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mothdruid · 7 months

Text

Mine

pairing. werewolf!Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw x afab!reader

word count. 2.4k

warnings. this is an 18+ piece of work, minors buzz off. 18+, mdni, smut, werewolf smut, penetrative sex (p in v), oral sex (fem receiving), possessiveness/jealousy, knotting, cream pie, bradley is in human form but his dick has a knot (sorry, not sorry)

author's note. this is my first out of three spooky-ish fics for this month. they will all be werewolves and it will be werewolf sex. bradbrad is first, bobert second, jacob third. enjoy!

Bradley had always had a possessiveness about you. Ever since the moment he met you it started. It could have been because you were his mate, or at least that’s what his wolf instincts said. His human brain helped decipher the animal instincts, keep them at bay for the most part. But every now and then they slip and run loose. Just like tonight.

The two of you had gone out for some drinks with the rest of the pack. It was Halloween, the only time of the year that most of them felt appreciated to a degree. It was all going smoothly, that was until some guy tried to hit on you. Or actually, he bought you a drink and hit on you. Bradley was having none of that shit. Red had blurred his vision the moment he saw it, instinct kicking in.

Everyone in the pack noticed immediately. They all stiffened as Bradley sauntered across the bar towards you. All he kept thinking was about how you were merely supposed to just get new drinks, and now this dick weasel was trying to get what was his.

You could feel his presence immediately, turning your head slightly to make sure it was him. It wasn’t that you were planning for this to happen. You never planned to prod at Bradley’s jealous side, but when he got jealous, or possessive as he called it, you got excited. It always meant a good fuck and excellent aftercare. So, when it happened you let it, not trying to reason with the instincts inside of him.

When his hand wrapped around your waist excitement shot through you. Bradley nuzzled into you jaw lightly, nothing too over kill. The man who was trying to hit on you gave an extremely offended look, confused about the sight in front of him. That’s when you decided to play a little innocent, giving him a confused look back.

“Hey, pal, I was talking to her first,” the guy eventually said.

All Bradley did was look up at him, eyes full of anger. The man immediately stiffened and left, muttering something about how he wasted his money. Once he was gone Bradley’s grip on your waist tightened, pulling you closer to his body. You placed your hand over his and turned to look at him better.

“Jealous?”

“I don’t like to share,” Bradley growled low into your ear.

“You know that wasn’t going to happen,” you assured him.

Bradley’s eyes met yours, sending a thrill down your spine. The green in his hazel eyes looked vibrant, the green monster of envy bleeding through. A shaky breath left you as you held your gaze to his. He used the arm wrapped around your back to turn you towards him. His free hand settled against your left hip, close to the hands that was gripping the left side of your waist. Your body was pressed close to his now.

“Bradley,” his name was barely above a whisper.

“We’re going home.”

There wasn’t even time to say goodbye before he was ushering you to the Bronco. A few people were outside smoking, only taking notice of you two once Bradley pressed you against the Bronco. Hot breath fanned over your neck, lips ghosting over your skin. It was as if he was scenting you, making sure you still smelled completely like him.

“Bradley, people are staring,” you whimpered.

“Let them,” he nipped the space below your ear, “everyone needs to know you’re mine.”

A soft moan left you as he rolled his hips against yours. Your hands ran over his clothed chest, fingers gripping his shirt lightly. He slipped his knee between your legs and gripped your hips. He guided your hips over his thigh, groaning as he watched you start to ride his thigh. Bradley latched his lips onto your neck, licking and biting the skin while listening to your moans.

The pressure was from his thigh was intoxicating. The way his thigh was so firm against you. You were clenching at the sensation, moaning each time you rolled your hips down. Wetness was starting to dampen your underwear. It was just enough but not enough at all.

“Such a slut,” Bradley growled into your skin, “riding my thigh in front of everyone, letting them know that you’re mine.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” A small amount of snark in your voice.

Bradley groaned then rested his head on your shoulder. Without warning he opened the door to the Bronco. The noise startled you enough to stop your movements. Bradley pulled back a little bit, smelling your junction of your neck and shoulder momentarily.

“Get in,” Bradley commanded while removing his body from yours.

Without a second thought you nodded your head. You climb into the passenger seat, the door harshly closed once you were settled. Bradley rounded the car quickly, needing to get you home as soon as possible. He had to have you whining under him as he reminded you of who you belonged to. He knew that you knew, but just needed to be inside of you of while you screamed his name. Needed to get his knot deep inside your cunt.

Once he got into the driver seat he groaned, fists tightening on the steering wheel. You were drenched, he could fucking smell it. He contemplated taking you in the car right now. The only thing that stopped him was the space. There wasn’t enough space for him to throw you around, spread you out while he ravished you.

The sweet smell of your wetness was driving him wild, threatening to push him over the edge. His grip was tight on the steering wheel the whole drive back. Instincts were telling him that you were in need, needing him to fuck you until you were so full of his cum you couldn’t take it anymore. When the two of you arrived home it took everything in him not to simply fuck you on the porch. But once you were in the door, nothing could stop him.

You barely had time to take your shoes off before he was dragging you to the bedroom. Your back hit the bed with a small bounce. Bradley took his t-shirt off before blanketing you with his body. The warmth was radiating into your bones, frying your nerves in the process. Your hands were fumbling across Bradley’s skin, trying to find a spot to grab. Eventually Bradley grabbed both your hands, effectively pinning you to the bed.

“God,” Bradley took a deep sniff of your scent, “you’re practically fucking begging me for it.”

He slotted himself between your thighs, reveling in the way you moaned at his words. Immediately he started rutting against you, groaning deep in your ear. You rolled your hips back, whining at the pressure you had missed. You could feel his cock through his jeans and yours. You could swear that you could feel his knot throbbing at the base of his cock, threatening to pop at any moment.

With the way his hips were rolling, you were sure that you were going to cum. But then suddenly he stopped, letting go of your hands too. Without warning he started undressing you. He let out a groan when he saw your bare chest, taking a nipple into his mouth instantly. The noise you were making were heaven to his ears, adding more fuel to his fire.

A gasp left you as he bite your nipple. You barely even noticed him pulling your pants off you. It was the noise of your panties being torn that pulled you slightly out of your pleasure. Bradley moved your body quickly, grabbed your thighs and shoved the apart even further. The thought of his grip bruising your thighs sent a thrill down your spine. You loved when he bruised you, Bradley did too. That possessive wolf trait being overjoyed when it happens.

It was like he was a dog in a drought the way he lapped at your cunt. Broad strokes continued over your clit while you moaned. Bradley wrapped one arm around your left thigh, keeping you close to him. Pleasure kept mounting inside of your abdomen, your body starting to quiver from it. Bradley loved it though. Watching you fall apart on his tongue. It was almost as fulfilling as when you fell apart on his cock.

One of your hands moved out to clutch the bedding, the other moved to Bradley’s hair. You tugged at his locks, earning you a groan from Bradley. The vibrations traveled through your core and pulled a moan from you.

“Bradley, I’m clo-”

“Not until I say.”

A sound of disappointment left you when Bradley detached from you. He sat back on his heels, unbuckling his belt while staring down at you. It was if he had run a marathon, chest heaving and face red. A smirk formed on his face as he looked at your body. Sometimes he couldn’t believe that you were his, wondering how he was so lucky.

“Now dearest,” Bradley pushed his pants and boxers down his hips, “did you really think I was gonna let you cum so quickly, especially after that stunt at the bar?”

All you could do was stare, words suddenly escaping you.

“Such a slut,” Bradley stroked himself. He moved closer to you, running the tip of his cock through your folds. It was almost like you could feel the head of his cock throbbing.

“Please,” you begged.

“You think begging is going to get you anywhere?” Bradley lined himself up with your entrance.

After a moment he pushed inside of you. The stretch had you arching your back, moaning loudly in pleasure. He grabbed your wrists and pinned them above your head. His hips started at a brutal pace, fucking you hard and fast. He leaned down over you, his face now level with yours. His smirk was devilish while he fucked you wildly. Fucked you like the animal he was.

“First, you flirt with that shit head,” Bradley growled, “then you act so innocent, knowing damn well you’re my slut.” Bradley thrust deep in you, stilling his hips flush against yours. “Next you’re begging as if I won’t take care of you. Do I need to remind you who you belong to? Make sure you don’t forget who fucks,” he rolled his hips slightly, “you, who takes care of you after you’re full of me?”

“No, I’m yours, I know I’m yours,” you whined, brain barely working.

“Need me to mark you?” Bradley said, grip tightening on your wrists. He leaned down near the junction of your neck and shoulder. His hot breath ghosted over the spot, tongue darting out for a moment to run over it. “Then everyone will know, everyone will see that you’re mine.”

A whine emanated out of you, his words making you clench around his cock. The two of you had discussed it once, but had never revisited the topic. Marking was special, bonding the two of you together forever. It felt more risky than marriage, no matter how many times Bradley said he knew you were the one. But using it as a threat, it had you like putty in his hand.

“Does that turn you on? The thought of everyone knowing how well I fuck you from a simple glance?” Bradley growled then nipped your ear. His thrusts resumed, a littler slower this time, but still full of power.

Noises kept pouring from you, Bradley’s personal favorite soundtrack. A mix of sweat and sex filled the air around you two. Bradley was able to pick up on only a few more scents, but they were all of you. He finally let go of your wrists, hands snaking underneath you to hold you close. His thrusts were heavy, pounding deep into you and hitting that perfect spot inside of you. Your arms wrapped around his shoulders, one hand clawing his skin while the other threaded through his hair.

That’s when you started to feel it. Bradley’s knot. The base of his cock was starting to swell, his knot becoming more pronounced. It was starting to catch on your entrance slightly, sending more waves of pleasure through you. Within the matter of seconds you were coming on his cock. And he felt all of it.

Bradley worked you through your orgasm. He was trying to fight his off, wanting to make sure you got the most out of yours. But he couldn’t hold off that long. Only a few seconds later he was coming, knot popping out and locking the two of you together. Your moan got caught in your throat, the sensation of being even more full numbing your mind. All Bradley could do was rock a little bit, but not enough to have his knot hurt you. He pressed soft kisses to the side of your neck and face, hands gliding up and down your side in a comforting manor.

“You okay?” He whispered, wanting to make sure he wasn’t too harsh.

“I’m good, I’m good,” your voice was breathy.

You ran your hands through his hair lightly. He rested his head down on your chest, knowing the two of you were going to be like this for the next thirty minutes.

“I’m sorry,” Bradley whispered into your skin.

“For what?” You asked while you started to trace patterns over his back.

“For being like that,” Bradley knew he was possessive, but after the haze wore off he got embarrassed.

“Don’t be,” you pressed a kiss to the top of his head, “it’s pretty hot.”

Thirty minutes passed and Bradley’s knot finally subsided. He removed himself from you as gently as possible. Both of you let out a noise of relief and disappointment. You felt his cum start to leak out of you, which you grimaced at. Bradley quickly ran to the bathroom, getting a warm wet washcloth. He carefully cleaned you up when he returned. The two of you laid next to one another, his arm draped over you to keep you close.

“I don’t actually think you’re a slut,” Bradley said quietly.

It always made you laugh a little bit. It had to be the embarrassment, there was no other explanation. Any time this happened he would get in his feelings, worried about what he said while basically controlled by animal instincts. But no matter what you always reassured him.

“I know you don’t, Bradley,” you paused for a a moment, “and Bradley?”

“Hmm?”

“I love you.”

#bradley bradshaw #bradley rooster bradshaw #werewolf!bradley bradshaw #bradley bradshaw smut #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw imagine #bradley bradshaw fanfiction #bradley bradshaw x female reader #bradley bradshaw fic

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babygirlbites · 1 month

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Their Reaction to the Vampire Dairies

Wolf Pack Headcannons

Can’t explain why this is so important to me, it just is….

Sam

Sam is definitely not the type to sit down and watch vampire dairies off his own accord.

That being said; Sam IS the type to want to spend every waking moment with his imprint.

The compromise being that he must deal with your favourite show being re ran every single time you face even a minor strain in your every day routine.

Sam will sit there silently, respectful enough to not grumble at your choice of viewing material but not particularly taken in by the idea of vampires being sex symbols.

He’s not a fan, but he knows you love it and he loves you, so it’s a bareable consequence.

Although I don’t think he’s particularly watching, he is definitely a team Stefan - this being the only topic he speaks up on, both surprising and assuming you when he does

It’s the Delena kiss scene at the end of season one (Damon and Kathrine, but Sam doesn’t understand the doublegagger plot yet, give him time)

“This is all wrong” he says, between mouth fulls of salty popcorn

You turn to look at him, a questioning look on your face,

“She should stick with the other one” he mutters under his breath, eyes returning to his bowl of snacks

Paul

Unlike Sam, Paul can’t HELP but get involved.

Yer okay, he gives you shit for watching a teen romance about vampires,hybrids and the like, but he literally can’t keep his mouth shut when it’s on.

He’s FAR to involved; it’s got him gasping, laughing, often shouting at the screen.

I believe Paul to be a team Damon, he’s also a klaus fan.

Special mention to his HATRED for Tyler Lockwood; which has you a little confused until you realise it’s just Paul looking in a mirror.

Maybe an emotionally agressive, reactive werewolf is a little too close to home for Paul to enjoy.

When the pack bring it up, seeing the two of you cuddled up in front of another TVD marathon, he tries to deny his enjoyment of it but is also very defensive of the fact that it’s NOT for teens

“It’s pretty spooky actually, I only watch it to keep (you) from getting scared”

It’s a lie, and they all know it.

Jacob

Jacob is similar to Paul but HEAVY on the team Damon.

Thinks he’s a Damon, he’s actually a Matt, not that you’d be the one to tell him.

He’s the kind of guy to say he’s not watching and then ask you questions through the whole thing

“So what’s his deal again?”

“Is he trying to bang her?”

“What happened to her parents”

Ect.

He’s so busy sending you tiktoks about the show he accidentally sends one to the pack group chat and it’s all either of you hear about at every meet up or bonfire for the next 6 months.

He definitely has a big crush on Elena, not as big as his crush on you of course, but a close second

Embry & Jared

Rolling these two into one because they are both unapologetic vampire dairies fans

Jared has actually already seen the whole show, and recapped it twice by now, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t willing to watch it again with you - from start to finish.

He’s also seen the originals and legacies - Jared isn’t messing around guys, he’s a super fan.

I don’t believe Embry has seen anything TVD before you, but you suddenly realise you’ve unlocked something in him that you never expected to see.

Embry lives and BREATHES the show.

Unlike Jacob , he sends the tiktoks to the pack on purpose, hoping to get them into it too so he can talk about it when he’s on patrol.

Jared is team Stefan, Embry is team Damon - they fight (physically) about this often.

Seth and Quil

Simp simp simp

These men are both rocking team t shirts in public

Quil gives team Stefan to me but I feel he eventually will change sides with elena - by the time we get the hotel scene/kiss he’s a full fledged team Damon.

Seth is team whoever, he just loves love. He’s happy to see any of them with anyone as long as they are happy - but he does really like the Stefan redemption arc of season 3.

I feel like both the lads would be caught watching the show without you, which would lead to apologies and promises to never do it again.

Leah

Leah is a reluctant fan; like many of the others she’s not a fan of a vampire centric plot - but you’ll win her over with quality time, in bed cuddles and the Damon/Elena pipeline eventually.

Not so much a fan, but she watches it for you.

She knows you like to talk about it so she watches closely to be able to give you her educated opinion .

I feel she’s more team Damon but I KNOW she’s a Katherine apologist!

Elena tends to remind her of Bella, so she has a bit of a prejudice against the main character. Leah, as a general rule of thumb, has an issue with Mary sue type characters.

Katherine, being the anti Elena, steals Leah’s heart immediately.

There is three people in this relationship now, you will just have to accept that.

Also a fan of Rebekah!

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overworkedblorbobattle · 10 months

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The full list of characters in the Bracket!

The full list of characters who made it into the tournament are listed under the readmore.

Ada Paige- Rhythm Doctor

Adam Parrish- The Raven Cycle

Adora- She-Ra

Aki Hayakawa- Chainsaw man

Alfred Pennyworth- Batman

Almond Cookie - Cookie Run

Angela- Lobotomy Corporation

Anthy Himemiya- Revolutionary Girl Utena

Arthur Lester- Malevolent

Aymeric De Borel- Final Fantasy

Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce- MASH

Bucky Barnes- Marvel

Buffy Summers- Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Burgerpants- Undertale

Carmen Sandiego- Carmen Sandiego

Carol Hathaway- ER

Charlie Magne Morningstar- Hazbin hotel

Chip Revvington- Toontown: Corporate Clash

Cliopher "Kip" Mdang- The Hands of the Emperor

Commander Peepers- Wander Over Yonder

Dana Scully- The X Files

Danny Fenton- Danny Phantom

David Jacobs- Newsies

DC/GOV- Welcome to the table

Dean Winchester- Supernatural

Dick Gumshoe- Ace attorney

Doppo Kannonzaka- Hypnosis Mic

Dot Campbell- The Wilds

Dr Charlotte Dubois- Falsettos

Emma Perkins- The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals

Five Pebbles- Rain World

Ford Pines- Gravity Falls

Fu Hua- Honkai Impact 3rd

George Karim/Cubbins - Lockwood and Co

Gilgamesh "Gil" Wulfenbach- Girl Genius

Gordon Michael Schwinn- A New Brain

Gregor Samsa- The Metamorphosis

Guillermo de la Cruz- What We Do In The Shadows

Harrowhark Nonagesimus- The Locked Tomb

Hera- Wolf 359

Homura Akemi- Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Hunter- The Owl House

Isabelle - Animal Crossing

Izzy Hands- Our Flag Means Death

Jaehee Kang- Mystic Messenger

Jafar- Twisted

Jamil Viper- Twisted Wonderland

Jean Gunnhildr - Genshin Impact

Jeremie Belpois- Code Lyoko

Jess Jordan- Succession

Jonathan Harker- Dracula

Jonathan Sims- The Magnus Archives

Jotaro Kujo- Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

Keito Hasumi- Ensemble Stars!

Kento Nanami- Jujutsu Kaisen

Kevin Kandy- Spooky Month

Kim Dokja- Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint

Kim Kitsuragi- Disco Elysium

Kiyotaka Ishimaru- Danganronpa

Kunikida Doppo- Bungo Stray Dogs

Kurapika- Hunter x Hunter

Kusuo Saiki - The disastrous life of saiki k

Laerryn Coramar Seelie- Critical Role

Lamplighter/plight- OneShot

Larry- Pokemon

Larry Needlemeyer - The Amazing World of Gumball

Ling Wen- Tian Guan Ci Fu (Heaven Official’s Blessing)

Link- The Legend of Zelda

Lisa Cuddy- House M.D

Lisa Wilbourn- Worm

Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre- The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

Loid Forger/Twilight- Spy x Family

Lucifer- Obey Me!

Lucretia- The Adventure Zone

Luisa Madrigal- Encanto

Maedhros Feanorian- The Silmarillion

Mafuyu Asahina- Project Sekai/Colorful Stage

Marinette Dupain-Cheng- Miraculous Ladybug

Marsh- Mistborn

Matthew Venn- The Long Call

Merlin- BBC Merlin

Miles O’Brien- Star Trek

Miss Pauling- Team Fortress 2

MK- Lego Monkie Kid

Molly Blyndeff- Epithet Erased

Mrs Doyle- Father ted

Munkustrap- Cats 1998

Nicholas Benedict- The Mysterious Benedict Society

Nishida- Yakuza

Obi-Wan Kenobi- Star Wars

Olruggio- Witch Hat Atelier

Pandemonica- Helltaker

Parsley Botch- Smile for Me

Peppino Spaghetti- Pizza Tower

Percy Jackson- Percy Jackson

Peregrine Mendicant- Homestuck

Ponder Stibbons- Discworld

Raphael Walt/Sirius Dieke- My Next Life as a Villainess

Ratchet- Transformers

Reagan Ridley- Inside Job

Reim Lunettes- Pandora Hearts

Retsuko- Aggretsuko

Riza Hawkeye- Fullmetal Alchemist

Robin- Smash Legends

Rory Williams- Doctor Who

Ryotaro Dojima - Persona

Sara Chidouin- Your Turn To Die

SecUnit- The Murderbot Diaries

Shang Qinghua - Scum Villain's Self-Saving System

Shota Aizawa- My Hero Academia

Sips- Fool’s Gold

Squidward Tentacles- Spongebob Squarepants

Stanley- The Stanley Parable

Steven Alen Starphase- Blood Blockade Battlefront/Kekkai Sensen

Steven Universe- Steven Universe

Super Mario Bros.- Mario Series

Susan Taxpayer- Susan Taxpayer

The Cabbage Merchant- Avatar the Last Airbender

The Captain- BBC Ghosts

The Elsen- Off

The Manager- The Hotel Podcast

Touta Matsuda- Death Note

Trafalgar Law- One Piece

Twilight Sparkle- My Little Pony

Vera Oberlin- Monster Prom

Walter Pensive- Hello from the Hallowoods

Will Graham- Hannibal

William T Spears- Black Butler

#round 1 #tournament brackets #tournament bracket #tournament #tournaments #overworked blorbo battle

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slimeypapers · 1 year

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Some cursed images of spooky month ocs

#dragonteon's art #art #design #spooky month leila #spooky month jacob #spooky month oc #spooky month sam #spooky month #kevin spooky month #the cult #skid's dad #spooky month ignacio

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himehikoshrine · 7 months

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Mary Jane and Frankenstein

In honor of Spooky Month and the imminent arrival of Mary Jane Day, I have done the scariest thing imaginable, returned to tumblr dot com to write a meta/analysis post.

[image description: images side by side of the top of the Mary Jane poster, showing Mary looking down sewing Jacob, next to the 1831 edition front panel illustration of Frankenstein, showing Victor looking down on his creature in horror]

This is a mostly informal attempt to collect my thoughts on the fact that Neji’s little spooktacular, in addition to being a very pointed exploration, as all of his plays are, of art and theater, the school, himself and his classmates (without their permission, the menace) and just, a lot of fun, is perhaps one of the best piece of Frankenstein related media I have EVER seen in relation to the original novel.

This is pulling a lot of things from the Stage Script rather than the in game version, which summarizes a lot of the things I'm mentioning specifically. You can find the full Stage Script in the game menu, or

[ here ]

because I love this play so much that I needed a searchable version.

Caveat Emptor here is that it’s been a long time since I’ve read the novel in its entirety. If this game gets me to read it again, I may have to revamp things. But again, largely informal. But very long, somehow.

Oooops.

If you're curious about anything in here and want to expand on it more, or hear my thoughts on it, please feel free to reblog, send an ask, or message. Or ask me elsewhere if we're already connected there. There's a lot I glossed over, especially at the end of this. I have a lot to say, and if we're back to writing metas on tumblr dot com the chances of stopping at one are slim.

Mary as Frankenstein, Mary as Mother

Mary’s name is acting as several allusions at once. I mean, there are at least 3 Mary’s in the bible one could point to - Mary, Mother of Jesus is absolutely at play. But Lazarus’s sister is also a Mary. And while technically Mary Magdalene is often misrepresented and amalgamated with other characters in retellings, the idea of “purifying” her has canon precedent - having had seven demons driven out of her.

Of course, Neji’s twisting all of it, in his Neji way.

(Interestingly enough, these are the Three Marys of the Quem Quaeritis - widely considered a point of "rebirth" of theatre in Europe during the middle ages.)

But Mary is also the name of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, author of Frankenstein. And this, this is a Frankenstein story. It is, in fact, a beautiful inversion of so much about the book that gets left out in most far more serious attempts at a Frankenstein story.

The original book is about motherhood and its inversion. Much could be said about when during her life she wrote it, or her own mother’s death shortly after she was born, or any number of things that have been hashed and rehashed a thousand times from AP English to the ivoriest of towers. But, fan of Death of the Author that I am, I posit you don’t need any of that to see in the text.

Victor creates a person with science, rather than by ‘nature’. It is an unnatural birth. And Victor is just about the shittiest possible parent. The Creature spends a good deal of time explaining to him, when they meet up again, that Victor is his father, and that he was literally abandoned as a newborn, and maybe that was kind of the worst possible thing he could have done. It’s not a mantle Victor has any desire to take up, the role of a parent. He wanted to create life, but he didn’t want to be a parent. But that’s what it means to create life.

By gender swapping the role, you’re already inverting the inversion - but Mary’s creation is no more “natural” than Victors. But it is different. Neji, ever witch-coded himself, has Mary put one of her own hairs into every doll. It’s returning the shared body to the act of bringing these creations into being.

But even without that. Mary considers herself a mother. She considers herself a mother despite having no memory of one herself - Mary knows lots of things she shouldn’t, and doesn’t know many things she should. But she calls herself a mother. Even before any of the dolls move, she is their mother. A motherhood she wants to desperately share with others. She considers the act of selling a doll a kind of ‘adoption’. These are her children. And they know it. It’s stitched into every stitch in their doll bodies. They know Mary is their mother. And they know she loves them.

[image description: screenshot of Mary in her workshop. The text shows Mary's line saying "I'm back, dear dolls. Mommy's home."]

The Creature comes to think of Victor as a father - an absentee one at that, and craves that love, a love he is never shown. Mary averts this spectacularly. She creates out of love.

Names

Mary takes great care in naming Jacob, and ends up doing so, though she doesn’t say it, after a biblical pun (Jacob, in the bible, is explicitly named such as a pun on the word “Heel”). But names are important to Mary, and she is sure to give one to Jacob as soon as he’s fully formed, even before she sees him wake up. Victor very particularly does not name his creature. Instead, he tends to throw around insults, many of which are demonic or satanic. When they finally meet again, the Creature says to him “I should have been thy Adam.” Mary averts this mistake, among so many others, spectacularly. Being called by her name is important to her, and she extends that offer to Jacob even before he’s fully “born.” Like a good mother.

[image description: a screenshot showing Fumi and Kai dressed as Mary and Jacob, as seen from the stage with the audience in the background. Kai is saying Jacob's line "I did, Mary. You are Mary Jane. My mother."]

Not only does she give him a nice biblical pun of a first name, she shares her last name with him, again before he’s even more than a doll. That’s her boy, that’s her best friend. That’s her family.

The song here, which is only sung and dance AFTER Mary has given him a name is called "A Friend Without A Name" Almost as if specifically calling attention to this fact. Mary is as much the friend without a name as Jacob, if not more. She is the one that has never heard another voice say her name, where as Jacob is called his before he's even awakened by the Island's magic and Mary's love.

[image description: the screen from just before A Friend Without A Name showing Mary and Jacob's CG of Mary Stitching Jacob.]

Mary as a Good Mother

Some of the weirder moments in the play actually make a lot more sense when you look at them through this light. Jacob randomly saying he hates Mary in a fit of jealousy? It’s because he’s a child. He’s a baby. That’s a baby boy. Mary, herself quite childish, forgetting so much of what’s important, as the Island is known for, reacts incorrectly, but understandably. This is her first friend - and far more of one than the others she thinks she’s made, in terms of mutual respect, compassion, and small acts of kindness. But this level of connection and emotional reciprocation is still new to her. She’s hurt. She runs.

And The Order of Shadow’s duo is quick to tell her that that’s just the nature of ghosts, telling themselves a little joke about how they have been lying to her from the start, and fully intend to stab her in the back, far more than any ghost. Victor’s instinct is to consider his creature a monster, a fiend, a demon. Mary is told by characters positioned as far more knowledgeable about the world than her that he must be exactly that.

And how does Mary react? She refuses to believe it. Even hurt as she was, even with someone who just said this is their entire expertise telling her it’s in his nature to be cruel, Mary refuses to accept it. She still loves him. She makes the right choice. That’s her best friend. That’s her family. That’s a (un)life she brought into this world, and she stands by him. No matter what. She would risk her life to rescue him. She will fight for him.

This is why that scene has to be there. Because she has to be given that temptation, that trial. And she passes spectacularly in a way Victor will not, to the end.

It’s also a thematic explanation for the garbage scene, which is probably there as much to be silly as anything. I mean, it’s also there to show many other things — Mary’s eccentricity is ingenious in its own quirky way — the islanders who hated her, who she didn’t understand, give her the tools to save Jacob and the others — Mary not even considering the same level of violence — it being a moment of empathy between Mary and the islanders who never showed her even a shred of it back — she understands that they couldn’t tell which food was rotten. She sees things from their point of view. And many more besides.

But, from the point of view of Mary as a Mother, Mary succeeding brilliantly where Victor failed… Mary is literally willing to coat herself in filth to rescue Jacob. Parenthood is messy. It involves a lot of gross things. Even Victor's, sanitized of the normal processes and cloaked in science, was made of corpse parts. But the play actually brings back a part of parenthood that Mary had been able to avoid thus far - the mess. Mary, once again, doesn’t hesitate. For Jacob? She’ll do anything.

Jacob is shown love and kindness, and he responds with the same. He has the same unnatural strength as Victor’s creature, but he’s only ever shown using it to rescue himself and others. When Mary asks for a handshake, he replies that he can’t, because such would be an invitation for a duel. And that they should hug, instead. Mary didn’t even know what that was. Far from disgusted by the lack of warmth she feels from his skin, she looks beyond that, to the emotional warmth and connection.

Frankenstein’s creature, famously, lashes out in violence. While Victor views this as his responsibility only in so far as he brought a demon into the world, he doesn’t understand, even when the Creature eloquently explains it, that the Creature was a being who had only known cruelty.

Jacob knows love. He knows kindness. He knows sadness and loneliness and pain. And refuses to engage in any form of touch that could even be considered violence. They hug.

Which is not to say Mary’s creatures can’t kill. But they do only to protect their mother, and only after Mary has risked everything to protect Jacob. They are Mary’s children, not Victor’s. Even their violence is an act of love. And in another inversion - they are the ones telling Mary to run. Something she does not want to do. She doesn't want to leave them behind. After all, they are her children. She departs from them only at Jacob's literal tug away, and with an apology and a thanks.

[Image description: screenshot of Fumi, dressed as Mary Jane, shown from stage view, with the audience behind, while a Doll's lines "Protect Mommy, let mommy run away." are shown below.]

Boats and Framing

But the parallels are not only in the most famous part of the novel - consider this - Frankenstein, the novel, is written as a series of nesting framing narratives. The bookend narrative, the one we open and close on, is a boat. Most Frankenstein adaptations cut the boat trip frame, but Mary Jane very specifically opens and closes on a boat at sea, and its ending is EXACTLY the reverse of Frankenstein’s. If for some reason you’re this far in and don’t want more spoilers for a 200 year old book, now’s the time to click away, I guess.

The boat is on a course to the Arctic. Victor is on board, telling his story, because his creature has fled there, away from humanity. Victor intends to pursue him endlessly, to kill him, fully aware that he is almost certainly going to die, frozen and alone, in the process. We don’t get to see this happen - the story ends merely with the certainty that this is what is coming. Victor, on a boat, intending to go to the ends of the earth alone to kill the Creature he brought into the world, treating it like some burden and punishment.

[image description: a screenshot from Mary Jane, with the CG of Mary and the Ghosts on the ship, with the summary text overlayed on it reading "Friends together, fun forever."]

How does Mary Jane end? With Mary, and Jacob, and a cast of playful characters — her friends — sailing off for the ends of the world, together, in pursuit of life and happiness - even in death.

Ghost Party ends the play because its a triumph. Neji throwing out Horace’s Ode to Cleopatra in there because he can’t not do silly things like that — but Frankenstein famously contains many references to classics — many made by the Creature himself, who was forced to educate himself via books, lacking a parent to help him.

Mary Jane takes a section of sheer joy out of a poem of complex mixed emotions, and says them repeatedly. This is a party. This is a triumph. Mary leaves on a boat for the ends of the world a success, a good mother, a friend. And a human.

Humanity, Connection, Isolation

The play deconstructs so wonderfully this question of humanity. Mary doesn’t find any joy in it, despite barely understanding it herself - until she is able to use it to help others. The first time in her life she’s been glad to be human - something she only really understands as “needing to eat food” - is when it gives her the ability to save her ghost friends. If that’s what humanity is, the ability to care for others, the ghosts of the chapel, the play is telling us, are far more human.

One of my favorite exchanges in the play is after Charles and Figaro explain to Mary that the corpse parts used to make Jacob were their friends. Mary is not malicious in the least. She has no concept of this act as sacrilege or desecration. She is genuinely childishly innocent in most of what she does. And she can’t understand it.

Mary says “If you can love unmoving corpses so much… How can you not feel for living ghosts...?"

[image description: Mary in front of the burning town. She's saying "How can you not feel for living ghosts...?"]

Charles responds that she must be completely off her rocker. But she’s correct. Mary sees life in front of her, even undead life, and wants to protect it. Even the Islanders, who only ever treated her with distain, who only ever made her miserable — she doesn’t want them to die, even knowing they are already dead.

Outside of Mary, her oddball eccentric self, in this play, the more human someone is, the crueler they are. Figaro and Charles are only ever here to mess with her before dragging her off to be killed. They have no willingness to even try to understand anything outside their world view. The Islanders, who think themselves human, revile Mary, and make up terrible rumors about her.

Both of these groups do so, in part, for similar reasons. Because to have empathy would force a realization on them they cannot bear. The last thing Figaro realizes, before he’s dragged into the most poetic of justices, is that the dolls have SOULS. They are ALIVE. It’s a moment of anger and madness, but it’s a last minute realization that he’s been wrong now that it’s too late. Of course it’s not a revelation he’ll remember. You tend to forget what’s important on Kakuriyo Island.

If Mary averts all of Victor’s mistakes, Charles and Figaro make many of them. Seeing the Creature as a collection of corpses, as demonic, as an abomination against God. Reacting only in anger, in cruelty, in violence. Chasing something they view, wrongly, as an abomination to the ends of the earth, until it kills them. Mary has Victor’s role, but Victor’s actions and outlook are given to the antagonists.

It’s fascinating to me, then, that there are two of them. In the version of the play that gets performed, they’re twins - doubles. Two halves of one whole, who egg each other along in their cruelty. But they also exist to show that even these two are capable of empathy and connection. They do in fact understand the thing they tease Mary with. They have the ability and understanding to extend that to Ghosts, or to Mary. They simply refuse to. Figaro really does love his brother - his grief at his death is genuine. It’s a clever way to show that.

In the book, Victor is extremely isolated, by his own choice. He withdraws from everyone in order to work on his creature, and after he runs from it, he keeps to himself just as much, now blaming the idea that he can tell no one what he’s done. Even when he’s surrounded by family, he is utterly alone. By choice. The Creature eventually lashes out and kills the woman Victor intended to marry. In Victor’s mind, he cares about this girl, but it is not in his actions. Like much else, she exists more as a creation of Victors mind than something in the world for him to interact with and care about. Until she dies. Then he’s furious. And decides to spend the rest of his life chasing down the Creature to kill him for it.

This contradiction in Victor has always read as intentional to me. The book is calling out his hypocrisy here. He doesn’t actually desire connection - the connection his Creature eloquently explains his longing for. But if it is denied him, he acts like he’s been affronted, painted with a shallow layer of sanctimoniousness or justice. Murder is bad, of course, and the Creature shouldn’t have killed an innocent young woman to get at Victor, of course. But the discrepancy between the way Victor reacts to her in death and the way he does when she’s alive is intentional.

Victor has every chance for human connection. Time and time and time again he’s given that chance and refuses it. Even to the very end, on that boat. He could stay with the crew. Sail back home. Let it go. The Creature has run away from humanity which it has come to despise as much as its absentee father disdained it. There is no need to keep chasing. But Victor cannot let it go.

The Creature longs for connection and is denied it. Victor disdains and refuses it, even when it’s available to him.

Mary as The Creature

Contrast this with Mary — It is Mary, rather than Jacob, that is in the Creature’s situation here. Mary is constantly chasing connection. Constantly trying to find something to reflect humanity (compassion, life, emotions — rather than the matter of blood and flesh that Figaro and Charles always talk about it as) back at her. And she can’t get it. She, like the Creature, hides in the bushes and watches it from afar. She, like the Creature, chases after it only for people to run away, to treat her with cruelty. Mary is Frankenstein, but she is also a reflection of the Creature. She is both in one, in this sense.

[image description: screenshot of summary text over the church and figures of the church ghosts. it reads "The friendless Mary dreamily watched the ghosts as they sang a happy song.]

Her costume specifically makes her look nearly as much the doll as the ones she makes - in the world of the story, because she's sewing both - but thematically, it ties her to them not only as their mother, but as a reflection of the Creature, herself.

Like the Creature, Mary is an odd mix of naivety and childishness, with startling gaps in her knowledge, and extreme skill and adult abilities. She knows what she knows well. Like the Creature, Mary has no memory of kindness, of family, of parents. She has only ever seen it in the way the Islanders interact with each other. She is the Creature here - raising herself, learning of the world through watching it, being reviled for every attempt she makes to reach out.

One thing the Creature explains to Victor is that he didn’t even understand, at the time, why he was being treated this way. He had no awareness of his own nature and what he looked like in the eyes of others. Only that they ran in fear and chased him away, and reacted with violence.

Mary Jane inverts this. Mary is human, but the humans around her are something she cannot understand. Like the Creature, Mary doesn’t understand why people react this way. The book expects you to come to the same conclusion as the play - the fault lies not with the Creature anymore more than it does with Mary, at this point. It is those around him, those around her, that are at fault, that are a thing neither can understand. Human’s are cruel. Ghosts who think they’re humans are cruel. It is a disconnect between themselves and the world around them they don’t understand, and desperately try to bridge over and over.

Even Mary, as quirky and childlike as she is, is on the verge of giving up, of being consumed by the Lonely Darkness. We don't know what her fate would have been if the Order of Shadows had not come. Victor's Creature, far more morose than Mary, gives up on connection, as well. He is denied the most basic of needs, and eventually, he learns the violence and hatred being directed at him, and, newborn that he is, lashes out.

But, ultimately, companionship and connection are the Creature’s goals, and it is that that he requests of Victor, who refuses to provide it himself. Make for me a mate. Mary is the Creature, and she is Frankenstein. She makes a friend for herself. Her motivation in creating Jacob is not science, it is not in defiance of death or God — very pointedly — it is out of loneliness - the same motivation that the Creature gives for his desire that Victor make him another like him. And when Mary does so, she’s a good mother, and a good friend.

Religion

Frankenstein’s full title is Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus - it is about forming people, but it is also about stealing fire from the Gods. The question of if creating life out of death the way Victor does is an affront to God is something that Victor himself thinks about, but the book is much more interested in exploring it as the way characters view it. Victor punishes himself, it is not the Divine that punishes him. The Divine acts not as a force, but as an idea. One that both Victor and the Creature end up grappling with and trying to find their place within.

So that Mary herself seemingly has no concept of it, is fascinating. She goes to watch a chapel every night, but I don’t know she knows what a chapel even is. She mentions God once herself, saying that the smell of the garbage would be enough to affect even God, but she also talks to the Moon as a companion and a friend. Her worldview is uniquely hers, in relation to all things. As I said, the idea that making the dolls the way she does, or using corpse parts to do it might be sacrilege does not even occur to her.

Rather than go the route of the novel, Mary Jane twists this around too. In the world of Mary Jane, religious objects hold not only the power of an idea but an actual force. And it is a force that is completely, within the world of the show, amoral and nonsensical. The blessed weapons and fire the Order of the Shadows use are “holy” as a property, but that gives it no moral weight within the world of the play. And the play is messing with it the whole time. Holy wood or water can destroy a ghost, but they live in a church. Something that Charles and Figaro comment on, but cannot interrogate in terms of what it means for their conviction. But they’re split on how to proceed - the fact that ghosts can live in it doesn’t shake their faith, though. Sister Ghost is there largely for this joke. A nun who is constantly evoking the divine, who would be killed by a consecrated item.

[image description: the summary text over the chapel backdrop with the text of "the chapel where Jacob and the others were left behind was being filled with the scent of holy water.]

If I could add something to Mary Jane, I would have loved for Mary or Jacob to ask Sister Ghost what “God” means (this is a conversation that happens in bonus material for Tokyo Ghoul once, actually). I would have loved to have that brought up more explicitly. But it’s also very funny that it never is.

The first definitions for a God we get are them being applied to Mary herself, with plenty of ambiguity on if the Order’s faith itself has a mother figure at its center or not. And either way it’s a fascinating play on the idea, and the themes of the novel.

Closing Thoughts, Other Connections and Ideas "Beyond the Scope of this Essay"

Anyway, all of this while playing around with everything else going on in this play, Neji’s totally, without permission, commentary on Fumi, on Tsuki’s legacy (please read the stage script, somehow the game thought it was a good idea to cut that whole specific reference even when making Kisa pick between an “erase Tsuki” option) and on Kai. On himself as an artist. ("I am the one who is strange. With my changing moods, with my hobbies. That is why everyone thinks I'm strange and avoids me.”). As with several other plays, a commentary on authority, and on creation, and on isolation and friendship and connection.

And, of course, what I’ve been holding back this whole little essay is that Mary Jane is, thematically, at its core, playing off the exact same situation as I Am Death. Like — both of these plays center around a woman pouring her emotions into an undead creature. I see you Neji. You can’t hide from me. Reading I Am Death as a Frankenstein Story remixed into an old Japanese mytho-history is a LOT of fun to do, but is, as the academics say, beyond the scope of this essay.

(and, I Am Death itself is about Neji and Chui, and the twisted, messy love-hate revenge drama they are acting out across all the routes in the game. Neji writes the plays that introduce Chui to the world. Then he runs. And spends the whole game trying to beat him (affectionate.). “Make me another like me” you say…

Literally the only thing I’ve come up with to make the “bad end” CG more compelling to me, is that this is what it’s riffing on. I like my I Am Death costumes way weirder.)

Mary Jane is a Frankenstein Story, I Am Death is a Frankenstein Story, Jack Jeanne is a Frankenstein Story. The other, other thing I’m leaving out here is that the Order of the Shadows are OBVIOUSLY pulled from Tokyo Grand Guignol, aesthetically. And the most famous TGG play is Litchi Hikari Club, which is, say it with me, a Frankenstein Story. Also one that takes the themes of the novel (gender, love and sexuality, childhood, genius, violence, blind pursuit to the point of madness, god complexes) harder than most, but runs with it in nearly the exact opposite direction. But again, very much beyond the scope of this essay.

Also also also leaving out the fact that Tokyo Ghoul is... kind of ... not not a Frankenstein story. It certainly riffs on the motif quite a bit. Even if you've never read it, you've seen the mask design (an in universe riff on the joke.).

Even just one dimension of this play, and look how many words you've made me write Neji-senpai.

[image description: image from the bottom of the Mary Jane poster, with the cast list, showing the chapel ghosts with a focus on Ushinoko, Neji's character, looking towards the 'camera'.] Some little Halloween Spooktacular you’ve got there. Bravo.

#jack jeanne meta #jack jeanne #Mary Jane #frankenstein #lit crit #doing lit crit of stories within stories - what a trip #meta

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loobonx1 · 21 days

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Heyy, heres a stupid image of my insanity (the fictional crushes wall)

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plastikun · 2 years

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— BABY, ITS HALLOWEEN, THE QUARRY

[ the quarry + reader ]

halloween is coming up! what is everyone going as and what are they doing this fine hallows eve? including: emma, abi, nick, jacob, ryan, dylan, and kaitlyn

notes: not proofread bc i’m lazy and also this is the shittiest thing i’ve written in a while sorry 😭

Emma has pre-recorded something halloween-y to upload on the 31st so she can go out and party but still keep her fans happy! She’s going as Sidney Prescott, the final girl of Scream, and has convinced you to match costumes with her! Wether you’re another slasher victim or the slasher themselves is up to you, just know that she’ll be taking as many photos as she possibly can <3 She’s going to have a cute halloween picture of the two of you as her wallpaper for the next 5 months so make sure you look good…

Abigail isn’t a party person, but if that’s your thing she’ll go along with it— just not for too long. When you’ve gotten tired of partying (if you do so at all) she’ll be waiting at home for you. But don’t worry! She’s not mad, after all, everyone enjoys some alone time! She’ll snuggle into you for some movie time and probably fall asleep halfway through lol. She isn’t one for full costumes for halloween, but she’s definitely going to put some effort into some cute but spooky makeup for the day like bat-wing eyeliner or spiderwebs on her cheeks! <3

Nick is probably out partying and is going as something dumb and lazy like “myself, but with a mustache!” because he didn’t even realize it was halloween until the day of said party. If you’re not a party person though, he’s willing to give that up and stay home with you :)

With his missing hand, Dylan would make a perfect Ash Williams, which is coincidentally his favourite horror movie character (definitely not because 80s Bruce Campbell is hot…), so get ready to have an Evil Dead marathon! It’s definitely happening. He’s also 100% handing out candy to kids and complimenting their choice of costumes, he’s very cute like that ;)

Ryan absolutely LOVES halloween, and has made a movie lineup for the two of you 2 weeks in advance… He’s going to dress up as someone from an old horror movie that has an iconic yet subtle outfit, like one of the characters from The Blair Witch Project or someone from a Saw movie (which are a couple of his halloween favourites :)) He’s definitely going to talk through most of the movies, telling you random shit about them and picking apart plot holes but it’ll be fun anyways.

Although he loves attention, believe it or not, Jacob isn’t a fan of parties, he also isn’t a fan of horror, so picking out a fun halloween activity that both of you will enjoy is going to be a struggle. If you’re set on watching horror for halloween night, he’s going to be clinging to your arm the whole time and hiding under a blanket (he’s definitely cute like this though so no complaints) please reassure him and give him plenty of kisses when you’re going to go to sleep though because he’s gonna be scared shitless

Kait isn’t a huge halloween person, but she’s still going to use it as an excuse to dress up as a cute vampire or something lmao. Other than that, she’s going to work like regular, spending her evening like usual and so on. If you’re a halloween person though, she’s willing to give up a normal day to do what you want! You want to go party? Sure! You want to stay home and

#the quarry #the quarry headcanons #the quarry hcs #emma mountebank x reader #emma mountebank #abigail blyg x reader #abigail blyg #nick furcillo x reader #nick furcillo #jacob custos #jacob custos x reader #kaitlyn ka x reader #kaitlyn ka #dylan lenivy x reader #dylan lenivy #ryan ezrahler #ryan ezrahler x reader

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veliseraptor · 1 year

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April Reading Recap

so apparently I read a fuckton in April. I put that on the week off for Passover and also a number of very fast reads last month. here goes

The Spite House by Johnny Compton. Might be the best horror book I'd read in a while, and I did not see the twist coming for a long while. Good and very spooky on the whole, but the "creepy kids as ghosts" thing took some of the luster off it. Still, some good and original ideas here and I'll be watching for more books by this author.

The Nine Eyes of Lucien by Madeleine Roux. Not very good writing and a good third of the book was rehashing the events of the end of Campaign 2, which I just watched. It was fine, I guess? But I didn't find it added much.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. I've had this one on my list for literal years - it's a retelling of the Biblical story of Dinah, Jacob's one daughter. I kind of wish I'd read it sooner, when (a) I was less burned out on retellings/reinterpretations of familiar stories, and (b) when I would've been less bothered by the flavor of gender essentialism of the text and could have appreciated other things about it without getting stuck in feeling iffy about that. I am trying to work out why it bothers me so much that Diamant chose to change the reading of the text from (an implied) rape to a consensual love affair, and I'm not quite sure I can explain that.

It's an interesting book and I'm glad I read it but I don't think I'd recommend it without disclaimers; I think in some ways it's more interesting as an artifact of the cultural movement it comes out of than anything else. Would analyze in a class about Jewish feminist responses to stories in Tanakh (or Talmud, tbh).

Six Myths of Our Time: Little Angels, Little Monsters, Beautiful Beasts and More by Marina Warner. Fascinating collection of short essays originally given as lectures on the BBC, apparently - the one essay about the way the West conceptualizes the simultaneous purity/monstrosity of children was particularly interesting to me. Interesting piece of work I picked up totally by happenstance because it was short and looked interesting and it lived up to both qualities.

Gallows Hill by Darcy Coates. Good spooky horror recommended by @cigaretteburnslikefairylights and actually legit scared me in places, which doesn't happen all that often to me anymore when I'm reading horror. (I'm still a weenie watching it.) I actually...liked this one start to resolution and am going to be looking up more of Darcy Coates' writing, because if it's not, you know, doing something super ~innovative~ it is good spooky reading and that's really what I've been craving.

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded by Simon Winchester. Reading this book was a weird experience. I went into it just thinking "ooh, book about an interesting natural disaster, I love volcanoes" and came out of it going "whoa, surprise Islamophobia," checked the publication date, and learned it was 2003, whereupon I was miserably unsurprised. I don't know why the author felt like he needed to make colonial apologetics and blame the post-eruption upheaval on Islamic fundamentalists manipulating the natives into uprising against their Dutch masters but apparently he did. (I'm exaggerating. But not that much.)

The geology stuff was interesting. Mr. Winchester should've stuck with that and the reportage of the eruption itself and left politics out of it.

Violent Phenomena: 21 Essays on Translation ed. by Kavita Bhanot & Jeremy Tiang. This might be my favorite book I read in April, honestly. It's a really good collection of essays about the concept of decolonizing translation, and what that means, and whether it's possible, and the uneasy and uncomfortable relationship between translation and imperialism. I didn't agree with all the essays in here, and they didn't necessarily all agree with each other, but all of them at least had something interesting to say. I would recommend this one to people who can find it - it's by a small press - who are interested in translation or who frequently read in translation. The writers have a lot to say that I think is worth thinking about.

She Is a Haunting by Trang Thahn Tran. I think I just need to give up reading YA books with the realization they're generally not for me, though this one almost had me. It's something about the...I know there's a range of styles, I can't generalize style across the genre, but there is a texture to YA writing that doesn't quite work for me.

I love the concept - diaspora horror, colonialist horror, some really fucked up body horror stuff that got surprisingly gruesome - and would love to read a slightly different book about it, but alas, that book wasn't this one.

American Midnight: Democracy's Forgotten Crisis, 1917-1921 by Adam Hochschild. Another contender for favorite book I read this month though I think this one loses out to Violent Phenomena and possibly Gallows Hill, though comparing horror fiction to historical nonfiction feels kind of unfair. Anyway, I knew some of what this book was digging into - the Sedition Act and the intensely violent repression that was going on in the United States during World War I - but I learned a lot more here.

The depressing thing about reading this, though, was watching (so to speak) the brutal crushing of a once fairly robust American Socialist Party such that it never recovered. Not to mention the grinding down of the labor movement, which I think was at its most powerful during this period of time and hasn't been as strong since.

Just looking at that and wondering what might've been if Woodrow Wilson wasn't such a fucking dick.

Elektra by Jennifer Saint. I feel so funny about this book. I read another mythology retelling even though I swore not to because a Tumblr user I respect mentioned it being good; my experience was that it wasn't bad and it didn't actively bother me like some other retellings I could name, but I don't know that I'd actually call it good. Mostly I'd say I wasn't annoyed, just uninspired.

Of the three narrators, Elektra was definitely the best, and I really did like the construction of her relationship with Clytemnestra, which really felt like the meat of the book. (Perhaps, considering the House of Atreus, that's a bad turn of phrase to use.) The Cassandra sections felt like a distraction, mostly a way to keep the reader up with what was going on across the sea and provide some action in between the familial drama. Ultimately I just felt like those sections took away from the Elektra/Clytemnestra dynamic, leaving insufficient meat.

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach. I went through a period of time where I was reading all of Mary Roach's books, and was kind of obsessed with them, so this was sort of returning to an old and familiar friend. I found I wasn't quite as enamored with this one as I remembered being of some of her others (I think I remember Stiff being my favorite), but it was an interesting look at the intersections between human and animal - which is really more what this is about than law, per se. It's about what we do when animals cause problems for humans, from monkeys to bears, and the questions that are raised about the best way to handle those issues.

Nero: Matricide, Music, and Murder in Imperial Rome by Anthony Everitt & Roddy Ashworth. I'm so confused by this book. From the insistence on referring to Nero as "princeps" throughout the book, to the random dropping of French in places it really didn't need to be, to the frankly credulous approach to the sources, particularly when it comes to sex, even when the author mentioned how sex is often a proxy for politics in Roman historical writing, the weird sideways digression into "did Rome have gay marriage?", the weird "maybe she got what she deserved" aside about Messalina's death...

I learned a fair amount, I can say that, I'm not as knowledgeable about this period's Julio-Claudians. Frankly I think Agrippina (the Younger) was the real star of this book, despite Anthony Everitt's heroic efforts to make Nero the protagonist. Buddy, I see your point, but you're pushing a little too hard here.

Anyway. Weird reading experience, I'm tempted to recommend it just so someone else can either validate it or go "what are you talking about, this was a perfectly normal history book."

---

woof long post, but hey it was a lot of books. currently reading A Fever in the Heartland for more American racism in the early 20th century. I have a stack of library books that are waiting for me and I think the next one is probably going to be The Social Lives of Animals, which will either be really enjoyable or annoy the hell out of me, possibly both.

#reading recaps #sometimes i read things #long post for ts

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