The most terrifying creature of all

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this was actually fun to make...

[reblogs are appreciated!]

anyways, love her

truly one of the best aspects of the lunter/witteclaw parallels is that the switcheroo of human luz luring "witch" hunter away is just SO on point with the themes of the story and philip's entire motivation as a villain. it's not a matter of humans VS witches, or religion VS paganism, but at the core of it lays the idea that anything that deviates from the norm needs to be extracted and destroyed. and in philip's time, that meant that witches needed to be eliminated.

but! that has changed, overtime. philip's world no longer holds that as the rule. not because the people who think like him no longer exist, but because the people who have been the target of discrimination and hatred have come together as a community and fought for their rights to live their lives to their fullest. and because of these, uh, "modern" ideas, luz fills the role of "evelyn" despite not being a witch herself, because she hits all the important bits: she's also the kind of pest philip would've considered a cancer for society all those years ago. and therefore, she manages to hit all the important story beats for her caleb, aka hunter: she's the one who triggers his first act of defiance against belos; she's the one who introduces flapjack to him; she's the one that takes hunter by the hand and leads him away from belos.

even then, her status as a human is impactful in the way belos treats her: he considers her an "equal", as much as that can mean. he uses this fact to manipulate and guilt-trip her. but that also means that he underestimates her, and that finally allows luz to put this putrid cycle to an end, therefore making luz and hunter effectively the last evelyn and caleb to graze the earth.

I yearn to talk about my Dracula!Holmes au, and the universe has seen fit to give me free will and internet access, so talk i shall.

Listen. Hear me out just hear me out.

We literally have Johnathan motherfucking Harker whose written POV we read Dracula from for like a solid half of the book, right. Well, no more, he's John Watson now babeyyy, a retired army man now gainfully employed as a lawyer who's off overseas to act as estate agent to the strange and eccentric client who has expressed interest in moving to foggy London... Count Holmes! [insert jazz hands]

Instead of being Evil(tm) and plotting to take over London or whatever, my guy is just Autistic. Also riddled with ADHD and in desperate need of some enrichment in he goddamn enclosure. He will also in fact be trans, because. Of course. Vampirism as a metaphor for queerness and the social ostracization that follows as a punishment and having inherently queer narratives intertwined in them etc etc... anyhow! Count Sherlock Holmes, vampire detective!!!

(I do also want him to be aroace, or aroacespec at least, but I'm willing to negotiate for the Johnlock and the Johnlock alone.)

Mina Harker here is of course the one and only Mary Morstan, although it is clearly a lavender marriage, because we aren't cowards in this household and so Mary gets to be gay with her Lucy equivalent here, just as god intended. I haven't decided who her Lucy equivalent will be yet but this au is still young (technically I've been going insane about it in my mind for like a month or two but whatever) and there's no reason we can't make up an OC for her Lucy.

John Watson, resident gay doctor lawyer, of course, is smart enough to realize the enigmatic Count Holmes' vampiric secret within like one adventure, but he sure is going to have a slow burn of realizing just how gay he is for said enigmatic Count Holmes. We, of course, get to witness this tooth rotting bullshit firsthand as we read his diary entries and some later letters to Mary.

And instead of being one long gothic horror narrative, it's just adventure of the week with your friendly neighborhood crime solving vampire, the various other mythical creatures who do said crimes, and Just Some Guy.

Just, every Sherlock Holmes adventure adapted into this au with other supernatural elements. The guy from the Red Headed League is a local villager being bamboozled by a leprechaun, the Silver Blaze thing is about a kelpie. Everyone including Sherlock was operating on the assumption that Irene Adler was a siren, but actually she was just a regular human, and instead of unlearning misogyny (bc I don't see trans vampire Sherlock living so long through changing times and society and being sexist), Sherlock has to learn not to underestimate the intelligence of humans.

Also, he's just really excited to have this new human, John, living in his castle. So curious, too, about humans, he has sequestered himself from them for such a long time and John seems like a very interesting one. He's probably the first friend Sherlock has had in a long time, too.

Also. Instead of being warded off or harmed by garlic, to Sherlock, garlic is just the vampire version of cocaine. He just gets high as fuck off garlic. Could live on the stuff. And the reason people think he's warded off by garlic is just because he was seen getting high off his ass, turning into a bat, and flying away in loop de loops upon consuming garlic one (1) time. And everyone thought it's his weakness. And he never bothered correcting them bc Why Would He. He's basically getting free cocaine left and right from villagers who are scared/wary of the supernatural Count Holmes and only go to him when there's no other option, and it's no bother to leave people he's not investigating alone.

I genuinely do think cocaine!garlic addicted Sherlock has so much comedic potential, it really is so beloved to me. Just imagine, if you will, an extremely put-upon John Watson caring for Batlock who has gotten high off his ass and refuses to stop flying into his own antique chandelier.

I was also thinking that it would be funny to have Mrs. Hudson and Mrs. Turner in place of Dracula's sexy vampire roommates or whatever those three were lmao (I couldn't think of a third character, sorry)

Also. Obviously. Van Helsing has got to be Moriarty, by virtue of opposition. I do think their whole deal has a lot of potential to be very funny and entertaining also. I am also considering it might be fun to have Lucy's other suitors be the Scotland Yarders, like Lestrade, Gregson and what have you, but that risks missing out on the very fun possible dynamic of "Sherlock being exasperated with the dumbass out of their depth Yarders he keeps helping" raised to like the hundredth degree so. I honestly would like people's thoughts on that.

Anyway so YES, Dracula au please and thank you. Maybe with endgame QPR Johnlock? Yes? Please? Queerplatonic husbands Johnlock is my shit.

In conclusion: THANK YOU FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK <3

https://www.tumblr.com/rist-ix/749015401700229120 not you reblogging this when you ship bloom with the man who murdered her family 😭

Bloom's into ppl who slay! Hope this helps :3

My housemate is moving out in January

She told us this a week or two ago, when she sat down and, after sitting with us watching TV for over an hour, said "hey so I bought a house and I'm moving out. We agreed on 2 months notice so I won't move until the end of January."

The last time she talked in the immediate terms about buying a house was in 2021, when the sale she was working on fell though and she was unemployed so it was a "when I'm back in a position to look I'll start looking again." Since then I've occasionally asked her how she's doing on the house buying front and she's been like "oh I'm getting there financially" but hasn't mentioned anything concrete.

She didn't tell us she was looking at places. She didn't tell us she had put in an offer. She told us when the offer was finalised. A week AFTER she emailed the letting agent about getting out of her part of the lease. And, it increasingly feels like, only because the letting agent's response was that we had to agree to change the lease.

The letting agent's response (which our housemate obviously didn't copy us into; we had to follow up separately and they copied us into the email chain) also includes that when we change the lease, they're empowered to change the rent, quote, "no cap". Rent was already going up in January - there's no possibility of Sam and I paying her share of the rent.

The really fucking upsetting thing is we're not strangers. This isn't a casual "housemate we found on flatshare" thing. She and Sam have lived together literally their entire adult lives. Me and her have known each other well over a decade. I lived in her and Sam's flat when I was homeless. We were the first people she came out to as trans. We're not super close but I thought we were fucking friends. And she's literally gone out of her way to not talk to us about this for what must have been months while the sale completed - which means she's lied to my face at least once cause I've asked her about her finances in that time (cause she's in a job she hates that she only took to get the house money, so it's like. when we've been commiserating about work stuff I'm often asking 'are you almost free?'). she literally went out of her way to talk to the letting agents before talking to us about putting us in a situation where we could lose our fucking home.

And she keeps. trying. to pretend nothing's happened. Every time I've seen her since then she's not mentioned anything or apologised or anything, she just keeps chatting away and offering hugs and fistbumps like nothing's happened. Like we're still fucking friends.

All it would take for us to still be friends and to be happy for her would have been one fucking sentence in the groupchat like "hey, just put an offer in on a house" or "I'm looking at properties, just so you know, that might happen in the next few months". Like nobody begrudges her for buying a house! It's very cool for her! She's 31 she's worked really hard to get the money I would love to be happy for her! Unfortunately she decided avoiding conflict is more important than giving the people she fucking LIVES WITH (who btw fronted her a month on the rent here while she was unemployed and agreed to take on a larger proportion of the move-in cost back in 2021, if we're still holding ourselves to shit we said 2.5 years ago), so no, you are not entitled to our friendship or to going back to normal.

like if she'd been honest with us it would have been something to process but we'd have had time to figure out our next steps. instead she's left us in a position where we have to find a new roommate before she gives her one month notice, which means finding someone by the end of December, which oh look that's the middle of the fucking Christmas holidays. and she didn't tell us anything until the START of December, or copy us into her conversation with the letting agent, meaning we still don't know what the rent on that space will be so we aren't yet in a position to advertise it. Has she offered to help find a roommate? Has she fuck. Has she offered to help out by moving her move-out date? Nah, she's moving as soon as she gets the keys because, quote, "that means her finances won't have to change". SOUNDS LOVELY. NOT HAVING YOUR FINANCES SUDDENLY CHANGE. I THINK THAT SOUNDS LIKE A REALLY REASONABLE FUCKING GOAL.

Thirteen fucking years she's lived with Sam. Four fucking weeks over Christmas she's left us to figure out a way to not turbofuck our living situation. And she's got the fucking nerve to try and pretend we should be interacting like nothing's changed. Jesus Christ. What a fucking unhinged way to treat...anybody, honestly. never mind the friends-your-entire-adult-life part. literally cannot imagine a scenario in which I would buy a house without telling the people I lived with.

(haha actually this is what my parents divorced over so apparently it's not unusual. although at least my dad had the decency to tell the woman he shared finances with at the point he put in an offer not the point the fucking sale went through.)

Like we'll be fine. It's a huge city centre flat with decent rent and queer housemates, hopefully even when the rent goes up it'll be an easy sell in a city with a huge housing shortage and big queer community. We've got a couple of people interested already, sight unseen - worst case scenario we have to live with someone we don't get on with. And it's given Sam and me a push to look at our own finances and as of today, we've got a mortgage decision in principle and can start looking at flats in the area - mind, we'll be transparent upfront and tell any prospective housemates that yeah, we're looking to buy and move out in the next 6-12 months, and we'll tell them if we put an offer in, because we're decent fucking people who aren't going to spring that on someone out of the blue.

But it's been I think 2 weeks and I'm so fucking angry I could spit. It's such a fucking betrayal. And frankly you know selfishly like. I just had a breakup a couple of months ago, I'm in the middle of moving jobs, both me and Sam have a history of housing instability and this has been the first decent, stable, safe, not-mouldy not-freezing home I think any of us have had, and this is so fucking triggering and upscuttling I could just start biting. like I was talking to my friend about it last week and it's just like. Can I have One Fucking Thing of the three main tentpoles of survival - home, work, relationships - that are fucking stable right now? because shit has been In Flux lately. and at least the work and relationship stuff has changed because of my decisions. going through all that work to make myself short-term unstable to gain long-term stability has been really hard and draining and then just as I was reaching the crisis point with work stuff BOOM, IT'S HOUSING INSTABILITY WITH A STEEL CHAIR. fuck. seriously fuck this and fuck her. we're going to make something good come of it but what a deeply, unbelievably shitty thing to do.

uhmmm it's so hard to come up with new years resolutions b/c my two basic desires are "find peace" and "go to war"

yeah this cannot go on i need to take something like my chest is exploding i can't calm down it's 7am i feel insane insane insaneeeee

I know I’ve been talking about downsizing basically forever but things keep happening. But since taking in these emergency rats it has REALLY driven home that I *need* to be much further from my capacity limit.

I am not rehoming any of *my* animals, but I am doubling down on my efforts to increase my number of outside fosters so that there’s fewer fosters at my house, and will be keeping much fewer permanent animals going forward.

I am not planning to have any forever rats (except sanctuary rats) going forward, or forever mice. Once my current ones pass I will not be getting anymore. I have 9 gerbils through various circumstances but my limit is going to be 4. I have 3 hamsters & will be setting a limit of 1-2 going forward. I am planning to have no more than 6-7 permanent rodent enclosures (currently I have 14, so I will be halving my numbers essential, as they slowly pass of old age.

Before I ended up with these emergency rats I was doing just fine, not quite at my limit but getting close, and now I am over my limit and not sure when that’ll change. I’m managing, but since I never know when the next emergency will happen I need to maintain more open space and more bandwidth.

home from work

we want to hear the unhinged things!

i completely forgot abt this ask skdhdhsh but ok!im gonna put it in the tags! no one but freaks allowed in there!

(here are the photos again for ref)

Placing such a hard time limit using the Calamity was exceptionally good and also inherent to the tragedy of it and im thrilled by it. Don't get me wrong, forced time limits in tragedies and doomsday stories are common for a reason. They work, and they work well. but just, within the context of EXU Calamity, its really getting me.

because its always about not having enough time, right? its about expecting that you'll have more. There's complacency with power, and mistakes, and wealth, but maybe what the Ring of Brass were most indulgent with was time.

(you always think you'll have enough time, more time, another replenishment, another deal, another broadcast, another batch of bright children. youll get another time to hash out an argument with your father. you'll get another time to stay home with your kids and get to know them. you'll get another time to apologize and explain and fix your broken relationship. there's just something else, right here, right now, that should get done first.)

The Ring of Brass were rich, in so many ways. They had power, and wealth, and a million responsibilities, and so maybe they would've argued they had ZERO time, actually, and they just needed to sort everything else out first, and they'd have enough time to figure everything else out later.

but that's the point, right? There's never really a good time for this. for the important stuff, or the end of the world.

(Laerryn was, perhaps, the primary person in the Ring Of Brass operating under a time limit from the get-go, trying desperately to get the Leyline working, because if it wasn't now, it would be never. Because Quay wouldn't live that long. But even she assumed that was the extent of the time limit, that for Everything Else, there would still be time.)

(And is that such a ridiculous expectation? Is that so foolish of her? Of all of them? You never expect the world to end. You don't have infinite time, sure, but- you've got tomorrow, or next week, or- just not now.)

And so it is tragic, but it is also weirdly satisfying, to see the way time got shattered and stretched and sped throughout that last episode. The first second lasted forty minutes. They get maybe two hours at the hands of a damned demon, and its the best blessing they've ever had. Rounds are six seconds. A broadcast is maybe thirty. A healing word, a Wish, a Wall of Force, all buying paltry seconds that make all the difference. The dawn is coming, Avalir is landing, there's so much that has to be done, and that won't get done. We watch them make hard decisions, over and over, and over, and we keep saying "there's not enough time". Because of course there isn't. There could never have been.

i love being a mermaid but i sure have condemned myself to a life where there is always at least a little bit of water in every cavity of my head

the thing that helps me sometimes wrt numbers brain is that the most popular fic isn’t actually gonna be the best fic, pretty much ever, bc the things people gravitate toward are the things that appeal to the largest number of people instead of the sort of weird offbeat passion projects i frequently throw myself at. the things that do numbers are bigger fandoms and popular ships and (often) watered down characterizations or popular tropes, none of which is what i really enjoy doing ninety percent of the time.

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