#but looking at the (upper) middle class isn't really the way to go even if natural since we see them every day
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3 whumpy anime to check out this spring!
Go Go Loser Ranger is a heroes vs. villains anime where the villains are the good guys and the heroes are downright evil. Having wiped out all the powerful monsters more than a decade ago, the heroes keep the weakest monsters captive, to parade around and torment on a weekly basis while the public believes otherwise. Because they're immortal when hit with most weapons, they'll always reform to be hurt over and over again, despite feeling all the pain.
Footsoldier D is one of those weak monsters, an immortal shapeshifter made of dust, called a "duster". After escaping the heroes' arena, he forms a plan to kill the heroes and steal the few weapons they have that can permanently kill dusters, freeing the rest of his kind. Given that he has the constitution of a porcelain doll, he can't use strength to fight: he has to rely on wits, stealth, shapeshifting (despite knowing very little about humans or the outside world), and a shaky alliance with a double-agent ranger who seems to be taking advantage of him for her own gain.
Whump tags: villain whumpee, hero whumper, immortal whumpee
Watch it on Hulu, Disney+, or any unofficial anime site.
And if you don't have time to check out a whole anime, the Go Go Loser Ranger opening theme video is also really good, with fantastic visuals symbolizing D's struggles!
An Archdemon's Dilemma is a romantic comedy stuffed to the brim with popular whump tropes. Zagan is a demonic sorcerer who attends an auction for the possessions of another recently-killed sorcerer, when he sees that one of those "possessions" is an elf slave, Nephelia. Having had a destitute, harsh past himself, he feels a rush of sympathy and buys her way out, vowing to ensure her safety. However, Nephelia is terrified, believing she's about to be used as a sacrifice in a dark magic ritual. And unfortunately for both of them, Zagan is a socially awkward loser who sucks at communicating.
It's surreal seeing something that looks like it could be a caretaker-new-master whump fic as an actual, fully-realized anime. It definitely doesn't take itself too seriously despite the premise, leaning heavily on the "comedy" part of romantic comedy, and is mostly just a silly time with lots of whump-adjacent stuff thrown in. Fanfic-y to the point of "there's only one bed" being an actual line.
Whump tags: fantasy slavery (very pet-whump-esque in its tropes), caretaker new master
Watch it on Crunchyroll or any unofficial anime site.
The Grimm Variations is an anthology of horror retellings of several Brothers Grimm fairy tales. With each episode being written and directed by different people, it varies wildly in quality, with episodes ranging from laughably bad to incredibly good, but I'm here to talk about episode 2: Little Red Riding Hood.
The Little Red Riding Hood takes place in a dystopian future where the upper and middle class use virtual reality technology to augment their reality. One man, Grey, is tired of this and craves the real: specifically, the feeling of real blood spraying him as he murders countless women, his wealth and connections protecting him from consequences. But when this serial killer makes the mistake of targeting a woman called Scarlet, he finds himself on the other side of the knife. This episode is a complete and utter gorefest with multiple onscreen torture scenes.
This isn't even my favorite episode of the series, it's like my 3rd favorite. But episode 2 is the one with the gruesome torture scene, so it's the one that goes in this post.
Little Red Riding Hood whump tags: whumper-turned-whumpee, torture, gore
Little Red Riding Hood warnings: sexual assault, eye gore, fingernail gore, violence against women, major character death
Watch it on Netflix or any unofficial anime site. Orrrr if you just wanna watch the big torture scene without any of the context, it's on Youtube.
that's all I have for now :)
(P.S: Dungeon Meshi, while not really whumpy as a whole, is also currently airing and very very good and I might write whump fanfic for it at some point in the near future. Netflix or any unofficial anime site.)
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Hello from Blighty thoughts about Saltburn
As a continuation from my reply to @armands-eyefuckery because BRAIN
Aight gang let's have a lil sit down because there is a big ol angle to the film that I think is getting missed by a lot of folks who aren't from the UK because it's a very uh...
British Thing.
IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT OLIVER IS FROM THE NORTH.
Cut because Length.
Now look. I am not going to go into Thatcher and Her Crimes, but it's worth a google. I do bring it up in You're Almost Home because...
Lots of people are saying Oliver is upper middle class, and honestly? That doesn't track for me. At all. Yes, his parents have a detached house in a nice suburb and they went on holidays, but there's a lot of Very British Context to them that I really want to point out. Also remember, it's 2006/2007. That is also important.
First of all- Oliver's parents probably never went to University.
Really listen to them. How gullible they are- they believe that Oliver can study at Oxford, and be on the rowing team, and be in plays, and be top scholar. He's always been so clever. If Oliver was anything near upper middle class, his parents would be educated professionals. Oliver probably has dockworkers not even three generations back- his dad has management vibes, but he probably worked his way up in the 70s when all you needed was a good attitude and not to be an obvious murderer.
Secondly- let's talk about the house.
As someone from Down South who has also lived Up North, Oliver's Parent's house would not have been as expensive as people think. Let's assume they bought it in the 1980s- we ALL know that house prices are through the roof NOW, but even today there is a huge gap between house prices in the south and the north. 200k down South might get you a one bedroom flat, if you're lucky. 200k in Prescot can get you a 4-bed, semi-detached HOUSE. Check rightmove.
It is also important that the house is relatively new-looking, because over here Upper Middle Class people aren't really into new build houses- if Oliver was upper middle class, he'd be living in something Victorian or Edwardian. Probably somewhere with a good link to London, especially in 2007. It also means that Oliver's parents may not have even bought it outright- my parents got on the housing ladder via a shared ownership scheme. Oliver's parents aren't rich.
Now, the holidays. Mykonos. Another fun Brit thing is the package holiday. Here's a pretty interesting article about them;
Two adults and three kids could absolutely have gone to Mykonos every year in the late 80s/90s for far less than you'd expect, especially if they paid in installments each month.
I also mentioned about Ollie being from Merseyside specifically, but again. CONTEXT. Although Oliver isn't Liverpudlian (it's important, he's from NEAR Liverpool but not Liverpool itself) the North of England as a whole has routinely been fucked over by those in power. The government AND the royals and the very wealthy. It's still ongoing today- again, another fun source.
Remember when Mr Eats-Crunchies-Sideways called him a Bootlicker? That's fucking IMPORTANT. To many folks he IS a bootlicker. He is highly unlikely to have been raised to grovel at the feet of those with hereditary titles and wealth, and honestly he doesn't. I've written before about how Oliver Denies Felix Things and how that dynamic is important. Oliver likely hasn't been raised with any real deference to The Rich (except Princess Diana).
It also effects Oliver's response to Felix, because goddamn it THATCHER again- it is HIGHLY likely that Oliver has lived through a lot of homophobia. Internalised a lot of it. Felix's parents do not give a shit, but that was not the norm. Again, tried to hit on it in YAH, because times have changed since the 90s/2000s and people change with them, but no fuckin wonder Oliver never responded to Felix chirpsing him like a maniac. He's fucking REPRESSED when he's in Oxford, pals. It also makes sense with that weird Tumblr Dom shit he pulls; he's still fuckin weird about it, he's just being In Charge so he doesn't need to be vulnerable in any way. He is only vulnerable for Felix, and even then he can't SHOW felix that, that would be gay.
Leiflitter over'n'out
#leiflitter rambles#saltburn spoilers#saltburn thoughts#incoherent as usual pals#can't take the brit outta saltburn#yah!posting
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Pleasant Distraction
Shuri x POC reader
Summary: You attempt to study, but Shuri's undying need for your attention gets in the way.
Contains: Just self-indulgent smut (18+). Clitoral stimulation, vaginal fingering, and overstimulation.
Word count: 1298
You sit on your bed with a laptop on your lap, working on homework as usual. Your time was constantly consumed by college, particularly by class readings. Shuri often insisted she could help you…help you cheat. Obviously this was for her benefit.
Shuri sits right beside you, laying her arm on the pillows behind you. She looks at your computer screen. “Homework again?”
You lightly laugh before turning to peck her cheek. “Every week, Shuri.”
“Education is a curse,” she mutters.
You face your laptop. “Says the smartest girl in the world.”
“Point taken.”
Shuri leans back against the headboard, watching you read. “What class is this for?”
“Anthropology,” you respond.
“And you like it?”
You shrug. “I mean, yeah, it’s pretty interesting. Culture and what-not. The science part trips me up though.”
“I can help you with that,” she leans her head on your shoulder.
“Sure, maybe after I finish the reading.”
Your attention remains on the screen, which Shuri doesn’t appreciate. This has happened numerous times before. She’ll pester you with questions, hoping you’ll indulge her, until you tell her, “Shuri, I love you, but I really need to focus.”
You hate seeing her disappointed. She works a lot in her lab in Wakanda, and when she finds time to visit you, you’re drowned with school work.
There’s absolutely no doubt that you would rather drop this to spend time with your girlfriend, but you can’t. Despite what Shuri sometimes believes is a distraction, she understands…for the most part. There are classes you’re passionate about, and she enjoys hearing you speak about it, even if she’s perfectly knowledgeable in each subject.
Shuri thinks to herself, refraining from repeating her weekly rejection, however her silence–something you should appreciate–feels suspicious. You know the pattern. But today no one follows it.
You can admit you like the light banter between the two of you when she tries to get your attention. It’s cute. She’s cute. She’s always cute.
Nonetheless you go on with your reading, until her presence becomes difficult to ignore. The hand behind you starts stroking your upper arm. You attempt to digest each word, except now every one of them turn to gibberish when Shuri slides your short sleeve up, kissing your now-bare shoulder.
She’s always been affectionate. Yeah, this is fine, you convince yourself. Nothing crazy.
Things start drifting away from “fine” when her other hand sneaks onto your lap, dragging lines up and down your thigh. You deeply inhale at the contact, trying to ignore her even when your face grows hot. God, you hate the effect she has on you sometimes.
You continue to ignore her when her fingers travel to your inner thigh, so close to your clothed-pussy. Another deep breath.
You blink excessively, refusing to reveal the way your body is happily responding to her. She runs her middle finger up and down your folds.
“Shuri.”
She doesn’t respond, but she does pull her hand away, although she has no intentions of stopping. She adjusts herself so that you’re sat between her legs.
“Shuri,” you repeat.
She hums, feigning an innocence that you know damn well isn't there, smooching your temple while reaching for your waistband.
“I’m trying to focus.” Yet you’re doing nothing to stop her, and she's very aware of that.
“Keep focusing then,” she murmurs breathily, returning her lips to your neck, kissing the spot right below your earlobe. Christ.
Her hand slithers beneath both your pants and underwear, landing at your clitoris. And yes, you should tell her to stop. But fuck, you just can’t. She knows the hold she has on you and she loves taking advantage of it.
She nips at your ear, circling your clit. You still haven’t opened your legs yet. Instead they squirm under the heat of your laptop. Shuri’s other hand reaches for your breast over your shirt, squeezing as her other hand circles faster with more pressure.
“Jesus!” Your knee pulls up unintentionally and your laptop almost slides off your lap. You catch it before it does. “Shuri,” you attempt to scold her, but it comes out as a moan.
She chuckles, closing the laptop.
You try to open it back up, but she adamantly shuts it again.
“You’re not even reading,” she mumbles against your jaw, pushing the laptop off of you. “Stop acting like you are.”
The back of your head falls on her shoulder and your jaw falls open when the burning-like sensation grows as she rubs rapidly on your clit. Her circular motions cease once she settles on moving side-to-side. Your hips lift, legs spread, and your hand reaches back, holding the side of her neck.
Shuri’s fingers slip from your wetness.
“Still want me to stop?” She disconnects from you, rubbing her wet fingers against each other instead. “I mean, I can stop, but it seems like you don’t want me to.”
She knows what she’s doing, and now you’re frustrated. Sighing, you accept your defeat, shoving your pants off with your feet. “Can you please just…” you trail off.
“Please what? Want me to keep touching you? Or is anthropology more interesting than me?”
Oh, what a fucking brat.
“Please,” you take her wrist and push her back to your pussy. “Please, Shuri.”
“Okay, my love,” she snickers, sliding below your clit, roaming through your folds until she enters her middle and ring finger inside you. “As you wish.”
Bast, she enjoys having you like this. Legs spread just for her. Chest heaving just for her. All of your moans and whimpers, just for her. All intentions of school work are thrown out the window. Just for her.
And maybe you need this. It’s good to release some tension, right? You’ve been overworking yourself anyway. Might as well reward yourself for a bit. Shuri thinks you deserve it, that’s for certain.
But there’s no doubt she’s also doing it for herself.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you whimper when her other hand moves from your breast to your clit. Your toes curl and your hands grip each of her forearms.
“Look here,” she tells you. When you do, she kisses you passionately.
You continue to moan, the noise from the back of your throat flowing into Shuri’s mouth. Your lips sloppily move against hers, your mind all dazed and your mouth as moist as the fingers inside of you.
The pace of her hands are different—one slowly pumping in and out of your pussy and the other quickly rubbing your nub.
“Oh, god,” you pant as your eyes fall onto the erotic image of her tattooed hands working on and in you. Her hands, her hands, her hands; god, she really knows how to use them.
You finally cum, her name and other babbled nonsense escaping your mouth as she coos, “That’s right, my love.”
But despite finishing, Shuri doesn’t quit.
“Wait,” your body quakes, all too sensitive. You try to shift away, but her hands grasp your inner thighs, dragging you right back against her body.
“I’m not done yet,” she plunges her fingers back inside your pussy and the fingers on her other hand placed on your incredibly delicate clit.
“Shuri, fuck, please,” your head falls on her shoulder again, eyes rolling back and your hips wriggling. You haven’t released her arms. Your grip only tightens as she forces another orgasm out of you.
Your back arches and your vision practically goes white, so fucking overwhelmed. She releases your clit and she pumps slower until she doesn't pump at all, satisfied with where she's gotten you.
You tremble, easing off your second climax. You mutter, “Shit,” as you catch your breath. “You’re a bitch,” you puff out.
Shuri rubs her palm on your bare thighs. “But you liked it.”
You really did. “Yeah, whatever.”
#shuri x reader#shuri smut#shuri fanfiction#poc reader#afab reader#shuri being a brat#wrote this super quick so jst ignore all the mistakes#black panther: wakanda forever
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How about this prompt?
In an attempt to control both Azula and the Avatar, Katara and Zuko end up getting brainwashed by the Dai Li and are now living new identities somewhere in the lower-middle class of the upper rings.
Long Feng doesn't anticipate Azula usurping him. She figures that Zuko can be a useful pawn elsewhere or at least be kept out of her way.
The gaang and Uncle Iroh can't find them because they're still under the impression that the pair are imprisoned in the Crystal Catacombs. They end up having to escape the city during all the chaos and hope that their loved ones are still alive.
Azula still goes crazy at the end, Ozai is defeated, and Iroh has to step in until they can find his nephew and the Avatar's waterbending teacher.
Azula, though, isn't forthcoming about anything, and she very well might not even know what happened to Zuko and Katara.
Li and Hwamei met at a party a few years ago and ended up really connecting with each other. Hwamei is from an upper-class nobel family, and they ended up disowning her because she fell in love with a lowly tea server.
They both live comfortable lives, and they have a few kids.
From there, they can be extra confused when the rest of the gaang finally finds them. They must adjust to their new lives as their old identities and Zuko and Katara can get to know each other all over again. Their kids also have to get used to being royalty.
Or
It's actually been a few decades since the war ended, and Katara and Zuko went missing. Then someone from the gaang sees them with their family and recognizes the pair. It could be a question of if they should try and get their loved ones back or just let them continue to live their lives.
The Gaang's reactions are up to you
Okay, this plot looks so cool. Okay, here is a confession when kids are thrown in the mix, I lose interest. I don't think I have the chops to write their children. Is it okay if I don't write kids into the plot? Going to add this to my to do list though
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Effie Trinket / Hayffie Headcanons (probably pt 1) hokay here we go
-Effie's name is just Effie - it's not short for anything. Yes I know the use of Euphemia in a lot of fanfiction ties into most Capitol names being Greco-Roman in nature but I think it's important to distinguish Effie's name from the others while still recognizing that tie and here's why
-Effie doesn't come from money - we know that not everyone in the Capitol even made it through the 'first' uprising with their lives and if you put Effie at about 40 in the 75th games (which I do personally) this means she was born around the 35th which is only 25 years after ABOSAS which isn't really that long. Long enough to take a generally poor family (during the 10th games) to a lower middle class family (during the 35th) if you worked really hard and scrimped and saved, but they're not going to reap wealth in one generation without connections, which I don't think they had.
-I have Effie's mother as a seamstress (duh) and her father in a labor position - there wouldn't be enough avoxes to cover all of the labor the Capitol needs ever so someone has to do the dirty work. She's also an only child because kids are expensive. To me, 'Euphemia' is an upper class name. Effie isn't. It's the one thing she keeps that ties her to her past.
So how did she wind up being an Escort?
-Well for one thing she's one of the most determined women in Panem, she's sharp as a tack and quick as a whip, and you don't learn style without being into fashion and you don't get into fashion without absorbing art like it's water. She'd have faked her way right into the Academy if only she had the resources to make the clothes for herself that she was churning out and dreaming up for her studies, but she didn't. She was a relatively poor girl with talent and resourcefulness that looks a lot like Tigris' talent and resourcefulness and you know who would've noticed that? Coriolanus Snow.
-Before you get ahead of me, no, I don't subscribe to any kind of belief of an infatuation here from either side and I don't wander into that ship tag (go off if you do it's not my thing) but I do think that Snow (by the 53rd games - so approaching his mid 60s?) definitely has a hand in selecting students for the key programs in the Academy that flow on to having an impact on the Games themselves. And this woman - young and blonde (we'll talk about her wigs another time) and talented and determined and loyal reminds him too much of who Tigris could've been to just pass on her because she can't afford the tuition (am I being obvious enough with these parallels?).
That's all for now but I might come back with more later. I...didn't get to Haymitch at all but I will.
#thg#the hunger games#effie trinket#haymitch abernathy#hayffie#if you have questions please for the love of god ask all i want to do is talk about this woman
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@onecornerface linked me to this paper, which I mostly agree quite a lot with, and lays out some thoughts that I've been having lately in a much more coherent, far less fundamentally angry form than I have.
Particularly the fact that the American racial culture wars are primarily waged between rival groups of middle-to-upper-class whites and that the distinction between de jure and de facto segregation is actually important and worth focusing on.
I'm trying to think how to put certain thoughts in order, but over the last few years I have been increasingly fixated on the fact that de jure segregation and affirmative action have both been resolutely defeated in the law here in the US.
The defeat of segregation has been the quicker and more complete; I cannot bring to mind any attempt to revive Jim Crow or repeal the Civil Rights act.
Affirmative action, in contrast, has not been completely excised from the US but it seems to be well on the way out.
My followers will know that I like to piss people off by asking for a legislative or court victory for Affirmative Action that happened in the last half century. I think the closest I've gotten was a California ballot measure that didn't pass and maybe, like, one Supreme Court decision that was kind of a mixed bag rather than being entirely restrictive from the early 70s.
Both these situations strike me as incredibly weird, and people hate when I say that, because they sense a kind of dismissiveness lurking behind the assertion that these total legal defeats are weird.
Which frustrates me because it makes them incapable of even admitting that anything happened.
I cannot name any other important culture war issues like this. Roe V. Wade dates to very close to the Civil Rights Act, and American conservatives never once stopped working at overturning it through the courts and legislatures, and, as we know, they finally succeeded.
The same kind of continual push for legislation and court victories can be observed for every other culture war battle I can think of. If I asked you to name one legislative or court victory for anti-gay activists in the last fifty years you could probably name several off the top of your head, e.g. Prop 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act. If I asked you to name similar victories for pro-gay activists you'd cite Lawrence V. Texas and the Respect For Marriage Act.
Gay rights battles have been fought in the courts and legislature and continue to be fought up to the present day, just like battles over Abortion, drug use, gun rights, etc.
But the same is not true of Segregation or Affirmative Action. For example, current Supreme Court precedent bans the use of official racial quotas in college admissions. Affirmative Action advocates could pass trigger laws requiring such quotas, which would go into effect as soon as they could get friendly court judges to overturn current precedent. The same is true of white supremacists who want to bring back the bad old days.
But they don't.
When I point this out people get very angry and say, "Just because something isn't done by the courts or legislature doesn't mean people don't still do it. Here's an example of some private citizen doing something really egregious! Everybody knows that you don't get results by going to the courts or the legislature anymore! Please ignore all the states that are now banning abortion!"
I disagree. If something is a huge, controversial culture war flashpoint, but only one side has won any legal victories in a half century, that's actually so anomalous that I genuinely cannot come up with a third example after Segregation and Affirmative Action.
I think this is related to a conviction that destroying segregation and affirmative action are held (By different political groups) to be the key to achieving racial harmony.
It may look like segregation was defeated so thoroughly that nobody could possibly advocate for it seriously anymore, but that hasn't led to an end of racial strife. Since racial strife is caused by segregation, if it's still around that means segregation and race hatred must have somehow gone underground. Those feelings must be as strong as they were in the 60s, but now they're hiding and we have to do more and more psychological work to figure out where they're hiding.
And an essentially exactly analogous process happens for affirmative action.
Essentially, on the left the feeling is that if we had actually rooted out race hatred from the white psyche, we'd have racial harmony and equality.
We don't have racial harmony and equality, therefore the white psyche must still be riddled with race hatred, and we need to find it. It must be expressing itself through white chefs that want to cook soul food and tourists trying on kimonos, and we need to treat people who do those things as the racists they are.
On the right, the feeling is that the psychological problem is the ability to conceive of race at all; the way to racial harmony is colorblindness and particularly color-blind policy.
We don't have racial harmony and equality, therefore the affirmative action mindset must be heavily embedded in the left-wing psyche, and we need to find out where it is hiding. People hide it behind innocent-sounding phrases like "diversity" and "inclusion" and we need to run anybody who uses those phrases out of town on a rail.
Our whole approach to race in this country is devolving into increasingly hysterical attempts to force (white) people to have the correct attitudes about race.
Step back for a bit and the fact that we are trying to make it illegal to cause a white person to feel guilt about history has a sort of bizarre, 1,001 Nights fairytale quality about it. Like some fairy story where it is illegal to remind the Emperor that he will die someday.
I think I am coming around to the idea that racial strife in the US is no longer caused primarily by defects in the individual (white) psyche, and that our efforts to keep finding those defects are kind of the same mindset that convinced Soviet leaders that all failures were caused by sabotage.
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I need to share what I had to witness in the Youtube comments section of a video about the pros and cons of living in the US and Europe, which had me thinking "I wonder what elbiotipo would think of this": there was an Argentinean saying that he moved to the US 10 years ago (he didn't state how old he is now), and claimed that he knows the "European way of life" due to growing up in Argentina (???), so he really made it look like he knows what he's talking about and can say which of those places are better to live, then saying he prefers the US. I think what made this even funnier is that another user replied to that guy, one that grew up in Netherlands and moved to Argentina, and added that Argentina is not like living in Europe at all and there's no such things as an European way of life since we're talking about a whole continent, unlike the US. Now I knew Argentina has this bad fame of being perceived as "European" but that's probably the first time I see one that genuinely believe they're the same. It reminded me of some of the gaúchos we have in Brazil but that guy was being a bit more extreme about it
There are a bunch of assholes (mostly upper class people in my experience) in Argentina who believe they are Proper Europeans unfortunately Cursed to be born in Latin America and they want to Escape From Latin America and go back to Europe, or if that fails, to a "proper country" like the US (I'm sure you've heard of these guys, if gaúchos in Brasil are any similar) That guy sounds particulary unbearable. Like I'm imagining him talking and I want to tell him to go shit himself.
And yes, there are many sections of Argentine society that are proud of their "Europeaness", after all, it was the Eurocentrism encouraged during the XIX-early XX centry administrations to "civilize the country". The truth is that Argentina does have a majority of inmigrant descended people, and this has been considered -especially by the Porteño elite- the core of the country, dismissing all the other people who make this country. This is the core issue with racism in Argentina; the belief that European inmigrants (we never tak about Asian, Middle Eastern ones...) built this nation, and the rest are just useless people, or even aren't there because all Argentines came from Italy and Spain (this is why you find people saying Black Argentines or Indigenous Argentines "don't exist", which you can see is patently untrue the moment you walk through any street). I'm not mincing words here, this is how racism expresses itself here.
In some cases, it has expressed itself as a rejection of the country itself, like "this country is shit, I wanna go back to my grand(grandgrand, usually)parents home in First World Europe". The funny thing is that comments like that Dutch person show the truth: for all their eurocentrism, they are still Latinos born and raised here and their idealization of Europe or the US makes no sense, because they have no idea how's life there; they BELIEVE they do because they're white and wealthy, but they don't. They're basically highly privileged assholes who want to shit higher than everybody else, and since money isn't enough, they start claiming cultural/racial kinship with a First World that doesn't care about them.
You can't escape from Latin America if you're not a Latin American first.
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In the second part of "The Lauriston Garden Mystery," in Letters from Watson, the animal comparisons with people continue. The prior "simian" description of the victim now appears to be in the land of general Victorian biases about looks indicating character, rather than of specific dog whistles. (It's still an idea I'm glad isn't encouraged today.)
Inspector Lestrade, for instance, is given no description beyond "lean and ferret-like," implying he's a wiry, sneaky guy who's good at catching rats. Holmes, by contrast, is compared to a hound -- a classier and more morally noble catcher of vermin.
What the victim has in his pocketses is fascinating.
A Barraud watch is a high-quality pocket watch from the Barraud family watchmaker firm, which operated in the London area from 1727 to 1880 (so, retiring shortly before the story happens), per the British Museum. Holmes reads a serial number -- 97163 -- that may be made up without regard for Barraud's actual serial numbering (watch afficionados get very into Barraud details). Being five digits likely is meant to imply that the watch is newer rather than older.
Gold Albert chain is the style of chain that has a T-bar that slips into the button hole of a vest pocket and a swivel hook that attaches to the pocket watch. They were, unsurprisingly, popularized by Prince Albert, who died in 1861. I can't easily find a source that's specific about how long these specific chains really stayed fashionable, other than that pocket watches in general faded once men's wristwatches caught on in the early 20th century. Having a heavy gold chain at minimum implies the victim is a prosperous and outwardly respectable gentleman who might lean a titch conservative and practical.
Gold ring with Masonic device -- now this raises the BIG question. Are we talking Masons like "Moose Lodge but classier" or Masons like "conspiracy theories"? Even in the 1880s, it could have gone either way. Being a Mason was a gentlemanly thing to do, assuring business connections and a reliable social network when traveling. We're back in an era when everything respectable required an introduction -- gentlefolk who were moving to a new city took letters of introductions with them! -- and simply being a fellow Mason counted. So our victim has upper-middle-class social connections.
At the same time, Arthur Conan Doyle himself joined the Masons at about this time (possibly a bit after the story was written) as part of his exploration of spiritualism and self-improvement. So our victim's being a Mason isn't not a sign he might have deep secrets. (This interview with John Dickie, who wrote a book on Freemasonry, is particularly lively.)
Gold pin -- bull dog's head, with rubies as eyes. Bulldog stickpins or cravat pins were apparently quite popular! This one puzzles me, as the bulldog is ordinarily a symbol for England, but the victim is supposed to be American. And a gold pin is not a cheap souvenir! My next thought is that it's a Yale bulldog, but I'm reaching.
Russian leather card case -- Russian leather was popular for some years before the story because it was durable and resistant to water- and insect-damage. Our victim is willing to pay for quality and/or is taking his card case places where it has a rough life. If the cards only say "Enoch J. Drebber" and "Cleveland," these are his social cards, left when paying calls. (Paying calls was the Victorian equivalent of sending memes to the group chat. You'd go round dropping off your cards at the homes of friends and acquaintances, and a few might be "at home" to invite you in for tea and cakes. Not paying calls was a good way to fall out of contact with society.)
I keep wondering -- why Cleveland? It's a Doylistic question: the American has to be from somewhere, but why Cleveland? An Englishman in the 1880s would have heard of New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Chicago, surely, but Cleveland?
Well. I had forgotten that President James A. Garfield, elected in 1880 and assassinated in 1881, was from Cleveland. Cleveland was in the news. The city was also an industrial powerhouse from the Civil War into the early 20th century, so if the idea is to convey a large, wealthy American city, where society is perhaps less refined than in New York, but not so rough-and-tumble as in "the West," then Cleveland fits the bill brilliantly. Best yet, it was ethnically diverse, with large German and Hungarian populations.
Pocket edition of Boccaccio's Decameron -- it's an era when a man who traveled would carry a pocket edition of some classic book, to while away train trips and nights in hotels. The choice of book should be an indicator of character.
This is probably the 1872 revision of Charles Balguy's 1741 translation, which kept the more ribald bits in Italian. I'm leaning toward thinking that we're supposed to see the victim as a man who liked a bit of the salacious, as no matter how the Decameron is bowdlerized, everyone knows the spicy bits are there (though why is someone else's name in the book? well, someone likes a spicy read).
Letters from the Guion Steamship Company sent me down a rabbit hole of steamship history. This is not a made-up company. This is the JetBlue of steamship lines. Per my plunge into Wikipedia, White Star was known for comfort, Cunard and Inman were known for speed, and Guion was known for transporting immigrants in steerage.
Right around the time of the story, Guion commissioned new ships to try to compete based on speed. This went badly for them, including stranding a couple ships.
Our victim could be sailing Guion as an indicator that he's pinching some pennies, or that he simply doesn't care about White Star-type comforts. Alternately, this could be Chekov's steamship and someone important will later be on a ship that sinks.
Seven pounds 13 is about $300 in today's money. Without ATMs and credit cards, and without a bank book or other financial instruments for a UK bank, this is the money that has to get the victim to Liverpool on the train (there's no train ticket) and cover any incidentals until he embarks. (Or perhaps there's more wherever he was staying?) Depending what he's got to do before leaving, he's decently prosperous.
Whatever point Holmes expected Lestrade to see as "crucial" in wiring to Cleveland (presumably to the police department), I have no idea what it might be.
Holmes' deductions about the murderer are a mix of explainable and mysterious.
Height and shoes are derived from Holmes' painstaking measurements, and Holmes is an expert at identifying cigar ash. (Trichinopoly is an Indian cigar, popular for its mild flavor.) The details of the taxi are from Holmes' examination of the mud outside. (This is definitely not a Playfair mystery where the reader sees the actual clues.)
"Florid face" likely means the murderer drinks, though he could be outdoorsy or have a choleric temperament. The long fingernails must be deduced from the writing in blood, but why were they long?
Victorian nails were kept very short by modern standards, even for women. So "remarkably long" nails might only be half an inch -- but it's a vulgar and exotic detail. I have driven myself into a frenzy in trying to find a fraternal group, religion, criminal activity, or skilled trade where it was normal, symbolic, or practically useful to have long nails on one hand.
In an era with serialized novels and no Wikipedia, readers must have been frantic with asking their friends about tantalizing details. Making all those required calls was doubtless a lot more fun if everyone had read the latest chapter.
So we have a victim who is prosperous and at least surface-respectable, but not quite "nice" and a murderer who sought revenge, has some odd trade, and is likely upset about whatever's to do with the wedding ring.
And what is to do with it? Is it intended for a future bride, taken from a dead one, or left by a runaway?
I'm on tenterhooks to hear what Constable Rance has to say next week.
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How will you handle the characterization of characters like Sam and Tucker? Danni?
What are some of the biggest changes to the overall story you are looking forward to exploring?
*cracks knuckles* alright here we go!
Sam and Tucker are extremely important to the series, more important than I think people tend to give them credit for, and that importance would be retained in Redux.
Tucker would be more or less the same as the OG Tuck, he's still a big tech geek, still loves meat, is still simultaneously the comic relief and the voice of reason depending on the situation, etc. I mostly plan on just making a few subtle tweaks to his character to flesh him out a bit more than the show was willing to.
Now is the time to mention that Redux will take place the same year the OG show came out, 2004. So the tech that Tucker salivates over will be tech that's dated by our standards, he still uses a PDA like a cell-phone, and carries around a lot of big chunky gadgets like portable CD players and such. While he is mostly a programming guy, he will build and invent things, and will help Danny do the same. He invented Danny's goggles and co-invented the Thermos with Danny.
Tucker is the most emotionally available of the trio, he doesn't always have solutions but he's willing to hear people out, and with his weak constitution he is the least fond of fighting, tho not purely pacifistic. He is the most outgoing of the group as well, but doesn't desire popularity, he's pretty satisfied with his lot in life. He's just a pretty amicable guy and likes to talk a lot. Like in the show, he's been friends with Danny for the longest, and knows him the best.
"Time to hack the mainframe..."
*swats away computer*
"Hello! This is the front desk, right? Sorry, I'm new and no one's told me the company password yet..."
I'd also take out his more wannabe-casanova traits, cause it's just kind of uncomfortable. I see him as more of a jughead-type, commenting on the drama and romance from the sidelines while never himself being too interested in it. He'll still joke about ladies loving him, but it'd be more tongue-in-cheek and self-aware.
Overall he tends to try to outsmart or talk his way out of situations, which can be a huge help, but also sometimes makes things worse. His smooth-talking has a 50/50 success rate.
He has a pretty good relationship with his parents, but can be kind of distant with his Dad, who is pretty overbearing and really wants Tucker to follow in his footsteps as the Mayor. It would be a running joke that Tucker is so disinterested in being the Mayor that he often times doesn't even justify his dad with a response. He will literally just leave if he can tell that that's where a conversation is going.
Sam is probably the character that would be overhauled the most. The OG Sam isn't terrible, but is very obviously an attempt at a counter-cultural character by people who know nothing about counter-culture.
The biggest change I'd make is that she no longer comes from old money. I get what the OG show was trying to do, but even as a little kid I couldn't really buy it or her whole rebellious thing. Not when she still greatly benefited from her family's money.
Instead, she comes from a well-off upper middle-class house, and she hates her parents. Not just because they don't understand her, but because her parents are actually horrible. Her Dad is a lawyer who is always looking for loopholes to get the rich out of trouble, and her Mom runs an MLM selling cheap clothes to desperate housewives (Think LuLaRoe). Her parents don't not love her, but they are deeply terrible people who, at the end of the day, only really care about themselves. Sam has sworn to do everything in her power to not be like them. The only reason she hasn't run away is because they're not home often enough for her to have to deal with them too much.
Danny: "Ow! Watch where you're poking!"
She tries to do as much on her own as she can, up to and including making basically everything she wears out of discount clothes and thrift shop purchases. While she does get an allowance, she doesn't spend any of it, she's saving her money so that she can leave home the moment she turns 18 and never look back. She is more interested in fashion than she often lets on, and dreams of running an eco-friendly fair trade boutique. After destroying capitalism, of course. She designed and made the alterations to Danny's jumpsuit, with the help of spectral thread that Danny had invented for her birthday.
In this series, Sam isn't just a holier-than-thou goth girl, she's a full-on anarchist punk-rock bitch, and she's proud of it. She will always speak her mind when she feels an injustice is taking place, and unlike in the OG series, Danny and Tucker will usually be there to back her up. That said, there's plenty that she gets up to on her own, she has had her brushes with the law, she's gotten into fights, she does not protest peacefully, and she usually doesn't involve Danny or Tucker because she doesn't want them to feel obligated to help her and then get hurt because of it.
She is strongly antisocial, and generally pretty closed off. She is the type of person who will listen to everyone's problems but won't speak about her own unless pushed. She is deeply loyal to and protective of her friends, sometimes to the point of being a little overbearing.
As for Danni, I certainly have thoughts, but I haven't settled completely on how she would fit in to the overall story. I do want her to be in the series, I just need to figure out what her deal would be.
EDIT! Completely forgot to answer the second part of the question!
The biggest change I'm looking forward to is giving Valerie more screen time, haha.
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Okay I have some thoughts on Matilda:
Harry and Zinnia Wormwood love each other. They may not have any fondness for their daughter, but they do love each other. She doesn't fit into their family, and so many of her basic needs are neglected- yet somehow still met.
She has unexpected access to resources usually required by an adult. For example, she always has ingredients in the fridge with which to make her own food with, despite her mom never cooking. The family has cereal for breakfast, tv dinners, etc, but Matilda has flour and eggs to make pancakes with. Or the fact that her clothes always fit her, even as we see her grow constantly.
My explanation for this is that because the Wormwoods are vain (especially in the way upper middle class 80s America was), it meant that they had to protect their projected self image. Mrs. Wormwood always had the newest fashions, dyed hair touched up daily, nails painted, and her social life consisted of bingo and phone calls with friends. Mr. Wormwood points out that in his work "[his clients] don't buy a car, they buy me. That's why I personally take such pride in my appearance- Well oiled hair, clean shave, snappy suit".
So with this knowledge, how is Matilda able to get the resources she needs to be so well fed and clothed? I think food is the easiest to explain- I believe that there's probably a grocery list, and because she has been able to spell since she was one, it would be pretty easy to put things on there that could potentially go unnoticed.
As for clothes, this is where the vanity comes in. Mrs. Wormwood has friends, and (based on her conversations with friends on the phone) they too have kids. More than likely they knew she had been pregnant, had a daughter, etc. So whenever she went shopping for clothes with friends (which I think was pretty often as seen by her very up to date wardrobe) they probably also bought some things for their kids and asked something like "oh isn't this adorable, wouldn't your daughter look like such a darling in this?" and she would end up putting it in her basket so as not to look like she doesn't really care one way or another.
Or perhaps like Mr. Wormwood she cared about looking like the perfect American family and couldn't have Matilda sticking out.
There's a lot to work with here, but I enjoy knowing the story so well that I have the bandwidth to think on all the nuances of how Matilda's life evolved into where it is.
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The has-a-brother-in-the-SHL anon here - gonna keep the introduction short and lovely, my brother fulfilled your wish of answering the fascinating questions everyone has regarding the hockey dating culture with brutal honesty and greets all of you nosy Tumblr gossipers.
Keep in mind that the answers are also influenced by me throwing my two cents into the discussion cause the answers my brother gave me would hardly be understandable enough if written here without any further context and explanation. If you thought that my showering answer was a long-ass essay, buckle up, cause I feel like I have just written the continuation of Ice and Fire.
"Why the hockey players choose blonde wannabe influencer girls in like 99% of cases?"
Culture of the country and league you play in, peer and role model pressure, accessibility, and convenience - those are probably the words that would sum up everything I have been told in the vague answers, my brother gave me.
I frankly didn't expect him to struggle with this question that much, but when I tell you he was sweating a coherent answer out of himself for good thirty minutes as if I have asked him some deep philosophical question about the meaning of life, especially when questioned why he himself has never dated a girl that wouldn't be blonde in those twenty years of his life, I mean it.
Some may be confused by what the culture of the country and the particular league has to do with the players dating blonde girls only, but if you look outside of the NHL, and other north American and Nordic leagues, the blonde WAGs' dominance isn't actually that prevalent in hockey. It really isn't just a coincidence that most of the Russian players and many Czech ones in the NHL date brunettes, cause if you look at the KHL or ELH, the WAGs there aren't by far as monotonous looks-wise as they are in the previously mentioned leagues.
Applying this to the SHL (and consequently at the other nordic leagues), it is normal (and has been normal since probably forever) to see the players going for mostly blondes cause the nordic countries in general are notoriously known for the blonde genes if I say it like that (I myself am naturally blonde and so are many other people here, unlike in the rest of the world, where the blondes are in 60% of cases fake blondes) and while I don't have handful experience with the North American culture since I have been there only a couple of times, I believe that the blonde has become somewhat of a trend there among the middle and upper classes in the last couple of decades, especially in the hockey surroundings (I dare to say, that in a way it used to be copying of what the Nordic players have brought with them when the NHL first opened for the Europeans).
Peer and role model pressure. Honestly, I feel like a lot of people underestimate how huge of a thing that is in every team sport, ice hockey very much included.
When you ask the young players nowadays, my brother being among them, who they look up to, they always tell you players like McDavid or Matthews. The cult of personality of these role models goes way beyond what those players showcase on the ice, they are obsessed with everything they do and naturally, they try to be like them even off the ice. You have McDavid, who is dating and posting pics of his blonde girlfriend (despite cheating on her with brunettes, irony, isn't it?), and Matthews, who is fucking around with blondes all the time just like 99% of the league. Even the youngest role models like Hughes or Zegras, some of the young players look up to, fuck around with mostly blondes and that's the peer pressure mixed with the league's culture - everyone around you dates blondes, so you feel obliged to do the same thing, cause sticking out in any other way than skill-wise (of course in a good sense) isn't welcomed in ice hockey.
I feel like the perfect way how to explain this to everyone is the occasion when a famous celebrity (= McDavid, Matthews, Marner - who were all influenced by those before them...) promotes a certain clothing item, that becomes viral because they are famous and have an influence over the rest of the population, everyone in your surroundings began to buy and wear it, even your friends, and you feel somehow obliged to go with everyone else cause you don't want to stick out in the crowd with an out of fashion clothing. As disrespectful as it is to compare the WAGs to a piece of clothing, this is the reality.
The fact that most of those girls are so-called influencers or models and rarely some actually esteemable established professions is linked with accessibility and convenience, which goes both ways. The girls know that they can massively profit, both fame and money-wise, from dating a famous hockey player, twice as much when they want to become influencers and internet models because what really is the chance they will be successful in such a massive uncompromising industry and the world of social media when they look like every other basic girl in their country and lack the skills (and at many times even personality) to built an actually admirable influencer platform, that would stand out from the rest out there? Non-existent.
The number of those blonde wannabe influencer girls that slid into my brother's Instagram and Snapchat DMs after he was drafted (just drafted, keep that in mind, he doesn't play in the NHL nor the AHL to be as popular as the other guys, let alone guys like Hughes or Matthews) is absolutely insane and laughable at the same time, but the players roll with it, why wouldn't they when they can literally choose out of dozens, sometimes even hundreds or thousands of desperate girls, that many times have no dignity whatsoever and don't care whether it is going to be a one-night stand only, the guys will forget about right the next morning, or whether they will become the so-called girlfriend and will be cheated on regularly?
Trust me, those guys enjoy it disgustingly too much, even my brother, who is capable of casually telling you that he only plans to fuck her on the road trip since she is from the town, they are heading to when you ask him, who is the girl he is messaging with during a family movie night.
I said that the convenience of the girls being wannabe influencers and models goes both ways - the girls get the hype and financial backing out of the relationship, we know that, everyone must realize that if they think about it at least for a while and put two and two together. The guys, on the other hand, exploit the fact that those girls become dependent on them in these aspects, and therefore are forced to bear their blatant cheating and other behavior, which would in a normal relationship result in a split of the couple, because if they wouldn't they would simply lose the source of fame and money, the players represent. Lose that and be replaced by a chick, who wouldn't be any different from them. In a way, the girls, we see on the players' social media, don't even have to be actually dense and one-layered as many people believe, they are forced to be like that if they want to remain in a relationship with those guys because hardly ever is a player on such a high popularized level as the NHL capable of maintaining a relationship with a girl that has her own mind, independence, established career and sense of dignity that would make her leave the second her guy would be caught shamelessly cheating on her - "those girls aren't as easy as the blonde wannabe influencers as you call them."
"Why do they get married so young?"
I am relieved that my brother isn't at a marriable age yet (though looking at Brady Tkachuk, no one knows at this point what really is a marriable age among hockey players) and that he promised that he personally doesn't plan on getting till 25 - whether they will reflect reality or not, I am not sure, I hope it will.
Many of his teammates and hockey friends though, got in fact married in their early slash mid-twenties and according to what he told me, they mostly did it cause there was that pressure of a traditional family, society, or values, they themselves had ingrained in their heads from the old-school type of upbringing, which says that if you find the so-called right girl, you should marry her and have kids before you hit thirty because it is a sign that you have matured and calmed down enough to settle down - yes, that mindset still seems to exist even in the 21st century, and I personally believe that it is even more prevalent in the States hence among some of the guys in the NHL (I am looking at Seguin, in particular. That guy proposed only cause there probably is massive pressure on his 31-year-old ass to finally settle down, despite him still being the same Tyler Seguin that partied shirtless with Brad Marchand back in Boston).
Some of his married friends also allegedly say that they simply want to come back home after a game to a cooked dinner, wife and kids and enjoy a different, more peaceful world from the one they experience while playing and traveling - lovely statement when one overlooks the fact that the hockey lifestyle, when they are away from their families, also includes cheating on their wives and considering that as a normal part of the hockey life, which according to them doesn't have anything to do with their marriage as it is two separate lives, they live.
"Why do they cheat so damn often with just random chicks?"
I have practically answered that in everything I have written above, but the short answer, my brother gave me between the lines is - cause they can, cause they have the resources to, cause they want, and cause everyone around them does, so why shouldn't they?
Welcome to the wonderful reality of hockey dating culture, sweethearts. The only positive thing about it is that it will always create gossip we can discuss.
Gonna be honest I am not reading all that but love you for this❤️
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It was a post you made about the middle class but i don’t know what you would consider to be a middle class person?
Hi anon, so unfortunately I am a law student and have enough fucking homework so I totally forgot to get around to this. Anyway, middle class... I want to say you know it when you see it but that's not necessarily true.
Middle class is when college for the children is a given. An expectation, rather than an aspiration. Student loans and all.
Upper middle class is when you start to hit "college funds" that actually defray the cost. On the upper end you hit no student loans at all. The funny thing about college is that the middle class has such a stick up their ass about not getting enough financial aid to make up for their lack of disposable wealth lol.
Okay so I know more people go to private school than I ever thought possible, but until I entered college and saw people who considered themselves middle class and had been in private school their whole lives I just assumed public school was the realm of all but the obscenely wealthy. Because who the fuck pays that much for a kid's high school when the government will do it for free. But it happens. So private school (without the fringe scholarship case) definitely bumps you up into middle class but isn't necessarily a determination of upper middle class.
Physical telltale signs... I can't do class-based race science mostly but there's usually a fucking ease there. Everyone worries but like the further up the class ladder you go the smaller you can see that shit get even if they don't know it.
Nice teeth is completely and totally the biggest one there. "Attractiveness" definitely correlates with more money but again, means nothing on its own. But the teeth. Straight teeth are middle class. They just are. Not that the middle class can't have crooked teeth (if they had parents that got their BROTHER braces but not them, thanks mom and dad, thanks, thanks...) (although I was a weird case of a Ridiculously Rapid upward shift from frankly fucking broke to lower middle class to middle class so my standard of living was really different from my sibs it's weird) (on that note guys education is so important like our standard of living just. Lifted when my father got his phd and got a job accordingly)
I suppose a Large Wardrobe. Clothes are fucking expensive and following trends gets more and more expensive. HILARIOUSLY, now when I see someone who has a shitty hole-ridden dirty looking outfit I just know they could buy and sell me. It's funny.
But anyway yeah. Things just being a given. PHYSICAL signs are crazy imo, it's about the attitude--the more insistent someone gets that they're middle class, the richer they are by the way lmfao. The real "woe is me" middle class will genuinely act like not getting a car for their sixteenth made them POOR.
But anyway anon I'm just a random 22 year old who interacts a lot with the upper middle class who consider themselves middle class. I don't actually know anything other than that people will say Anything to assuage their guilt over having money lmfao. There are people who travel as a given on spring break who will sit there and bitch about the upper middle class--THAT'S YOU. I SAW YOUR MIAMI PHOTOS.
Tl;dr why would you come to me as an authority on anything.
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B&E in a necromancer's lair. We're here to crack some skulls and we don't care whether they're animate or not. I got the looting bag. Grab whatever isn't nailed down.
Coffins and books. All the walls decorated with coffins and books. I don't know how she keeps them all organized.
"Shit, I need Archaic Fortunes of the Ill-Contented. Was that over with Johnson, Miller, or Woodkip?"
There's no way in hell she actually reads these. Cataloguing them this way would make keeping track of them next to impossible. These books are purely decorative. She's doing that middle- and upper-class thing where people buy books just to put on their shelves to make them look smart.
Oh, and the keys are alive. That's convenient. Living skeleton keys make for a nice show of force. Very intimidating, probably helps out in negotiations. But a door that can be opened by hitting something in the room with a stick is nonetheless a door that is not very well secured.
But enough about that. We have a nice, roaring fire so let's take a break for story time.
Ohh, that's how we become a Solstice pair. A bird flings us onto that prison of an island as a means of containment. Gotcha. I'm following along.
Hold up. That's an option? I can actually become God-Empress? Is there any way you could stop telling this story and instead explain more about that because I am fascinated by the implications.
This is why Serai was nervous about pitting us against the Necromancer, then. The Three Sisters are the same kind of thing that we are.
What an asshole thing to do.
So Roro was literally born evil. Okay. That calls into serious question how morally culpable she even is for all this necromancer business. If the Three Sisters are morally compelled by the forces of their birth then they aren't even really sentient. She is no more making a choice to do any of this than Garl is making a choice to go get eaten by the Dweller.
Oh, Momo's one of us. I wonder if she has any relationship to Moraine. Their names are annoyingly similar. Hmm.
Was she a sun or moon warrior? I'm going to assume moon on the grounds that it's the better of the two.
Yoyo decided to go be the creepy swamp lady who emerges out of the darkness to tell your fortune. It's a vibe. I get it.
Yeah, you can't really be metaphysically compelled to absolute neutrality without being an irritating centrist. She is magically blocked from being able to form opinions on things. That must suck.
What must their childhoods have been like?
Roro: Hey, for lunch do you want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a soggy leaf covered in mud?
Yoyo: Either is acceptable.
Momo: HEY. NO. STOP THAT.
Roro: But she said it's fine!
Green fire.
Like the green lantern by the fireplace or the green candles just a short way to the northeast. Man, getting a green flame for our return passage is going to be a piece of cake. How convenient.
Until otherwise noted, I'm going with that latter one. I've chalked them up to "Sometimes weird shit happens". Life is strange, and when you throw magic and destiny and gods into the mix, it gets stranger. The universe owes you no explanations for the wild shit it does sometimes. We could all die tomorrow and never even know why.
They're a weird thing that happened one day. One of them's dead now and another one's probably going to be soon, if this burglary-turned-robbery continues to snowball. Then the world will continue to turn as if they were never here.
...
Thank you for being here to read us stories, Teaks. I appreciate your existence with me in this moment.
Gross gross gross gross gross gross gross I hate this island so much gross gross gross gross
Honestly, I'm impressed with her corpse horde. Do you think she killed all these people herself, or has she been raiding graveyards? It can't have been easy to stockpile bodies on the same island where the Dweller's cattle-ranching villagers.
Unless whatever the Dweller's doing to them doesn't damage the body too much. Hmm. They could be friends or business associates or something. Roro gets the bodies once the Dweller's done doing whatever to them? Like letting your dog chew on your steak bone.
You don't need to be so formal; This is just a robbery.
Hands in the air. Bring out the soulstones and nobody has to get hurt. ...well, I broke a lot of kneecaps getting here. Left several zombies in pieces. Roughed up your duke.
Else. Nobody else has to get hurt. Specifically you, I-I'm threatening you and...
...
You know what, I should have rehearsed this. Can I get a do-over?
Oh, sorry, I'm legally prohibited from accepting that offer. See, I'm already enlisted in a morally ambiguous paramilitary organization and they made us sign non-compete clauses when we were enrolling in the Academy. Hands are tied.
...wait, wasn't your sister Headmistress? Oh, that's probably why the non-compete clauses were in the contract. Huh, the more you know.
Roro's coyly trying to reframe the narrative and call us out for our "RPG adventurer" plundering. And me, I'm over here like "I know what I'm about. Stick 'em up and give me the goods."
There's that ascension thing again. You gonna give us some more context on what that means or....
Fuck, I know those names. Solena and Luan. Solena and... I think the villagers back in our prison town were talking about them. They are actively worshipped as sun and moon deities where we come from.
So that's a no on context, then. Everyone's gotta be a cryptic fucking asshole about everything.
Fine. You know what? Drip-fed lore teases always makes me want to break someone's nose, so let's go.
Choke on my staff you cryptic bonebag. I'm gonna use your phylactery to mark my place in one of the books you never read.
That's what I thought. Consider yourself mugged, Roro. Give up the rock and this can all be over.
Mission accomplished.
I gotta say, I'm proud of everyone. We did a fantastic job here, each and every one of us. Truly admirable performance; Heroic, even. I'm sure Momo must be looking down on us, beaming with pride for what her legacy has become.
Today, we have truly exemplified what a Solstice Warrior can be.
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So, about the story of how I met my dad and why I love him so much
@qthewhatever asked me to talk about my dad, how he became my dad, and our relationship. I thought this was going to be a fun jaunt through good memories, with maybe a few grateful tears along the way.
But the story of why my dad is so special to me can't be told without the context of why my mother *isn't* special to me, and the stark difference between how he treats me, and how I was treated by her.
The cliff's notes version (do they even have those anymore?): Dad became my dad kind of by accident, when Seb and I started "pretending" to be siblings in order to be able to rent a room together. Dad is Seb's dad, so it follows that since I'm Seb's sibling, Dad is my dad too. Then he just... fell into the role, because dads gotta dad. He is always proud of me, no matter what, and no matter how badly I fuck something up he could never, ever stop loving me. He cares about me and doesn't get annoyed by the ups and downs of my moods. He lets me cry when I need to. He lets me take a break when I need to. He loves me, *really* loves me, so totally and completely that even though we look absolutely nothing alike, no one who has ever seen us together doubts that he's raised me from birth.
That's not what it was like with my mom.
I only got so far through recounting her decades of abuse before I found that I couldn't do it anymore. I'm still going to post what I have, because I think other people should read it and maybe become comfortable talking about their abuse *as* abuse and not "I'm sure I was doing something wrong somehow, and it was my fault they were always so angry at me." Also, I spent a long time working on it.
This is not a happy story.
trigger warnings: child abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, mental illness, mentions of suicide, mentions of self harm, mentions of various serial killers, mentions of psychiatric hospitals, autism portrayed in a negative tone, fatphobia, and brief mentions of drugs and drug use.
(this story is also not complete; it stops when I'm around 27, but I added an epilogue.)
My family had been in various financial situations throughout my childhood, but I was raised upper middle class, which was the same tax bracket that my mom had been raised in. My biodad, Ichiro (Dave) left when I was three, and I saw him once ten years later and then never again. So mom raised my older brother Nick and I by herself (except for a 3 year stint with Chris the Coke Addict Who's Dead Now) up until I was thirteen.
I'll admit I was not an easy kid to raise. I was (and still am) weird and awkward and autistic and prone to oversharing with strangers as well as long crying spells over seemingly low-importance things. Nick was also sensitive and somewhere on the spectrum, but it was me who was the loud one, the hyper one, the one who people politely said was a "late bloomer" and "marched to the beat of their own drummer" (at one point my mom told me I was "marching backwards.") I refused or forgot to eat so often that at six I became malnourished enough to warrant a visit by CPS. I was always being called into the principal's office for doing weird shit at school, like making potions out of shampoo and throwing them at passing cars or lion-roaring at boys I didn't like or whatever. When I got sick, I got VERY sick, like the time I straight up got Scarlet Fever and almost died, or the time I had a fever so high I started convulsing, or the lots of times that I had to do fasting blood draws every month because I had a very low red blood cell count and no one could figure out why.
Bottom line I was very weird. Mom was weird too, my grandparents were weird, but they knew how to "show" in public. I didn't. Nick's nickname for me was "The Spaz." Worse, I constantly craved attention and had absolutely no concept of Stranger Danger (I still kind of don't), and the year I was born, Richard Ramirez was active and killing in Southern California where my mom and Dave lived. In 1992, Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested and his apartment full of chunks of Milwaukee's queer community was broadcasted all over the news. In 1978, when my mom was a young woman, Mary Vincent was attacked by a man who picked her up while hitchhiking. He assaulted her and then attacked her with a hatchet, cutting both her arms off above the elbow. She has hooks for hands now.
To keep me by her side and not wandering around out in the open, mom told me about all this. Everything-- that Dahmer was killing and eating people, that Ramirez tortured and murdered people, and how Mary Vincent had asked a strange man for a ride and now she had no arms. There's a scene in the beginning of *A Time to Kill* by John Grisham where a young black girl is being raped and tortured by two white men. It's a page or two long, but very graphic, and when I was eight my mom sat me down and made me read it to show me what could happen to me if I went anywhere alone.
At the time, we lived in Lausanne, Switzerland, which is not exactly a hotbed of violent crime.
All that aside, I was a cute kid and a good-looking teenager. I was adorably freckly with never-neat red hair, and then grew into a curvy teen with long red hair and wore cute clothes. Mom bragged to people that I was an author and an artist, and she would often tell me that she loved how 'cool' I was. (cool, in this sense, meant wearing the clothes she bought me and not styling my hair in any way she found ugly. She often pointed out ugly people on TV or on the street, and say something like 'I'm glad YOU don't dress like that.')
I was smart-- I didn't get good grades because I could never get around to doing my homework, but I scored high on tests and most teachers liked me. I wasn't one of the popular kids, but I was always the leader of whatever little gang I was in, deciding where we went and what we did, and mom loved that, too. And she really, *really* wanted me to go into medicine.
Junior and senior year was where it all started to fall apart.
Mom's husband is a veteran with severe PTSD. 2001 - 2005 were the worst years with him; he was overbearing at the best of times and the fact that he was a boomer from Brooklyn and I was a millenial from LA really didn't help us see eye to eye. But he had a hair trigger and would back me against a wall to loom over you and scream in your face. Nick, who was taller and angrier than me, would scream back. Once, Nick was sent to the store for parmesan cheese and came home with the powder kind in the green can instead of the tub of the fancy grated cheese, and the resulting shouting match almost ended in a fist fight.
My depression started getting really bad when I was 17. By 18, I started self-harming, and for the first time had the thought that if I died, if I was gone and were nothing, everything would be better. I also had my first hospitalization.
I'm at 21 inpatient psychiatric stays now.
Worse, I was an adult now and had not transferred gracefully from high school to college (to go into medicine, nothing else was enough for her). I didn't even have a graduation-- I tested out of school in early 2003 and the only pomp and circumstance I got was a half-sheet of paper with 'CALIFORNIA HIGH SCHOOL PROFICIENCY EXAMINATION' printed on it. I had gained a lot of weight, partly due to meds and partly from depression and post-school downtime. She told me my hair looked like a rat's nest and once remarked to her husband, 'look at the size of her!' I no longer wore cute clothes and was not actively trying to turn my art or writing into a profitable career.
Mom and her husband told me that I absolutely had to go back to school again, or they'd kick me out. The closest community college was two counties away (counties in California are really big). They told me they'd only take me to the nearest bus stop (still an hours' drive) and then I'd have to take a three-hour bus ride to the campus. The absolute earliest bus left at six am, which meant that I could only take classes starting at 10 am, and then had to leave by 2 pm to take the bus back home (the return bus did go all the way back to my area, but didn't run as often).
They treated my trek back and forth to campus every day not with pride or pity, but contempt, as in "this is what you get for not succeeding." I had two more hospital stays.
After a particularly bad episode with mom's husband where he tried to force his way through a door and I had to climb out a window to get to neighbor's house and call 911, I moved out to stay with Nick, who had left about a year earlier. I was determined to be an adult and build a life for myself, but my depression and self-harming got steadily worse, and though I had several jobs and tried to go to college, every few months I'd do some serious damage to myself and end up back in the psych ward, pushing all my plans back to zero.
Nick moved in with his girlfriend, leaving me to shoulder the rent on our room on my own. I managed for about six months, but I couldn't stay at any job for long. I went to live with Skittle, where my depression took such a nosedive that a lot of nights were just spent huddled in a ball and sobbing. I felt worthless. I felt like I was nothing.
Skittle and I broke up, and with nowhere to go, I moved back in with my mom. There were short periods thereafter that I would move out again, but basically, after I turned 23, I didn't get away from her again for five years.
Mom was never really happy with me again. I helped out wherever I could, going with her to the ranch where her horses were and volunteering to do all the dirty or hard tasks so she could have more time to ride. I did not and still do not like horses and have no interest in riding them. I went to make her happy. I wanted to do whatever I could to make her like me.
(Mom's ranch friends loved me, because I had been taught to show well in public. With them, I was witty and hard-working, and so sweet to come there to help my mom. Didn't I want to get on a horse, just once? No?)
I brought my mom breakfast and her meds when she woke up, so she could lay in bed while they took effect instead of having to hobble to the kitchen. I did chores around the house. I took the laundry to the laundromat twice a week, and brought them home clean and folded. I walked the dogs and took them to the park.
My mom told me that I was a draw on finances. I started cleaning houses, and eventually lucked into a job cleaning weed for a hefty sum of money. I made enough money in one three-day weekend to buy my own car, which was a good thing since mom's truck was repossessed not long after. I'd gotten the trimming job in November. I sometimes stayed over at the weed guy's house so I could do two or three days of trimming in a row. In December mom told me that all I cared about was money.
Early the next year, my boss was between sales, so he was late paying me. I owed my mom two hundred dollars (I can't remember for what), and she treated me with open hatred for every day I didn't have it. Bitter and upset, I posted something on facebook to the effect of "does anyone know where I can find two hundred dollars so my mom will love me again?" Mom saw it and sent me a message:
"you want to play this game? better not call for a while I better not see you for a while. a person must learn to keep family business private [Jaydee]."
I also got:
“Just sit there and pretend you’re not here.”
“I’m trying to reminisce about happier times, before all this.”
“You know you think it’s all about you, but I had your brother first.”
“If you don’t like the things I say to you, leave and find someplace with someone nicer.”
“Go get a shrink and figure out why you’re like this all the time.”
[epilogue: the next year, I was planning to commit suicide because I saw no other way out. Seb offered to let me stay with him in Texas; my options were Texas, or death. I pondered that for a while. A few weeks later, I got a refund of a Pell Grant from my college that they'd mistakenly taken two years earlier. Mom and her husband made it expressly clear that as soon as the money hit my account, I was to hand it over to them. Instead, I bought a plane ticket, pulled out the rest of the money in cash, wiped my ass with her husband's face towel, and snuck out with two suitcases in the middle of the night. I had left a note for mom saying I didn't want to be abused anymore and told her I was going to stay with a friend in Central California to throw her off my trail. I also told her that if she ever tried to find me, or bothered any of my friends to get information, I would put all of her secrets and records of her abuse on facebook for all her friends and relatives to read.
I didn't see her or speak to her again for nearly ten years, until this May. Then I flipped her off.]
#tw abuse#tw child abuse#tw verbal abuse#tw emotional abuse#tw mental illness#tw suicide mention#tw self harm#tw depression#tw mental hospital#tw fatphobia#tw my mom sucks
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Rewatched Dirty Dancing for the first time in at least a decade
Rewatched Havana Nights, too. I've seen the original mores time, but it's been at least a decade since I've seen either.
Of course, the story is a moment in time and ends there. But people like "what happened next" and I totally went to look for fanfic on it, I admit. Way too many "she's pregnant" stories - hell no. Johnny should not have trouble getting condoms at that time in history and given Penny's recent trauma, I just don't really buy them not using birth control.
But what do I think would happen? Well, I want my couples together. But what do they do, besides be in love? I will say Baby and Johnny are part of the formation and growth of each other and each other and the the events influenced their world views in ways that would linger forever, even if they didn't stay a couple. But I'd keep 'em together, because I'm a sucker for happy ending.
I admit to not watching all that closely this time around, so may have missed details telling us what they might want.
Did Johnny really truly love dance in the sense of wanting it as a career? I know Penny said it was all she ever wanted to do - not sure if she was being honest about it. If I made one really have success at it, it'd be her, I think.
I remember how Johnny felt about about Baby's father helping Penny. Now, yes, saying he's nothing is part of his own skewed view of his own worth. But would he like to be able to do something "important" because it's what he wants, instead of just for the regard it would grant him? That ability to help, and the willingness that Baby had to do so, are something he so admires, and doe he want to emulate it?
I do think Johnny has both desire and disdain for that upper middle class lifestyle (indeed, some of the disdain at, least, is envy-driven, though some deserved, as well). The security, the comfort, the women who take care of themselves and smell nice and all the "softness" and ease are have their appeals. I don't know if he could accomplish it - college isn't expensive then (well, depending on where you are), but affording to live while you are at school is an entirely different thing. And I'm not sure his pride or sense of "rightness" would allow for college-graduate wife Baby paying his way through later (and, of course, he'd be older). College is by no means a necessity, though. But what flavor of meaningful work would suit and please him?
Anyone else think his uncle might be better off than his own folks - union painter/plasterer would not be bad pay (though it depends on how many weeks work there are each year, and, of course, is blue collar).
Baby. Frances. She grew up so much. She went from viewing her father as almost perfect to realizing he was a (still good) man with his own flaws and biases. She learned you can't always change the unjust things, but trying matters anyway. But she's not as naive anymore. It's obviously important that she not give up wanting to help - to make the world a better place. But it's the method of it, I'm curious to. Will she be a lawyer or economist or something else? Certainly, I don't expect her to live in the same sort of "bubble" she grew up in - with the idea that "those people" are "other" - that it's good to help, but that they occupy different social spheres. So I do think she'd want a more mixed (economically, socially, racially) environment and social circle in her adulthood. Does she still go for the Peace Corps or for more mundane help at home? The world and youth culture change so much in the next few years (though we have to be mindful that the actual sixties had a whole lot boring, non-activist, traditional life-style young people), and how is she affected by those changes? Don't want her the cynic.
Then for Havana Nights, there's a whole other pickle with the political elements and consequences. Javier is hopeful for a brighter future. And Castro was quite popular for a quite a while, and there really were significant improvements in life for many. But he not a proponent of violence, and the executions, imprisonments, and setting folks up to spy on each other will not endear him. So how long until he leaves, and what does he do when he does? He's devoted to his family and is the major financial provider for his mother and nephew. Having dependents makes so much more difficult. Will he get leave for the US? Will he get his family there, too or just send remittances? And his brother is a whole 'nother can of worms. Even if he does come to the US, he absolutely not going to mesh well with the earliest/first-wave emigrants, who favor Batista like US influence over Cuba.
Katey is very much the typical teen in that she no idea what she wants to do with her life. She doesn't have a "direction" or dream job or anything like that. Still very much finding her way. Just with broader horizons after her experiences. And far more cognizant of of the impact of politics. Don't know what I'd have her do.
#Dirty Dancing#Frances Houseman#Johnny Castle#Javier Suarez#Katey Miller#Dirt Dancing Havana Nights#Havana Nights#Baby Houseman
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This is definitely a fanfic thing, but I hate how some people portray Steve as if he is just a walking ATM for the others. There's this theme I've noticed where it's like Steve covers everything. Kids going to the arcade? Steve gives them money to change/ keeps an endless supply of rolls of quarters to give to them. They all go out to eat/ order in? Steve's covering the entire bill. They're all going to the movies/bowling/the fair? Steve's paying for everyone. Any of the kids want to rent a movie? Steve lets them have it free of charge. The kids are hungry/ want snacks to take to Hellfire? Steve's buying them what they want/ they're raiding Steve's kitchen without even asking.
What we know of Steve's financial situation is his parents are rich, and cut him off prior to s3. We don't know if he started getting money from them again after s3, but considering he is still working a minimum wage retail job, it seems unlikely. So may still have a lot of expensive belongings, but he isn't rich himself.
The kids and other older teens all have parents/ responsible adults who should be the ones providing money/ snacks/ food where needed. Yes, there are the ones who are shown to be poor (The Byers/Max/Eddie, then Robin who says she's poor), but it's still not Steve's responsibility to provide for them.
Robin also has a job, and would be on the same hourly wage as Steve, and because she doesn't have a car, she doesn't have to worry about paying for gas.
Eddie at least has an income with his dealing (and in some of the fics he has an actual job? so would have a steady income.)
Nancy (and Mike) are solidly upper middle class with their dad making "six figures". So they could easily get money from their parents if they really need it. (From the way the Wheelers are portrayed I feel that Nancy and Mike would get a regular, decent allowance.)
And as I said, the other kids have parents. They're the ones who should be providing, not Steve who is NOT a parent to anyone.
The only person Steve should be providing anything for is Erica, when he is keeping up the "Free ice cream for life" deal, and with that, he should be going halves with Robin.
that last paragraph cracked me up. i feel like this is a speech erica’s made to convince steve to spend less money on the others and more on her lmao
i think it makes sense that steve would want to spend a lot of money on his friends, because steve definitely has that whole, i have to provide for my friends so they want to keep me around thing. but yeah, i think people over use it. like, kids get given an allowance, and i can’t imagine that none of them would feel bad about bleeding steve dry.
i think it happens so much because people want steve involved in stuff, but can’t figure out how to involve him. he doesn’t play d&d, so instead he hosts them and feeds them and hangs out with them! he wouldn’t play in the arcade so instead he drops the kids off and picks them up and gives them emergency change when they run out.
(kinda a different topic, but i also don’t think steve would be that opposed to playing d&d or arcade games. he had a choreographed lightsaber fight with dustin in the middle of starcourt mall. he’s dorky! let the boy be dorky! he doesn’t have to be supplying hellfire with snacks, let him join in!)
but like you said, steve isn’t made of money, and though people love to give him a credit card that his parents pay for, it is likely that he’s monetarily looking after himself. robin has the exact same job as steve and eddie is the fucking school drug dealer. like yeah, steve’s parents are rich, and eddie’s and robin’s aren’t, but all three teens probably make the same amount of money.
#steve harrington#erica sinclair#eddie munson#robin buckley#dustin henderson#nancy wheeler#stranger things#asks#anon
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