#sleuth week

[bibiscate]

yooo so I started working on this when I finished reading Sleuth Jesters by @naffeclipse (not sure if you okay with tagging, i'll delete if not) some weeks ago and it absolutely destroyed my heart :D

the scene where they ran after the Vigilante after discovering their "secret"? Tears??? At 4AM??? More likely than you think!!

so yeah this piece is based on that scene, yes I took very long, yes I forgot to post it, kiss kisss muah

Edit: forgot to credit @sunnys-aesthetic, who made the Detective AU Sleuth Jesters is based on!! :D

If the tag edit doesn't work I might reblog this with the tagging later

[whippetcrimes]

This one is suuuch a troublemaker already

[lightgamble]

DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN | 1.09

A Karen Page appreciation post

[artsandstoriesandstuff]

Once again advertising my Robo Sleuths Sideblog and Robo Sleuths Community + hinting at some special things for the series' upcoming birthday on January 3rd.....

[peiro-usagi-art]

AAAAAAAA i finally got this finished! :D

its been a while in the making the sketch itself is a few months old but I'm pretty happy with how this turned out!

this is ofc fanart for sleuth jesters by the wonderful @naffeclipse !! one of my favourite fics of all time, I love this dude!

[the-blossica-fan]

the Sleuth gives you a new person to analyze :

Dr. Klara Vingler aka stupid woman with gay ass hair (this art came from Twitter)

what would be her interactions with manusnetto look like?

Analyzing a TWIG

I have to say though, I genuinely love the art. So silly and simplistic but it takes every important element of the character and transfers it to a style that could be considered comedic but still appreciated. Something I enjoy about artists is when they make little versions of a character and it's so very funny but at the same time it's so well done I stop and admire.

Shouldn't have said that much, missed rambling a lil.

I believe, per usual, Kakania would speak Manusnetto's ears off about literally anything of her interest and Manusnetto would just nod along, sometimes saying something short like "I understand" so Kakania feels she's paying attention.

And then Manusnetto would offer to help Kakania exercise because, side by side, one is a muscular woman and the other is a twig.

That last part accidentally reminded me of me. I am twig coded.

[ratigan-in-the-wall]

Really enjoyed drawing the palcat P1 P2

Translations below

[maxcuntstappen]

did u guys know i havent finished/posted a smut since the 25th of dec last yr???

how r u guys feeling about me breaking the Curse today??

r we feeling lestappen being down bad whilst getting down n dirty?

pls advise

[whinlatter]

author's note | chapter 7: caged 🪽

thank you for reading chapter seven of Beasts! this chapter, we see the fallout from the controversial punch, watch harry and ginny go through about ninety bottles of ink writing precisely one bazillion letters to one another (my loves), and fret as the residents of grimmauld place fight a losing battle with pixies that may or may not be a metaphor for our characters’ own multiplying traumas, chasing everyone around and refusing to be contained. pray for our babies, for no-one is thriving - let's chat chapter seven! (plus a sneak peek of chapter eight, which includes a letter from a character yet to make his Beasts debut...) 👀

✨ spoilers for this chapter below the cut  ✨

writing notes and headcanons:

vibes: this chapter, i wanted the vibes to be claustrophobic, tedium, all hogwarts, real focus on ginny and her restlessness and over-it-ness, her starting to write a lot, both to harry and to others, and her starting to push the boundaries and rebel now she's lost her sense of purpose in returning. (@pocket-lilacs brought up pandemic-era uni vibes of 'what is the point of studying when all this is going on' and that is exactly the energy here). the politics is more a backdrop to ginny's arc in this chapter, though the thicknesse trial has uncomfortable echoes for gin's own set of experiences, and i'm having so much fun but also banging my head up against the wall/grappling with turning up/turning down the volume on the different macro/micro plots in different chapters to try and get different effects and to follow ginny's own engagement with the Big Questions of the postwar wizarding world. scale is hard, who knew!

quidditch: by far the hardest part of this chapter to write was the quidditch scene. it was 3000 words long originally, and i had to go at it with a sledgehammer to bash it into bits, dump most of it, and then just keep the most important parts to fold into this much quicker, punchier scene. the worst part of writing is spending days crafting a section and in doing so learn that you don't need it lmao. so yeah that's why this chapter was a week late. this one was a nightmare but we got there in the end lmao

the forest detention: our first flashback to the war year at hogwarts! why haven't we had more? answers on a postcard, all will be revealed, including the context for the silver trio's forest detention, but for now will just say the fact that snape sent the gang into the forest with hagrid for detention after stealing the sword has a) always had me in a chokehold because all of the endless ginny/forest foreshadowing but also because i've never been satisfied with the explanation that the detention was just an obvious easy option. can't wait to share more !!!

harry and ginny: all i want to do is write more letters for those two. 'sneaking out of grounds, booze, leather gangs' - that was how @madammalkins23 summed it up beautifully, getting at the vibes i keep coming back to with both of these characters: the sirius-black-shaped elephant in the room, basically. escaping from hogwarts with buckbeak? the risk being what makes it all fun? harry fixing up the motorbike? fighting a war against grimmauld place and getting on the whiskey? the looming shadow of molly weasley? it's truly giving padfoot. the idea of harry and ginny in cahoots, as partners in crime, really kept me going when writing this chapter - like, what if harry for the first time did have another person in his life who was of the 'fuck it' school of thought? (i even went back and read that jkr short story of sirius and james on the motorbike lol). basically, the sirius echoes just sort of ended up writing themselves, as they always seem to do in this fic. when it comes to the letters, it's striking to me that in canon harry is very preoccupied with who does or doesn’t write to him - at the dursleys', but also after sirius' death ('It’s just hard,' Harry said finally, in a low voice, 'to realise he won’t write to me again.' - HBP). i've never really got fics that have harry as a non-loquacious letter writer in the post-war period, especially to ginny - harry seeks huge comfort and reassurance in getting letters from people who care about him, and channels his worries about people he's close to into letters, especially people he views as family (sirius, ginny). that harry and ginny would become a bit emotionally codependent through letters seemed in some sense a natural choice, basically, and although they're still being very avoidant, in some ways, i think they're building a foundation towards becoming each other's person in ways that's important. (i am putting together a sirius and ginny parallels meta playing with these ideas and character-trait overlap that i'll share hopefully soon, so stay tuned on that one)

why won’t ginny open up? by far the question i've been asked most this week! i am really really excited and happy about the arc i’ve got in store for ginny on this question, so don't want to reveal too much, but there have been some beautiful insightful guesses in the comments section about why ginny is struggling to come clean with harry or her family. here we see harry begin to see through gin's defences, a little bit, but also show his own blindspots that come from him not having asked the right questions or always probed about her interior life before now. i'm always so grateful and blown away by the trust readers have put in me to deliver on all these protracted question marks but this week especially i felt v glad for readers' compassion towards these characters and especially for ginny and hermione, as they fuck up and get it wrong and struggle yet still get grace in the comment section. both are on a journey, but i know more impatient readers could be sick of waiting for them to get there, so just to say i am really glad everyone is getting it and seeing where both characters are at with empathy and kindness, because ofc what they’re both doing is frustrating (and, when it comes to gin, harry is beginning to think so, too)

plus thicknesse: had a long chat with @saintsenara about ol thicknesse, because he's kind of a baffling figure - ex-auror who gets successfully imperiused, becomes minister and then goes on to actively commit horrific war crimes while under yaxley's control. what's fun about the trials, though, is that you can use them as a conduit to raise these big moral questions for postwar wizarding society - in thicknesse's case, it's questions about agency, free will, and culpability, in ways that has real implications for ginny's reflections on her own experiences. so cheers pius love u

harry's patronus: i am salivating at all of your theories for this one - obviously i'm saying nothing for now, but keep them guesses coming, i live for em! and if you guess right, i'll come up with some kind of prize lmao

detention, career advice (and graves' apathy): back in the site of former detentions, ginny shows her remarkably sparse knowledge of wizarding careers in a scene that i hope shows her trying on for size different role models/authority figures and seeing which ones she feels most like. (i like the idea that ginny would actually be a bit interested in being an auror, if only she'd been in of age and able to benefit from kingsley's hiring amesty after the battle). having ginny hover over the idea of being an unspeakable was particularly important for me, because i like the idea of the dept of mysteries being quite a formative space for her (i feel like all i do is say 'wait and see!' but... i have things to do and say with this dimension i swear!) graves is like, do what you want, babe, i don't care. i'm here for the pension, frankly

michael corner: 'surprise bitch!' - michael corner, probably. do i think michael and ginny were mates after the breakup end of ootp? no i do not. but i have always been so struck that ginny and michael must have actually spent a lot of very intense time together during DH as die-hards in the DA (michael is the only character we hear whose torture by the carrows after attempting to rescue a younger student is described as particularly severe, which i think suggests his level of commitment to the cause). readers will recall my open disdain for michael corner up til this point - i have described him as the jack berger of hogwarts quidditch, for my satc fans - but i'm afraid to say i have now decided i quite like him and am excited for him to rock up in person real soon. i think he's a know it all softboi but with a goodie core. also as a writer there's something quite refreshing about bringing in a character who is an ex who probably can see through some of ginny's shit by virtue of having spent a lot of time with her but no longer needing to/caring about impressing her, placating her or keeping her on side lol

hermione: alaskanastro left a comment that summed this up: 'Man, Hermione is really just doubling down on the whole "I'm going to try desperately to control something in life to feel like I'm in control even if it's my friend's life" isn't she? Or at least trying to'. yep, that's what she's doing! we still don't know all that hermione's going through, but this hit the nail on the head fr. i feel bad that this fic is ginny pov at this stage in its arc, because i think ginny sees hermione in a particular way rn (their final conversation in this chapter really speaking to these tensions - ginny does not want to feel mothered, at least not by hermione...), but these two have a long way to go to get to a point of mutual understanding. wanna write a meta on their friendship soon, hopefully will get chance to before i finish chapter 8. but anyway - wonder what's going on with her and ron... hope we find out soon... hope someone tells us... :) :) :)

everything but the ghoul: the dumbest pun, but had to use this joke in a chapter where ginny skips school (everything but the girl's most famous song is called 'missing'... get it)

songs from the playlist for this chapter:

girls getting grouchy and teenage in their feelings is the big ol mood this week:

the middle of the world - nicholas brittell | sidelines by phoebe bridgers | difficult by gracie abrams | simulation swarm by big thief | crisis by elizabeth m. drummond | delete forever - grimes | chinese satellite (copycat killer version) by phoebe bridgers

i did promise a sneak peek didn't i...

From the desk of the MINISTER OF MAGIC Whitehall, London Dear Ginny,  I hope you’re well. I’d like to meet with you on Saturday the 12th of December at 11 o’clock. It’s important that we’re discreet. Please vanish this letter after reading. Sincerely, Kingsley

[shy-nightmare]

🎨✒UPDATE:🎨✒

Good morning 🌄!

@weaselnerd, @lastofautumn, @spookiifi, @trashogram, @marinerainbow and everyone else, I hope you guys are doing OK! 😁

I am SO, SO sorry I've been MIA for the last two weeks 😭😭😭! I've been so insanely busy, it's like -- OK, do you guys ever get so busy that all you could say is "AUGH 😫!!!"? That's how busy I've been 😔

I know you guys said I can post my chapters whenever I have the chance and you'd love my story no matter what, but I feel so bad for making you all wait for too long 😥

Which is why I'm posting Chapter 10....

TOMORROW MORNING AT 10:45 A.M.!!!! 😁😁😁😁

Thank you all for sticking around even with things being so hectic and busy for me, I appreciate you all and your patience 🫂❤🫂

[basketcace]

SEPULCHRITUDE !!!!!!!!!

[newsatsix1986]

During my teenage years, the Australian and New Zealand comedy scene pretty much helped raise me. I especially adored Good News Week with all my teenage heart. It was already off air by the time I came to it but I fell in love with all of these colourful personalities who showed me who I could be. This Tumblr of mine used to be dedicated to Good News Week many years ago.

Cal Wilson was one of those extraordinary creative souls who inspired me. Her colour, her sweetness, her cheekiness and her energy took my heart and I have been eagerly checking her career out since 2014. I reckon I am now the eclectic soul I am today because of her influence (and Claire Hooper's too). I remember being enamoured with both ladies' wardrobes and their sparkly joy and fun insights and I wished that I could be more like them. They were so super duper cool to me.

It was my birthday on Wednesday 11th October this year (2023), and I opened my Facebook to respond to a birthday message, only to be greeted with the announcement of her death. My heart sunk in a way it has never for any celebrity death, and every time I see her face I feel both so much warmth and simultaneously want to scream that this is entirely unfair. She was only 53, my parents' exact age right now. How can such a vibrant beautiful soul be gone?

This should demonstrate how this lady's vibrance has touched so many lives, even ones that never got to physically meet her like myself. I know I am how I am today because of having had her art in my life. It is so hard to believe she is gone, and my heart goes out to her little boy and husband and all her friends and extended family. To quote her affirmative argument at the end of a Melbourne International Comedy Festival Great Debate, she had to go, there's a kangaroo doing a drum solo waiting.

Rest In Peace to the beautiful Queen of Caicos 💖🌟💐

5th October 1970 - 11th October 2023

[outself]

it's detective season

[free-luigi-mangione]

i just want to say i'm so so fucking livid about everything that happened yesterday and i'm somehow even more pissed at myself for believing that letter was maybe real for the split second when i read it, even tho i was like really?? after reading ghetto (because the insensitivity of using ghetto when most people outside usa associate the word to talk about places like auschwitz in nazi germany) but then people were talking about how ghetto is used in an equally bad but slightly less genocidal way in america i was like, still really??? and i did try to match it with the catalogue, it didn't match, the letter sender's first name starts with a D (because Luigi has written all the letters using their first names) and even blanking out the name didn't quite blank out the D fully, and there was nobody like that on the date the letter was supposed to be written on and i knew that letter was defo sus and even more sus because of how everybody crashed out about the letter and how it might possibly divide his support. i mean i recognised that it wasn't real pretty quick and i didn't talk about it but i still can't forgive myself for believing it was maybe real for a bit, i feel like i will always live in shame for believing that, not because i believe he's some godsend who could never do wrong but because i can't believe i fell for somebody's trick to manipulate the public into an active smear campaign against a person in a very vulnerable position. i feel like i failed media literacy even tho i did try my best to verify. i just feel so helpless and so so angry about the whole letter situation.

[jonathanbyersphd]

Oh they finally figured out the very obvious creep is

[the-blossica-fan]

remember the bangle both Vertin and Arcana had in chapter 6 as a peace agreement in Apeiron?

coincidentally, it appears in Sonetto's room days after Arcana first bothered her thoughts!

also, this is what happens when Arcana and Constantine nag Sonetto at the same time

Arcana (in Sonetto's brain): do evil things....

Constantine (in front of Sonetto): tell us information about Arcana....

Sonetto (getting annoyed at this point, grumbling): I really, REALLY want to end my misery...

Sonetto, basically:

FREE MY GIRL 😭😭

Why did that appear inside her room? Did Arcana bring it in? Oh Lord was it Vertin? She has one too...

Oh God I can picture Sonetto asking Arcana to die literally every day and she goes "Nah 👍"