, so let me get you some water before I leave.”

The human walked out, returning with some much-needed water in a bottle cap. “Now then, are you going to be good and let me put this inside your new home? Because otherwise you’ll just have to go without water.”

It was an offer Contralto couldn’t refuse… it had been a day or so since she last had anything to drink. The sprite snarled at the human as she responded, hand on one of her sheathed blades. “Fine. But if you so much as touch me…”

“Why, I wouldn’t dream of it, Connie. After all, we’re still getting to know each other. Now then,” the human said, as they opened the door and placed the bottle cap inside. True to her word, Contralto stood still until the door closed, but she wouldn’t be caught dead drinking out of it while the human was looking over her.

“Why, you’re such a good sprite, not trying to make a run for it!” cooed the human, clearly trying and succeeding in mocking Contralto. “Well, I’ll see you in a few hours. Take care, Connie!” The human cheerfully exclaimed as they walked out of the room, barely catching Contralto’s murmured death wishes.

Chapter 3: Rage Against the Machine

It had been a few days since her capture, and things were beginning to fall into a routine. The human would wake up and banter with Contralto for a bit, always with that same condescending tone. If Contralto behaved, she was given food and water, usually in the form of shredded lettuce, seeds, and other foods that Contralto recognized as feed for something like a pet. Another form of mocking her, she supposed.

Today, though, she had a plan. As the human opened the cage door to put her bottle cap of water in, Contralto lunged forward, stabbing at the human’s finger with her blades. As the human shouted in shock, Contralto made a run for the door, only to get quickly grabbed by the human’s other hand. “You-!” was all the human could shout as they stared at the sprite in their hands.

“Oh… you’re feeling feisty today, aren’t you?”, the human stated, as Contralto began to panic.

“Let go of me! Let go! Put me down! I’ll kill you!”

“You little… you’re lucky that I don’t crush you right now, you little pest! This is how you repay me for giving you food and shelter?!”

“Food and shelter? You trapped me in a cage, you monster!” cried Contralto, still squirming in the human’s grasp. The human adjusted their grip of the sprite, such that her arms were at her sides, barely gripping onto her blades. With their other hand, they grabbed the blades out of her hands, before roughly throwing her back in the cage.

“I should have taken these from you sooner,” said the human, voice free of even the mock kindness they had used previously. “A broken sewing needle… of course you were running around with trash before meeting me.” Contralto, meanwhile, was staring at the blades in the human’s hand in shock.

“No! No, you can’t! Give those back! Th-those are special! You can’t just throw them out! I… please! Please!”

The human’s eyebrows raised as they stared at Contralto, clearly mulling something over. Finally, their face returned to a neutral expression, and they spoke again with a bit more composure.

“Oh, it’s important to you, huh? Well then… maybe I’ll hold onto them after all. You can have them back… once you prove that you won’t redo this little stunt.” said the human as they put the blades into their nightstand drawer, despite Contralto’s pleas.

“Now then, I’m leaving for work. And since you chose to be naughty today, you can just wait until tomorrow for some more food and water, how about that?” the human said, not waiting for a reply as they began to turn and leave with a simple “See you later, Connie.”

Contralto was at a new low. Her blades were gone, she was trapped in a cage, she was hungry, thirsty, and weak, and she had been forced to beg her captor.

She almost thought that her situation couldn’t possibly get any worse, until she heard the sounds of the human returning from work. For some reason, they were louder and more aggressive than they had been in the prior days. Finally, the human came into the bedroom, holding a can of something. They seemed to ignore Contralto entirely, until they looked over at her, blue eyes showing pure anger.

“Well, if it isn’t my little sprite. How are we doing with no food and water?”, they said, their calm voice clearly contrasting their expression.

“I’m doing… just fine! No thanks to you, human!” spat Contralto. The human’s face seemed to twist into a snarl for a split second before returning to its prior expression.

“I’d watch your tone, little hero, today isn’t the day for your antics. Unlike you, some of us have actual problems.”

Contralto just rolled her eyes at that, before shouting in response, “Oh, I’m sure that a monster like you has so many problems in their life. The other humans can probably tell that you’re especially evil!”

“All right, that’s it!” shouted the human as they walked over to the cage, placing the can on the dresser nearby. As they jostled the cage, sending Contralto off-balance, they opened the door and quickly grabbed the defiant sprite. “I think it’s high time that little Connie learned a little respect.”

Contralto immediately started to panic again, very much fearing this human’s grasp. “H-hey! Put me down!”

“Oh, I’ll put you down… once you learn to respect me,” the human said, anger in their voice, and as Contralto could now note, a particularly strong smell of what she recognized as alcohol in their breath. She hardly had time to process, however, before the human began to fidget with her in their grip, positioning her such that they were holding one of her arms uncomfortably far backwards with two of their fingers..

“Now… I want to hear a thank you,” they said simply.

“Thank you? For capturing me? I’ll never thank you, you-” Contralto started, before shouting in pain as her arm was moved just a bit too far backwards.

“That wasn’t a thank you.”

“Hah… you think you can get me to give in? I’m… the Hero Who Never Gives Up!” Contralto defiantly shouted, before her arm was once again pushed just a bit too far backwards, causing her to shout in pain.

“That was a lot of words, but still not a thank you. Are you really going to make me be the bad guy here?”

“You are the bad guy, you mons-” Contralto started, before screaming in pain as her arm was moved even farther back.

“That still wasn’t a thank you, little Connie,”

“That’s… not my name! It’s Contralto, Hero of the Sprites, Defender of the-” Contralto started, before the human jerked her arm backwards forcefully, causing her to scream in pain again.

“Oh, little Connie… we’ve been over this. I don’t want your little speeches, what I want is a thank you, for taking care of you. Why do you have to make this so difficult?”

Contralto was struggling to breathe from the pain. She could feel a burning in her shoulder, it was probably close to dislocated, but she was the Hero Who Never Gives Up, after all. “I’ll… never thank you…” she muttered, bracing herself for another surge of pain, which was received as the human pulled her arm forward this time.

“Oh, but I think you will. I’ve got tomorrow off, after all. We have all the time in the world.”

True to their word, the human kept up their little training session for another hour before it finally came to an end.

“Are you finally ready to just say thank you?” they asked, holding the battered and bruised sprite in their hand. Her shoulder was swollen, and something was clearly wrong as even small movements caused the sprite to shriek in pain.

“N-never…”, Contralto said, having lost the will to speak in full sentences a while back. However, despite her pain, and her face streaked with tears, she truly refused to give up.

“A shame. You know, I feel like we’re not getting anywhere here…” they said, before pulling Contralto’s arm far behind her, such that her elbow started to move in an unnatural direction with a painful-sounding noise. Contralto’s vision instantly filled with stars and auras, and the human could tell that she had become unfocused.

“Come on, just say it and this will be all over, Connie. It’s only two words… thank you. Is that so hard?”

Once Contralto was able to return to the consciousness she was barely clinging to, she decided to collect herself to try to speak. “I’ll… say it… if you stop…”

“Of course, Connie. Do you think I’m a liar?”

Contralto didn’t answer, until the human gripped her arm again. “Do you think I’m a liar?”, they repeated. Contralto tried to shake her head, but her neck muscles hurt so badly that she could only speak it instead.

“No…”

“Well then, you know the deal. Just say thank you for all I’ve done for you, and I’ll let you go.”

There was a tense silence between the two of them, before Contralto finally broke.

“... Thank you…”

“Oh, why, you’re so welcome!” The human replied in a chipper tone, as they immediately went to place the defeated sprite back in her cage. “You know, I loved to hear that. I think you should get in the habit of saying it more often.”

Contralto couldn’t respond, as she simply fell down onto the opposite side of her now-broken shoulder and began to sob.

#if it wasn't explicit... this is in fact supposed to be The Previous Human from Patchwork Melody #probably the first/only time i'll actually go into detail about them but hey had to do it once right #whump #tiny whump #g/t whump #g/t angst #g/t writing #g/t fearplay #tw alcohol #oc tag: contralto #oc inspo: them #my writing

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shallowseeker · 9 months

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Toys, toys, toys

It definitely seems like that at some point

they went to the

toy store

(Mousetrap, Connect Four, Marvelous Marvin (maybe based on Teddy Ruxpin?)

And a quick unsettling note:

Dean is playing Mousetrap. In the previous episode, Peace of Mind, Jack is trying to determine what snakes eat. Pet snakes, of course, typically eat rodents, and that's what Jack gives it, but it refuses to eat. 🐍 When Dean strolls in, he picks up a little takeout box Jack has on the table, containing two white mice ("Sam and Dean"). 🐁🐁Dean then tries to feed it bacon, because he likes bacon. 🥓 Later in the episode, Jack laments, "I don't think you have a good handle on what snakes eat." 💔

///

youtube

And Connect Four is what mathematicians call a "solved game," meaning you can play it perfectly every time, no matter what your opponent does.

Alternatively, the game ends when there is a 4-in-a-row or a stalemate, so naturally, Team Free Will traditionally has four participants, which Chuck has to work rigorously to break apart.

Aside// I happen to think Dean n' Cas represent a Double Attack move in season 15, because they're associated visually to the pragmatic Double Diamond in The Trap (inside the Lucky Elephant casino), and Chuck taunts Sam thusly:

CHUCK: "You still think that Dean and Cas are gonna fly through those doors just in the nick of time. You still think that you're the hero of this story. You still think you can win."

///

Marvelous Marvin has endless connections, but when it appears in its first Gimme Shelter scene, the killer cuts off each of the victim's fingers and shoves them down his throat.

So, that definitely makes you think back to the story of the chicken and the black snake, with the fingers being like eggs. The killer is cutting off the fingers ("souls / beloved ones") and shoving them down the throat of the "snake" to punish it. You could stretch this motif, that Chuck is perhaps shoving his fingers down Jack's throat in their standoff against one another.

The pastor remarks that we need each other for support.

PASTOR: I always say, people are God's hands, each of us a finger for him to use. To lift each other up.

But Chuck sees support, and he sees that love. So, once you love it, he cuts it off and shoves it down your throat. It's why he killed not just Mary, but all the Campbells around Mary.

The chicken and the black snake: NOAH: Once there was a crafty black snake who kept eating this poor chicken’s eggs. She couldn’t watch them all the time, you see. The black snake would wait until she was gone and then slide one of the eggs into his mouth and crush it in his throat. Now this went on until there was only one egg left, but when the chicken left that egg - just for a moment - the snake swallowed it up. But for some reason he couldn’t crush it in his throat. The chicken had hardboiled her final egg just to choke the snake. And the snake died.

#fun and games #spn #shal meta #the chicken and the black snake #tfw + games #jack & dean & cas #dean + mousetrap #cas + connect four #jack + god's fingers #Youtube #chuck’s grooming

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dykesynthezoid · 4 months

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One of the best action scenes to ever exist? Probably. (Show some respect for this man’s mousetrap-ass apartment)

#the dummy with the dynamite in its mouth.#in the line of duty 2 #yes madam #fight scene

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straightplayshowdown · 7 months

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The Play That Goes Wrong: The Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society prepare to stage their new production – the 1920s murder mystery 'Murder at Haversham Manor'. However the set is not yet complete and there is no time to finish it off…..the show must go on! With a murder (and a moving corpse) established from the beginning, the murder mystery gets into full flow. However, the props start to disappear, actors go missing and the set begins to collapse around, and often on, the cast. Mayhem ensues, the acting gets worse, and the set becomes increasingly dangerous, but the company struggle on regardless.

The Mousetrap: Seven strangers are stranded at Monkswell Manor during a blizzard. But a police sergeant unexpectedly arrives, worried that a murderer-at-large is among the guests of the Manor. Before he can investigate, one of the guests is killed, starting an investigation into the lives and histories of everyone there. One of them is the killer, and another one of them may be next. Will the police be able to solve the case before another “mouse” falls?

Propaganda under the cut!

The Play That Goes Wrong:

Goofy, silly, I love these characters your honor. A second floor of a set falls down.

Silly! Energetic! Disastrous!

It was fun and I had a good time :)

It's the most incredible straight play of modern time. It's the stereotypical murder mystery, but with Murphy's law applied to the actual production- everything that can go wrong, does. We don't simply have the characters on the stage, we also have the actors playing them, who are all so well developed with their own foibles. From "I'm Chris Bean, the Die-rector" until the set literally falls apart, it's the funniest thing in the world, and you won't stop laughing even after you've left the theatre. More than the humor, though, it makes the theatre, and all its quirks, accessible. It demonstrates how much work goes into making a show happen, both onstage and behind the scenes. That appreciation is something very rarely shown let alone celebrated- and celebrated is the right word here. For even when everything goes wrong, and everything DOES in fact go wrong, they keep going. The show must go on, and it does, and it's wonderful. Also the three guys who star in it wrote it, and they're actually the sweetest guys ever, which is a rarity in the world of the arts.

The Mousetrap:

Classic Agatha Christie whodunnit but performed on the stage. It's been running for over 70 years and it's really good.

#round 2 #polls #the play that goes wrong #the mousetrap #the straight play showdown

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kirakiwiwrites · 9 months

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Hi friends! So it’s been a minute lol. Why? A whole slew of reasons like migraines, a new job, traveling, carpal tunnel, and good old fashioned writer’s block. Are we still working on a one shot for Obsidian Castle and another new multi chapter story? Yes. Three actually. We will be posting new stuff soon. Thanks so much for all the love from Obsidian Castle too. So happy everyone has enjoyed it!

Anyway, we thought to get out of the little rut, we would participate in the @klaine-word-scramble. It looks like so much fun and if you haven’t checked it out you should! So here is our first one, just a very short one shot full of cute fluff. The theme for most of these will probably be future fics like this one. We will also post these to FF.net and A03

Thank you to all who organized it and come up with all the fun scrambles!

Disclaimer: We do not own Glee, the characters, or quotations from the show.

(Aug 1 scramble - 979 words)

Craft day:

“Do we need more glue?”

Blaine scratched at his head before grimacing as he realized his hands were covered in glue. now his hair was also covered in glue. The stuff was everywhere. “No, I don’t think that’s it.” He scanned the directions while he wiped at his head. “If we add more glue, things could get worse.”

His eight year old son Michael huffed a sigh and poked at the goopy substance in the bowl. “What about more glitter?”

Blaine shook his head slowly as he tried to make sense of the mess they had made. “Oh god no. No more glitter.”

It looked as though a glitter bomb had exploded in their kitchen. There was glitter on everything: the floor, the cabinets, them. Glitter had even somehow ascended to the top of the fridge and landed amongst the mousetraps they stored up there. It was quite a mess.

Michael blew the dark curls he inherited from his father out of his eyes and glitter puffed out and slowly and floated down. “Did we put enough activator in?” He spread his fingers and purple glittery glue gunk made strings across them. “I don’t think it’s supposed to be so sticky.”

Blaine made a noise of agreement before he realized two of the pages were stuck together. Carefully, he peeled them apart and saw they had missed a step.

“Okay, kiddo. I figured it out. Grab that spatula and stir until you think your arms are gonna fall off.”

Michael did as his father told him and stirred, the tip of his tongue peeking out from the corner of his mouth. “What do I do if my arms do fall off?”

“Use some of the glue and stick them back on. I’m going to clean up a bit before—“

“What did you two do to my kitchen!” Kurt exclaimed as he clutched his face in horror. He stood in the doorway, his keys and a brown paper bag in one hand. “Did you blow up a disco ball?”

Blaine winced. “Oh, hey honey.” He gave his husband his most charming smile. He cleaned faster. “You’re home early!”

A little giggle came from their six year old daughter who had spent the morning with Kurt. Her bright blue eyes sparkled as she took in the mess. “Mikey looks like the shiny troll from that movie!” She set down a matching brown paper bag and skipped over to the counter where her brother was stirring vigorously. “I want to do it too!”

Kurt set his bag down quickly beside his daughter’s and gingerly picked his way through the disaster zone. “Tracy! Wait! At least change your clothes first!” He sighed and accepted a kiss on the cheek from his husband. She was already elbow deep in the concoction and chuckling maniacally.

“Don’t worry, Kurt,” Blaine said brightly. “I’m going to have all this cleaned up before dinner. How did it go making candles?”

Kurt leaned tiredly on the counter, then remembered it was covered in slime and stood upright. “We actually had fun until Tracy decided things were too calm. She decided she didn’t want a normal cat shaped candle, but she wanted a headless cat shaped candle that would bleed when she burned it.”

“Jesus Christ,” Blaine mumbled as he picked out some sparkley glue from his arm hair. “Has she been watching Wednesday again?”

Kurt rolled his eyes and grabbed a dish towel. After wetting it, he began to carefully wipe the glue off of Blaine’s arm. “I don’t know but I’m having a hell of a time encouraging her to express her creativity while also not making the other children around her cry.”

Blaine thanked him for the glue and eyed the room with another grimace. “It’s a precarious dance for sure. You do a wonderful job.”

Kurt smiled and kissed him just as their children screamed in triumph.

“Dad! Papa! Look! We made slime!” Michael held up a blob of purple goo studded with glitter.

“Can I eat it?” Tracy asked as she squeezed some through her fingers.

“No!” Blaine yelled in alarm at the same time Kurt yelled, “Absolutely not! Don’t you dare put that in your mouth!”

Tracy glared at them for ruining her fun, but then got distracted by the shiny slime. Michael gave her a very brotherly look that said he considered her only a step above an animal.

“Why are you so weird?”

“Am not! You’re weird!”

“You’re the one trying to eat slime!”

“I just asked! I wasn’t gonna do it!”

Kurt took a deep breath and released it as Blaine continued to clean the kitchen. “Kids! Enough!” Kurt interjected, hands on his hips. “Mikey, don’t call your sister weird. Tracy, don’t ever eat anything unless you know it’s food. I will not have fighting on craft day!”

Blaine nodded solemnly in silent support as he scrubbed at a dried pile of goop. He accidentally upset a pile of glitter that puffed out in a cloud and caused him to sneeze.

Michael shrugged and continued to stretch the slime out and whirl it like a jump rope between his hands. Tracy stared down at the small bit in her hand. “I wasn’t gonna eat it,” she grumbled.

Kurt pinched the bridge of his nose in an effort to stay calm. “Alright. Help me and Papa clean up the kitchen and we will all go out for pizza. Deal?”

This was met with cheers of agreement from the two children who took wet paper towels offered to them by Kurt and set to work wiping up glitter. Kurt smiled at how determined they were and grabbed the broom and dustpan.

“Thank you,” Blaine said with a grateful smile.

“You’re welcome,” Kurt replied as he started sweeping. “But buckle up because next craft day is painting and Tracy had me take her by the cemetery for ‘inspiration’.”

“Of course she did. But it’s fine because in the Hummel-Anderson house, we support weird.”

“Absolutely.”

*words used from the scramble:

Candles (pretty sure this is the unscrambled word but shhh don’t tell lol)

scan (scanned)

land (landed)

ascend (ascended)

clean

dances (dance)

deal

#klaine-word-scramble #glee #klaine #klaine fanfiction #fanfic #kirakiwi #oneshot #noideawhywenamedtheirsonmichael #itseemedtofit #future!klaine #blaine anderson #kurt hummel

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narrans · 6 months

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A Tall and Small Collection | S2.47 | & Everyone Needs a Little Hero :: Crossover :: Epilogue

Was it possible to be so happy? Was it possible to experience this kind of bliss? To think so many years ago that he was the lowest of the low, scraping just to get by. Now, he and his family were able to live comfortably - happy.

They were able to live their lives and then some because they were doing it together.

Soren couldn’t believe his life. It was the best of all worlds, and all because of one terrifying accident so long ago. He couldn’t have known that accidentally getting snapped in that mousetrap could have given him and his family opportunities that no other Borrower was able to experience.

At least, that he was aware of that is.

From the community that blossomed to his time spent with Ashlynn, everything felt better than a dream.

He remembered their moving day fondly.

Moving wasn’t the hard part. It was figuring out what to do with the space since there was so much of it. The attic was the perfect place for the Borrower community. There was sunlight, which many of them hadn’t been accustomed to in a long time, and the vertical space was amazing.

With a little help from Ashlynn as well as a few well thought out purchases, bookshelves were installed and constructed to make apartments and hallways for the Borrowers. Many of them started their own constructions by using popsicle sticks to make cottages and homes in the main area in the middle of the room.

It was agreed that Ashlynn wouldn’t go upstairs to the attic unless invited or scheduled and, naturally, she wouldn’t interact unless spoken to first.

The days of the Borrower community were spent in an unprecedented era of peace. They didn’t always need to borrow food, water, and tools. Some of them found a way to the roof and or the back yard to tend to their own gardens. Granted, they had to be careful when they went outside because of Bella, but her time outside was always predictable and came with a warning of Ashlynn or Theo calling for her to be careful.

If they needed something, they could interact or be as invisible as they always had been. Nothing on that front had changed, but young Borrower children were being told the stories of how they came to this house and how it was with this one, helpful human that it was all possible.

Hero had something to do with those stories. Though the number of humans he could help daily had significantly decreased, he was able to stay in contact with Sam through the game station Ashlynn got him for his birthday. Hero and a few others sometimes went to neighborhood houses to borrow and gather various supplies, which was the opportune time for him to go and help the people they went to go borrow from.

On these adventures, Hero made sure to be careful and, thankfully, he wasn’t seen by any of the neighborhood humans. His days of going out and being seen had grown more cautious. He did frequently miss those days and looked on them fondly, but only when necessary would he reveal himself.

Rey, more often than not, would go on these adventures with Hero. The two of them would go on little camping adventures to the tree in the backyard. Rey, not so secretly, was building a “secret hideout” in the tree where he had additional supplies and places to test his more unorthodox inventions. With Theo in the house, the two of them would venture out there and test some of their more sophisticated devices.

It was also a chance for Rey to practice his flying. Despite the instruction manual saying otherwise, some of those little drones were capable of carrying weight, and Rey happened to fit nicely underneath the whirling blades.

The first time he tried his new toy, he ended up with one whole part of his arm scabbed, but it only fueled him to practice and do better. Within a week, Rey was flying everywhere in a MacGyvered style drone with a controller. In a few words, he was a natural; but not only at flying. Turned out that Rey also had a knack for 3D printing and virtual design. Once Theo showed him how to work the program, he was off to the races.

Not only was he making designs with Theo for their now joined business, he was making things for the girl whose affections he won. Larkspur, the Borrower girl he saved, ended up developing the biggest crush on Rey. It would take months of her asking him to help her readjust the wheelchair he helped construct for her for him to get the hint that she just wanted to spend time with them.

Very soon after, the two of them were spending nearly every waking hour with one another. It would take another month for them to admit their affections to Soren and Ashlynn, but they soon were branded with the boyfriend girlfriend label and they became inseparable.

Turned out, Larkspur was rather adventurous and was always testing the limits once she broke out of her timid shell and was allowed time to heal from her ordeal with Austin. It even seemed like she might be able to walk again with the tips and tricks Theo was able to give her.

That was another thing that was a little different for their new living space – they gained a new basement companion. After some discussion, Theo and Bella did move into the basement of Ashlynn’s home. While Bella wasn’t told the secret of who else lived with them, Theo was more than willing to help where he could, inventing and printing anything and everything the Borrowers needed.

The little coins that Rey and Hero found were, as a matter of fact, actually quite valuable. While some of them merely looked like pennies and dimes, several of those coins were rare enough to pay for Theo’s medical bills as well as the startup for his and Rey’s business, which they worked on frequently.

Dorian’s days were recently spent with his music troupe as well as his own songwriting. His follower count had skyrocketed to the point where many were asking for him to release his own album or music video. It took some convincing and some ingenuity, but the music troupe and Rey came up with the perfect setting and mechanisms to actually pull off his first music video.

Some of the Borrowers who were interested in technology but never had the opportunity spent time learning how to edit videos and photos, working in groups to get phones and other smaller cameras to take the pictures they wanted.

The anonymity of their online presences let them venture into new territory and explore parts of their personalities that even they didn’t know they enjoyed.

Soren and Ashlynn, along with Mayzie, spent most of their time together. Soren and Mayzie more frequently tagged along with Ashlynn to various house showings so they could explore the walls. Now that Mayzie was getting older, she needed to understand how to use the hooks and lines.

Years passed and Mayzie came to know Ashlynn as mom, even calling her that. Though Mayzie knew her mother, Lucy, was gone and Soren made sure to tell her stories about her mother, it was Ashlynn who stepped in and had difficult, emotional conversations with the thumb-sized Borrower girl. Ashlynn made sure she helped train Mayzie to respect the fear that came with interacting with humans while training her, but also had discussions about how different their life was compared to the lives of other Borrowers.

The two of them were thick as thieves, and Ashlynn, Soren, and Mayzie became a kind of three musketeers.

When Mayzie was off playing with the other Borrower children and when Soren’s brothers were otherwise occupied, it was Ashlynn and Soren - as it was in the beginning. For the Borrowers and the humans inside, their world became that house, and that house became their world – and the adventures they were about to embark on were only just beginning.

~~~~~^*^*^*^*^~~~~~

::_____::

A Tall and Small Collection

Thank you so much for reading - Cheers and, as always, stay awesome! ~Narrans

A Tall and Small Collection | Soren

ASK ME ANYTHING

::_____::

Everyone Needs a Little Hero

Thank you so much for reading - Cheers and, as always, stay awesome! ~Narrans

Beginning

Prompt

ASK ME ANYTHING

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rach-out-loud · 23 days

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amber

The door to the trap is open. It’s always been open.

This is what it feels like: the pinch and press of it, the sharp snap of teeth over a limb. Mousetraps, bottle traps, box traps, bodygrips. A Saw trap, riddles and keys and blood, panic, mental anguish. Tear yourself apart to live; what is a pound of flesh, what are fingernails, what is another bruise, another scratch, another bruise, another bruise, another –

This is what it feels like: a disappearing act, carnival smoke in your hair, rugburn on your hands and knees from hiding in back panels, beneath trap doors. Being sent into the ether in a puff of pink smoke is nothing; magicians make their assistants vanish all the time. Why bother with the reflection in the funhouse mirror if you can’t recognize yourself?

This is what it feels like: a wave crashing against a rock, an insect caught in amber. Erosion, acceptance. You can get used to anything after enough time. She has been in the trap since she was nineteen. The trap can be gentle. The trap can be kind – look how it cradles her boys, how it strokes her hair. Look at the flowers it left blooming in the vase in the kitchen. Look how it cries when she makes herself sick, how it sits across from her in the visitor’s lounge, how carefully it slots the puzzle pieces together on the plastic table.

The door to the trap is open. The door to the trap has always been open.

Her life is the trap. Where else will she go?

#rachel writes things sometimes #short fiction

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randomstupidchaos · 6 months

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It's fall, which means the field mice are coming in the apartment entryway looking for warmth. Any other year, this means I put out traps and call it a day.

But this year.

My cat decided she needs to Get Involved in the hunt. Instead of just watching as the hapless mouse gets lured to the trap, she keeps intervening so she can play with them.

Which is Problematic.

If you didn't know, not all cats know how to kill mice - if they didn't learn as kittens it's a lot harder for them to figure out the actual killing part.

It's also partly a personality thing - some cats just like playing with them, which, if you know anything about this cat... She loves to play and is friendly and social as a dog. Also, not at all fierce. Look at her, she loves sweaters.

To our utter shock, she actually managed to kill one. I was super proud of my little furry murder baby.

This would be all well and good if she didn't insist on bringing the live mice to her dish. In the bathroom. Deeper in the apartment. Where she then lets them go so she can chase them more. And then LOSES THEM.

Which... is what's happening tonight. She is camped out in the bathroom because she lost one. Again.

So anyway, mouse season has been real interesting this year. All because my cat is a little shit who discovered mice are neat, rendered our mousetraps useless, and hasn't quite managed to fill that mouser niche (yet).

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mediacrity · 1 month

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Happiness by Steve Cutts, thoughts

Happiness by Steve Cutts, 2017

TW: mentions of addiction

*scroll to the bottom for Youtube link/film TWs

thank you to @ddepressedbookworm for recommending this short film to me

---------------------------

Happiness is one of my favourite animated short films of all time. The grey colouring the entire city, filled with artificial colour is reminiscent of the reality of the dull, uninspiring lifestyle of one in the city. The anthropomorphism of the rats (I assume a "pun" on living in a rat race) is an immediate representation of the disenchanted city dwellers we encounter, and might even be, in real life.

The film begins with many rats, not anthropomorphised, uncomfortably squeaking and squeezing together in what is revealed to be a train station, immediately making the film into a commentary on human life. One of my favourite things about the film is that it is filled with bright-coloured posters, but it does nothing to improve the drab surrounding. The posters are also large in quantity, pasted one after another, an extremely relevant visual representation of numbness in the face of overconsumption. It is "everything, all of the time" (Welcome to the Internet, Bo Burnham). Cutts also creates posters mimicking popular brands, playing on their tag lines and branding them "happiness", showing our consumerist nightmare for what it is ----a brutal, unfulfilled chase for happiness that fuels corporations that sell temporal "happiness" through products.

The link between consumerism and our want for happiness continues in the film as we see more products like "fast cars". The idea of a fast car, perhaps presents the wish to "get out", or float above the rest. A striking shot comes at 1:22 where the rats are seen moving through the walls of society, covered with posters, the society structured like a maze. It displays our society from an objective lens, we are confused, we are stuck.

Cutts further explores this cycle by branding some products (such as alcohol and medication) as "absolute happiness", bringing in the theme of addiction. Memorable scenes include the frenzied shopping craze where the rats, literally, tear each other apart to get their haul, and another scene where the "main character" takes medication and the visual style of the film changes from a drab, gloomy city to a shiny, too shiny, field. The main character's high, of course, ends and ultimately ends on the cold city pavement.

At the end, the "main character" chases the one thing that ties everything all together --money, the thing we chase to buy a lifestyle. The main character chases a dollar bill up a building, and then comes the summation of the film --he is trapped in a mousetrap and begins working at his desk. The film then zooms out to show everyone, identical. At the last moment, Cutts links this back to our harsh system of endless working and capitalism, further linking it to a lack of individuality. It is, as said before, a cycle. We are unhappy because of our work and therefore, we want to be happy, but we attempt to buy happiness in products, but to buy we must have money, and to have money we must work. Thus, the cycle begins, fuelling our consumerist nature which only gives more money to corporations. We are trapped, in our "mousetraps". It is all related back to our innate want of Happiness.

overall, I absolutely recommend this short film. Steve Cutt’s ability to visually get across the is spectacular. the film is smart, darkly funny, and not just relevant, but resonates on a personal level with any consumer living in the 21st century. Five stars, absolutely.

-----------------------------

TWs for short film

violence/gore

addiction

Youtube link for short film: Happiness by Steve Cutts, 2017

#tw mentions of addiction #tw violence and gore #tw addiciton #Happiness by Steve Cutts #review of Happiness by Steve Cutts #animated short film #cae's saying stuff #cae likes this

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lucascecil · 7 months

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Seventh Doctor - Project: Blue Box

TV Stories

◆ Time and the Rani

◆ Paradise Towers

◆ Delta and the Bannerman

◆ Dragonfire

◆ Remembrance of the Daleks

◆ The Hapiness Patrol

◆ Silver Nemesis

◆ The Greatest Show in the Galaxy

◆ Battlefield

◆ Ghost Light

◆ The Curse of Fenric

◆ Survival

Audio Adventures

- 7th Doctor Adventures

◆ Last of the Titans

◆ Return of the Daleks

◆ Dominion

◆ The Trial of a Time Machine

◆ Vanguard

◆ The Jabari Countdown

◆ The Dread of Night

◆ Bad Day in Tinseltown

◆ The Ribos Inheritance

◆ London Orbital

◆ Scream of the Daleks

◆ Operation Dusk

◆ Naomi’s Ark

- Main Range

◆ Unregenerate!

◆ Bang-Bang-a-Boom

◆ Flip-Flop

◆ The Fires of Vulcan

◆ Red

◆ We Are the Daleks

◆ The Warehouse

◆ Terror of the Sontarans

◆ 1963: The Assassination Games

◆ The Defectors

◆ The Sirens of Time

◆ The Genocide Machine

◆ The Grey Man of the Mountain - ★★★☆☆

◆ The Fearmonger - ★★★★☆

The Fearmonger is a story with a lot of say about the social politic scenario it was made and that uses of its themes to work perfectly with the regulars and their relationship - that brings them closer by putting the trust Ace and Seven have in each on check. A good start for their ternure in audio.

Complete review: here.

◆ Dust Breeding

◆ Colditz - ★★★☆☆

◆ The Rapture

◆ The Shadow of the Scourge

◆ The Dark Flame

◆ The Harvest

◆ Dreamtime

◆ LIVE 34

◆ Night Thoughts

◆ No Man’s Land

◆ Nocturne

◆ The Dark Husband

◆ Forty-Five

◆ Shadow Planet/World Apart

◆ Muse of Fire

◆ The Flying Dutchman/Displaced

◆ The Magic Mousetrap

◆ Enemy of the World

◆ The Angel of Scutari

◆ Project: Destiny

◆ A Death in the Family

◆ Lurkers at Sunlight’s Edge

◆ Protect and Survive

◆ Robophobia

◆ The Doomsday Quatrain

◆ House of Blue Fire

◆ Black and White

◆ Gods and Monsters

◆ Afterlife

◆ Revenge of the Swarm

◆ Mask of Tragedy

◆ Signs and Wonders

◆ You Are the Doctor and Other Stories

◆ A Life of Crime

◆ Fiesta of the Damned

◆ Maker of Demons

◆ The High Price of Parking

◆ The Blood Furnace

◆ The Silurian Candidate

◆ Red Planets

◆ The Dispossessed

◆ The Quantum Possibility Engine

◆ Project: Lazarus

◆ Master

◆ Valhalla

◆ Frozen Time

◆ The Death Collectors/Spider’s Shadow

◆ Kingdom of Silver/Keepsake

◆ A Thousand Tiny Wings

◆ Klein’s Story/Survival of the Fittest

◆ The Architects of History

◆ The Shadow Heart

◆ The Psychic Circus

◆ The Monsters of Gokroth

◆ The Moons of Vulpana

◆ An Alien Werewolf in London

◆ Persuasion

◆ Starlight Robbery

◆ Daleks Among Us

◆ The Two Masters

◆ Warlock’s Cross

◆ Subterfuge

◆ The End of the Beginning

◆ Dark Universe

- The Companion Chronicles

◆ Bernice Summerfield and the Criminal Code

◆ The Prisoner’s Dilemma

◆ Project: Nirvana

- The Lost Stories

◆ Thin Ice

◆ Crime of the Century

◆ Animal

◆ Earth Aid

- Classic Doctor, New Mosnters

◆ Harvest of the Sycorax

- Short Trips

◆ The Devil’s Footprints

◆ Dark Convoy

◆ Doctors and Dragons

◆ The Riparian Ripper

◆ Inside Story

◆ The Shadow Trader

◆ Crystal Ball

◆ The Shrine of Sorrows

◆ Dead Woman Walking

◆ Critical Mass

◆ Washington Burns

◆ Forever Fallen

◆ Police and Shreeves

◆ The Hesitation Deviation

◆ Twilight’s End

◆ The Night Before Christmas

Books

◆ Timewyrm: Genesis

◆ Timewyrm: Exodus

◆ Timewyrm: Apocalypse

◆ Timewyrm: Revelation

◆ Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible

◆ Cat’s Cradle: Warhead

◆ Cat’s Cradle: Witch Mark

◆ Nightshade

◆ Love and War

◆ Transit

◆ The Highest Science

◆ The Pit

◆ Deceit

◆ Lucifer Rising

◆ White Darkness

◆ Shadowmind

◆ Birthright

◆ Iceberg

◆ Blood Heat

◆ The Dimension Riders

◆ The Left-Handed Hummingbird

◆ Conundrum

◆ No Future

◆ Tragedy Day

◆ Legacy

◆ Theatre of War

◆ All-Consuming Fire

◆ Blood Harvest

◆ Strange England

◆ First Frontier

◆ St Anthony’s Fire

◆ Falls the Shadow

◆ Parasite

◆ Warlock

◆ Set Piece

◆ Infinite Requiem

◆ Sanctuary

◆ Human Nature

◆ Original Sin

◆ Sky Pirates!

◆ Zamper

◆ Toy Soldiers

◆ Head Games

◆ The Also People

◆ Shakedown

◆ Just War

◆ Warchild

◆ SLEEPY

◆ Death and Diplomacy

◆ Happy Endings

◆ GodEngine

◆ Christmas on a Rational Planet

◆ Return of the Living Dad

◆ The Death of Art

◆ Damaged Goods

◆ So Vile a Sin

◆ Bad Therapy

◆ Eternity Weeps

◆ The Room With no Doors

◆ Lungbarrow

◆ The Dying Days

◆ Illegal Alien

◆ The Hollow Men

◆ Matrix

◆ Storm Harvest

◆ Prime Time

◆ Independence Day

◆ Bullet Time

◆ Relative Time

◆ Heritage

◆ Loving the Alien

◆ The Algebra of Ice

◆ Atom Bomb Blues

#Seventh Doctor #Doc Thoughts

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