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irradiatedsnakes · 2 months

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the Big TMA Furry List

this list with commentary/choice rationale below the cut :] i wrote a lot of thoughts down do please check it out.

jon: common raven

martin: tan jumping spider

sasha: southern flannel moth

not!sasha: red postman

tim: jackson's chameleon

melanie: eastern copperhead

georgie: triceratops horridus

basira: domestic cat (calico shorthair)

daisy: domestic dog (german shepherd)

elias: barn owl. jonah: eurasian eagle owl.

gerry: domestic dog (black doberman)

annabelle: white-booted racket-tail

jane: cabbage white

michael: spiny softshell turtle

helen: common hermit crab

oliver: black vulture

peter: risso's dolphin

mike: caelestiventus hanseni

jude: black kite

agnes: ???

nikola: stealing major's carousel horse

jared: american dog tick

breekon&hope: Hog and/or Bear. you get no more information

dekker: mouflon

gertrude: great tit

leitner: domestic cat (persian)

manuela: gray long-eared bat

rayner: olm

salesa: sea otter

simon: dodo

elaboration below !

jon: common raven

this was a choice i made before i even finished listening to the podcast back in 2020. jon's 1000% a bird to me, and the curious nature of corvids works well here. plus, i think a bird so universally ominous as a raven works perfectly as a horror protag :P i used to draw raven!jon with a couple troodon traits, mostly just cus it was fun, but i wanted to make my designs more grounded for this iteration. made them plantigrade, didn't get silly with body styles like i have with mp100 designs.

martin: tan jumping spider

if you've been here for a while you'll know that my furry martin has gone through about two million iterations. he started off as a european pine marten, to bold jumping spider, to chinese pangolin, to nine-banded armadillo, finally to nurse shark.

out of all of these the spider and the shark are my favorites. i wanted to go back to the jumping spider though- the design is really fun and i wasn't able to get the expressions right, but i'm more confident in my skills now and i'm having fun with the design. i may revisit nurse shark at some point. i switched from bold to tan jumper- i originally chose bold just cus they're my favorite jumper, but their stark black/white and iridescent aqua coloration just doens't work for martin. so, the tan jumper!

sasha: southern flannel moth

another old choice. species chosen because of a friend's fic, pharos by right (another i'm planning to reread now that i'm dipping my toes back into tma..)! southern flannel moths are poofy and orange, and their caterpillars are those super painful teddybear ones. i really like the design.

not!sasha: red postman

wanted to have her be another lepidopteran, and with all the many examples of mimicry among the group i thought red postman was a fun choice. doesn't look anything like a southern flannel moth, but that's sort of the point.

tim: jackson's chameleon

yet another choice from the oldtimes- most of the main characters are, i've mostly switched around the more secondary chars. first suggested, i believe, by @/ofdreamsanddoodles. i think there's something very fun about chameleons being basically a living mood ring & tim's Descent s1-3 showing physcially not just through the worm scars but through like, constant stress coloration during s3.

melanie: eastern copperhead

one of my favorite choices. i have a young copperhead specimen named after her. this one is quite vibes-based, but i do really like the copperhead as a viper that is not deadly. and i'm always a sucker for the "animal perceived as scary and violent that in actuality only strikes when under extreme stress" thing in furry assignments.

georgie: triceratops horridus

another favorite choice. visually, i really like how this works out, and trikes as a social and protective animal works well. she's literally got a shield on her face. horridus was chosen because i like the shape of the head and horns better than prorsus.

basira: domestic cat (calico shorthair)

got a little cat/dog thing going on for dasira. i like the inversion of the usual cat/dog dynamic with their unhealthy devotion instead, and visually it just works very well for them both.

daisy: domestic dog (german shepherd)

yeah i know this one's an exceedingly obvious choice.

elias: barn owl. jonah: eurasian eagle owl.

it's the institute logo! it's him! barn owl for elias specifically because of its very sleek look, designing him went fantastically. also, i can make the eagle owl's face disk work as a mimicry of ben meredith's muttonchops, which i think is a fun design bit to give to magnus.

gerry: domestic dog (black doberman)

certified gerryguy @/gerrydelano's choice. to quote a discord message from 3 years ago (sorry ron): "i feel like.........my INSTINCT is some kind of canine because like. the whole symbolism thing about being either an obedient or rabid dog. something something muzzled all your life. being a dangerous figure if people only see the silhouette but you just want scritches and nobody'll get close enough to you." black dog symbolism + breed which has ears cropped and tail docked, unecessarily molded for a Purpose which the dog has no say in

annabelle: white-booted racket-tail

sort of my original choice- she used to be part white-booted racket-tail, part anna's hummingbird. kept with the racket-tail cus it's fun and very cute. i've had a couple people express surprise that she wasn't a spider, but i think that's way too obvious. hummingbirds, though- they steal the webs of spiders to use as material to make their nests, but can sometimes become trapped in the webs and eaten by the spiders themselves. which is probably the metaphor-via-fursona-assignment i'm most proud of in this whole list

jane: cabbage white

the cabbage white is a butterfly whose caterpillars are routinely parasitized by the parasitoid wasp the white butterfly parasite. in case you're not familiar, parasitoid wasps lay their eggs on (usually) caterpillars, which hatch on the still-living caterpillar, devouring it from the inside before eventually emerging from the consumed husk of the host. also, i really liked the image of parasitoid wasp larvae emerging from an adult butterfly, rather than a caterpillar.

michael: spiny softshell turtle

for michael and helen, i wanted to choose animals which were, in some way, their own home. turtle is an obvious choice- and spiny softshells are a favorite of mine, and sufficiently strange-looking.

helen: common hermit crab

see previous entry. also please google "hermit crab without shell"

oliver: black vulture

bit of an obvious choice, but i adore vultures so i had to. black vulture chosen because i think the monochrome color scheme + straighter face work better than a turkey vulture for him

peter: risso's dolphin

i really like the idea of a cetacean for peter and the lukases as a whole, a famously social animal for the seemingly contradictory nature of this lonely-but-huge family, plus with so many cetaceans being endangered getting that lonely angle (risso's specifically are not, though, as peter is lonely through his own choice, not by circumstance).

mike: caelestiventus hanseni

it's a dimorphodont. he feels like a pterosaur to me, and i like the idea of a vast avatar as a usually short-flying arboreal species, for the unnaturality/contrast of it.

jude: black kite

black kites are one of the species of kites known to intentionally spread fires by picking up burning sticks to flush out prey.

agnes: ???

the only one i'm still undecided on. will update.

nikola: stealing major's carousel horse

i can't top that

jared: american dog tick

great choice from @/magnusarchivememes. Takes Your Blood And Gets So Big

breekon&hope: Hog and/or Bear. you get no more information

vaguely russian animals that are large and imposing but remain somewhat generic. which is the hog and which is the bear is not consistent.

dekker: mouflon

dekker has very much mammal vibes to me. the mouflon is a neat species of wild sheep. i think the noble, imposing but kind image of the ram works well for dekker as that sort of true-good hero figure, and mouflons in particular are very nice looking with good shapes. the statement giver in distant cousin describes dekker as "though he was slightly shorter than I was, it seemed like he towered over me." which i think this sheep works well with.

gertrude: great tit

i wanted all the main eye avatars as birds, just like how i give them all glasses. just a fun little treat for me. great tit was chosen for gertrude as a kind of classic british bird, and as tits in general are VERY fiesty despite their round and adorable appearance. i really like this image of a great tit posing with a dead mouse like it's a hunter with a trophy deer. the cheek markings also work really well to bring to mind the image of old person jowls.

leitner: domestic cat (persian)

vibes. also i like the idea of him as a spoiled domestic animal. if i remember correctly, this was also @/ofdreamsanddoodles' suggestion

manuela: gray long-eared bat

she's a bat. what's to say. WELL actually okay there's the perception of bats as blind but actually having quite good vision which i think meshes in a fun way with the dark, and the way manuela does her sciency stuff.

rayner: olm

i mean, yeah

salesa: sea otter

largely design-oriented, suitably scruffy. ocean animal with strong social bonds, it was a slam dunk soon as i thought of it.

simon: dodo

how couldn't i, come on.

#tma #furry tma #save

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rafebaby · 3 months

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Don't you want me - Rafe x reader

Part One

(enemies to lovers)

Writer's note: Hey cuties, this is my first time writing/starting something like this. I'm currently struggling through a tough time and found solace in the wonderful world of fanfiction again. I'm sure y'all understand. Feel free to let me know what you think, to ask questions or to just talk to me. And feel absolutely free to reblog 🤭 Also, I kind of took the freedom to not lean on the OBX verse, I just really wanted to let my imagination run wild (if you will). The characters in this story, including Rafe, are around the age of 22 or something. Like around university age. Mind you, I'm European so that might influence the writing and the scenarios to not be typically American. Idk I just felt like I wanted to clear that out. Love you 🌸

Warning ⚠️: brief mention of substance abuse, mentions of alcohol use

Enjoy ❤️

_______________________________________

Another night had played out at the same old bar, weaving through the well-worn tapestry of laughter, clinking glasses, and the reassuring predictability of familiar faces. That was until Rafe Cameron, kook prince and the epitome of entitlement had joined the party. From the moment he walked in, it was clear he was already under the influence of whatever concoction he managed to get his hands on. His dominant presence, fueled by the cocktail of confidence, sends ripples through the equilibrium of an otherwise normal night out.

Rafe's impulsive and destructive character, combined with his short temper and penchant for testing limits, stood in stark contrast to your cautious, analytical, and reserved nature. His mere presence easily triggered your sensibilities, and you couldn't understand how others effortlessly got along with him.Over the past few months, you reluctantly observed him becoming more integrated into your friend group, prompting you to accept the situation and attempt to minimize your interactions with him. After all, you weren’t the type to stir things up. Tonight was no different; so far, you had succeeded in limiting your exchanges with him to a simple gaze of acknowledgement when he joined the scene.

After two hours of laughter and chatter with your girlfriends, you felt the urge for another drink. Standing at the bar, waiting for your turn to order and hoping the bartender would soon notice you, you suddenly sensed someone standing closely behind you. Ignoring it, as the bartender finally walked in your direction, you prepared to speak up, but the voice from behind beat you to it. "One beer," it's Rafe! "And whatever she wants." A hand landed on your shoulder. Quickly turning to him, looking him straight in the eye, you were shocked but just as quickly turned back to the bartender, realizing it was better to make it quick. "Uhm," Shit! "Just red wine is fine, please." You smiled awkwardly. With a little nod of acknowledgment, the bartender disappeared to get the order. Your heart is racing. Your gaze is fixed straight in front of you. Hoping he doesn't have the need to interact any more.

“Always so polite,” Rafe says lowly into your ear, closing the proximity even more. What does he want you to react to that remark? You feel like he’s mocking you, belittling you, which is always his preferred tone for you. “Wish you’d be that polite to me too. Could at least thank me for the drink.” He adds, seeking to provoke you. “You don’t have to pay for my drink.” You manage to get out hastily. You don’t want anything from him, don’t want to owe anything to him. Your mind is rushing, looking for the fastest way out so you can go back to your friends, further ignoring Rafe. Chances of him interacting with you with the group around were significantly lower.

He lowers himself to your ear again, his dense body hovering over yours.”Can’t I be nice to you?” You hear the annoyance growing in his voice. You’re annoyed too, but nervous even more so. “That’s not what I meant,” You reply as you straighten your body to distance it more from his. “What do you mean than, (y/n)?” Your name sounds heavy in his mouth. “It’s almost as if you don’t like me.” Your breath hitches a second from his remark. Your eyes desperately follow the bartender’s moves. He’s finishing the order calmly and you want to yell at him to do it faster. “You know, (y/n),” You once read somewhere that using someone’s name when you talk to them is a sign of dominance and you wish he stopped using it that way. “I don’t even know what I’ve ever done to you?” The annoyance in his tone has made place for an insincere hint of sadness. He’s playing a game, you think to yourself. All he wants is to get to you and you remind yourself over and over again not to play along. But to Rafe, everything is a game. Especially people like you. Even without seeing his face, you know it has a dark amused look all over it. Your loss for words only feeds it, you’re aware. “Nothing.” You stammer out in a quick response. The fewer words you waste on him, the faster this will be over. That's the only tactic you have right now.

As you inhale through your nose, a heavy waft of his cologne envelops you. It's smooth and woody, honestly way too pleasant for you to remain unaffected. You dislike it. You dislike him. Rafe is a good-looking man, and he has all the girls wrapped around his finger. You knew that. Allowing yourself to view him in that light would be downright stupid. What could you possibly see in a guy who only brings bad news?

"See, that's what I thought too. And yet, you keep acting as if I did," he says, taking a dramatic pause. "Have you ever thought about how that might hurt my feelings, (y/n)?" He says a bit more quietly, coming even closer to your ear. To be fair, Rafe never did anything to you; he isn't wrong, but he is mistaken to think his reputation and name haven't always preceded him. Then again, you know well enough he isn’t actually that mistaken. Therefore, you know for a fact that what he aimed to do was merely torment you. He had the answers to his own questions.

As if by providence, the bartender finally returns to you. There is no more reason for you to stay at the bar any longer. But Rafe is pleased. He knows well enough the effect he has on you. Your drinks are placed next to each other on the bar, and you can't be fast enough to pick yours up and escape this trap the Cameron boy had ensnared you in. As he busily grabs some cash from his pocket, you turn around, pushing yourself past him, leaving him behind with a small "Thank you, Rafe..."

To be continued...

#rafe cameron x reader #rafe x reader #rafe obx #drew starkey #rafe outer banks

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tessa-liam · 10 days

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Marabelle Series

The Game of Kings 2

Chapter 11

Choices – The Royal Romance, AU – (cross-over with Rules of Engagement)

Series Premise – An American teenager from New York City is introduced to the world of a small European country and its society of royalty, nobility, and commoners. How will her life story be transformed? Will this new adventure bring her happiness...or regret?

Marabelle Series Masterlist

Main Pairing – Prince Liam Rys x F!OC Lady Sophia (Sophie) Taylor

Other Pairings – Maxwell Beaumont x M!OC Daniel (from NYC), Drake Walker x F!OC Melanie Smithson

Most characters belong to Pixelberry Studios

Series Rating – M*🔞Warnings: this series will have NSFW material & innuendo, crude language, intimidation, physical violence.

Not Beta’d - Please excuse all errors.

Category – Alternate universe/on-going series/angst/fluff/cross-over with Choices Rules of Engagement

Words: 3259

The Game of Kings, Part 2 – Chapter 11

Chapter Summary – It is game day! Let the games begin... Liam discovers Leo’s plans to abdicate. Sophie is targeted by an opponent.

Music Inspiration: Till Forever Falls Apart, Ashe, FINNEAS

A/N1: Bethany Beaumont, Maxwell’s mother, is originally from the U.S. and is Barthelemy Beaumont’s second wife. Annabelle Beaumont (deceased) is Bertrand’s mother.

A/N2: ‘Social Season’ in this AU series refers to a traditional period in the spring/summer for royalty and members of the court to take part in Balls, dinner parties and charity events.

A/N3: My submission for @choicesaprilchallenge24, dialogue prompts: “(Congrats.) You’re one of us now.”, ‘games’

The Royal Cordonian Polo Club, Game Day

The sun was shining brightly over the expansive polo field, casting a golden glow over the lush green grass and fluttering banners that adorned the venue. It was the day of the highly anticipated charity polo match to raise funds for flooding relief due to the earthquake that struck the coastal duchy of Portavira.

The atmosphere was charged with excitement and anticipation as spectators arrived at the venue. Royalty, nobility, and the common folk were all greeted by the sight of elegant tents and marquees set up around the field. Grandstand bleachers were erected around the perimeter of the playing field to the south, while across the field in the VIP area, distinguished guests and sponsors were treated to a luxurious experience. The VIP tent was elegantly decorated with floral arrangements and comfortable seating, offering a panoramic view of the polo field. Waitstaff moved gracefully among the tables, offering champagne and hors d'oeuvres to the noble classes enjoying the pre-match festivities.

Members of Liam’s team, Sophie, Drake, Melanie and Maxwell were assembled at center field waiting anxiously, but enthusiastically, to start the match. The opposing team members, Rashad, Penelope, Neville, Kiara and Tariq stood opposite, discussing strategy in hushed voices. As each player stood beside their steeds, Marabelle snorted impatiently, muscles tense with anticipation as she felt the energy pulsing through the crowd. Sophie stroked Marabelle’s mane as her hooves pawed the ground, eager to explode into action.

Standing beside Maxwell, Liam listened intently to Drake’s scheme to outwit the other team but was periodically distracted by Sophie’s voice as she spoke soothingly to her horse. He looked over and admired the smooth contour and silky skin of her neck as her long hair was pulled up and hidden underneath her safety helmet. As Maxwell asked Drake a question, Liam stepped closer to Sophie and murmured into her ear, trying not to be overheard. "I have a confession to make.”

"What's that?" Sophie giggled as his breath tickled her neck.

"I'm totally checking you out right now." Liam shamelessly flirted, watching her reaction with delight, and enjoying the moment.

"Oh, am I distracting you, Your Highness?" Sophie cheekily whispered, grinning wide.

"Extremely," he admitted, their banter adding an extra layer of excitement between them.

"Then we're even," she smirked, batting her eyes.

"Even for what?" Liam chuckled not knowing where Sophie was going with that comment.

"For the flowers and the note." Liam paused, recalling the gift he had sent over to the Beaumont estate on Valentine’s Day.

"Ah, yes, the flowers and the note," he said, biting his lip, trying but failing not to smile.

"That was very sweet of you." Sophie replied glancing up, watching his reaction through her eyelashes, smiling demurely.

"Well, I try." Liam winked, turning his attention to acknowledge the referee walking towards him.

Melanie could not help but notice their intimate, and soft conversation as she needlessly adjusted her mare’s saddle, moving in close by to stand beside Drake.

“Congrats. You’re one of us now.” Drake’s voice interrupted her thoughts with his congratulatory remark to Sophie as she spun around to his voice, her annoyance clear.

“What?” Melanie snapped; her tone sharp as she pivoted to him.

"Whoa ... whoa, Smithson! Calm down..." Drake responded, raising his hands in a placating gesture, seeing Melanie's irritation. The tension between them was now palpable, adding an uncomfortable twist to the atmosphere between them.

Melanie's frustration simmered just below the surface as she glared at Drake, her eyes narrowing. She had always felt like an outsider amongst this group, and seeing Sophie being welcomed so warmly and repeatedly by everyone only intensified her feelings of exclusion and jealousy.

Drake, sensing her ire, took a step back. "I didn't mean to upset you, Melanie," he said, his tone more cautious now, trying to diffuse the situation. "We're just happy to have Sophie join us."

Melanie huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. "Sure, whatever," she muttered, turning her attention back to adjusting her mare's saddle. But deep down, she couldn't shake off the hurt of feeling left out once again.

Drake's face fell. He'd meant what he'd said, but it seemed like no matter what he did, it was always the wrong thing where Melanie was concerned.

He opened his mouth to apologize, but then stopped himself, realizing that anything else he said would only make things worse.

With a heavy sigh, he turned and walked away, leaving Melanie to stew in her own irritation.

Meanwhile, Sophie, oblivious to their underlying tension, beamed with excitement at being accepted by the group. She couldn't wait to join them in their adventures and create lasting memories together. Little did she know the dynamics within the group were about to shift in unexpected ways very soon.

The referee approached Liam, bowing respectfully before him, presenting the game ball with a solemn air. Liam inspected it carefully, making sure it was in good condition. After confirmation, Liam signaled all the players to mount.

"Good luck out there, everyone," the referee said, and then he stepped back, signaling the start of the match.

Liam led his teammates as they kicked their horses into action, eager to get the game underway.

Sophie, riding Marabelle moved alongside Liam. Her heart was racing, and she could not believe she was about to play in front of such a large crowd which included the king and queen.

She looked over at Liam and nervously smiled. "There are so many people here," she called out.

"Yeah, this is the biggest turnout we've had in a while," he responded. "Are you ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be," she answered, feeling the butterflies return to her stomach.

"Just focus on the game and having fun. That's what it's all about," Liam smiled.

"Right," she said, taking a deep breath.

"We've got this," he assured her.

As all the players took to the field, the crowd cheered and waved flags bearing the colors of their choice team.

Liam rode his horse first onto the field. His teammates followed behind him, each looking confident and determined.

"And here they are, ladies and gentlemen, the Cordonian Royal Polo team and the Domvallien Polo Club team!" The announcer’s voice boomed over the sound system.

The applause was thunderous as Liam smiled and waved at the cheering crowd.

Lord Rashad, the heir to the Duchy of Domvallier led his team onto the field as he also waved to the crowd.

"Let's give them a big hand," the announcer continued. "They're going to be giving their all today, in support of the relief efforts for the victims of the recent floods in Portavira."

Sophie smiled and nodded, trying to calm her nerves, as she noticed her Aunt Bethany and Daniel waving to her from the stands as she rode by.

The starting pistol sounded and the game was underway. Liam and Drake took turns driving the ball toward the opposing team's goal. Sophie watched their fluid movements with admiration, trying to predict their next moves alongside Maxwell. Across the field, Neville and Rashad were also closely following the play as Kiara and Melanie followed closely behind Penelope and Tariq.

Liam passed the ball to Sophie, who received it confidently, her body moving in sync with Marabelle.

She deftly guided the ball toward the opposing team's goal, her mallet striking the ball with precision.

The crowd cheered as the ball sailed through the air and landed in the net.

"And the first point goes to the Cordonian Royal Polo Team!" the announcer shouted.

"That was incredible," Liam shouted, smiling with admiration.

Sophie smiled back, her heart pounding in her chest.

"Let's keep it up," he said, giving her a wink.

Sophie's heart fluttered, and she nodded, her determination renewed.

As the game progressed, Neville seized an opportunity for the opposing team and scored a goal, eliciting cheers from his teammates and spectators. Passing by Sophie, he could not resist shooting her a snide glare, his expression smug and condescending.

Sophie, unfazed by Neville's behavior, remained focused on the match and ignored his intimidation tactics. She knew that in polo, actions spoke louder than words, and she was determined to contribute to her team's success.

Liam, watching the interaction, felt a surge of protective instinct towards Sophie. He made a mental note to keep an eye on Neville's antics to ensure that Sophie was not affected by his arrogance.

Sophie and Liam's performance throughout the game was electric and their team was flawless as they dominated the field.

Sophie felt a sense of pride as the crowd cheered. She could not believe she was actually doing this. It was exhilarating.

VIP Tent

"Duke Barthelemy, so glad you could make it," Constantine welcomed, offering his hand.

"Constantine, good to see you," Barthelemy acknowledged, shaking his hand. Dressed in a tailored suit, his salt-and-pepper hair neatly groomed, he took a seat at the table next to the King.

“Your Majesty.” Bertrand bowed. "This is quite a turnout," Bertrand commented, surveying the crowd.

"Indeed, it is," Constantine agreed. "I see Maxwell and Sophia have joined my son's team for the match."

"I must admit, I'm a bit surprised to see my youngest son playing on the same team as the prince," Barthelemy said, a hint of disapproval in his voice.

"Nonsense, Barthelemy," Constantine replied. "Maxwell is a fine player, and a valuable addition to the team.”

"And it's always paramount to support the Crown," Bertrand added.

"Yes, well, I suppose," Barthelemy said, his lips pursed.

"Oh, come now, Barthelemy," Constantine chided, laughing heartily. "There's no need to be so apprehensive. This is a charity match, after all. Lighten up and enjoy yourself."

Barthelemy gave a tight smile. "Of course. You are right, your majesty.”

"Good," Constantine said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Now, let's watch these youngsters put on a show."

“However, Constantine, I am surprised your other son is absent from today’s activities."

"He's a grown man, Barthelemy. He has his own life."

"Still, this is a very important day for the monarchy, and he should be here, supporting the Crown and country. He is the Crown Prince."

"Leo has a lot on his mind, and he needs time to sort through it." Constantine replied stoically, purposefully not revealing any information to his old friend.

Barthelemy noticed the look of irritation on the King's face. "I see. Forgive me for being forward, Your Majesty, but I feel the need to remind you that this is a pivotal moment for Cordonia. And as the Crown Prince, Leo has a responsibility to the people of our country along with his betrothed."

"I'm well aware of my son's duties," Constantine replied, his voice low and terse.

"Come now, Constantine. There is no need to be distressed." Regina patted his arm trying to defuse her husband's aggravation.

The game was nearing half-time as Barthelemy watched his niece with admiration. His thoughts were singular... Her dedication, talent, and composure on the field spoke volumes about her character and capabilities.

As he watched Sophie and Liam's undeniable chemistry and teamwork, Barthelemy's thoughts turned to her future. He knew that Sophie had all the qualities of a great leader and ruler. Her compassion, intelligence, and ability to inspire others were qualities that would make her a remarkable queen one day.

King Constantine glanced at Barthelemy, noticing the proud smile on his face. "She's quite impressive, isn't she?" the king remarked, acknowledging Sophie's talent.

Barthelemy nodded, his gaze never leaving Sophie. "Indeed, Your Majesty. She has exceeded all expectations today. It's moments like these that reaffirm my belief in her potential."

'She will make a remarkable queen', Barthelemy mused, having heard abdication rumors amongst the nobility; his speculation peaked.

The match continued with intense excitement, each team giving their best effort. Sophie and Liam's team kept their lead, highlighting their dominance on the polo field. The atmosphere was filled with excitement and anticipation as the last moments of the first half approached.

At half-time, the players dismounted and enjoyed refreshments in the players tent. Speaking with Liam, Rashad asked what he thought of Leo’s phone call to his father, the king.

Liam sighed, "Leo is probably just frustrated and needed time to think, away from the palace."

Rashad looked concerned. "But the timing couldn't be worse. With your father's health declining, and Leo refusing to take the throne..."

"Rashad, I've known Leo my entire life. He's stubborn, but he always comes around."

"I hope you're right," Rashad sighed.

“My apologies, your highness,” a royal courtier addressed Liam, interrupting the conversation, handing Liam an envelope.

After ending his conversation with Rashad, Liam read the note from his father announcing that he was to meet with his father at the Royal tent at the end of the match.

As the game progressed, it was clear that the Cordonian Royal Polo Team had a strong advantage to win.. They scored several goals, much to the delight of the crowd.

Sophie felt a surge of adrenaline coursing through her veins with each successful play. The cheers and applause from the crowd fueled her determination, and she rode Marabelle with unwavering focus and skill.

Sophie's skills were improving with every play, and she quickly became an asset to the team.

However, as the game continued, she could not help but notice that Liam seemed distracted, his usual focus and intensity absent.

As the final whistle blew, the crowd erupted into cheers and applause. Sophie couldn't hold her joy and excitement, exchanging high-fives with her teammates and sharing a triumphant smile with Liam.

The Cordonian Royal Polo Team had won the game and the match raised a significant amount of money for relief efforts in Portavira.

Liam approached the players'tent, a broad grin on his face. "Congratulations, everyone," he said, his voice filled with pride. "That was an amazing game. I couldn't have asked for a better team."

Sophie blushed, the thrill of victory still coursing through her veins.

"We couldn't have done it without you, Liam," Drake replied.

"We couldn't have done it without our secret weapon," Liam corrected, his gaze resting on Sophie.

"Thanks, guys," Sophie replied, touched by their support.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Drake asked. "Let's go celebrate!"

"Not just yet," Liam said, his expression growing serious.

"What is it, Liam?"

"My father has requested to see me. I will meet up with you guys later at the beer garden."

"Sure, whatever you need, man," Drake replied, patting Liam on the back.

Liam kissed Sophie's cheek. “I shouldn’t be long, love.”

“All right, see you later.” Sophie grasped Marabelle's reins and started walking towards the stables.

Liam left his team, walking across the grounds toward the VIP tent. He spotted his father standing outside, surrounded by a small group of nobles and officials.

Constantine noticed Liam approaching and waved him over. "My son," he boomed.

"Hello, Father," Liam said, his expression solemn.

"That was quite a performance out there today."

"Yes, thank you. The team performed admirably. "

"Indeed. And Lady Sophia," Constantine added."Quite the addition to the team."

Liam's face lit up. "She's incredible, isn't she?"

"I can see that you are quite taken with her. She is a charming young lady."

"Father, I don't just think she's charming, I --"

*I know," Constantine interrupted. "But we can discuss that later. For now, I need to speak with you about an urgent matter."

Liam nodded in understanding, "what is it, Father?"

"Your brother," Constantine replied, his voice grim.

"Leo? What about him?"

"He has refused the crown."

"He has what?" Liam's jaw dropped.

"Calm yourself, Liam. You are in the presence of others," his father reminded him.

"Father, I..."

"Later," Constantine cut him off.

Liam was shocked and angry. He couldn't believe his brother would abandon his responsibilities like this.

"Liam, it's time we had a discussion about the future of our kingdom," Constantine said, his voice low.

"Of course, Father," Liam replied, his thoughts racing.

"Walk with me," Constantine instructed.

The two men walked in silence, the crowd of nobles and officials following them at a respectful distance.

"Liam, you must prepare yourself. The crown will soon pass to you, and with it, the heavy responsibility of leading our country," Constantine began.

Club Stables

Neville had been watching Sophie with growing annoyance. He couldn't understand why Liam and the others were so taken with her. She was just a commoner, a nobody, and yet they treated her like she was special. She was fortunate to be a relation to House Beaumont, however, she was an American. Not nobility. Another commoner for Liam to grant station to.

After Sophie dismounted from Marabelle and secured her into a stall, Neville approached, a smug smile on his face.

"Good job, Lady Sophia," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Sophie looked over and ignored his comment, trying to get her bearings.

"Hey, I'm talking to you," he snapped, stepping in front of her.

"Leave me alone, Neville," she retorted, trying to push past him.

Neville grabbed her arm, his fingers digging into her skin.

"Get your hands off me," she hissed, struggling to free herself.

He pushed her and Sophie stumbled backwards, losing her balance. She tried to regain her footing, but her foot caught on the edge of the gate, and she tumbled to the ground, landing hard on her side, her head smacking the ground.

She winced in pain, clutching her arm.

"You should be more careful," Neville sneered, stepping over her.

"You bastard," she muttered, tears stinging her eyes.

Neville laughed, his expression mocking. "That's what you get for thinking you're better than you are."

As he walked away, Sophie lay on the ground, tears streaming down her face.

She was hurt, and angry, and she didn't know how she was going to get up to get help, feeling dizzy. She laid back down holding her arm close, listening to Marabelle whinny as she reared in her stall.

But one thing was for certain: she was not going to let Neville get away with hurting her like this.

"Squirrel? Are you okay?" Daniel exclaimed, rushing to her.

"No, I'm not," she replied, her voice choked with emotion.

"What happened?"

"Neville happened," she said, anger replacing her pain.

"What? Why would he do that?"

"Because he's a jerk," Sophie replied, her voice breaking as she covered her face with her hands.

Daniel helped her to sit up, his face etched with concern. He reached for his phone and tapped Maxwells number.

"Do you want to tell Liam?"

"No, I don't want to make a scene. It's just a few bruises."

"Okay, if you're sure," Daniel said, his voice uncertain.

...I swear that I'll be yours forever, till forever falls apart...

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thedreadvampy · 10 months

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I find Americans talking about religion fascinating because they think the weird pentecostal/evangelical eschatology cults are Normal Christianity and not like. a really specific thing.

and that is by no means to say Christianity elsewhere is less fucked up but it's different.

like Americans will say stuff like "like most Christians, this cult believes we're in the end times and have to reclaim Zion to bring about Revelations, but what's weird about their beliefs is..." and it's like???? WHAT DO YOU MEAN LIKE MOST CHRISTIANS?????

like Scotland's still a pretty Christian country. some of the biggest sociopolitical divides are Christian sectarianism. we got Presbyterians we got Catholics we got Episcopalians we got Quakers (hi) we got Baptists and Methodists and Jehovah's Witnesses and so on. half of the population are Christian. but I don't think I have ever met more than a handful of people whose Christian belief is focused on Revelations and the end times. that's weird stuff my guys.

my outside appraisal of American Christianity is that it looks really very samey. there doesn't seem to be a lot of significant theological difference, or tbh aesthetic difference, between a good number of the major churches. worship practise, structure, and the focus on sin, evangelism and apocalypse seem to be way more common threads there than in Europe. and I feel like people grow up in that and think that means all Christianity is the same as that. which like. it isn't.

A lot of folks I know who've been to American Quaker communities, for example, have been really surprised at how much some Meetings in the US are cramming into the same episcpentamethodbaptitradcathevangelist church model - fire and brimstone preachers, our god is a great big god songs, focus on end times prophecy - and it just doesn't. line up with the degree of diversity in practise and focus for different Christian sects in most other parts of the world. where like. those types of churches also exist (the evangelical born-again rapture and damnation churches) but they're one approach among many.

and again that's not cause like. Christianity is only bad in the US and not bad anywhere else. Christianity does a lot of social good and a looooooot of social harm everywhere. but it's wild what Americans, Christian or otherwise, seem to take as the baseline beliefs of global Christianity. like I went to a Church of England school and I don't believe I was ever taught about Revelations, let alone the rapture or young earth ideology or biblical literalist creationism, except, eventually, as a thing some other people believe and it's weird. when the young earth creationists came into my secondary school to prostyletize it was a bloodbath cause every 14 year old in that room was like "what r u talking about m8 that's cult shit".

what I'm saying is: there's not a huge amount of universal Christian beliefs across all sectors except like "God is there. There's some Bible which contains some amount of spiritual value for some amount of literal interpretation. Jesus? Pretty great and important guy. Probably the son of God or actually God or some secret third thing." and everything else there's some dissent on. but of the things that are broadly though not fully universal - maybe like heaven, hell, sin, redemption through faith or deed, the resurrection, a physical/spiritual divide, prayer, some key holidays etc - I don't think that 'weirdly intense eschatology involving reclaiming Zion, global warfare, the Antichrist, decades of torturous end times, physical rapture etc' is in that mix. that's your country's weird thing that it's since exported through cultural colonialism, just like Christianity itself was largely exported through European cultural colonialism.

#red said

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jo-harrington · 10 months

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As Above, So Below - Prologue: Annunciation

Prequels: Heaven - Hell - Purgatory

Summary: Burdened by a centuries-long curse, you must follow the path fate has set for you and defeat evil that roams the Earth. You've left everything your heart desires behind to follow this path, and unfortunately, it still isn't enough. Fate has other plans for you, and for your love, Eddie Munson.

Word Count: 6.9k (nice)

Pairing: Eddie Munson/Fem!OC (Told in 2nd Person POV - you/your)

Warnings/Themes: Violence, Death/Suicide, Torture, Body Horror, Blood, Established Relationship, Romance, Religious Themes, Criticism of Religion/Catholicism, Fate vs. Free Will, Supernatural Encounters, Angst, Biblical and Other Literary/Media References

Note: Welcome to As Above, So Below, my take on Kas!Eddie fic and a story inspired by Van Helsing (2004). This story has 3 prequels linked above that I highly recommend you read as this story will reference them.

This story is going to be EXTREMELY HEAVY to write, so I will not be putting out a posting schedule. Chapters will get posted as they are completed, however long that takes.

Please keep in mind, although this is an OC fic, our Knight will not be named or have physical descriptions noted. She is of European/Italian-American descent on her father's side. She was raised Roman Catholic, but her beliefs are very loose and you will see why if you read. You are free to imagine her as you wish. But her cultural identity will be referenced in this story, at least at the beginning and the end.

This series will not be for the faint of heart, nor is it something that was written with a general audience in mind. Please check the above warnings and ask yourself if you are in the correct headspace to proceed. I am happy to answer any questions via PM or Ask.

You can find my masterlist here.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Enjoy!

“Do not be afraid […] for you have found favor with God […] With God, nothing will be impossible.” — Luke 1:28-37

March 25th, 1986

In your short time on this earth, you had certainly seen a lot. Mysteries of the universe were made known to you, you'd encountered heroes and villains alike—monsters, even—and been to many places, far and wide.

But you could honestly say that you had never set foot in a lair before today.

And, truly, lair was the only word you could use to describe this place.

Vaulted ceilings, marble floors, velvet curtains. There was an elaborate organ set up on a platform and an ominous set of stairs that descended deeper into the ground at the far end of the room.

Eddie would say this looked like something out of a C-list horror movie or a James Bond film.

You were already deep enough as it was; you'd navigated through an abandoned old mansion and the Los Angeles County sewer system just to get here. To anyone else, it would have seemed as though it took some divine intervention to find this place at all, but the divine is what you knew best.

Archbishop Jinette had given you minimal information to stop the evil that was at play. A ritual to bring forth a River of Life that would flood the San Gabriel Valley and kill millions. More importantly, to Jinette at least, it would create a rift in the fabric of reality that would cause a surge of Heavenly Power to flow freely throughout the Earth.

The Church never cared about the details, didn't care if a sacrifice or two came about, as long as their power remained safe. So the Who's and How's and Why's were left up to you. Thankfully your adversary had been careless with the clues he left behind.

You couldn't tell if it was a coincidence or not. Easter was a few days away so a River of Life made sense but surely a ritual that mirrored the ten plagues of Egypt would be more fitting a little closer to Passover.

"Doctor," you called out, your voice echoed through the cavernous room. You gripped your weapon—a nightstick taken off the body of the police officer that had been swarmed by locusts—and ventured forwards. "I'm not here to hurt you, I'm here to help."

"You are not here to help," a stiff, croaking, disembodied voice reached your ears, filtered through some sort of unseen sound system. "You're here to stop me."

"Stop you from killing anymore innocent people," you explained.

"One remains," the voice replied. "Nine shall die. Nine eternities in doom."

"It will be a lot more than that if you don't stop whatever it is you have planned." You tried to reason with him, but you were met with silence. "Doctor! Doctor Phibes!"

Music suddenly blasted through the sound system and the room went dark, the only source of light came from whatever lay at the bottom of the stairs.

You knew the doctor wasn't done talking, he was just luring you deeper into his web to tip the playing field in his favor. You both knew there was no time to waste, so you walked into the trap willingly, with swift feet and a brave, but possibly foolish, heart.

Below the cavernous lair was an even bigger cavern still; a half-finished room with the same marble floors that suddenly gave way to rock formations and stalagmites and an underground river that offered a steady roar of rushing water. You didn't know where to rest your eyes, there were too many carefully crafted horrors laid out before you.

An altar with a body carefully placed atop it, a series of nine half-melted wax busts, a four-piece jazz band comprised of mechanical figures, a sterile area with a surgical table, and a ragged man who was elbow deep in another person's chest cavity.

A heavy hand clamped on your shoulder and you jumped to find the elusive Doctor Anton Phibes behind you. He was an imposing man who towered above you, his face sallow, waxy, and sagging. His red-rimmed eyes were bright with lively mischief, although his aura was heavy with the infernal stench of death.

You expected him to speak, but he simply tilted his head forward and urged you towards the altar. Not a question or suggestion, but an order.

You quickly weighed the possibility that if you killed him, struck him down, the ritual would simply end. Of course, then came the equally possible outcome that it would only hasten it.

Phibes pushed you the last bit of distance until you fell against the altar table itself and came face to face with the body resting there. You knew a dead body when you saw one, and generally you disagreed when people said they looked as if they were sleeping....this one however...she was peaceful in her eternal rest.

Face was full and serene, plump lips painted a succulent violet, with long, kohl-laden lashes that kissed her blush-dusted cheeks. Her skin was glowing and her long black hair had been fluffed and haloed around her. Her hands were folded below her chest and a lovely bejeweled ring glinted in the light of the candles that flickered from beside her on the altar.

The woman was preserved perfectly. Unnaturally.

"She's beautiful," you muttered.

"My wife," Phibes' voice croaked from beside you. You glanced over your shoulder to find that he had held a cord that ran from a porthole in the side of his neck to a phonograph-like speaker beside him. "My Rose. Taken from me far too soon, stolen from me."

"My God, please help my son," came an echoed mutter from the sterile area across the room. The surgeon had his bloodied hands folded in prayer as they rested on his patient's chest.

"Murdered!" Phibes voice grew louder and wrathful. "Don't cry upon God, Dr. Vesalius. He is on my side."

"And how do you know He's on your side," you questioned and Phibes' eyes cut back to you.

"He led me here," he explained. "Showed me the way in the quest for vengeance. Showed me the key to resurrection for my beloved and eternal life for us both. I plan to move Heaven and Earth to achieve it."

"Who are you to resurrect her?" you asked. "To bring about devastation for your wife? Is that His plan? The death of millions for the life of one?"

"He told me of you too, little Knight," he ignored your question. "It's how I knew to expect your arrival. He told me that you would appear to stop me."

"You're not only here to enact God's plan but to prophesize as well?"

"He said you would be the last step in bringing me back to my beloved Rose."

"So I must die too?"" You shrugged. "I'm the ninth?"

"No," he croaked. "Vesalius. Or rather, his wretched son. You must complete the ritual."

"I could kill you instead."

"Oh, but virtuous little Knight, I'm already dead." He released the cord and lifted his hands to his face. He peeled the waxy flesh and the tufts of hair on his head to reveal a twisted and burnt husk beneath. He was skeletal, barely a visage left; his nasal cavity shook with each labored breath and his exposed jaw clenched every so often.

Phibes inserted the cord into the porthole once again.

"I lost everything," he explained. "I lost my life, my purpose. And just when I thought it was enough, I lost my love too. I asked myself over and over: what was God's plan in taking it all away from me, in the blink of an eye? All at once? When I decided I would do anything—sacrifice anything—just to bring her back, He showed me the path and I took it. Wouldn't you? If you'd lost your love, what wouldn't you do, give, to get them back?"

A bitterness settled deep in your gut.

What did he know? What didn't he know? What was God's plan?

You'd asked yourself this many times over the course of your life, had become desensitized to the constant lack of an answer. Fate was an answer you couldn't stomach anymore.

So you had tried to run from it, only to collide with it instead. Fate cruelly led you to Eddie, and then away from him again...to protect him from the pain that was your damned life.

Yes, you would have done anything for him, even let him go. Love, for you, had to wait so that Fate wouldn't have been tempted to take him away.

Like it had for Phibes and Rose.

As you turned and stared down at Rose again...you felt for them...you truly did.

"Do you know resurrection takes more than just...some fancy ritual?" you asked Phibes. You could hear his feet shuffling closer to you. "It's unpredictable. The soul...the soul needs to be put back together, and by the time they ascend...or descend..."

"Rose was an angel," Phibes interjected and insisted. "My angel. My muse."

"...sometimes it's too late. How long has it been?"

"4 years."

"The ancient Egyptians had it right," you explained. "The Ka, the Ba...the Ahk...to put her back together after this long...would be impossible. Moving Heaven and Earth? More like breaking the walls between them. We could complete this ritual and resurrect her, but even still I don't think she would be whole ever again. She'd never really be your wife."

"And when would I have had to..."

"24 hours...48, maybe?" you offered.

Phibes' eyes slowly shut and he let out a painful hissing noise you could only attribute to a wail, or whatever equivalent his body could produce.

"I'm sorry," you muttered, hoping to provide some sort of balm on his wounded spirit. "But she's in Heaven...waiting for you."

You moved out of the way as Phibes collapsed on the altar and spoke in garbled tones to Rose's body, the cord pulled out of the porthole. Whatever confession in his mind was just for them.

You immediately ran across the cavern to Dr. Vesalius and his son. The surgeon sobbed his thanks to you as you began to work on the younger man. You didn't get the opportunity to heal others often—you were used more as an instrument of destruction than one of renewal—though the capability was always there. You dug deep into the celestial light within you and slowly his wounds knit back together.

Once Lem regained consciousness, Vesalius tugged at the restraints. Another spark of your power severed the chains and set the boy free and before long, father and son scampered up the steps and out of this pit of despair.

Vesalius had grabbed your hand before they had, though.

"Thank you," he said. "You're a hero."

No...you were nothing of the sort.

You walked back to the altar to check on Phibes, only to find his form still as it lay next to his wife.

"Doctor?" you shook him. "Doctor?"

You pushed him onto his side and a knife clattered to the marble floor; you balked at the needle in his arm and a slash in his wrist that lazily dripped...dripped...dripped...

Tubes ran out from the needle and embalming fluid rapidly replaced blood. It hadn't been that long for you to heal Lem had it? Had this always been Phibes' plan if the ritual failed? He was sure that you would be the one...the last step in reuniting him and Rose.

You touched his chest and closed your eyes.

Eight were dead but the first born son lived. The ritual was unsuccessful. The secrets of what really happened would stay buried deep below the city.

You could feel it...the ambient energy stirring around Phibes...slowly leaking from every pore of this mortal prison as his body died and he began his ascent. Anton and his beloved Rose would spend eternity together.

He was a good man, a loving man, led astray...and God was willing to forgive him and let him into Heaven.

You looked around the room again and felt sick.

For all the money that the Catholic Church had, the best they could afford when they sent their attack dog—you—to save the world for the umpteenth time was a crappy roadside motel off the 101.

You were used to uncomfortable plane and train rides, questionable motels and cots shoved into the corners of storage rooms in monasteries and missions when space could be spared.

This was your life though.

You had run from the safety of your Nonna's home when you turned 18 and then again from your little apartment in Hawkins a little over a year ago after Fate finally caught up to you. The next closest thing to...a base of operations, if you could call it that, was a tiny, unkempt bungalow house in a small suburb in Chicago that you barely set foot in because evil reared its ugly head a little too much.

Home was not a luxury you could afford, and even if it was...for you, it wouldn't have been a place, it would have been a person.

So you took comfort after a trying assignment in crappy gas station food and lumpy beds because it reminded you of the home you wish you didn't have to leave behind.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" you exclaimed as you kicked the door to your room open and found an unexpected visitor sitting crosslegged on the bed you hadn't claimed for yourself. He held a stack of palm branches in his hand, a small pile of folded crosses placed neatly beside him.

"Watch the way you talk," he began. "Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth."

"Is it not a little...weird for you to quote the Bible?" you asked.

"I didn't write it," he replied simply.

"Well your boss did." You fell onto the unoccupied bed and sighed. You didn't know if it was just the adrenaline finally wearing off after a successful end to your task—if you could call it successful—or something else. Something within you felt like you were...trapped under water.

"He did not either," he dismissed and went back to folding crosses. "You're planning to visit the cemetery." It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

"Yes."

"When?"

"Before Easter, if Jinette doesn't have another errand for me to run." You fished a bottle of YooHoo from your bag of snacks and offered one to him. His lips quirked and in a blink, all of the palms were folded into neat crosses and he was on his feet.

"Good." He stared at you blankly, expectantly, and it made you feel claustrophobic.

His presence was greater than what was apparent to the naked eye, and in times like these where he was about to spring something on you, your soul could sense the swell of his being. It never got easier.

"I know this isn't a social call or a job well done for preventing the destruction of the Earth for the hundredth time," you begin and cover your face with your hands. "I'm tired, so if you could please just—"

"You say that a lot," he noted.

"What?"

"That you're tired."

"It happens when you're a human," you retort.

"Then you will do well to listen to me now," he says gravely. You peek through your fingers to look at him. "Something is coming. Something bigger than you've ever encountered before."

"Shit, really?" you asked. "When will I have to go?"

"You won't," he stated with an air of finality. "Or else, you will die."

Your hands fell from your face as your ears started to ring and your pulse pounded in your head.

You'd heard many warnings in the past, throughout your life, from him. Pain, suffering, duty. This was the first time he had ever warned you of your death.

Why now? After all of the other missions you'd been given, after facing Hell on Earth dozens of times...

You always knew it was a possibility...but a guarantee?

"W-when...why...when?"

"Soon."

That was helpful. You couldn't even prepare. It would be sprung on you. The next time you were called into action maybe? Or the time after that?

"So I just...I tell...tell Jinette o-or whatever Bishop that I can—” you stammered and he cut you off.

"This is not something that they will ask you to do," he explained. "This is something you will feel compelled to do. Strongly compelled. But you must heed my warning, young one. For you will perish and damnation will surely await you."

"I don't understand," you squeezed your eyes shut. "Isn't...isn't it already awaiting me? What makes this any different?"

"Because it will hurt. It will destroy you." What would...the task? Or the damnation? There was a rustle of wings and a roar of fire in your ears. "Do not be afraid."

They were words you had never heard from his mouth, but you knew he had said them before.

When you opened your eyes, he was gone, and you were left in the motel room alone.

"Gabriel?" You called for him, like you used to when you were a child and nightmares of monsters and demons plagued you. When you used to look for comfort when your father was off on a quest so similar to your own and your mother had no way to sooth you on her own. "Gabriel!"

March 27th, 1986

You knew from the moment you woke up that morning, something was off. As though you were operating on a different frequency than usual. You felt simultaneously sluggish and as though lightning surged just beneath your skin.

It didn't happen often, if ever really, which is what caused some alarm.

Perhaps when you were much younger and your abilities began to manifest. The holy light within you couldn't be contained by such a young body. It had led to massacres and miracles alike.

You remembered seeing Empire Strikes Back for the first time and feeling a kinship with Luke. "Luminous beings are we, not this cruel matter," a phrase you muttered to yourself often, taking comfort in the Light, when your future could only possibly be shrouded in Darkness.

It had taken years to control it, and you were well past grown now, but somehow you couldn't just shake the feeling that plagued you today. It was as though your fight or flight response was primed and ready, despite no danger in sight.

If Archbishop Jinette was any sort of reliable figure in your life, you would have confided in him. Looked to him for guidance. For help. Instead, you'd sat in his office with him for the past hour as he debriefed and lectured you—reamed you—for your handling of Phibes and the ritual.

"It was, quite frankly, irresponsible," he said for the tenth time. His cassock swished around him as he paced before you. "The number of innocent lives that could have been lost."

You rolled your eyes, fully of the belief that he wouldn't have given a shit about any other lives lost at all. You used to give Jinette—give all of your handlers—the benefit of the doubt, used to believe that they cared about innocents. Maybe they had once, but now it was twisted by the power their positions afforded them.

Once they donned a pectoral cross, guilt no longer affected them. It was only a tool used to bend others to their will.

"How can we rely on you to your duty fully if you take the time to negotiate?" He asked. "If you try to reason with agents of evil?"

"Phibes was not evil. He mentioned that God led him to this path," you interjected, and Jinette stopped in his tracks. "That He led Phibes to the ritual in order to reunite him with his wife."

"They would be reunited in Heaven," Jinette dismissed with a hiss. He turned his judgmental, wet eyes to you and glared pointedly. You knew exactly the warning he was trying to convey and you straightened your shoulders.

"It must have been the devil in disguise. Trickery. You, more than anyone, should know how easy it is to fall for temptation." The burn of his stare became righteous, but it was not what caused you to turn your eyes downward.

Was temptation really so bad if it brought you peace? If it made you feel more whole than you'd ever felt in your life? A year with Eddie and you felt sure in your skin, safe, loved. Was that bad? Did that make you evil?

You had let your pain get the best of you in the moment, but after a few days of clarity...Phibes had been right...

What you wouldn't give right now to be back there? To be anywhere but here?

It was regret.

There was a sharp knock at the office door and Jinette sighed and looked at the clock.

"It is time for Mass," he announced. "Think on your sins and the Lord may offer his forgiveness."

After he vacated the office, you forced yourself to your feet, trudged through the rectory, and into the cathedral where you slid into one of the last pews. You would hardly consider yourself a devout attendee—certainly not as you disassociated through the psalms and readings—but you knew if you missed Mass after your supposed sins, there would be Hell to pay.

"...Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world. He loved his own in this world and he loved them til the end..."

You'd heard this Mass before, the Mass of the Lord's Supper. Not your typical Sunday service, so you couldn’t recite it verbatim, but familiar enough. Your Nonna dragged you to as many masses as she could, in every language offered at the local parish, hoping to spare you of this fate in a way she couldn't spare her son or her husband.

Over the years, her hand shrunk in yours. What was once a healthy, strong hand that guided you became small and weak, shriveled and brittle. Until one day, there was no hand left to hold at all.

"...I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do."

You spotted a group of women further up the aisle. Novitiates, probably. You could sense a tenuous peace about them. One could tell she was being watched and she turned to look at you. She was young, maybe around your age, and her eyes were wide and curious.

You tried to smile at her, encourage her—it was all you could do not to scream, actually—but she rolled her eyes a little and turned back around.

The sound of rustling bodies washed through the Cathedral like a wave as everyone got to their feet—

"Pray my Sisters and Brothers that my sacrifice and yours should be acceptable to God, The Father, Almighty."

—and as you rose, your stomach dropped.

Your body burned.

It felt like a thousand cuts were made along your skin. You gasped for breath but could find no air. Your bones cracked and crunched beneath an invisible weight, and the pressure felt as though your sides would split and your insides spill out through phantom wounds.

You fell to your knees and grasped the back of the pew in front of you. You tried to make a noise, to call for help, but nothing could overcome the rumble of the congregants.

"Lord have Mercy. Christ have Mercy."

The polished wood splintered under your grip before the world went dark.

When your eyes opened, you were met with a muted haze. A dark sky, with clouds that shifted in tandem with the howling wind, sizzled with infernal lightning over and over.

You laid on cold, damp ground. You could feel it seep through your clothes and leech into your skin, deeper and deeper, until it settled uneasily in your bones. An acrimonious rigor that would have overtaken you had you allowed it.

Something deep within your subconscious wanted you to.

You needed to gain control quickly.

Your fingers dug into the thick, unforgiving clay of the earth beneath you, and you pushed yourself upright, only to be met with a chilling sight that made your heart stop in your chest.

His was body was aligned with yours, the soles of his feet just inches away from brushing against you. His skin was pale and smeared with gore, and his ripped clothes belied the true extent of his injuries. He choked on his blood with fit of coughs, too wet for a death rattle. He was practically drowning in his own life's essence.

Eddie Munson lay dying in front of you, and there was nothing you could do to stop it.

Your mind raced. Was this a vision? A prophecy? The gift of sight had never been one you could tap into before. Why now?

Was this a warning? If you didn't stay on the path He had in store for you, didn't listen to those He tasked to guide you, would this be your future?

You could hear a voice—an ominous, venomous voice—at the very corners of your mind, speaking to Eddie.

They left you behind. Left you to this fate. Left you to me.

What did that mean? You didn't leave Eddie. Not really. A part of you would always be with him.

You struggled and scrambled to get to his side. Your hands were unsure of where to touch him, how you could let him know you would be there without bringing him more pain.

He looked up at you with unseeing eyes.

"Eddie, please, please," you begged. "I'm here, I'm here with you."

His eyes wrenched shut and he cried out, mouth opening in a feral, heartbreaking howl.

To do with you what I please.

You knew it wasn't the Devil's voice. He wouldn't taunt and tease this way. It had to be some other malevolent creature who tried to get an innocent soul in its' clutches.

You closed your eyes and concentrated, tried to pour as much of your light into Eddie as you could, but despite his body being torn open the way that it was, he simply would not receive the help you could give.

You knew you couldn't leave him.

But Eddie was already gone.

And do to you, I shall...

When you came to, mass was over.

The closing hymn, heavy with organ song, rang throughout the cathedral as the procession made its way back up the aisle. You watched as Jinette glared at your prone form, laying on the pew, as he passed, but a light voice offered a distraction.

"Slowly, there you go, wake up," it said. A small, strong hand shook your shoulder then carefully tapped your face. "Sister Margaret went to call an ambulance."

"No," you groaned. "No ambulance. I'm fine." You immediately tried to push yourself upright, but the hands held you down to the pew.

"Don't get up, I don't know if you hit your head."

"I don't think so," you muttered. The pain that had wracked your body was nothing but a memory, a tell tale static that surrounded you, much the same way it would if your foot fell asleep.

You finally got your wits about you and found that your savior was the young woman you spotted earlier. Hell, if she didn't already think you were some creep off the street who'd wandered into the cathedral before...

"You're a part of the Order, right?" she asked disarmingly and pointed down to the small medallion that must have escaped from the confines of your shirt when you collapsed. Your hand immediately went to it and tucked it back into its hiding place; it was a reminder...a shackle. "A Knight of the Holy Order. Mother Superior said to steer clear of you if we ever crossed paths with you. She didn't say much else.

"I never thought I'd see one...just...pass out during mass."

"We're normal people," you sighed. "Not...Gods."

"Saints?"

"Sinners," you clarified and she laughed lightly.

"Yeah, me too" she agreed then frowned again. "Do you feel well enough to sit up?”

"I'm fine, just...tired," you explained and pushed her away from you. "I need to get back..."

"Back home?" she asked eagerly.

"Back to my motel." You got to your feet as the organ music stopped and the last few stragglers left. "Thank you for staying with me..."

"Oh...uh...Mary...Victoria..." she provided her name and you must have made a face. "I'm still working on it. I know I have time. But Victoria was my grandmother's name...so..."

"Well, I think it's a lovely name then," you offered a tight smile and your own name, then shuffled past her to make your escape. "See you around Mary Victoria."

March 30th, 1986

In the days following Holy Thursday, something was still off.

You had woken up the following morning with a sore jaw and a hoarse voice. Sometime later that day, you'd started crying blood. Only for an hour, but there was no controlling it. You were overwhelmed with emotion.

Hopelessness was the most prominent of them all.

You hadn't blacked out again, but something lingered beneath the surface. Given Gabriel's warning, you figured it would be best to lay low.

You knew it was a futile attempt to try and summon Gabriel again; he appeared when he felt like it or when it would best serve God.

The only time you’d ever desperately called for him, as fire almost consumed you and damp earth threatened to bury you alive, it had fallen on indifferent ears. It was then that you realized stories about Guardian Angels were just that: stories.

So instead, you went about your day as you typically would. Unless you were summoned somewhere by the clergy, they generally left you to your own devices. Especially on Holy Days like today.

Your plans for Easter Sunday specifically consisted of visiting the local cemeteries—

You would miss mass at the Cathedral today. Running your hands along the marble headstones and brass nameplates of those long-since-passed-and-forgotten and offering them a thought or two brought you more peace than any prayer or blessing would.

—and getting absolutely hammered.

You weren't a big drinker, really, since you typically were expected to have your wits about you. But it was a Holiday and you were far from home and alone. You made a blind choice at the liquor store on your way back from the cemetery, and it would numb you either to the point of blacking out, or make you give into your temptations to call Eddie.

You'd been thinking about him more lately.

Well...that was a lie, you always thought about him. Thought about calling, about visiting. You knew you couldn't trust yourself, so you did what you could to keep him safe. You skipped the letter M in the phonebook on the off chance he had finally made it out of Hawkins to follow his dream. Made it a point not to drive through Indiana if you could help it.

Maybe you didn't want to help it anymore. Maybe you should...maybe not visit...just call him.

Someone had left behind an honest-to-God glass in your motel room, and after a thorough cleaning, you poured yourself a helping of the nondescript amber liquid. It burned on the way down. Maybe it was a warning about the bad decisions that lay ahead of you.

You'd been tempted to call for his birthday last year, for Christmas...you sent a card. No return address, no name. Just a heart. You hoped he knew it was you because he always said your hearts looked like butts.

Another glass and you stood in front of the nightstand. You stared, transfixed, at the dingy rotary phone as you sipped your drink, savoring the burn this time. As if it had a mind of its own, your hand moved to grab the handset, but it just hovered for a moment.

How would Eddie answer? What would you say? What if it wasn't Eddie at all, what if it was Wayne? What if Wayne told you...that Eddie was spending Easter at a girlfriend's house? What would you do? What could you do? You practically forced him to say that he would wait for you...could you really blame him if he didn't?

Next to the phone was the remote for the television.

You hadn't really left him much hope after all.

You grabbed the remote and mindlessly aimed it behind you to turn the small set on. As it came to life and started bleating a commercial for some local restaurant, you momentarily prayed that it wasn't one of those Biblical epics, like The Greatest Story Ever Told.

Instead, the commercial ended and, as you poured yourself one more glass, the sterile voice of a newscaster reached your ears.

"...currently 68 degrees at the Los Angeles Civic Center. Lovely weather for Easter Sunday. For our top story, we bring you live to our own Robert Gilroy in Roane County, Indiana. Rob?"

You turned in shock and stared, dumbfounded, as the screen flashed to show a severe man in a brown suit. He frowned at the camera while a convoy of cars inched by behind him. You couldn't help but notice plumes of black smoke in the distance and you hoped that it was just a defect with the cheap motel tv.

"Thank you Laura. It's been less than 48 hours since a 7.4 Magnitude Earthquake rocked the quaint town of Hawkins, 80 miles outside of Indianapolis in an event that seismologists are calling a natural disaster of near unprecedented scale."

A wash of colorful stripes rolled across the screen before it showed b-roll of people running and crying, of a team of firefighters desperately trying to extinguish the burning Hawkins Public Library building, that was half rubble anyway, a man in camo bandaging a little girl's leg.

"The death toll now stands at 22, but with hundreds more filling Roane County hospitals and many more still missing, officials expect those numbers to rise."

You immediately dropped your glass and turned back to the phone, fumbling with the rotary dial to input a number you knew by heart.

"Please pick up, please pick up, please pick up." You listened as the ringing went on and on and on. You hung up and dialed again, and you desperately hoped you just got the number wrong. You screamed as it didn't even ring, but blared a taunting busy signal. "No! No! Who are you talking to? Pick up!"

"This is only the latest tragedy to befall this once safe town. Most recently, a string of high school students were killed in a series of ritualistic murders which have been linked to a local Satanic cult known as Hellfire."

Your blood ran cold at the word Hellfire and you refused to look at the television.

There was more b-roll, some chitter chatter saying how the Hellfire boys were always up to no good. How some upstanding students were killed, taken too soon.

Your breathing got heavy, enough that you started becoming lightheaded. The alcohol didn't help at all.

You tried to savor the last few minutes of ignorance as you wrenched your eyes shut, because if you didn't see it. It wasn't real.

"Eddie Munson, the leader of this cult and prime suspect in the murders..."

But you knew. You knew that this was the moment. You knew that this was what Gabriel meant. If you went to Hawkins, if you had to fight for Eddie, you would do it in a heartbeat and you wouldn't stop until you died.

"...has been missing since the earthquake..."

Those seconds that the reporter needed to take his dramatic breath were an eternity, one you would savor. Because it was easier to pretend that the only thing you had to do was just stop yourself from going to Hawkins, stop yourself from being selfish and wrathful, to punish those who would accuse the sweet, dumb, foolish, clumsy, trustworthy innocent love of your life.

It was just easier if you still lived in a world where you didn't have to hear what you knew was coming next.

"...and is presumed dead."

People often mistook the power of heaven to be one of peace, of hope, of new beginnings. And it could be. It usually was. But they forgot that the beginning of one thing was also the end of something else.

Divine retribution, a burning smiting wrath, the like of which had leveled Sodom and Gomorrah, flowed freely with your grief. It was illogical and irrational and inexplicable to any mortal, including you.

You remembered screaming.

Remembered the pain of the bones in your fingers splintering as you dug them into your skull. Your nails cut deep into the flesh of your scalp as you peeled the hair and flesh, as you opened the top of yourself to release the pressure that had suddenly and violently built up in your core.

Glass disintegrated into sand, furniture turned to ash, even the frame of the building began to buckle.

But there was a voice that called your name. A soft, sobbing voice that pulled you back from the edge of whatever precipice you subconsciously teetered on.

"It’ll be ok. I’m here."

You could practically feel arms slither around you, the phantom weight of them pressed into your skin. Dextrous fingers wove together with yours, soothed them, healed them. They caressed your wounds and the broken flesh stitched itself back together.

A cool breath grazed your ear and the screams that ripped from you began to subside. It shushed you and said unascertainable words of comfort as your fury subsided into woe.

"Close your eyes. It'll all go away if you don't look."

"But you're gone," you wept. The tears rolled down your cheeks and over your lips. You sniffled and licked at them; blood, again. "Why?"

There was no answer. You were about to open your eyes, eager to see and not just to feel, but the fingers glided over your face again. Over your cheeks to wipe the blood from them, over your lips to play with the softness of them, then over your eyelids.

Places he liked to kiss...places you wished you could feel lips instead...wished you could know that he was there.

"I'll never really leave. Even if you can't see me. I’m here.”

Every fiber of your being wanted to go, would have walked to Hawkins, run til your feet bled, to find his body. To clear his name. To say goodbye.

To die a most miserable death. Like Phibes and his Rose.

You would leave this world, happily, if it meant you could be by his side. But there was no guarantee. You could toil for a lifetime and hope to join him, and still be denied access to Heaven.

“I’ll be waiting for you. As long as it takes. I’ll be here.”

You heard the lovely whisper of your name, over and over as you sunk to your knees and you curled in on yourself. Every second it faded into the depths of your mind, and you couldn't help but crack your eyes open.

Lightning struck, the firefighters would explain to you later, on a clear day. The building went ablaze and was destroyed, but all the rooms were empty except for yours. The paramedics said it was a miracle you weren't injured. They touched you lightly, almost reverently.

"Hallelujah."

You were alone again.

It was a disquieting procession.

The creatures moved in a way that seemed unnatural, unfamiliar to them. Their feet shuffled across the barren waste and they dragged a hulking beast behind them. It was a large and ominous and twitching thing, and although the formality of this event it felt like a funeral, you knew that you were witnessing a birth instead.

The wings conjured images of Beelzebub...but Asmodeus felt like a more fitting comparison given how familiar you were with the inner workings of its mind.

Thinking of him as Beast or It was wrong. It felt sinewy and astringent. A bite you were reluctant to take.

You bore witness for three days.

It took two to break him, but images would haunt your mind and your heart for eternity. You tried to protect him, tried to undo what was done. You offered him comfort and a place to hide when he desperately needed a break he would never get.

How he had survived it, you would never know? But he was always stronger than you; if not in body, then in spirit. You never lasted long before you were forced to pull him back in. If you had remained, given him a longer rest, you knew you would have broken before he did.

He finally begged for mercy. He finally relinquished his soul.

You would stay beside him. No matter what they did to him. No matter what he did to himself.

They dragged him to their pit to put him back together again, and you forced yourself to watch, to listen, and to pray that every addition and alteration would stick. That he wouldn't have gone through the torture only to perish so close to the end of it.

You wondered where prayers went when they were made in Hell. Did they reach God's ears? Were they intercepted by Lucifer and his court? Or did they just...float in the void of oblivion?

He muttered words, you'd even heard your name escape his lips several times before they filled his mouth with too many teeth to speak.

By the end of the third day, he rose again.

And you sobbed in relief because somehow the sight of him complete, the sight of him rising and blinking and roaring brought you more comfort and warmth and joy than you had ever felt in your cursed existence.

It didn't matter how grim of vision he was. There was a beauty in that too. The beauty existed...simply because he still did.

Whatever they did to him, he was alive, and he would always be your Eddie. And that meant you had a chance to save him.

“When you loved someone, you put their needs before your own. No matter how inconceivable those needs were; no matter how fucked up; no matter how much it made you feel like you were ripping yourself into pieces.” — Jodi Picoult, The Pact

Special thanks to @big-ope-vibes and @pastel-pillows who can read even though she says she does not. And @fracturedarkness who I am determined to destroy/delight with this story.

Next Chapter: Illumination

#vampire eddie munson #vampire!eddie #kas!eddie #Eddie Munson fic #tw: death #tw: violence #tw: religious themes #stranger things fic #tw: suicide

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chaotic-archaeologist · 2 months

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Hi! I'm currently doing my MA in archaeology (European Prehistory specialization) and I love it. I always thought I'd get my Masters and dip, but lately I've been seriously contemplating getting a PhD. I love learning and studying my topic and I'm having so much fun at my uni and suddenly starting my working career at 22 doesn't sound very appealing anymore. However, the idea of applying to a PhD program is very overwhelming (luckily where I want to apply has a pretty cohesive sign up step by step), still the idea of funding (especially) and having to write a proposal and possibly getting rejected from the place I've spend the last three and half years walking around is very overwhelming. How can I have that be not so overwhelming to the point of giving up bc if sounds like too much? Do I need to worry about funding that much? Is it expensive?

(I tried to find your advice masterpost before sending this ask to check if you'd already talked abt it, but I couldn't find a working link, sorry)

Thanks in advance :D

Hi dirtling,

First, here's a link to my advice master list—sorry that wasn't working for you. Our blue hellsite is fickle like that.

From what you say, it sounds like you have a great attitude for starting the journey to a PhD. Ultimately, the love of learning and a dedication to the field are the most important parts. The application and the proposal and the funding are daunting for everyone, but they are doable. I find that breaking things down into bite sized pieces and establishing your sense of self worth outside of academia are critical.

Now I feel the need to point out that my experience and advice come from a uniquely American viewpoint, and may not be applicable to European schools at all. Europeans please feel free to chime in with your own advice!

The very first thing you should do is talk to your advisor. Please send them an email right now if you have not already done so! Your (potential) advisor is going to be your champion in any sort of application process going forward. If you want to continue at the same university you're already at, your advisor is the single best person to help walk you through that process. Even if you wind up going somewhere else, you're going to need to make inroads with another advisor at a new program.

Finally: grad school is expensive (at least in the United Stated). However, many programs will have tuition waivers and assistantships that they offer their grad students because if everybody had to pay for it, nobody except the very rich would be able to afford to go to grad school. Exactly how affordable it is depends on the cost of living in your area and how much the school pays you (and whether you're able to work outside to supplement that income if need be).

Honestly, I think you've already done the hard part by getting into (and nearly completing) a Master's program. That's a great step towards proving to PhD programs that you have what it takes, and it should give you a decent idea about finances. What are yours like right now? How about your peers? I would imagine there isn't going to be a vast amount of difference from a MA to a PhD, and in the US a PhD is sometimes cheaper because they're funded while MAs often are not.

There will be differences from a MA to a PhD. Doctoral students are going to be expected to take on larger magnitudes of their own research and function more independently, but a good advisor and program should help you through that process. Again, the key is to take things piece by piece. Start with talking to your advisor and maybe the graduate program director. Take a look at that step by step guide with them and break it into separate tasks you need to do.

Don't psych yourself out about this too much. One thing at a time.

-Reid

#he speaks #academic advice #grad school advice

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obaewankenope · 11 months

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Thinking about stuff and doodling and I just had the thought that Muslim art, Celtic art, and Native American art often gets lumped together as being sort of... Uncultured? No, not that, overly simplistic in that way where someone looks at it and goes "I don't get the symbolism, ugh boring" and assumes the cultures and people who created this art (and still create it) are somehow less civilised than other groups/people (Romans vs Celts, for example, Western vs Islamic art, European vs Native American art etc) because the ways the art actually works isn't the same as the Majority Think Art Should Work.

Like, Celtic art is something I love and it's full of patterns, geometric, repeating, animalistic etc that a lot of the time, people don't get the meaning of. They'll look at it and just Not Understand why that design is circular, or where that particular repeating pattern originated and potentially why, and because of that, they just assume it's from some barbarian, uncivilised, savage people.

And this is the same sort of perspective that is all over historical perspectives of art from non-European, non-white spaces.

Islamic art is seen as simple and never measures up to the 'amazing' renaissance art (fuck you Boris Johnson and anyone who thinks like you) because it doesn't use actual people in its work (which meant geometry had to be a whole fucking level and meant the Islamic Golden Age was fucking Lit AF™).

[source]

I mean, just LOOK at the complexity that has been HANDCRAFTED, CHISELED, INTO FUCKING STONE that you can see on MULTIPLE buildings. How the hell can any of that be uncivilised or 'lesser' to European art? It just- it just can't.

Celtic art is compared to contemporary Roman and Grecian art of the time by scholars and the general public who tend to perceive it as representative of a Simple Mindset and shit which, yeah no. Like, Roman and Grecian art is amazing, I totally agree, but like it's not "better" or more "Civilised" or whatever bullshit metric is used to measure how Worthy Of Being Respected scholars used to determine how Great™ a civilisation/culture was back in Ye Olden Days. I mean, ffs go and look at some of the AMAZING torques and brooches made by celtic artisans and tell me they're Simple. You're wrong. They're amazing.

[source]

This is an 8th century brooch, the Tara Brooch, and is literally amazing. Just look at it! How tf can anyone ever think Celts were just simple or uncivilised or sth with art that fucking beautiful jfc.

And Native American artwork? Oh boy. The WHOLE colonialism and genocide of near enough an entire continent by European settlers and all that came after meant that anything non-European was automatically savage and lesser and needed to be Made To Look Civilised. So yeah, some of the most amazing artwork of Native American people's is just... From a European (art with people and fancy realism and all that shit, perspective) is just apparently less. Like wtf, you can see how historians and scholars for decades looked down on native American art as somehow lesser in the 'research' done on it.

When it's absolutely fucking AMAZING TOO.

[source]

This is a totem pole. That shit gets hand carved, painted, and engraved ffs. How is ANY of that barbaric or representative of a supposedly lesser or savage culture and people? Fuck colonialism and it's bullshit effect on perception of people and art and history. Just fuck that shit.

Like, sure, in recent years there's definitely been a push to recognise that these types of art aren't lesser or uncivilised or whatever. And I appreciate that, greatly. But then I see some bullshit hot take by Boris Fucking Johnson or some other bigoted piece of shit gain traction for whatever reason and I R A G E.

Anyway. Love all art. It's amazing.

Art is universal human expression. Treasure it.

Sidenote: In my defence rn, I'm very under-caffeinated and limited on things I can do so research quality is definitely not as good as I'd like. If you have any info, advice, or additional links for further reading/learning about these amazing art types, add them in reblogs, message me, or throw an ask my way. I live to learn and be angry on main about indignities like bigotry. ~ Kat.

#Art #Artwork #Celtic art #Islamic art #Native American art #Art history #I just... I went off a little okay.

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homochadensistm · 4 months

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those twitter screenshots of that white american woman saying the concept of having a homeland being weird made my blood boil. i'm not white, but i am american and have puerto rican heritage. my whole life, i've undergone so much racist abuse from other groups, and the sad thing is is that i can't exactly even "go back" to puerto rico because there's so much shit going on down there and white visitors who are taking over the island, as well as taking up all the housing there. they harass native puerto ricans there all the time, too. sounds familiar? being a white american is a different breed of privilege istfg. she tried so hard to sound like an ethnic mutt, but despite having all those different countries in her blood, at the end of the day.. she is still white. and if she ever finds herself needing to go to europe to start a new life, she can absolutely do so without any problems at all. at the very worst, she might get clowned on for being an american, but white europeans would embrace her anyway. it's not the same with jewish americans, and it wasn't the same for me either when i lived in europe for several years. it's a completely different scenario. some idiot online also argued that jews don't need a country or a continent to yourselves, that there's nothing wrong with living spread out globally. like if that's so, why are they also in the same breath complaining that palestine should only belong to muslim arabs and no one else? how come certain groups can have everything and some should just contend themselves to be diasporic? whether i live here in america, in europe, or even in puerto rico, i'll always have someone somewhere calling me a spic and spit at my face. meanwhile, that white american girl can live peacefully ANYWHERE. sorry for this rageful ask, i'm just.. damn, this whole thing is making me just lose hope for humanity. i'm done.

Answering, as promised <3

I understand where you're coming from but I disagree with the conclusions: Americans wouldn't have it easy in Europe if they suddenly chose to move there. The cultural gap is VAST and no amount (or lack) of melanin can bridge that. Europe is a big place and every country is different culturally and linguistically, Americans would be just as lost and looked down upon in whichever euro country they choose as anyone else. Plus, in many places in Europe Americans are kind of a joke and the stereotyping is strong.

The privilege of those people who don't understand nationalism or why it's necessary is that of peace. People who haven't had their lives endangered merely because of their ethnic background will never understand why nationalism is important to those who are endangered by theirs daily. If you were fortunate enough to be born in the US/Canada/some parts of western Europe you're nationalistically-stupid by design. Peace made you this way, not an elitist book about the horrors of nationalism from a university.

#israel #nationalism #jumblr

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zangtang · 11 months

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Your AI men are so incredibly hot! You have inspired me to try it out. But so far I'm not coming up with anything any good.

How do you do it? I'm guessing not just from text commands?

Yeah, it's a mix of a few things. Can I just preface this with the fact I don't know what I'm doing though, lol. The main thing I rely on is to use the image weight suffix, where the baseline is --iw 1 --iw 0.5 allows the AI to take the bones of your image and come up with something loosely based on it but mostly based on the text prompt (I almost always have it set to this) --iw 2 tells the AI to copy the image way more closely, which you may want for specific poses, as I've yet to find any good way of making it do that - flexing and crossed arms are just things very fat AI men will not do, apparently. Here's a recent example. First I used /prefer suffix and set my suffix to "two egyptian men hugging, full body photo of an enormously obese security guard with gigantic belly wearing a buttoned uniform dress shirt, very fat man with huge stomach and thin legs, bulbous, body extension, associated press photo, 4K, sharpen, digital photo, color photo --no hat --iw 0.5" (I suspect you can actually just use "two men hugging, full body photo of a fat security guard, associated press photo, digital color photo --no hat --iw 0.5" lol. In fact you may need to - I've tried some prompts taken from Midjourney's gallery and had them immediately blocked, so it might be that the AI is not even applied universally. Starting with a smaller prompt and adding to it makes it easier to keep track.) then i used /blend and added these two images (a random Hot Doctor off Pinterest (lol) and a fat eastern european preacher with colin farrell's head and some uniform detailing poorly photoshopped on)

the result was

remixed with "drunk men"

remixed with "black men, standing in an elevator"

turkish men, chevron mustache

kenyan men

and so on. Oh, and using --iw 2 resulted in this, no matter the prompt:

while changing the -iw 0.5 prompt to this "two texan men hugging, full body photo of an enormously obese cowboy with gigantic belly wearing a plaid shirt..."

and "two australian men hugging, full body photo of an enormously obese explorer with gigantic belly wearing a safari shirt..."

and "two irish men hugging, full body photo of an enormously obese footballer with gigantic belly wearing a rugby shirt... standing in a cramped elevator..."

if nothing else, shows how incredibly lazy I am, because I genuinely used the same few bases for like 90% of everything, even when it didn't look like it. Find or make or blend an image base that results in a body shape you like and doesn't constantly result in bizarre fusions, tweak the image weight and give it your prompt and it should do the rest for you. I think?? if you want a very exaggerated belly you need to be sure your edit has visible legs and maybe other things to help AI understand the proportions, but it all feels a bit like superstition. Also I'm still amused at how Irish the Irish men look and i'm SO much more into obese Irish rugby players than I thought I would be lol. add "--no ball" if you do american footballers though, or they'll pop up absolutely everywhere (I just want to add, probably unnecessarily, no I do not use photoshop. MSPaint and Gimp do enough by a long way)

#fat ai #fat ai men #fat ai rugby #fat ai uniform #fat ai bears

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straightouttheslendermansionn · 9 months

Text

𝙱𝚊𝚜𝚒𝚌 𝙲𝚛𝚎𝚎𝚙𝚢𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚊 𝙷𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝙿𝚃. 1

𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒓(s): Jeff The Killer, Homicidal Liu/Sully, Jane Richardson, Nina The Killer, Clockwork

𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝑾𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈: Tbh there aren't many mentions of anything happening, but here's a warning for very brief mentions of human experimentation and demonic presences.

These are all HEADCANON and I do not intend for any of these interpretations to be entirely canon. These are how I see the characters and some rules of the world.

𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚕 𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚙𝚝𝚜

Aging in my Creepypasta universe works like this– unless you don’t completely have a physical form and died early, your body can only age until 25 years old. This is in place to make sure that the body is useful enough but also so that it’s easier for the pastas to get around. For those over this age, they stay at the age they currently are.

The mysterious haunted woods and the Slendermansion therein exist, but not many actually reside there permanently. If the pasta needs technology, is a proxy of Slender, or is willing to meet the requirements to stay, mainly being serving Slender, then they reside there. Other pastas visit but they either live in their own settlements in the woods, or they look and behave in a certain way that allows them to live among society.

Anybody listed as “Nonconforming Humanoid Entity” in regards to species just means that either they are/were human and we don’t know what they are or that they were never human and… we still don’t know what they are.

Slender isn’t fatherly to anyone that he doesn’t need to be and is not afraid to take away privileges he has given the people who live under him. He is manipulative and crueler than hell itself.

Creepypasta fans do exist in this universe. They can see you. :)

𝙹𝚎𝚏𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙺𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚛

Name: Jeffrey Allen Woods ("Allen", not "Alan") Age: He was 15 at the time of the original incident, but is about 18-19 Species: Nonconforming Humanoid Entity (Because he was human but sure as shit isn't now) Sex/Gender: Cis Male Sexuality: Aromantic-Heterosexual Race/Ethnicity: European-American Nationality: American, from a small town in Alabama Religious Alignment: Atheist, family used to be Roman Catholic Body Build: William Afton from "Silver Eyes" type beat (Jeff doesn't have a strong-looking body and I'm sick of us thinking he does) Features: (often tangled/super messy) ivory, shoulder length hair, leathery skin bleached white with some more severe visible burn scars throughout his body (including part of his head), skin is also scarred by the various lacerations he has obtained, dark circles and no eyelids, icy blue (almost white looking) eyes, the infamous cut smile (that never heals because he constantly strains it) Aesthetic: Pretty much just grunge style for this guy

𝙷𝚘𝚖𝚒𝚌𝚒𝚍𝚊𝚕 𝙻𝚒𝚞/𝚂𝚞𝚕𝚕𝚢

Name: Liu Vicki Woods Age: He was 17 at the time of the original incident, but is about 20-21 Species: Human (Liu) + Inner Demon (Sully) Sex/Gender: Cis Male Sexuality: Demisexual-Heterosexual (Sully less than happily abides by his demisexuality) Race/Ethnicity: European-American Nationality: American, from a small town in Alabama Religious Alignment: Roman Catholic (Semi-Practicing) Body Build: Looks lanky or barely built from afar and isn't jacked, but he has some muscle Features: Liu got the pretty genes, I'll start with that. Slightly tanned ivory skin, Fluffy brown hair on the shorter side, 47 stitched-up scars all throughout his body (including one that goes down his face, splits at his nose onto his upper cheeks, and the infamous smile again), pale green eyes, dark circles from sleep deprivation. Aesthetic: I once saw someone say that he dresses like it's "Christian Girl Autumn" all year and I cannot find a better descriptor.

𝙹𝚊𝚗𝚎 𝚁𝚒𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚍𝚜𝚘𝚗/𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙺𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚛

Name: Jane Tod Richardson-Vaughn Age: 26 Species: Enhanced Human (as a result of gov't. experimentation)(Liquid Hate) Sex/Gender: Cis Female Sexuality: Lesbian and happily married to her wife Mary Race/Ethnicity: Chilean-American Nationality: American, from Los Angeles, CA Religious Alignment: Christian (Practicing, though many in other Christian communities question or talk down on her regardless) Body Build: Muscle Mommy. 6ar6ie6 body type. Hands down. Features: Black mid-back length raven hair, fully black eyes (sclera and all), pale white skin, slight darkening under eyes, various types or scars as a result of experimentation. Aesthetic: Classy and casual, but she also really likes black.

𝙽𝚒𝚗𝚊 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙺𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚛

Name: Nina Hopkins Age: 17 Species: Superhuman Sex/Gender: Cis Female Sexuality: Bisexual, male lean Race/Ethnicity: European-American Nationality: American, from Gulf Shore, Alabama Religious Alignment: Atheist Body Build: Skinny young woman, but healthy skinny. Features: Long black hair with a hot pink coon-tail side bang, sewn open eyelids, signature smile, icy blue eyes (slightly brighter than Jeff's), white leathery skin and minor scars all over her body. Aesthetic: Scene girl style. I like this version of Nina so I keep her.

𝙲𝚕𝚘𝚌𝚔𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔

Name: Natalie Oulette Age: 24 Species: Superhuman Sex/Gender: Cis Female Sexuality: Bisexual, female lean Race/Ethnicity: French-Canadian Nationality: Canadian, from Victoria, British Columbia Religious Alignment: Atheist Body Build: Lanky-looking but has hella muscle built up Features: Almost ginger-looking, shoulder-length auburn hair, one green eye while the other socket has a clock inside (which she is constantly bleeding from), sewn-up chelsea-grin, pale ivory skin with barely visible scars all over Aesthetic: Simple, sometimes grunge style preference.

#fanfiction #creepypasta #creepypasta headcanon #creepypasta fandom #jeff the killer #homicidal liu #nina the killer #sully creepypasta #liu and sully #jane richardson #jane the killer #clockwork #clockwork creepypasta #headcanons post #headcanons #headcanon #tw human experimentation #tw demons

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thebroccolination · 9 months

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it confuses the hell out of me how Tumblr out of all places harbors most negativity toward BMF. situation it's much better now though, but the early period and before the show aired was nothing but spite an vitriol filling the tags. on the bright side, pretty much every other platform is head over heels for BMF, especially Reddit. they're usually critical af but BMF seems to be universally praised. anyways, I'm beyond excited for the remaining eps, and here's hoping for a strong finale so this show becomes one of the often recommended ones 🙏

On BMF getting more negativity on Tumblr than other places:

I thiiiiink it's because Tumblr has an especially high North American/European user base, and that's where the majority of the Krist hate seems to come from. What people still point to (the IG story, the rape filter joke, the "I don't want to watch Singto specifically kiss other men because this is fanservice on a variety TV show that people are going to quote out of context as me saying I don't like watching men kiss" thing) are either debunked or happened years ago, but when interfans arrived in droves in 2020, they kicked up old news like it was brand new and passed around hearsay like it was fact.

I mean, even I've learned new things since I made my post and thread about Krist back in September. For one, GMM didn't arrange his press conference in 2020 to address the issues. Krist did. Even though he'd already apologized multiple times over the years for things he never repeated, he still wanted to take accountability because of the amount of attention interfans were bringing to it. Part of that press conference was Krist even saying he'd never make excuses for what he's done and that he'll apologize as long as he's asked to.

The first(?) apology Krist made for the IG story was long, long ago, one I can't even find a translation for, that's how long ago it was. But Krist's long-time fans said that someone did translate it, but their English wasn't strong, so interfans picked apart their translation as if Krist's apology was lacking. (It's like how some interfans criticized Win in Between Us for being forceful because the subtitles originally said "kiss me" when what he actually said in Thai was "can I kiss you?" Interfans who don't speak Thai just make assumptions based on translations sometimes and it's part of my villain origin story.) Again, I don't have the apology to hand, but apparently one part of it was Krist saying something like, "I responded without thinking of how it would look. As a Y actor, I don't have those kinds of bigoted thoughts. This is my home, and I'm very proud of and supportive of the community that's raised me and cared for me," and the fan translation apparently paraphrased all of that into something like, "As a BL actor, of course I'm not homophobic." So like. Even when he's apologized, interfans have historically found a way to throw rocks at him anyway, so it gets exhausting to see people casually calling him homophobic because Melanie in Minnesota saw a screenshot of an IG story on Twitter and then made a list of six problematic BL actors you should definitely avoid because they skin babies and punt puppies into volcanoes.

On BMF being great:

I'm so excited for the last three episodes. \:D/

I'm so proud of Krist and Gawin for the work they've done up until now. It's wild to think about the amount of information they had to keep in mind as they were filming. Because, like, series already film out of order, but they also had to keep in mind different timelines of the same characters out of order. The fact that you can see not only Kawi's growth but everyone else's as well so fluidly and consistently over the episodes so far says a great deal about the quality of the production, I think. The directing, the writing, the acting. All of it is really, truly phenomenal.

Aaahhhh why is it only Tuesday. :'(

ANYWAY thank you, Anon! Sorry for the rant about Krist. I'm just tired of seeing him get so much hate for years on end when he's such a loving and giving person who's been a vocal queer ally since SOTUS. Not just during Pride, either. He really has been deeply misconstrued by interfans at large, and I just hope the people who've made up their minds about hating him (and the ones who've made their hate so public they're too stubborn to admit they misread him) will just learn to ignore him and stop tormenting him. He's already suffered panic attacks and depression as a result of the constant abuse, and it's repulsive that anyone thinks that's acceptable to do.

#kiranokira answers #krist perawat #be my favorite

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qqueenofhades · 1 year

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As an European I do love to shit on American politics of course, but at the same time, the moment you're a little bit aware of world politics as European you know to watch the USA.

Like. This is of utmost importance to us too. Look at the massive right in far right fascist ideas in Europe right now. I am willing to bet on Trump paving the way for these idiots. (In fact the night after Trump was elected, I dreamt he nuked the world outside of North America just because he felt like it).

In 2008, the crisis started in America and it spread from there. I remember watching with baited breath and it was rough. Tumblr's Americanocentrism is frustrating and unwarranted and must change, but American politics definitely DO affect the rest of the world in tangible ways. America is used as precedent. (I know you know this, mx. Queen, but idk about your followers which is why I'm saying this!)

These elections aren't just the most important to American citizens. They are extremely important to non-American too.

Ps I think it is bullshit you need to register to vote. I assume this is another Republican attempt to stop people from voting? Coming from a country where you're sent an invitation to vote when you're 18+ and they've voting offices at universities and train stations to increase the number of voters... Yikes. Fuck the Republicans and any politician abroad who supports them!

If, God forbid, American democracy was to end, the damage to both America itself, and the rest of the world, would be utterly incalculable. America is the oldest democratic republic and also the most powerful country in the world. We know the "freedom" thing is abused and misused, has been invoked to justify countless ill-omened imperial and foreign adventures, done plenty of very real harm to many places, and is built on a systemic and deliberate misreading of history. But if that's the case even in a flawed liberal democracy, how many orders of magnitude worse would it be in an unabashed theocratic fascist dictatorship? Can you even begin to imagine the damage that regime could and would do to EVERYONE?

America is a flawed, messy bitch of a country in so many ways, and it has never once actually lived up to its founding ideals. But at least it has been a democracy, and the influence it exerts on the rest of the world, for better or worse, is incalculable. It would be an absolute, unmitigated, unbearable, irreversible tragedy if fascism was allowed to have free rein here. If anyone is like "I hate America": I GET IT. I GET IT SO HARD. But if your response to that is "I don't care if it becomes openly fascist and won't act to stop that," that is a huge problem.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts

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wowbright · 4 months

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Fic: So Close

Fandom/pairing: Glee, Kurt/Blaine

Event: December Klaine Fanworks Challenge 2023, day 13: dimension

Words: ~275 words

Rating: teen and up

Summary: Kurt and Blaine visit the Audi factory and museum in Ingolstadt, Germany.

Notes: This is part of my Mormon!Klaine universe. It takes place during Out of Eden, which I am still in the process of posting to AO3. I'm planning to post it as part of a later chapter. I don't think it's too spoilery, but it's up to you whether you want to read it now or wait until it's on AO3.

Blaine had so much fun at the Audi Forum. He wasn't much of a car guy, but Kurt was, and he lit up on their tour of the plant.

Although they couldn't take photos inside, Blaine snapped at least a dozen of Kurt standing in front of the building, posing on the bollards like a fashion model. Blaine wished he could tell Kurt how hot he looked in his skinny jeans and body-skimming waistcoat over his scissor-patterned shirt, but instead he had to satisfy himself with, "You look amazing, Kurt. Absolutely amazing!”

Photos were allowed at the museum, and Kurt snapped car after car, insisting that Blaine join him for selfies in front of the more interesting historical models. “Your dad doesn't want to see me in all these pictures of cars,” Blaine said as Kurt pulled him in tight against his shoulder, Kurt's arm wrapped around his back and his hand resting comfortingly on Blaine's bicep, their cheeks so close Blaine could feel the heat radiating off Kurt's face.

“Of course he does,” Kurt said. “You charmed the socks off him on Mother's Day. He called you a ‘nice young man’ in his latest email. Anyway, who said these pictures are for him?”

Blaine felt warm inside. His own father had never called him a ‘nice young man.’ But if Mr. Hummel thought Blaine was one, then maybe he would also think Blaine was good enough for his son. He hoped so, at least.

Kurt chattered on and on about the dimensions of European cars versus American ones and all the different types of engines—diesel versus gasoline, naturally aspirated versus forced induction, twin turbo versus bi-turbo. For the first time in his life, Blaine found himself interested in all these distinctions, because Kurt made them interesting.

#december klaine challenge 2023 #day 13: dimension #mormon!klaine #fic: out of eden #wowbright writes fic #klaine fic #klaine fanfic #klaine fanfiction

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painterofhorizons · 7 days

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Look at this.

Look!

I was innocently coming back from grabbing groceries on this work trip tonight, came across a random sweets vendor machine, and found this.

Not only are these Sour Patch Kids, which you barely get in this country.

These are Original American Sour Patch Kids. Not the changed European version that tastes nothing like the original. The Original Version. The version I fell madly in love with on my trip to Chicago years ago.

Randomly put into a German sweets vendor machine, randomly put exactly on the way from the grocery store to the apartment I'm staying in this week.

So much randomness combined to make my day better.

Thank you universe!!!

(I'm seriously very very very excited about this. You bet I got the last two boxes from there despite the ridiculous price. I'm so happy.)

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cefonteyn · 1 year

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European History and Sensibilities in 1899 season 1

Please forgive the length of this post -- I know I'm rambling, but I am so taken by the depth and brilliance of this show. For context, I'm an Indian immigrant to the United States, who studied American and European history and literature in the U.S. As you might imagine, I have many, many thoughts about 19th century European history and ideologies evident in 1899.

One of the really fascinating things to me about 1899 is how European it is -- obviously in terms of the nationalities of the actors and the characters, but also in terms of one of the show's leitmotifs: you cannot run from your station in life.

There were populist revolutions across Europe in 1848. They broadly failed, and the monarchs won. So in 1899, Europe was still a land of kaisers and czars (both words that come from Caesar, immediately locating 19th century Europe within a two-thousand year history of inherited status).

This is in direct opposition to the American myth, right? The idea that you can come from nothing and become the king of the world. That's a story Americans love to tell and hear, and when we Americans talk about European immigration in the 19th century, that's the way we tell the story. "All men are created equal," we say. This is where you're supposed to come if you're the "poor huddled masses yearning to breathe free." New York, specifically, is where Lady Liberty holds her lamp beside the golden door. (Lady Liberty is European, of course -- but she is French. France had a successful republican revolution in 1791, relapsed with a series of emperors, but by 1899 was a republic again.)

That's why the Kerberos is bound for New York, and not Buenos Aires or Sydney or Bombay. The American myth calls to all our friends on the Kerberos. The show begins with an American poet's words. Olek repeatedly looks at an image of the Statue of Liberty. Virginia explicitly says, "Everyone is running from something." They all hope to escape their pasts and begin anew in America, specifically, because of America's foundational mythos. Maura hopes to become a woman doctor. Tove hopes to lead a normal life with her baby and siblings. Iben hopes to establish a church rather than toiling in the fields.

But they never make it to New York. They've tried "dozens of times," Daniel tells Maura, but the ship never reaches its destination. Because New York isn't real. These European have no hope, ever, of successfully becoming the masks they wear. Angel says exactly this to Ramiro: "You cannot change the nature of things." Later on, it seems that he has had a change of heart, but his realization comes too late, and he's never able to act on his epiphany and become a better person.

Consider the stories of Ling Yi, Lucien, and Franz.

In the British colony of Hong Kong, Ling Yi tries to steal her way into a better life. The results are disastrous: she loses her best friend. Later, she loses her mother. Even though she acknowledges to her mother that she's not entitled to have dreams, she begins a dreamy relationship with Olek -- and then loses the boy she loves. By the end, she's lost everyone she cares about. There is nothing left of the better life she tried to steal from Mei Mei. The ship isn't real. The ocean isn't real. Even her beautiful stolen kimono is gone. The only familiar presence left in her life, the only person with whom she can communicate, is her pimp.

Like Ling Yi, Lucien tried to steal an identity. He returned to Paris from French Algeria trying to live out a dead man's life, and learned that the universe would not allow it. He accepts his death as soon as Eyk announces that he's heading for the Prometheus, and later tells Clemence, "I didn't get what I wanted. I got what I deserved." He understands his fate as almost a karmic balance. He stole a dead man's life, and now he has to die, too.

And then there's Franz. He's the "American" on board, in the sense that he does what a prototypical American would appreciate. He's clearly of a lower-class background and builds solidarity with the working class. He attempts to democratize the ship by empowering the underclass -- giving them arms. And when he feels that the ship's leader is not doing a good job, he seizes power to redirect the ship to its original course. It could almost be in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, which starts by justifying the American Revolution. His actions are so very American that he could almost be heroic.

Of course, the name Franz is related to France. France gave critical support to America in its revolution. Then, as I said above, it had its own bloody revolution and deposed its king. By 1899, France was a republic. So maybe it's more accurate to say that Franz is the French revolutionary, not the American.

But either way, in 1899, he's not a hero. His coup fails. Nobody shows him any respect at all, from haughty first mate Sebastian, to dignified first-class passenger Maura, right down to humble stoker Olek. The crew that was initially on his side turns against him (before he's deactivated, Wilhelm admits that Eyk had been right all along). Even the third-class passengers Franz empowered lose respect for him by the end, when he can't explain the mysterious Calling.

So, in the second half of the show, Franz returns to his proper place: under Eyk's command. (Just like France returned to imperial rule under Napoleon, even after its revolution.) Eyk is above deck, seeking philosophical enlightenment, exploring the nature of the mystery with Maura. And Franz is lower than ever, in the lowest part of the ship, performing manual labor: shoveling coal. When the storm hits, he doesn't even know until someone comes down to tell him.

In contrast, consider Olek. He never, ever subverts his station in life. Even when he's frustrated by Eyk, he does everything the captain requests. He treats everyone with deference, not even meeting their eyes, because he understands that he's lowest ranked. Even the relationships he forges -- the friendship with stowaway Jerome and relationship with prostitute Ling Yi -- are with people in his own class/rank.

Notably, Olek is Polish. In 1899, Poland hadn't existed for over 100 years; it had been divided between the Russian Empire, the Austro-Hungarians, and Prussia (later the German Empire). Olek is literally nobody, from no land.

And for knowing his place in life, he is rewarded by the universe: he ends up acting in stead of the captain, steering the ship. (Brilliantly, Olek's name comes from Alexander, as in Alexander the Great. It may not be immediately apparent to people who dismiss him as a "Polack," but Olek has rich history and leadership in his name.)

And finally, there's Eyk himself. His old-fashioned name also means "ruler," from the word for oak trees under which village heads issued their rulings. And he is the definite ruler of the ship. He is imperious and stern to start, and Maura immediately recognizes from the way that he carries himself that he is the ship's captain. He knows Morse code, and how to read naval maps, and the depth of the sea. He also knows how to read his crew and order them around.

Eyk exhibits a magnetic charisma, which works on everyone. Jerome and Ramiro, who would rather have kept their heads down and stayed out of the spotlight, end up risking their lives for him. Sebastian apologizes to him before deactivating him. Even Daniel -- for whom Eyk is a romantic rival -- helps Eyk, agrees with him publicly, and eventually just moves him elsewhere rather than deactivating him.

But as events get stranger, Eyk's behavior becomes erratic. He drinks heavily on the job. He treats officers, crew, and passengers poorly. He makes an imperious decision against the wishes of every single person on board. George III lost America for the same thing. Julius Caesar died for that, and so did Louis XVI.

But the mutiny against Eyk fails. Tove, who points a rifle at Eyk and informs him that they're turning the ship around, is also the first person to defect from the mutineers. She says to him, "Du bist der Kapitan." After the Calling, everyone again acknowledges Eyk as the captain. When the crisis of the storm begins, it's Eyk they seek first, before turning to Sebastian and Franz.

The show presents this as the correct order of things. Eyk is sympathetic, intelligent, and noble, in every sense of the word. We, the audience, love him for it. Even when we sympathize with Franz, we never agree with him and turn against Eyk.

So, the first season reifies the 1899 European idea that one ought to act in accordance with one's class status. Escaping one's station in life is impossible, and attempting to do so always leads to disaster.

(Here I would be remiss not to mention the relationship to Hinduism and Buddhism. The idea that everyone's life circumstances are a reflection of their actions in their past lives, and therefore should not be avoided or changed? That's Hinduism. The idea that the universe is an illusion? It's called maya, and it's in Hinduism and Buddhism. The idea that attachment to the illusory things of maya necessarily brings suffering, that suffering distracts you from your true self as part of atman and your goal of achieving moksha -- of being blown out of existence like a candle (nirvana) -- of achieving liberation from the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth: all of this is in Hinduism and Buddhism. It's exactly what Daniel tries to tell Maura.

Europeans in the 19th century were familiar with these concepts. Knowledge of Hinduism and Buddhism was quite fashionable not only in Britain, but across the continent, and it remained so into the 20th century. See, e.g., Hermann Hesse's 1927 German novel Siddhartha about the Buddha, or this Polish translation of the Sanskrit Ramayana from 1937.)

Of course, European history didn't end in 1899. Major shifts were on the horizon; a century of war was about to begin, reshaping Europe's map several times. European nations bit into one another, sometimes spitting each other out, sometimes swallowing each other whole.

The British empire continued to lose its global power. World War I ended Eyk's German Empire and established the Weimar Republic, setting the stage for the Third Reich. The 1917 Revolution ended Imperial Russia and established the Soviet Union. The Treaty of Paris reestablished Olek's Poland. Civil war raged in Angel's Spain. World War II began in 1937 on the Sino-Japanese front, and Ling Yi's Hong Kong was occupied by Japan. Olek's Poland was occupied by Germany, as was Clemence, Lucien, and Jerome's France.

And then the Cold War raged. Europe was split in two. America became a superpower and spread its sensibilities across war-ravaged Western Europe, while the Soviet Union did the same in the East. Eyk's Germany was itself split.

Until, finally, came the mostly peaceful Revolutions of 1989 (the same numerals as 1899!), fulfilling the populist promise of the 1848 revolutions. Round Table Talks -- beginning in Olek's Poland -- spread capitalist democracy across Eastern Europe. The Berlin Wall came down later the same year in Eyk's Germany.

(Jantje and Bo are German, too, of course. Their age and vantage point in Central Europe means they have a wonderful perspective on late 20th century European history.)

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, leaving America as the sole world power. Obviously, Europe is not America. To this day, America is a very libertarian country, ruled by a worship of individualism and the belief that riches and success are only a reinvention away. European countries are not ruled by this same fundamental ideology.

But in the 20th century, we Americans exported (read: forced) some of ourselves across the world, including in Europe, very often in evil ways. A lot of it was horrible and self-interested. We ruined lives. We ruined generations. We ruined entire nations.

But not all of it was bad. (Black Americans invented jazz and rock and roll, after all, and it's the latter genre that plays at the end of every episode.) And one of the things we exported was our foundational myth -- our belief -- now widely accepted in many parts of the world, including modern Europe: that it is inherently right and correct that people should chart their own destinies rather than being forced into roles determined at birth.

(Not to suggest that self-determination is uniquely American. Other cultures have this belief indigenously, of course! I only mean that we exported our own version.)

At the end of the first season, we see the same people that we've gotten to know, but in a new historical context. They no longer believe that they are in 1899; now it seems they're in 2099. They're not exactly in America, but they are in the territory that America claimed to have won spiritually in 1969, in its space race with the Soviet Union. (Of course, we now acknowledge space as a place for all humans, not for any race or nationality. That kind of unity is reflected in post-WWII organizations like the United Nations...and the European Union.)

And so I wonder if the same leitmotif will play in the next step of these characters' journey, or if the next season will reflect Europe's 20th century: changing social roles. Democratization. Mass murder and genocide. Waning empires and anti-immigration sentiments. Homophobia, transphobia, sexism, and gender equality and increased LGBTQ+ rights. Socialism and austerity.

I really hope the next season embraces the next chapter in Europe's history. If so, it promises to be a very interesting season, marked with sharp internal and external conflicts and contradictions. Because, to borrow a phrase from the American poet Walt Whitman, Europe is large, it contains multitudes.

#1899 meta #1899 theories #1899 spoilers #1899 analysis #1899 netflix #1899 #sorry again about the absurd length of this post

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