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see-arcane · 5 months

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Our good friend Jonathan Harker is getting ready to leave for his business trip, Mina Murray is picking out a new journal, Lucy Westenra is charming a gaggle of smitten suitors, Abraham van Helsing is wrapping up his lectures, and Castle Dracula is prepping the guest room for a very long stay.

Which must mean that Dracula Season is here again!

‘Dracula Season’ being a catchall term for the voracious reading, memeing, writing, illustrating, analyzing, and general fun-having that’s ensued since Matt Kirkland’s project, Dracula Daily, caught on with us back in 2022. The Substack had already been running before then, but it sparked a conflagration as time went on and readers old and new to Bram Stoker’s Dracula—the actual novel, not Coppola’s fanfiction—devoured it in a way that scratched an itch none of us knew we had. Stoker wrote the book in epistolary fashion, clumping sections together as needed for the pacing without perfect adherence to chronological order. Matt went ahead and put all the events in order and proceeded to set up a lovely chain of emails that delivered entries on those correlating dates.

This style of organization and pacing turned out to not only make the virtual book club that much easier to engage with, but left space in-between to stew on the story and relate with the characters themselves. Every day of waiting in the book feels weightier when you have to pace and sweat and worry in tandem with poor Jonathan trapped in the castle or Lucy wasting away or Mina running out the clock before she loses the fight for her own humanity. And while we sat with the story or the lulls between Dracula Seasons, some of us found ourselves craving more of that ghastly gothic horror goodness to the point that we figured:

“Well. Why don’t I make something?”

And then we did! Tons of creative works have been churned out in the wake of Dracula Daily’s high. I figured that while we’ve still got a bit of time to wait for May 3rd, we should check out all this new stuff in the meantime. (Plus a handful of neat stuff that just clicks with the Dracula itch overall.)

So, in the interest of Dracula Season pregaming, let’s take a look at…

FICTION

Blood of My Blood – A recent addition to the Dracula Bad Ending AU pile, and definitely one of the most harrowing and addictive group-produced narratives I’ve ever come across, Blood of My Blood is the dramatically gothic currently-WIP work of @ibrithir-was-here and @animate-mush’s devious design. Give or take a heap of other fascinated folks (hello!) adding ideas to put more Horror into the Horrors that our cast has to face. The premise:

The Transylvanian climax went fatally sour and the Harkers were forced to shelter with Dracula himself, including their half-vampire son, Quincey. Cut to two decades later, and Quincey finds himself out in modern London, smitten with Lu, adopted daughter of Arthur and Jack, and diving into certain bloodstained old documents that detail the real history of how his parents came to live in the castle. Said revelations coming not a moment too soon, as a storm is coming for him straight from the Carpathians…

Dracula Daily Sketch Collection – An array of illustrations that captures every entry beat by beat, the Dracula Daily Sketch Collection by Georgia Cook, alias @georgiacooked was dished out over the course of the last Dracula Season. Some of the most fun character designs out there.

Fanfiction Spotlight: BlueCatWriter – With a whopping 99 works devoted to the novel Dracula (so far, the number may have gone up since I blinked), @bluecatwriter is one of the most prolific and talented fanfiction scribblers out there. Romances, nightmares, and overlaps between the two seem to crop up the most, give or take a crossover. Seems fitting that those blue paw prints have contributed to BoMB too.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlefolk – An ongoing comic in which all your favorite characters from the Classics section get together and tackle some perils ranging from the mundane to the monstrous. Started by the amazing @mayhemchicken and posted on @lxgentlefolkcomic, this series is a love letter to beloved Victorian era lit, with a spotlight on the two couples leading the League. Namely, the Harkers, ala Dracula, and the Nortons, ala Sherlock Holmes,’ “A Scandal in Bohemia.” Mina and Irene are the driving investigative and steering forces here, and still deeply in love with their likewise-infatuated husbands, just like in their canons! What a concept! Alan.

Without spoiling the full character list, just know there are going to be a ton of familiar faces roaming around before you finish reading the first arc. Said arc having conveniently wrapped up just a few days ago! Give the comic and its bonus silliness a look if you’re in the mood for a new comfort-adventure epic.

Re: Dracula – Probably the most well-known and incredible thing to come out of the initial Dracula Daily wave. This podcast is a full audio drama that follows the same format as the Substack, with episodes coming out in time with the entries themselves. And it has an unfairly cool soundtrack. They have a Tumblr with @re-dracula, a site and a Patreon to check out before the series kicks up again on May 3rd. (Also, keep an eye out for their next work, an audio drama in the same style with Carmilla.)

The Soldier and the Solicitor – Another treat from @ibrithir-was-here, this one involves a bit of time travel trouble. Quincey Harker has stumbled out of World War I and into the same dark forest where his father once fled for his life…then runs into the man himself, on that same night. Jonathan Harker, young and starved and lost, who has no choice but to trust this stranger while the Weird Sisters are at his heels…despite said stranger having no shadow. It’s a tasty emotional trek, already complete on Tumblr, but now it’s turning into a Webtoon. While Ibrithir is juggling a number of other stories, she’ll be redrawing spruced up versions of the comic and adding a few new scenes as things unfold.

Substack Stack – You know what’s better than one emailed-out public domain book club? A mountain of them. Just. So, so many of them. You’ll see that a lot of these are finished, but some are still ticking along. Either way, they’re all great picks if you’re craving some more old school lit to fill the void between undead emails.

Frankenstein Weekly – Frankenstein

Jekyll and Hyde Weekly – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Voyage of the Nautilus – Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Letters from Watson – Sherlock Holmes

The Invisible Mail – The Invisible Man

Letters from Bunny – E.W. Hornung’s short stories of the eponymous Bunny and Raffles

Letters Regarding Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster short stories, including the novel, Right Ho, Jeeves

…

……

………

…The Beetle Weekly – The Beetle (NOTE: Do Not Read This.)

The Vampyres – A novella I finally wrenched through the gears of self-publication as of March this year. Starring a petite but powerful paranormal cast, The Vampyres, centers on an unscrupulous undead fellow who finds that the revenants of the world are being mowed down by an entity known only as ‘Quinn Morse.’ Between trying to save his neck and figure out where the shadowy bastard came from, the Vampyre in question crosses paths with a new paramour and handy human shield in the form of a grieving Good Samaritan. He’s even polite enough to invite the Vampyre into his home while he’s in dire straits! Surely this will end well. All the info is available here and a little author site is over here.

What Manner of Man – This is the one made for everyone who started out hoping there’d be a real love story with our good friend Jonathan Harker and the Count when he was at his most charismatic. Where that sea of wonders dried up into a mire of horror, What Manner of Man by @stjohnstarling keeps things firmly on the romantic tracks. This Substack stars the letter-writing priest Father Victor E. Ardelian as he finds himself meeting with one enigmatic Lord Alistair Vane. It isn’t long before interest turns into intrigue and intrigue into undead intimacies.

The entire novel has been completed—along with multiple epilogues in the author’s Patreon, allowing readers to choose for themselves just how the uncanny romance plays out in the end—and the Substack now has a number of other gothic goodies piling up in the meantime.

NONFICTION

Dracula Daily: A Unique Reading Experience: This one comes courtesy of @realwomenofgaming. It’s a short and sweet piece that amounts to a fun snapshot of the entire Dracula Daily ride. A cozy couple-minute read.

‘Dracula Daily’ is the One Substack You Need a Subscription To: Features my favorite Matt Kirkland interview. @mattkirkland, if you’re still floating around on here, thank you for dispatching our vampire newsletter again this year.

Dracula Daily is Tumblr’s hottest new book club: Alright, the ‘new’ part is worn out by now, but this one is still a delightful article to swing back around to. Two years on, this Polygon piece is a time capsule of those early months when people outside our bookworm bubble realized we were all happily receiving letters from our favorite classic gothic horror blorbos.

“How Mina Murray Became Dracula’s Girlfriend” – Princess Weekes, if you ever read this, thank you, thank you, thank you. I am sending oceans of love and millions of rewatches to your video essay. If you haven’t seen it yet, “How Mina Murray Became Dracula’s Girlfriend” is one of the most refreshing and well-made breakdowns of both the title subject and numerous other issues that have proliferated in the public view of Dracula’s cast and plot as adaptations endlessly warp or outright bastardize the actual novel. An incredibly cathartic watch.

Literary play gone viral: delight, intertextuality, and challenges to normative interpretations through the digital serialization of Dracula: A mouthful of a title for an even more elaborate article about the Dracula Daily phenomenon. This one is a full-on study that analyzes just what happened within the big bloodsucker book club surge and how its ‘wandering reading practices’ enriched the experience for participants.

“The Undying Undead: An analysis of the Dracula Daily community for a theory of online community formation and interaction” – We have a thesis on here! Look at that! @sirangelothebestest’s MA thesis used our vampiric book club as the bones for a massive brick of an academic piece that definitely deserves a look.

…And I think I’ll go ahead and cap things here.

This isn’t everything I got recommended, but if I had squashed all of it in here, I think folks’ eyes would start to fall out of their head. I hope you can find something cool to comb through here. Or, if there’s something great I overlooked, tack it onto the list! We’ve got just two weeks to go until we’re off with Mr. Harker. Let’s enjoy our respite before those castle doors close behind us.

#time for Dracula Season pre-gaming :3 #thank you to everyone who sent in their suggestions!#dracula #dracula daily #re: dracula

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swanatlast · 2 years

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Formal Living Room in Atlanta

#Living room - mid-sized transitional formal and enclosed medium tone wood floor living room idea with gray walls #no fireplace and no tv berber rug #tricia stacy #tray ceiling #traditional #coastal decor #classic design #trey ceiling

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beesolively · 2 years

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Living Room in Miami

#Example of a mid-sized classic formal and enclosed dark wood floor and brown floor living room design with beige walls #a standard fireplace #a stone fireplace and no tv living room wallpaper #patterned white sofa #neutral wallpaper #living room floor plan #dark wood living room floor #living room seating ideas

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rebelsocialitenyc · 2 years

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Enclosed - Living Room

#Mid-sized contemporary formal living room idea with a dark wood floor #green walls #a regular fireplace #a tile fireplace #and no television. classical living room #classic style #living room chandelier #grand living room design #contemporary living room #modern classic design

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90days-90reasons · 2 years

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Traditional Living Room (Chicago)

#Mid-sized traditional formal living room idea with no fireplace and no television #carpeting #tray ceiling #and wallpaper. timeless interior design #open #rice moriarty design inc #elmhurst interior design #beautiful homes #classic design

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inkspiredwriting · 2 months

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Wedding Woes

Five Hargreeves x Fem!reader

Warnings: none

Planning a wedding should be a joyous occasion, but for Five Hargreeves and his fiancée Y/N, it quickly turned into a battlefield of hilarious disagreements. From the moment they decided to tie the knot, every decision seemed to spark a new debate.

“Chocolate!” Five declared, arms crossed, as they sat in the office of Sweet Sensations, the premier bakery in town.

“Red velvet!” Y/N countered, her eyes sparkling with determination.

The baker, caught between the two, held up a tentative hand. “We could do a combination cake?”

Five and Y/N turned to her, then back to each other, shaking their heads simultaneously. “Nope.”

“What’s wrong with red velvet?” Y/N argued, her brow furrowing. “It’s elegant and delicious.”

Five scoffed. “Chocolate is a classic. And I don’t trust a cake that’s named after a fabric.”

“Fine,” Y/N said, rolling her eyes. “What about the design?”

“Simple and clean,” Five said, envisioning a minimalistic cake.

Y/N, however, had other ideas. “I was thinking something with a little more... flair. Maybe some flowers, intricate designs—”

Before Five could retort, Klaus burst into the bakery, trailed by Diego and Luther. “Hey, lovebirds! How’s the cake tasting going?”

Five sighed. “We’re just... debating the finer points.”

Klaus waggled his eyebrows. “Why not go with a giant rainbow cake? It’s festive!”

Diego chuckled. “I vote for something with bacon on it.”

Luther just looked confused. “Do people put bacon on cakes?”

The baker looked like she might faint.

In the end, they settled on a layered cake with alternating tiers of chocolate and red velvet, topped with simple but elegant decorations. It wasn’t exactly what either had envisioned, but it was a compromise—a word that Five was rapidly learning to accept.

Next on the list was the music. Five preferred a live jazz band, while Y/N was leaning toward a playlist of their favorite songs.

“Jazz sets the mood,” Five insisted, adjusting his tie as they met with a potential band leader in their living room.

“Yeah, the mood for a 1920s speakeasy,” Y/N shot back. “We need something more modern, something we can really dance to.”

The band leader, an older gentleman with a pencil-thin mustache, interjected. “We can do a mix, if you’d like?”

Before either could respond, Viktor wandered in, carrying his violin. “Need a musician? I can play Anything you want.”

Five perked up. “Can you do jazz?”

Viktor nodded. “Of course. But I also know some contemporary pieces.”

Y/N’s eyes lit up. “What about ‘You Are the Best Thing’ by Ray LaMontagne?”

Viktor smiled. “I can do that.”

Five threw up his hands. “Fine, let’s have Viktor play. Just... not too much Ray LaMontagne.”

Klaus sauntered in, a mischievous grin on his face. “I could DJ! Imagine the fun we’d have with a mix of 80s pop and punk rock!”

Five stared at him. “Absolutely not.”

When it came to decorations, Five wanted sleek and modern, while Y/N envisioned a romantic, rustic theme.

“We need string lights and mason jars,” Y/N said, flipping through a wedding magazine.

Five groaned. “We’re not having a Pinterest wedding. How about something more sophisticated? Like geometric centerpieces.”

“Geometric?” Y/N laughed. “What are we, hosting a math conference?”

Lila, who had shown up uninvited but was enjoying the chaos, added her two cents. “I think you should go with a theme park idea. Imagine—carnival games, cotton candy, maybe even a Ferris wheel!”

Y/N laughed. “Actually, that sounds kind of fun.”

Five buried his face in his hands. “We’re not turning our wedding into a circus.”

In the end, they settled on a rustic-chic blend with some modern touches—fairy lights and mason jars for Y/N, and sleek tableware and geometric designs for Five. It was a mix that surprisingly worked, combining the best of both their visions.

Even the wedding invitations were a source of contention. Five wanted them to be minimalist and elegant, while Y/N wanted something more whimsical and colorful.

“This font is too boring,” Y/N complained, staring at the sample invite. “It doesn’t scream ‘fun.’”

Five rubbed his temples. “We’re not throwing a rave, Y/N. We’re getting married. It should be timeless.”

Klaus, had another idea. “Why not go with a pop-up invitation? Like those 3D books! People would love that.”

Five shot him a look. “We’re not making pop-up books, Klaus.”

Despite the disagreements, the wedding day arrived, and everything was miraculously coming together. Five and Y/N stood at the altar, their family and friends gathered around them. The setting was a perfect blend of their styles—rustic yet sophisticated, whimsical yet elegant.

As they exchanged vows, Five couldn’t help but smile at Y/N. Despite their differences, their love for each other had only grown stronger through the process. It was clear that, no matter the debates, they were perfect for each other.

When they shared their first kiss as husband and wife, the crowd erupted into applause, and Klaus, predictably, started a slow clap that turned into an impromptu chant of “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”

Five’s siblings had their mishaps—Klaus accidentally spilled champagne on Viktor’s suit, Lila got into a friendly wrestling match with Allison over the bouquet, and Luther accidentally triggered a sound system malfunction that blasted “Never Gonna Give You Up” at full volume during the toasts.

At the end of the night, as they danced under the twinkling lights, Five pulled Y/N close and whispered, “You know, despite all the chaos, I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Y/N smiled up at him, her eyes sparkling. “Not even the part where we almost had a bacon cake?”

Five chuckled. “Not even that. Well... maybe a little.”

Y/N laughed, leaning in to kiss him. “I love you, Five Hargreeves. Even if you have terrible taste in cakes.”

Five grinned, wrapping his arms around her. “And I love you, Y/N Hargreeves. Even if you have questionable taste in everything else.”

As they swayed to the music, surrounded by their chaotic but loving family, Five realized that the debates, the compromises, and the occasional disaster were all part of what made their love story uniquely theirs.

And for Five and Y/N, that was all they ever wanted.

#five hargreeves imagines #five hargreeves x reader #five hargreeves x you #number five imagine #number five x reader #the umbrella academy #number five #number five one shot

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prettytoxicrevolver · 5 months

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Jacket | Seth Jarvis

wc. 1.6k

Jarvy sees you in the wags playoff jacket for the first time

(not my best writing tbh. im sorry!)

Growing up, you never had an affinity for fashion.

Your mom was the one who always dressed you and middle school was always that awkward fashion era of everyone’s lives. In high school the different outfits everyone wore had started to pique your interest, wanting to finally find your own style and make yourself feel more confident overall.

By college you had hit your stride and everyone in your life was incredibly confused when you decided to major in fashion business. Your dad was over the moon that you added the business side of it, being a finance director himself, and while your mom was still confused, she enjoyed the new fashion advice from her daughter.

You grew up in North Carolina, heading to FIT in New York for your undergrad before returning home. You spent that summer trying your best to figure out what to do with this new degree, when your life intertwined with Seth Jarvis. Through a mess of awkward run ins, late nights, and a final first date that sealed the deal, you were quick to realize that Seth was it for you. Three years later and you and Seth were closer than ever. He was on his way to another playoff run while you had been living your dream job for a couple of years now.

As April loomed near and the season was coming to an end, the wag groupchat had started to pick up. The girls were discussing playoff chances and who should be planning the wag jackets this year and you were voted the number one choice. You tried to get out of it, worried that what you made wouldn’t be good enough but the girls shut you down quickly, knowing whatever you make would be iconic.

You found yourself dreaming up ideas in the middle of meetings, doodling in the corners of your notebooks, looking up colors and fabrics, and finally caving to create a full fledged design when Seth had come bounding home with the news of a playoff clinch.

The drawing you come up with is a high school varsity style jacket in black, the front saying Carolina in uppercase bold red letters, with the words cause above one pocket and chaos on the other side. One sleeve has the previous cup win dates while the other sleeve has the boy’s number and the original canes logo underneath it. Lastly, the bottom hem of the jacket is decorated with the storm warning flags similar to the boys jerseys and classic name and number on the back in the same color and font as the Carolina.

Ever since finalizing the design, you instantly headed to the store and grabbed a blank black varsity jacket and started your work. You had fallen so deep into the job, focusing on each tiny detail for your prototype that you didn’t even hear Seth coming home. You had just finished on the front when you heard the door of your office creak open and you turn to see Seth with a tired smile on his lips.

“Hey there pretty girl,” he says, sauntering his way into the room and your heart skips at the sight of him. You’re distracted for a moment just at the sight of him, but when you notice his eyes flicker over to your current project you flinch and get up.

“No!” you screech, taking quick steps towards your boyfriend and covering his eyes with your hand. Seth freezes against you, concerned in his movements but when he hears a breathy laugh escape from your lips he knows everything is okay.

“Uh why can’t I look?”

“It’s bad luck!” you squeal, nudging your boyfriend out of your office and Seth rolls his eyes, his lashes fluttering lightly against your hand.

“I’m sorry did I propose and forget or something?” he asks when you finally drop your hand from his eyes and shut your office door behind you.

“No but if you are going to propose I’d wait till off season,” you respond cheekily and Seth grins.

“I was making the wag jackets,” you tell him, slinging your arms around his neck and bringing him closer to you.

“Mmm were you?”

Seth leans down, pressing a soft kiss to your neck, trailing one up to your cheek and then finally on your lips, his hips pushing you back against the door so you’re caged in his embrace.

“Mhm,” you murmur against his lips and you feel his grin, the scruff of his beard scratching against your skin. “And you need to go so I can finish them.”

“Or we could do this,” he says and before you know it, Seth has grabbed you around the waist, throwing you over his shoulder and marching his way towards your shared bedroom, your protests of work and prototypes deaf to his ears.

The week leading up to the first playoff game was complete chaos. You hadn’t seen Seth at all, occasionally when he was slipping out of bed and you were just slipping in, bumping into each other when he was out the door and you were coming in and so on.

You were finalizing all of the wag jackets, making sure the matching shoes had arrived and were in good condition as well. You had decided to add a pair of nikes with the players last name on the side to match the jackets and you couldn’t wait to see how each girl would style their outfit. One by one as each girl received their jacket you would be on the other end of a million texts and several facetime calls of the girls freaking out about the job you did. You couldn’t help it, you started to feel good about your work too after being praised so much.

Unfortunately due to both your schedules, you couldn’t see Seth before the playoff game but promised to make it in time for warmups. You and a few of the girls head out together, taking pictures both at your place and when you get to the arena. You head straight for the front, your nerves getting the best of you and you’re bouncing up and down on your heels waiting for Seth to come out on the ice.

Somehow even with the nerves you miss his initial entrance onto the ice. Normally Seth is all serious mode when he starts warmups, only deciding to relax and goof off towards the end of them but when he sees you first, he’s a complete goner.

You’re facing away from the glass but Seth could spot you from miles away in a crowded area, it truly didn’t matter. Your hair was pulled up and out of the way so everyone could see his last name and jersey number plastered on the back of the black varsity jacket. Your smile is wide and he knows you’ve been nervously fidgeting by the way you twist and bounce as you stand.

His heart is pounding twice as hard now, not even registering the world around him as he sees you in your heavenly state with his name on your back. His. His jacket. The one that claims you’re his. God, how did he get so lucky?

He doesn’t know when he stopped paying attention to the movements he was making on his skates until he’s smacking embarrassingly into the glass just before you, startling both you and everyone around. You look up, Seth with an unreadable expression on the other side of the glass and you can’t help the shy smile that creeps onto your lips.

Seth tries to regain some kind of confidence again, shooting a wink in your direction and mischievous grin before taking off on the ice again.

You swear your face hurts from smiling and your throat is no doubt sore from the screaming you had done all of game 1. You and the girls make your way down to the tunnel and talk about the events of the game while you wait for the boys. One by one each girl disappears in the arms of her man, you smiling and bidding goodbyes while you impatiently wait for Seth.

“Is that the future Mrs. Jarvis?” you hear from behind you and you turn to see Jarvy smiling like he just won the damn lottery.

You rush forward, wrapping your arms around his neck and pressing kisses anywhere you can reach. You exclaim your praise between each kiss and Seth grins shyly against you.

“You did amazing,” you say leaning back to finally look into your boyfriend's big brown eyes and they shine with pride at your words.

“Thank you baby,” he says, pressing a kiss to your lips before pulling back and staring at you, his eyes roaming your figure, his fingers tracing the outline of his number on your shoulder and his name on your back.

“What’s up lover boy?” you ask, nervous under his gaze.

“You look damn good with my last name,” he murmurs and your face flushes further.

What Seth doesn’t tell you is that from the first day, he’s known you were the one from him. He doesn’t say that since you had your first date he knew you’d be married one day. He doesn’t say how he wants to spoil his proposal right now and just ask you to marry him because he can’t go another second without having you share his name.

He doesn’t tell you that one piece of clothing has made him imagine the next 50 years of his life in the matter of seconds.

But you don’t need to know that. Not yet at least. So Seth settles for another searing kiss to your lips before slinging an arm around your shoulder and leading you home so he can take that jacket off of you and love you properly.

#seth jarvis x y/n #seth jarvis x you #seth jarvis fic #seth jarvis x reader #seth jarvis imagine #prettytoxicrevolver fic #carolina hurricanes fic #carolina hurricanes imagine

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shinidamachu · 3 months

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inukag was born to be shipped by me and I was born to ship inukag as well

For ages now I've been meaning to write about the reasons why I ship Inukag as fervently as I do and @inukag-week felt like the perfect opportunity to indulge myself, so here we go.

I want to start with how aesthetically pleasing they are. From their perfect size difference to the complimentary color scheme of their outfits plus contrasting hair and eye colors, Inuyasha and Kagome just look absolutely good together.

Their character design makes it clear from the get go that they're visually a great match. The association is so strong that the audience becomes unable to picture one without the other, as if they're two halves of the same item. Different, yet unequivocally a team, a pair.

Decades ago, they already had that classic quality to them and I bet they'd never get out of style even decades from now. And the rich lore that surrounds the pairing only adds to that aesthetic: the well, the tree, the beads, the robe, the sword, all of it enhances how iconic they are. Even something as ordinary as star gazing becomes uniquelly theirs.

Futhermore, I just absolutely love the entire concept of it. The subvertion of the fairy tale archetype, the idea of a love that transcends time, of soulmates who actually work on building their bond. Loving each other was both inevitable and a choice they made every single day.

Inuyasha and Kagome were just two teenagers from different worlds — literally and figurativelly — discovering together what love was. This made their relationship very compelling, because the excange between them is insanely substancial.

And their overall dynamic is so wholesome. There was a push and pull, a give and take, that made it fluid rather than static. Every single milestone felt organic and kept the audience thirsting for the next one.

Nothing felt forced or rushed. The slow burn was competently written to showcase their relationship being build on a very strong foundation, consistent in intimacy, mutual trust and acceptance — recurring themes for them and for the story — and so the stages of their bond had such a natural pace, it highlighted how genuine and healthy it was.

Consequently, there are so many aspects of their connection to explore. There's a never ending room for angst and for light hearted moments and you can adopt a more mature perspective or go for comical instead: they manage to be versatile without being generic and to embod the best clichés in fiction without becoming one themselves.

It's hard to think of a trope they couldn't pull off or an alternate universe that doesn't work for them. It gives the fandom plenty of freedom to be creative and to have the best time with it.

Plus, their chemistry was off charts. The romantic tension bleed through every single interaction. Their passion is so strong you could feel it even in scenes that had nothing to do with romance. And they didn't even need to kiss to achieve that level of synchrony.

They were also compatible. Inuyasha and Kagome balance each other quite nicely. Even in a relationship, they still keep their individualities and remain interesting both as characters and as a ship.

The very thing that dooms most pairings — opposite personalities — is precisely what keeps them together. Inuyasha and Kagome are completely different from each other, but they're actually extremely similar where it actually matters: their morals and goals.

And they longer they stay together, challenging one another, growing through trials and tribulations, inadvertently learning what each other's needs are and fulfilling them, easing each other's sorrows, covering each other's backs, saving each other's lives in every possible way, learning each other and learning with one another, the more their dichotomy turns into a duality, because they gain a more nuanced perspective of themselves, of each other and of the world.

It's a level of understanding, closeness and respect incredibly difficult to match. And for Inuyasha and Kagome, no one else even came close.

Another thing is that they're not just complementary to each other, but to the story itself. Their romance enhaces the overall plot. It has a structural placement in the wider narrative, strengthening its core themes and fulfilling the characters individual arcs, ultimately resulting in a more compelling journey.

So many romances are disposable to their own story, but Inukag was detrimental to theirs. Inuyasha and Kagome's interactions served as pivotal points of their respective arcs. Taking only the narrative into consideration, their relationship holds a lot of weight and greatly influenced everyone around it and it tied everything together.

That's why their happy ending felt so satisfying: it feels earned because everything went full cycle. All of that symbolism, all of those parallels paid off. Anything different from what we got would simply lack narrative and thematic cohesion.

And even if they didn't end up together, they could never be circumstancial. There was a real reason why they met, a reason why the fell in love and why they had ever lasting impacts on each other's lives regardless. It wasn't just love for love's sake.

This is what makes them, in my opinion, an epic ship.

BONUS: their soundtrack is lit and their quotes are simply legendary.

#Inukag Week #Inukag Week 2024 #Kagome #Inuyasha #Inumeta #Inukag meta #Inuyasha meta #Inukag #Kagome Higurashi #Excuse the dramatic title I just couldn't help myself

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soaps-mohawk · 12 days

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The Cottage Part 4: The Upstairs

And finally we come to the upstairs portion of the build. This is the area the guys are staying in. Two bedrooms and a bathroom, much to their displeasure but we have to torture them as much as possible, ya know? Can't make their lives too easy. Got some awkward walls down shots in this because again, taking screenshots in small spaces is hard. I am so good at playing the Sims y'all have no idea lmaoo (that's a joke). Anyway, enjoy!

Also I can't remember if I said this or not but I used the move objects cheat. It's my pal. My sweet cheese. My good-time boy. My main squeeze. (if you get that reference I will kiss you on the mouth)

Sims Build Masterlist

Here's a view of the hallway and the stairs from John and Kyle's door since again, I am a master at taking screenshots lol. Very basic, very simple, very artsy.

And the guys' bathroom. Not much different from the bathroom downstairs, just smaller. I think everything is playable? I didn't test it so you might have to make some changes if you don't.

The first bedroom, the one John and Kyle are staying in. Very basic, very plain and simple. (Can you tell I was burning out with decorating by this point 😂) And a room that's not blue!!! amazing

And the room Johnny and Simon are staying in. Johnny gets the purple bed of course. I like to headcanon this is the room that Kyle and Ashley stayed in when they were growing up. I also headcanon they have an older sibling who got to stay downstairs in their own room. Part of me feels like Kyle is the youngest. He gives the vibe of two older sisters. I feel like I've discussed this before but...yeah. That's the feel I get. He and Ashley are close in age, though. Probably a year or so apart.

So that's the cottage, how I view it at least to a degree. Very classic but also with some modern twists because renovations. I hope you enjoyed my lovely (blue) interior design skills and now you have some mental imagery going forward since I suck at describing things.

#crcb builds #the cottage

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she-posts-nerdy-stuff · 1 year

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An interesting thing about Kaz is the way he views a hierarchy within everyone he meets, an attitude probably defined in him by the Kerch culture of trade and the environment of Ketterdam. Kerch is a country that in many ways is designed to reflect the American Dream as it is portrayed in classic literature such as The Great Gatsby: as an ultimately unattainable and useless lie, designed to control and quell the masses in the danger of extreme capitalism. The social hierarchy in Ketterdam is well-established and discussed throughout the novels, though mostly in Crooked Kingdom since the plot stays almost entirely within city limits, and the attitude of viewing a miniature hierarchy amongst those around you as part of the overall societal structure is evidenced in Kaz, and possibly reflected in Wylan; a link both to their different upbringings within the Ketterdam social structure, and their position as literary foils. (I wrote a whole long thing about how Kaz and Wylan had/have the potential to become each other, so feel free to check that out for more detail if you want it). The city’s hierarchy and the unattainability of joining the rich upper echelon of society is cleverly hinted at from the very beginning of Six of Crows, when Kaz is jumped and then wakes up in what he expects to be the deb of a rival gang. He instead finds himself in Councilman Hoede’s Manor House, which I believe is on the Geldstradt, and the way he makes the distinction is by realising that the decor in the room he’s in “takes real money”. We know that people like Pekka Rollins or Tante Heleen have become truly rich from what they do in the Barrel, and so it’s strange to suggest that you’d need “real money” for this since we would generally use that phrase to refer to a large amount of money. What Kaz actually means here is “old money” or “family money”; you need the kind of money that the Merchant Council have been hoarding for generations, making supposedly risky trades when they have millions of savings to cushion the blow if things go wrong, not the kind of money that comes from the popular gambling dens and brothels of the Barrel. He means the kind of money that Daisy and Tom have in Great Gatsby, people who’ve never worked a day in their lives and yet like to think of themselves as very successful at life when all they’re truly succeeding in is spending their parents money, not the kind of money that Gatsby scraped and saved and began to chase through undisclosed illicit means. Even when men like Gatsby and Rollins make their money, and their name, they are never equal in the social hierarchy to people with old money. (To be clear, not that this is a defence of either character, I have criticisms of both, especially Rollins).

But the hierarchy Kaz places upon himself and upon the others is slightly more subtle, and arguably subversive. He looks down on Matthias because he “stinks of decency” and because he supposedly hasn’t struggled, arguably gaining slightly more respect for him when he learns of him losing his parents and baby sister but still maintaining the idea of ‘everyone has a sob story and you were clearly more lucky in your options to deal with it than I was, it’s not my fault if you made the wrong choice’. We as readers obviously know that Matthias had no options but to go with Jarl Brum and spent the next 6 years of his life (I think that’s the right amount of time, please correct me if I’m wrong) being emotionally manipulated and abused by him, but Kaz simply refuses to accept has suffered because it would be psychologically damaging to him to admit that Matthias was able to go through that and still come out a good person, when Kaz sees himself as having become truly demonic. Matthias looks down on Kaz for the exact same reason, unable to understand - especially since he knows far less detail about Kaz’s trauma - how someone who ever had a core of decency couldn’t maintain it through their pain, he assumes Kaz was never a good person, or never had the potential to be one. Kaz also looks down on Wylan, arguably far less for his attempt to maintain a core decency but because he views Wylan as having had the option to do so. Kaz seems to have more respect for Wylan in Crooked Kingdom than in Six of Crows, when he knows more about (but never, it should be noted, the full extent of) Jan Van Eck’s abuse to his son, once again showcasing that he struggles to accept the idea of someone feeling bad when they have supposedly suffered less than him. His trauma has clearly warped him in many ways, and one of them is losing the ability to see relative pain and how different things can affect different people in different ways; he effectively views everything in the manner of ‘I had it worse, and I’m fine so you need to get over yourself’. He labels Nina “a snob” for staying away from the Crow Club and the Slat despite being a Dregs member, and her response is “she didn’t much care what Kaz Brekker thought”. I think that Nina is possible the person Kaz holds the most respect for in his platonic relationships, and that is mostly because she simply couldn’t care less whether he respects her or not.

His relationship with Jesper is more complex; he judges Jesper for his addiction and yet continually eggs him on, giving him a line of credit to play cards at the start of Six of Crows and having the first step of his planning in Crooked Kingdom to make Jesper play all night, although it’s unclear whether Jesper has ever shared anything about his mother if anyone knows then the most likely parties are Kaz or Inej and yet Kaz forces Jesper to give up his revolvers in Crooked Kingdom, his most treasured possession and his constant connection to his late mother, he consistently infantilises Jesper, but mostly in his head and this is possibly an interesting link to the final nail in the coffin of their relationship; Kaz sees Jesper as a substitute to Jordie. I think it’s possible that he likes to see him as younger because that’s how he remembers Jordie - it’s also important to remember that Kaz is now several years older than his elder brother ever was so seeing him in someone his own age is possibly even more painful because that’s a point Jordie never reached (he was only 13 when he died). Jesper is someone that Kaz feels the need to keep at arms length, not because he doesn’t respect him but because he fears having a close relationship with someone who could so easily slip away from him like Jordie did. I think we can also arguably see aspects of Jordie within Jesper, the naïveté of thinking you can make it Ketterdam followed by the city swallowing you whole, killing Jordie and driving Jesper to his slow self-destruction - “I’m dying anyway, Da. I’m just doing it slow”. (If y’all have read many of my analytical posts you may have begun to notice that’s one of my favourite quotes)

Then we have Inej. Kaz places Inej on a pedestal whatever she does. I’ve spoken before about how she claims to be bad at picking locks whilst he claims to have done “a shoddy job at teaching her to pick locks” because he’s incapable of accepting that she is incapable of something; if there are flaws, they must be his because she cannot have any. In a lot of situations this can be harmful, going back to the romance of Daisy and Gatsby where Daisy is placed on a pedestal and idealised so much that she become more of an image than a person, so when she does not live up to his every high expectation Gatsby is destroyed by it. But with kanej this seems only to elevate their position, possibly because Kaz isn’t claiming that Inej is flawless, but rather that she is capable of working on her flaws in a way that he isn’t; it is almost a form of envy. For example, Inej also has a fear of touch and human contact, but she purposely forced herself to cope with small amounts of it, such as allowing Nina and Jesper to hug her even though it makes her flinch, because she fears it becoming a debilitating condition, as it has done for Kaz (not that she knows that initially when it’s first implied that she too fears contact). In the bathroom scene when she admits to him that she also struggles with touch, it has such a massive effect on Kaz not because he refuses to accept that she has flaws but because he sees her as so much stronger than himself and wishes that he could be more like her. Although both of them are ultimately unable to go any further than a few light brushes of contact, it’s suggested that what trigger Inej more than the touch itself is the sexual implications of those touches based on everything she went through at the Menagerie. Kaz doesn’t see Inej aligned with with himself or the other gang members, but as above them - and not in the way he labels Nina as a snob, but in a genuine manner he refuses to acknowledge her as low in society because he sees her as deserving of so much more. He notably never refers to her as “a canal rat” and he never even comes close to defining her by her time at the Menagerie, a start contrast between him, the supposed low of the hierarchy, and Van Eck, the supposed upper, he yells at her “you little skiv! You little whore!”. However, there is one way in which Kaz arguably looks down on Inej and it’s in a similar way that he looks down in Matthias: how dare she still try so hard to remain truly good, and decent, and to find her Saints and to politely ask them for forgiveness, when it would be so much easier to let the world beat that out of her? Arguably, it’s not that he judges either of them for their faith, but it’s that he fears them judging him for losing his, be that in religion or in the world at all. (I don’t think we know if Kaz was raised in a religious household or not, but based on societal structure in Ketterdam and the way most of the population in most of the countries are religious I think it’s safe to assume he at least grew up with an understanding of Ghezen). Kaz fears that they’ll judge him for failing to maintain his core of decency, which is exactly what Matthias does, and so he aims to offend or challenge them before they can him.

Ok I’m not gonna lie to you guys it’s like quarter past one in the morning as I’m writing this, and oh my god it just got so long out of nowhere… I might have lost my point somewhere in there, I don’t even know, this came from one quote I was thinking about and I’m not sure I even wrote that quote in there so, yeah, I guess. If you bothered to read this far the tysm I hope it made sense

#grishaverse #leigh bardugo #six of crows #crooked kingdom #inej ghafa #kaz brekker #nina zenik #jesper fahey #wylan van eck #kanej #kanej my beloved #kanej bathroom scene #kanej supremacy #matthias helvar #freddy carter #amita suman #ketterdam #kerch

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