aurorasulphur - Tumblr blog

[aurorasulphur]

babygirl i know star wars lore that you would bully me for

[aurorasulphur]

Fascinated by stories of the - I guess you'd call it the "stolen identity" genre, like, of the Anastasia Romanov variety. But - from both sides.

Your husband has been at war for thirty years. You married when you were teenagers. The man who returns bearing his name looks... plausible, you don't remember his eyes being quite so blue, but it's been thirty years and it's not like you could ever afford to have a portrait painted. He knows your name and the names of your children and your parents, but there are curious gaps in what he remembers. But war does things to the mind. And if he's kinder than you remember? Kind enough that, maybe, you let yourself believe...

No one has ever looked twice at you, since you're just the maid, until the day a revolutionary bomb goes off, blowing a crater in the summer palace. The famously reclusive duchess and the rest of her household lie dead in the rubble. You know that you and she were the same dress size. You know where her jewels are kept. Most importantly, you know the location of the secret tunnel that leads down to the docks, and to a life overseas that would be torturously hard going for a poor maid, especially one suspected as a thief, but a lot more comfortable for a royal in exile...

The old king's most faithful retainer swears this is the heir to the throne, raised in secret and trained to one day step into his father's shoes. As the usurper as dragged off the throne, she screams that the old king's children are all dead, she made sure of it; no one pays her any heed. (Maybe they should have...)

The man in the tavern is buying drinks for the whole bar before he sets sail tomorrow for the far side of the world. He's got it all figured out - a ship of his own, retirement to a tropical paradise when he gets sick of the pirating life. His lip curls as he talks about the stultifying boredom of the aristocratic world he's already left behind. You find out that his parents recently died, and the estate is in the care of his younger sister, who was only six when her brother first left home two decades since. Between the lines, they sound like a good family; they sound like they love him, the way your family never did. Your heart aches. He shows you portraits, letters, before shoving them carelessly back in his coat pocket. They would be so easy to lift...

It's a surprisingly common concept and I just love it. It's The Return of Martin Guerre; it's multiple 90s romcoms; Agatha Christie pulls it half a dozen times. Sooner or later, it crops up in fanfic for just about any fandom with a royal or aristocratic main character.

And I can see why, because there's so much richness to it. From the outside, it can be anything from a horror story to an unlikely love story; from the perspective of the person pulling off the con, a heist movie or a tragedy or a heartwarming tale of found family. And then there are the longer-term implications: What happens if you wear a mask so long that it becomes who you are? What happens if you come to love the "replacement" to the point where you don't want to find out the truth? What is it like to uncover such a deception a century down the line, to find out that your great-grandfather... wasn't?

Just. Identity stories, man. <3

[aurorasulphur]

“how dare you say we piss on the poor” is perhaps THEE best piece of vernacular to come out of tumblr dot com in the past decade. along with “what were you doing at the devils sacrament” (cheeky. inspired. relevant in every context) and “harold, they're lesbians” (timeless. funny as hell. gay)

[aurorasulphur]

[aurorasulphur]

A couple years ago, I was staying with a friend for New Year’s and we’d decided to drive down to this adorable strip of locally-owned small business shops and check them out. The bakery was particularly crowded and since I wasn’t planning to buy anything, I waited outside. It’d been snowing, and since moving I’d picked up a “Californian-experiences-true-midwest-winter-for-the-first-time” habit of making at least one (1) tiny snowman every opportunity I get

so I built a little snowman on one of the small tables on this strip. 

after about three minutes of cramming ice together, I hear, “Do you want espresso beans for the eyes?” and I turn around and there’s this gal leaning precariously far out the window of her coffee shop, surrounded by her coworkers, holding out her hand and said espresso beans.

I think of those strangers often. just the thought of them all looking out the window to see this random stranger on the corner in the snow building a tiny snowman and deciding to join in, make it special for no other reason than that they wanted to. people are so, so precious and I’m never going to forget that moment.

[aurorasulphur]

When ogres travel, they do so in human shape.

They hate doing this. They think it’s beneath them. But they do it anyway.

The Vicomte Graoul de Saucisson – and this is another thing about ogres. Ogres as a species are nobility. There is no such thing as a low-born ogre. There is always room in the ogrish peerage for another vicomte, another prince, another branch to tie to the rotted tree – strode up to the chateau in human shape. The roses in the garden shivered as he passed by. The huge, high doors opened by themselves and he walked through them without a shift in his stride.

When the doors slammed shut behind him, he moved to shrug the shape off his shoulders like a coat.

Then he saw the woman.

He froze. He stared. She stared back.

He slowly pulled the shape back on. “Who are you?” he asked.

She looked mildly appalled. “Who are you?” she asked. “What are you doing in my home?”

“Your home? This is–” He stopped. He reconsidered. “I am the Vicomte de Saucisson,” he said. “I’m looking for the Marquis de Pamplemousse. He is a… colleague of mine.”

“Oh,” she said. She could’ve looked more abashed. “I’m sorry, monsieur, he’s never mentioned you before. You must be here to share your congratulations, of course, I can fetch him right away.”

“He’s never mentioned you either,” the vicomte did not say. “Of course,” he said. “Congratulations. What about?”

She seemed surprised. “Have you not heard? Monsieur, the curse on my husband has been lifted.”

He stared. His lips started to form the words “What curse,” and then there was a sound like a horse falling down a set of stairs and a man he had never seen before wearing the marquis’s clothes came barrelling down the hall.

“Vicomte!” said the man with the marquis’s voice. “My human friend! The curse has been lifted, and I am a human once again!”

He was slightly out of breath when he reached the woman. He clasped her arm and grinned at him with manic desperation. “This is wonderful news! You must be here to share your congratulations!”

“Lie like hell,” said the man’s eyes.

The vicomte stared. “Oh!” he said. “My – human friend! Human once again! Words fail me. After all these–” (there was the slightest hesitation) “–years?”

The woman put her head at an angle and narrowed her eyes at him.

The man walked up, still grinning like a rictus chimpanzee, and clasped a hand on his shoulder. “Yes, of course! Darling, me and the vicomte are going to have a manly one-on-one conversation while he shares his congratulations, as we human men are wont to do.” And then with a strength that could only be ogrish, the marquis pulled the vicomte by the shoulder down the hall and into a drawing room.

When the bolt of the lock clicked into place behind them, the man wearing the marquis’s clothes visibly sagged.

“What the hell,” said the vicomte.

“You should’ve sent word ahead that you'd be coming today.”

“I never do.” He gesticulated and tried to conjure a single question out of the swarm buzzing in his brain. “What the hell is going on? Who was that? Why are you pretending to be human? What curse are we talking about?”

The marquis groaned and crumpled into a chair. As he did he shifted out of human shape, clothes magically tailoring themselves to contain his ogrish form, something like a moose crossed with a wolf.

“I had a moment of weakness.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t a stroke?”

“I got married.”

“And that’s another thing–”

“Graoul, please.” He sighed and put his face in his talons. “Last winter a merchant broke into my home. He stole one of my roses, and in exchange I asked him to send me one of his daughters to be my bride.”

The vicomte nodded. This at least was a sacred and recognizable ogrish custom, and he did like to see the old ways in practice.

“And it was fine! It was perfectly lovely. She’s a wonderful woman, but one night I decided to put on a human shape to change things up in the bedroom, and she lost her mind! Started talking about how I was clearly an enchanted prince and that her love for me must’ve broken some curse and turned me human again! I had no idea how to tell her otherwise, and now I’ve done it for too long to back out.”

The vicomte stared. “Sorry,” he said. “You decided to turn into a human to spice things up in the bedroom, and that was the face you chose?”

The marquis growled. “If I knew I was going to be wearing it for the rest of my life I would’ve gone with something better.”

[aurorasulphur]

asked my almost 50yo slur-using father who watched house every night during its original run if he thinks house and wilson had a thing and after a 10 second pause he shared "they didn't have a normal friendship" and didn't elaborate. so

[aurorasulphur]

Frank Paton - Witness my Act and Deed (1882)

[aurorasulphur]

this is a callout post about the people in the Fiber Hell Discord

Their crimes; made me start watching Supernatural in the year of 2024

[aurorasulphur]

Leverage episode where they have to bypass security and burn the Gävlebocken

[aurorasulphur]

Obsessed with Batkids that came after Jason's death accidentally letting slip things they know about him/talking about him like he's there:

Tim: "Not that he's-- I mean, the way Bruce talks about him, sometimes it's like--

Duke, simultaneously: "We hired a medium last week to communicate with his spirit."

----------------

Steph, accidentally bursting out of the kitchen while Damian is being interviewed: "Someone tell Jason he's an asshole for finishing all the peanut butter." *spots camera crew and freezes*

Damian: "Jason's what I named our new dog. Right Baba? He's the dog we saw last week at the shelter."

Bruce, through gritted teeth: "Yes, I remember saying that we had too many animals already, but anything to make my kids happy."

Steph, awkwardly sidestepping out of the frame.

[aurorasulphur]

public libraries are so sick. there are five books I want to read and they're all relatively new so they're only available in hardback which is so expensive but it just cost me $0 to place holds on them. five books for zero dollars. it requires nothing but clicking a button and then going to the library to pick them up when they're ready. zero dollars. that's crazy

[aurorasulphur]

[aurorasulphur]

happy "is it tuesday or wednesday?" friday

[aurorasulphur]

I really think people have lost all grip on what "underrated" "hidden gem" and "cult classic" mean. the fact that people make tiktoks and tweets listing "underrated" media that unironically includes TV shows like Fleabag, or Lost, or includes mainstream English language films that are major studio releases like Annihilation or Stardust or fucking Hereditary - insane! Terms like "underrated" used to mean that the film or TV show was overlooked or ignored by most critics and audiences. The term cult classic was specifically used to describe media overlooked by mainstream audiences but maintained small strong CULT-like followings. A show like Lost that's iconic and achieved permanent syndication is NOT underrated, nor is the multiple Emmy-award winning series Fleabag. Neither of them are underrated in anyway, yet I've seen them referred to as such SO MANY TIMES. it's crazy how terms like "underrated" "obscure" media etc has functionally come to mean: "media I personally didn't know about until recently."

[aurorasulphur]

the stanley cup playoffs is just like. trying desperately not to fall into hate with your mutuals with slightly different tastes in teams

[aurorasulphur]

when I see something dated 2019 I think “oh that’s not too long ago” and then I remember that 2019 was not only five years ago but those five years have somehow contained several lifetimes