#that is supposed to measure several hundreds .

[gomtotemeal]

And so a month after they built the fifth Wal-Mart in our county, a little coffee shop opened just a few yards away.  

My coworker Rick said it looked like a giant amoeba just waiting to absorb any surrounding properties.

“The coffee shop?” I asked.

“No, Wal-Mart is the amoeba.”

“Oh.”

When I got back to my desk, I typed ‘amoeba’ into Google and realized that I had incorrectly pictured a centipede.

“To hell with Rick,” I thought. “I don’t need any more friends, anyway. I’m on friend overload.”

At dinner that night, the Wal-Mart came up again when my wife Diane mentioned how ugly it was to see another gigantic shopping center taking up space in our town.

“It looks like a giant amoeba just waiting to absorb that little coffee shop,” I said. “And then the coffee shop is like a centipede.”

“I don’t think amoebas eat centipedes. And besides, that’s the point.”

Diane went on to explain that the coffee shop, though legitimate and functioning by all measures, was really an art piece constructed by a group of private donors in response to the new Wal-Mart.

“The idea is that we’re intentionally not supposed to go to the coffee shop. That way, Wal-Mart customers will be forced to observe the gradual decay of a local business every time they enter the store.”

“Well, I’ve been going there all week,” I said. “I think the coffee is top-notch stuff. Plus, it’s on my way to work.”

“The coffee is supposed to be mediocre,” said Diane. “Keeping within the budget of most struggling businesses. It’s supposed to be virtually undrinkable.”

“Hmm…well I really like it.”

“Well, you can’t keep going or else you’ll ruin the project.”

“This is America,” I said. “And if I want a cup of mediocre, overpriced coffee, by god I will have it!”

Over the next several months, I kept drinking the coffee. Some days I even went twice. The quality of the coffee, I was told, gradually worsened as a result of my unwavering interest, but I never noticed and so I had no choice but to doubt the rumors.

My doubt remained intact even after overhearing a private conversation between the coffee shop’s manager and the cashier. I was standing by a tree and watching a teenager back his car into another car and I guess they didn’t see me.

“I know,” said the cashier. “I’ve tried that, but it’s like he doesn’t have taste buds.”

“Well, he’s single-handedly fucking up this entire thing.”

“So what then, poison? Would he even drink poison?”

“Now, that’s an interesting idea.”

“Stupid teenage drivers,” I thought.

In the end, they poisoned the coffee. I made it a month after that, but my failing eyesight and ravaged kidneys eventually left me bed-ridden.

“Well, they just opened another location,” said Diane. “Business is booming. I hope you’re happy.”

And I wasn’t happy, but I was somehow content and I thought about everything then: Wal-Mart, art projects, even little amoebas crawling through the forest, one-hundred legs working beautifully in tandem.

“Nobody ever wins in these kinds of things,” said Diane.

“But if you had to pick a winner, you’d probably pick me because the coffee shop was on my way to work.”

Diane sighed and left the room. I dozed off and in my dream, they did pick a winner. They picked me and I was led over to a small stage to choose my prize: A brand new recliner or two new kidneys!

“The recliner,” I inquired. “How far back are we talking?”

[tcfactory]

As fun as it is when people write the Emperor as someone who has his shit together and functions as An Excellent Specimen of a Mindflayer, this alien mastermind who can act like a mentor for illiThav, I have a fondness for the Emperor as like

this absolute wreck of a person.

Mindflayers are supposed to stay with their colony for like 20+ years to learn All The Things Mindflayer and we know Ansur stole him away long before that (I think he said 12 or 13 years). And then put him through what was meant to be cult deprogramming, but probably was just an unfortunate mixture of torture (mental isolation and I can see a measure of starvation added to it) and instilling every insecurity known to man. Guilting the squid not to act squiddy wasn't very effective on the long run, but it sure must have been traumatizing - might even be the reason why the Emperor made such a decisive cut between his old and new identity. We don't know how long Ansur tried before he gave up, but probably quite a few years, dragon sounded like the stubborn sort.

So we have 1. possibly not fully socialized/introduced to the culture in its fullest and 2. some years of being forced to act as close to his old human personality as possible to placate Ansur. 3. continued social isolation where he only interacts with humanoid races, often indirectly at that.

So I like the idea that as the result of all of that he's not really pretending when we meet him properly, he's Just Like That. Not the part about being on top of things, gods know people wrote stories about how he talked his way out of all sorts of nonsense with pure bullshit, he could probably sell beachfront property in the Hells if he tried. Just, his personality and mannerisms as an ungodly mixture halfway between illithid and human, he's just the weirdest squid. Not human anymore, no, but acting and thinking overall too human compared to other mindflayers and he might not even be fully aware of it because he's been isolated from his kind for the last several hundred years. Even post-Absolute he might not know how weird he is, I somehow can't see the elderbrain reintegrating him into the colony when he's clearly defective. Say thank you to Gortash for being curious about his business rival or the Emperor would be past tense.

Anyway, I really like Weird Squid Emperor and I want to put him in a room with Omeluum so nerd squid can take notes and be amazed at this trashfire of an illithid, I think that would be a cool scene actually.

[commodorez]

If the Commodore 64 is great, where is the Commodore 65?

It sits in the pile with the rest of history's pre-production computers that never made it. It's been awhile since I went on a Commodore 65 rant...

The successor to the C64 is the C128, arguably the pinnacle of 8-bit computers. It has 3 modes: native C128 mode with 2MHz 8502, backwards compatible C64 mode, and CP/M mode using a 4MHz Z80. Dual video output in 40-column mode with sprites plus a second output in 80-column mode. Feature-rich BASIC, built in ROM monitor, numpad, 128K of RAM, and of course a SID chip. For 1985, it was one of the last hurrahs of 8-bit computing that wasn't meant to be a budget/bargain bin option.

For the Amiga was taking center stage at Commodore -- the 16-bit age is here! And its initial market performance wasn't great, they were having a hard time selling its advanced capabilities. The Amiga platform took time to really build up momentum square in the face of the rising dominance of the IBM PC compatible. And the Amiga lost (don't tell the hardcore Amiga fanboys, they're still in denial).

However, before Commodore went bankrupt in '94, someone planned and designed another successor to the C64. It was supposed to be backwards compatible with C64, while also evolving on that lineage, moving to a CSG 4510 R3 at 3.54MHz (a fancy CMOS 6502 variant based on a subprocessor out of an Amiga serial port card). 128K of RAM (again) supposedly expandable to 1MB, 256X more colors, higher resolution, integrated 3½" floppy not unlike the 1581. Bitplane modes, DAT modes, Blitter modes -- all stuff that at one time was a big deal for rapid graphics operations, but nothing that an Amiga couldn't already do (if you're a C65 expert who isn't mad at me yet, feel free to correct me here).

The problem is that nobody wanted this.

Sure, Apple had released the IIgs in 1986, but that had both the backwards compatibility of an Apple II and a 16-bit 65C816 processor -- not some half-baked 6502 on gas station pills. Plus, by the time the C65 was in heavy development it was 1991. Way too late for the rapidly evolving landscape of the consumer computer market. It would be cancelled later that same year.

I realize that Commodore was also still selling the C64 well into 1994 when they closed up shop, but that was more of a desperation measure to keep cash flowing, even if it was way behind the curve by that point (remember, when the C64 was new it was a powerful, affordable machine for 1982). It was free money on an established product that was cheap to make, whereas the C65 would have been this new and expensive machine to produce and sell that would have been obsolete from the first day it hit store shelves. Never mind the dismal state of Commodore's marketing team post-Tramiel.

Internally, the guy working on the C65 was someone off in the corner who didn't work well with others while 3rd generation Amiga development was underway. The other engineers didn't have much faith in the idea.

The C65 has acquired a hype of "the machine that totally would have saved Commodore, guise!!!!1!11!!!111" -- saved nothing. If you want better what-if's from Commodore, you need to look to the C900 series UNIX machine, or the CLCD. Unlike those machines which only have a handful of surviving examples (like 3 or 4 CLCDs?), the C65 had several hundred, possibly as many as 2000 pre-production units made and sent out to software development houses. However many got out there, no software appears to have surfaced, and only a handful of complete examples of a C65 have entered the hands of collectors. Meaning if you have one, it's probably buggy and you have no software to run on it. Thus, what experience are you recapturing? Vaporware?

The myth of the C65 and what could have been persists nonetheless. I'm aware of 3 modern projects that have tried to take the throne from the Commodore 64, doing many things that sound similar to the Commodore 65.

The Foenix Retro Systems F256K:

The 8-Bit Guy's Commander X16

The MEGA65 (not my picture)

The last of which is an incredibly faithful open-source visual copy of the C65, where as the other projects are one-off's by dedicated individuals (and when referring to the X16, I don't mean David Murray as he's not the one doing the major design work).

I don't mean to belittle the effort people have put forth into such complicated projects, it's just not what I would have built. In 2019, I had the opportunity to meet the 8-Bit Guy and see the early X16 prototype. I didn't really see the appeal, and neither did David see the appeal of my homebrew, the Cactus.

Build your own computer, build a replica computer. I encourage you to build what you want, it can be a rewarding experience. Just remember that the C65 was probably never going to dig Commodore out of the financial hole they had dug for themselves.

[delightindarkness]

Fallout AU || Closed Starter

The heavy air itself was suffocating as James' lungs took their first unaided breath in a little over two hundred years. It burned at first.

Something was wrong.

Alarms blared as the cryochamber he was in popped open, mechanical whirring loud in the otherwise silent vault. Stumbling out of the chamber, blue eyes squinted even against the low light. What the hell was happening?

Other than the alarms, there was no other commotion. At least not in this this sector. He was panting as he moved from chamber to chamber in the cold, damp room. Each one said the same as he pressed the emergency release.

System Failure. Life Support Off.

Dead. All of them were dead. Why wasn't he dead? What the hell happened? Last thing he remembered he was being ushered into the vault. His handlers had told him that it was time for the bombs to fall, it was time for their most important, most dangerous mission yet. Purging out the enemies on our own American soil.

Where was everyone?

"Hello?" He called out twice. Once in English, once in Russian. It was a preferred language by many of the handlers and scientists that he'd been working with. Something he'd learned and picked up on quickly. His voice was strained and he hated how it echoed in the almost empty room. It made him think of a tomb. Each chamber was now its own coffin.

His head was still reeling as he moved from room to room. It was all the same. More of the tragic death that he'd so narrowly escaped. A few rooms had their security measures tripped and it made him wonder if it was an attack.

Making his way toward the exit, it became clearer and clearer, especially after seeing several skeletons, that quite some time had passed, and something horrible had happened. It took the Sargent awhile to figure his way out, but after a bit, the vault door was rolling back and he thought he might go blind.

The light that met him was so bright he felt like he was heading out onto the surface of the sun. His eyes began to adjust though...slowly. Things on the surface didn't seem much better, based on what he could see thus far. More bodies. Most of them in military garb. Once again, the tale of time had taken its toll, and they were nothing but bone.

One of the skeletons was still clinging tightly to a 10mm Pistol, and he quickly took it, checking to see how much ammo was left. It wasn't much, and he figured he wouldn't need it as he himself was a weapon, but he wanted it just in case.

The first place he came to was a neighborhood that had obviously seen better days. Other than some bugs and a robot that didn't speak to him, he found nothing save for a bit more ammo and some food that seemed a little suspicious, but it was better than nothing he supposed.

Headed up the road, and over what was once a bridge, he heard movement, slowing his steps, though it did him little good. The dog on premises alerted his presence to whomever was around the moment he let out a long howl.

@little-blog-of-horrors

[badass-queer-couples-battle]

Gay wrongs tournament, semifinals of the losers bracket

Propaganda:

For Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu:

you've got the founder of the fantasy ancient Chinese CIA and the leader of what is essentially the mafia and then they're soulmates and in love. they're both willing to kill anyone who dares hurt the other while also just wanting a soft domestic life together

Zhou Zishu is an assassin and spymaster who put the current Emperor on the throne, and then quit his job by faking his death (kinda, hes still dying but not as fast as he was supposed to). Had done A Lot on his old job, including murdering children (more than one, and at least one of them in a way I can't even describe without several trigger warnings), exterminating whole families, war crimes (and i dont mean this in a buzzword way, i mean "organized a public execution of foreign diplomats during war time")… btw he doesn't feel particularly bad about any of this, because he believes it was necessary. Like he wouldn't do it for fun, but he thinks the ends (putting a good Emperor on the throne) justified the means (all of the atrocities). As a retiree, he definitely cut down on the amount of morally reprehensible murder, but not murder in general. He still routinely kills ppl, he just doesn't go out of his way to kill more. Wen Kexing, meanwhile, is the Ghost Valley Master - Ghost Valley being a place where the worst of criminals are exiled. Even in such a place, he has reputation as a complete lunatic, owed partially to the fact that he either skinned a man or fed him his own flesh or both at one point, and partially to him having a rule where he would kill anyone who came closer than 3 meters to him. But in truth, everything he'd done was to survive the Ghost Valley and eventually take revenge for his parents, who were brutally murdered when he was only nine. By the start of the novel's timeline, he put his plan in motion - the plan that would drown jianghu in blood, but also deliver poetic justice to all responsible for his parents' deaths, as well as all who'd commit the same crime given the chance. And these two men, these two murderers and schemers, meet - and unexpectedly, find in each other the person who /understands/. The person who is just as ruthless and whose hands are just as bloody, but also the person who knows standing at the top of the world is not worth it, who seeks the same freedom of leaving it all behind, and who is still, underneath it all, a human, with human heart seeking connection. So you have this couple who understand each other with barely a word, and who want the same things - who are so hungry for domesticity and for people they can just goof around with when all their lives they had to measure every step and word - but ALSO where one half a couple is like "i gotta go murder hundreds in revenge" and the other half is like "ok pick you up at 6". (This btw is why I'm submitting novel's iteration of the couple in particular. Show wenzhou with their ridiculous breakups over morality could Never.) Also they were both hiding who they are when they first met, and later flirted about having figured each other out. Finally, I'll leave you my favorite quote that just. perfectly sums up their relationship: "And just like that, they fell asleep in each other's arms, steeped in the smell of blood."

You’ve probably already had submissions for them but I’ll add on. One of them founded an assassin’s guild and killed a staggering number of people. His malewife is the leader of a sect of insane murderous outcasts, and he attained his position by proving to be the most crazy and murder happy of them all. Most of the plot involves him wandering around watching his schemes get more people killed. Together they adopt a kid that was only orphaned due to said scheming (oops). They’re terrible and I love them.

For Legolas and Gimli:

They literally have a running competition between the two over who has more kills. And non-canon my ass, Legolas took Gimli to valinor

They kill alot of orcs together. They make it into a competition. Better minds than i have spoken about the couple ness

[elbiotipo]

How should nekomimi be inherited to not look weird?

I think that if they are simply humans with certain animalistic traits then it can be done like irl phenotypes, basically "some mixed kids inherit them, some don't" and leave it here, so there can be a community of mostly cat people with some individuals with fully human features to not make it look weird (and vice-versa, some nekomimi people amongst "normal" humans who don't belong to any of the cultures of cat people).

But what about some more complicated feline features like vision or dietary needs and such?

And even more importantly, is my idea of how to do nekomimi genetics in a fantasy setting not weird in itself?

It's NOT weird. The only thing better than catgirls are catgirls who fit in the worldbuilding.

Now, if you want a technobabble excuse, you could always use homeobox genes that you could say develop different kinds of ears, tails (biologist note: this is NOT exactly how homeobox genes work, but they do kinda work as an technobabble excuse) inside a wider, let's say, "humanoid" species or genus. These could be inherited as diverse alleles of such traits (for example, the 'ears' gene could have cat-like, dog-like, human-like, etc. alelles) and also have mendelian or non-mendelian distributions. Suppose you want to make a fantasy mendelian system, you could say "cat ears are recessive, human ears are dominant" (note: "recessive" and "dominant" don't mean "worse" and "better" it just means than an allele is "hidden" or deactivated by the dominant one. Sorry if I make a mistake, I learned all this in Spanish) and figure out inheritance from there, just traits that are cleanly inherited in regular proportions. This is not how most genetics work, however. There's multiple kinds of non-mendelian inheritance... multiple alleles, codominance, sex-linked inheritance, and of course quantitative genetics which is when alleles don't manifest in a single discrete trait but rather a continous measurable one (such as height)... now I feel I'm doing my genetics course again, but I'm sure you can tell how such things can work if you read an intro text about it.

There's a bunch of caveats here, and I'm gonna speak very broadly here. In humans, there aren't single, well defined genes that codify appearance for, for example, hair texture and color, skin/eye color, etc. in the sense that there's a "blue eye gene" or "curly hair gene". In fact this is the case for most genes, most are multi-allelic or quantitative with different 'weights' for a continous trait. Or BOTH. People tend to inherit different genetic 'weights' (very unscientific term here, sorry) from one parent or another and this can be very random, with some expressing different traits even if having the same family (this is why you see people who resemble almost perfectly to one parent instead of a "mix" of both, and of course those who indeed look like a mix of both. And these in turn have nothing to do with genetic diseases, blood types, or other inheritable things) There are hundreds of genes involved in each trait of human appearance and they all interact with each other, and most aren't even known, we don't fully know the genes that regulate skin, hair or eye color, just to give a few examples. So it's almost never stuff like "dominant purple flower, recessive white flower", Mendel was VERY lucky and smart to pick out discrete alleles to find out his laws. Most traits aren't like that at all, especially in animals.

Which brings me to my next point. It's very unlikely mendelian inheritance of traits such as ears or tails would have evolved naturally in animals. The development of characteristics such as ears or tails is deep, deep in the early embryo development, a very fragile period for animals. A species that has such huge genetic variations in such key periods of development faces severe selective pressure and it's unlikely these extreme "alleles" would remain, errors on them would cause extreme malformations or just embryos not developing at all. Even humans have this trouble, the loss of tails in apes, for example, has let us to suffer from spina bifida, every body plan change has a huge cost and this is why animals are sometimes very conservative with it, most body plans are the modification of existing features rather than the apperance or removal of different ones, and this is at evolutionary scales, not even living populations. Of course, some animals are more, let's say, plastic, like dogs, but even they have a general body plan, there aren't dogs without ears or tails, for instance. Even dogs are the consequence of tens of thousands of very intensive artificial selection which did not happen naturally at all, I mean, it's not like poodles or daschunds have any sexual or natural selection advantage for themselves, they are adventageous for us. You can see that wild and feral dogs, without the pressure of human artificial selection tend to converge into a more general dog plan (the so called "pariah dog", but also see dingos, and of course wolves, I'm skipping a lot of stuff here), adapted to local climates.

Surprisingly, I can see diet being less problematic in this sense. After all, we know there are for example human populations adapted to lactose. Dogs have also evolved enzymes to digest carbohydrates which wolves don't have, while not as nutritious as their carnivorous diet it works better with our human diet. Different bacterial flora can also help digest things that are surprising though, such as cellulose (though bacterial flora is still an underrated and ongoing field of study) It's also much easier to imagine changes in dentition than the whole head plan. So I can easily imagine different populations adapting to different diets. Same with eyes, I mean, daltonic and colorblind human population exists, the EYE is mostly the same, but it works differently. But again, the body plan remains the same. Humans or dogs might have different aptitudes for diets, but they don't stop being omnivores or carnivores.

Of course, tis' fantasy. So why expect things to follow natural evolution? Hell, why even expect fantasy people in a pre-industrial setting to know about homeobox genes? Depending on your setting, it might be that these traits are stable and inheritable because of a magical curse/blessing, or that the gods or the inherent magic of the world said so. However, if you have a species that has multiple, very different appearances and those are inheritable, you're dealing with some rather heavy stuff here that redefines your concept of humanity. In Dungeon Meshi, for instance, they talk about this, as the typical "elf, dwarf, halfling, human" fantasy races all can and do have children with each other, and (spoilers!) they seem to have a common origin, and thus all are actually called "humanity" which is a very interesting concept, because, indeed, what else are they if they don't actually have any real biological barriers. Meanwhile, the differences with other more "distant" species? races? such as orcs and kobolds (canine-like) are shown as rather arbitrary and depending on the culture, in fact, even humans (or rather "tallmen") get excluded from "humanity" in some cases. (not even tackling the whole long-short lived races thing). Similarily, you could say these "nekomimi" are just humans with a particular blessing or curse (again, in Dungeon Meshi, there is Izutsumi), but that works on the particular designs of your fantasy world and magic system... and let's say that when such concepts have appeared in real life, well... I don't need to tell you these are rather heavy and controversial topics to tackle. I don't think you should shy away from portraying them, but again, it's something to think about very carefully.

Since this is a heavy topic, I'm gonna take you out of fantasy for a sci-fi perspective. In my biopunk setting (it's on the tag "soft biopunk" on my blog) there are kemonomimi people all around, and in fact, all sort of genetic cosmetics, in fact, one of the main characters is indeed a communist catgirl. Most of it, however, is made in adults, much like getting tattoos or piercings. Tegument (i.e, skin) in humans and most vertebrates is surprisingly plastic, and one can 'grow' ears and implant them, or estimulate the production of feather or scale genes in the skin. Meanwhile, things such as tails have a little more involved surgery, since you also need to take into account nerves, muscles, circulation, etc. Meanwhile stuff such as muzzles and others require very extensive surgery, so it isn't as common. So these are implants (non inheritable) rather than expression from embryos, what geneticists would say germline modification. Such things also occurs but is done way more carefully and is more extensive, and it's nothing you would do just for the sake of cosmetics, when you're doing that, you're basically starting a new branch of humanity with all that implies. On the other hand, sentient "uplift" cats, dogs, and many other animals do exist, but they aren't animals that act like humans, they are sentient animals with a way of thinking and behavior very different to us, you aren't talking to a "cat with human intelligence", you're talking to an intelligent cat (when they want to talk, anyways). So, you can't REALLY turn a Felis catus into a catgirl, but a Homo sapiens can do a rather passable one.

Well, this has been a lot of fun to write and think about, so I hope you enjoyed it, and sorry for the walls of text! I promise to make a better post with some better illustrations of hot catgirls. In any case, if you found this useful, I would be very grateful if you gave me a tip! Given our economic situation here with Milei (the guy who cloned his dog, how appropiate), anything helps!

Feel free to ask anything you'd like!

[sapphicrow]

His Better.

(A lil Lady D drabble looking at her past)

———————————

Dear Diary,

Today is the anniversary of his death. Of his complete and total departure from my world. Those who remember him perhaps view this day as a day of mourning, though I must confess I feel no such grief. A buzz of vibrant elation hums in my chest. His portrait sits in the main hall once more for today, but if not for Mother Miranda’s command for it to be in such an honorable place it would be fueling the hearth that warms my feet as I indulge in sapphic erotica, plentiful goblets of wine, maybe even a maiden or four on their knees begging for an opportunity to breathe the same air as I. He would call me a heathen and a whore. I shall call him, with phony tears in my eyes, a victim of times of political unrest. Patricide may be the more precise term, but alas, I shan’t spoil my lovely day with scandal. Mother does not wish for the truth to be spoken. I suppose it is a fair wish. I may not speak it, but I find myself needing to release this memory from my head, lest it rot in there and I begin to feel sorry for the bitch.

My father was not a good man. He was barely a man. He was a nincompoop who took advantage of his station, and his staff, and his abundant liquor collection. He was not kind. It is not for this reason I resent him, for I can hardly claim to be kind either. I resent him for his failure as a count, and his confidence in his incompetence. I remember watching his fat, clumsy fingers struggle to button his lavishly crafted waist coat with contempt. I knew from a young age that I was a far better leader than he. That my own hands, nimble and steady from years of the pointless needlework noble girls were expected to do, were suited for the control he fumbled about with so terribly. For holding the throne. I remember being fifteen years of age, watching him bumble about his office in a suit lined with silk he did not deserve the softness of. The war had threatened to touch his territory. Even then I knew that securing assets would be a vital defense for the empire he wished to construct. He did no such thing. He simply ran around like a chicken with its head severed and defiled more maids in his stress. The only measure he took was of how many drinks he could fit in his bulbous stomach. I couldn’t fathom being so irresponsible. If his land in the Carpathian Mountains was threatened, was it not clear as day that he should be worried about finding other means to protect his legacy? I recall creeping into his office in the dead of night to look over the correspondences surrounding the war and his rule and the financials that were spread carelessly about the big oak desk, my heist backed by the erratic growl of his snores. I felt as if I had forged his signature hundreds of times, even if it was my very first act of blatant treachery. It still felt so natural to use his name for my own game. It wasn’t as if he was using it for anything useful. That night he wrote a very fine letter to the duchies nearby asking for an alliance through these trying times, though the recipients would question the flair to his cursive, as well as the fact that there seemed to be a scribbled out A before his signature. I would not let this incompetent fool ruin my holdings. I would have the power that was my birthright.

For years, I would conduct similar such maneuvers. It became a performance of sorts. The key ring would leap from his belt loop to my gloved hand, landing with a graceful turn into the lock of his office. My slippered feet would dance through the slimmest crack of the door so as not to let light from the open curtains spill into the other room. My night gown would sway with me, it became synonymous with the robes of a queen in my mind. I’d Chassé from the doorway to his desk, all too eager to begin my work. The moon and I became partners in this secretive dance, for she was the subtle light I remained loyal to, granting me sight of the papers I now held under my midnight authority. And so began the unofficial, unnoticed rule of the new Dimitrescu, though the old one was oblivious to how he’d been replaced. Thankfully the old fool was a drunkard and simply believed he had managed to make all of these lucrative decisions in his intoxicated stupor.

As if.

Looking back, I cannot help but laugh heartily at how bold I was. I am much too good. But a large amount of my amusement is pointed at the pure egocentrism of the man who named himself my father. How humorous the thought of a drunk man taking the time to send out the decrees I painstakingly assembler was. There was a time when this did not entertain me, however. It was no laughing matter when my father took all the credit for my success. I had heard so much praise on the account of his wise conduct of the county. Barons and dukes and alike bowed to him, preening in his presence as if he exuded some holy power.

I grew bitter.

I was the one making these decisions! I was the one keeping him together! I had created this man’s legacy in the dead of night and neither he nor his adoring fans knew this. It infuriated me. Dear Diary, I am ashamed to admit that even now I’ve cracked the stem of my glass reminiscing upon it. For lack of a more eloquent response to this situation, it just wasn’t fair! Surely if they knew the raven haired girl with his nose and ten times his wit trailing behind him was the one truly in charge, they wouldn’t grovel to him the same way. He would be forgotten like the sorry bastard he was while everyone kissed the ground I walked upon. But they didn’t know. And so I was just his daughter. A material object he constantly strove to rid himself of. It was infuriating, I tell you, infuriating! I could only feed off of second hand acknowledgement for so long.

And so, a plot came to be. Or rather, a hastily conceived idea. I did not spend fortnights planning his death. I did not weave a technical tale of coverups and falsehoods. There was no subtlety. I was sick of hiding. You call it a risk, I called it a need. A need for his blood coating my hands as soon as possible. It was the eve of a grand event- which one it was escapes my memory for there was simply no end to the monotonous parties I was dragged along to - but all I knew was that I couldn’t stand to see him grin so smugly with the acclaim he hadn’t truly earned even one more time.

This night was not a ballet. I did not dance on light feet through the halls. I near slammed the door of my chambers as I tore through the corridors. The moon could not illumine me tonight. She would take no pleasure in seeing him torn to pieces, though I certainly would. I was near frothing at the mouth. One could paint my likeness as the lycans that now hunger in the shadows of the village.

I opened his door and closed it behind me without an ounce of gentleness. Let them hear. My nightgown billowed around me like the dark cloaks death was usually depicted wearing. The old man could not hear me over his snores. I clutched the previously ornamental dagger in my hand and snarled at the sight of his peaceful sleep. I was not going to allow him to slumber through this. In my rage I punched through the glass of his window (I dimly acknowledged it would be a good alibi for the later accusation of assassins, but mostly I just yearned for his terror) to the sound of which he shot up. He looked around frantically and saw the face of his daughter as the blade plunged into him without the courtesy of a warning. It was a wet, nasty slide of flesh around the metal of my blade. It was the sickest form of penetration. It was my finest act of political assistance to his county. I grin now at the memory of his shock. His greedy mouth parted in disbelief. He croaked my name into the night and I twisted the blade deeper. I only remember the sound from me being something between a growl and a triumphant laugh. He tried to cry out and I pulled the dagger from his side and forced it down his throat the same way I knew he had forced his foul chode down the throats of unwilling maidens. His lips curved around it and I looked down at him as his fat body flailed in agony. He deserved this, I had thought as I shoved my hand past his teeth and drug the blade along the walls of his esophagus, he deserves to die. I am greater at thirty than he ever was at fifty. I am not his daughter, I am his better. That was my mantra as I pulled horrific noises from this man. It was the most pleasurable thing I’d ever done. I had expected at least some remorse, but seeing him bloodied and dying brought me nothing but glee. I watched death tear him from his hideous form and I did not relent. I stabbed again and again until I felt calm. I had three decades of pent up anger to get out, so he was long dead before then. He looked like an oversized meatball when I was done, limp in the bed he spent most of his lazy fucking life in.

My white slip was dyed red with vengeance. This was my coronation long before I ever received the crown. I still keep that gown as a momento, though it is now far too small.

Today I contemplate that garment with all its dried blood and crusted on innards. Perhaps I have a wardrobe filled with fine dresses, but none is as fine as that one.

Can a normal dress be stained with the moment you gained independence? Can it tell the story of the rise of House Dimitrescu? Since that day we have done nothing but prosper. Even a century later I do not regret it.

Dear Diary, I am Alcina Dimitrescu. I am a cruel woman. I am power. I am not his daughter. I am forever his better.

[onefellsloop]

WIP Wednesday (this is a thing, right?)

From my Brigid Maturin WIP - in which Brigid discovers Capitalism, and admires a Spleen

She had always assumed that she and her father were very poor, for they lived in their uncle’s house, and her father never bought new clothes. The one thing that they did seem to have in abundance was books; from this she concluded that books were distributed free of charge by charitably-minded printers, a belief that persisted until she was almost taken up for petty larceny by an irate stationer. The source of the books remained a mystery until the day she rowed with Aunt Sophie about another of her silly rules.

‘Brigid, we have been through this. You cannot come to Dorchester if you will not wear your shoes.’

‘I hate my shoes. They make my feet feel horrible.’

‘Well, that is hardly a wonder, my dear: they must be two years old if they are a day. If you had allowed Mr Bellamy to measure your feet –'

‘I don’t want new shoes.’

‘Yes, you have made that very clear. But sweetheart, your old shoes are much too small; it is no wonder that they hurt your poor feet. Why don’t you put them on now, and we can go to Mr –’

‘I don’t want new shoes!’

‘But whyever not?’ cried Aunt Sophie, and she said, trembling with wounded pride, ‘Because my Papa cannot afford them.’

Aunt Sophie very incredulously gave her to believe that her father could afford to buy out all of the cordwainers in England, if only he would think of doing such a thing, and spoke rather severely about the impractical minds of men.

She did not like this way of speaking about her father; still, she went up to his rooms and found him bent over his desk, spectacles quivering on the end of his nose. ‘Brigid,’ he said, ‘you are the very one I was wishing for. Would you blow into this tube, now.’

She blew obediently, and he wrote something down. Then she said, ‘Papa, do we have a great deal of money?’

‘A sight too much, I am sorry to say. Why, only last week I put up two hundred pounds towards a chair in zoology; I went to my bed with a great sense of lightness, and in the morning I found that, like the dreadful Hydra, some infernal government bond had spawned three hundred pounds of its own. I have very little idea what to do: perhaps if we tried to make money, it would eventually leave us alone. To be sure, it has worked for your uncle.’

During his speech the tube had somehow become tied around his neck, and she digested this news while he untangled himself. Then she said, very hesitantly, ‘Ought I buy some new shoes?’

‘Shoes?’ he said, as if he had never heard of such a thing. ‘I suppose that I have known young ladies to have shoes. But Brigid, have you not been putting a dent into our reserves? Have you been leaving me to deal with the vile stuff alone? What good is it to possess a daughter if she is not helping to rid me of my capital?’

‘I am sorry, Papa; I did not know. But I will certainly buy some new shoes now.’

‘And stockings,’ he said eagerly. ‘And fripperies, my dear; you must surround yourself with fripperies.’

‘What are fripperies?’

He frowned at her and said, ‘They are the feathers that ladies wear in their hats. As for your shoes, there is some money in the press, I believe, along with’ – he brightened considerably – ‘the spleen of a right whale, which I have plans to dissect this evening. Should you like to join me?’

‘It is a lovely spleen.’ It was sitting plumply on a silver tray, which teetered atop a large and untidy pile of coins, banknotes and a few gold ingots.

‘I doubt that it will keep until the morning; already I believe I observe the slightest of olfactory disturbances: you had not noted it? No, I supposed not; but your aunt becomes unhappy when I let the organs linger. Now, if only we had a walrus spleen, you would find the comparison most instructive. I will look out my old notes, and you may read them over dinner.’

[trivalentlinks]

So I have a genuine question for prison abolitionists who believe in only preventative measures for crimes and, in the case that they can't be prevented, non-punitive transformative justice and healing as a response to crimes.

In principle I agree with this for garden variety crimes like rape and murder, but there is one kind of crime where I genuinely cannot see how non-punitive transformative justice could work, and I am very curious as to how other people can envision it working:

So in 2004, China had a baby formula scandal where 13 infants died of malnutrition because several baby formula producers heavily diluted the baby formula with stuff that didn't have nutrients, so much so that the baby formula sold had only 1 g of protein per 100g baby formula (this number is supposed to be around 14 g of protein/100g formula!)

There were also more than a hundred babies hospitalized with malnutrition, with one hospital reporting 66 hospitalizations and 8 deaths in their hospital alone.

(Article about the 2004 scandal on The Lancet here, and article on the NYTimes here. If you want to read more search for "big headed baby formula scandal china", because the malnutrition caused the babies to appear to have large, swollen heads.)

As a response, the Chinese government cracked down on baby formula manufacturing and increased testing for protein content in all baby formula and milk products.

(And, of course, since this is China, which famously has an authoritarian government, they also arrested 22 executives in charge of production at various baby formula companies. Most parts of China have also historically had a strong belief in punishment, so I'm sure they also felt like with so many dead or hospitalized babies (and at the height of the one-child policy to boot!) they would have had a riot on their hands if nobody was punished.)

This worked well and Chinese baby formula was safe again, for about four years.

Then, in 2008, some people at Chinese dairy production company Sanlu discovered that you could fool the new protein tests by adding melamine to milk and baby formula products. This is because melamine increases the nitrogen content, so it could fool the nitrogen-based tests into registering a higher protein content than was actually there.

Thus, they added melamine to a lot of baby formula and milk products so that they could again get away with diluting the products.

Melamine, of course, causes kidney damage, and as a result of this, 300,000 children were sickened with kidney damage and 54,000 of them were hospitalized.

(Here's a wikipedia article about the 2008 milk scandal.)

As a result of this, China imprisoned several executives involved and executed a couple of them.

Now I am opposed to capital punishment in all cases, but I'm curious about the opinions of people who oppose all forms of punitive justice.

What do you think the Chinese government should have done about the executives involved in this?

If your children were among the 300,000 sickened with kidney damage or the 54,000 hospitalized or worse, would you genuinely be okay with no punishment whatsoever for those who knowingly did this?

(Or maybe you can convince me that how these parents feel shouldn't matter? I'm open to being convinced.)

Obviously, China should (and I'm sure does) test for melamine in milk and baby formula now, but keep in mind that the new tests for protein content after the 2004 malnutrition scandal were the reason Sanlu was adding melamine to begin with. You cannot test for things you don't know that people will try to get around the old tests.

[roswellsmokingwoman]

(Aziraphale x Crowley) Headlights - Chapter 5

Read Here - NOW COMPLETE!!! Good Omens Human AU with a divorced Crowley and Aziraphale finding love again and getting back together.

Soho, Present Day

Crowley is a coward, plain and simple. And so what if he is? His cowardice brings out Aziraphale’s bravery. After all, it was Aziraphale who called first after three years. It wasn’t that Crowley had been too stubborn to make the first move, and it wasn’t anger that stopped him from dialing the number of the bookshop. Only now, it isn’t the fear of rejection that stops him from proposing. 

How does someone propose the second time around? There’s a shortage of articles on the subject of remarrying your once-spouse. He knows Aziraphale too well to doubt that Aziraphale’s expectations grow with each passing day. Because a ring would be too small and my physical heart too impossible, I gave him nothing and nothing was enough. Is that romantic or pitiful? Crowley wonders.

Now, with all of his grand plans, his ability to propose falls short. So, if he can’t take to one knee, he resorts to a course of action he knows Aziraphale will understand. He’s tried his pen at romance and never managed a convincing tale. The one he’s written now, to him is the essence of romance but to others, it must be a maddeningly ineffable tale of two idiots

The binder is thick and heavy between his hands, and he holds it awkwardly like a sandwich, presenting it to Aziraphale the way in which a child presents a drawing to a parent–clumsily, with both pride and embarrassment. Binders are new–he’s never put the pages of a book in a binder, but it’s helped him this time around to have the presentation. It’s a crude approximation of cloth-bound pages he’s used to, but it gives the image of a finished product. 

Aziraphale eyes Crowley suspiciously, his brows furrowed. “What’s this?” he asks, but his heart thumps in his chest. Best not to assume , Aziraphale reminds himself. The memory plays over in his mind, and if it is what he thinks it is, then Crowley must be telling him he’s ready. His hand hovers near the binder, too afraid to take it. 

Crowley thrusts it out to him. “I want you to read it,” he insists, handing off the binder with its hundreds of pages. 

“Is it your book?” Aziraphale whispers. 

Crowley nods. 

Aziraphale isn’t prepared for this. He desired this so desperately, but he still hadn’t brought himself to buy a ring. He’d looked at several, comparing each to the platinum band with a crimson stone that Crowley once wore. None ever came close to it. You don’t need a ring to ask , Aziraphale tries to tell himself. 

“Could we read it together?” Aziraphale asks instead. 

Crowley miscalculated. He hadn’t accounted for those moments when Aziraphale chose cowardice, too. And then he would pass off the helm to Crowley, eagerly awaiting his savior. He’s smiling so innocently, the bastard, Crowley stews. 

But Crowley agrees and sits down with Aziraphale on the couch, sharing a thin tartan blanket. It’s supposed to be Aziraphale’s reading hour, and the room is already set–a candle with wooden wick flickers, infusing the room with warmth. The lights are dimmed except for those nearest to the couch, for ambience. 

Crowley clears his throat, shifting as Aziraphale lays his head on Crowley’s shoulder. He begins reading, inflecting as he’d imagined the pages should be read. Aziraphale smiles, mesmerized by Crowley’s cadence and the gentle rasp of his voice. 

He had the patience of Job. The nameless man lives in the dark. It isn’t the kind of dark that eyes can adjust to, forming dim and blurry shapes. The darkness is perfect and impenetrable. The man walks through the void, measuring days on his watch that never stops running, the sole light that reveals nothing in the darkness. He knows time, just as he knows he’s spent one thousand one hundred and eighty-two days here. 

And while he doesn’t remember his name, he might as well be called Job because, against reason, he believes the darkness will abate. Job had been left here, all those many days ago, to wait. How and who had left him, he doesn’t know. But he remembers a flit of blond and the smell of a good bookshop. He remembers the pleasant voice of a man, reading from Chaucer at his desk. Job remembers love, vivid and bright, that carries him through the pitch blackness of this place. 

“Too bad it won’t be published,” Crowley states wistfully, interrupting the flow of the novel.

“It’s too beautiful not to publish,” Aziraphlae argues. He thumbs over the pages fondly, smiling at Crowley. It’s a smile that Crowley struggles to argue with, blinding and beautiful and sincere. 

“It’s you and me,” Crowley reminds him, nevertheless.

“I wasn’t reading Chaucer when we met,” Aziraphale notes. “So is it really?”

“Creative liberties, angel.”

[dresshistorynerd]

I don't keep up with fashion, but I've understood Selkie is the newest favorite brand of everyone and it's supposed to be like pretty high end? The dresses cost several hundreds of dollars? I've seen they are pretty fairytale and historical fashion inspired and now their new collection came into my dash. You are meant to pay a lot of money of these??

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the styles and the broad designs, I actually think they could be really cute, but the quality is absolutely abysmal. This is why I'm not fan of history bounding going into mainstream, because you will get these absolutely sloppily slapped together completely ill-fitting flimsy mass-manufactured stays imitations and they'll still be expensive. Honestly they look absolute dogshit. The cuts are predictably sloppy and give no shape to these garments. They will fit very badly to 99% of people by the virtue of being mass-manufactured, like with any other ready-made clothing, but with laced garments it's always (sometimes literally) painfully obvious. The materials are nowhere sturdy enough to work in any way with a garment like that and there is clearly no reinforcements in the construction, so even if it had a shape from quality cutting, it would not matter because it couldn't hold that shape anyway.

I just hate how piss poor quality even these expensive clothes are. With the current state of the fashion industry you really can't get quality even by paying more. If you want to get these corsets from Selkie (or like just want something similar), consider looking up stays/corsets from Etsy that cost the same amount. You'll probably find plenty options and get them custom made to your measurements and they will extremely likely be much better looking and so much better quality.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

By  Ryan Saavedra

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have discovered hundreds of tunnel shafts inside the Hamas stronghold of Rafah in southern Gaza, including dozens of tunnels that cross into Egypt.

Israeli Deputy Attorney General Gilad Noam made the revelation while speaking at the International Court of Justice.

“Rafah, in particular, is a focal point for ongoing terrorist activity. It is a stronghold for Hamas’ operators with several battalions belonging to the Rafah brigades entrenched in the area,” he said. “Also present in Rafah is an intricate underground tunnel infrastructure that runs underneath the city and provides ample space for operators, command and control rooms, and military equipment.”

“Nearly 700 tunnel shafts have been identified in Rafah from which approximately 50 tunnels cross into Egypt,” he continued. “These tunnels are used by Hamas to supply itself with weapons and ammunition. It could potentially be used to smuggle out of Gaza hostages or Hamas senior operators.”

Joe Truzman, Senior Research Analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ Long War Journal, noted that Israel has been very patient with Egypt while Egypt has been playing “spoiler during this crisis.”

“After Cairo refused to let in Palestinian refugees — a temporary measure that would have shortened the Gaza war — Jerusalem assented to the positioning of heavy Egyptian reinforcements in the supposedly demilitarized Sinai to seal off the Rafah border,” Truzman said. “And all the Israelis have got in return has been vitriol and, most recently, Egyptian support for the foul allegations being leveled against them at The Hague. President Sisi is supposed to be a pragmatist rather than a populist. This cannot continue.”

[slytherinshua]

COOKING WITH PRINCE

genre. fluff. crack. warnings. obv this wouldn't happen irl it's all just for fun <3 i tried to emulate prince's captions in his videos as best i could, as well as his overall vibe but i am just a new ghostie so sry if its a bit inaccurate :( pairing. prince x fem!reader. wc. 720. request. requested by @haecien, here: cooking w prince even if he doesn't get the recipe a/n. mwahaha so ofc i had to start writing for ghost9 babies someday and prince was a good place to start esp since his cooking videos are absolutely amazing (go show them a lot of love if you haven't already as well as prince's (and all of ghost9's) instagram!!!) and stan ghost9 obv

you didn’t plan on crashing your boyfriend’s solo baking fest in the practice room on a random tuesday afternoon

you weren’t even used to the prospect of your boyfriend cooking

for the years you’ve been dating Prince, you have done 100% of the baking in the relationship (though you had always urged him to try it out since it was fun)

ever since his videos have been doing better than anyone could have predicted, he’s been excited to make something with whatever he had on his hands

from the usual baking ingredients along with several very overripe bananas, you could easily tell what he was planning to bake today: banana bread, one of your favourites 

but also knowing your boyfriend, you knew things would probably turn into a disaster if he didn’t have a recipe

so naturally the first thing you asked was to see the recipe he was following

“I swear I had one somewhere when I was gathering the ingredients, but I literally can’t find it.”

he just brushed off your concerns about him possibly poisoning himself, you, and the ghost9 members

“The last time I baked, I didn’t even follow the recipe because it was in cups. It’ll be fine, baby, you just need to have faith.”

you were planning to leave and let him film in peace, but your boyfriend was persistent that you stay especially because he was making one of your favourite baked goods

you relented easily, really it was hard to say no to him, plus the prospect of baking together seemed kind of fun!

more like a chaotic disaster…

most of it was spent playfully arguing over how much of each ingredient to put in

Prince seemed insistent that you should remember exactly how much of every ingredient for him to measure down to the gram

obviously, you didn't, and eventually you stopped trying to help completely and just let him do his thing

though you did stay behind him to supervise, and your hands were visible in the final video messing with his hair and occasionally giving him a loving slap tap on the cheek when he messed something up

once the banana bread was finally in the oven, the two of you joked about what the voiceover should be

you didn't have the highest expectations for how it tasted, but you knew it would at least be pretty good

all the things your boyfriend had cooked in the past had been decently delicious

it turned out pretty well, and you were happy you were there to annoy him help him with it

bonus: what I think the voiceover would be like

welcome back to cooking in the practice room 🧑‍🍳 until I get busted by my manager 🚨👮 today we have a very special guest joining us 👀🥁✨my girlfriend✨ that’s right 😍 us idols 🧑‍🎤🎤 are actually in relationships 😘 despite what most people want to believe! tbh my girlfriend was not 🙅‍♂️ supposed to be joining me today 😔 but we’re making banana bread 🍌🍞 which happens to be her favourite 😍‼️ so I just had to let her join 🤷‍♂️ as you probably know if you watched my chocolate stuffed coffee bun 🍫☕ video, I don’t bake… but my girlfriend does 🎉 I had a recipe for this, but I think peter got hungry 😋 and ate it or something, so no recipe 📄🚫 but again, at least I have my girlfriend 💃 so it should be fine, right? she’s made this hundreds 👩‍🏫 of times 🧑‍🍳🍞 (she’s literally a minion guys idk why she loves bananas so much 🍌⁉️) but despite that she is still somehow clueless 🤓 as to how much flour I should be measuring 😍 but it’s fine 👌 we just dumped sugar 🍭 flour ❕ butter 🧈 bananas 🍌 eggs 🥚 and baking powder into a bowl 🥣 and hoped that they would magically ✨🧙 turn into banana bread 🤔 and guess what 🧐 they did ✨😍 I also added chocolate 🍫 because my girlfriend materialized it out of nowhere 💁‍♀️🍫 I have no one but my girlfriend to thank 😚 for distracting me by pulling on my hair 💆‍♂️ and telling me I was doing it wrong every 2 minutes 😘 but jokes 👎 on her because this banana bread was delicious even without a recipe 😏 10/10 would bake again 🥸

↳ ghost9 taglist: @haecien,, @eternalgyu,, @weird-bookworm,,

[badass-queer-couples-battle]

Gay wrongs tournament, round 2 of the losers bracket

Propaganda:

For Vegas and Pete:

Evil babygirl & stealthily evil babyboy. Vegas, known committer of atrocities, and Pete, who didn't rise up the ranks of being a mafia bodyguard for nothing. Never forget how Pete brutally shot and killed his coworker who dared to shoot Vegas in front of him.

I mean. They both kill people all the time. They even have evil gay BDSM sex. It's all right there.

it's plainly obvious to anyone even looking in their direction how murder husbands they are. both have canonically killed multiple people, often on screen. Not to mention the onscreen scene of Vegas literally torturing someone. 

For Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu:

you've got the founder of the fantasy ancient Chinese CIA and the leader of what is essentially the mafia and then they're soulmates and in love. they're both willing to kill anyone who dares hurt the other while also just wanting a soft domestic life together

Zhou Zishu is an assassin and spymaster who put the current Emperor on the throne, and then quit his job by faking his death (kinda, hes still dying but not as fast as he was supposed to). Had done A Lot on his old job, including murdering children (more than one, and at least one of them in a way I can't even describe without several trigger warnings), exterminating whole families, war crimes (and i dont mean this in a buzzword way, i mean "organized a public execution of foreign diplomats during war time")… btw he doesn't feel particularly bad about any of this, because he believes it was necessary. Like he wouldn't do it for fun, but he thinks the ends (putting a good Emperor on the throne) justified the means (all of the atrocities). As a retiree, he definitely cut down on the amount of morally reprehensible murder, but not murder in general. He still routinely kills ppl, he just doesn't go out of his way to kill more. Wen Kexing, meanwhile, is the Ghost Valley Master - Ghost Valley being a place where the worst of criminals are exiled. Even in such a place, he has reputation as a complete lunatic, owed partially to the fact that he either skinned a man or fed him his own flesh or both at one point, and partially to him having a rule where he would kill anyone who came closer than 3 meters to him. But in truth, everything he'd done was to survive the Ghost Valley and eventually take revenge for his parents, who were brutally murdered when he was only nine. By the start of the novel's timeline, he put his plan in motion - the plan that would drown jianghu in blood, but also deliver poetic justice to all responsible for his parents' deaths, as well as all who'd commit the same crime given the chance. And these two men, these two murderers and schemers, meet - and unexpectedly, find in each other the person who /understands/. The person who is just as ruthless and whose hands are just as bloody, but also the person who knows standing at the top of the world is not worth it, who seeks the same freedom of leaving it all behind, and who is still, underneath it all, a human, with human heart seeking connection. So you have this couple who understand each other with barely a word, and who want the same things - who are so hungry for domesticity and for people they can just goof around with when all their lives they had to measure every step and word - but ALSO where one half a couple is like "i gotta go murder hundreds in revenge" and the other half is like "ok pick you up at 6". (This btw is why I'm submitting novel's iteration of the couple in particular. Show wenzhou with their ridiculous breakups over morality could Never.) Also they were both hiding who they are when they first met, and later flirted about having figured each other out. Finally, I'll leave you my favorite quote that just. perfectly sums up their relationship: "And just like that, they fell asleep in each other's arms, steeped in the smell of blood."

You’ve probably already had submissions for them but I’ll add on. One of them founded an assassin’s guild and killed a staggering number of people. His malewife is the leader of a sect of insane murderous outcasts, and he attained his position by proving to be the most crazy and murder happy of them all. Most of the plot involves him wandering around watching his schemes get more people killed. Together they adopt a kid that was only orphaned due to said scheming (oops). They’re terrible and I love them.

[katy-kt-katie]

PURPLEROW

❤️What happens when the most famous woman in the world and a regular guy, fall in love?

👩‍🚀Astronaut Dana Scully is world famous for her accomplishments in space.

🦊 NASA psychologist Fox Mulder has admired her from afar, but is now tasked to keep her company virtually while she’s on a mission solo.

📖 RATED E. Chapters Daily. This is a NOTTING HILL AU. Chapter 1 below:

I was never meant to remain alone up here. It was supposed to be hours– twenty-two to be exact; everything in space is known and measured, precisely predicted. And yet, here I am—preparing to be completely alone for an unknown amount of time.

I hear the quiet whir of machines as I bound weightless from screen to screen, trying to determine my current status. But even as I look from screen to screen, my brain wrestles with a feeling of impending doom.

“Some issue with their main rocket,” the voice in the speaker tells me, “that’s why they aborted.”

I’ve prepared for situations like these. You don’t become an astronaut by being delicate or soft. I remind myself of the tough stuff I’m made of: graduating from The Naval Academy top of my class, breezing through medical school, and being recruited by NASA. Having a successful career as an astronaut—

“Dr. Scully, can you confirm your current velocity and the pressure parameters?” a technician asks, interrupting my inner pep talk. The technician is one of many voices from Houston—the Johnson Space Center, to be precise, where several dozen engineers and scientists monitor everything that is happening up here.

“Seventeen thousand, six hundred and eighty-four miles per hour, Houston. Pressure gauges are within limits.”

“Thank you, Dr. Scully. We’re working on next steps down here. The Director suggests you might do your daily exercises and report back when finished?”

“Affirmative.”

Houston ends the call. They’re still monitoring hundreds of readings—pressures, temperatures and speed among other things, but when our calls end, they mostly leave me alone.

Despite the isolation I feel at being alone here, it’s nice to have a bit of privacy in which to continue my mental meltdown. If every step I took up here was being watched as if I had a stalker…I think that would be worse.

I huff laughter at my thought—I don’t actually take steps here. I’m floating two hundred and fifty miles above Earth on the International Space Station. I push from a wall and float through a chamber into another section, finally ending up in node three.

ISS inhabitants are required to exercise daily for ninety minutes, a necessity to keep our gravity-less bodies healthy and strong. I use the weight-lifting machines and run on the treadmill—my body harnessed down so I don’t float away.

As my Nikes pound the platform, I close my eyes. I’m completely alone in space. No other human is with me, nor is anyone scheduled to join, thanks to a rocket issue with the Russians.

This was supposed to be the smallest mission on the ISS in terms of people; dubbed “Expedition 4A,” it was set to determine the minimum number of crew members that could successfully maintain the ISS between more elaborate missions. I am the lone American taking part, along with one Cosmonaut and one German who were set to join me today—but alas, the rocket failure.

I know I can handle myself up here—I’ve already been through some extraordinary situations with NASA. But, I feel haggard as I finish my run—my heart racing faster, my sweat beading harder, and my breath catching. It’s a panicky feeling I’ve experienced occasionally in life, but not in years.

I turn off the treadmill and take a deep breath, centering myself before returning to our main communications pod. Houston is waiting for me.

“Dana?” I hear the voice I recognize as Mission Director Walter Skinner booming through the speaker.

I pick up the headset—although I can hear through the speaker, the headset is much clearer. I turn on a monitor, seeing Mission Control brightly lit with dozens of bodies bustling about.

“Director Skinner. I’m here.”

“Alright, Dana. We’ve been discussing next steps. Our plan is to abort the mission and bring you back down, but it’s going to take us about a week to prepare.”

“Okay, sir,” I say. I’d love to argue the mission could continue with just me, but it’s not designed for one person, and I learned many years ago—as the daughter of a Naval Officer—that I need to accept the well-thought-out decisions of my commanders without debate.

“Also, we noticed a blip at the end of your workout—an anomaly—possibly indicative of a panic attack. Are you alright?”

How could I forget I’m hooked up to heart and respiratory monitors while exercising? Houston misses almost nothing—they can’t afford to—too much is at risk. “I’m alright, sir. I just needed a moment to collect myself. I uh—I haven’t ever been in space alone. I just needed to wrap my brain around that.”

I see Skinner nod his head. “I wondered about that. I’ve called for a NASA Psychologist to check in with you,” he shuffles his papers; “I’m not sure if you’ve worked with their team before…Dr. Diana Fowley runs the unit.”

“A Psychologist?”

“Just to make sure you’re feeling okay about the mission getting canceled and being up there alone.”

“Okay, sir.” For the second time in minutes, I begrudgingly accept the decision without further debate.

READ THE LONGER STORY HERE: on AO3

[honest-moth-of-silver-grove]

I can't wait for the next part of the trio saving werewolf!reader it was so good!

Ask: I can't wait for the next part of the trio saving werewolf!reader it was so good! 

Ask: Hi! Just read part one of what is hopefully a mini-series of the trio x werewolf reader, and I can’t wait to see what happens next. If you like some suggestions on how to continue: maybe part two could be about the Reader learning how to be free, or perhaps the Trio helping reader recover enough to be able to shift back to being a human? Either way, can’t wait to see what else you have planned. Thank you so much!

[Combining the two asks here.]

A/N: My toxic trait? Answering asks for Part 2s of something I wrote over a year ago and then promptly abandoned lol. (To Read Part 1 to refresh your memory, like I had to do, click here [x].)

✥ ✥ ✥

“Do you think they’ll ever be able to turn back?” Sypha asked from where she stood, in one of the many rows of bookshelves lining the Belmont hold. 

Several levels below her, Trevor grunted as he hauled large pieces of shattered support beams to the base of the main staircase. “It’s impressive how sentient they are now, being a were-creature and all.” 

“Yes, but they don’t want to stay a creature for the rest of their lives.” 

“Well, life isn’t always fucking fair,” Trevor cursed, half-out of breath, as he began lugging the large beam up the stairs. 

“I’m fairly certain she knows that,” Alucard intervened, entering the main chamber, having just arrived fresh off the newly built lift he installed. “Speakers see far more suffering than most people, seeing as they believe it is their duty to help the less fortunate.” 

“How’s the lift?” Sypha asked, coming over to the railing. “Does it work? Were the calculations correct?” 

Alucard nodded. “I needed to modify a few measurements, considering the potential excess weight load-”

“We’re not that heavy,” Trevor interrupted. “Or do you plan to start bringing villagers in by the dozen and give tours?” 

Alucard narrowed his eyes at Trevor. “I was considering the repairs that need to be done for all the damage the night creatures inflicted. Unless of course, you’d prefer to drag that thing up yet another hundred feet.” 

Trevor huffed, refusing to show his fatigue. “What? This old thing?” He locked his knees to keep them from buckling. “Can barely feel it.” 

Sypha rolled her eyes. “Could the two of you stop competing for one second?! We’re supposed to be looking for ways to help our friend!” 

Admitting defeat, Trevor dropped the large piece of timber at the next landing. “Sypha, we’ve been at it for months. Every book says the same thing: only the shapeshifter can cause a shift at will. Outside of whoever cursed them with the affliction undoing it themselves. Or killing the shapeshifter and using death magic to alter their form post-mortem, there’s nothing any of us can do.” 

Accepting her friend had a point, Sypha took one of the adjoining bridges, healing toward Trevor as he stopped to catch his breath. 

“I could freeze that beam and toss it out you know,” she gestured to where Alucard currently stood. 

“The last time you did that, we ended up with a giant hole in the ground.” 

“That wasn’t me, that was the night creatures.” 

“But you did break the castle,” Alucard countered. “All of the gears were melted.”

“I did not! I do not break things. I am a Speaker, I fix things!” 

Alucard chuckled, sharing a knowing look with Trevor. For as knowledgeable as she was, she certainly had a hard time admitting when she was wrong. 

“In either case, it will take years to repair, even with my vampiric speed and strength. Dracula engineered those cogs and wheels over several centuries, often hiring the best blacksmiths around.” 

The trio boarded the lift together, Trevor having decided to leave the broken beam behind for another day. 

“They worked here? With him?” Sypha asked. 

“The castle’s forge is quite extensive. And no matter their level of skill, I doubt any local blacksmith’s forge would be large enough to mold such immense gears. They could only manage such creation within the walls of the castle.” 

Trevor scoffed. “Did they know who they were working for?” 

“I’m certain they had suspicions, but I doubt my Fath-, Dracula ever told them the truth.” 

“That’s-” Trevor started.

“Sad,” Sypha finished for him. “To be alone all that time. To not be able to tell anyone who you are.” 

The ingenious pulley system lift finally came to a stop as it became level with the forest ground outside the Belmont hold. 

“Is that why you wish to help them so badly?” Alucard asked, referring to their new werewolf companion. “You feel they’re lonely?” 

“Well they were lonely, back in that cage, in that life,” Sypha reminded her friends, as Alucard locked the lift in place.

“They seem better now,” Trevor remarked, being the first to disembark. “After all, you keep bugging them every day, they’re hardly lonely.” 

Sypha elbowed him, lovingly. “I do not bug them. They enjoy my company.” 

“You keep forgetting Speakers are used to traveling in large groups,” Alucard reminded Belmont, once again, as the trio made their way back toward the entrance of the castle. “It’s shocking how much you've forgotten, the two of you being companions and all.” 

“The three of us being companions,” Sypha placed a reassuring hand on Alucard’s shoulder. 

The dhampir gave a soft smile at the Speaker’s action before averting his eyes. Stepping out of her embrace, he started to ascend the many stone steps at the front of the castle. 

“It’s about time for dinner. Let me see what I can cook up.” 

✥

It had been a few months since the trio and their newfound companion arrived back home at Castlevania. Most of that time was spent with Sypha and Trevor bickering over how best to treat their new friend, while Alucard dedicated his time in between assessing the broken mechanisms of the castle to reading all of the tomes his father had collected on shapeshifting. Unfortunately, all roads pointed in the same direction: it was up to their friend to shift themselves back. 

At the present moment their werewolf friend, or Wynn, as they liked to be called, was resting in one of the many castle bedrooms. Their furry body was sprawled out over the entire length of the mattress, as they lazily tracked falling specks of dust around with their big puppy-dog eyes. 

Despite spending so much time resting, they felt exhausted this evening. It was as if the last few months of recovery meant nothing! 

‘I don’t know why I’m so tired,’ they thought, shifting to curl up in a tighter ball. 

Finally shutting their eyes, they made one final wish before drifting off to sleep, the same wish they had been making every night for god knows how long. 

‘Please let me be human when I wake up, please.’ 

✥

The sun had barely peaked over the horizon. Trevor and Alucard had woken up early to finally start clearing the major debris from the Belmont hold using the newly designed lift. So far Alucard had cleared twelve large beams while Trevor had managed to remove seven. Not that it was a competition or anything. It was at this point that Sypha had come to join them. 

“Well if it isn’t Sleeping Beauty, finally come to grace us humble footmen with her presence,” Trevor ribbed. 

“Nice pile,” Sypha gestured to Trevor’s lesser stack laid out next to Alucard’s. 

Trevor snorted. “Nice comeback.” 

Sypha crossed her arms. “I had a very long night last night. Which was entirely your fault by the way.” 

“My fault?” Trevor guffawed. “No no, I believe that last round was your fault.” 

Alucard, who had been watching amusedly from the sides, chose this moment to step in. “No, she’s right, I recall you were the one enticing us into that last round.” 

“Well, it’s not my fault if- hey,” Trevor suddenly straightened his back, and pointed to something in the distance. “Who’s that?” 

Both Alucard and Sypha turned around to see who Trevor was referring to. Almost immediately, Sypha clasped her hands together happily and began running over to meet this ‘stranger’. 

“Looks like Sypha wasn’t the last one to wake up,” Alucard nudged Trevor to come along. 

“No, but seriously, who the hell is that?” Trevor asked Alucard, keeping his wits about him. 

“You’re joking.” 

“I’ve never seen that person before in my life.” 

“That’s because you’ve never seen them before as a human.” 

Sypha, having finally reached Wynn where they stood, proudly and excitedly in their human form, pulled them in for a big hug. Clasping each other in a tight embrace, the two companion’s eyes began to water. 

“It’s so good to finally see you, my friend!” Sypha laughed, hugging Wynn closer. 

“It’s so good to be seen!” Wynn answered back, clearly overjoyed. 

After a good long moment, Sypha finally let go, turning around to face the boys. “Look who it is!” 

Wynn gave a polite wave, suddenly overcome by shyness under the focus of all three of their friends. “Um, hi? It’s nice to finally meet you.” 

Alucard stuck his hand out for a handshake, which Wynn eagerly accepted. “Likewise.” 

Sensing Trevor’s hesitation, Wynn outstretched their hand to Trevor. 

Shaking his head, Trevor grasped Wynn’s hand and pulled them in for a hug, nearly knocking them off their feet. 

Speechless and touched by Trevor’s gesture, Sypha shot a knowing look at Alucard. 

Despite being their gruff, sarcastic, and sometimes slower friend, Trevor really was like a teddy bear deep, deep underneath that jaded exterior. Sure, very few would ever come to know it unless they were close to him, but that made the trio’s relationship all the more special. And it was a very telling sign that Trevor was able to let his guard down for the sake of their new friend. 

It was as if at that very moment, the trio had become a quartet. And Wynn couldn’t be happier to finally be a part of it.