#trying not to spoil Jonathan Strange for you
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reader holding steve’s hand (but their really only holding one or two of his fingers) and steve’s like “you alright there?”
this is such a cute idea, I love it <3
pairing: steve harrington x fem!reader
word count: 1.7k
warning(s): mentions of the mindflayer and demodogs, unedited writing, set in season 2 (because I’m currently rewatching and that’s where I’m at rn), so if you haven’t seen that, you have been warned… although it has been five years, you’ve had your chance for it not to be spoiled...
quick a/n: this is very much an AU of the season 2 scene where the kids make a plan to go help El (no Billy because I didn’t feel like including him)... hopefully this is okay, and thank you all for sticking with me!
Holding his hand seems like such a small thing, something so easy and so instinctual that it shouldn’t be this hard. But it is. Because for whatever reason, this doesn’t feel real.
You’d think it would feel grounding, that it would maybe force you back into a clearer head space. But it’s doing the opposite. As the butterflies fly freely through your stomach, you feel yourself falling further and further from reality.
This is what all the girls at Hawkin’s High meant when they said Steve Harrington was dreamy. But all that gossip could never have prepared you for this feeling right now. Oh lord is his touch ever hypnotizing. Even if it is just a platonic attempt at reassuring each other that everything is going to be okay. Even if it is nothing.
Despite it all, you want to curse yourself for falling for it. As if you ever should have thought yourself immune to his charms; you were so naive, so adamant that you could never like someone like him. Little did you know how quickly he could crack that superiority complex of yours.
And as the saying goes, oh how the mighty have fallen.
Or is it, the pride comes before the fall? Either way, you’re fucked.
More than anything, it’s such a strange thing to feel yourself fall into something (or someone) that you promised yourself you never would. Never in your wildest dreams did you think you would be sitting in Jonathan Byers’ living room, your hand reaching for Steve Harrington’s as you await answers on what feels like the fate of the universe.
Holding his hand seems like it should be the least of your problems, and yet it has wormed its way to the forefront of your mind.
Honestly, for the life of you, you cannot seem to grip his entire hand. You convince yourself that it must be nerves, your fingers merely clinging on to the tips of two of his. It’s more of a grazing touch really… a weak bid at trying to hold on. If your mind was in a more settled state, you might not have missed the blatant metaphor shining in your face. You also might have even laughed.
But this? The impending doom of the mind flayer and its pack of demodog minions? Not a laughing matter…not in the slightest. And all you can do is wait.
You don’t even want to think about it, how much longer you’ll have to stay here, just waiting. Let alone allowing yourself to stew in the immense pressure you’re feeling right now. If you’re being honest, it’s the most soul crushing stress you’ve ever felt; it’s like you can almost feel the grey hairs forming. Because these kids, they’re just, kids, innocent and losing their last ounce of childhood by the very second. Fuck, you’re barely an adult yourself. And as much as you know you’re not their parent, you feel responsible for each of them in your own silly way. You’d die before you’d let anything happen to them, and you know Steve would too.
That’s what makes this all so scary, and yet paradoxically, reassuring all the same. You’ve got something to live for, people who are depending on you to be okay. And that’s oddly comforting to you, as much as it can be.
“You alright there?” Steve’s voice echoes in your ears. You’re not sure how long he’s been trying to gain your attention, but by the knowing smile on his face, you’d have to take a guess that this isn’t the first time he’s asked you how you’re doing.
Breathing even, he lets go of your fingers, the warmth of his touch suddenly gone, and equally as noticeable. To your surprise, it doesn’t last long before he’s nudging you playfully, his arm gently meeting yours with a soft bump.
When you don’t respond like you usually would, with a bubbled up laugh or a reassuring sigh of, perfectly peachy, Steve’s shoulders drop. He follows your gaze to the kids who are gathered at the Byers’ kitchen table, arguing over what to do next.
They want to fight back and help their friend, an admirable if not risky idea to act on, you must admit. But they’re brave kids, — albeit impulsive ones — much braver than any other kids you’ve ever met. So, you’re not surprised when you overhear their plan to lure the demodogs away from El, allowing her better access to the mind flayer.
It doesn’t draw the most confidence in you to know that you and Steve are at a disagreement. While you know where Steve’s opinion lies, and you agree with him that keeping the kids safe is one of your top priorities, you can’t help but want to hear them out. Maybe it’s delusion talking, or maybe you’ve taken one too many hits to the head, but the more time you spend here waiting for any news, the more your heart wants to fight back too, even if your brain knows how stupid that would be.
“I think we should go.”
Steve’s head turns so fast you think he might have whiplash, and when your eyes meet his, they’re wider than saucers. His deep amber orbs blink in confusion as his brow furrows in surprise.
Shock even.
“You, what?”
Standing from your previous spot on the couch next to Steve, you make your way over to the kids, hands placed firmly on your hips. Facing him now, you echo, “I think we should go.”
“Fucking right!” Dustin’s holler causes a chorus of ‘yeah’s’ and vigorous nods to be shared amongst the group. All except for Steve. He’s less than impressed.
You’re supposed to be on his side, not theirs.
“No, no, no, no, no, no.” He repeats the word like a mantra, flicking his wrist in objection while simultaneously signalling to the kids to keep quiet from agreeing any further with your declaration. “Absolutely not.”
Clenching your jaw at his immediate dismissal, your voice raises ever so slightly. “We’re supposed to protect them Steve.”
He almost scoffs at your words, because how could bringing the kids into the most dangerous place they could go, possibly be classified as protecting them? That sounds like pure ludicrous, the exact opposite of what you’re supposed to be doing. But then you say something that somehow makes sense to him. And for a moment, it has him rethinking everything.
“All of them.”
It’s Mike’s added assertion that seals it for him, his voice stern and steady. “That includes El.” He says, lips pulling into a tight line.
Steve doesn’t know this El girl very well, only having just met her a few hours ago, but already, she means a lot to him. Because she clearly means so much to everyone else. By proxy, that makes her important in Steve Harrington’s world.
“We can’t sit here and let her get hurt,” Max’s eyes shine with tears, gaze pleading with him, “especially if we know we can help her.” It’s oddly strange to see her like this. Max doesn’t show emotion at the best of times, let alone the worst, so despite having known her for less time than the rest, Steve is more than aware how much this means to her.
Tilting your head, you lay on the most convincing voice you can, while still maintaining a genuine tone. You don’t want him partaking in something he’s not comfortable doing. But, you suppose, at this point, it’s far past that.
“Steve, I know how risky this is, and I know you’re doing the logical thing, because God knows I’ve been nearly incapable of it” your (e/c) eyes find his brown ones and he can feel himself beginning to give in, “but nothing about this shit is logical.” You can see it in his demeanour that he’s fighting with himself not to give in. “If we have a chance to help her, we have to take it.”
“We have to.” Lucas cuts in.
“C’mon Steve.” Is Dustin’s attempt.
Whether it’s your words that do it, or Mike and Max’s pleadingly puppy dog-like stares, he’s not sure. But in a matter of seconds, his posture is deflating, and a long sigh is released from his lips.
One second passes in anticipation, then two, and lastly three, before:
“Fine.” Steve finally agrees with a huff, realizing he was never going to win this fight. He hears a quiet mumble of victory from Max and notices a quick fist pump she shares with Lucas, but it’s your beaming smile that assures him that he’s made the right decision. You look not only relieved, but genuinely happy, something that Steve wishes he could see more of from you. It’s hard to be happy when it feels like the universe is crumbling at your feet, but it’s nice to see nonetheless.
Grabbing the car keys, he tosses them to you as you lead each of the kids out the door.
As you usher them out, you lean your head over your shoulder, sending Steve a soft smile, and mouthing a quick thank you to him. You’re grateful, truly.
Wordlessly, he nods. I’d do anything for you, he thinks to himself. He’d give you the world if you asked. Not that you would. You never ask for anything from anyone.
He wishes you’d change your mind on that.
Taking note of the brief moment shared between you two, Dustin hangs back with Steve, eyeing the older teen in amusement. He watches him lock up the Byers’ residence, hands shaking slightly from the adrenaline of it all. Following a few steps behind the rest of the group, Dustin smiles at Steve slyly, his gaze full of mischief.
“Not a word.” Steve warns, the sound of the car engine starting is enough to put a pause to his words. But Dustin doesn’t listen. Since when has he ever?
“You’re so whipped man…” Steve doesn’t deny it as Dustin shakes his head with a smirk. He watches as Steve steps through the passenger side door, a slight grin on his face.
Muttering to himself as he slides in beside Max, Dustin huffs, “So fucking whipped.”
#steve harrington x reader#steve harrington x fem!reader#steve harrington x y/n#steve harrington x you#steve harrington imagine#steve harrington imagines#stranger thing imagine#stranger things x reader#stranger things imagines
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I don’t know why but an AU inspired by Heathers and Mean Girls but make it gay and non-murderous popped into my head involving Byergroveton so I just had to. This may or may not be crack so take from that what you will.
Of course, Jonathan is going to be like Veronica because hello, outsider and there’s no way that anyone else can be Veronica considering his mom was literally Veronica Sawyer originally. Steve would definitely be Season 1 Steve, mythic bitch and ruler of the school with his lackeys who’d do anything to stay in his good graces. Billy would be simultaneously JD and Cady since he steals Steve’s crown while also being a bad boy who just moved.
It all begins when Jonathan saves Steve, Tommy and Carol’s asses from detention by forging a hall pass for the four of them for yearbook committee, something Jonathan is actually part of. Steve’s impressed so he takes Jonathan under his wing to be a popular kid. Then, Billy arrives and he instantly steals Steve’s thunder. Steve doesn’t feel threatened though so he also takes Billy under his wing in popularity.
This is how Jonathan and Billy meet and they find themselves initially bonding over a similar music taste and eventually over shitty and abusive dads. The entire time, Jonathan has had a years-long crush on Nancy, Steve’s ex. When Billy starts to win Steve’s titles and friends away from him in a bid to impress Jonathan and Steve notices Jonathan’s stares at Nancy, he gets back together with Nancy to hurt Jonathan, blaming him for Billy’s attempts at taking his crown.
Jonathan is mildly heartbroken but he also knew he didn’t really have much of a chance. Billy takes this as his cue to step in and woo Jonathan who hasn’t realized that he’s bisexual and actually attracted to guys yet. Billy helps Jonathan find confidence and work on his style which gets Nancy’s attention. It also helps that Jonathan, Nancy and Billy are all a year lower than Steve and that Jonathan and Nancy were partnered in Chemistry together.
Nancy finds herself attracted to this new Jonathan so she dumps Steve for Jonathan. Of course, Billy would be heartbroken at them getting together and he doesn’t see the value in all of the titles and fake friends he got to try and impress his crush. Steve finds him drinking his woes away at the quarry, leading to them having a one night stand that strangely enough turns into a real relationship out of spite since Jonathan screwed them both over.
Weirdly enough, Steve and Billy work in a way that he didn’t with Nancy, especially since Billy was just as much of an asshole as Steve and because Billy was suprisingly the perfect sub to Steve’s dom. Billy was fine with being spoiled and taken care of which was a big issue with Nancy who loved her independence. Steve and Billy eventually grew to genuinely love and care for each other as time passed but Nancy and Jonathan only crumbled.
Nancy was too domineering for Jonathan who was used to being the big sibling and taking care of things. Nancy was unwilling to be anything less than in charge and while Jonathan was fine with it occasionally, he also wanted to be able to take care of and be taken care of in equal turn. Things eventually came to a head when Nancy got into NYU while Jonathan wanted to stay close to his family so he chose University of Chicago instead where coincidentally, Billy had gotten a full ride to and Steve had decided to follow Billy to.
Nancy and Jonathan broke up and Jonathan went to the University of Chicago as the same old loner he used to be before everything. It tugged on Billy’s heartstrings to see the boy he used to like be reduced to this and Steve begrudgingly allowed Billy to befriend Jonathan again, even if he was possessive of his boyfriend. Billy and Steve soon because Billy and Jonathan and Steve and weirdly enough, it didn’t feel weird at all like Steve had expected. Instead, it felt like something they didn’t even know was missing had been returned.
Jonathan knew that his two best friends were together but he was slowly getting tired of being their perpetual third wheel when he had developed feelings for both of them at different times only to lose them to each other. Their relationship was a harsh reminder of what he’d lost in choosing Nancy but Jonathan had to deal with the consequences of his actions. Of course, he didn’t expect Steve and Billy to box him in during one of their movie nights and proposition him to be their third.
Jonathan couldn’t say no and the rest was history. The three boys eventually found their way to each other even if it did take longer than expected but nothing could be simple when it involved Steve, Billy and Jonathan.
#billy hargrove#steve harrington#jonathan byers#byergroveton#byergrove#harringrove#stonathan#stranger things rewrite#ellewritesandrants#stranger things au#heathers au#steve x jonathan x billy#billy x steve#billy x jonathan#steve x jonathan#sub billy hargrove#implied switch jonathan byers#dom steve harrington
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I just noticed something really interesting between MCR and Lestat.
Ok, so I brought you my bullets, you brought me your love by My Chemical Romance was released on 2002, and Queen of the Damned was released too on 2002. And there's this reference in both of them...
On I brought you my bullets, you brought me your love there's the song I will focus about: Vampires will never hurt you. Obviously, the main point here is the vampire, with both this song and the film (an adaptation of the second and third book of Vampire Chronicles, focusing on Lestat). But this is not about the meaning or the characters, no...
it's about the videoclips.
For those that don't know about Queen of the Damned, it focuses on both past of Lestat (XVIII century) and his experience coming back from "coma" on the 80s. Long story short, he becomes a Rockstar, and because of this, QOTD has 3 videoclips: System, Redeemer and Forsaken, all three written my Jonathan Davies (singer of KoRn) and, in some versions, sung by him too.
I will focus on the videoclip for Forsaken. The song is great, listen to it, but for this, watch it. The references to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Das Kabinette des Dr. Caligari) are obvious, it is mostly a tribute to that film, and it catches the essence of it (maybe even spoils you the end).
Now, watch Vampires will never hurt you's videoclip. Notice something? Well, it isn't a direct reference to the plot of Das Kabinette (I will touch this later), but there is to German Expressionism. Look at the windows and dramatism of the eyebags... Yes, I thought of this parallelism for obvious reasons.
But you might think, "that is not enough, German Expressionism isn't only Das Kabinette". Well, I ask you to look at this short edit for Das Kabinette. MCR uses hard lighting, stops middle way to put some lines... ok, obvious, add to that the man-woman romance and the man being an outcast. Yep.
At first I thought "what a coincidence, maybe one of them was inspired by the other", well... MCR's album (including the videoclip, it was shown at the record release show) was released on May 27, 2002; Queen of the Damned, February 22, 2002. So we see that there was 3 months for MCR to see it, get inspiration and create based on the Forsaken videoclip. "Oh but it takes time and they must have thought about it befo-", WHY? It was recorded May 15-27 of the same year, this means, a minimum of 82 days for them to see it.
There are little coincidences on this life, my people!
Now what we need to know is: Is this true? And there are two ways out:
It was a mere coincidence. Both videoclips about vampires had the same movie as an inspiration (weird thing ngl). This would bring the question: Why is this movie such an inspiration for vampire-related pop-culture?
It was premeditated, just no one thought about it before for some strange reason.
So, tumblr community: Help me figure this out. Should we try to reach Gerard Way? Should we try to reach other members that worked on the project?
I trust you, tumblr, do your magic!!!!
#ok i might have autism#but can you blame me?#istg i would be a great detective#My chemical romance#vampire#vampires#lestat#queen of the damned#the cabinet of dr. caligari#gerard way#theory
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Ruby sent me numbers from the choose violence meme, so here we go!
1 - the character everyone gets wrong - Shen Jiu (Scum Villain's Self-Saving System)
7 - what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them? - hate is a strong word but I have mentioned: John Childermass and the Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair (Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell)
22 - your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores - this one is from Mo Dao Zu Shi (the novel)
Full discussion under the cut.
the character everyone gets wrong
Shen Jiu from Scum Villain's Self-Saving System. CAVEAT: You are allowed to write him anyway you like, let him fall into whatever character slot you that pleases your id. I'm not a cop, you do you. I too have even written some SJ fic that I didn't think was in canon character (the Golden Concubine one). But. If you want to be true to the character as he is written in the novel. He is not gay. Sorry. He hates men. Hairy chests make him want to vomit. He's more than a straight guy, he's like a male lesbian. Yue Qingyuan is his soulmate? Maybe, sure, if you want. Yue Qingyuan is such a big simp that Shen Jiu learned to trust him, like he doesn't trust anyone else, and then he sucker-punched that trust right out of him by appearing to have dumped him to pursue personal success. Shen Jiu is an abused, traumatized alley cat, too proud and too fragile to let anyone close. Whenever he's tried to extend a hand to make a connection with another man, such as asking Yue Qingyuan to explain, or protecting Liu Qingge in a fight, those men were unable to respond the right way*, and he immediately retreated back with all spikes out. He has to be the strongest, but he can't. He needs to be in control, but he isn't, even of his own anger and fear. The only time he can rest is in the arms of a woman, or when getting to spoil and protect an innocent girl, someone who is not trying to take his place. Also they're soft and they smell good. And I just think that's valid.
You know how many fics there are with Shen Jiu/female character on AO3? Last time I checked it was two, I think it must be three by now. Honestly, just let Shen Jiu like girls. It's fine.
*Their inability to respond correctly may be part of the critique of toxic masculinity that is a major theme of SVSSS, which is why I quite enjoy the idea that an AU where Shen Yuan meets Shen Jiu, this could change, because while SY certainly has piles of toxic masculinity, he has proven through the narrative to at least be able to respond differently. Shang Qinghua might have done it too, and he tried, but didn't have the power to push through his System and circumstances. That scene in the carriage where he tried to save Shen Jiu is one of my favourite SQH moments, it made me feel for both of them. It still doesn't mean I think canon-compliant SJ would sleep with either of those gross boys.
what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?
Hate is a strong word, but I went from feeling vaguely positive about John Childermass, the holder of the braincell in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, to feeling vaguely negative just because the fandom is so much about this one character that I feel like all other characters get pushed aside. I get that to some people it's specifically the Childermass fandom and they wouldn't be here except for Childermass, but… hey.
In the same fandom, I went from being entertainingly creeped out by the Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair to not wanting to read any fic with him in it at all, because I worry that the fic will treat Gentleman/Stephen Black as somehow romantic or desirable and, again, I don't want to judge, but that creeps me out in a way that is no longer entertaining.
your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores
In MDZS the book, aka The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, there is a scene in the extras where Wangxian are enjoying their honeymoon and overhear gossip at the inn where they talk about Nie Huaisang's recent political ascent, and Wei Wuxian muses briefly about how they might not be so happy with him for long, and then decides it's none of his business and he just wants to start living his life now. This is, to me, KEY to the whole story.
In The Untamed, the TV version, Lan Wangji is said to be ascending to the position of chief cultivator, and I am sure this is because on television, they wanted to say: Look, Wen Ruohan was evil, Jin Guangshan was evil, Jin Guangyao was evil--but now a good man will be Chief Cultivator and so everything will be fine!
The book, the author, is saying: It is not possible to be the leader and be a good person. It is not possible for those in control to be benevolent, because power will always fall in the hands of those who are willing to commit atrocities to gain it.
Nie Huaisang is my close second favourite character, I'm not bashing, but he is cunning and ruthless and was willing to let a lot of people die to get his revenge. Jin Guangyao was cunning and ruthless and was willing to let a lot of people die to get consequence and still wicked tongues. Jin Guangshan… You get the picture. In the book, the Wen aren't living on a volcano making zombies for fun like cartoon villains, they have a prosperous city and seem to be generally okay kinda leaders until they started overreaching with the outposts. That's all. Greed, the ambition for revenge and to attain material goods and earthly power, leads inevitably to evil. The only way to a happy ending is to refuse to participate.
You couldn't have that on TV, because it would imply the government may not be on your side. 🤫
MDZS fandom is wide, I am sure I am not the only person to discuss this aspect, but maybe it just seems so momentous to me that I am surprised I haven't yet seen more talk about it.
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The latest #AntMan offering, and possibly the last in the trilogy, has been subject to a lot of scrutiny ahead of the movie’s release yesterday. It’s widely publicised that this movie’s Rotten Tomatoes rating is one of the lowest in #MCU history, but does it really?
To start, the movie itself is good. It’s not great; it’s good. I sat in the theatre yesterday and found the credits appeared in the blink of an eye. Perhaps the movie could have been longer, allowing the characters to be a little more fleshed-out. But all-in-all, I found it a thoroughly enjoyable watch.
Without Michael Pena, there was a lack of the kind of humour that made the previous two issues of #Antman so fun, but Quantumania still had its moments. The Quantum Realm was a beautifully created alien landscape, so if you don’t like your movies with CGI, beware.
As you will have seen in reviews or any prerelease interviews, Jonathan Majors lines up as Kang the Conqueror, and he does a brilliant job as the MCU’s next big bad. Bill Murray’s cameo was also delightful. That said, however, I would possibly suggest that those were the only notable performances throughout. This isn’t to discredit any of the cast. It’s more of a reflection on the writing.
It’s painfully apparent that this film is not as lead-centric as Marvel movies typically are. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the name itself lists two superheroes. However, Evangeline Lilly sadly lacks any strong dialogue or movie moments in this outing. When she did appear, it was almost a refreshing surprise. “Oh, yeah, Wasp’s in this too.”.
Paul Rudd is still afforded a lot of screen time, but I can’t help feeling that the “lead” role was split with both Kathryn Newton and Michelle Pfeiffer, who played Cassie and Janet, respectively. It may be another play by Marvel to introduce a strong, young female replacement to continue the role, and I’m all for that. But in this instance, it impacted the movie as a whole.
There have been many comments on how “weird” this movie is, don’t worry, it’s not. If you managed to cope with Ragnarok, Doctor Strange and any of the Guardians movies, you’re good. Clearly, some critics just have a very low bar regarding what’s considered “weird”. The creatures are a beautiful hodge-podge of ideas from all over, and they don’t look out of place for a second; except for a certain someone, but if you don’t know to expect him, I won’t spoil it here.
Let me bookmark this review by saying that at this moment, the movie is sat at 48% for critics and 84% for audiences, that’s with reviews numbering 292 and 2500+, respectively. I’m not trying to tell you that this movie is a must-see, but it is a worth-seeing movie.
Overall, kicking off Phase Five of the MCU, I think it’s an excellent start. The acting is as solid as you’d expect from names like Rudd, Lilly, Douglas, Pfeiffer, Murray, and Majors. The story could use a little work, but it adds just enough to show the audience what’s in store as the MCU moves forward.
I’ll give it 4 out of 5 stars.
#Ant-man#ant man and the wasp#quantumania#mcu#marvel#Marvel Universe#antman#ant man#the wasp#kang the conqueror#paul rudd#evangelline lilly#michael douglas#michelle pfeiffer#jonathan majors#Movie Reviews#movie review
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👑Hewwu Queen 👑 is it alright if I request DIO in part 3 meeting his descendant?. Like he basically had a kid accidentally in part 1 and now he’s meeting their great grandkid who looks allot like him and seems to not be fully human. Maybe he meets them at night since their family was traveling around the world and stopped off in Egypt where he found them maybe listening to music?
Since you write for DIO, is it alright if I request that he somehow meets one of his kid after they get into some time travel shenanigans. Maybe his kid has a stand that is kinda similar to his but they aren’t confident in using it
DIO aiding his helpless descendant
sfw / gn reader
notes/warnings: implied assault (on your great-great grandmother)
Another case of two anons thinking alike!! It was really fun to think about this and sorry for taking so much time to get to it :o I hope you’ll still enjoy 💖✨also the pacing is strange/fast (to me), but i felt it fit with how frantic i imagine meeting Dio is
Somewhere between irking Jonathan and wishing to destroy any respectful sliver of the Joestar bloodline, Dio had his own way of indulging and spending his time. Men, women; any creature he could manipulate to his will and suck the life out of to join his dark army was welcome in his dimly lit hideout to meet their fate. The self proclaimed god that had surmounted humanity took pleasure in playing with his food; leaving them in complete darkness, literally. He’d let them suffer in silence, hearing them whimper and regret their choice to ever step foot inside the wicked monster’s palace. But it was always too late.
Except for the very night Jonathan had decided to come spoil the fun and ruin Dio’s playtime. The woman hadn’t meant anything to him, just a toy to play with and to later discard on the pile of other bodies strewn about. Was she glad to have been saved by the burly Joestar? At first yes; brought back to her senses, out of that monster’s grasp but left terribly violated. Left to carry and care for the offspring Dio would never know or care about, too busy being left to slumber in the ocean and gaining a new form from his hated ‘brother’.
Dio rose again, skulking in the shadows of dimly lit cities, looking for any and all petty humans and stand users to claim for his side. It took time and patience he didn’t know he possessed to get fully comfortable in his new body. There was always this inkling, a nagging sonar that kept getting louder and louder, not much unlike his connection to the new generation of Joestars. It grasped at his thoughts, kept him from any semblance of peace of mind -as much as he could acquire it- and there seemed to be no way of silencing it. He couldn’t see a clear picture; it was just nothing but an annoying sense of something being near.
He had searched for weeks like a bloodhound hot on a trail, irritated that he of all people, nay creations, was being made to follow and be obedient to the terrible nagging. It angered him greatly and only when he found a mere youngster sitting on a bench, you, a simple looking human, did it boil over. Sat with your walkman resting next to you on the wooden seating, head bopping along to your newest cassette in the middle of the night. Completely lost in the song you’d been drumming along to with your fingers. Dio was furious but knew better than to strike before investigating, he needed answers and he needed them now.
As he got closer to you, sneaking from behind, he noticed an immediate shift. You were no longer alone. An image, a blur that became clearer and steadier and more live-like as each second passed; posing defensively, staring down Dio with a fire in your eyes not much unlike the tall blonde’s. Not for a moment does he fear for his safety. Even though The World is a newly acquired power it could easily wipe out a scrawny kid without even hitching a breath. He smirks, eyes cast over in shadow by the dim street light as he hears you pause your cassette player.
“Oh? Was I disturbing you?’ he mocks in a smirk, catching the way your eyes glint and the vaguely familiar image you awaken in him. Just like before he’s left to figure out who this annoying hazy memory is. His voice shivers down your very being, goosebumps taking over your skin; not sure if you had already missed your chance to run. It was like his glare fixated you in place, finger still resting on the pause button of your player while the other reached up to remove the flimsy headphones.
“You…” you barely get out the word. The accusatory tone you had tried to convey had watered down to a whimper. You had felt the connection too, something nagging at your soul and stringing you along until you’d finally found the source. “Me? Hah! No, you.” Dio slid closer, his steps so quiet and calculated that even though you couldn’t take your eyes off of him you swore it seemed like he floated. You swallowed thickly, the huge figure that excluded an aura so menacing only a meter away from you.
“So. Who are you and why was it so disgustingly annoying to find you?” he joked impertinently, amused by the way you clenched your jaw at his remark. “I could ask you the same.” a brave little spark still smouldering inside. “DIO. Now don’t make me ask again, you’re making me dreadfully inpatient.” He hadn’t felt the need to kill you, at least not yet. Dio was truly curious about your answer but by the looks of it you really didn’t seem to know all that much.
You begrudgingly gave him your name, in need of some answers yourself. The sound of your name didn’t ring a single bell, not a tick, not a clank. Nothing. Not a single step further to knowing anything. “Well it seems like you do have a stand. Maybe you possess a great power that might be useful to me.” that wicked grin on his face told you a little too much of his motivations. He reminded you of those Saturday morning cartoon villains. But still you felt compelled to listen, ignoring every single red flag.
Deciding to humour him you give out your stand’s name. “Trust me, we can’t really do much.” you huffed. You’ve only obtained your stand recently and honestly, it has been pretty shitty so far. You didn’t know exactly what it could do, it was just there. Any time you felt stressed or in danger it did come to your aid but it remained awfully docile. Their presence comforted you but you just knew it was capable of so much more.
“Are you a vampire?” The sudden question came out more surprised than Dio had hoped to let on. He regained his posture, opting to slide next to you on the bench with a swift move. There was something… off about the way you carried yourself that reminded him of himself and the other vampires he’d created. The question stunned you, your eyes that had already been widened in shock only growing more so. The way he had changed the entire conversation that had barely earned its start urged you to think quickly. “I don’t know.” you mumbled demurely. You really didn’t know. So many weird things had been happening to you lately that you being a vampire would explain a lot.
Your answer seemed to change the imposing man’s gaze and expression. It hardened a bit, his grin now slowly diminishing into a straighter line and his pointed brows resting down at a more natural angle. Even in this low light his image felt so familiar, like you were already supposed to know who he was but the memory remained hidden. Locked away for your safety. “You should feed. And don’t go out in daylight anymore.” Dio paused for a second. “Strange...” He pondered to himself out loud. He’s only seen a few cases like this, vampiric genes passed down through generations. For some reason he pitied you, as much as he could muster it. The unknown bond you shared felt too unusual to write off.
“What am I supposed to do?” you felt tears prick your eyes, trying your best to remain strong but you’ve been so tired. You couldn't confide in anyone, not about this. Tears started rolling, falling in thick streams down your cheeks and dropping onto your lap. Here you were, crying to a stranger named Dio about being a vampire and having weird powers. A bizarre twist of fate.
“First of all, stop crying. Then, widen your stance when you’re about to fight someone. I could have easily knocked you down with that flimsy imitation. Fix your posture while you’re at it. Call out your stand again.” He rattled off his demands quickly and flatly. Was he helping you? They were barbed complaints but it seemed like he actually wanted to aid you in whatever it was you were going through. You sniffled, wiping at your cheeks. You felt like a kid again; asking your parent for any reassurance when life knocked you down.
Dio actually offered a lot of viable advice, telling you about techniques to silence your steps, how to take someone down easily, to feed on humans within an inch of their life. You had asked him, just in case. You weren’t planning on killing anyone; a comment which made him scoff. That intimidating impression and overall feeling of having to bend to his will had lessened the more you talked to the blonde. He casually sat with you for what felt like hours. He hadn’t divulged into his own history, instead asking you about yours. He was still trying to figure out what this weird pull was.
“No one in your family has experienced anything like this before? Hmph. It seems to have skipped multiple generations then.” he was asking about your great grandmother and all the others that came before you. It could have occurred to them but you would have never known. “My family did come from England, though. My great-great grandmother fled in a hurry. We don’t really know why, Windknight’s Lot seems like an unusual place to frantically run from.” As soon as the small town’s name left your lips everything fell into place for Dio. His grin grew again, satisfied to finally know your connection to him.
Family.
One he made for himself, by accident, by a relation created on his own devious whim. Not that horrible Joestar bunch that kept ruining his fun or his horrible father that was but a faint minuscule memory. Something he did. It brought him even more satisfaction to know how perfectly in place it felt for you to be the one to develop these powers at the perfect time. His mind could have exploded with possibilities; a thousand ways to make you join his side. But it didn’t, he wasn’t sure that’s what he wanted yet. And he surely wasn’t going to tell you of your bond either, lest you get attached too quickly.
As you finished up and the early signs of a rising sun were starting to make itself known on the horizon, you were saying your goodbye’s. “Thank you for helping me. Truly, I- I don’t know how I-” you weren’t allowed to finish your earnest thanks. Dio knew you meant it, one of the only few truly grateful acknowledgements he’s ever received. “I’ll be taking over the world in a few months. If you feel so inclined to join, you know where to find me.” His lips curled into a smirk and he was making his move to leave you behind, alone on the bench again. Left to scramble for your stuff to try and stop him but he was already out of sight. “WAIT! I don’t know where to find you! You never told me!” you yelled into the empty streets, heart thumping out of your chest, hoping this wasn’t just a very elaborate dream you were caught in.
“Trust your instincts.” The voice felt incredibly close but so far away, like catching a falling snowflake; as soon as you grasped it, it just melted away.
#cozy request#dio x reader#jjba x reader#dio brando x reader#jojo x reader#jjba fic#jjba imagines#jojo's bizarre adventure#NOT INC*ST for the love of all that is good#DIO#sfw#gn reader
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Yoooo do you have a post somewhere about your Gotham sona's info?
I have an official post on my RP blog but I can put it here! (I'm debating on removing the tattoos on the ref sheet tbh, but I'm not sure yet X'D)
Name: Sona Bean Xueen
Height: 5'0
Weight: 200lbs
Blood Type: B+
Education: Associates Degree
Which Batman Verse is she from?
My own universe called "Death's Child" I take a mixture of my favorite versions of Batman villains, and heroes and mix them.
Relationships:
Victor Zsasz (Sexual and Romantic)
Edward Nygma (Sexual and Romantic)
Jonathan Crane (Romantic)
Oswald Cobblepot (Friend)
Harley Quinn (Friend)
Waylon Jones (Friend)
Jervis Tetch (Friend)
Harvey Dent (Friend)
Victor Fries (Familial)
Pamela Isley (Friend)
Jim Gordon (Very rocky friendship; He would jail her if given the chance.)
Background:
Sona grew up in normal comfort for the first ten years of her life. The daughter of a low tier mafia henchmen, who ran a red light district building by the name of the "Bucking Bronco" where anyone could get their rocks off for the night, for a price. Her father was a man by the name of Jeorge King.
She was spoiled rotten, but never seemed to quite understand that she was. Clothes, toys, treats, and the like were given to her freely, even by men and women her father worked with. She was happy.
However, one day it all changed. She became ill.
Everyone at birth is scanned in this universe. When you are, it's determined what insurances will cover you, what surgery will be allowed to you, and how expensive treatment costs would be. Sona had contracted an easily curable illness, however her scans at birth showed that she stood a 5% chance of contracting said illness. Treatment was expensive, her father's insurance wouldn't cover the cost, and he began to seek out ways to get money to cover it.
This was the first step into a dark era.
Her father began stealing money behind his boss's back, trying to hit up places that wasn't on the list, and even began selling drugs and illegal weaponry to rival gangs.
One night when Sona was asleep, she awoke to gunshots in her living room. Scared the, now thirteen year old, girl walked down the hall and into the room to see three men in black over her fathers body, a bullet through his head. She held in her scream, her voice a whimper between her fingers. But their ears were sharp, and their voices like venom.
"Hey there little girl," one purred, advancing on the young girl who could only cry, "It's okay... I'm not gonna hurt you... okay well, that's a lie... you see your father's been very, very naughty~ Which means you have just as much to pay for as he does, you know? No hard feelings~"
That night the screams that ebbed from her lips were muffled by the rough assault of her intruders. It ended with a bullet to her gut, in hopes she would suffer as a final 'fuck you' to the King line.
As she lay in a mess of blood, sweat and tears, she choked back her whimpers. It wasn't fair. None of it was fair!
She got up, shaking on her hands and knees, crawling over to her father's corpse. She shook him, desperately trying to wake him, but to no avail. She shook harder.
"Please! Please.... dad, wake up! Please.... I... I need you... I can't.... I can't breath..." she felt blood in the back of her throat, but she refused to die. She had to live. She had to!
The memory is a blur, but that day she was rescued by a young man. A police officer of all things. Peter Gordon. She was alone. She had a decent amount of wealth left behind by her father, an inheritance of sorts. she had to change her name. Leave the old behind. They'd find her if she didn't. So she changed her name to Xueen.
It took six months to repair the damage. She was told she would never be able to have children, but it didn't seem to phase her. She didn't care about starting a family. To hell with what little future she had left. What she craved was revenge.
Revenge came on her 16th birthday. After a few years of underground training, paying hired guns to teach her to use high caliber weapons, and pistols, she finally shot her shot. The men that raided her family home and murdered her father died at her hands. She shot out their knees, broke elbows with sledge hammers, gutted one and slung his entrails over another, she pulled eyes from their sockets, used adrenaline to keep them alive for 48 hours. When the screams finally faded, she sobbed. She finally killed the people that murdered her father.
She had no purpose. She was still going to die. It was just a matter of how long it would take until she died.
But a thought occurred. Those three were just following orders. They were just pawns on a much larger board. There was still a king to overthrow. Her hands clenched into fists, and a snarl laced her lips. There was more to do. She had nothing to lose. Death was already at her doorstep, might as well greet him with an open hand.
She no longer feared death.
Sona invested in stocks which only served to increase her wealth, but by this point her illness had progressed to the point of no recovery. If she'd just gotten the treatment as a child, it wouldn't have progressed this far. She was eighteen.
She hired her own group of thugs, her own gang beginning to form. But they weren't quite up to snuff. She needed someone with more experience in killing... someone who wouldn't hesitate. Someone who would be loyal, and follow her every command. She was getting sicker. She needed someone to be her weapon when she was unable to lift one herself.
A few weeks later she hears of a serial killer. Very proficient. Very lethal. He's taken out a few of her men already, so she dared to see just whom this man was.
And it was then she came face to face with the mass murderer himself. A man decorated in scars along his arms and chest, a sadistic smile trailing over his lips. His eyes had a murderous lust to them, but she could only smile back. He was perfect.
"Hello there, my name is Sona Xueen. Did you know you've been causing me a lot of trouble lately?" she hummed, resting a hand on her chin.
The man advanced slowly his curiosity piqued. Why wasn't she afraid of him? Why wasn't she running?
"Hmm..." he looked her over, a glimmer of a knife in his hand, "Aren't you cute~ what would bring a vulnerable, sweet, young woman all teh way out here~?"
She grinned even wider, "I have a proposition for you... you work for me, you get paid, and you get to kill more than just junkies and my men for a living... work for me and you'll never have to live in filth again! You'll be able to live out any perverted violent fantasy you set your sights on!"
He paused, glancing over the other, then at the knife. After a long train of thought he tossed the knife to the side.
"What'cha got in mind boss?" he chuckled, a dark tone to his voice.
"How does targeting corporate heads sound? They've been very, very naughty, and I think it's about time we send those pig headed shits packing," she smirked.
The other's eyes widened, "A challenge~? I like it!"
"What's your name?"
"Victor. Victor Zsasz,"
She was twenty one.
She now stands at the epiphany of her career. There are ten corporate heads that need to roll, and five have already crumbled. There are five left to snuff out. She grins at the thought. The thought that her revenge will not only satisfy the violent lust in her stomach, but that there will never be children that are forced to go through what she had. Parents will never have to suffer losing their children. Parents will never be forced to resort to extreme measures to ensure their safety and well being. People won't have to die over a system designed to kill them.
She coughs. Her chest hurts. A pain shoots through her entire body. She's surprised she's lived this long. Perhaps it's spite? Or anger? Perhaps it's her wanting to live just a bit longer so she can spend time with the friends she's made along the way.
She feels a hand on her shoulder as she's lifted into a strong pair of arms. It's Victor. He wears a goofy smile as he always does around her. She lets out a satisfied sigh. For now everything is okay. For now everything is normal. One day she'll die. One day Victor will make sure that he's the one to do it. He's vowed. He's promised.
She's somehow made it to thirty.
That's basically everything I have on her so far! I have a few comics planned to go into detail of her relationships with some of the rouges she's closer to. Like Victor as her lover and weapon, Riddler as her informant and occasional sex partner, Mr. Freeze as her father figure, Penguin as a very dear close friend, and her strange friendship with Jim Gordon because of his father saving her life. There's a lot of puzzle pieces I'd rather fill in with art and pictures rather than story format, but I hope you enjoy her lore!
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Hi!
I have seen you are into podcasts? I wanted to try consuming some stories in this media format because I am curious... however, I do not know much.
Do you have any suggestions?
Thank you!
Okay, so I don't know what kind of genres or stories you might like or be looking for, but the majority of podcasts I'm familiar with and can recommend are mainly horror, or have horror elements. So, fair warning there. (Most podcasts on this list include trigger warnings in the episode descriptions too)
The Penumbra Podcast- I'd say this is a good, safe starting point to see if you like consuming stories in podcasts. The first season started out as an anthology series for a variety of stories, ranging from sci-fi noir detective mysteries, swashbuckling westerns, haunted houses, knights slaying monsters, etc. The main premise of the podcast is "stories you've heard before told in ways you'd never expect".
There are two reoccurring storylines, Juno Steel (sci-fi/noir) and the Second Citadel (fantasy/adventure) that the show focuses on more so as it goes on and drifts away from the anthology format, but you can choose to just focus on one and come back to the other later, as the two stories are completely seperate from each other and don't need to be listened to understand the other. Same if you don't want to listen to the horror anthology episodes like Shaken and Home and would rather skip them over (though they are fantastic if you do like horror). It's very engaging, fun, diverse and energetic, and excellent voice acting and sound design. Just a good time all round.
Currently there's three complete seasons out, episode runtime ranging 30-45 minutes and a currently ongoing series. Here's the teaser:
Alice Isn't Dead- So this is just a firm favorite of mine in podcasts, hell, it's one of my favorite stories in general. Keisha, the narrator – a truck driver who is driving across America, delivery to delivery, is looking for her missing wife, Alice. We listen to her speak into the truck radio, partially musing to herself, partially addressing Alice as though she is leaving her a voicemail describing her travels and the bleakness of the road ahead – and worse, the potential of what follows her. It's a horror, a psychological thriller and a mystery, told in short, sharp chapters. The way in which the story is told makes excellent use of the audio medium and actively incorporates it into how the story at hand is being told, which I just adore when podcasts do. (There's a book version out and it just doesn't quite hit the same mark as it does in podcast format). In general it makes for a very intense and intimate experience that just keeps you hooked all the way through.
The story is complete at three seasons with 30 episodes each with a 20 minute runtime.
The Magnus Archives- If you follow me, or if you've been on Tumblr in general, you might already have a vague awareness of this series because of how popular it is, and for good reason too. It's a completed slowburn 200 episode cosmic horror/tragedy/drama that at it's core is an anthology series, every episode being a seemingly self contained short horror story.
Given as "statements" by people who have had paranormal or esoteric encounters to the Magnus Institute based in London, which is dedicated to researching such things, is then recorded onto tapes by the narrator and protagonist Jonathan Sims, (one of my favourite tragic heroes) the newly appointed Head Archivist after his predecessors mysterious death, who appears to have purposefully disorganized the Archives, much to his annoyance. But then patterns begin to occur within the statements, characters and previous statement givers appear in other's stories as they intersect like a huge web, and it's clear that there's something much larger and sinister at play as an overarching narrative comes into view that then draws the Archivist in.
Similar to Alice Isn't Dead, the Magnus Archives makes use of the audio medium and actively incorporates it into how it tells the story with how every statement is recorded onto tapes, as well as the events of the strange happenings in the Archives that the main characters (the Archivist, his research team, and the head of the Magnus Institute) experience themselves. Though without spoiling anything, the tapes themselves have a far more relevant and a active role in not just telling the story, but as the story and world itself.
This was a passion project for the writer, Jonathan Sims, (yes that is the name of the main character which he also voices, yes it is confusing) for a long time, and you can absolutely tell with how planned out the meta plot and intricate lore is, as well as just the quality of the writing in general. It covers all kinds of horrors and explores the concept of human fear itself, our personal relationship to it, which ties into the themes of agency and humanity the series also explores.
(trailer starts at 1:00)
The Silt Verses-
Let Me Speak First of Revelations
And Next of Dark Deceit
Then I'll Speak of Champions
Of Lovers, Gods and Beasts
My Song is Long and Twisted
It Winds, it Worms, It Rends
It Carries Few, It Drowns Many
And Those I Love, It Rends
This podcast is a fairly recent newcomer compared to the rest on the list, the first season is still ongoing, with only nine episodes out so far out of its fourteen with a season two planned ahead as well (with a roughly 40 minute episode runtime) but is absolutely divine. I'm genuinely frustrated that I'm not articulate enough to properly describe just how clever this series is, and can't recommend it enough.
A folk horror/religious fantasy serial drama that follows Carpenter and Faulkner, two river worshippers of an outlawed god, travelling up the length of their deities great black river, in search of revelations. As their pilgrimage lengthens and the river’s mysteries deepen, the two acolytes find themselves under threat from a police manhunt, but also come into conflict with the weirder gods that have flourished in these forgotten rural territories.
If you like themes of religious existentialism, how capitalism will commodify everything once deemed sacred, the indescribable horrors that arise from religious fanaticism/cults, rich lore and world building and complex morally grey protagonists who act as fascinating character foils to one another, lyrical and poetic narration, an eerie atmosphere, and don't mind the occasional intense scenes of body horror, you will love this podcast.
Oh, and crabs.
(I would also highly recommend I Am in Eskew by the same writer, his previous and completed podcast at 30 episodes, about a man living day to day within the monstrous city Eskew, but as an overall story and characters the Silt Verses is the much stronger of the two.)
#hope this is helpful!#sorry if it's a bit much#I get a bit overexcited when I get a chance to talk about podcasts#the penumbra podcast#alice isn't dead#the magnus archives#the silt verses#i am in eskew#podcast recommendations#asks
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Athanasia Part 4: The Peddler
Mostly a character-building chapter this time.
Tansy’s refsheet
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
CONTENT WARNINGS: Animal Whump, monster whump, discussion of past animal cruelty, marginally competent caretaker, Idiot Customers trying to get discounts they don’t deserve
For the first time in many, many days, the creature does not awake to the cold and wind and rough bars of rusted iron beneath her. But she still awakes to pain and hunger and thirst.
The traveler who found her lying helpless beside the smashed open cage where the people of the village kept her has cleaned her wounds, and wrapped them tightly in fabric. But two of her legs are still broken. She cannot walk properly, or run or jump or climb, and even to crawl causes such horrible pain it is hard not to make a sound. She is still starving, but he has no food for her in the morning.
She still does not know if she trusts him. He saved her, he fed her, he helped her, he speaks kindly and did not hurt her when she bit him out of fear. But he hurt her when he cleaned her broken front leg. He pinned her to the ground and bound her limbs and jaws so she could not get away or bite or claw him, and cut and poked and scraped at the dying, rotting flesh. It feels a little better now than it did before, and he did not cut it off like he said he might have to, but the pain has still made her afraid to let him close to her again. She was ready for it to be cut off, and what he did to her was gentler than what the other people did many times before, but it is too similar.
Even though the night was cold even inside, and even though the window rattled and wind howled and thunder crashed all night, and some part of her she had forgotten for many, many years longed to be close to the warmth of another, she stayed huddled at the end of the bed all night, as far from him as she could get, and she hissed and growled when he woke her to check on her. She had to get up before the sun rose to avoid wetting the bed, and she knew she could not get down by herself without falling, but she still tried to ignore the discomfort and fall asleep again, and she only worked up the courage to wake him when it became painful.
Right now the empty, tearing feeling in her stomach is almost painful. She had almost forgotten the dull ache, but that little bit of food last night made her notice it again. It was all she could eat, but it was not enough, and the hunger has come back as strong as ever. She sniffs at his pack, and there are old smells of food, but when she looks inside there is nothing but tools and cloth and metal in various shapes.
“I’m sorry, girl. I don’t have anything else for you,” the man says with a sympathetic expression. The creature ignores him, and keeps checking the rest of the room. There are the scents of mice, but she knows she is not fast enough to catch one right now.
Footsteps approach the door. Even before the knock, the creature is alarmed. When the sharp sound rings through the room, she scrambles under the bed and hides there, trembling and fighting not to cry out from the pain moving that much has caused her. It is not the young man from before, it is a woman who brings water and a bowl of something hot and steaming. For a moment she thinks it might be food, and as soon as she leaves she comes out to check, but it only smells of grain and milk and a little bit of fruit. But at least there is water. She does not realize how desperately thirsty she is until she tastes it, but when she does she cannot stop lapping at the bowl until she is almost sick.
“Careful.” He reaches out, and she flinches, expecting to be struck, but he just slides the bowl away. “Don’t drink too much. I’ll get you some food soon, don’t want you spoiling your breakfast.”
But the creature does not feel like eating anymore. Hungry, starving, but her stomach feels like it will burst. She retreats next to the bed and huddles there, hunched over, her body aching and trembling. A chill rushes over her, piercing right through her fur. It has been a long time since it has been clean enough that she can stand to groom herself. She tries to fluff it up to hold in more warmth, but the room wavers and her head is spinning. Her hurt foreleg is throbbing with a terrible, stabbing pain, like many small knives being jabbed and twisted in bruised flesh. The wound is tightly wrapped in cloth, but even so, when she sniffs at it she barely keeps the water down.
The chills eventually pass, but she still feels weaker and shakier than she did before. She barely reacts when he picks her up and puts her in the bag he carries on his back. Even when he closes it and she is alone in the dark, in a small, cramped space with hard things moving around under the cloth and jostling her. Even with muffled voices around her. She just sprawls miserably on her side, hoping he will carry her away from the people soon, and hoping she will not be sick in here where there is nowhere to get away from the mess.
~~
“Tinware! Get your tinwares here! I’ve got mugs, saucers, spoons, ladles, and other goods for coin or trade! If you want it but don’t have it, I sell it, if you have it but don’t want it I’ll buy it, if you have it and do want it I’ll mend it!”
Jonathan Markeley counted the meager couple of coins left in his purse one more time, just to be sure, and grimaced. The sooner he got out of this town, the better. Both for the creature he’d found starved and half-drowned in the rain and mud last night, and for his own sake. Whatever the reason they’d locked her in a tiny cage and hung her out on a post at the edge of town, he knew he’d be in danger if it was found out that he’d saved her and sheltered her, and perhaps even if it wasn’t. He had an uneasy feeling that if they’d done that to an animal the size of a cat that couldn’t be a real threat to them, a yellow-eyed stranger wouldn’t be too welcome either.
But he’d spent most of what he had on a room for the night, and more on food. He’d given the creature the meager amount of meat in the stew the innkeeper’s son had brought him that night, but the porridge served for breakfast had none. Fortunately he’d gotten four eggs for a farthing, and less than half of that was a meal for a creature her size, but if she needed meat twice or more a day that could get expensive. And if he was going to splint the broken bones and dress her wounds better than the poor job he’d managed last night he’d need proper supplies. It seemed like the poor creature was sick, too. He didn’t know how to tell if she had a fever, or how to help her if she did. They’d always broken for him, even when it seemed a miracle, but she was in bad enough shape as it was. He wanted to just get out of this place, but he still needed to earn a living. For both of them now.
~~
Roger Snelling eyed the peddler who’d spread his wares about at the side of the road with some suspicion. Roger made it his business to know who came and went from the town, and he was fairly certain he hadn’t seen this man before. Not recently, nor in previous years. He’d never felt the itinerant traders and craftsmen who frequented the town could be trusted – there had to be a reason for a man to always move on to the next village before anyone could get to know him – and it seemed a strange coincidence that this fellow would appear in the village the very same night that the gibbet post on the northern edge of the village had blown down.
~~
“Morning!” A middle-aged man with shoulder-length, graying dirty blond hair hailed Jonathan. He briefly glanced up, but his eyes quickly returned to the pitcher he was hammering a dent out of, and he kept them hidden under his wide-brimmed hat.
“Morning,” he grunted in reply.
“What’s your name?”
“John.”
The man sidled closer. He leaned against a hitching post, but didn’t come close enough to make it seem like he was ready to make a purchase. “I’m Roger. Haven’t seen you before, John. You just got in last night?”
“Aye.”
“Must’ve had a time of it in that storm.”
“Oh, I did, believe me. If it weren’t for my feet sinking to my ankles in the mud I’d probably have been blown clear off the road.”
“Where from?”
“Kenningsford.”
“From the South, then? So you’d have seen the gibbet post?”
Jonathan’s brow tensed. This man didn’t seem like he was part of the law in the village, just a busybody with too much time on his hands, but those could be plenty dangerous. He already felt like he was being interrogated, and he had a feeling he knew where this line of questioning was leading.
“What about it? Was there a sign up there I was supposed to read?” It seemed like a plausible thing to believe.
“It blew down in the storm last night. There was a cage hanging from it. Do you know anything about that?”
Jonathan ran his fingers through his beard in an attempt to look thoughtful. “I saw the post down in the road, aye. I didn’t notice a cage, but I was more concerned with getting out of the rain – and thanking the Lord the thing didn’t fall on me!”
Roger pursed his lips. “It was about this big… we found it smashed open this morning, I guess you might not have seen it in the mud -”
John decided the best approach was to pretend he had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. “What, that small? You can’t fit a man in a cage that small, can you?”
“No, but -”
“What would you even put in there, a man’s head?” he interrupted again. “Why’d that need a cage around it? Or a baby, but – well, I’d assumed you folk were more civilized. This ain’t France, eh?” John had a moment of panic as he tried to remember if the latest war had been against the French. It seemed like a safe bet.
“It wasn’t a head, it was an animal inside there!” Roger snapped. He was looking a little agitated. “Or something that looks like one anyway, we don’t know if it’s some sort of demon or something, but it’s not natural whatever it is. It’s been in there for a couple of months, and this morning the cage was empty!”
A couple of months. John’s grip on his hammer tightened. They’d left her in there for months… he hadn’t gotten a good look at the cage, but it looked almost too small to turn around in. But he couldn’t let on that he knew… and if this Roger wanted information out of him, he was going to get information back. “An animal?” he repeated skeptically.
“Aye. Was it there when you passed by?” Roger took a slow step closer, his eyes narrowed.
“Don’t know. Didn’t see one or hear one. Must’ve run off by then.”
“Run off?” Roger’s face lit up like a dog that had scented its quarry. “What makes you say that?”
John pulled his hat lower and glared at the saucer he was polishing. “You said the cage was empty, where else would it go?”
“It could’ve flown off. I never said it wasn’t a bird.”
John ground the polishing cloth into the metal. He’d slipped. Just a small mistake though, one he could cover easily. “You never said it was either. Look, if you’re accusing me of some crime or I’m not welcome in this town, just say so, but stop actin’ like I’m some common criminal.” He looked up, for once meeting Roger’s eyes directly. The older man’s probing expression quickly turned to intimidated discomfort, and he looked away. Older looking, at least. John knew that in truth he was far younger. “What, do you think I stopped in the middle of that bloody storm to chop the thing down?”
“No, no – my apologies, I wasn’t accusing you of nothing!” Roger quickly regained his composure. “You’ve got… unusual eyes.”
“Hmm. No one’s ever informed me before,” John replied with subtly, dry sarcasm.
“Sorry. Couldn’t help noticing. I was just wondering if you’d seen any… tracks in the mud the rain might have washed away by morning, any other signs...”
“Can’t say I did. I’ll keep my eye out, though. What sort of creature was it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s even really of this Earth. It was… near cat-sized, with black and white striped fur -”
“A badger?”
“No, smaller than a cat, not larger. It had this long bushy tail with black and white rings on it -”
“What, like a squirrel?”
“No, it was a beast of prey. Long, slender body, ears near as big as its head...”
“Ohh...” John let a look of recognition cross his face. “You mean a tabby cat? Aye, I’ve heard of those. Think I saw one on the church roof this morning.” He suppressed a grin at the consternation on Roger’s face. He was starting to enjoy this.
“Not a cat, no! A cat’s… closer, at least, but you’d know it from a cat if you saw it.” He scratched his thin goatee. “You know, old Tom Porter’s theory’s that a wildcat crossed paths with a vixen in heat and that thing was the result. I think it’s a bit more ferret-ish, but I’ve never seen anything else like it, and I don’t know anyone who has. It’s got eyes like a cat, though. Big yellow ones… a bit like yours, actually.”
“Are you suggesting it shapeshifts now?”
“Eh? No, don’t be ridiculous!” Roger laughed.
“So, why was it caged up out there? Going to show it off at the fair?”
“Oh, we have. A few times. But to tell you the truth, people’ve gotten tired of the thing. It stopped putting on as good a show after a while, so they just hung it up there to… make an example of it, I suppose. I don’t know if there’s more of ‘em out there to scare off, but even if it’s just punishin’ the damned thing, that’s fine by me.”
John raised an eyebrow. “Seems a bit… excessive.”
Roger leaned in close with an angry sneer. “Listen, the damn thing’s vermin, no different from a fox or stoat. Worse, even. Poor Farmer Brown lost a whole henhouse in one night, it just… ripped them all to pieces. Blood everywhere. I’ve seen foxes kill for sport, but not like that. It’s torn men’s hands to shreds – did this to me not long after we trapped it.” He rolled up his shirt sleeve, revealing a series of messy, badly healed scars.
“I wasn’t arguing against killing it,” John said. Good for her, he thought. He struggled to keep his voice level. “Just… why not just shoot it?”
“Oh, we tried, believe me. It just… came back.”
A thrill of exhilaration ran through John’s chest. He was right. She was like him, a creature of the same nature. “You’re sure it wasn’t just another creature of the same kind?”
“Aye, that’s what everyone thought at first, but wouldn’t it be a strange coincidence? No-one’d ever seen one before, but then three turn up, here, in just a few months? First I heard of it was Lord Hawkwood apparently caught a strange beast on a fox hunt. They said what was left of it after the dogs were through with it wasn’t worth bringing the pelt back, but it sounds like it was the right size and color and least. But not days later somethin’ starts raiding henhouses. Finally we’ve had enough, a few of us track it down, and Brown shot it. The thing was still moving after half its chest was blown open, thought it was going to limp away until he shot it again. So I thought, well, that’s the end of that, now all we’ve got to worry about’s if Charles – he’s the lord’s gamekeeper – will try to cheat Brown out of a bounty on account of no one ever seeing it before so there’s no price for whatever it is.” Roger was becoming more and more animated and excited as he talked. “Well that worked out fair, Charles strung it up, but a few days later the carcass just up and disappeared off the gibbet. And that was the very same night poor Jack Brown lost his chickens. Not any of the other farmers it was going after before, just the man that shot it.”
At this, John gave a forced, exaggerated laugh. “Ahh… Good one, you had me going for a while!”
“What do you mean? Do you think it’s funny? What’s funny about an honest man losing his livelihood?”
“Nothing, it’s just… come on, mate, I know you’re playing me for a fool. Do you tell that story to every stranger who comes this way? You’re saying it came back from the dead for revenge? Sounds more like something took the body and ate it, and either it or something else ate the chickens.”
“No, not for revenge, it just… comes back. Mrs. Brown saw the damn thing slinking away from the henhouse, eyes burning like torches. It took weeks before they caught the thing. I can’t recall if the pattern of stripes was the exact same as the one we shot before, but Charles slit its throat, shoved the body in a cage just to be sure it wouldn’t wander off again, and the very next day it was on its feet and angry. We’ve tried gutting it, cutting its head off… even burned the damn body to ashes once. I’m telling you, it ain’t one of God’s creatures, if you know what I mean. But even the Bishop didn’t know what it was or what to do with it. So, like I said, we started making a sport of it. Show it off at the fair, make a show of drowning it or setting dogs on it, something like that, then have the people come back the next day to see it… not usually good as new after just a day, but definitely not dead.”
John’s heart was breaking as the story went on. He stood up and hid his hands in his pockets to avoid making fists. God he wanted to knock that grin off Roger’s face. When he was a lad there’d been older boys who thought it was good sport to hold him down and beat him with sticks, because the bruises and even missing teeth would be gone in a few days. And he’d believed for the longest time that it was wrong for him to fight back, because even a broken nose might never be the same. These days it was more about caution, about not drawing attention to himself. But he’d always hated men who took pleasure from tormenting those they saw as below them. Their wives, their children, those of lower social standing, animals.
“It’d be more convincing if you actually had this animal,” he remarked through a strained veneer of casual indifference.
“I know it sounds ridiculous, but I swear it’s real. You can ask anyone in the village and they’ll tell you the same. Not sure I’ll sleep easy knowing that thing’s loose, though.” He suddenly swooped forward like a hawk, picking up a finely shaped pewter teapot. “Ooh, the wife’d love this! Could you… hmm, could you make a set of matching teacups and saucers to go with it?”
“Sorry, no custom orders. I have to be on my way before tonight. If she enjoys the pot I might have her in mind the next time I come this way,” John lied, having no intention of returning to the village any time soon. Maybe not ever, or at least not until every current resident was dead and buried. “Or I have several cups and saucers to choose from.”
“Well yes, but I was hoping for the flower-patterned engravings.” Roger sighed. “I suppose just the pot then. How much for it?”
“A shilling.”
Roger scowled. “A shilling? What kind of fool do you take me for? He turned it over in his hands, but seemed more preoccupied with making a show of inspecting it than actually doing so. “I’ll give you fourpence.”
“I didn’t take you for a thief, but that’s what you’ll be if I let you take it for that.” John extended a hand. “I’ll be having it back if you can’t pay a fair price.”
“Four’s fair, especially with this scratch on the handle. I might be willing to pay six if that were fixed… or the full shilling with two cups and saucers.”
“Four’s barely what the metal’d be worth as scrap. If you’re going to insult my work you can clear off.” This was ridiculous. The teapot was one of the heavier items he had to sell, and he was eager to be rid of the weight and bulk, but not if he couldn’t at least cover the night’s stay. “I brought the price down from sixteen because of your story, but I can get at least that much in Sheffield.”
“Ehh… I’ll give you eight.”
“I won’t sell it for any less than ten. Take it or leave it.”
“Hmm...” Roger’s eyes darted around. “Nine and that sugar bowl? It’s plain, but -”
“Ninepence and you take the pot and the bowl as they are.”
Roger hesitated for a while. “I’ll take ‘em. You’re a hard bargainer and a fine craftsman.”
“As are you, sir. But you’ve got a good eye. It’s a pleasure doing business with you – and give your wife my regards.”
But as soon as Roger was safely out of earshot, Jonathan growled under his breath. “You’re a ball-less cur, and your wife’s a bitch if she married you and hasn’t poisoned you yet.” He almost wanted to use tweezers to count out the coins so he wouldn’t touch anything Roger had touched. But at least he’d told him what he needed to know about the creature. And he hadn’t gotten as much as he’d hoped for the teapot, but it was enough. It would get them to the next town. And if he could make another sale or two, perhaps buy some medicine. It probably wasn’t a good sign that she’d been hidden right there in his pack all this time and not made a fuss.
~~
Roger Snelling turned the teapot over in his hands as he walked away, whistling a jaunty tune. The peddler was a surly fellow, and suspicious, but he had to admit it was good workmanship.
Good workmanship, but Roger wasn’t so sure it was his. He’d gotten a look at the man’s hands as coin and goods were exchanged, and they weren’t smooth, exactly, but they were… odd. Rough and calloused like a working man’s should have been, but not a scar on them. Not from a burn or carelessly touching hot metal or a slip with a knife or other sharp tool. It was strange. All the smiths he knew had at least a few marks, no matter how careful or lucky they were. He was half inclined to believe the man had stolen them, but then a thief’s hands wouldn’t be so pristine either. Probably just a trader who bought and resold things, that must have been why he was so reluctant to change or mend things, because he couldn’t. But the little scratch wasn’t really noticeable. Roger had only pointed it out to try to get a better price.
#whump#my writing#Tansy (OC)#Jonathan Markley (OC)#animal whump tw#monster whumpee#broken bones#fever#past animal cruelty discussion#immortal whumpee
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All the Many Shades of Gerry - Chapter 13
Chapters: 13/19
Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Gerard Keay/Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Gerard Keay, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist, Gerard Keay/Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist
Characters: Martin Blackwood, Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist, Gerard Keay, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Sasha James, Gertrude Robinson, Elias Bouchard
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Library AU, Librarian Jon, Artist Gerry, Trans Male Character, Trans Martin Blackwood, Canon Asexual Character, Asexual Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist, Ace Subtype - Sex Positive, Polyamory, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Romantic Fluff, Falling In Love, Boys in Skirts, Kissing, Demisexual Gerard Keay, Minor Character Death, Past Character Death, Canon-Typical Child Neglect, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Flirting, Minor Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist/Tim Stoker, Adventures in Hair Dying, Happy Ending, Banter, Gerry has a lot of sass, Gerard Keay is Morticia Adams, Jon is a very grumpy Librarian, Martin adores them anyway.
Summary: In which Gerry is a kaleidoscope and Jon and Martin can’t help falling in love with him.
He happens to love them back.
Find it on Ao3
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
If someone had asked Martin where he had least expected to be on the day after his thirtieth birthday, the veterinarian probably wouldn’t have been at the top of his list, but it definitely would have made the top ten.
Honestly, Martin didn’t think he had ever stepped foot into a vet clinic before in his life. He had never owned so much as a pet hamster, and now here he stood, clutching a tiny ball of mewling fluff and trying not to get distracted by the pet toys.
He felt positively inundated with new information on all sides. There were about a million different types of pet food lining the walls, and everything seemed to be a new bright colour to draw his distracted eyes. Warning signs that made very little sense to him filled the space, most memorably ‘Large birds must be kept leashed at all times inside the practice’, and ‘Reptiles need to be secured inside their travel enclosures.’
There was indeed an iguana in a massive glass enclosure sunning itself under a heat lamp, but it appeared to be a permanent resident, not a guest. Seemingly opposite to this was the massive tabby cat draped across the reception desk.
Martin begins to panic slightly.
He desperately wished he had allowed one of his lovers to accompany him, but he had sent Gerry back to bed to sleep and Jon had been shooed off to work, both quite thoroughly hung-over.
Now here he stands, alone with his new fluffy friend, and doesn't even know where to start. Neither of his partners have ever actually had a kitten before, but at least they had both owned cats before.
Gerry had been adopted by Saturn as a full-grown boy when he arrived at the window of his shitty little flat in Edinburgh and demanded to be let in. Gerry had confessed to a romantic feeling of instant affection for the fluffy beast and had taken Saturn in without a moment’s hesitation. They had moved together as he traveled the country, eventually settling together in London, where he had found Jon again.
Jon had been raised with several cats that had all been born before him and had liked them, but he had told Martin once that he heavily associated cats with his Grandmother and his slightly cold upbringing. That was all the pet experience he had until he met Saturn and fell in love with him as easily as they’d both fallen in love with Gerry. Like goth, like feline companion, apparently.
Nevertheless, Saturn did not appreciate being taken to the vet and had never gone once since Martin had met him.
"Can I help you, sir?" A kind-looking older lady sat at reception, and she beaconed Martin forward gently.
"I- I-" He started, stuttering badly. He closed his eyes and shook himself to dispel the unfortunate remnant of his childhood. “I found this kitten, and I was hoping the vet could check on it for me?”
“And will you be wanting to surrender it into our care?” She asks, tapping away at her keyboard.
“What?” Martin shies away, pulling the cat protectively even closer to his chest.
“You’re more than welcome to keep it, but we do also take in strays if you aren’t able to.” She smiles at him soothingly.
“Oh, I want to keep her please.” Martin flushes a bit. “I already gave her a name.”
The woman smiles at him knowingly. “The vet can see you in 15 minutes then.”
She takes his contact information, and they weigh Martin’s new friend. She guesses the kitten's age to be about 2 weeks and sends him off to sit close to the iguana.
*
An hour later, Martin stumbles out the door, armed with more supplies than he could ever have imagined he needed to raise one small animal. His head is spinning, alternating between fond adoration and complete anxiety over this new task that he has given himself. Luna meows at him supportively, happy to be clean and have a full belly.
Out on the street, he finds Jon. It’s raining slightly, and he’s wrapped in a long peacoat, with a scarf Martin is certain was once his.
“What are you doing here?” Martin demands, shocked. He stumbles over to his partner, and Jon reaches out to steady him. “I thought you were at the library."
Jon presses a quick kiss to his shocked mouth, before taking several things out of his overcrowded arms.
"I know you said that you were going to do this on your own, but I wanted to be nearby in case you needed me, so I called off." He shrugs a bit, "I reckoned that I had earned it, what with all the overtime I work and don't get paid for."
Martin is filled with warmth, eyes welling a bit. "Oh, Jon."
"Oh no, don't cry. I'm sorry." Jon's face pinches in concern. "I can go if you want me to."
"No, I'm so happy you're here. I was just wishing for you, and there you were. Thank you." Martin steps towards him as best he can, and they kiss softly for a few moments, out in the rain.
In time, the kitten, haphazardly clutched to Martin's chest, makes her displeasure at the soggy conditions known. Gripping hands tightly, Jon and Martin set off towards the bookstore, just a couple blocks over.
It’s quiet when they arrive, the morning pre-work rush over, and the student and lunch crowds far off yet. The two baristas and Tim descend upon them immediately when they see the small head poking out of Martin’s coat. There is much cooing and fuss over Luna, and Martin recounts the tale of discovering her in the back alley of Gerry’s bar.
Once they return to work, Jon and Martin settle on one of the sofas, a coffee table before them. They make up a small cat bed, which Luna explores for a few moments, before sitting at the edge and staring at Martin imploringly. He scopes her up and plops her inside, before placing the tiny bed right in his lap. She happily passes out after that, the wild adventures of the morning catching up with her little kitten body.
Deciding to truly have the day off, Jon does not take out his laptop and start working on it, instead ordering their tea, picking a book to read from the store, and bringing it all over to settle with his partner.
“Thank you for coming,” Martin tells him, a soft look on his face. He leans an elbow on the back of the couch, head resting on his fist. “I didn’t even realise how much I needed you until I saw you there.”
“I know,” Jon starts, frowning in concentration, “that I’m not always the best at sensing these things, that sometimes I can be too focused on myself and the things going on in my head. I do hope that I always manage to catch the important moments, and I trust that you’ll always let me know when I don’t.”
Jon pauses, and sighs, a self-deprecating smile lining his face. He continues, “I want to learn to be who you need me to be. I want to be for you, what you always are to me. I love you, Martin.”
“I love you too, Jon.” Martin squeezes Jon’s hand, before placing a sweet kiss in his palm. “You are exactly who I need you to be.”
It is a soft, hazy sort of day. The rain pours outside, and Jon lies against Martin and reads two books before lunchtime. Martin practices bottle-feeding Luna, every few hours, and Jon sits nearby watching nervously. He wonders vaguely if his partner is alarmed to be around an infant of any kind for a while, but on the third feeding, Jon seems to rouse himself and offers to give it a try.
Each time a new client comes in, there's a round of cooing and petting, and Martin worries that she’ll be spoiled rotten in no time. He imagines that if she spends much time here, he’ll have to sell cat treats and Luna will one day be as fat as a house.
At one point, Jon starts to read aloud, and Martin seems to fall asleep gently propped against his shoulder. He wakes to find Jon laughing softly and Luna learning to use him as a climbing frame.
"I think she likes you, love," Martin whispers into his hair.
"Well, I think I might like her too," Jon confesses, a world away from his scepticism of just this morning.
After lunchtime, Gerry flies into the store very manically, clutching a very strange backpack to his chest. It has a weird clear window, reminiscent of a ship’s porthole, and the rest of it is hard structured plastic.
He ducks down to kiss first Martin, then Jon, before thrusting the backpack into Martin's hands.
"What is this?" Martin asks, holding it away from himself as if it might bite.
"It's a cat backpack. Saturn has always preferred it to a normal cat basket, and I thought it might be useful if we need to take her to work with us and then back to various flats." Gerry walks around the table, bodily picking up Jon's legs and sitting beneath them. He looks like nothing so much as a large, damp bat, black trench coat flapping around him like over large wings. "I ordered her one of her own, but it won't be here for a few days, so I brought Saturn's in the meantime."
There's a beat of shocked silence, so Gerry adds, "Only if you want it, obviously."
"I- I do, thank you." Martin can feel himself blushing with odd pleasure.
He had made sure to ask them if they were okay with Martin keeping Luna, but he hadn't really expected them to embrace the situation with such gusto, and his heart burns with an odd intensity at their gestures of support.
It's almost-
It's almost like they love him, and care about all the things he cares about.
Martin sits, staring at a cat backpack, and allows the realisation to wash over him. It hits him like a tidal wave, despite the dozens and maybe hundreds of times they've said the words to him.
He feels very foolish, left floored by the fact that his lovers- well, that they love him!
Martin knows, understands even, that he has been left slightly broken by his father leaving, his mother hating him, the things that he chose to do to survive in his early adulthood. He does understand that, and yet he never realized that he was hearing Jon and Gerry say they love him and saying the words back, and yet subtly holding on to the (clearly mistaken) understanding that they don't really mean them.
It makes a sick kind of sense, clinging to the idea that they don't really care about him, so when they decide that they don't anymore, it doesn't leave him broken beyond repair.
Martin puts the cat bag down on the table, hands Luna to Gerry, and gets up. He waves at them reassuringly when they try to ask him what's wrong, before walking to the bathroom, locking the door, and sobbing like a child for several long moments.
*
As Luna grows, she spends time with each of them.
Gerry takes her most of the first nights, feeding her through the evenings and then handing her back to Martin as he leaves for the bookstore.
This means she spends quite a lot of her formative life in a bar, but when Martin goes in to check on them, he finds Gerry's plastered clientele just as enamored with the kitten as his own tea-drinking patrons.
Jon likes to have her in the late afternoons, keeping her at the library for a few sleepy hours before he leaves for the day. He tells Martin once that the children's reading group comes in during that time, and he likes to sit in with them and let Luna listen along.
The children, of course, adore her and Jon tells Martin very primly, "Listening comprehension is a very important skill in a developing infant."
Martin finds it hilarious and adorable and can't help but pull Jon into his arms and kiss him breathless, an unimpressed Luna trapped between them.
Saturn does not appreciate Luna at first, disappearing in a huff the first few times Martin brings her over to the studio.
"Don't worry about it, love." Gerry had waved away his concern casually. "He's just a jealous baby. He'll figure out that she wants to play with him eventually, and then they'll be the best of friends."
Indeed, Martin walks into the kitchen one morning to find the two cats curled together in a shaft of sunshine. Saturn is gently giving her a bath, and Luna purrs sweetly at the attention.
When Saturn notices him watching, he untangles himself, shows Martin his bum, and then disappears. He's reminded of nothing so much as Gerry himself, caught eating ice cream for breakfast, or smoking during the day, an activity he would insist is a nighttime pursuit only. The same drama is employed as a distraction technique, and Martin wonders whether the cat learnt it from the goth, or the goth learnt it from the cat.
Luna grows and settles, and Martin adores having her more than almost anything.
He takes the time, as they raise her, to force himself to accept his life for what it truly is. He puts aside the constant nagging fear that Jon and Gerry will lose interest in him one day and begins to notice all the ways they show him they love him, which makes the words all the more precious to him when they take the time to tell him.
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TMA: Episode 12, “First Aid”
Summary: Jonathan reads the statement of Lesere Saraki, regarding “a night shift at St. Thomas Hospital, London.”
And here we have the second appearance of Jared Key. As Jonathan said, there’s a lot to unpack in whatever the hell went down in that hospital that night, but I think it’s interesting that Jared comes into the hospital that night with second-degree burns covering almost his entire body, and only stayed for 4 days in the hospital. I have no real experience with severe burns like that, but google tells me that it takes 1-3 weeks for a second-degree burn to heal, and the sheer amount of his body that was burned makes me think that he should have been in the hospital for longer than just 4 days. And when Dominic Swain meets him in November of the next year (episode 4), Dominic doesn’t mention any kind of deformity or scarring, or the eye tattoos that Lesere mentions. Dominic describes him as having “the unshaven look of someone who hadn’t slept in a couple of days”, but it’s unclear if Dominic actually saw any of Jared’s skin besides his face. He was wearing a long, black leather coat (again), he could have been wearing gloves, and since his face was the only part of him that was unburned, it’s possible Dominic just couldn’t see any scars. But the paranoid part of me wonders if he had any scars at all, because that’s the kind of mysterious fuckery I’ve come to expect from this show.
Lesere notes how strange it is that their clothing appears untouched by whatever burned them. The fire department also reported several burn marks on the ground near where the two men were found unconscious. This is highly reminiscent of the - I have no better words for it, sorry - spontaneous human combustion we see in episode 8, when Ivo Lensik found a patch of smoldering wooden floor where Raymond Fielding had been standing moments earlier. (In that same episode, Ivo himself felt a “warmth that seemed to start in my bones and radiate out through me” that made him feel like he was “burning up”, which only stopped when Father Burroughs knocked on the door.) I would very much like to know who the second man they brought into the ER that night was, as well as the other people I’m presuming were the burn marks the FD found. I feel like that would shed some light on this whole thing.
I find it very interesting that Jared’s burns stop in a sharp line across his neck, “as though he’d been wearing a choker that the damage couldn’t get above”. There wasn’t anything on his neck when they brought him in, but he asks Lesere about a brass pendant he was wearing and seems...disquieted, or something, when she says the EMTs hadn’t brought it in. This is almost certainly one of the creepy cult pendants we saw in episode 9 (the serial killer episode). He also asks her about “a small book bound in red leather”, and of course any time I hear “book bound in leather” now I think of Leitner, though with no other clues it’s impossible to say anything definitively. Maybe Jared’s just a well-read Communist.
It is interesting that the pendant, as well as the eye tattoos all over Jared’s body, seem to have offered him some kind of protection from the fire. Whether that “protection” is deliberate, or whether the fire just wasn’t powerful enough to touch those eyes, is unclear at this point. The eyes are creepy as all hell, and my instinct is to say that creepy = evil, but I don’t know how strictly TMA is going to follow that convention. Did Jared get the tattoos and wear the pendant because he knew it protect him, or is he just some crazy cult member and the protection was just a nice perk?
Which brings me back to Jared himself. I can’t decide if he’s good or evil, and maybe I’m looking at it too much like a dichotomy, but that’s how I tend to see it. There are the “good guys” (the ones who are trying to fight for good, even when they make mistakes or do bad things), and the “bad guys” (who fight for evil/destruction/chaos/death/etc.). Jared burns the Leitner in episode 4, which...seems like a good thing? He seems to be doing it against his mother’s wishes, saying that she “doesn’t always know what’s best for our family.” Was he protecting them by destroying the Leitner? And in this episode, it seems like he prevents some kind of catastrophe (likely involving the loss of human life) by killing the man he was brought in with. And he stops Lesere from touching the other man when he was laying there chanting, implying that touching him would harm her somehow (possibly by burning her as well). And he seems to have knowledge beyond what he should - he knew the code to the supply cabinet without asking, and he saw something in the Leitner in episode 4 that Dominic certainly didn’t. I trust Jared Key about as far as I could throw him. But could he be, if not strictly “good”, at least...not-evil? I’m having a hard time pinning down his motivations so far.
And what about Lesere’s part in the whole thing? When she steps aside and allows Jared access to the other man in the hospital bed, he tells her, “Yes. For you, better beholding than the lightless flame.” “The lightless flame” is the last part of the mystery man’s chant that seems to generate heat to the point of boiling liquids, melting door handles, and burning bodies, but what exactly is this “beholding” and why does Jared single Lesere out in his statement? In fact, why does she witness and remember any of this, when all the people in the waiting room were so influenced by some external force that they left the area for 15 minutes during this incident’s climax, with no indication that any of them thought it was odd or noticed anything at all?
Other things that interest me but that I don’t have much to say about yet: The mystery man’s chanting included the name of a Sumerian demon that supposedly “was able to boil fish alive in their rivers”, as well as a Polish word meaning “to cauterize or brand”. This is the first instance (that I noticed) of Sumerian mythology or Polish (the language). All the creepy language stuff so far has been Latin and Sanskrit, so I honestly don’t know what to make of this. Also, I find it interesting that Dr. Katie Grice was the only person besides Jared Key and the narrator herself who was named in this episode, despite her having no obvious, notable involvement in the incident. Does this mean she’s going to show up in a future episode? I’ll certainly be keeping my “eye” out...
This post is part of a series where I write my thoughts about each episode and obsessively connect dots in an effort to figure out The Big Mysteries of the series. All posts in this series are tagged “is this liveblogging?” Comments and messages are welcome but I have only listened to season 1, so I ask that you not spoil me for anything beyond episode 40. In the words of Jonny Sims...thanks for listening!
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RANDOM - Banana Fish Review, Vol. 1, Part Four
(This was one of my fav gifs looking for gifs of Shorter.)
*There will be pictures/gifs included tomorrow, because this is already late & loading them is taking forever, for some reason.
Haha, no, I actually prettied it up 1/5/21. Yes, I’m glorious.
No I’m actually Dio DIO in this situation, who am I kidding.
(This transition from Caesar to Dio fascinates me, by the way.) (The GIF.)
The JOJO reference is because I’ve finally finished Diamond is Unbreakable! It was fun! I enjoyed it a lot! Ready for the next part!
But back to Banana Fish.
Hope you enjoy this!
So my plans failed again. Who is surprised? (Not me.)
I apologize profusely for the gaping void of Banana Fish-ness left since last I posted.
No really. I now have an alarm set for every Wednesday.
Let’s see how this goes. News Update: Maybe next time.
Also, my internet is still blitzy & rotten, otherwise I would’ve posted this yesterday (the 15th).
Now on to the in-depth, delighted gushing - er, review, of Banana Fish!
*Also, this is part 4, and 4 is a special number for me. Because of this guy:
And I can spell his name correctly!!! (It’s Ulquiorra, from Bleach, my 1st anime fan gushing love.)
Yes, I’m strange. Moving on.
So, brief recap, since I’m not sure anyone has read Part 3, given how terrifyingly long it is. If you missed it, here’s the link:
https://imagine-fight-write.tumblr.com/post/632014616404344832/random-banana-fish-review-vol-1-part-3-my
Please love & like it & repost to the rest of the Web. I worked tremendously hard on it.
Yes it’s long, but oh, it was delightful! There was snark! Delicious food! Wine! Fabulous mustaches! Mysteries! I gushed so much!
(And snarled at the wonton waste of good breakfast food, which I will not forget & always condemn.)
*I mean, I know people who will throw up if they have breakfast in the morning. But it’s important to eat so you have energy to do things & feel good.
And Dino took a perfectly beautiful breakfast & essentially wasted it for no good reason. I was so mad.
We meet Dino Golzine, a.k.a., Ash’s worst nemesis /enemy (note, I can’t spell nemesis) and major reason for why his life sucks.
(Although society doesn’t help either. Though the police try. They really do. Except what’s his face who’s complete scum & thoughtless, but we won’t meet him til Vol. 2. Plus I don’t think he has a name?)
But yes, Dino Golzine. All around awful person, and not safe around children (or anyone, really.) He’s low-key in this scene, mostly using verbal assaults (to great effect) but just you wait. There’s a reason he’s a mob boss.
Ash snarks, to great effect, but he’s no match. Dino has all the cards and all the dice (cards & dice being metaphors for power, & how he involves awful, painful memories of Ash’s past & tries to manipulate & order him around. Brrr.)
But Ash rallies, and ultimately refuses returning to be Dino’s heir / toy.
We meet Shorter! Huzzah!
(End of recap.)
It’s clear right away Shorter & Ash are old friends. They exchange quips about Marvin. We learn Marvin holds a mean grudge, so savvy readers can guess it’ll come to play later (it does.)
Shorter’s last line is strange.
“Just don’t put me in the position of having to kill you.”
Which is kinda out of the blue. I don’t know what to make of it. It doesn’t spoil or fore-shadow anything (unless in a very confused, round-about way) because that never happens later. So I’m confused.
Ash laughs it off and goes zooming off on his motor-bike / motorcycle (not sure which).
Note, from this short scene we already learn Shorter has his own sources of information - he knows Ash went to Dino’s, fast enough to be there before their conversation ended (unless he was just lucky to be there already - why was he there?). He already knows about Ash’s talk with Marvin, with enough detail to warn Ash about Marvin’s temper & that Marvin likes him, which is a bad combination.
Shorter is smart & cares about his friends, warning Ash about Marvin.
Aren’t friends great?
Especially after meeting such a dominating if soft spoken monster like Dino?
The answer is yes.
Next, we get this hilariously great shot of Ash running up the steps to his dingy apartment (pg. 47.)
It’s reminiscent for me of a scene in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Part 1, when Jonathan & Dino have their epic fight in the Joestar mansion.
There’s a part where Jonathan does this epic flip up to a second floor via sword (it’s epic) & it ends with this a few-seconds-longer-than it-needs-to-be shot of his butt. You can’t miss it. I’m usually oblivious to such things & I noticed it. I laugh every single time.
Anyway, back to Banana Fish.
(The atmosphere of grunginess (it’s not a word, I meant dirty, ugly, rough) & spartan furniture is great. Just look at those walls. I adore it.
(But would never want to live there.) Ash is clearly not rich & after Dino’s rich mansion, this is a stark contrast.
Also, there are no pictures or posters on the walls (which are festooned with dirt and cracks instead.) In fact, there’s almost nothing in terms of personal effects at all.
This baffles me. I mean yes, I assume they’re all dirt poor, living in a gang & working for the mafia on the side isn’t something you do for the luxuries. But surely they’d have something.
Or maybe it has something to do with Japanese decorating aesthetics? Meaning, Japanese appear to be more spartan than Americans in terms of decor (see the book, In Praise of Shadows, for example.)
* I can’t spell aesthetics. Why do I even use that word?
The apartment just looks extremely bare compared to others I’ve seen in movies depicting this era. Is what I’m saying.
Look at those bare walls. (It hurts me.)
Thoughts? Comments on how Japanese, Americans, and Europeans differ in basic decorating styles? Comment below!
Also remember as always, Banana Fish is both set & was written in the 1980’s, well before the “modern” style we have now.
Unless - wait. There is something very important to Ash which he’s clearly hiding in the apartment he goes to, which I assume only Skip & select members know about.
So maybe this isn’t actually Ash’s main base, where he sleeps & hangs out?
Yes, that must be it.
If you’re confused, I’ll explain once we get done with this section.
Moving on.
We meet Skip!!!! (Pg.47)
Black characters (and Latino) are still, alas, extremely rare in manga, anime, & other media, so all the cheers for including Skip so early & as such an important character.
Because Skip is very important. For multiple reasons. More on that later. Also note, 1 of the gang members Ash busts earlier is also black.
Again, the dialogue is great here between Ash & Skip, establishing Ash’s trust in him. Which is no small thing.
Skip is like Shorter, (agh, both their names start with S) sweet, but also has a nose for news.
Arthur’s going to get it, hah!
There’s yet another reference to it being early.
Though there’s no specific time mentioned . . . Nope, not since Ash found the poor, dying banana fish dude.
Does Ash usually sleep in? Is he a night owl? He was wandering around at 1 in the morning last night, after all.
*Yes, technically it was early morning, but it was still dark, so bite me.
But then, he was also suspicious & keeping tabs on his 2 gang members. So, who knows.
But I’m going to guess he’s a night owl.
Ash sits on the bed, and after Skip mentions everything is good, “him, too”.
Ash gives his 1st real, genuine smile. Gentle, relieved, no hard edges. Just pure happiness & relief. It’s sweet.
(Also, I just realized the “him, too” is supposed to be a surprise / shock for the reader & I spoiled it earlier. I do apologize.)
Skip offers to get coffee but Ash declines, deciding to nap, which reminds me:
Actually, drinking coffee before you take a nap can, for some people, actually make you sleep better.
Also, short cat naps (15-30mins) can boost your energy and mood.
Naps are good for you!
I almost wondered if the comics Skip had on the table might’ve been manga, but remembered it was the 1980’s and, far as I know, manga wasn’t big the U.S. yet. Alas!
Which is funny if you think about this being in a manga.
Skip goes to leave. Ash puts his hand in his pocket and gets this intense, almost fierce expression on his face (middle panel, pg. 48).
I was absolutely baffled by this reaction for a long time, but finally figured it out. Ash’s reaction is supposed to be baffling, because what he realizes right here will be revealed in the next few pages.
Skip, concerned, asks what’s up, but Ash brushes him off and sends him off to buy coffee. (After which I sincerely hope he takes a nap, because he needs one, he’s been up all night.) Sleep is good for you!
Skip is able to buy coffee with a single coin. A single coin.
(Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
All my tears, and curses on inflation and overpriced coffee! And Starbucks!
Anyway, we learn Arthur’s going to get it (and Skip is the best spy ever) and the scene cuts to:
Our favorite person (not) Dino Golzine, tending his orchids.
I like this. It’s a rather unique hobby for a villian. I assume to give him a refined, elegant, and exact air.
He’s interrupted by Angie & his fabulous mustache (snickers) and this delightfully comic scientist person (who might be important later? The face sameness makes it difficult to judge, & I’m too lazy to consult my other volumes, which are not close by.)
But his entrance is priceless (pg. 50). I mean seriously, please go find it if you haven’t already. It’s dramatic, with a big WHAM! & he looks so cartoonish.
I love it.
Dino tells him, essentially, “don’t disturb my orchids” and me being an non-gardner person, I wonder: is it actually true loud noises can disturb flowers?
Comment below!
Anyway, Dino quickly establishes yes, he did send Ash’s gang members to kill the poor banana fish guy who started this whole mystery, and yes, it was important.
There’s a great panel (pg. 51) of scientist dude, drawn much less comedic, the whole panel black except for a white aura around him sweating and clearly in distress.
He whispers, “It - it’s gone.”
Dino snaps to attention with a leonine look, exactly like a cat who has just spotted another cat. It’s easily my favorite picture of Dino so far, very striking.
The dialogue is brilliant and snappy, short and direct.
“What is gone? . . . You’re positive? . . . Just a small amount.”
And we get the grand reveal:
Ash, taking out a bullet shaped capsule (was the shape intentional by Yoshida?). A capsule he’d clearly taken from the dying banana fish guy. There’s a great panel on the bottom of pg. 52 of Ash’s questioning expression and a ?
He unscrews the capsule and pulls out a tiny vial.
Thinks of the address the dying banana fish guy gave him.
Ash goes into the next room, where we see the silhouette of someone sitting with a plaid blanket draped across their knees.
He expresses his first real look of vulnerability, and gives a wonderful line:
“Go see . . . Banana fish . . . He said it and died. And you say it and you might as well be dead. Who did this to you? Griff . . . Please tell me, big brother.”
Everything clicks together (almost.)
Griff /Griffin is the soldier shown way back in the very beginning. The one who left for a few minutes and came back insane and shot up his squad.
Who’s now a human vegetable.
Banana fish is clearly responsible. Somehow.
And Dino is mixed in with it (of course). Pieces are coming together, but questions still remain.
Until next time!
#random#banana fish#banana fish review#manga#ash lynx#skip#banana fish shorter#friendship#xena warrior princess#JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
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ADSOM Headcanon Voices
At least for the villains/antagonists anyway (Holland’s here too), since I’m still figuring out how I think everyone else sounds. BTW, we’re ignoring accents here because someone (AKA myself) is horrible at recognizing them; this would mostly be about tone, enunciation, and whatnot. I’ve included some examples and explanations for anyone who’s curious about my reasoning too for fun. If anyone has any of their own headcanon voices to share, please do! I’d love to hear them! I’m also including descriptions for each link for those who don’t have time to listen or who don’t want to be spoiled for the mentioned shows. Enjoy!
Athos- Either Jonathan Young or Dan Stevens. Examples:
https://youtu.be/B6AlxZeTKpY (It’s a cover of Yzma’s song, a removed part of the Emperor’s New Groove soundtrack. I recommend listening to both the beginning verses and the final chorus-chant to get a full feel of the range in energy).
Jonathan Young: My take on Athos is both extremely energetic and extremely dramatic, so of course my first pick would be something based on a Disney villain song! Any one of Jonathan Young’s Disney covers would work here, but this one is the most fitting. There’s just something about the way Young jumps around in speed and almost seems to be growling some of the lines. His tone has both playfulness and roughness in it that suits Athos well; also, he’s absolutely the type to sing a villain song.
https://youtu.be/TZpG7i6H_LA (It’s a clip from the first season of Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, specifically one focusing on the first season’s villain, Scarlemagne. If you watch the whole clip you can see an example of both excited Athos and calm Athos. The clip also features an example of his laugh and general musical ability. I’m sure some of his lines as Matthew Crawley from Downton Abbey would work too, but this is the first example that comes to mind.)
Dan Stevens: Stevens’ voice also does a really good job of summarizing the manic energy that I attribute to Athos, plus there’s a villainous laugh in there that sounds exactly like a hyena cackling- which fits the White King. This is also a good example of both how Athos plays the piano and when- he’s absolutely the type to throw fake parties for his own amusement. The way he gets so excited and gives out the orders to speed up while also getting more heightened- it just works for Athos, I don’t know how else to describe it.
Astrid- Cate Blanchett
https://youtu.be/Qi1fR98vFME (It’s a clip from Netflix’s Mowgli movie, specifically the scene where Mowgli meets Kaa. The most accurate lines to me are at roughly 0:50, 1:00 and 1:50.)
Astrid in almost every way is more difficult to figure out than Athos, but I really like this voice for her: it’s husky but sophisticated, deep but rich. The way Blanchett speaks so smoothly and so menacingly while hardly raising her voice seems very Astrid, as does the way she sounds so detached from everything. Astrid doesn’t need to emote much in her voice since I hardly think she emotes at all, but the undercurrent of interest and intensity she has is still present here. Or maybe it’s just the fact a giant snake’s talking, who knows?
Holland- Steve Blanchard
https://youtu.be/dvm18AHMeYM
https://youtu.be/8gVA0UN1Q3M
(Both of these are songs from the Frankenstein Musical- the former is The Waking Nightmare and the latter is These Hands. Waking Nightmare is a good example of the lower range of Holland’s voice, such as when he’s angry, while These Hands is a good example of his higher range, such as when he’s excited or anguished. Either one works and both are fantastic, I highly recommend just listening to the songs anyway due to how gripping they are.)
Its obvious (at least to me) why this voice reminds me of Holland- there’s so much raw emotion in the way Blanchard sings/speaks his lines as Frankenstein’s monster. To me, Holland seems like a character who would monologue or even sing like this, trying to vent his frustration at just how crummy life is to him; there’s no reason he can’t be very talented at doing so. At different points I imagine Holland’s voice as either high or low, so whatever voice I attributed to him needed to have the range to switch between the two, and it also needed at least a bit of roughness since Holland’s voice is described in canon to be gravelly. Blanchett doesn’t disappoint in either regard.
Osaron- Multiple (It changes depending on his state. Not all of these answers are human; as such, this section’s structured a little different.)
https://youtu.be/E7WQ1tdxSqI (This is a clip from 2001: A Space Odyssey, where the Hal AI is deactivated. The latter half of the clip is when the AI begins to sing- this is the part that sounds like Osaron to me.)
I’ve never seen this movie, but I know this scene. The AI that sings in the clip is voiced by Douglas Rain, and it encapsulates what I imagine Osaron sounded like when Holland first found him in Black London. Like in the clip, his voice lagged and swooped in pitch due to his exhausted state, with some grammatical errors occurring as Osaron was still actively trying to remember Holland’s language. Fun fact, this song was the first one sung solely by a computer (not in this movie specifically though), so it has even more of an Osaron vibe to it.
https://youtu.be/9altRF7LWgE (It’s a compilation of Aaravos clips from the Dragon Prince cartoon.)
Besides the fact that all of the quotes themselves fit Osaron, the pitch and general sneakiness of Aaravos’ voice match exactly what I imagine Osaron to sound like at full strength. The voice actor here is Erik Dellums, and he does a really good job hamming up the whole “trust me even if you know it’s a bad idea” vibe. The only thing that isn’t 100% exact is that I imagine Osaron speaks a little quicker than this sometimes; he’s described as practically burning with pent-up energy, so some of that would likely be reflected in his speech.
https://youtu.be/ZhlZ-cPO0Xw (It’s the Prowler’s Theme from Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse.)
Now for a fun (if a little strange) one! If you listen to this instrumental, there are these electronic “roaring” sounds (heard most clearly at 0:38, 0:51, and 0:57). These are actually distorted elephant sounds used to help the track seem more intense (which they do, especially as the music progresses), but they also sound a lot like what I imagine Osaron sounds like in his natural state. Oshoc don’t really use a verbal language to communicate on their own (as stated above, Osaron canonly has to use magic to translate spoken language; even if Black London had the Vitari language, Osaron likely didn’t need to know it if he was magic to begin with), but they do still make noise, mainly in the form of distorted thrumming hums of magic. It’s kind of like the infrasound that many animals and even dinosaurs used to communicate. Holland probably heard faint sounds like these as he was approaching Osaron’s throne for the first time, and in the final battle when Osaron’s control starts to slip, he probably starts “humming” to let off some steam.
Anyway, thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed this weird little list of voices!
#some of these are weird i know#but its just how i envision these characters#if anyone has different ideas id love to hear them#maybe my mind will change#adsom headcanons#adsom#agos#acol#a darker shade of magic#a gathering of shadows#a conjuring of light#som#ve schwab#shades of magic#headcanon voices#holland vosijk#athos dane#astrid dane#the dane twins#osaron
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ANOTHER short list of games that i recommend giving a try because we need something to do during COVID [a lot of words and images, be careful]
I am One Bored Bitch who likes to play video games if I’m not writing fanfiction/poetry, caring for my animals or making memes.
As much as I enjoy Outlast, this list is different compared to my other one simply because the games here don’t behave like Outlast at all.
Access to PlaystationNow has me exploring new horizons and now I need to share my excitement. :D There will be lots of images and some spoilers, so be warned. I will try my damnedest not to reveal too much.
1. Vampyr
This game feeds my intense love of Victorian [?] London. It has an awesome storyline, the best aesthetic, and a hot protagonist. [His sister is lowkey cute, too. All of my homosexual/lesbian/bisexual homies, rise up]
You play as Jonathan Reid,
a vampire-turned surgeon who spends the game searching for the guy who turned him. He served in World War l until he got turned, so you know he’s a badass.
The game was created by DONTNOD, and if you don’t know who they are, they created Life is Strange. This game behaves a bit like LIS - you have choices to make, and those choices have consequences - so it causes you to be careful and save the game before you make a decision.
What makes this game even more chaotic is that it takes place during the Influenza Epidemic [How fun! HOW IRONIC!] and the World War. The environment is also interactive; you can help the citizens around you, or feed off of them and kill them. [There are a couple of assholes, so the ‘kill’ option is so handy.]
It’s on XBOX, Steam, and PS4 [it’s free on PS4 if you use PSNow.]
◼ ———————————————◼——————————————— ◼
2. [You saw this coming] Until Dawn
Ohhhh DEATHHHHHHHHH-
I’ll shut up now. But the intro is fucking amazing, you can’t tell me otherwise.
Until Dawn is a chaotic shitstorm that takes place in the Canadian mountains. That’s all the info you need.
...No, I’m kidding. But this will be long with a lot of images. There is a lot of explaining that needs to be done.
Until Dawn consists of 8 protagonists who you have to keep alive. I mean, you don’t have to, but that’s how you get the best ending.
There is Sam, one of my favourite characters,
Josh, my second favourite,
The Twins, Hannah [Left] and Beth [Right], sisters of Josh,
Mike who I thought was an asshole at first but that changes,
Jess, the girlfriend of Mike,
Emily, the ex of Mike and a queen, but let’s be real, she can be a total bitch,
Matt, the boyfriend of Emily and the soft boy we all love and appreciate in this house,
Chris, my third favourite character,
and Ashley, who I despise [players of Until Dawn most likely know why],
So Mike, Emily, Ashley, Jess, and Matt were in on a prank that involved Hannah and Mike, because Hannah loved Mike but he was in a relationship with Emily at the time, and it went wrong due to Hannah running out into a blizzard.
Josh and Chris are in drunken stupors and Sam is busy scolding her friends for being dickheads, so Beth runs into the cold Canadian climate to find her sister.
They both die under weird circumstances, and the game takes place a year later.
I warn you, and I mean this; this game is INCREDIBLY gorey and will make your jaw drop due to the amount of plot twists and jumpscares. And we thought Outlast’s jumpscares were bad? Puhleeze.
The best part of this game is that YOU BEFRIEND A WOLF!!!!
I LOVE HIM SO MUCH. HIS NAME IS WOLFIE AND HE IS A GOOD BOY!!!!
Unfortunately, this masterpiece is PS4 exclusive. Horrendous, I know. :(
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3. Assassins Creed Syndicate
Another game based in Old London. Oops! Not really. This is not an Oops whatsoever.
This is the first game I played on my PlayStation 4, and it’s something I play quite a lot.
You play as two protagonists. They are twins.
Evie, the brains of the two who plans before taking action,
and Jacob, the lovable asshole who uses his fists in every situation possible,
They are master assassins trying to take back London from a hipster asshole with a very stylish mustache,
I’ve noticed that Ubisoft really hates hipsters. It’s funny.
This game will make you question your sexuality because you will love both Evie AND Jacob. It’s hard not to.
Not only that, but there is a character who is trans and a TOTAL BABE,
I love him, you love him, my dog loves him, God loves him, Aliens love him-
[His name is Ned, please treat him with respect he is a very beneficial ally :(]
It’s on PS4, XBOX, and Windows. Yum.
◼ ———————————————◼——————————————— ◼
4. Life is Strange: The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit
It’s not very long, but it’s a treasure that you need to experience!
You play as a BLESSED LITTLE BOY NAMED CHRIS, WHO I WANT TO SPOIL AND HUG,
His imagination is very vivid, so you can expect to play as a superhero and find stuff to help make him a costume.
His dad is a fucking asshole, a piece of shit, a-
[Please read on as I call his dad every insult under the sun]
It’s free on Steam. Get it here. There is a definite spoiler below because I think it’s important.
Before you play, please be warned that Chris uses his imagination to cope with losing his mother and abuse from his father. You will experience this in the game, and that’s why I felt the need to warn you. It may bring back PTSD flashbacks or disturb you in general.
As someone who was abused by their father, I 100% sympathize with Chris and used my imagination to cope with my situation too. I kinda blame my upbringing for having a vivid imagination :/
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Before you play any of these, I recommend looking at short playthroughs, or reviews before you spend your money! You’re gonna wanna spend your money on something you’re gonna play, right?
Enjoy. x
#lis#life is strange#assassins creed#vampyr#until dawn#I WILL FIGHT FOR CHRIS UNTIL I DIE#i remember showing my mum cutscenes of jacob#and she said i act like him oops#my brother is Evie 100%
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☺ ♣ ♥ !! ☼ ?? ► ↕
( modern au ) ::: accepting.
☺ for a loving/affectionate text
[[ willem 🍑💕 ]] when did we turn into the third floor gays that buy flowers and leave them on the window sill for ages? 🙄
[[ willem 🍑💕 ]] several poets would be disappointed in us. i won’t bother listing them here.😒 just buy new flowers THE ONES THAT DON’T DIE.
♣ for a drunk text
[[ willem 🍑💕 ]] [ SPEECH TO TEXT ] hello babe why is your family cruella de vil. ville. veel? how do you spell
[[ willem 🍑💕 ]] i’m getting grilled for no fuckjng sreason. Reason. why do they know my motherss name??? something abt? her not finishing college? fucking ell
[[ willem 🍑💕 ]] HOW AM I AT UR FAMILY PARTY BEFROE YOU...! GET HERE 🤡
♥ for a sexual/naughty text
[[ willem 🍑💕 ]] oh my god, august, the things that does to me.
[[ willem 🍑💕 ]] [ VIDEO 03:38 ]
[[ willem 🍑💕 ]] okay, longer than usual, but. what’s the point in having a bathroom mirror if not this. ALSO, USE HEADPHONES. EXPLICIT DESCRIPTIONS AHEAD.
[[ willem 🍑💕 ]] if you use this to destroy my nonexistent political career (since my life is an appendage to yours at this point, no jk) at least take it to the finish line
[[ willem 🍑💕 ]] [ IMAGE ] yea btw we need to clean the bathroom mirror.
!! for a threatening text
[[ sutherlandslide. ]] [ 2018 ] [ drafted ] i cannot believe you’d pull this stunt. what’s the point in bringing him to the dorm room, you absolute idiot, you have a condo in the city. yOU LEFT THE DOOR OPEN. OF COURSE I’D WALK IN ON YOU TWO. you’d think i?? what, wouldn’t catch on? wouldn’t see through the paperthinfuckingveil of it? I AM NOT BLOODY TWELVE. I’M A POLI SCI MAJOR THIS IS LIKE... COLD WAR TACTICS 101. i cannot believe you’d use up and break the heart of some random bloke just to prove a point - people are people you absolute fucking brat. you spoiled, silverspoon asshole. shit like this, august? it’s exactly the reason i need to go. i just... need some time away. a world that doesn’t revolve around this will-they-wont-they we keep doing.
☼ for a morning text
[[ willem 🍑💕 ]] it’s like i woke up and i no longer know who i am
[[ willem 🍑💕 ]] or as if i just found out. yea, definitely the latter
[[ willem 🍑💕 ]] cannot believe it took us this long to do this. mostly me, but shush. i’m losing it in the fucking subway i cannot wait to get back home.
?? for a strange/vague text
[[ willem 🍑💕 ]] the polls close in at 10, go go go go !!! you can make it to the first interview if you drop everything right now. ed should be there.
[[ willem 🍑💕 ]] i’m omw, just trying to GET A FUCKING RIDe. if central lon traffic isn’t your priority for the first quarter i’m quitting.
[[ willem 🍑💕 ]] also, if this works out.... and i’m saying IF. if. we should probably get new phones for these messages??? i’m not freaking out. just... I just want to hold you right now. to be there for whatever they announce.
► for a text not meant for you
[[ willem 🍑💕 ]] jonathan i have no idea what they teach you in med school but. That thing you suggested? Christ i saw stars. i’m p sure august can’t walk straight 👌
[[ willem 🍑💕 ]] wait
[[ willem 🍑💕 ]] SMHhhhhh no way 🙃🙃🙃. they show shit like this on twitter and i always said it’s utterly fake tosh. well GUESS WHAT? I’M BEING PUNISHED FOR MY SKEPTICISM. FOR MY HUBRIS.
[[ willem 🍑💕 ]] i am so sorry lol.
↕ for a scared/worried text
[[ sutherlandslide. ]] [ 2019 ] this is a temp phone so i’m not sure if it’ll get through. thank God the contacts saved. S. Jobs looking out for me from beyond the grave i guess haha.
[[ sutherlandslide. ]] [ 2019 ] okay, okay. here’s to cutting the crap in the new year: your mom texted. actually, she didn’t, she phoned MY mom, who was already riled up for not being able to reach me, so I assume that just amped her up. cue their collective paranoia that we’re somehow both gonna die at 5000 miles from one another but in perfect sync. cue my mom phoning the EMBASSY. she cried for like an hour but i managed to get from her that you’re?? in a bad way?? on some stuff?? it still wasn’t clear. you’re using?
[[ sutherlandslide. ]] [ 2019 ] one, what, and two, what the fuck? you never did that shit. we never did that shit. i took like two bumps in fresher’s week and you had to hold my hair back as i was throwing up in someone’s garden. and then you stayed up with me literally all through the night while i kept saying i can hear my teeth speak, which, Yeah. so how
[[ sutherlandslide. ]] [ 2019 ] God this PHONE. how did you get from that to just doing lines on the reg? and what else? there better not be an else. there better not is all i’m saying. and no i don’t mean the swedish/danish/whatever boyfriend, you can go through the GQ catalogue for all i care & as long as you’re safe. i mean an ILLEGAL sort of else. God, August, what happened to you? you had plans. we had plans? just because David Cameron can be caught on camera dicking a pig or something doesn’t mean it’s a free for all in world politics. one footage of the wrong angle, the right angle, and it just. it all goes to shit.
[[ sutherlandslide. ]] [ 2019 ] I don’t even know if I’m giving you this ole slap on the wrist as your future PR or manager or... or just as me. I think it’s just as me. I cannot cope with the thought of you snorting shit off someone’s hand in a glitzy loo somewhere. I cannot cope with the fact that? This is who you are when I’m not there? Was this who you’ve always been? Where the fuck was I during it? What did I not see? It sends me bloody raving. It sends me just... somewhere so dark and so off the edge of the world.
[[ sutherlandslide. ]] [ 2019 ] I’m coming home.
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TMA S2 E22/62 - First Edition
now that screams heavy plot episode.
I'm not even looking at the warnings, want to keep it all a surprise.
----
And it's Gertrude recording on interview! we're being spoiled here
wait, are gertrude and mary friends..? mary is being quite familiar with gertrude, at the very least
ok so 1) Mary's mother worked for the Institute; 2) she was nine when finding her first Leitner???
when you pay your researchers less than a factory worker
can't believe mary was one of these weird little girls who use ouija boards and try to summon demons at sleepovers
sneaky girl
fun
two leitners, hm?
arhegfrfhf nope
aaah, money. crazy how it makes you accept to dump bodies with similar cut somewhere and not question it
oh wow can you believe doing murder and dark arts just for more money???
what the fuck girl
you need to see someone
the End.
Elias, you passive asshole
too much things to unpack, let's have some tea
ok, i think it's best you keep this from elias too
OK NO THIS IS INTERESTING
----
so, uh... mary is weird af (no surprise), she was involved with the Institute, the Institute is not what it seems (after all they are indeed pretty passive when they have all these proofs of sinister entities. Sasha (f for her) had also mentioned how weird it was that the institute never shared what they know with the public), and gertrude took care to hide something, possibly for the new archivist after her, which is Jonathan.
We also have a name for what I can guess is one of the entities, the End! Which is an entity related to death, which doesn't really help but oh well.
Also the book was certainly used in the Pageturner episode.
What get me wondering too, is the book that produces animal bones. It's one that we've seen from the very start of the Leitner's books stories, and that comes back often. It may just be because it's an easy book to use to identify that it's a story leitner's books related, but it still seems strange that such a useless book seems to be mentioned that much.
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