#swamp-rat-king

[pomegranate]

I just love the Swamp Rat dynamic of Hawkeye + BJ + Charles so much. They stuck three brilliant actors in front of the camera, put them in a claustrophobic environment, pushed them to their breaking points and let them go ham. I love the renewed energy among the cast and how their characters evolve together. Hey, Mash is a good show

[choster33]

Gambit- X-men 97's Romantic Hero

I love Gambit and after watching X-men 97 I'm sure that he's a lot of people's favorite right now. After watching and rewatching, season 1 I think that the writers have set him up as the Romantic Hero which is not just that he's a main part of a love triangle which he is but Romantic in the Byronic literary archetype way of "possessing the qualities of being larger than life, enjoying suffering, being isolated from society, being always haunted by an unseeingly unidentified sin and is known for being quite cynical" according to Brainly.com. Not to mention having a long suffering love interest!

He is not in the series for a lot of time, but his arc through episode 5 and the impact that he has throughout the whole show is monumental. He begins with a splash looking hot in his iconic pink crop top. I mean, there are very few people who would make this look good and he really does. He also comes off as way more interesting than Scott who bores me to tears. I sometimes skip Scott and Jean stuff to be quite honest and that comes from Remy being a good guy, but not boring. He has a sense of humor, a sense of adventure, and an all around down to earth personality. He is a strong fighter and loyal X-men, but even from the beginning he is seen as charming, funny and right. There is less of a threat after Xavier's death and Scott, Bishop and Ororo did have it handled.

Then we get to the club and Gambit is the ultimate lover in that he pairs up with Rogue and then proceeds to look at her lovingly whilst telling her what any worthwhile man would do to be with her. Swoon.

Then we have episode 2 where Rogue and Magneto reestablish their connection. We may cheer Rogue for being able to touch someone, but look at Gambit's hurt and sad eyes. Long suffering relationship indeed. Romantic heroes seem to love suffering and what is more painful and self inflicted than falling in love with someone who can't touch, but also is full of insecurities about love and commitment. I love Rogue, but she's afraid of love and terrified of hurting someone else which shows in how she handles relationships.

Mon dieu, it's freaky Rogueneto telling him what he tells himself, his deepest fears. A good Romantic hero always has demons and haunted by past sins and who is more haunted by his past than Gambit. I have to say here that some people might be thinking who is more tortured than Magneto, but I disagree. Magneto has a dark past, but he thinks he's right. Whereas Gambit is wracked with guilt and feelings of not being worthy of being called a X-man and being Rogue's man. He grew up a Cajun swamp rat from a Thieves guild raised by thieves, assassins and other nefarious people and lived most of his life as a thief. What makes him interesting is the tortured guilt and modesty that Gambit has.

He goes to Genosha because he's jealous and wants to make sure that there is nothing going on between Rogue and Magneto. Magneto even says as much. He wasn't even meant to be there and might have been safe on Earth, but we know what happened to him tragically. Plus we see how he is not cowed by Magneto and willing to ask questions no one else is willing to ask. Another reason why Magneto is not the Romantic hero, is that he is mutant MVP in this show, the heir to the X-mansion and the X-men, asked to be king of Genosha, and etc. where Romantic heroes are on the fringes of society like Gambit, who is a hero as a X-man but not wanting fame, glory, or power like Magneto.

Kurt is so observant and sees instantly the connection the two have and calls Gambit out on being theatrical. Gambit calls himself a scoundrel and yet again dismisses the possibility of a happy ending for himself. Then we get that iconic line of "There is no love without sin. Love is best measured in what we forgive." Gambit again falls into the Romantic hero trope of thinking he is too low for love, but isn't going to necessarily change his ways, just accepts that he is on the fringes of society and all that entails. One of the things I love about Romy is their understanding about one another. They both have murky pasts and are filled with self loathing and self doubt. They are strong attractive X-men but they are best friends because they GET each other.

Oof, the breakup scene. How more Romantic and tortured was this? He showed how amazing a man he was by patiently listening to her tell her story and then at the end not blowing up at her or making her feel like shit, but just wanting the truth from her and showing how much it hurt him. He played the Swamp Rat, because a lot of that was a game, a way for her to feel OK with keeping him at arm's length, dangling on a string, never fully letting him in because intimacy was too scary.

It's scenes like this that make me wonder if they have touched before even accidentally because Gambit as a character is so self loathing that if she touched him even by accident, she is holding so much of that loathing in her which may be something contributing to her doubts. A part of comic!Rogue leaving Gambit in Antarctica was because she absorbed him and was filled with self loathing.

He is such a gentleman that he even kisses her hand and agrees to be friends. And granted that the Magneto and Rogue dance was hot, but that must have been torture for Gambit. Then our Byronic hero becomes a man of action and hot damn we get James Bond level action and heroics. He shows his strength and does whatever is necessary to save his lady. Despite his differences with Magneto, he doesn't petulantly sulk but does what is required of him because he is a hero at the end of the day. He is brave and selfless and chivalrous. He is giving old school knight chivalry here and I'm here for it.

Then my heart breaks as does every other viewer at the death scene and the "can't feel you" line. It's very soap opera-y and dramatic to kill him after breaking his heart, but here we are. Rogue is the long suffering love interest and most Romantic stories don't necessarily have a happy ending. He wasn't even meant to be in Genosha and because of love and circumstance ended up dying tragically as the ultimate hero. He died a hero's death dying to save thousands, but more importantly to save the love of his life.

In later episodes, his death is a catalyst for Rogue taking action and even turning darker. Her love for Gambit shows more when he is gone and is going to be a fundamental chapter in her life. One that might make her think twice about being commitment phobic and using her abilities as an excuse not to feel intimacy and how wrong she got it with Gambit. It was love, true love and she didn't see it until she was too late.

This may just be a chapter in their story and we may have more drama and angst with Deathbit in Season 2, but even dead Gambit was the troubled Romantic lead that made X-men 97 work and be so interesting. Episode 5 was my favorite and probably the best episode next to the finale and that's due to Gambit. We relate to him and feel deeply in his pain, self loathing, jealousy, and love of Rogue. I find Magneto interesting and Rogueneto is fun to read and write about, but Romy is the OTP and Gambit is Lancelot.

[yourbelgianthings]

aforementioned giant list of mountain goats songs for taz

sadly some characters i couldn’t find a song i thought fit for (i.e. angus) that doesn’t mean i don’t like them!!

Magnus- Against Pollution, Spent Gladiator 2, Training Montage, Billy the Kid’s Dream of Magic Shoes

Merle- Hebrews 11:40, Harlem Roulette, January 31 438, Noche Del Guajalote

Taako- Up the Wolves, Get Lonely, Get Famous

Barry- Blues in Dallas, Love Love Love

Johann- Your Belgian Things, Harlem Roulette

Lucretia- Old College Try, Heel Turn 2, Game Shows Touch Our Lives

Davenport- Idylls of the King, Maybe Sprout Wings

Hurley- Magpie, Love Love Love

Sloane- Dilaudid

Lucas- In Memory of Satan

Lup- Going Invisible 2

Taakitz- The Age of Kings, The Coroner’s Gambit

Blupjeans- Bluejays and Cardinals

Carey and Killian- Animal Mask, 1 Corinthians 13: 8-10

IPRE- High Hawk Season, Corsican Mastiff Stride, When A Powerful Animal Comes

Aubrey- There Will Be No Divorce, Dinu Lipatti’s Bones, Amy aka Spent Gladiator 1, Shadow Song, Song For An Old Friend

Duck- Midland, New Monster Avenue, In the Hidden Places, As Many Candles As Possible

Ned- Cotton, Wild Sage, Estate Sale Sign, Prowl Great Cain, The Mess Inside, Bleed Out, Going to Hungary

The Pine Guard- Fire Editorial

Pigeon- Jeff Davis County Blues

Mama- Midland, Bones Don’t Rust

Barclay- Color in Your Cheeks, If You See Light, Harbor Me

Minerva- The Young Thousands, Luna, Mobile, Clean Slate

Dani- Blueberry Frost

Keith- Alpha Rats Nest

Hollis- Alpha Rats Nest, Amy aka Spent Gladiator 1, Guys on Every Corner

Boyd- The House that Dripped Blood

Indrid- Alabama Nova

Thacker- Elijah, How to Embrace A Swamp Creature

Amber- The Recognition Scene, International Small Arms Traffic Blues, Oceanographer’s Choice, 1 John 4:16, Bones Don’t Rust, The Young Thousands, Family Happiness, Game Shows Touch Our Lives, Genesis 3:23

Devo- Cotton, Up the Wolves, Get Lonely, New Zion, Outer Scorpion Squadron, Hopeful Assassins of Zeno, Never Quite Free, Cry for Judas, Mark on You, Autoclave, Genesis 3:23

Zoox- Song for Lonely Giants, Incandescent Ruins, Autoclave

Oksana/Kodira- The Recognition Scene, Oceanographer’s Choice, Luna, Genesis 3:23

Orlean- Trick Mirror, New Zion, In Memory of Satan

The Curator- Deuteronomy 2:10

The Shoreside Community- Letter from Belgium, Going to Lebanon 2

The Coriolis Crew- Steal Smoked Fish

[eminsunnytoons123]

The moopets show part 1, 2, 3 And 4

Dedicated to all my besties/Sisters And brothers/pen pals @splashy900 @kxllboii @cheezekennith @aquamarine-dream-queen @dayzsaclark @oscarandgrinchfan @moshywoosh @ilovescaredysquirrel2 @nuggetaubrey @sharkyy599 @nightkit92 @familyoffood @mysafespaceblog13 @thelazzyblogzz @sugar-miss1 @shrimpathizer @shypeachrunaway @iggyguyy @sophia-does-skits @typical-sophie @peaceforpeople @ben5569 @xxkurosakutisaxx @ducktoonz903707 @muppet-fan-real @artismeyou-12 @blackstar044 @acen402 @acen404 @walt-diego-rodriguez @goatsarecool1 @nia1sworld @rumplestiltsbear @s4gefr0g @beeware-of-lulu and @leafith since I promised them that i'll post the moopets And whatnots here again, And make the new teppums characters =^///^=

Now some info about them (i wont write what are they wearing, And i'll think more of their info):

Kermoot the frog - he is Kermit's rival, he is an tough, rude, evil, arrogant And sarcastic frog leader in the moopets gang, he is 22 years old like Kermit, And he is bisexual And polyamourous, he is dating miss poogy And foozie. He plays the electric guitar And sings about stormy connections. His headcanon voice actor is John Kennedy, And his voice claim is blotch from Kermit's swamp years.

Foozie - foozie is fozzie's rival, he is an sarcastic, sassy, arrogant, And sort of an ignorant comedian bear in the moopets Show gang, he is 24 years old like fozzie And he is pansexual, queer And polyamourous, he is dating miss poogy And kermoot. He is an comedian, but he makes very rude And offensive jokes about others. His headcanon voice actor is Tyler Bunch, And his voice claim is his same voice from the muppets 2011 (yes, he did talk, but only a few Times).

Miss poogy - miss poogy is miss piggy's rival, she is an ignorant, annoyed, sarcastic, sassy, tough And rude primadonna pig in the moopets Show gang, she is 23 years old like miss piggy And she is bisexual And polyamourous, she is dating kermoot And foozie. She is an more tough And punk version of miss piggy, some muppets call her "imposter of miss piggy". Her headcanon voice actor is David Rudman, And her voice claim is her same voice from the muppets 2011.

Roowlf the dog - roowlf the dog is rowlf's rival, he is an annoyed, ignorant, tough And rude dog in the moopets Show gang, he is 30 years old like rowlf and he is bisexual, he is dating Scarlett the black-haired whatnot. He plays the piano just like rowlf, but with more rougher sounds And tones on the piano, And he dislikes when someone tells him what to do. His headcanon voice actor is Kevin Micheal Richardson, And his voice claim is shredder from tmnt 2012.

Bonzor the fantastic - Bonzor the fantastic is gonzo's rival, he is an flirty, sassy, arrogant, sarcastic And sort of an bragging Guy in the moopets Show gang, he is 23 years old like gonzo And he is pansexual And trans, he is with Camillo the rooster. He is an acrobat on the moopets Show, And he does many acrobatic tricks, And he is an alien like gonzo but except that he has an smaller nose that him. His headcanon voice actor is Daniel Sieteiglesias, And his voice claim is Vanity smurf from 2021 smurfs.

Paloma the flying shrimp - paloma the flying shrimp is Pepe the King prawn's rival, she is an flirty, sassy, sarcastic And arrogant flying shrimp in the moopets Show gang, she is 20 years old like Pepe And she is bisexual And polyamourous, she is dating cici the mouse And yacoub the mouse. She is from spain just like Pepe And she has an thick Spanish accent, oh! And dont call her just a "shrimp" shes a FLYING shrimp. Her headcanon voice actress is Carolina Gaitan, And her voice claim is Pepe madrigal from encanto.

Cici the mouse - cici the mouse is rizzo the rat's rival, she is an optimistic, tomboyish, sarcastic, arrogant And rude mouse girl in the moopets Show gang, she is 29 years old like Rizzo And she is pansexual And polyamourous, she is dating Paloma the flying shrimp And yacoub the mouse. She likes roller-skating And skate-boarding, And she sticks out her tounge in a rude way. Her headcanon voice actress is Maria Darling, And her voice claim is breeze from roary the racing car.

Dr dentist - dr dentist is dr teeth's rival, he is an arrogant, sassy, flirty, sarcastic Guy in the moopets Show gang and the Dark Mayhem band, he is 24 years old like dr teeth And he is bisexual, he is dating soom the hawk. He plays the electric piano in the Dark Mayhem band. His headcanon voice actor is Hoon Lee, And his voice claim is Splinter from tmnt 2012.

Janooce - janooce is Janice's rival, she is an sarcastic, masculine, tough And arrogant Lady in the moopets Show gang, she is 23 years old like Janice And she is a Lesbian, she is dating flora. She plays the bass in the Dark Mayhem band, And she hangs out with schi-schi, Ray the bigfoot, solid cotton guitarist "Sarah", Galatea, Pinka, purpleyna And arrogant Mahira since theyre all Lesbians. Her headcanon voice actor is Matt Vogel, And her voice claim is the same Jamaican accented voice she had on muppets 2011 (yes, she did speak in that movie, at the near end where the moopets chased Tex Richman, And she Said: "yeah, for real, man!).

Flora - Flora Sindran is Floyd Pepper's rival, she is an arrogant, sassy And flirty Lady in the moopets Show gang, she is 23 years old like floyd And she is bisexual, And she is dating janooce. She plays the electric guitar in the Dark Mayhem band, And she likes being with janooce. Her headcanon voice actress is Maria Darling, And her voice claim is Cici from roary the racing car.

Zotts - zotts is zoot's rival, he is an arrogant, sarcastic, sorta sassy And ignorant Guy in the moopets Show gang, he is 23 years old like Zoot and he is pansexual, he is dating lipst. He plays the trumpet in the Dark Mayhem band, And he likes flirting with anyone especially lipst when he has the time. His headcanon voice actor is Marc Silk, And his voice claim is Maxi from roary the racing car.

Lipst - Lipst is Lips' rival, he is an Calm, chill, peaceful, sassy And sarcastic Guy in the moopets Show gang, he is 23 years old like Lips And he is bisexual And trans, he is dating zotts. He plays the flute in Dark Mayhem band, And he likes being with others. His headcanon voice actor is Marc Silk, And his voice claim is drifter from roary the racing car.

Animool - animool is Animals rival, he is an wild, energetic, enthusiastic And optimistic Guy in the moopets Show gang, his Age is Unknown but others assume that he is 18, and he is asexual and pansexual, he is dating Tanya the red-brown haired whatnot. He plays the electric drums in the Dark Mayhem band and he likes the color Pink, And he has heterochromia (two different eye colors). His headcanon voice actor is Steve Blum, And his voice claim is taz from Looney tunes.

I hope y'all will like this =^_^= 💗

[hiatuswhore]

♕ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʀɪɴᴄᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ʇɐᴚ ʇǝǝɹʇS ǝɥ⊥—ᴀ ɢᴀᴍᴇ ᴏꜰ ɹɐM

♕ A/N: Sorry for the delay between the holidays and work I was swamped. Hope everyone had a happy holidays and new year. The Prince and The Street Rat—A Game of War. Absolutely loving the feedback! Only two more parts remain for this story :)

♕ SUMMARY: The world works in mysterious ways and so does the residents of Kings Landing. One never knows what they find in the alleyways and rooftops. Whores, drunks, knights, thieves, sometimes even Princes.

♕ WORD COUNT: 3.4K

♕ WARNING: Mentions of self harm and cursing

previous — Masterlist — next

You approach the waiting carriage with your head held high. Daltis and Taliya offer tight hugs whispering well wishes for your return. Your eyes scan the courtyard. Far off stands the Dowager Queen. Her emerald green gown and doe eyes watching you with a curiosity to her nature. Where is he? You flinch back as Ser Barlo offers his hand, muttering an apology.

Pausing, you turn to the carriage—making feeble attempts to curb the dread that stills you. You swallow, accepting the Knight's hand, muttering an apology. You press yourself to the far corner of the carriage. Interlacing your fingers, you wet your lips huffing quietly.

"No worries, Lady (Y/n). You have nothing to fear," Ser Barlo smiles. Nodding your head, you lean back. Your eyes fluttering shut at the rumble of the carriage, Ser Barlo makes no attempts at conversation. The days pass in an arduous consistency leaving long periods of silence. Nights come with erasure. Often you close your eyes beneath the stars. The silence reminds you of the distance between yourself and Kings Landing, "We're going to stop here for a bit, my (Y/n). To feed the horses and stretch our legs. There's a tavern here if you wish to buy something to eat."

Nodding your head, you offer a tight-lipped smile. You stretch your legs across the seats, relishing in the light pops along your legs. The carriage door sits wide open, allowing a breeze to sweep your skin. Stepping outside, you bring your hands to your lips, a long yawn monopolizing your body as you roll your head forward. You shade your eyes with a hand at your eyebrows and the other on your hip. Furrowing your eyebrows, you scan the slow pace environment. A far cry from all you know, why is it so quiet?

A couple stands by a horse stable, the skepticism in their eyes making you step closer to the guards tending the horses and those resting their feet. Another stands further into the small town sweeping their front steps. Her eyes are on you—the same wary gaze. To the left of the sweeper sits the Tavern, the worn wood door lacking a semblance of invitation. You get a quarter of the way there to find more eyes waiting and watching. Frowning, you shake your head, turning your back to the onlookers. Not a chance.

You turn back, halting at the sight of a little girl. Dirt litters her clothes and skin, her limbs thin, almost frail. A girl no older than six, maybe seven. She smiles up at you, a shine in her eyes you cannot place. You offer a weak smile, hesitance hijacking your motor and social skills. The girl holds out her hand, a piece of cloth the size of your hand in it. You frown at the blue, the cloth far more expensive than anything in the area. The girl skips away, leaving you to closely inspect the familiar ripple pattern—exactly as Taliya had on your gown. The cloth, the same blue that Roslyn stitched in your chambers.

"You alright?" Ser Barlo eyes the townspeople as he speaks. You nod your head, tucking the cloth away into your cloak. Climbing back into the carriage, fully content on the rations of nuts. The journey continues in a nauseating continuance—why the hell did they choose Riverrun? You flinch awake as Ser Barlo retracts his hand from your shoulder. Rubbing your eyes, the Knights' words scramble in your stupor. Basic conversation, now a puzzle of understanding. The severity of your situation returning in suffocating waves.

"My apologies. What?" Running your hands over your face, Ser Barlo gives word of a Dragon sighting. Nodding your head, you sit up, fiddling with your fingers while scanning the carriage for nothing in particular. A humorless chuckle leaves your lips, garnering a glance from the older Knight, "A pawn in the game of thrones. I wager I do not make it to war's end."

"I'll wager you will," Amusement laces Ser Barlo's words, a smile ghosting on his lips. You raise your eyebrows, saying nothing. Roslyn's words rest in your mind like a sleeping beast—a dangerous secret. A loud growl fills the silence, and scooting forward, you peek out of the small grooves on the side wall. Faint wisps of black move briskly through the sky, leaving you to question the integrity of your sight.

The carriage rolls to a stop, and your eyes cut to Ser Barlo. He half nods. It's time. Outside of the carriage, a large black tent stands with guards standing on the opposite side. You keep your eye on the dragon looming above, swallowing thickly; you turn to your guards.

"I will go in alone," You say. A domino effect of wary glances plagues the men. Your gaze bounces between each of them, their confusion morphing into sneers.

"The King made his orders—" You roll your eye, squaring your shoulders with a pointed stare.

"Now I have made mine! I will go in alone or happily report to the crown the knights that thwarted the only possibility of maintaining peace in the realm. So tell me, nameless Knight, what is the next course of action for the proxy of the crown?" Your ferocity brings a pregnant pause. "I asked a question. What say you?"

A scoff fills the air, glaring daggers the man says, "You will go in alone."

"Set a perimeter. I want no surprises and do well to not piss off the dragon above us," You say, turning to the tent you clasp your hands in front of you. Ser Barlo stands by the entrance, nodding his head at you. His hand sits on the hilt of his sword. Taking a deep breath, you step inside. Your gaze falls as the Prince scrambles to his feet from his chair. A meager food spread covers the table with half-melted candles.

"Lady (Y/n)," Prince Jacaerys stands with the posture of a foot soldier awaiting command. The two of you stand in place, silence dancing between you. You wet your lips, analyzing every detail of his face. He looks like his father.

"I am so sorry for what became of Prince Lucerys. In my very brief moment with your brother, he was undoubtedly the kindest person I've encountered at court. Almost made me hopeful of those who influence the rulers of commoners like myself," Jacaerys turns away from you, a long sigh leaving his lips. He leans over, gripping the chair's edge, the white of his knuckles capturing your eye.

A pregnant pause ensues, leaving you to shift, silently cursing yourself for mentioning his brother. What the hell does one say in a peace negotiation?

"How are you?" Narrowing your eyes, your head whips up. An incredulous awe rendering you silent. Jacaerys steps forward, taking your hands in his own, "My mother has received conflicting reports of your well-being these past few months. The latest claims an attempt on your own life."

"I—What?" You lean back, searching for a glimpse of the truth behind this absurdity. A never-ending game of self-interest and entitlement with Rivers and low-borne as certain collateral.

"Did you not receive word of Ser Barlo's loyalty?" Jacaerys eyebrow quirk, a softness to his gaze. His hands move to your elbows, leaving your own hands resting on his forearms. The small gesture comes with the remembrance of many days and nights of capture by the former leader of the City's Watch. You take a deep breath, the searing in your throat making your eyes well. Moving from the Prince's grasp, you cross the tent.

"Um, I uh, I did. My apologies you remind of…." Bringing up your shoulders, you swipe away the escaping tears. Rubbing your hands together, a long sigh leaves your lips as you squeeze your eyes shut, your words trailing off.

"Ser Harwin," Jacaerys gentle gaze exudes nothing short of comfort. He offers a curt nod—an understanding. "He spoke of you often. I never understood his responsibility toward you, but I understand why it has carried to my mother."

"They will set the Kingdom ablaze before they agree to Princess Rhaenyra sitting the throne," You clasp your hands in front of you, a sinking pit in your stomach. Jacaerys mirrors your stance, both of you mere children thrust into schemes older than yourselves. Your eyebrows furrow at the Prince's unflinching calm. Shouts outside the tent fill the silence.

"I come not seeking half-truths of peace but the assurance of your safety," Jacaerys eyes stay on your wary gaze. Ser Barlo enters addressing Jacaerys, his fealty leaving no room for doubt. Your jaw falls slack at the crimson that paints his sword. His attentive stare and ready stance add to the flip in your stomach.

"It is time, your Grace." You frown, and the two exchange pleasantries as though you do not stand before them. Jacaerys firm expression softens at your tense resolve. He steps forward, taking your hand in his own. His grip gentle, misleading—he offers no options.

"We must hurry! Word will soon travel, and my uncle will scour the skies in search of you. Lord Stark has a place you will go unfound," Your mouth gapes, your body captive to the domino effect of this ghastly choice. Aemond will not scour the skies. He'll scorch the fucking realm. You inhale sharply, halting at the sight of the beast.

"I cannot go," You whisper breathlessly, eyes locked on the massive green dragon. Its eyes meet your gaze, sending a shiver down your spine.

"We have no time for this," The baritone of Jacaery's voice, unlike the higher pitch from earlier. He pulls you forward, either unaware or uncaring of your fear-stricken stupor. The journey onto the saddle's lost in your focus on every little detail of the dragon. How the tips of its spiked skin shine a contrasting red, or the uneven surface of the body lays.

"Wait!" You grab his right wrist with your hand leaving your left to unsheathe his dagger. Pressing to his backside, you chew your bottom lip at how straight your body contorts. A sliver of freedom plays before you, a long lost dream of a previous reality, "I don't want to hurt you, but—you're not listening."

"Lady (Y/n)," The caution in his tone twisting your stomach into further knots. You sit on a dragon, holding a dagger to a Prince. Still, a foolish girl, playing way out of her depths.

"I can never place into words what it means to know your family aims to protect me. But you have come too late," The coals in your throat burn, your grip on the dagger loosening. "The usurpers have already butchered someone I loved and hold the final two I care for as prisoners. If I disappear, they die, and your uncle torches the realm. My return to Kings Landing can prove to be useful."

"You speak as though you aim to aid my mother in this war. Why should we trust you? My uncle's beloved companion?" Jacaerys wraps his hand around your wrist, bringing the dagger down slowly. He turns carefully, taking in your features.

"I do have a love for your uncle, but he is an awful companion. He has broken every oath he's sworn to me, and it's turned life upside down. There are more players in this war than that meets the eye. I have no idea who they are or the number of their strengths. Only their symbol of choice and the stretch of their reach. Their reach goes from Kings Landing to Pentos. The market streets to the Keep corridors. I understand your distrust in my loyalty to the succession of the throne. Words will give you nothing but action can, I need you to deliver a message to the rogue Prince and only the rogue Prince," Jacaerys eyebrows pull, eyeing you skeptically. You hand him the cloth with the skillfully stitched ripples. You ignore the twist in your gut. No time to reconsider and breathe, busy making risky political moves. You take the Prince's hands, rubbing your fingers back and forth. "Your uncles rather intense feelings for me are more than obvious—rather not hidden at all. I can assure you there will soon be a union. Many, if not all, of anyone who matters to the Hightowers will be in attendance."

"You'll forever bind yourself to the Kinslayer for my Mother's cause?" Jacaerys frowns, his gaze shifting away from you. You grip the edges of the saddle, the Prince soothing his vocal dragon.

"I've been bound to Aemond for some time now. No place in the North or anywhere else in the world will change that. If your uncle loved me, he'd release me—your family descends from conquerors, not lovers," You stare into his temples. Much like the rest of his family, he hides his thoughts beneath a blank exterior. Jacaerys shoulders square, his expression hardening while gripping the reins of the saddle.

"Sōvēs, Vermax!" You spring forward, wrapping your arms around his torso. Goosebumps litter your skin on the ascend, your eyes squeezed shut. You bury your face into the center of his back, taking long, deep breaths. Time exists beyond your understanding. Seconds? Minutes? Years? You cannot account for time as you peek one eye open, pressing further into the Prince. The time passes in a blur of green and map-like structures.

With time your grip loosens, and you take in the view you are certain of never experiencing again. The dragon ride from Pentos consisted of silent tears and a stubborn refusal to hold on to Aemond. You had considered throwing yourself off the two-hundred-year-old war dragon. But, this? Whether you fly to the North or the edge of the world, it does not matter. The soothing element of the sky numbs all uncertainties. Kings Landings arrives like a shock to the system.

"I am certain we will not see each other any time soon, Lady (Y/n)," Jacaerys trails off, eyeing the gathering soldiers at the port. Vermax hovers a good distance over Blackwater Bay, common-folk scattering to find shelter. The shelter will do nothing against dragon fire.

"I wish you the best of luck your grace," You catch his gaze, the chatter of army directives filling the silence. Jacaerys nods his head, the moment fleeting at the boom of a distant roar. Vhagar.

"Can you swim?" Eyeing Aemond's fearsome dragon, you absentmindedly nod your head.

"Best of luck, my Lady. I will report your good health to the Queen," Jacaerys says. A gasp leaves your lips as his hand presses to the side of your ribs. Your heart hammers in your throat, the weightlessness, unlike any feeling you know. Distant yells blend into indiscernible chatter, Vermax disappearing from above you as the bay swallows you whole. You wince at the sting of the surface against your skin. The pull below captures you with a gripping strength, the paddling of your arms, and the kicking of your legs covering minimal distance.

You keep your eyes on the surface that shimmers from the sunlight. The uniform strokes of your arm falter, hands scrambling to grab anything. You squeeze your eyes shut, the raging fire in your chest clashing against a frantic panic. Opening your eyes, splashes of black crowd your vision—the surface inches away. Your head tilts back, taking in the growing holes in your vision. Everything stilling at an alarming rate. You must protect yourself—no one else will.

Thrusting your right hand forward, it breaks the surface with a frenetic wave. Splashing and smacking at the surface before once again descending below. If asked to recount the next moments, an average person would think you a madwoman.

Coughing. Hands pulling at your limbs. And Men, far too many men. Several guards escort you through the streets of Kings Landings. Your eyes hooded, dripping water through the streets while clutching yourself tightly. The lingering eyes burn holes into your skin. You are not brought to your chambers or even provided with a change of clothes. Only a chair in view of all the Green Council members and usurper King.

You blink without pause, gripping the chair's edge as you recount your journey. Your trembling and higher susceptibility to illness appear to be of no import. The fabric of the chair sloshes beneath you, absorbing a great amount of water. Your body shudders as you run your hands over your goosebumps.

"Why would traitors of the realm stage a coup for a Kings Landing bastard?" Lord Lannister questions. His malice fair, and skepticism expected.

"Ser Harwin Strong. As a girl, he often looked after me despite my best efforts to evade him. It seems the Princess has taken the responsibilities of the late Knight. At Kings Viserys family dinner, she assured me I would always have a place with her and her family," Your despondency commands the room. Never quite fond of recounting doleful histories or revisiting ghosts from the past. The Green council pass looks across the table, a shared silence as you stare off aimlessly.

"So it is settled. Your Grace, her usefulness has run its course. She carries ties to the traitors of the realm and speaks flippantly against those above her station. I say we send her head to her beloved Queen," Lord Lannister smiles at you with sickening glee. You meet his gaze, glaring daggers without care for others in the room.

"And I do hope if the Princess wishes to light the realm ablaze that she starts with the cunts of Casterly Rock," You hiss. A hearty laugh fills the room as Ser Cole grips Lord Lannisters shoulders, keeping him seated. Aegon sits at the head of the table, failing to control his inappropriate amusement. It matters not as the doors fly open with a sobering slam. Aemond's at your side, ignoring the onlookers as he searches for an injury upon you. His hands cradle your head, a tenderness in his eyes.

"Aemond," His mother calls out, her composure shaky as the council eyes her second son. Aemond removes his cloak covering you before his demeanor shifts.

"I will have that bastard's head piked before the moon fucking turns!" Aemond growls, ignoring how his mother calls for him to sit. Aegon wets his lips, grinning at the crack in the ever-dutiful Prince's nature, revealing what he always knew was there. A flawed Targaryen. Aemond continues his pacing and furious muttering, even as his mother dismisses the green councils. At the close of the doors, she rises with ease to her features. Aemond allows her to intercept his pacing but the obscenities that leave him continue without end. You look down at your lap, her hand connecting with her son's cheek, and a deafening silence follows. Otto watches his daughter curiously as Aegon mirrors his brother, pure shock across the faces.

"If you care so much for this girl, why do you endanger her by showcasing your affections. An open slight to Lord Baratheon. You lot will not tire me to madness!" She exclaims. Alicents vehemence moves from her second son to her eldest. "And you. You will be the King this realm needs. I care not if you must fake it. But you will do away with this affliction to wine and finally be a man!"

Otto clears his throat to speak, but it halts as Alicents hands slam against the table. She glares at her father in a mix of melancholy and resentment, "This all your fault! Your insistence on Aegon's installation, your machinations that made me Queen, the divide in the realm that has grown for twenty years. All direct results of your actions. No longer will you take action without the input of your King or this council! That includes the capture of this girl's loved ones. Who will be free to stay at the keep as guests. And you. From this day forward, you are Lady of this court, and you will proceed as such. You will address those above you properly or it will be I who calls for your tongue. Whether you lot like it or not, you will all pull it together for the benefit of the realm. Do I make myself clear?"

Alicent's gaze bounces between the four of you. You offer a half nod, looking down at your lap. What the others do in response goes unnoticed by you. The honey in Alicents voice long gone leaving venom in its place.

"I asked a question."

[best-queen-song]

Okay Queenies! All 88 91 polls are up now! They're each open for one week, so by this time next Sunday (3/3) Monday (3/4), they will all be closed. Here's the list of all Round One polls. Now's the time to spread the word, scatter them to the tumblr winds. Feel free to argue your choices' cases in the meantime!

Great King Rat / It’s A Beautiful Day (Reprise)

Crash Dive On Mingo City / Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon

Who Wants To Live Forever / Let Me Live

Stone Cold Crazy / Fight From The Inside

Escape From The Swamp / In The Lap Of The Gods

My Life Has Been Saved / I Want To Break Free

Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy / Hang On In There

We Are The Champions / Friends Will Be Friends

I Was Born To Love You / Cool Cat

Princes Of The Universe / The Night Comes Down

The Ring (Hypnotic Seduction of Dale) / Don’t Try Suicide

Arboria (Planet Of The Tree Men) / Brighton Rock

Keep Passing The Open Windows / The Invisible Man

Under Pressure / Calling All Girls

Crazy Little Thing Called Love / The March Of The Black Queen

Dreamer’s Ball / Tenement Funster

You’re My Best Friend / Flash To The Rescue

Don’t Lose Your Head / Seven Seas Of Rhye

I’m Going Slightly Mad / Get Down, Make Love

In The Lap Of The Gods… Revisited / Spread Your Wings

Funny How Love Is / Fun It

Misfire / All God’s People

Action This Day / These Are The Days Of Our Lives

Sheer Heart Attack / God Save The Queen

The Hero / Body Language

Ride The Wild Wind / In The Space Capsule (The Love Theme)

Made In Heaven / The Loser In The End

‘39 / Modern Times Rock ‘N Roll

Sweet Lady / One Year Of Love

I Can’t Live With You / Leaving Home Ain’t Easy

Need Your Loving Tonight / Delilah

Pain Is So Close To Pleasure / Las Palabras De Amor (The Words Of Love)

Jesus / Chinese Torture

Football Fight / Save Me

In The Death Cell (Love Theme Reprise) / The Kiss (Aura Resurrects Flash)

One Vision / The Miracle

Father To Son / Don’t Try So Hard

Fat Bottomed Girls / Liar

Who Needs You / Marriage Of Dale And Ming (And Flash Approaching)

Khashoggi’s Ship / You Don’t Fool Me

Bicycle Race / Battle Theme

Vultan’s Theme (Attack Of The Hawk Men) / Dear Friends

Tie Your Mother Down / It’s A Hard Life

I Want It All / Flash’s Theme Reprise

White Man / Dancer

Radio Ga Ga / Bijou

Gimme The Prize / Bohemian Rhapsody

Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To…) / Dead On Time

Scandal / I’m In Love With My Car

Back Chat / Tear It Up

Some Day One Day / More Of That Jazz

The Millionaire Waltz / Breakthru

You Take My Breath Away / My Melancholy Blues

All Dead, All Dead / Man On The Prowl

Untitled / Now I’m Here

Jealousy / Flash’s Theme

Somebody To Love / You And I

Sleeping On The Sidewalk / It’s A Beautiful Day

The Hitman / Execution Of Flash

We Will Rock You / In Only Seven Days

Another One Bites The Dust / Staying Power

Too Much Love Will Kill You / My Fairy King

Is This The World We Created…? / Don’t Stop Me Now

Seaside Rendezvous / Machines (or ‘Back To Humans’)

Sail Away Sweet Sister / Keep yourself alive

No One But You (Only The Good Die Young) / Teo Toriatte (Let Us Cling Together)

Love Of My Life / A Kind Of Magic

Party / Headlong

Rain Must Fall / Mustapha

Ogre Battle / I Go Crazy

Mother Love / Doing Alright

Put Out The Fire / The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke

Nevermore / Lily Of The Valley

Procession / White Queen (As It Began)

Hammer To Fall / Seven Seas Of Rhye [unfinished]

Bring Back That Leroy Brown / The Wedding March

Was It All Worth It / Killer Queen

It’s Late / If You Can’t Beat Them

Flick Of The Wrist / Play The Game

Rock It (Prime Jive) / Innuendo

Thank God It’s Christmas / The Prophet’s Song

Long Away / My Baby Does Me

Coming Soon / Son And Daughter

A Winter’s Tale / Heaven For Everyone

The Show Must Go On / Ming’s Theme (In The Court Of Ming The Merciless)

Life Is Real (Song For Lennon) / Drowse

Dragon Attack / Let Me Entertain You

Good Company / She Makes Me (Stormtrooper In Stilettos)

Mad The Swine / Soul Brother

Hijack My Heart / A Human Body

Lost Opportunity / Stealin'

[izzyliker]

let me recommend a different less tumblr famous the mountain goats song to you based on your fav song from tallahassee

01 tallahassee

* there will be no divorce (x)

* then the letting go (x)

* going to queens (x)

* going to port washington (x)

02 first few desperate hours

* damn these vampires (x)

* you or your memory (x)

* cry for judas (x)

* pale green things (x)

* going to scotland (x)

* tahitian ambrosia maker (x)

* aulon raid (x)

* birth of serpents (x)

03 southwood plantation road

* going to kansas (x)

* orange ball of love (x)

* dance music (x)

* alpha incipiens (x)

04 game shows touch our lives

* fault lines (x)

* the mess inside (x)

* riches and wonders (x)

* minnesota (x)

* baboon (x)

* mark on you (x)



05 the house that dripped blood

* new chevrolet in flames (x)

* twin human highway flares (x)

* onions (x)

* broom people (x)

* hast thou considered the tetrapod (x)

* the autopsy garland (x)

06 idylls of the king

* sax rohmer #1 (x)

* training montage (x)

* against pollution (x)

* how to embrace a swamp creature (x)

07 no children

* going to georgia (x)

* family happiness (x)

08 see america right

* dilaudid (x)

* going to hungary (x)

* alpha omega (x)

* going to maine (x)

09 peacocks

* wild sage (x)

* deianara crush (x)

* sept 16 triple x love! love! (x)

* the last place i saw you alive (x)

* beautiful gas mask (x)

10 international small arms traffic blues

* your belgian things (x)

* flashing lights (x)

* love love love (x)

* snow crush killing song (x)

* chinese rifle song (x)

11 have to explode

* orange ball of pain (x)

* downtown seoul (x)

* omega blaster (x)

* seeing daylight (x)

12 old college try

* up the wolves (x)

* in the craters on the moon (x)

* standard bitter love song #8 (x)

* waving at you (x)

* going to maryland (x)

* jenny (x)

* chinese house flowers (x)

13 oceanographers choice

* psalms 40:2 (x)

* alpha desperation march (x)

* resonant bell world (x)

14 alpha rats nest

* standard bitter love song #7 (x)

* insurance fraud #2 (x)

[ice-cap-k]

Whumptober 2023 Master List

Mostly for my own sake, I put together a list of all the fics I did for Whumptober this year. It's a varied list of MCYT stories (and one random OC one). Links and little summery blurbs are below if you're interested in checking any of them out.

My AO3 Profile can be found HERE.

And if you've already seen them and reacted to them, know I appreciate you!

Heads Will Roll: (Multi-chapter Third Life SMP Fae & Monsters AU) There are rumors of fae and monsters wreaking havoc on Dogwarts. King Ren sends his most trusted friends to get to the bottom of it.

Empty Sensations: (Hermitcraft) Doc gives False a surprise upgrade.

Just Gold: (Double Life SMP Dragon AU) Tango is a Dragon. Jimmy is a bird.

Star Fall: (Double Life SMP Retelling) Star Scott and moon Pearl were never compatible soulmates anyway.

The Engineer that Couldn't: (Hermitcraft Circus AU) The hermits are in a circus and Impulse forgets that sometimes it's okay to say 'no.'

Surviving Dead: (Hermitcraft) Cleo muses about how she became a zombie.

Gift Basket: (Dream SMP Fae AU) Schlatt needs to make a delivery.

Prison of Decay: (Hermitcraft Retelling) Zedaph's first trial run of Decked Out 2

Crash Course in Hero Work: (Hermitcraft Superhero AU) Stressmonster's friends are usually busy being heroes. She just wants to hang out with them.

In Their Structure: (Third Life Chrisrin's GemCYT AU) The Battle between Dogwarts and the deserters is over. Now what?

Ever Green: (Hermitcraft Supernatural Nature AU) Etho finds himself lost in Bdub's swamp.

xB Noir in Hybrid Theory: (Hermitcraft Noir AU) Local hybrids are going missing and xB is on the case.

Tough Love, or Love's Tough?: (Hermitcraft Slice of Life) Docm77 and Rendog are best friends. There's just one difference between the two of them that's hard to get past.

Monster Charm: (Hermitcraft Magic/Monsters AU) Mumbo runs into some trouble on the road to the next town.

Silent Squeak: (Rats SMP retelling) Scott's been acting odd since the janitor caught him. Owen's worried.

Into the Pirate-verse: (Pirates SMP retelling) Martyn starts his first day on the Pirates SMP with a splash.

Computer Virus: (Hermitcraft SMP) The server is glitching out, and it's starting to bother Cubfan and the other hermits.

Get Some Rest: (Phasmophobia/Hermitcraft) Skizz just wants to get some sleep, but Grian and Scar are having none of that.

Not So Empty Space: (Hermitcraft Season 8 fallout) Tango's on his own. In space.

The Girl Who Talked to Ghosts: (OC story) Unnamed OC #1 has lost a loved one and is mourning their loss, but Unnamed OC #2 keeps distracting them.

Hollowed Duty: (Dream SMP Fae AU) Puffy is the captain of the King's Guard. It's been tough getting to this point. Some new recruit reminds her just how far she's come.

Pan-Pan: (Hermitcraft Nuclear Fallout AU) Tango's trapped alone under a nuclear reactor.

Glassy Eyes: (Hermitcraft/Double Life SMP Magnus Archives AU) Ren and BigB tackle an escape room.

Assassin Games: (Hermitcraft Hitmen AU) Iskall and Etho are trained killers. Fight fight fight.

Distant Visions: (Hermitcraft Powers AU) Joe can see the future sometimes, and it comes in handy.

Kyanite: (Empires SMP Canon Divergence) What if Xornoth knew they were going to trap him in a crystal?

By the Light of Santa Perla: (Afterlife SMP Canon Divergence) What if Sausage didn't make it to the pearly gates? What if I put him in a box for a long time and see what happens?

Wings: (Origins SMP/Phil's Hardcore World Canon Divergence) Philza muses about wings, and past choices related to them.

[drakeanddice]

Things that have happened in my Mausritter game

Liberated a cheese-making town in an old tractor tire from the depredations of city rats

Made friends with the weird swamp-mice and their "Speaker-To-Ghosts"

Extinguished the charlatan/wizard mouse's fireworks-laden caravan, paid in fortune telling (ominous)

Negotiated a truce between the strange snake-mouse sorcerer king and the Queen of the Eternal Colony (Ants with supersoldier serum)

Convinced the sorcerer king to give the Rootkin (molerat people) back their eyes.

Retrieved the thighbone of St. Iseult from the haunted depths of the Deeproot Barrow

Enacted the ritual to banish the Ghost Owl from the swamps for a generation

Adopted a hayseed from the cheese-making town in the old tractor tire; taught him about danger, bravery, growing up, and how to play the horn.

Discovered the mad-scientist crows using AutoMice (weird-science cyborg mice) to build a machine of questionable motives and dubious use.

Befriended an aged orb weaver named Gladys

Encountered a cult of cockroach people, quickly impersonated messengers of their god.

Fomented a power-struggle among the cult of cockroach people, and in the confusion stole their whole altar (the beltknife which will animate the scarecrow in the wheat field--long story)

Things I had planned

Rats

There should be a cheese shortage

?

[murfpersonalblog]

IWTV S2 Ep7 Musings - Loumand (Spoilers)

I actually don't have much to say about Armand--I'm waiting to see what he has to say for himself in the finale.

Exactly, Mr. Professional--let Louis talk this out on his own. We'll skulldrag Mr. I Could Not Prevent It soon enough.

"Yeah all right I sold him out"--YEAH YOU DID ARMAND, no sass or backtalk, just STFU. You had your chance to speak up IN PARIS, Mr. I Made My Choice!

NO NOTES.

PLEASE 🙄😒 How? With Sam's dinky little scythe? You can set them all on fire with a THOUGHT, stfu with that 🥺 face.

PLEASE 🙄😒 It was the terms of their agreement--IN CAHOOTS.

PLEASE 🙄😒 It was the LEAST he could do. The key word is to save YOU. Not Claudia. This was PREMEDITATED.

What I'm actually REALLY bummed about is that AMC seems to have kept Armand "held captive" by Sam the whole time, so he wouldn't've had the opportunity to go FRANKENSTEIN on Claudia (I assume they just swapped that for the Rat Box scene). Unless that happened after they beat Louis unconscious. 👀

Madz being dragged into this to implicate Louis, cuz Armand killed Santiago's Maker for doing the exact same thing with him! 👀💀

GO AWF, king! May your reign be short and sterile! 🤴🏼😜

SOOOO hypocritical that the coven is LITERALLY breaking Law 5 by doing this entire Trial, but wtvr; politics is just parlor tricks.

The way Ben delivered those lines; the crazed look in his eyes--this was the REAL bee in Santiago's bonnet & stick in his craw. Eff Claudia; Santiago DGAF about her in the scheme of things. But that persona non grata, who "wasn't even all that attractive," had rejected & offended & humiliated him, and this green-eyed monster wanted Louis DEAD.

NYA NYA NYA! 😝

"It took all my strength," PLEASE 🙄😒

Armand wanted Claudia dead so dang bad, lol.

TWICE OMG, PLEASE! 🙄😒 Louis just staring him down. YOU BUY THAT, LOUIS!? 👀 HAYUL naw, which is why Armand's been in this Grovel Era for 77 years! 😅

NICE save, Santiago!

Here we effing go; eternity in a box.... ⚰️💀

Rolin, whose idea was it to fill it with rocks; that is SAVAGE!

Thank god Lou didn't have to see his baby burn to ash--"and his face turned to soup." He fought, he really tried, but it wasn't enough; he was POWERLESS to protect any of them. U_U But you KNOW Lou had to FEEL what was happening when Madz died, cuz she's his blood/fledgling. So the pain's still there, even w/out seeing Claudia.

THAT'S what karma effing means, y'all! THAT'S what it means to DESERVE pain. Lest had to sit there and watch HIS DAUGHTER burn, "cuz sooner or later, they end up dead." AR said Claudia (read: Michelle) was DOOMED by the narrative, and DIDN'T deserve what happened to her. But Lestat ADMITTED that he deserved everything that happened to him! Les had to PAY the consequence!

CONSEQUENCES, Armand! You don't get to sell out Louis at the price of Claudia, then brag about how "I never harmed you," and whine about how you "atoned" for Paris but can never make up for it.

EFF your apologies--his daughter's DEAD, ffs.

Whew, I'm actually tearing up, this ep's HEAVY; I'm moved, fasho!

Sure, Jan. 🙄 Les crossed the ocean cuz Santiago told him what was going down, so OF COURSE Lestat was gonna go to Paris; regardless! (AMC removed the need for Swamp King to crawl begging for Armand's healing blood.)

Santiago and the coven woke Lestat up by climbing the Eiffel Tower and radio-signalling him to come to them--that lines up with the newspaper clippings Loumand mentioned in Ep6 about "strange crimes" being committed.

STFU WITH THE BAGELS AND COFFEE, TUAN, it shoulda been a CROISSANT! 🥐🤣

STFU ARMAND, we don't need YOU mansplaining Lestat's toxic AF behavior, Master Manipulator! LOUIS can be wrong about his husband he lived with for dang near 40 years ("this is Lestat; what he does over and over"), but YOU can't talk about the dude you only knew for a few months max! Sit QUIETLY and drink your blood soup!

Yeah Armand, you BETTER duck TF out the way! 😤 Lou was aiming right at your dome--eff you, AND all the luxurious golden-spooned Jimmy Choo wearing stolen Rembrandts you've filled this sterile penthouse cage with!

"THIS IS HARD"--bruh, I bet Jacob said that from the soul; I have no idea how any of these actors do this, incredible! AMC I hate y'all so bad for not giving these artists as much shine & accolades as possible; they're being robbed. U_U

(Quick Insider preview for the finale--Ep8 SPOILERS)

Santiago asking "Did Armand tell you what we did with her ashes?" omfg imma be sick.

Armand telling Louis "I lied to you;" chile, we been knew.

Fire Gift Louis de Pyromaniac du Lac telling Lestat chained up under the Threatre "I'VE COME TO KILL YOU;" get in line, my guy! 😡🔥

[bracketsoffear]

Hunt Leitner Reading List

The full list of submissions for the Hunt Leitner bracket. Bold titles are ones which were accepted to appear in the bracket. Synopses and propaganda can be found below the cut. Be warned, however, that these may contain spoilers!

Blackwood, Algernon: The Wendigo Boucher, Chris: Last Man Running Brooks, Max: World War Z

Christie, Agatha: And Then There Were None Connell, Richard: The Most Dangerous Game Crichton, Michael: Jurassic Park

de France, Marie: Bisclavret Dostoevsky, Fyodor: Crime and Punishment Doyle, Arthur Conan: The Hound of the Baskervilles/Sherlock Holmes series

Fletcher, David: Hunted: A True Story of Survival

Household, Geoffrey: Rogue Male Hunter, Erin: Warrior Cats

Kavan, Anna: Ice King, Stephen: Cujo

Lem, Stanisław: The Hunt London, Jack: Call of the Wild

Mallory, Thomas: Le Mort D’Arthur Manifold, John: The Griesly Wife Melville, Herman: Moby Dick Messingham, Simon: The Doctor Trap

Nisneru, Alexandra: Hunt

Ólafsson, Bragi: The Pets Orczy, Baroness: The Scarlet Pimpernel

Perkins, Stephanie: The Woods Are Always Watching Perrault, Charles: Little Red Riding Hood Pierce, Tamora: Huntress Pinkwater, Daniel: The Werewolf Club Povey, Jeff: The Serial Killers Club Pratchett, Terry: I Shall Wear Midnight Pratchett, Terry: The Fifth Elephant Preiss, Byron: The Secret

Schenkel, Rudolph: Expressions Studies on Wolves Sheckley, Robert: The Seventh Victim Shusterman, Neal: Red Rider's Hood Sin, Damien: The White Tiger of Kalimantaro Stine, R.L.: The Werewolf of Fever Swamp Stoker, Bram: Dracula

Takami, Koushun: Battle Royale Thompson, Hunter S.: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Traditional: Actaeon

Van Allsburg, Chris: Jumanji Vega, Danielle: Survive the Night

Yoshitomi, Akihito: School Ningyo (School Mermaid)

Blackwood, Algernon: The Wendigo

In the wilderness north of Rat Portage in Northwestern Ontario, two Scotsmen – divinity student Simpson and his uncle, Dr. Cathcart, an author of a book on collective hallucination – are on a moose-hunting trip with guides Hank Davis and the wilderness-loving French "Canuck", Joseph Défago.

While their Indian cook, Punk, stays to tend the main camp, the others split up into two hunting-parties; Dr. Cathcart goes with Hank, while Défago guides Simpson in a canoe down the river to explore the vast territory beyond.

Simpson and Défago make camp, and it soon becomes clear that Défago senses – or at least thinks he senses – some strange and fearful odour on the wind. That night, Simpson wakes to find Défago cowering in terror from something outside the tent. Later Défago runs off into the night, forcing Simpson to go and look for him. He follows his footprints in the snow for many miles, realising that Défago's are not the only set of tracks. The larger set of footprints are not human, and gradually it seems that Défago's own tracks have metamorphosed into smaller versions of the larger set. Eventually, both sets of tracks vanish, and Simpson believes he hears Défago's distant voice calling out from somewhere in the sky above: "Oh! oh! This fiery height! Oh, my feet of fire! My burning feet of fire ...!"

Simpson finally manages to make his way back to the main camp, where he is reunited with the others. Dr. Cathcart and Hank go back with him to search for Défago, and when camping once more out in the wilderness, Défago – or some hideous parody of Défago – appears before them before vanishing once again into the night.

Conflicted and disturbed about what they have witnessed, they return to the main camp to find that Défago – the real Défago this time – has made his own way back, suffering from delirium, exposure, and frostbite. He dies soon after, and the three men are left in a state of bafflement and uncertainty about what has occurred. Punk alone could have explained it to them, but he fled home as soon as he caught the terrible odour that Défago carried with him. As an Indian, he instantly understood that Défago had seen the Wendigo.

Boucher, Chris: Last Man Running

Synopsis: "Eager for solitude away from the TARDIS and the endlessly inquisitive Leela, the Doctor steps out onto a benign-looking planet. But the apparent tranquillity hides a terrifying secret...

The TARDIS has arrived on a world of violence, where hideous creatures hunt and kill endlessly, vying for supremacy at the top of the food chain. But is evolution on the planet natural or engineered by some higher power? And why has an aggressively suspicious alien police force sent a secret mission here?

With no one safe from the planet's tireless predators, Leela's warrior instincts are tested to the full. The Doctor, meanwhile, begins to suspect that there is a scientific purpose to the planet — one married to a sinister intelligence.

Whatever the data being collated from the planet, the Doctor soon realises its usage may have far-reaching consequences for all humanity... "

Why it's Hunt: The TARDIS has arrived in what essentially amounts to a supersoldier training ground, where everything in the environment is hostile and out to kill them.

Brooks, Max: World War Z

Zombies will chase humans for as long as it takes to catch them. A zombie will chase a human into the sea, over a cliff, into a raging inferno, it doesn't matter. A zombie will go after any living prey that it can find, and eat it to death. In the chapter where the astronaut from the International Space Station is interviewed, he mentions one zombie that chased after a small animal in the desert. When the animal burrowed under the sand, the zombie started digging for it, even as sand continued to pour back into the hole, filling it just as fast as it was dug. The zombie was digging nonstop for five straight days before it apparently lost the animal's scent and gave up.

Christie, Agatha: And Then There Were None

"First, there were ten—a curious assortment of strangers summoned as weekend guests to a little private island off the coast of Devon. Their host, an eccentric millionaire unknown to all of them, is nowhere to be found. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they're unwilling to reveal—and a secret that will seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder. (...) When they realize that murders are occurring as described in the rhyme, terror mounts. One by one they fall prey. Before the weekend is out, there will be none. Who has choreographed this dastardly scheme? And who will be left to tell the tale? Only the dead are above suspicion."

Spoilers: So this book's plot is the last great hunt of a Hunt avatar: Judge Wargrave. Who did the typical hunt avatar thing of joining the law to get his feel and now lets himself go all of springing a trap on his prey and playing with them like a big cat.

***

Ten people, trapped on an island, all of them murderers who escaped justice. They are slowly picked off one by one as judgement for their crimes, causing them to search desperately for the killer before turning on one another, evoking themes of paranoia and betrayal akin to MAG 176: Blood Ties. {Spoilers: The killer was the judge, who had gone into law enforcement to sate his desire for killing and punishment, much like Daisy Tonner did)

Connell, Richard: The Most Dangerous Game

A ruthless hunter named Sanger Rainsford is stranded on Ship Trap Island and meets General Zaroff. Zaroff, a hunter who is bored with hunting animals, hunts Rainsford for sport.

***

Big-game hunter Sanger Rainsford and his friend Whitney are traveling by ship to the Amazon rainforest for a jaguar hunt. Rainsford falls overboard while investigating the sound of gunshots in the distance and swims to Ship-Trap Island, where he finds General Zaroff and his manservant Ivan. Zaroff, another big-game hunter, knows of Rainsford from his published account of hunting snow leopards in Tibet. Over dinner, he explains that although he has been hunting animals since he was a boy, he has decided that killing big game has become boring for him. After escaping the Russian Revolution, he purchased Ship-Trap and rigged the island with lights to lure passing ships into the jagged rocks that surround it. He takes the survivors captive and hunts them for sport, giving himself handicaps to increase the challenge. Any captives who can elude Zaroff, Ivan, and a pack of hunting dogs for three days are set free; to date, though, Zaroff has never lost a hunt. Rainsford denounces the hunt as barbarism, but Zaroff replies by claiming that ‘life is for the strong.’ Zaroff is enthused to have another world-class hunter as a companion and offers to take Rainsford along with him on his next hunt. When Rainsford staunchly refuses and demands to leave the island, Zaroff decides to hunt him instead. Rainsford uses traps and cleverness to outmaneuver Zaroff, killing Ivan and one of the dogs before jumping into the sea. Disappointed at Rainsford's apparent suicide, Zaroff returns home, but finds Rainsford waiting for him, having swum around the island to evade the dogs and sneak into the chateau. Zaroff offers congratulations for defeating him, but Rainsford prepares to fight him, saying that the hunt is not yet over. A delighted Zaroff responds that the loser will be fed to his dogs, while the winner will sleep in his bed. The story abruptly concludes later that night by stating that Rainsford enjoyed the comfort of the bed, implying that he killed Zaroff in the fight.

Crichton, Michael: Jurassic Park

Big hungry dinosaurs vs. small tasty humans. Muldoon commented that the raptors were cruelly intelligent and liked to hunt for sport as much as for food. It was actually justified because (as Malcolm realizes) the raptors discovered that humans are an easy meal and become a favored prey. Meanwhile, the Tyrannosaur seemed to be stalking Dr. Grant and the kids in particular, even leaving behind a Hadrosaur kill to pursue them down a river. At one point it's even waiting at the bottom of a waterfall with its jaws open, hoping they'll fall inside.

de France, Marie: Bisclavret

Covers several common themes of the Hunt -- loyalty, betrayal, and werewolves. Bisclaveret is a werewolf trapped in his lupine form by his wife's treachery, and is hunted by his king, who does not know his identity.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor: Crime and Punishment

The whole book is about feeling certain that your crimes are about to be uncovered, always looking behind you for the pursuing policeman, the hand of justice that is sure to catch you at any moment.

Doyle, Arthur Conan: The Hound of the Baskervilles/Sherlock Holmes series

As per this post: "I know he's already been in the Eye Poll, but trust me, he's such a Hunt guy. All of his observational skills aren't Eye (he'd probably think that was cheating), but the result of a finely trained mind and keen, Hunt-enhanced senses. He's relentless in his pursuit of criminals, trekking for miles through city and country alike to track down a suspect. He gets bored and listless without the thrill of the chase, as Watson has so often remarked, as though something was sapping his energy. Feed your god, or it will feed on you."

Fletcher, David: Hunted: A True Story of Survival

The author is pursued for the entire book by a furious mother bear after he kills her cub in a series of escalating cinematic attacks and escapes.

Household, Geoffrey: Rogue Male

A bored, upper-class British sportsman is found on the grounds of an unnamed European dictator's residence with his hunting rifle in hand, and subsequently arrested. His claim, maintained under torture, that he was stalking the dictator purely as an exercise in the skill of the hunt and that he had no intention of firing is so audacious that it is almost believed — but nonetheless he cannot be allowed to live. To execute such a well-connected Briton would cause an international incident, so his captors decide to kill him by throwing him over a cliff so that his body will show injuries consistent with accidental death. Though badly injured he survives and manages to make his way to the Channel and from there back to England. Where he discovers that home does not mean safety, nor an end to the pursuit.

Hunter, Erin: Warrior Cats

this book series has inspired children for year after year to run around pretending to be feral cats on the playground. it's hunt.

***

This book was made for The Admiral

***

The concept of your housepet running off to join a feral cat society just feels Hunt-y to me.

Kavan, Anna: Ice

The book follows a male protagonist who feverishly pursues a young nameless woman from country to country as society collapses due to a beginning of a new ice age. People flee their cities to go south, so a lot of the scenes take place in the wilderness and the forests. The protagonist often fantasizes about the woman being torn to shreds by wild animals as she flees a pursuer, and often compares her to prey animals.

King, Stephen: Cujo

A formerly friendly St. Bernard turns into a killing machine after being bit by a rabid bat.

Lem, Stanisław: The Hunt

A runaway is chased by humans with dogs. As the story evolves, it becomes clear that it is a robot, an intelligent machine, one of many created by humans to be hunted. For this reason it was endowed with wit and strength and an ability to be afraid, so that it would run away and make a hunt interesting: "... a tangled plot full of surprises, a forest strategy, a duel of cunning, of tactics, including laying double trails, dodging, looping the scent back on itself, crossing white-water streams and aerial bridges formed by fallen trees". A little girl helps him to hide, but eventually it turns out that her goal was to lay her hands on a gun and shoot the hunted robot herself. It is well known that Lem was ruthlessly burning his unpublished works, and the researchers were puzzled why Lem kept this one. Stanisław Bereś attempts to explain this as follows. Lem never wrote and seldom spoke about his life during World War II in Nazi-occupied Lwow. However one can decipher subtle hints about his experiences of that time in various Lem's works of fiction. Bereś points out an obvious parallel of the runaway's hopeless struggle for his life from The Hunt story, with the experience of the Jews during the Holocaust, including Lem's own. Therefore Bereś suggests that Lem felt overexposing himself in the story, therefore he set it aside and eventually wrote another, a more entertaining version and possibly forgot about the older manuscript.

London, Jack: Call of the Wild

The story follows Buck—a mix of St. Bernard and Scotch collie—throughout his journey as a sled dog. Buck’s story begins at the house of Judge Miller in Santa Clara, California. Here, Buck is a beloved domesticated pet, living comfortably. However, after gold is discovered in the Yukon territory of Canada, Buck is stolen by one of Miller’s gardeners as the demand for sled dogs increases. The gardener sells Buck to dog traders and makes a profit, and Buck is soon shipped north, abused and beaten as he goes. Along with a sweet, unassuming dog named Curly, Buck is sold to two government couriers, François and Perrault, who put him to work as a sled dog. Buck is soon overwhelmed by his surroundings, particularly when he sees a group of huskies attack and kill Curly. As Buck is forced to adapt to the wild, his primitive instincts begin to surface. It is during this time that he makes an enemy of the lead sled dog, Spitz. The two fight a number of times, and Buck consistently undermines him in the hopes of diminishing his authority. After a final, decisive battle, Buck kills Spitz and appoints himself as the new lead dog.

Mallory, Thomas: Le Mort D’Arthur

Large portion of it is about the Quest for the Holy Grail and how all the knights keep setting out to find it and failing

Manifold, John: The Griesly Wife

A poem in which an abusive husband chases his new wife through the snow -- until she changes into a wolf and turns the tables on him. http://mohammadmirzaee.blogfa.com/post/527/Poem-The-Griesly-Wife-By-John-Manifold

Melville, Herman: Moby Dick

Ahab goes on a mad, doomed hunt for a white whale that may or may not be an eldritch abomination and represents God/nature/life, despite the numerous signs that he should give up on his quest and live a fuller and happier life. Unsurprisingly, everyone except Ishmael gets killed by said whale, with Ahab getting tangled in his own harpoon line and dragged down to the depths (in an ironic echo of his own words about how a drowning creature stays down the third time).

Messingham, Simon: The Doctor Trap

Sebastiene was perhaps once human. He might look like a 19th-century nobleman but in truth he is a ruthless hunter. He likes nothing more than luring difficult opposition to a planet then hunting them down for sport. And now he's caught them all - from Zargregs to Moogs, and even the odd Eternal...

In fact, Sebastiene is after only one more prize. For this trophy, he knows he is going to need help. He's brought together the finest hunters in the universe to play the most dangerous game for the deadliest quarry of them all. They are hunting for the last of the Time Lords - the Doctor.

Nisneru, Alexandra: Hunt

Monsters are real. For Emily and Jeremy, the price of this truth was extremely high. Ten years after their mother's death, they hunt these creatures. But every once in a while, they become the hunted. When Emily finds herself in trouble, who will save her?

Ólafsson, Bragi: The Pets

Back in Reykjavik after a vacation in London, Emil Halldorsson is waiting for a call from a beautiful girl, Greta, that he met on the plane ride home, and he's just put on a pot of coffee when an unexpected visitor knocks on the door. Peeking through a window, Emil spies an erstwhile friend - Havard Knutsson, his one-time roommate and current resident of a Swedish mental institutionon his doorstep, and he panics, taking refuge under his bed and hoping the frightful nuisance will simply go away.

Havard won't be so easily put off, however, and he breaks into Emil's apartment and decides to wait for his return. Emil couldn't have gone far; the pot of coffee is still warming on the stove. While Emil hides under his bed, increasingly unable to show himself with each passing moment, Havard discovers the booze, and he ends up hosting a bizarre party for Emil's friends, and Greta.

Orczy, Baroness: The Scarlet Pimpernel

"They seek him here, they seek him there / Those Frenchies seek him everywhere / Is he in heaven, or is he in hell?/ That damned, elusive, pimpernel."

Perkins, Stephanie: The Woods Are Always Watching

Bears aren't the only predators in these woods.

Best friends Neena and Josie spent high school as outsiders, but at least they had each other. Now, with college and a two-thousand-mile separation looming on the horizon, they have one last chance to be together—a three-day hike deep into the woods of the Pisgah National Forest.

Simmering tensions lead to a detour off the trail and straight into a waking nightmare; and then into something far worse. Something that will test them in horrifying ways.

Perrault, Charles: Little Red Riding Hood

You know why

Pierce, Tamora: Huntress

Corey wants to fit in with the cool kids at her school and ignore her family's oddball religious practices. However, the group of popular kids that Corey has befriended regularly hunts people for sport. They try to hunt her when she refuses to participate, only for the Goddess that Corey's family worships to appear and hunt them instead.

Pinkwater, Daniel: The Werewolf Club

A boy whose parents raised him to be a dog inadvertently joins a club of actual werewolves.

Povey, Jeff: The Serial Killers Club

When our unlikely hero runs into a murderer, he ends up killing the killer. Then he goes through his attacker's wallet and finds another shocker: an invitation to a party hosted by Errol Flynn. Errol Flynn? Isn't he dead? Intrigued, our hero crashes it - and discovers the Serial Killers Club. Its mission: share thrills and make sure members don't target the same victims. With aliases from old Hollywood, they include "Tallulah Bankhead", "Richard Burton", and soon, "Douglas Fairbanks Jr.", our hero himself. But "Dougie" isn't going to waste the innocent. Instead, he plans to knock off the "stars" one by one. And when they notice their numbers dropping, he'll have to answer a killer question: is he one of them - or not?

Obviously there are some strong Hunt element here, killing killers, questions of morality, becoming the monsters that you kill, etc. But also, "Okay, I know how it sounds, but Murder Club wasn’t supposed to be like this."

Pratchett, Terry: I Shall Wear Midnight

The villain of this novel is the Cunning Man, the spirit of a witchfinder who sows suspicion of witches among the people of the Disc in hopes of reigniting the witch hunts.

Pratchett, Terry: The Fifth Elephant

"The Scone of Stone, an ancient dwarven artifact, has been stolen, and without it, the new Low King of the Dwarfs cannot be crowned. It's up to Sam Vimes and the Ankh-Morpork City Watch to travel to Uberwald and unravel the dark conspiracy surrounding the theft. Also, Vimes fights werewolves."

Not the strongest contestant, but Vimes does spends a chunk of time being hunted down by werewolves

Preiss, Byron: The Secret

This book contains 12 gorgeous, detailed paintings. Each painting contains clues to the location of a treasure box. Originally published in 1982, only 3 of the treasure boxes have been found. For over four decades, people have been possessed by obsession with finding the treasure boxes, a hunt being passed down by parents to their children. This is very reminiscent of the Hunt ritual we see in MAG 133: Dead Horse. The promise of a treasure pulling people in to a neverending hunt.

***

The Secret is a treasure hunt created by Byron Preiss. The hunt involves a search for twelve treasure boxes, the clues to which were provided in a book written by Preiss in 1982, also called The Secret. These boxes were buried at secret locations in cities across the United States and Canada that symbolically represent events and peoples that played significant roles in North American history. Anyone who uncovered one of the treasure boxes was entitled to exchange it with Preiss for a precious gem; after Preiss died in 2005, his estate assumed the responsibility of honoring the terms of the treasure hunt. As of 2024, only three of the twelve boxes have been found. Preiss kept no record of the treasure boxes' exact locations before his death, leaving it a possibility that the remaining boxes may never be recovered.

Schenkel, Rudolph: Expressions Studies on Wolves

This is THAT study. The one that was conducted on a tiny sample of wolves in captivity, yet so quickly taken up by pop culture? The one that gave us the Omegaverse, but also a whole new hierarchy for toxic dudebros to measure themselves up against.

Sheckley, Robert: The Seventh Victim

Takes place in a world in which society that has eliminated major warfare by allowing members of society who are inclined to violence to join The Big Hunt, a human hunting game in which participants alternate between being a "hunter" and a "victim". The protagonist is surprised to learn that his intended victim is a woman, something which he has never heard of. As he tracks said victim down, he begins to fall for her -- but will love or death rule the day?

Spoiler: It's death. But not hers!

Shusterman, Neal: Red Rider's Hood

In this second entry in Neal Shusterman's Dark Fusion series, he twists the familiar fairy tale of Red Riding Hood into a brooding story about a city plagued by gangs. Red, a boy famous for cruising around in a blood-colored Mustang, takes on the Wolves after they rob his grandmother He decides to beat them by joining them to learn their weaknesses After a while, however, he finds himself drawn to the pack. At the next full moon, will Red take up their murderous ways or will he take them down?

Sin, Damien: The White Tiger of Kalimantaro

Two retired ex-cops travels to the Indonesian jungles to hunt a divine white tiger, only to realize the tiger to be old, mangy, lice-ridden and ready to die of age and disease. They kill it anyway, along with several other animals that they encounter along the way, in gruesome detail. Then the real white tiger shows up, and it turns out to be a god-like entity the size of an elephant possessing supernatural necromantic powers, given how it resurrects the old, slain tiger into a tiger zombie...

Stine, R.L.: The Werewolf of Fever Swamp

There's something horrible happening in Fever Swamp. Something really horrible. It started with the strange howling at night. Then there was the rabbit, torn to shreds. Everyone thinks Grady's new dog is responsible. After all, he looks just like a wolf. And he seems a little on the wild side. But Grady knows his dog is just a regular old dog. And most dogs don't howl at the moon. Or disappear at midnight. Or change into terrifying creatures when the moon is full. Or do they?

Stoker, Bram: Dracula

Dracula is all about the hunt and the hunted. Dracula hunts the innocent for their blood, stalking them and draining them to turn them into hunters in their own right. The protagonists, in turn, hunt Dracula. A Leitner version of this book would probably turn anyone who read it into another Trevor Herbert.

***

Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to move from Transylvania to England so he may find new blood and spread undead curse, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing.

Dracula has been assigned to many literary genres including vampire literature, horror fiction, the gothic novel and invasion literature. The novel touches on themes such as the role of women in Victorian culture, sexual conventions, immigration, colonialism, and post-colonialism.

Takami, Koushun: Battle Royale

From Goodreads: "(...) a class of junior high school students is taken to a deserted island where, as part of a ruthless authoritarian program, they are provided arms and forced to kill one another until only one survivor is left standing. (...)"

I mean, the concept of hunting each other until only one person remains in video games did get named after it, so it's a prime Hunt candidate for me.

Thompson, Hunter S.: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Gonzo journalism featuring Thompson and his Samoan lawyer on the hunt for the American Dream by way of semi-biographical of a road trip, reporting on a biker race, a lot of booze and drugs, and deliberate confusion.

Traditional: Actaeon

(Summary via Wikipedia) Artemis was bathing in the woods when the hunter Actaeon stumbled across her, thus seeing her naked. He stopped and stared, amazed at her ravishing beauty. Once seen, Artemis got revenge on Actaeon: she forbade him speech – if he tried to speak, he would be changed into a stag – for the unlucky profanation of her virginity's mystery. Upon hearing the call of his hunting party, he cried out to them and immediately transformed. At this, he fled deep into the woods, and doing so he came upon a pond and, seeing his reflection, groaned. His own hounds then turned upon him and pursued him, not recognizing him. In an endeavour to save himself, he raised his eyes (and would have raised his arms, had he had them) toward Mount Olympus. The gods did not heed his desperation, and he was torn to pieces.

Other versions of the myth suggest his fault was bragging that he was a better hunter than Artemis, not seeing her naked.

Van Allsburg, Chris: Jumanji

A Leitner version of this book would cause the jungle to manifest physically in your home, with new animals escaping to hunt you down with every page turned.

Vega, Danielle: Survive the Night

Julie lies dead and disemboweled in a dank, black subway tunnel, red-eyed rats nibbling at her fingers. Her friends think she’s just off with some guy—no one could hear her getting torn apart over the sound of pulsing music.

In a tunnel nearby, Casey regrets coming to Survive the Night, the all-night underground rave in the New York City subway. Her best friend Shana talked her into it, even though Casey just got out of rehab. Alone and lost in the dark, creepy tunnels, Casey doesn’t think Survive the Night could get any worse . . . until she comes across Julie’s body, and the party turns deadly.

Desperate for help, Casey and her friends find themselves running through the putrid subway system, searching for a way out. But every manhole is sealed shut, and every noise echoes eerily in the dark, reminding them they’re not alone. They’re being hunted.

Trapped underground with someone—or something—out to get them, Casey can’t help but listen to her friend’s terrified refrain: “We’re all gonna die down here. . . .” in this bone-chilling sophmore novel by the acclaimed author of The Merciless.

Yoshitomi, Akihito: School Ningyo (School Mermaid)

A horror manga / anthology series by Akihito Yoshitomi about Japanese school girls who really want boyfriends. But rather than going through the trouble of getting the attention of a boy, talking to them and just being themselves, they decide on a much quicker way to do so... By hunting mermaids in their school and eating their flesh.

[danshive]

Look, I’m not saying it’s a GOOD deck.

It is, however, a very “me” deck.

Sadly, I don’t think there’s a good way to make a young hero rat token in these colors. There’s a way, but it’s “Protective Parents,” and it just doesn’t work well.

We must settle for Royal, Sorcerer, and Wicked rats.

👑🐀　🪄🐀　😈🐀

Deck 4 Tangled Colony (WOE) 113 11 Swamp (M21) 311 4 Lord Skitter's Butcher (WOE) 99 4 Voracious Vermin (WOE) 116 4 Spellbook Vendor (WOE) 31 9 Plains (M21) 309 4 Besotted Knight (WOE) 4 4 Conceited Witch (WOE) 84 4 Twisted Sewer-Witch (WOE) 114 4 Lord Skitter, Sewer King (WOE) 97 4 A Tale for the Ages (WOE) 34 4 Shattered Sanctum (VOW) 264

It’s tempting to add the rabbit whose power / toughness equals how many non-land permanents you have (roles count), but this is the basic version of this deck. It can get adjustments later.

[isthenapoleoncute]

Haha....so, funny story.......

My friend miiiiiight have accidentally left her Napoleon in a small attic. For the past fifteen years. I think it's still alive though. There's like....rats, and cockroaches, and spiders for it to eat, though I know that's not part of a healthy diet for these guys. Her roof is really leaky when it rains so it probably has a water source.

Don't worry, I reprimanded my friend for her improper care. She said she put it up there to discipline it for trying to attack her and forgot about it, but I told her that such a thing was in its nature, and even if it wasn't how could you forget with it probably screaming at you? She says that she couldn't tell the difference between her distressed Napoleon and the poltergeists that already live in her house. Sigh. She really is a horrid pet owner.

Anyway, what should I expect if I attempt to retrieve her Napoleon? I'm not an expert on these kinds of animals.

Haha....so, funny story....... (Read this in a mocking tone. I am mimicking you in order to mock you.)

RATING: NOT CUTE!

Your friend is going to jail.

This is one of the most severe cases of Napoleonic abuse I've ever read! Even topping one Napoleons infamous treatment on St Helena where it had to deal with riding its horsey in the company of a British officer some of the time!

Remember that one movie with the dinosaurs? Not the one from thirty years ago, the one from 2015, where they genetically engineered a big dinosaur for an amusement park, but raised it in solitary confinement, and then it escaped and started to perform shenanigans? That's going to be this Napoleon.

In order to extract him safely, we have to ask a few questions:

1.) Is he armed? For reasons that baffle zoologists, Napoleons in captivity often keep their firearms. Does this Napoleon have his hunting pistols?

2.) Has he enlisted the rats into an army? Napoleons have been known to reign over rats and cats as their mini-kings. If so, you might open the door to be swamped by rats. Which you don't deserve, but you friend certainly does.

3.) Has this Napoleon been doing coke? Self explanatory.

Honestly, just call animal control. Better safe than sorry. Yes, they'll throw your friend to jail, but good, frankly. Don't adopt exotic animals if you're not ready for them to be exotic animals, it costs 0.00, simple as.

[ravencromwell]

This is the worst story I know about hocuses. And it’s true. Four Great Septads ago, back in the reign of Claudius Cordelius, there was a hocus named Porphyria Levant. The hocuses back then had this thing they could do, called the binding-by-forms, the obligation d’âme. It happened between a hocus and an annemer, an ordinary person, and it was like an oath of loyalty, only a septad times more. The hocus promised to protect the annemer from everything, including kings and other hocuses and basically anybody else who had an interest. The annemer promised to be the hocus’s servant and do what they said and no backchat, neither. And they renounced their family and all their other connections, so it was like the only thing in the world that mattered to them was the hocus. And then there was a spell to stick it in place and make sure, you know, that nobody tried to back out after it was too late. You can see the problem, right? Most half-bright folks can. But some hocuses were so powerful and so nasty that I guess it seemed like it was better to go ahead and do the obligation d’âme with a hocus you sort of trusted than to go wandering around waiting for a different hocus to get the drop on you. So there was Porphyria Levant. And there was Silas Altamont. Silas Altamont was annemer, a guy who’d been the favorite of Lord Creon Malvinius, and then when Lord Creon got married, Silas Altamont was out on his ear, and scared shitless of Lord Creon’s wife, who was way better connected than him, and was rumored to have three or four hocuses on her string to boot. And she was poison-green with jealousy, because she loved Lord Creon like a mad thing, and everybody knew he didn’t give a rat’s ass about her. So Silas Altamont goes to Porphyria Levant—who was powerful enough to protect him from Lisette Malvinia, no matter who she had running her errands—and begs Porphyria Levant to do the obligation d’âme. And Porphyria Levant smiles and says okay. Now, the thing about the binding-by-forms, the way my friend Zephyr explained it to me, is that it lets the hocus make you do what they want. Except for kill yourself. They can’t make you do that. But what Porphyria Levant tells Silas Altamont to do is fuck her. I’ve heard it different ways. Some people say Silas Altamont was beautiful as daylight, and Porphyria Levant had been hot for him for indictions. Some say Porphyria Levant didn’t know he was molly, thought he was janus and wouldn’t mind. And some say—and I got to admit, this is what I think—that she knew he was molly and that was why she did it. There are other stories about Porphyria Levant, and it’s the kind of thing she would do. Anyway, there’s Silas Altamont. He’s molly, and he’s still in love with Creon Malvinius, but he has to do what the obligation d’âme says, and it says, You got to fuck Porphyria Levant and make her happy. And after a while he goes to her and says, “ can’t stand this no more, please, let me stop or I’m going to go out and slit my wrists.” And Porphyria Levant says, “Silas,” and smiles her little smile, “I forbid you to kill yourself.” That’s what hocuses are like, and that’s why, if you live in the Lower City of Mélusine, you keep one eye on the Mirador all the time, same way you would with a swamp adder. It’s just common sense.

I forget when I first heard rumblings about a book series called the Doctrine of Labyrinth by an up-and-coming writer named Sarah Monette. It was undoubtedly before 2014, because when she published Goblin Emperor as Katherine Addison, I bought it without even reading the synopsis I was that ecstatic to finally get a taste of her writing. You see, Monette had a string of publishing woes, notoriously leading to at least one of the books being out of print before the series was even finished despite having amazing critical press and quite good initial sales. And one of the books just _vanishing from shelves was pretty much the series' death knell; new readers wouldn't start something they knew they couldn't get their hands on half of; and if readers weren't buying, neither were libraries.

It was this unicorn series: dark (dealing extensively with the aftermath of abuse and mind-control), inventive as hell, all about found family and the juxtaposition of brothers: one a high-class sorcerer with a stick up his ass and the other a slum-dwelling lord of cat burgling. With, from what tiny, glorious tidbits I could weasel from the internet the cat burglar acquiring a physical disability later in the series that was not! magically cured; queerness _everywhere; redemption and betrayal and invented languages. And magic absolutely _dripping off every page.

Anyone who's followed me for more than five minutes understands why this was a great white whale, over which I would eternally envy those fortunate few who had glimpsed its splendor.

But then! late last year, joy and jubilation poured forth from nowhere when Open Road Media re-published the whole kit and caboodle. ^^ (Monette/Addison had been low-key promising for a while there was good news in the pipe-line, but she's been very busy with her Tor ventures, including the magnificent Angel of the Crows, and I of little faith thought this news a very pretty mirage).

And then I got scared shitless. What if I'd poured inordinate amounts of the last decade into finding a copy of the whale someone could scan into text for me (cause the Open Road debut is its first in an accessible E-form), failing again and again only for it to be decidedly meh? ^^ But it's spring break and if I don't read at least the first one now, it aint happening 'till May. So, I girded my loins and y'all: just swoon with me over the brilliance of Melusine's prologue.

Mildmay, our lord o' the cat burgle: clearly educated, for all he's in the worst part of the city, but not bothering to sand off the patina of the slums either. An absolute mélange! of expressions, from the Georgian English "Molly" for gay men to the Latin "indiction" for calendric cycles (I'm assuming in this world they're as close as you can get to its original meaning of the five-year Roman Republic lustrum because there are also septets--clearly based off the Latin seven which seem to be the largest counting group so far within the city. Which wouldn't be the case if the indiction were the later fourteen- or fifteen-year length--unless of course indictions are meant to be multiples of seven and septads are a way of breaking that down into more manageable units damn now I can't wait to find out which theory is correct even the fucking prologue is crammed with world-building mysteries). Not to mention the slyest introduction of "Jaus" my beloved god of gates and duality as the perfect bisexual slang my GOD. And I know the linguistic pallet only gets richer, having caught a glimpse of Demi-Monde to explain the circumstances of an unfortunate courtesan Mildmay will be assisting.

Somehow, Monette weaves this mishmash of languages into something entirely comprehensible, giving the city a rich flavor you don't find in ninety-nine percent of fantasy, stuck on its castles and knights and feudalism. Fuck, this is gonna be so good. @dr-dendritic-trees this might be up your alley (not sure how dark you tolerate your fiction and this goes some pretty dark places from reviews, but know you were a huge Crow fan) ^ Open Road has a penchant for collecting out-of-print titles that become my heart's beloveds ala Elizabeth Wein's Aksumite cycle (opening in Winter Prince with an Arthurian-esque re-telling, but steeped in ancient Ethiopian culture and proceeding into…how the hell does one even describe Telemakos? Mixed-race child prodigy of thievery and diplomacy, simultaneously clever and mischievous as any trickster should be who will make you cry six times in every book is about the best I can do. These are absolutely as good as! Megan Whalen Turner's Queen's Thief and even more underappreciated. ^^ Having grown up shamelessly queer in a landscape that only in the last decade has made significant strides towards making queer books accessible to the blind, I have so many white whales. Heather Gladney's Song of Naga Teot y'all. Sometimes, I just quietly keen over how much I wanna read this trope-filled book I don't even care if it's good people could probably make me accomplice to terrible deeds if they just promised to read aloud all the pulpy queer books, I still can't get my hands on after all was said and done.

[blood-darkened-moon]

Dark Souls

Dark Souls 1

Characters Chosen Undead | Anastacia of Astora | Knight Lautrec of Carim | Solaire of Astora | Blacksmith Andre | Oscar of Astora | Giant Blacksmith | Quelaan/Daughter of Chaos | Quelana of Izalith | Gwynevere Princess of Sunlight | Siegmeyer of Catarina | Sieglinde of Catarina | Kingseeker Frampt | Darkstalker Kaathe | Patches the Hyena | Lord's Blade Ciaran | Dusk of Oolacile | Darkmoon Knightess | Elizabeth | Furtive Pygmy | Witch of Izalith | Hawkeye Gough | Giant Crow | Shiva of the East | Black Iron Tarkus | Alvina of the Darkroot Wood | Big Hat Logan | Ingward the Guardian of the Seal | Female Undead Merchant

Bosses Asylum Demon | Taurus Demon | Capra Demon | Gaping Dragon | Bell Gargoyle | Chaos Witch Quelaag | Iron Golem | Moonlight Butterfly | Dragon Slayer Ornstein | Executioner Smough | Centipede Demon | Gravelord Nito | Seath the Scaleless | Four Kings | Great Grey Wolf Sif | Dark Sun Gwyndolin | Crossbreed Priscilla | Sanctuary Guardian | Artorias the Abysswalker | Manus Father of the Abyss | Black Dragon Kalameet | Gwyn Lord of Cinder

Enemies Silver Knight | Mushroom People | Havel the Rock | Black Knight | Wheel Skeleton | The Channeler | Black Hydra | Stone Guardian | Sunlight Maggot | Batwing Demon | Crow Demon | Ghost | Undead Attack Dog | Maneater Mildred | Crystal Golem | Skeleton Beast | Kirk Knight of Thorns | Undead Dragon

Dark Souls 2

Characters Bearer of the Curse | Emerald Herald/Shanalotte | Lucatiel of Mirrah | Aslatiel of Mirrah | Lonesome Gavlan | Royal Sorcerer Navlaan | Vengarl of Forossa | Faraam, God of War | Alsanna the Silent Oracle | Nadalia Bride of Ash | Jester Thomas | Sweet Shalquoir | Benhart of Jugo | Weaponsmith Ornifex | Creighton the Wanderer

Bosses Old Dragonslayer | Ruin Sentinel | The Rotten | Executioner's Chariot | Covetous Demon | Mytha the Baneful Queen | Old Iron King | Throne Watcher | Throne Defender | Looking Glass Knight | Demon of Song | Velstadt the Royal Aegis | King Vendrick | Smelter Demon | Royal Rat Authority | Fume Knight | Sir Alonne | Elana the Squalid Queen | Sinh the Slumbering Dragon | Aava the King's Pet | Lud the King's Pet | Zallen the King's Pet | Burnt Ivory King | Darklurker | Nashandra

Enemies Aurous Knight | Heide Knight | Amana Priestess | Pursuer | Flame Salamander

Dark Souls 3

Characters Ashen One | Fire Keeper | Anri of Astora | Horace the Hushed | Yuria of Londor | Eygon of Carim | Irina of Carim | Orbeck of Vinheim | Sirris of the Sunless Realms | Unbreakable Patches | Greirat of the Undead Settlement | Siegward of Catarina | Princess Filianore | Company Captain Yorshka | Sir Vilhelm | Baby Ocelotte | Queen of Lothric | Painting Woman | Liliane of the Sable Church | Lord of Hollows | Karla | Cornyx of the Great Swamp | Ringfinger Leonhard | Rosaria Mother of Rebirth | Pygmy Lords | Yellowfinger Heysel | Old Wolf of Farron | Archdeacon Klimt | Archdeacon Mcdonnell | Archdeacon Royce | Shira Knight of Filianore | Pilgrim from Londor | Ludleth of Courland

Bosses Iudex Gundyr | Vordt of the Boreal Valley | Curse Rotted Greatwood | Crystal Sage | Deacons of the Deep | High Lord Wolnir | Old Demon King | Champion Gundyr | Pontiff Sulyvahn | Abyss Watchers | Yhorm the Giant | Aldrich Devourer of Gods | Dancer of the Boreal Valley | Dragonslayer Armour | Lothric Younger Prince | Lorian Elder Prince | Ancient Wyvern | Nameless King | Storm Drake | Oceiros the Consumed King | Champion's Gravetender | Gravetender Greatwolf | Sister Friede | Father Ariandel | Demon Prince | Darkeater Midir | Halflight Spear of the Church | Slave Knight Gael | Soul of Cinder

Enemies Pontiff Knight | Fire Witch | Sulyvahn's Beast | Grand Archives Scholar | Lothric Knight | Darkwraith | Carthus Swordsman Skeleton | Tree Woman | Ravenous Crystal Lizard | Corvian Settler | Corvian Knight | Ringed Knight | Desert Pyromancer Zoey | Londor Pale Shade | Holy Knight Hodrick | Angel | Outrider Knight | Jailer | Grand Archives Scholar | Monstrosity of Sin | Wolf | Grave Warden | Deep Accursed

Groups/Ships/All Games Twin Princes | Nkstein | Ciartorias | Eygon x Irina | Four Knights of Gwyn | Crystal Lizard | Patches | Basilisk | Mimic | Skeleton | Velka Goddess of Sin

Others Dubious Grandma | Maiden of the Moon | Irithyll of the Boreal Valley

DS Trivia

[glitchdollmemoria]

mutual 1: lost my damned tome again, i think i should just become a blacksmith at this rate

mutual 2: yeah milord that "herb" is a "spell component" 😏😶‍🌫️

mutual 3: i just know the court jesters pussy is tight

mutual 4: met this knight at the tavern and he bought me a drink after my gig and so i started kissing on his helmet only for him to take it off and reveal he was a butch lesbian who thought i was a fair maiden but no im just some fucking twink in tights fml fml

mutual 5: the skeletons are back

mutual 6: the king loves the way i jingle 🔔... yet her majesty hears not a chime! 🤭

mutual 7: my horse doesnt know how to read scrolls. my horse doesnt know anything

mutual 8: EXTREMELY disappointed in thayleria the swift :( the piercing tusk of a wild beast would do less harm to us all than her treacherous queerbaiting. might take a break from social magica #gayleria #we fucking trusted you #does our patronage mean nothing to you

mutual 9: lord maladaptivus should be slain

mutual 10: did elf ketamine with aldrunne oakbow and they put me in the hundred year labyrinth because "youre funny when youre confused" literally what the hell is their problem. anyway are there any cronefuckers online? fantastic news dearie

mutual 11: i need to dunk blorb'o from my epics in tar

mutual 12: sorry i havent been active im swamped in parchmentwork #aging scryblr userbase i know

mutual 13: BY THE DIVINES I NEED GNOME GOCK

mutual 14: necromancy is literally fine i dont understand all the fuss?? theyre already dead they dont care if i use them in battle

mutual 15: wyrm day isnt gonna save scryblr you buffoons

mutual 16: holy fucking shit i cant believe some of you actually dont ask the dead for permission before resurrecting them. you are literally the entire reason that necromancy is still illegal in some kingdoms. You Are The Problem. get help.

mutual 17: please remember good revolt etiquette! *quill drawn infographic with the worst advice youve ever seen*

mutual 18: how to undo rat curse

mutual 19: this loser just tried to give my mother a dowry of two hens and a pebble for my hand in marriage,, i,,,, ???

mutual 20: ok but am i the only one who thinks adventurers are hot when theyre all exhausted and grimy and weary and (the royal archers aim directly through my window)

mutual 21: had another prophetic dream. tome in chimera lair