#we're at the point where I'm like. should I just get a lawyer. would it be worth it to hire a lawyer. could a lawyer handle half this for me

[kittlyns]

Yet another day of getting home from work @ 9pm (we usually close at 6... haha) with the fun little bonus of getting a text from my insurance adjuster telling me that while they do not consider me at fault for the accident, the other two insurance companies do, so I have to contact them with my "evidence" to plead my case. Also no one knows where the fucking police report is.

Yippee!! 👍

#I have to go to the goddamn sheriff's office to beg them for a fucking copy of the report that NO ONE CAN FIND #and send that to all 3 insurance companies........ call the other two insurance companies and... idk. tell them to kill themselves or smth #we're at the point where I'm like. should I just get a lawyer. would it be worth it to hire a lawyer. could a lawyer handle half this for me #cuz it seems like my adjuster is washing her hands of the situation #I'm so goddamn tired haha. like I could cry and it's not really about this situation. I'm just so tired and it never seems to end #I spend 5 hours with a single client. everything hurts. I skip 2 meals bc I don't have time to eat and by the time I get home I don't care #I lie down and the whole day sits on top of my chest and I have to just close my eyes and let sleep take me #and then I wake up and have to do it all again. #the exhaustion is in my bones and nobody can help me

[panlight]

Breaking Dawn has always read like a fanfiction to me. I'm aware this has probably to do with the fact, that Forever Dawn was written before New Moon and Eclipse, and SMeyer just rewrote some pieces of it.

But this made me think - most fans probably have an idea of how they would have liked the story of Bella and Edward to end and those endings might all be a little, or even very different. What would your perfect ending for the Saga look like? You can place it after any point of the story - just after the first book, in the middle of New Moon, around the end of Eclipse, wherever you want.

It really does have a lot of fanfic-y tropes. The big wedding. The over-the-top tropical honeymoon. This is an 18-year-old middle class girl getting married here. Sure the Cullens are rich but she's not an actual princess or something, this always felt hugely over the top to me in a fanfic-y way. And then the baby, of course. It does tick a lot of boxes of the sort of fanfic that imagines what happens after the book/movie/show where the main couple get married and have a kid.

For me, vampirism without consequences is just completely uninteresting. Bella getting to have her cake and eat it too not only undermines all the themes in the earlier books and makes Edward's brooding about being a vampire seem like unnecessary whining, it's also just boring.

So my ideal ending is an actual follow up to Eclipse. Bella and Edward follow through on their compromise plan: wedding, sex, and vampirism in that order. There's no baby; Bella is turned on Isle Esme and spends a few months there on a secluded island with no people (the groundskeepers are given time off FFS Edward can clean the house) eating wildlife and adjusting to vampirism.

But she actually has to like, adjust. It IS has hard as people told her it was. She can still do well at it, but with struggle. I mean, Carlisle never killed anyone either but he did it by banishing himself to the woods and starving to the point that he unthinkingly attacked some deer. I believe it was hard and he struggled and so his triumph feels earned. Bella can still control herself better than average but I wanna see her struggle with it, versus like, one tense afternoon with Charlie and then totally being fine around humans and going to see lawyers in a sexy outfit, no problem. That felt anticlimactic.

Also there should be some fallout with Jake, and she should probably have to cut ties with Charlie and Renee. She MADE this choice to become a vampire knowing she was giving these things up, so for Breaking Dawn to be like "Nevermind! Haha!" about it was deeply unsatisfying. It killed the conflict and tension for Jacob and Charlie to still be part of her life and accepting of the weirdness of it.

For me, the whole point was Bella was sacrificing a lot to be with Edward. That is where the romance and angst lies. Getting to be beautiful and immortal and rich and powerful AND with the person you love AND keep your father and best friend AND get a perfect baby who never cries and sleeps through the night AND conquer the bloodlust in like 2 seconds was just . . . boring. All the stuff I had been interested in seeing how it would resolve was resolved in just the easiest, least interesting way possible. A perfect example: the wedding. We're told that Renee is going to freak out about this early marriage and even THAT relatively unimportant conflict is just instantly resolved with "actually, Renee's totally on board!!!!" Snore!

So yeah. Bella is turned on the honeymoon. It's hard. She cuts off ties with Charlie; maybe she fakes her death, maybe she just disappears. Jacob refuses to talk to her, but Sam is like "whatever she made her choice we're not going to start a war over this." And in this way Bella is actually cut off from her human life and has to start over with the new family and new life she chose. We probably have to resolve the Volturi situation somehow; maybe a trip to Volterra to prove she's been turned and some conflict with the Volturi comes into play.

But ultimately I just want an epilogue where she comes back to Forks with Edward to check in on Charlie and Jacob from a distance. She watches Charlie with Sue (or someone else) playing with step-grandbabies, she sees Jacob, who has stopped phasing and is aging and married with kids of his own, and it's hard. It's sad to see them going on without her. And Edward looks at her like he's about to apologize for the 239470242th time for robbing her of a human life and she's like, "No, the life I have with you is worth it," because THAT's the vibe! That's where the romance is! Her being happy in BD means nothing because it was all so easy for her! Her being happy despite the downsides of vampirism is where the romance lies!

#asks

[maniculum]

Bestiaryposting Plan

So the poll is still running, but I think I'm safe in saying there's sufficient interest, so I'm going ahead and typing up a "how we're going to do this" thing, which I will schedule to post after the poll ends properly. As of the time I'm writing this, over 500 people have voted for the "yes I want to draw things" option, and I had been expecting to get maybe a dozen, so we definitely have enough participants. Let's get started then:

Our Source

I had originally planned to translate an Old or Middle English bestiary, but haven't been able to find a good one -- the best option I was able to dig up only has thirteen critters, which I feel like isn't enough to really have fun with. I was debating the idea of translating a Latin one -- this would have been far more time-consuming since my Latin is terrible, but also I do need to practice it, so I figured it evens out -- when I found a solution that doesn't involve me spending hours and hours on translating.

It seems that when Aberdeen University created their digitized version of the famous Aberdeen Bestiary, they released it under a Creative Commons license. (Assuming I'm reading their copyright policy correctly; I'm not a lawyer.) It does not seem to specify whether the transcriptions and translations they attach to the scanned images are also covered by Creative Commons, but since all of those are already freely available online through their website, I can't imagine they would have a problem with me posting them here as long as I provide attribution (which I am hereby doing right here on this post) and am not using it for commercial purposes (which I am not).

The Aberdeen Bestiary is missing a few pages, but there exists a very similar manuscript, the Ashmole Bestiary (they're sometimes called "sister" manuscripts), which is not missing those pages. And I happen to have a translation of the Ashmole Bestiary in hardcopy on my bookshelf, so I can just use it to fill in the gaps. Edit: whoops, the one I have is the Bodley Bestiary. They are in the same bestiary "family", though, so it still works well enough. (I think that should qualify as "fair use", since I'm only taking excerpts and not using them commercially.)

The upside of using the Aberdeen Bestiary is that it means when I round up all the art of each critter, I can include their very nice illustrations alongside the reveal of what animal was being described.

The downside of using the Aberdeen Bestiary is that since it already is free online, people might be tempted to "cheat" by looking up the entries and finding out what animal they describe. For that, please see the next section...

Guessing the Animal

Guessing what animal is being described is not the point of the exercise. (Feel free to have theories and whatnot, but please keep them to yourself so as not to influence the artists.) If you see an entry and think, e.g., "oh that's describing a raccoon"*, and then you create a picture of a raccoon... well, you could have done a perfectly good raccoon at any point and didn't need this framework to do it. So just don't worry about what animal is meant, and do your best to draw (or paint or stitch or whatever else) based on the description! You're not getting ranked on accuracy and there are no prizes forthcoming, so... just have fun with it.

*Example chosen as something that will, for obvious reasons, definitely not be in a 13th-century European bestiary.

Edit after starting to type these things up: some of these are going to be super easy to guess, though, to the point where I don't know how possible it'll be to block out prior knowledge. Sorry about that.

General Procedure

I'm going to schedule a post every Monday (I'm thinking of queuing them for 6pm Eastern Time) with a new entry. It will be the translation of an entry from the Aberdeen Bestiary with all references to the animal's name replaced by a randomly-generated nonsense word. (Henceforth to be referred to as "nonsense-names". I'm Googling* each one before using them so I don't accidentally generate one that actually means something.) These posts will all be tagged maniculum bestiaryposting, so you can follow that tag if you want to make sure you see them.'

*Later Note: Did you know that if you search dozens of nonsense words within a short span of time, Google makes you prove you're not a robot? Repeatedly?

Anyone who wants to draw the critter being described should do so. (You are encouraged to describe your thought process re: why you've depicted it the way you have.) You can put it in its own post, or reblog the description with an image, or however you want to do it. Then tag your art with the nonsense-name I've given to the animal.This will let me and others find it. (You should probably employ copy/paste there to make sure the spelling is the same, since nonsense words are hard to spellcheck.)

A week after posting the bestiary entry, I'll go through that tag and round up all of the art contributed. Then I'll put the images in a big post (or series thereof, considering how many people might participate), along with an @ and a link to your original post.

If you want...

to not have your work included in the round-up post

to have only a link to your post included and not an image

to have me include a link to your website / other social media / etsy shop in addition to or instead of your tumblr

to have other information included alongside your work

anything else along those lines

... then just say so in your post and I will follow your instructions to the best of my ability.

I will also include, at the end of the round-up post, an image of the creature as depicted in the Aberdeen Bestiary and what it is actually called.

All posts I make on this will be collected at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting so that people can look at previous ones without scrolling through the tag.

Various Notes

I'm going to trim out any religious digressions in the original entries -- bestiary authors had a habit of adding stuff like "and the raccoon is symbolic of god in such-and-such fashion, which teaches us...", and I just don't think that's relevant here.

The entries will also be presented in a random order. This is because they're sorted into categories in the original text, so if I don't change the order we're going to get stuck with, e.g., a few months of All Birds All The Time.

You should all be aware that the animals described are not guaranteed to be, you know, real. There are several entries describing animals that straight up do not exist -- some of which are mythical creatures familiar to most people, others of which are extremely obscure.

Explanations of the animal's name within the entries will be redacted.

If other animals are mentioned within the entries, they will not get replaced with nonsense-names. Originally, I was going to make the switch globally, so that if, e.g., the entry for "raccoon" read "a raccoon is about the size of a possum", and the random generator had decided that a raccoon was a balzikhear and a possum was a flunggrish, the "raccoon" entry would now read "a balzikhear is about the size of a flunggrish". However, I decided that it will cause more problems than it solves to obscure any comparisons to other animals -- so the name-switch is now localized only to the specific entry. A possum is a flunggrish only in its own entry, and remains a possum everywhere else.

I was originally going to do one post for every single entry, but there are a lot of them and they vary wildly in length & quality. So I've cut it down to exactly 52 posts, meaning that if I queue them up for once a week, this will run for roughly a full year.

Most of that cutting-down mentioned above was done by combining a bunch of the really short entries into categories -- the last half-dozen posts in this series will be group entries. You can choose to make art of any of them that strike your fancy, or do a group portrait, or just ignore them --I dunno, I'm not a cop, do what you want.

I did also directly cut some, mostly domesticated animals because there's a somewhat different approach to them based on author and audience familiarity.

So yeah, that should cover everything.

#maniculum bestiaryposting

[stayarmytinyzenmoa-l]

WHAT I'M GOING TO NEED A PART TWO OF THE YANGYANG ONE AS WELL

Again, why not?

Mischief Managed [Pt. 2]

TW: Language, Ghosts, dead bodies, gun use, break-in-and-enter Genre: Comedy Pairing: Liu Yangyang x Reader YN Pronouns: Not specified Word Count: 0.6K Prompt: “Who says I can’t be a sexy ghost?”

[NCT Masterlist] | [NCT Spooky Season Masterlist] | [Part 1]

Notes: I just really like Yangyang Disclaimer: Please remember that this is an AU and a work of fiction, obviously the idols mentioned/written about in this story would never partake in these actions. The idols mentioned in this work are meant to be seen more as face claims rather than the actual idols themselves.

Feedback is greatly appreciated!! Thank you for reading!

Needless to say, your jaw was on the floor. Quite literally, you'd landed face-first when Yangyang shoved you over before getting killed himself, but that's beside the point. You stood next to Dejun with your mouth open in shock and Yangyang literally matched your expression. You both looked at each other, at Dejun, at your dead bodies, then back to each other again, what the hell did he just say?!

Now Dejun was pacing around your apartment, muttering incoherent things to himself while you and Yangyang regrouped behind him.

"Dude... I thought he was your friend!" You half whispered/half yelled, and Yangyang shook his head.

"Shit, so did I," Yangyang grimaces.

"What did you do?"

"What do you mean 'what did you do?!' How am I supposed to know?!" Yangyang throws his hands toward Dejun.

"Oh my god... oh my god," you pull at your hair, "okay, okay, what are we going to do?"

"What do you mean 'what are we going to do?'"

"What are we going to do?! We just found out Dejun wanted to kill you! That's murder, right?"

"Sure?"

"It is! First-degree murder!"

"Okay, lawyer, what can we do? We're dead! Not to mention we can't leave either!"

"No, we can't, but since we got shot I'm pretty sure the police will be here soon, we can find a way to communicate with them!"

And so, the police came, and so you and Yangyang put your ghostly heads together to get Dejun imprisoned.

"I got this, ghosts always did this in the movies," you cracked your knuckles and grabbed your lipstick first, writing on the mirror that Xiao Dejun was behind the deaths, but instead the police just took pictures of it and hummed. "Oh my god, they're just like the movies too!"

"I got this, (Y/N)," Yangyang floats back to his body and dips its hand into the bullet wound.

"Ewwww," you cringed.

"Shh!" Yangyang traces out Dejun's name on the floor.

"Yangyang."

"Wait, almost done."

"Yang, you spelled Dejun's name wrong."

"I did?" Yangyang stands up and looks at his work. Dejan. "Shit."

"Oh my god..." You buried your face in your hands and you floated over to where Dejun was being questioned by the cops. You slipped his wallet out of his bag and pulled his ID out before slipping it into your dead body's hand. "This should be more than enough." You watched the police loom over your body.

"Look! This one's holding the ID card! This must be the killer!" The police pulls the ID out. "Oh, Dejun, man, you dropped your ID card."

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" Your shout sent a red hue through your ghostly form and Yangyang's turned blue for a second before your color returned. "These people are hopeless!"

"Maybe I can possess one of them!" Yangyang floats behind a policeman with a rather weak constitution. "Whelp, here goes!" He dives into the policeman and you watch him freeze for a second, getting used to the body before shaking his head, he turns to you with a thumbs up and a wide smile.

"It was him! He has to be the killer!" Yangyang announces, pointing to Dejun.

"Mark! Pipe down! You're an unpaid intern getting college credit!" The larger policeman says.

"Yes, sir, sorry, sir," Yangyang separated himself from the body and you groaned.

"What the hell was that?!"

"I got scared!"

"Oh my god... we're never getting justice."

General Tag List: @stopeatread @bat-shark-repellant @raeincitizen @umbralhelwolf @yangsrose @kazooms @sadcoffeecritic 

NCT Tag List: @cherrylovr @minjiville 

If you want to be added to either tag list or removed just send me a reply to this post, and ask, or a DM and I’ll add you as soon as possible!

#nct #nct x reader #nct x you #nct x yn #nct u #nct u x reader #nct u x you #nct u x yn #wayv #wayv x reader #wayv x you #wayv x yn #yangyang x reader #yangyang x you #yangyang x yn #nct spooky season #my writings

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

What do you think would happen if Lestat and Edward's lives were switched? Like, say they're switched, but Lestat-as-Edward's life is the same as canon-Edward's up until he's turned, and then Lestat-as-Edward's personality and temperament and everything have free rein, and vice versa. Just so they get to the same places. I mean, Edward would probably be as woe-is-me and delusional as ever (especially since The Vampire Chronicles vampires really ARE true creatures of the night), but I'm really curious how Lestat would fare with Carlisle, and what Carlisle would think of him. Do you think he'd eventually leave and pursue a hedonistic lifestyle? Where do you see him going?

The beautiful thing is it actually doesn't matter.

(Note, we're going off the novels here, as I haven't seen enough of the recent show to know what they've done with Lestat's backstory).

Lestat is Edward

Edward was turned because Elizabeth prompted Carlisle, Edward hadn't really known Carlisle before that point or had a relationship with him. As it was, Lestat as a human wasn't the full-on hedonist he becomes as a vampire. Oh, he was vivacious and charming and knew how to have a good time and get around (which was what got him turned in the first place) but he wasn't Lord Henry yet.

So, Lestat could very easily have been Elizabeth's somewhat rebellious partying teenage son who knows that everything's going to be fine and he's going to get into university and probably become a stuffy boring lawyer.

So, Carlisle turns himself a stranger and.. oh no...

Well Lestat really enjoys how hot Carlisle is, he's super hot, and that's super cool however it's clear that Carlisle is a very strict person who doesn't know how to have fun.

This is before Alice, so while there's money it's not a hideous amount of money and Lestat was probably wealthier while human. You have Carlisle telling Lestat not to eat the delicious smelling people who are all dying of influenza anyway and that we should eat animals and be miserable like monks. And oh, yes, there are no women/men who will bang Lestat around either.

"Congratulations, Lestat, you're a monk!"

Lestat at first somewhat jokingly, but very seriously, tries to convince Carlisle to live a little. "What if we only eat the bad people, Carlisle?" But it slowly becomes clear to the pair that this just isn't working.

Either Lestat ends up turning a person to hang out with him/gang up on Carlisle and to also fuck with Carlisle. "See, Carlisle, I turned this other hot person who does fuck me and eats people with me!" and or Lestat ends up running away.

Probably both.

Carlisle doesn't turn the rest of the Cullens.

Edward is Lestat

It's a little more iffy that Edward would get turned in Lestat's place but not impossible. What happens with Lestat is that he keeps trying and failing to run away from home and eventually gets out and goes to be an actor in Paris. There, being young and hot and very charismatic, he attracts the attention of a vampire who turns him who then immediately commits suicide and Lestat gets all ze money (which he then squanders which is in part why he later turns Louis because moniezzzz and hot meeeeen).

But Edward is also young and hot and as a human was likely charismatic (he was as a vampire, at times, he can be very charming he's just also a bit manic and a bit... Edward when he's not trying).

So, let's say Edward gets turned against his will into a vampire in Paris, after having left his extremely shitty family (and his beautiful wonderful mother) and finds himself heir to an immense fortune.

Edward likely goes through a phase of deep self-hatred, as you note, where he's an extremely Catholic demon (Lestat having come from a very Catholic very French family). We have two paths for Edward, either he kills himself very early (easy to do as an Anne Rice vampire as you just remain out in the sun) or else he succumbs to hedonism as he did in canon briefly, justifying it as the murder of villainous people the world is better without.

Could go either way, as it'd be easy for Edward to kill himself early on impulse but we do know that he was willing to justify himself for pleasure and that this could easily become a slippery slope for him when he didn't have an in universe Carlisle to go back to.

Edward would start with those deemed evil doers but slowly slip into those he simply finds distasteful and then eventually those he finds tasty.

#twilight #twilight meta #twilight headcanon #twilight renaissance #the vampire chronicles #the vampire chronicles meta #the vampire chronicles headcanon #edward cullen #anti edward cullen #lestat de lioncourt #carlisle cullen #meta #headcanon #opinion

[palmtreepalmtree]

I honestly don't know if I can do Rosh Hashanah this year. There is so much baggage I'm carrying with my family right now. There's a part of me that just wants to drive away. But I don't think I can do that to my mom, and also that's just avoiding the issues.

The biggest thing is that I haven't really seen my brother-in-law since my niece's bat mitzvah in January. It wasn't intentional, but it wasn't unintentional either. I definitely let it happen. He's been having issues with my sister and while they've reconciled or are working on things, I have not forgiven him or let shit go. I have always had issues with him. But me being me, I always just kept my silence and tried to avoid confrontation.

Then he was unkind to my mom last year in a big family blow up where he complained about how he was treated in our house. As it was, I always felt that I had to work so hard to cater to his ego in our house, and that blow up just made me feel like what was the fucking point. Now more than ever I feel this heightened need to be careful around him. I pretty much just ignored him at the bat mitzvah, but he'll be staying in the house so of course I can't do that now. And apparently ignoring him was part of the problem. I can't believe how much emotional work I am doing to accommodate this person.

And to make matters more complicated, his brother will be visiting from out of town. Our house is pretty full already - I already give up my bedroom to accommodate my sister and brother-in-law. Now this guy is going to be sleeping on the den floor. He's perfectly nice, I guess, (though we're both lawyers and that can be sort of a thing iykyk), but what adult man decides to sleep on a futon in the middle of the house instead of just getting a hotel room? He's a big law lawyer, he can afford it. I would never. I barely want to stay with friends when they have a guest room (am I weird about this btw?).

And then there's my cousin and her in-laws. Firstly, my cousin is sicker all the time with cancer. I think she might be close to the end of her fight. Which is a heartbreaking thing to say about someone I adore, someone I grew up with, who is 45 years old, and has three children in their teens. She is fighting so hard, but she's in treatment three days a week, and she will never stop for the rest of her life. I'm happy she'll be coming, but I worry about her being around the 19 other people.

And then her in-laws are coming, and they are bringing their 100-year-old matriarch, who is a wonderful woman, but she is 100 years old, no one ever talks to her except me and my mom, and I don't know who is risking bringing someone like that around a place with 19 other people right now.

AND my cousin is not on the best terms with her mother-in-law. That's too complicated to get into here, but it's not the most pleasant thing in the world. As it is, they are not my favorite people. We've known them and included them for almost 20 years at this point, and over the years it has become clearer and clearer how different my values are from theirs when it comes to money and society. They're not Trump people, but they're definitely Rick Caruso people.

All of that is the backdrop to this dinner that I will be helping my mom to host for 20 people. She will be very stressed so I expect to get yelled at a lot tomorrow. And we're the type of people who smile and get along and pretend, while seething inwardly.

And it's not just like everyone goes home at the end of the night. I'll still have my brother-in-law and his brother at the house, probably all weekend. And I'm obligated to sit through like four hours of services on Saturday in the middle of this. All while not having my own private space to retreat to at the end of it until the family leaves.

Seriously, the more I type this, the more I think I should just leave. But I would never do that to my mom.

#long post #i just need my own house #but hahahahahaha jk #seriously thanks to anyone who read all this whining

[amethystina]

I was casually rereading whtd, as one does, and reading the comments (because i love the extra insight you give about the information that we're limited to in Ga On's pov) when i stumbled upon this comment: "… sort everything out? (and no one dies along the way, hopefully) He'll be very happy for them." about lawyer Ko and that in combination with the "minor character death tag" has made me Extremele worried about him. (plus you have also said that the kidnapping tag is not the one we should be worried about!!) I know you probably can't say anything about this because of spoilers, but know that it has been noted!!

Also kind of want a scene wherein lawyer Ko, Yo Han and Ga On are all together. Their dynamic would be so exquisite!! (obviously no pressure to actually write this, just a thought)

Anyway, whtd remains so good even after already having read and reread it in its entirety at least 5 times (and some scenes/chapters much more than that) (my ao3 history says i've visited whtd 200 times… so uh. yeah. i'm normal). I love slow burn so much (to the point where most romance book leave me disappointed bc they MCs get together like 100 pages in), i just love reading/watching the build up of a relationship and you write it so well!

I guess i just wanted to thank you for writing! I hope you're doing well <3

I'm usually very careful not to spoil what's going to happen in future chapters but I'll make an exception this time and flat-out say that you don't have to worry — Lawyer Ko is not going to die. I would literally never forgive myself if I killed him xD Not to mention that you all would probably come for my head if I did. He's just too amazing to be killed off!

So, rest assured, he's not going to die :)

And there will be at least one scene with Ga On, Yo Han, and Lawyer Ko in the same room unless my plans change dramatically. Which they rarely do, but "rarely" isn't the same as "never" so we'll see. Truth be told, though, I'll probably try really hard to keep it because I totally agree — the dynamic would be SPECTACULAR. So yeah. Stay tuned for that, I guess? ;)

You've definitely read Who Holds the Devil more times than I have x'D At least in its entirety. I mean, I reread the chapters at least twice (often three or four times) but I rarely start from the beginning and read it all the way through. I did at the end of my long break last year to get back into the swing of it, but it's difficult to find the time for that since I always have to focus on the next chapter. Which is a bit stressful at times, I will admit, since it puts more pressure on me to remember things at the top of my head (or at least know where to look if I want to check any details) but I'm lucky enough to be blessed with a really good memory, so that helps.

Anyway, I'm so glad you're enjoying it 💜 I honestly didn't plan for the slow burn to be quite this slow when I started the fic, but I can't say I have any regrets. Much like you, I just enjoy it too much ;) There's something so incredibly satisfying about delving this deep into Ga On and Yo Han's feelings and slowly developing relationship. And I guess that's also why I can't help throwing out tidbits of information in the comments, since there's usually so, so much happening within this story that you readers don't see (especially within Yo Han's head).

And I'm still not sure how to handle the knowledge that some people read the comments specifically to find those tidbits. Like, I don't mind you doing so! Go right ahead! They're public and all that. But it kind of blows my mind that some of you are so interested in what I'm writing that you'll do that. It feels a bit surreal to me, but in a good way? Like I'm an ACTUAL writer or something xD

Anyway, thank you so much for this kind and supportive message 💜 I definitely needed it right now because things honestly aren't all that great. Partly because of overall exhaustion and restlessness — mostly due to work — but even more so since it's now been a month since I posted a chapter and the requests for me to please update soon are starting to come in. I swear, it happens like clockwork every time I don't post within a month. And, what makes it worse, is that it's often from people I don't see comments from when I actually DO upload more frequently. As in, they don't comment on the fic itself, only when they think I don't update fast enough. Which is pretty disheartening, not going to lie.

Tragically enough, once the month mark passes, I have to start bracing myself whenever I get a comment or ask because there's now a 50/50 chance that it'll be someone asking me to update soon. They usually try to be nice about it, but it kind of always fails.

So, again, thank you for this. Because while I know that I should take my time and update on my own schedule, it's not always easy to remember that when people start asking me why it's taking so long. This was a nice change of pace and I'm very grateful for your kindness. Thank you 💜

#Amethystina Replies #Anonymous #... well that turned into a bit of a bummer #Sorry about that #I think I'm just a bit moody in general tonight #I actually have 8k written on the next chapter #But as usual I don't know exactly how long it'll end up being #So that's not saying much #I also admit that I'm kind of dragging my feet a little #Because it's another chapter that's very exhausting to write #And since I'm already exhausted it's difficult to find the energy to write #I'm not one of those who need motivation since I can push through most types of writer's block #But I DO need to be able to string sentences together #And I can't guarantee that in my current state

[final-girl96]

Firefly Chapter Forty-Eight

Jackson, Wyoming 2024

After being shown around Marie took Ellie back to the house we would be staying in. Joel and I went with Tommy to the tipay bison, it was the small town's bar. “So, you two are talking again? Does that also mean you're back together?” Tommy asked from behind the bar. He set three glasses on the bar and poured whiskey in each of them. “In a way,” Joel said, taking a sip of the amber liquid. I looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “In a way? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked. “We wouldn't even be talking to each other if it wasn't for Ellie,” he shrugged.

“To answer your question, Tommy, now that I know the correct answer, it's no. No we are not together!” I threw back the whiskey in my glass and stood up. “Where are you going?” Joel asked me. “To make sure Ellie is alright. I don't see a need for me to be here. I mean you did just basically say we're only on this journey to get Ellie where she needs to go and that I was just something for you to stick your dick into now that Tess is dead.”

“Tess is dead?” Tommy asked. I looked at him and nodded, “Yup! Blew herself up after she got bit by a clicker. It was good seeing you again, Tommy.” I walked towards the door, ignoring Joel calling for me to come back. I walked in the direction Maria had told us the house was. When I got there I walked in and called out for Ellie. “Ellie!” The house was silent as I headed up the stairs and checked all the doors. When I didn't find her I went to the house next door. The door wasn't fully closed so I knew Ellie was here. I walked in, closing the door behind me.

I was about to walk into the living room but stopped when I saw the board on top of the fireplace. Sarah's name with the day she was born and the day she died beside a boy's name with that same thing; the birthday and day he passed. I was drawn out of my thoughts of that night, in the beginning, when Sarah was shot. I've always felt that it should have been me who died, not her.

I turned towards the voices to see Ellie sitting in a chair while Maria cut her hair. “Look, I'm not gonna ask you what you're doing with them,” Maria said. “Good,” Ellie told her. “But there are clearly things you don't know about Joel and yn.” So Tommy told her everything I'm guessing. That would explain the look she gave me earlier. “Oh, like how they used to kill people? I know about that,” Ellie said. “So then you understand my concern?” Maria asked. “They don't do that anymore.”

“They stopped killing people?” Maria asked her. “Innocent ones. And Tommy did it, too. Are you worried about him?” Ellie asked, getting upset about the whole conversation. I could have made my presence known but I didn't. Not just yet. “Tommy was following Joel and I believe yn was too. She's so much younger than him. She would have done anything for him. The way you are now,” Maria said. This woman is fucking delusional. Tommy never once hesitated to kill someone. He didn't even argue with Joel when it came to that topic. We did what everyone else did; what we had to do to survive.

“Well, maybe I'm smarter than Tommy. No offense,” Ellie told her. “You are definitely smart. Would've made a hell of a lawyer. There's a whole lot you're not telling me. Good. Therein lies the point. Be careful who you put your faith in. The only people who can betray us... are the ones we trust. You understand?” Maria asked. Ellie hummed and looked past her, making eye contact with me. “Now, come on. Grab your super fսckin' eggplant coat,” Maria told her. “Where are we going?” Ellie asked. “The movies.”

Maria turned around and gasped a little when she saw me. “Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt your conversation,” I said. Ellie walked over to me and wrapped her arms around my waist. I wrapped my arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “Can you wait outside? I wanna talk to Maria for a second. It won't take long.” Ellie looked back at Maria and nodded her head, walling out of the house. I looked up at Maria and took a deep breath, slowly walking closer to her.

“You have no right to judge me or Joel. We've all done things we're not proud of. We did what we had to do to survive and Tommy never argued once. He never hesitated to pull the trigger. See the thing about Tommy, is he's a follower. He always has been and always will be. Joel is a good man. He cares about Tommy. Hell, the only reason he agreed to come along was so he could find him. He was worried when he stopped contacting him.” I walked a little closer and she stepped back a couple steps. “I never want to hear you try to turn my kid against me or Joel ever again.” I stared at her for a few seconds before turning around and walking out of the house.

It was hard to believe that this place was showing a movie. They acted like the world hadn't fallen apart. I stood by a pillar where I could see Ellie and I was away from Maria. I won't lie and say I didn't want to hit her because I did. I also wouldn't mind wrapping my hands around Tommy's neck. It's like he told a totally different story to her than what really happened back then. I made eye contact with him when he walked in and I tilted my head and gave him a look to let him know I wasn't happy with him. He said something to Maria then left. Maria turned her head to look at me and when I finally looked away to look back where Ellie was sitting, she was gone.

I immediately walked out and started to look for her. When I finally saw her she ran right past me, tears running down her face. I looked back at where she came from and quickly ran after her. “Ellie! Ellie, wait!” I followed her all the way back to the house. The front door was left open for me and I saw her running up the stairs. A bedroom door upstairs slammed shut, while I closed the front door. I sighed and headed up the stairs. “Ellie?” I checked each room until I opened the door to a room that once belonged to a teenage girl. “Ellie, hey, what's wrong?” I asked.

She had an old diary in her hand and flipped through the pages. “Is this what girls cared about before Cordyceps? What skirt went with what shirt and boys?” I walked over and sat beside her on the window bench. “Some girls, yes. What's going on? Why are you crying?” I asked. She didn't say anything for a long few minutes. The door opened, and Joel walked in. “Why don't you ask him.”

#joel x reader #ellie x joel #joel the last of us #joel and ellie #joel tlou #joel miller x reader #joel miller #joel miller tlou x reader #the last of us fanfiction #ellie the last of us #the last of us game #the last of us #the last of us x reader #ellie x riley #ellie x reader #ellie williams #ellie tlou #tlou x reader #tlou series #tlou fanfiction #tlou #pedro pascal

[deadprompts]

𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝙳𝙴𝙰𝙳 𝚂𝙴𝙰𝚂𝙾𝙽 𝟹 𝙿𝚁𝙾𝙼𝙿𝚃𝚂.

content warning applies. change any pronouns / wording if necessary.

they want to destroy us!

i like my pharmaceuticals, but i'm no killer.

why would you kill somebody else for him?

you want to talk?

they were scared, man.

what happened tonight is horrible.

i told you to kill her but you didn't.

we need you know more than ever.

that'd be the son of a bitch you'd really want to be scared of.

you had a gun on us.

i can't go with you.

your buddy's turning you over 'cause he's trying to save his own ass.

who ain't had a gun on 'em in the past year, huh?

they weren't human to begin with.

i shot my mom.

i failed in my duty.

the shit you doing, pointing that thing at me?

you know what's funny to me?

how's about a big hug for your old pal?

you talk about the weight of what you have to do, how you can handle it; a bad man, someone truly evil? they're light as a feather.

when i asked you where your loyalty was you said it was here, prove it.

ain't happening.

don't let this world spoil you.

i don't pretend to be a governor.

hell i think i'd piss my pants if some stranger come walking up with his mitts in his pockets.

i'm doing stuff. things.

i ran after them, but i couldn't keep up.

you're the black sheep.

no one's gonna mourn you.

don't you understand that? i can't.

prove it to us all.

we haven't have a day like that since the wall was built.

it was coming at me, bro.

you know, my mom, she liked her wine.

at least i won't have to live with myself.

you are going to beat this world, i know you will.

where you going?

there was a baby!

the truth is this could have been your shot.

so what's your real name? if it's not asking too much.

this rage is gonna get you killed.

you said you killed 16 men since this thing started?

you helping people out of the goodness of your heart? even though you might die doing it?

maybe these people need somebody like me around, huh? do their dirty work.

i'm sorry about your mom.

you're right.

so he saves your life, cleans you up, fed you a line of bullshit...

yeah, yeah, i get it. i get it. "shit happens."

he brought them here! he let them in.

he did the same to you.

i'm afraid that the terrorists want what we have!

i would have killed him otherwise.

you wanted your brother. now you got him.

i was playing out with the kids in the neighborhood.

he's got a new family.

it didn't happen.

i'm a damn mystery to me.

you're as much on the outside as i am.

i don't know why i do the things i do. never did.

you weren't there.

man, i went back for you.

you know something?

a fight, to the death!

you know, she was just gone. erased. nothing left of her.

i bet you a penny and a fiddle of gold that you never told him that we were planning on robbing that camp blind.

if it feels wrong don't do it, alright?

i ain't gonna beg.

i thought you were a cop, not a lawyer.

you're so good.

how could you!

you asked for it.

she liked to smoke in bed.

that's why you left first.

i'm sorry about yours.

i ended it.

who left who then?

they were rude is what they were. rude and they owed us a token of gratitude.

i should say that we're going be ok.

with your skills, a whole new beginning.

running is not an option.

you lost your hand because you're a simple minded piece of shit.

you know, we can go back.

you gotta do what's right.

i had to, man.

the winner goes free.

they don't feel a thing.

in this life now you kill or you die, or you die and you kill.

people said it was better that way. i don't know. just made it seem like it wasn't real, you know?

what, like when we were kids, huh?

what? what do you want?

you are smart, and you are strong, and you are so brave, and i love you.

you got to play the hand you're dealt.

now you're gonna turn and you're gonna tear away the flesh from her bones.

the baby is about to be here and we need to talk.

oh, otherwise you would have just left them to the biters, then?

if it feels easy don't do it.

yeah, it didn't, 'cause i wasn't there to help you.

they deserve what they got.

they didn't owe us nothing.

i... i didn't know he was...

i never tell.

how about a thank you?

it's so easy to do the wrong thing in this world.

but you choose to stay on the outside.

i may be the one walking away, but you're the one that's leaving.

so what should we do with them, huh?

that was the hard part.

you keep trying to get under my skin, i'm gonna cut that tongue out.

i ain't never pleaded for my life, and i ain't about to start now.

you ever kill anyone before?

#prompts #twd #rp prompts #rp sentence meme #rp sentence starters #rp meme #sentence starters #inbox meme #the walking dead rp meme #twd rp meme #apocalypse rp meme #apocalypse sentence starters #apocalypse rp #tlou rp meme #inbox prompts #deadprompts prompt

[thewritingofspencerrose]

Freefall Masterlist

Family Basics

"So," I can't help but begin, glancing down at the coffee in my hands, fidgeting with the mug handle.

"Yes?" Is his response, and it's in the surety of it that I recall just how much older he is than I am. And while 6 years isn't a lot, it makes me uncomfortable to sit here, his confidence a reminder that he is more experienced in life.

"Oh nothing, I was just hoping you'd have somewhere to start so we aren't just sitting here with coffee just for a photo."

"I was hoping you would start," Is his response, making me look up and meet the green eyes that are gazing into my own. "Most that you would need to know about me can be found online."

The man makes a good point.

Damn it.

"Uh, I can't say I know where to start, I usually avoid talking about myself to the best of my ability," I explain, him nodding along.

"Just begin with the basics. What's your middle name? Your birthday? Do you have family?" Charles prompts, and for the first time today I'm grateful that out of the other drivers in F1 who's team could have come up with this.

"My middle name is Elise. Lynnleigh Elise Earnhardt," Is the first prompt I answer, bringing a smile to his face.

"That's a gorgeous name for a gorgeous woman," He compliments, and I can't help but blush, despite knowing it's a show for the women at the table a few from ours.

"You have a million middle names, don't you? I feel like Logan has joked about it before."

"What is a man that doesn't know what a kilometer is doing making fun of my middle name?" He laughs, and laugh along, because what is Lo doing? "But yes, my full name is Charles Marc Herve Perceval Leclerc."

"Why so many?"

"You'll just have to ask my mother," Charles quips, and the mere comment makes my pulse race. I'm going to have to meet his mother. His brothers.

More terrifying, he's going to have to meet my parents. My brothers.

"Do you have family outside your father?" He asks next, an easy slide from his previous comment, even if he'll regret asking it. "Should I be concerned by the look on your face?"

"Can you fight?" I ask, and he immediately starts laughing, although that quickly ends when he realizes I'm serious.

"Why would I need to fight?" He asks, eyes wide and almost comical, if I wasn't serious.

"I'm the youngest of 4 siblings, the three others being my half brothers that were born before my mom and dad dated," I begin, him nodding for me to continue, coffee cup held to his mouth. "My mom's name is Victoria Hamlin, and she was married at 17 and had my eldest brother Marcus that year, he's 28 now, a lawyer, married to Amanda and they have my two nieces Amelia and Isabelle."

"Should I be taking notes?" He asks, acting as though he's pulling out his phone to take said notes.

"Not unless you want to. You'll probably only end up meeting my parents and maybe a brother or two. But for your sake, I do hope it's Marcus," I assure, although I'm ringing my fingers.

"What about your other brothers makes them so frightening?" Charles asks, and he seems as though he's becoming more comfortable in the idea of these oh so terrifying men.

A mistake on his part.

"Alexander and William, they're twins, 26 at this point, Alex being a cop and Will a firefighter, and both take pride in being muscled idiots who threaten my past boyfriends," I explain, him suddenly getting my point. "They're actually very sweet, all of my brothers are, they're just incredibly protective of me."

"I'm the same way with my brother Arthur," He assures, the idea of him being protective making me smile.

"Sounds as though Arthur and I will get on well," I can't help but laugh. "It takes a certain type of person to survive being the younger sibling."

"Oh I'm sure," He laughs, and it's now that our phones ping in sync, just as I feel myself truly getting comfortable.

Glancing down at the groupchat we've been added to, I know we're going to be thrown into this a hell of a lot faster than either of us expected. We were supposed to get a "soft launch period". Now, the whole world has an assumption we're together.

Prianka the Press Lady : Think you two are a little too convincing. A person just posted this twitter thread on why your body language reads, and I quote, "fucking in private"

Prianka the Press Lady: We're going to play this to our advantage though. As though you're just friends and these are rumors.

Prianka the Press Lady: Let the games begin.

#original character #the writing of spencer rose #charles leclerc #charles leclerc x oc #earnhardt oc #formula 1 #fake dating

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Can you talk about Gladue Reports for Native criminals? I was SA'd as a child by a Native man and I remember his lawyer reading a Gladue Report for him during sentencing and it felt like such a slap in the face to me, because it basically excused everything he did to me without him actually having to take responsibility. That's just my opinion though, would love to hear yours.

To be honest, I had to look it up as I'd not encountered the term before. And I agree with you, the whole thing is repugnant.

Essentially, a Gladue Report is the opposite of a victim impact statement. Instead of a victim describing how the crime has impacted their life, it's the perpetrator saying why what they did is somehow mitigated by the fact they're native/indigenous/first peoples.

What this says is, this group of people over here can't be expected to behave according to the norms of the society in which they live and were born into, so we should lower our standards and stop expecting them to. It's the bigotry of low expectations.

That somehow the sexual assault this man perpetrated against you is lessened or less of a crime because the man who did it is indigenous/native/whatever we're calling it now. He's less in control of and responsible for his own actions and less able to learn to behave right.

Imagine being able to say, I'm of Slavic descent and my ancestors were enslaved throughout the Middle East, therefore when I murder someone it's less of a crime because history or something. Or, many of the first Europeans in Australia were convicts who were shipped out having committed only minor crimes in Britain, so a descendant of those people gets a lighter sentence because history and deportation and shit.

Ridiculous.

In looking into this, I went down a bit of a rabbit hole regarding indigenous violence. As I've mentioned before, there's a myth that native people were peaceful and coexisted with each other and nature until the evil settlers arrived. Except this isn't true. Natives made alliances with settlers in many cases, in order to gain access to the weapons to exterminate their enemies. (They really needed Starfleet's rules around the Prime Directive, First Contact and not granting access to alien technology back then.)

In many communities with a high percentage of native people with tribal backgrounds, violence occurs at a higher rate per capita than other communities/populations. And this is across multiple countries: USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and so on. Tribal customs of retaliation or score-settling are common. But nobody wants to talk about or address this because racism, colonialism, white guilt, something, something, something.

And yet, the existence of Gladue Reports at all is covertly an admission of this reality.

Lower violence is actually associated with strong centralized government, where violent deaths occur in the low single digit percentages... at their worst. Which is the absolute lower band of tribal societies and only goes up from there.

Bringing it back to the point, the legal system said to you, what you went through is less serious or less of a crime because of who he is.

In essence, it's like saying that he owes you $1,000 for what he did to you.... but you owe him $500 because of something he didn't experience that you didn't do, so he only owes you $500 and then you're even.

Or, more insidiously, that society owes him some proportion of a sexual assault, and disturbingly, you're the one to pay him the reparations he's owed.

Ridiculous, racist and utterly immoral.

#ask #Gladue Report #indigenous peoples #bigotry of low expectations #native peoples #first peoples #reparations #indigenous violence #tribalism #religion is a mental illness

[my-hyperfixation-hell]

No thoughts head empty, just loving the way Ace Attorney lawyers casually break the law. No, actually, I love it, unironically, hear me out.

So the first major incident of a lawyer breaking the law to get the upper hand in court would be Miles updating the autopsy report. Everyone knows he did it. I'm sure many of us have seen real lawyers reacting to that scene, and getting shocked at how much they just Cannot Do That.

And I like that because it shows us what it looks like when someone misuses the law to their own gain. Phoenix still manages to overcome it, of course, but still.

We get the sense of injustice at our opponents using dirty tactics to gain an unfair advantage, which usually makes blowing this unfair advantage out of the water all the more satisfying.

However, we're also no exception to breaking the law ourselves in the game, when it's for our client's sake. Most notably, that would be Phoenix giving Miles his badge so he can impersonate him in court. They even go so far as to get Franziska and an unknowing judge involved to cover it, so the game very much makes a point out of the fact that they should not be allowed to do that.

But it's putting morality OVER the law. Again and again we see Ace Attorney games where the law does not serve justice. I mean, every client we have is a person who was wrongly arrested... most. every client we have, actually.

Ace Attorney is a world where justice is the priority, and if the law will not serve justice, the game has no problem letting it slide when characters break it, because following the law to the letter means nothing if it gets people hurt. The law is black and white, but morality is more nuanced than that.

This is turned up to 10 in Spirit of Justice, where instead of a legal system that is good but full of exploitable loopholes and cruel objectivity, we face off against a law that is subject to the whims of one woman, who uses it as nothing more than a means by which to keep her power alive, falsely executing countless people in the process, keeping her own sister hostage, etc., etc..

And in the final trial, when you respond to everything she has done with logic and reason, she throws the law back at you, changing and rewriting it at every turn when she might otherwise lose.

The only thing you can do?

Prove that she had no legitimacy to do so in the first place. Undermine every law she has put in the book. Undermine the law itself, in the spirit of justice.

All in all, it was a very satisfying end to the franchise. I think that having Phoenix be our Mia in the last case was also the best ending for him, because we see him truly graduate from a fledgling attorney himself to a mentor. Everything comes full circle very neatly.

#ace attorney #ace attorney analysis #spirit of justice

[greenbirdtrash]

What adaptation of the Lorax has the best rendition of the Once-ler’s outburst towards the end in your opinion?

There's definitely some charm in the 1972 TV special, but if we're talking about the real outburst and the more "mature" approach...hands down, David Greig made it feel so disturbingly realistic for a truly greedy CEO of a huge company that at some point it even tricks you into justifying his actions and even makes you wonder "Oh, well...that man kinda has the point...maybe it's not that bad after all?Maybe that's the small sacrifice we should make for our own good?" and then it hits you like a fucking truck.

Also, there's way more than just a single canonical "i'm figgering on biggering" outburst right before the last tree falls down...

[LORAX: THE MUSICAL SPOILERS AHEAD]

There's something the illumination (as a big corporation themselves, of course) wouldn't show us even under some layers of sugar-coating, i think. The closest they could've possibly get to this level is the cut "Biggering" song, but still, the 2012 animated movie was more kid-friendly, so to say, and as a result we didn't got any deep stuff going in there.

But the story doesn't end here. There's much more coming after this particular scene.

Greig's adaptation truly pushed the borders of what we saw previously, it gives the Once-ler so much more in terms of character development, goals and motivation it nearly feels like you're on a journey with your childhood friend who gets carried away during it's course, and even tho you care about him and naturally want to support him (knowing his origins and his backstory, which truly extended the concept of him being a tragic character with a carnal need to succeed for what he believes is good - to help his family and make his mark in the world), you see him falling deeper into the void, you feel like you're slowly loosing that deep connection with each other, you just feel that invisible rift growing between you two as he changes his priorities and gets corrupted with greed, becoming a completely different person in the end, it hits you hard and it leaves you emotionally damaged and heartbroken.

And right before the final collapse, on the peak of his fame he is exactly that greedy, sly, persuasive, devious businessman i always wanted to see him portrayed as. He has power, he has money, he has an entire lawyer company that got his back and he fucking knows he can get away with anything because of his sweet lies and all the useful connections he made. And still, when a major part of what he's done gets exposed, when there's a dozen of troubles regarding his factory and the protests rallying right in front of it, when it looks like he's totally cornered and has no other choices but start explaining and apologizing, then we see what he become and what greed did to him.

A fake ass apology, peppered with guilt tripping. Exactly something that you would expect from a irl huge company which got outed for some deep problematic stuff. This is where the realization got me.

He's not sorry. He's not sorry at all.

He lost his innocence, his friends, the possible happiness he could've had in the valley, and he ends up being totally broken. Even his own family (who pretty much used his initially good intentions to get what they want) abandoned him in the end. It's too late when he regrets and realises what he's done.

Amazing.

#kers ramblings #lorax musical #the lorax #the onceler #lorax fandom #lorax 2023 #lorax musical analysis

[mariana-oconnor]

The Five Orange Pips pt 2

There were no signs of violence, no footmarks, no robbery, no record of strangers having been seen upon the roads.

Ghost murderer.

"They have, however, allowed me a policeman, who may remain in the house with me." "Has he come with you tonight?" "No. His orders were to stay in the house." Again Holmes raved in the air.

First, all my Holmesies at the rave:

Second, I'm really going to agree with Holmes here. Neither of the first two deaths occurred in the house. The policeman should be on bodyguard duty not house guarding duty. What the actual? This is spectacular incompetence. To the point where it borders on conspiracy.

"There is but one thing to do. It must be done at once. You must put this piece of paper which you have shown us into the brass box which you have described. You must also put in a note to say that all the other papers were burned by your uncle, and that this is the only one which remains. You must assert that in such words as will carry conviction with them. Having done this, you must at once put the box out upon the sundial, as directed. Do you understand?"

And we come to the further reason why Elias Openshaw was a massive dick. By burning the papers he ensured that his family would have no way to prove that they were gone and therefore protect themself. The one scrap exists by luck rather than design and honestly, isn't proof that everything's been destroyed. Do I want the bad guys to get their papers back? No. But there was definitely a better way to play this than to leave your family with literally no way to protect themselves. You can't just say 'the papers don't exist anymore' and expect everyone to believe it.

Outside the wind still screamed and the rain splashed and pattered against the windows. This strange, wild story seemed to have come to us from amid the mad elements—blown in upon us like a sheet of seaweed in a gale—and now to have been reabsorbed by them once more.

In case you had forgotten, the weather is miserable, but Watson's clearly loving it.

"But have you," I asked, "formed any definite conception as to what these perils are?" "There can be no question as to their nature," he answered.

Based on the lack of any physical evidence at the second death site, I still feel like 'the ghosts of the people Elias Openshaw murdered' would 100% be a reasonable solution for this story if it were to step into the supernatural.

As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone,

Sounds fake, but OK. It's the Victorian period. Anything goes. (Also apparently Cuvier was anti-evolution and laid the basis for scientific racism, so we're really in it now)

"It was a singular document. Philosophy, astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I remember. Botany variable, geology profound as regards the mud-stains from any region within fifty miles of town, chemistry eccentric, anatomy unsystematic, sensational literature and crime records unique, violin-player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and self-poisoner by cocaine and tobacco. Those, I think, were the main points of my analysis."

Ah, a flashback to A Study in Scarlet, if I remember correctly. Nice little nod to the readers, ACD.

a possession of all knowledge, which, even in these days of free education and encyclopaedias, is a somewhat rare accomplishment

In these days of wikipedia... I think you might call that a completely unknown accomplishment.

And we finally get to the part of the story with the anti-racism. Thank you ACD for putting this in Holmes' voice and making it very, very clear where he stands on the matter.

"You will observe," said Holmes, laying down the volume, "that the sudden breaking up of the society was coincident with the disappearance of Openshaw from America with their papers. It may well have been cause and effect."

And this is where we get the 'Openshaw might have been remorseful and changed sides' narrative from. That and the 'my sins' line from the first part. Sure, fine. Maybe he decided that they were going too far and perhaps the murdering, intimidation and terrorism were a little more extreme than he wanted. But fuck that, because he kept the fucking papers.

Maybe it was shame that held his tongue, but I keep coming back to the papers, over and over again. If he was already marked for death then why tf did he burn the papers and not turn them over to an authority that could actually do something with them? That would have protected his family at least a little and it would have stopped the papers from falling back into the wrong hands. It's absolutely the best play here. He has evidence of crimes committed. He has nothing left to lose. He should have turned the papers over immediately, but whatever. At this point he has no reason not to turn them over.

Sure, he probably would still have been killed, but he was dead anyway. All he had to do was try to take them down with him. But he didn't. He burnt the papers. So even if he was remorseful or ashamed or whatever (and it doesn't seem like from his nephew's description of him that he was particularly changed in his viewpoints) he still didn't go far enough to actually try to do something about it. Instead he put his family at risk and tried to protect what? His reputation? Fuck that.

He stopped for himself. He protected himself. And then at the end, he protected his reputation.

"There is nothing more to be said or to be done to-night, so hand me over my violin and let us try to forget for half an hour the miserable weather and the still more miserable ways of our fellowmen."

Some music to soothe the spirits. Holmes fiddles while London storms.

#long post #the five orange pips #letters from watson #Sherlock Holmes #Look I really don't like Elias Openshaw and I don't think he is at all redeemed by the narrative #he's a racist selfish idiot murderer

[lucas-deziderio]

Dezi reads Pact: Null 9.2

Or, as I would like to call it:

Well, now I do feel justified about feeling animosity towards Rose. I should probably do a second read-through to try and identify all situations in which she's clearly being dishonest to his face... Someday. In the far future. Don't pester me about it.

In this chapter Blake keeps being worn out by Wet Hell and subconsciously tempted to leave his humanity behind and becoming a feral Other, to the point where he dreams about turning into a heavy metal album cover and getting it on with Green Eyes. I admit that for a moment I did believe that was really happening, you cheeky Wildbow.

What is interesting to me is that the text is comparing the process the victims of this place go through as becoming more animalistic. Living in the now, worrying only about their immediate survival. At the same time, the process is also similar to that of becoming an Other. How similar, after all, are Others to animals? Are they just following their primal instincts, even when planning and bargaining? We know that they have rules they must always follow, but do they do so because of fear of consequences or because their own nature forbids it? Maybe what ultimately sets humankind apart is that they are the ones with actual free-will.

Or maybe I'm overthinking this. Who knows?

As an aside, there seems to be a handful of bugs around here. I really wasn't expecting this, but it makes me miss Taylor. She would definitely be having an easier time in this place.

I close my eyes, reminiscing about Skitter, while See You Again plays in the background.

At a moment of great desperation, our hero finds himself desperate, fleeing from a ghost from his past. Who is this Carl? Did we meet him before and I just forgot? In any case, his presence is enough to send Blake running, almost falling to his death and finally puts him under enough pressure that he is forced to pull his trump card: his lawyers. Honestly, if I were in his place I would have done that way earlier. Points for sticking to your morals!

A last slap to the face comes when the lawyer simply refuses to make a deal. This reinforces my theory that Blake is indeed in a layer of Hell and so his soul already belongs to them. Or maybe they just lack the power to pull him out of there? If this were a normal book, I would say things cannot get any worse, but we're not even halfway through the arc!

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#Dezi reads #Pact #pact web serial #pact spoilers #liveblogging pact #wildbow #Null 9.2

[timeskip]

Here's some thoughts on my idea of How AA5 Could've Been Better (and also been an Apollo game)

NOTE: this doesn't have much to do with changing the plot of the game itself. I know it's not an AA4 sequel and that's a lot of people's problems with it, but this is my idea while still keeping the general plot of the game intact. Okay? Okay.

Phoenix IS NOT A PROTAGONIST. He gets ONE case and it's Turnabout Reclaimed and it's DLC.

Athena is a law student who's come to work as an assistant at the Wright Anything Agency :)

VERY IMPORTANT TO ME: they flash back to how Phoenix met Athena during the 7 year gap. It doesn't have to be a case-long flashback or anything, but it felt very Absent to me that we never understand how Phoenix inspired Athena to become stronger

Trucy is more important... Find ways for her to be present even if it's in a role where she's not the assistant... pwease...

Essentially: Phoenix is in the mentor role while studying to be a lawyer again after years, Trucy is helping out Apollo, and Athena is struggling to do what she needs to do before she's even a fully fledged lawyer.

More AA5 spoilers under the cut

My idea is that Athena offering to defend Juniper in 5-3 is UNUSUAL and STRANGE since she's technically just there to be an assistant, she has to jump through hoops to even be able to do defense, and she feels a lot of responsibility from it (in addition to every other reason she has to do this)

I think Juniper in general might have to get reworked a little? Her relationship with Athena is important, but with the story told out of order, it gets a little muddled, especially with the dark age of the law thing...? Honestly, I don't mind the bombing being first, it's a shocking fun way to start the story, but I think it could've definitely lay the foundation to more of the story without bringing Phoenix back in the middle of it.

(Maybe keep Apollo conscious for it? So he can be more important???)

I think getting rid of a lot of the dark age of the law would clear up the story for Apollo, but we can keep echoes of it in Themis Academy and bring in legal corruption as a concept.

Oh Apollo we're really in it now. Apollo getting suspicious of Athena should be foreshadowed WAY WAY WAY more. Also, Athena's past. We have Juniper to foreshadow it!!! We have CLAY!!!

(Honestly part of me wants to cut Clay entirely because there's no real way to save him without fucking with the plot a lot more but hrghhh)

Either way, Apollo can have more focus without leaning on Clay too heavily. Instead, we follow his point of view as he begins to doubt Athena and doubt HIMSELF. We can even bring in Kristoph, how he's becoming more like him and how he suspects the corruption that's been following him around...

When Aura accuses Athena, Apollo investigates her. He starts to wonder if Aura is RIGHT, especially because he doesn't know why Athena is doing anything she's doing. Juniper tells Apollo about Athena's past, and he wonders why she HID it :(

Trucy is with Apollo during this. We get fun assistant Trucy times, and we also get Trucy's feelings about Athena, the way their agency is falling apart... she wonders if maybe they should get help. Apollo rejects the idea.

Cue the entire 4th and 5th cases. I'm not sure if I'd still have Trucy be kidnapped tbh since I think it's nice if she has the assistant role during this time... Maybe Phoenix gets kidnapped instead lol

We still get our Blackquill moments! We still get Athena's backstory! I'm genuinely not sure if Edgeworth should be the final prosecutor but he can still talk about the reason why he brought Blackquill in as a prosecutor or something! Maybe Klavier can be the final case prosecutor if Edgeworth no longer fits because Phoenix isn't here !!! idk!!!

I genuinely liked the way all three of our main lawyers came together at the end tho and like Phoenix growing as a mentor figure post-AA4 (while keeping some AA4 traits) is Good and I want to explore that too. But I can deal without it if it makes things less cluttered.

At the end of the game, Athena promises to get her badge for real and leaves the WAA for now. Now they don't have to shove her to the side if they don't want to use her in future games.

#this is barely thought out but fuck it. main tag. #ace attorney