#miraclesandmonsters

[ao3feed-klance]

A Different Kind of Life

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/2HeQVPc

by MiraclesAndMonsters

Keith is new in town and is a freshman in university. Join him as he navigates his new college life - making friends, adjusting to dorm life, and studying for finals among some of the other trials and tribulations of student life.

Words: 3439, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Multi

Characters: Keith (Voltron), Lance (Voltron), Hunk (Voltron), Shay (Voltron), Allura (Voltron), Shiro (Voltron), Matt Holt, Pidge | Katie Holt, Coran (Voltron)

Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron), Hunk/Shay (Voltron), Allura/Nyma/Shay (Voltron)

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - College/University, Slow Burn, Friends to Lovers, Trans Character, Slice of Life

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/2HeQVPc

[ao3feed-safeklance]

A Different Kind of Life

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2HeQVPc

by MiraclesAndMonsters

Keith is new in town and is a freshman in university. Join him as he navigates his new college life - making friends, adjusting to dorm life, and studying for finals among some of the other trials and tribulations of student life.

Words: 3439, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Multi

Characters: Keith (Voltron), Lance (Voltron), Hunk (Voltron), Shay (Voltron), Allura (Voltron), Shiro (Voltron), Matt Holt, Pidge | Katie Holt, Coran (Voltron)

Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron), Hunk/Shay (Voltron), Allura/Nyma/Shay (Voltron)

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - College/University, Slow Burn, Friends to Lovers, Trans Character, Slice of Life

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2HeQVPc

[ao3feed-voltronlegendarydefender]

Voltron: Sacred Lions

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/2yG1RTw

by MiraclesAndMonsters

The discovery of a massive, robotic lion lying dormant in the desert sparks an epic quest and a battle for the universe. Follow Allura and her friends on a spectacular journey as they meet new people, travel to other galaxies, and attempt to defeat an ancient evil empire bent on controlling the universe!

(Posted from mobile: please cut me some slack as I work on fixing my computer and editing this work from there! Thanks)

Words: 2178, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Series: Part 1 of Sacred Lions

Fandoms: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Multi, Other

Characters: Allura (Voltron), Lance (Voltron), Keith (Voltron), Pidge | Katie Holt, Matt Holt, Hunk (Voltron), Shay (Voltron), Nyma (Voltron), Lotor (Voltron), Shiro (Voltron), Rolo (Voltron), Rax (Voltron), Coran (Voltron), Zarkon (Voltron), Haggar (Voltron)

Relationships: Shiro/Got Dam Nap, Allura/Nyma/Shay (Voltron), Katie/OC, Keith/Lance (Voltron)

Additional Tags: Good luck!, I'm rewriting Voltron because the writers apparently don't understand character development, Take notes sweeties!, Violence, Action, Canon Rewrite

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/2yG1RTw

[funeral-march]

miraclesandmonsters replied to your photoset “I don’t know why I haven’t mentioned it on here already but my brother...”

that second picture I am literally crying how is one dog so perfect

I have no idea but it’s killing me. I just want to look at him all day bc he’s so cute!

[tyrannuspitch]

@miraclesandmonsters

(sorry, i missed some of these for a moment)

yeah. yeahhh. it was all very... odd.

i mean, what i keep reminding myself is that carry on is still /there/, and doesn’t /have/ to be seen through the lens of this book at all. like, that’s not what it was designed for in the first place. the previous characterisation is still right there, and it makes a lot more sense than this tbh.

but it’s just... it’s so WEIRD and frustrating that this book, even if i entirely reject it, was written this way at all???

like one of the most interesting things ABOUT baz is that his principles aren’t perfect, or exactly conventional, but there are certain things where he just WILL NOT BUDGE. and sometimes it makes him better, and sometimes it makes him worse. loyalty is his highest moral priority, the one thing he will never compromise on, and given who he’s loyal /to/... it makes some really interesting messes!

and just. where was that? where was it. where was HE? this is barely recognisable as him.

and similarly, what i found interesting about this version of vampires is how much of the fear of them really is probably JUST stigma...

like. they don’t need to eat humans, and we have no actual evidence that a significant number actually do. there’s no evidence at all to back up seeing them as ‘soulless’ or ‘dead’. there’s no suggestion that thralls are a real thing. and so on.

i mean, come on. everything simon says to baz while staying at his house??? right down to ‘sunlight burns me.’ ‘me too.’

where was that

[tyrannuspitch]

miraclesandmonsters replied to your post: miraclesandmonsters replied to...

Yes to all of that! And I know all authors choose what they want to take from vampire lore but I always disliked that crucifixes actually hurt Baz (unless we’re given a genuine, interesting reason beyond he’s ~unholy~ it always seems cheap to me, especially in a secular novel) and Wayward Son just make me think “okay, we’re not gonna bother to suggest that vampires other than Baz are remotely worthy of having life, great”

yeah!!

i always thought it was simon’s cross in particular, you know? i thought that that /specifically/ was an amulet that just happened to be shaped like a cross. (like, baz hunted BENEATH A CHURCH for years lmao they’re clearly not an entirely effective deterrent)

(although: another possible explanation is that they work because people believe they work? because the culture powering all the magic /believes/ vampires are Evil and Unholy? because like... i can’t see what else it would be. when we’re given no reason to think this universe ACTUALLY contains a christian god or angels or anything...)

and yeah like... it almost came out as justification for the way vampires are treated? like. ‘no you see they ARE actually evil so killing them on sight is actually RATIONAL and FINE-’ like... hm... no

and all of it kind of (hopefully unintentionally???) ends up coming back round and making it seem like baz’s self-hatred is rational. and that the way he was raised to be guilt-ridden and ashamed of himself and terrified is Actually Okay and is the REASON he isn’t a murderer too... which is not even REMOTELY how that works and also so fucking immoral

like. baz doesn’t kill or nonconsensually feed on humans because he’s a GOOD PERSON... he could still have been a good person (it would probably have been EASIER) if he wasn’t immersed in a culture that thinks he’s subhuman... vampires who don’t live under oppressive regimes aren’t all automatically going to go on killing sprees... what.... are you DOING......

[tyrannuspitch]

yeah. okay. hold on.

1. agreed. i feel like, even WITH simon’s very visible depression, we get very little view of any of the characters’ internal lives??? some of these things could’ve been, like, /half/-salvaged that way (at least to the point of making sense) - if simon wasn’t actually gleeful but angry and terrified and falling back into unhealthy behaviours and thought patterns to try and re-find himself/a sense of control; if baz wasn’t weirdly passive and trusting but desperate for guidance, kind of rebelling because he knows there was something very wrong with how he was treated, despairing enough to kind of give up on being ‘good’... (??? suggestions off the top of my head right now, probably still not completely in character.) like it wouldn’t make me happy but it would be something

2. i think, when you take how flawed both the vampire societies we see are ALONGSIDE her (sometimes shallow) criticism of mages - not just their treatment of other magickal people, but also agatha calling it a cult, etc... we’re probably meant to be taking this as ‘every culture is flawed/there is no perfect society’ or... something? but things can be FLAWED without being EVIL come ON

3. the idea of baz being ‘different’... i mean he literally will be, in some ways, /different/ from other vampires because he’s had such a unique experience. and he probably won’t really belong in either place. but... the difference doesn’t have to be... ‘baz is Special, baz is Better, baz has more of a right to exist than the others’

4. yep! not much to add but the first rule of sequel writing is you have to continue the story of the book before it...

5. honestly? i’m not convinced she thinks baz’s race has much impact on his life at all. like, she made a tumblr post about it, and it literally doesn’t say anything except ‘so this is a thing!’ like, fun fact! bet you didn’t know! it’s........ not good.

6. don’t worry. i’ve made literally 60+ posts raging at this book, and i’m still going. i REALLY don’t mind

[tyrannuspitch]

miraclesandmonsters replied to your post: miraclesandmonsters replied to your post: Your...

Yeah, I always wished Carry On had more nuance in Baz’s response to how vampires are treated—why does he seem to have zero response to Fiona hunting them? But I accepted that since the book was more about Simon. But Wayward Son? Hooooly shit. I’m struggling to deal with all these predation and cruelty and death that is apparently of no concern to Baz.

oh yeah.

in carry on you can take the whole thing as being incredibly... dysfunctional and trauma based, and like, it WORKS like that. it makes sense for him to think of vampires the way he does, given the culture and his trauma, but i thought we were meant to understand it as Obviously A Problem???

and in terms of how he relates to humans... i really don’t like the idea of him HAVING to drink human blood, of his main struggles with being a vampire as being a side effect of denying himself that.*

i always read the thinking-about-eating-people thing as at least half /trauma/. like, as him having INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS because he was violently attacked as a child and raised to believe he was exactly like the people who did that to him??? and then the answer would be, you know, therapy... not ‘shit guess you’ve got to attack people or deal with it’... (someone just give the boy some iron supplements, jesus christ.)

and the fact that he doesn’t overtly object to most of what lamb does??? just out of character

like yeah, i know he’s kind of desperate for some sort of guidance, for someone who understands who/what he is. and i get that he’s undercover. but STILL

/he saw someone get bitten/. he saw someone get bitten by a vampire for the first time since /he/ was turned and his mother /died/. why did he barely react??? he should’ve been leaping to the humans’ defense and/or having a full-blown breakdown??? (fight or flight, emphasis on the fight.)

also in general, baz felt off in this book. he was... weirdly passive? after being SO principled and immovable before? just weird and bad all round

(*side note: did rainbow REALLY write him as being /paler/ than other vampires because of a moral decision he’s made??? i know i know he’s meant to look starved or w/e but did we REALLY NEED THAT??? come ON!!)

[tyrannuspitch]

miraclesandmonsters replied to your post: Your Wayward Son thoughts are my Wayward Son...

I still am unsure why Rainbow said this was Baz’s book when literally none of his issues are dealt with in any way?

...yeah. i guess i can see everything with lamb as maybe causing some progress (he learns a little more about himself, i guess???) (that’s one of the bits i most feel i need to reread and analyse more)

...but the answers i remember us getting were not exactly at the top of the list, and in some ways it just made things more difficult.

also if we could have had one other vampire who wasn’t evil... would be nice... or more concern about... you know... all the vampires they killed... if we could approach the fact that vampires literally ARE oppressed, terrorised and routinely murdered without bring up how Some Vampires Are Evil... PLEASE...

also i’ve just never liked this world’s vampires having eternal youth it’s just so messy and unnecessary but i guess that’s just me

[tyrannuspitch]

miraclesandmonsters replied to your post: this was meant to be under a cut but tumblr’s...

There’s also something rather disturbing about his paleness indicating his refusal to cross that line. Don’t think it was intentional, but it’s something that really should have been thought about, especially since vampires have been racialized throughout history

oh yeah. especially frustrating because baz’s paleness is something people expressed discomfort with in carry on, and she had a chance to /improve/ it here, but then... made it worse?

like... i don’t know. i’ve been trying to work out a way to make it better and it takes, like, ten caveats, and even then i’m not sure, but...?

vampire paleness =/= human paleness to anyone who knows what they’re looking at

(so baz as a mixed race vampire... might look *sicker* or *greyer* or more *washed out* than lamb but... not paler overall?)

vampire paleness cycling with hunger but within fixed parameters - they never look human, and they can only go so pale? (so a starving vampire doesn’t look too different /in skin tone/ from a reasonably-hungry-for-their-next-meal vampire?)

paleness as a loss or disconnection, as something to cope with / come to terms with rather than romanticise...

baz’s paleness specifically mirroring malcolm’s white hair as a sign of traumatic grief???

(--> further thought: the vampiric hairline is also malcolm’s. obviously malcolm isn’t a vampire and is in fact quite prejudiced [though not as much as natasha] but... hmmm)

maybe something with baz going ‘i look so much like my mother, Except.....’

maaaybe a discussion of race and identity and being ‘white passing’ but mixed race in a white household, but like personally i don’t think i could do justice to that and i REALLY don’t think rowell could, so i’ll leave suggestions there to ppl who know what they’re talking about

but BASICALLY it all comes down to is ‘get rid of the eating people thing. just get rid of it. stop it. STOP’ so.....

[tyrannuspitch]

@miraclesandmonsters

hmm. yeah. i might not have agreed before reading that book but now? yeah definitely with you there

i always wished he (and fiona??? the grown adult who maimed a child???) were challenged slightly more in carry on, you know? like, i know he’s been through a lot, and i know it’s never exactly clear what he actually thinks and what he just thinks he should think, but... god. he definitely does some Bad Things and just the fact that he’s not ~the villain~ doesn’t... get rid of that? if simon has to admit he was wrong about baz, could baz not apologise to simon for like... one single thing

and... i don’t know. i really don’t know since i’m not convinced she’d have done it well at all but... i really wish she’d at least tried to address his actual family conflict. that story has so much potential...

[tyrannuspitch]

miraclesandmonsters replied to your photoset: @miraclesandmonsters hmm. yeah. i might not have...

Oh god, 100%. I struggled for a while with the fandom’s love of Fiona because of that. Overall, I think I hoped for a book that would address their trauma while recognizing the parts they played (and play) in perpetuating their world’s culture of violence and oppression. At least we have fanfic??

at least we have fanfic.

[tyrannuspitch]

yeah, i mean... i’ve never read eleanor and park, but i’ve read ABOUT it, and i kind of came away thinking, ‘well, obviously that’s really fucking bad, but carry on [the one book i’ve read by her, and her most recent at the time] only had a few subtle insensitivities, so i guess she must have learnt from her mistakes!’

...or not. guess she just hadn’t given herself a chance to fuck up [shrug emoji]

(...more seriously, that COULD actually be what’s going on??? like, if she’s aware she fucked up with e&p [which she might not be tbh] then she might be going ‘hey look i know what racism is!’ and then... never mentioning it again so she can’t say anything wrong??? but like. if you’re a professional author... you kind of have to try harder than that.)

[tyrannuspitch]

miraclesandmonsters replied to your post: miraclesandmonsters replied to...

I literally wrote a paper in grad school on how Baz’s desires interact with and begin to resist historical portrayals of queer men as monsters and especially as vampires. So this whole idea of Baz by nature having to be predatory… haha fuck I hate this

oh yeah. i don’t have much to add but it really is fucked up.

[tyrannuspitch]

@miraclesandmonsters don’t have much to add here but yeah

[tyrannuspitch]

@miraclesandmonsters this is really... something i’d missed. thank you

yeah this is... hm. a whole dimension i hadn’t properly considered, since... i’m pretty sure (??) the pitches, egyptian and otherwise, are /all/ meant to be very old money, and to have been in britain for a long time. but like... obviously backlash against immigrants doesn’t just impact... /actual/ recent immigrants. and a lot politicians who claim to be ‘anti-elitist’ get racist and/or antisemitic VERY fast.

so yeah when you take all that... and you take the fact the headmaster of watford was considered the most important person in british magic at the time, and that natasha was the youngest person ever and most likely also the first or one of very few women of colour to hold the position... and that the vampires who killed her were hired (by the mage) for a targeted political attack, and were already the kind of... at very least /reactionaries/ who would attack a nursery...

oh.