HI IT'S EAVESDROP ANON YOU GAVE ME AN IDEA what if izutsumi and reader faced the succubi together, and izu sees that one of reader's succubi looks like chilchuck !! maybe she promises to keep it a secret, but also talks to reader about it? bonus points if izu and reader have a sort of unspoken mother/daughter relationship :')
to the grave
…ft! chilchuck x fem! reader, izutsumi & reader
…tags! headcanon format, slight suggestive points, motherly reader
…wc! 623
…notes! give it up for One Whole Request Complete omfg. sorry for how short it is eavesdrop anon it’s been a rough few weeks for me 🫶 this is absolutely not my best work, but i did what i could!
“Come on… I know you always thought about how I’d look underneath you.”
Hearing the words come from his mouth renders you still. It’s his face, his voice, yet completely wrong.
You had thought he had somehow recovered and came back to help you, but of course it isn’t as easy as it appeared.
You’re lucky to have Izutsumi with you. If it weren’t for her pushing you out of the way to claw at the succubus, you probably would have dropped all pretence and leaned down to where you had Chilchuck – or the succubus, rather – pinned to the floor to kiss.
Still, you can’t miss the look of absolute disbelief she gives you.
Silence fills the air as the succubus is reduced to nothing more than slob on the floor. You refuse to look at what, to you, is eerily similar to Chilchuck’s visage. Disturbingly so. For just a second, you consider reaching out to it (him?) again. However, Izutsumi is quick to swat you away.
“Hey, we have a mob incoming,” she tells you. You are about to retort, interrogating if she even felt remorse for hurting someone that looks like your ally, but Izutsumi’s quick to interrupt. “We’ll discuss this later.”
She leaves your side. Preparing your weapon with a deep breath, you prepare to fight off the waves of succubi ahead.
It’s only when you and Izutsumi assemble all the bodies of your allies does she finally speak up.
She really isn’t interested in the ‘hot gossip’ like Marcille would be. In her own rough way, Izutsumi is more just expressing worry for you.
She doesn’t overall react to the fact it’s Chilchuck that you saw. It was just sort of an “Oh!” before she remembered that this succubus will steal your life force.
“So, you just wanted to protect me?”
At your conclusion, Izutsumi growls. She faces away from you as she drags over a succubus to drain into Senshi’s pot.
“When you put it like that,” she grumbles, “it makes it sound all virtuous and sappy.”
You laugh, reaching over to pat Izutsumi’s head. “I appreciate it very much, thank you Izutsumi.”
Maybe it’s the fact she just had to confront this ‘mother’ the succubi took the form of, but the cat girl feels at ease when you show affection to her. She sighs, giving up on the argument quicker than she normally would.
That is to say… she wouldn’t not tease you.
She’d hand you some of the milk, poured into a bowl. “Here, for Chilchuck.”
Your face contorts in confusion. “Why me?”
“So you can get all close and intimate and stuff.”
“Izutsumi.”
She wants to support you both! She just… doesn’t really care.
The party has woken up, and by now Marcille has spoken up, “what were your succubi like? Laios? Oh, what about yours?”
She turns to you, her green eyes glimmering with curiosity. Cheeks and tip of her ears flushed, it’s hard to miss what exactly she’s on about.
You sheepishly laugh anyway, your mind recalling the lowered eyelids, the words spoken to you by the succubus. “I don’t know if I…”
“Hey, don’t pressure her to say things like that.”
Chilchuck’s voice cuts through the air, and makes you jump. He’s at your side, shooing Marcille away. “That stuff’s usually private for a reason. If she wants to say, she will.”
It doesn’t go unnoticed how Chilchuck doesn’t say a word when Marcille instead asks Laios for details on his succubus, though.
Though you should be glad Izutsumi isn’t awake to see this. If she was, she’d be rolling her eyes and bemoaning how nauseating the pining was to herself. So, maybe taking things to the grave is for the better.
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I've been sitting on this idea: shauna x reader where the reader is jackie's sibling and they have to keep it on the downlow, and jackie almost walks in on them
Summary: Your sister Jackie leaves you and Shauna alone to go buy things, and comes back at the worst moment
Warnings: swearing, light nsfw type very light, no pronouns used :3
A/n:Hii babyyy, I didn't know if you wanted it after or not...so I didn't smuut!! If you want you can send me an ask okay?:3
Maybe it was wrong to never tell your best friend that you were dating her sibling, especially when your best friend is Jackie taylor
you were always very similar to jackie in some aspects, be it your popularity, your way of acting and even your appearance that reminded her a little
Jackie had been friends with Shauna for years, since she considered herself a person, When you were born, Jackie and Shauna were already best friends, Shauna before you were born, she would play at Jackie's house and talk about doll houses, barbies and movies she liked, but After you were born, every day at Jackie's house was different, before in Jackie's backyard, now it was in your room, with sweet smells and toys scattered everywhere, Shauna no longer wanted to play alone with Jackie, but with you
Jackie was so jealous of her best friend that she told her mother to get the baby when Shauna came, and Shauna, despite not understanding why Jackie sibling had disappeared from their room, she didn't question it.
With each passing time, Jackie had already forgotten that, she invited you to her parties with is yellowjackets, she wanted you to be popular like her, so even though you weren't part of the yellowjackets, all the girls knew who you were, you always I was at Lottie's or even Shauna's parties
So Shauna thought it best not to tell her that she had literally been dating you for months, she didn't know how Jackie would react, but if she were to guess, she would know that she would point her finger in her face while saying "You should have told me before shipman" and above all, I wouldn't be here by your side now
" Do you agree that it's going to be romance, right?" Jackie's voice hollows "but Shauna already said she wants suspense" her voice interrupts Jackie "but I'm in charge here, and I'm older than you" she murmurs and shrugs while You squint your eyes and continue watching the TV, you roll your eyes and dramatically throw yourself onto the pile of pillows
“So boring right shauna?" you say, sounding more like a statement than a question, you don't even wait for her answer and nod "Yeah yeah..I agree" you say ironically and look at the ceiling" How were the cupcakes?" you say to jackie and the question remains in the air, jackie widens her eyes slightly "shit...I forgot!" she throws the controller on the sofa "I need them to take that photo so Jeff can be jealous. .." she mutters to herself too loudly and i roll my eyes "Shipman watch my sibling, I'll be right back" Jackie says breathlessly and grabs her bag "don't change the movie!" she says on the stairs and you quickly hear the door closing
The room is silent and you look at shauna "Is she really going to that bakery?" you say with a frown and shauna gets up taking the remote "you know what she's like" she gives a sideways smile that looks like a frown "at least we don't have to watch that shitty movie" she rolls her eyes and you nod your head while looking at her sideways "ok...go to my backpack and get those snacks" shauna says while moving the TV
you slowly get up and crawl over to the backpack and open it, giving a smile at the sight of your favorite cookie, your cheeks turn red "I haven't had this in so long..." you say to shauna, not knowing if she was listening or not, a hollow voice like laughter "I know" then everything is silent
you bite your lip and pick up the snacks, walking to the table, without looking at Shauna yet, who was doing something on the TV.
"Will Jackie be late?" You say as you eagerly open the snacks" I hope so" shauna says "what?" "I said I hope she doesn't take long" She rolls her eyes as if you told her to repeat it 10 times, she turns away from the television "that's much better" she smiles and looks at you eating your snack for a moment, then sits next to you without touching you
The minutes pass and Shauna starts to relax, too much, she comes close to you and takes your arm, while placing your leg over hers, then her hand goes up to your right thigh gently, she leaves her hand still for a moment, and you feel your thigh burning slightly but you keep looking at the movie, then shauna starts to gently rub your thigh, and her fingers open as if she are exploring more
"what are you doing Shauna?" you murmur, still looking at the television "nothing baby.." She says and gives a smile, her eyes leaving the movie that she obviously wasn't even paying attention to
she puts her face in the crook of your neck and kisses softly, you blush and look at her sideways "shauna.." "shh" she interrupts, She kisses your neck, giving open and wet kisses, then the kisses move up to your chin, giving small kisses and moving up to your lips
" We can't do this" you say and she narrows her eyes "Why? We're dating" she says bluntly, her hand leaving your thigh and going up to your neck, pulling your face to hers and kissing you
You tense up and don't know how to react for a moment, then you lean into her and melt, kissing her like there's no tomorrow, your fingers finding her hair and pulling her impossibly closer
shauna's hands go to your waist and she squeezes possessively, while letting out small moans, she makes you lie down while she climbs on top of you aggressively "I want you so much" shauna lets out in breathless moans, while placing her hand on the waistband of your shorts "I couldn't stand seeing you at that party and not being able to just hold you against the wall and kiss you" she admits and kisses your collarbone, slowly moving down
" what the hell it's that!" Jackie shouts, clearly irritated and you see her placing several cupcakes, cakes and snacks on the table, shauna stands up abruptly from above you
"I said not to change the movie! What a horrible movie!" Jackie says, running towards the remote and pausing the television, "are you guys really watching this horrible shit? She says, as if she clearly doesn't care that Shauna was on top of you minutes ago
She rolls her eyes and looks at you "Look, this is the plan, you're going to hold that cupcake and I'm going to hold the cake" she says pulling you out of the Shauna side "Jeff is going to be so jealous" Jackie takes your hands and jumps, trying to make you get excited like her "He'll be jealous of anyone who can't see this" Shauna says as she dramatically throws herself onto her pillow
" Shipman!"
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Another instalment of dinky Scott at School - I think there are (as yet unwritten) scenes in between these but I figured I’d get the key ones down then have a look and decide if it’s actually a story to flesh out or just a series of snapshots to leave as is.
Apologies to any actual teachers who may notice I am playing fast and loose with how such things might work in real life.
Disclaimer: Teeny Scooter does not actually appear in this bit, but is much discussed…
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THE Jeff Tracy.
She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t spent most of the night revising the 6 bullet points she wanted to cover in that one 12-minute parent-teacher conference. She’d quietly ensured the slot immediately afterwards was unbookable just in case things… overran.
None of the other teachers had met him, only the mother, who by all accounts was very pleasant. She hadn’t expected him to come, assuming he was probably on the moon or something equally intrepid. But the little box next to the number 2 had been ticked on the form so unless it was a grandparent or something…
The fancier biscuits she’d picked up from the store had just been a whim… sometimes she wanted to bring a bit of luxury into proceedings, that’s all it was…
Oh heck she’d bought fancy biscuits. Just like the hopeless fangirl she was. As if he’d notice anyway?
The first parent had noticed and seemed to enjoy their chocolate dipped Viennese finger biscuit. So it was worth it.
The second set of parents hadn’t turned up at all which left her with an agonising 18 minute wait.
It was fine. Just another PTC with some totally normal parents hoping to hear what a delight their precious offspring was. And she intended to thoroughly emphasise that part right at the outset because he really was.
The other notes she had would also be fine because she had considered every possible way of delivering them and had figured out the most persuasive.
All. Fine.
She needed another word for fine.
A gentle tap-de-tap and the door cracked open to reveal a waterfall of red hair and a very friendly face. Behind, even taller than he looked on tv, towered the man from the all those documentaries she’d binge-watched as a student.
Definitely just a normal PTC.
Felicity Miles, teacher, champion of tiny people, competent human, took a breath and greeted the couple with professional confidence and a welcoming smile.
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In the last five years she’d broken similar news to four other sets of parents, and observed her mentor do similar in her training year. Not a big enough sample to be conclusive but the fact the reaction had been the same each time had lulled her into a complacency about what to expect.
It went something like - shocked faces, initial denial, possibly a little anger, guilt that they hadn’t known, 3 of the mothers and 2 of the fathers had cried. Then, usually, she could see a little relief creeping in…. The hope that it hadn’t been something they’d got Wrong after all.
And then a brief conversation about what could happen next and arrangement of a meeting to discuss further when they’d had time to think. She’d hand them the department of education-approved info leaflets and smile and promise it would all be alright.
This one wasn’t going the way it should.
To start with there was zero surprise. Not even a flicker. In fact they’d looked at each other and smiled, before patiently listening to the rest of her little monologue. Right up until she started outlining the stages in the school’s neurodiversity support pathway at which point Mr Tracy had lifted a hand and cut in:
“There’ll be no need for anything formal. He’ll learn to manage his difficulties and he’ll overcome them.”
Felicity did her best to ignore the calm tone in his voice that simultaneously commanded she agree with him, advised it was a done deal not worth fighting against and reassured her that he was obviously right and it was all for the best. She pictured the desperate little human curled up in the Octopus House and tapped into the protective rage it generated:
“I don’t think you understand, Mr Tracy. A diagnosis would mean he could get that little bit of extra support he needs, perhaps a Teaching Assistant to keep him on track and help with refocussing when he gets distracted. He could have occasional time out on special programs to develop his interests, as I said he really does excel at maths and…”
“Ms Miles, please stop there a moment.”
She did so.
A few seconds later she remembered to close her mouth.
“Are you aware of what Scott wants more than anything in the world?”
She clenched her jaw in an effort not to snark back “a glimmer of self-esteem?” and thought about what seemed to make her zoomy little friend the happiest. The answer left her mouth before she was aware she knew it:
“He wants to fly.”
It was his mother who sighed and spoke next, the slight unevenness of her voice probably undetectable to someone who hadn’t spoken to a LOT of exhausted parents:
“He does. He always has from the moment he realised he couldn’t. Even before he really understood what airplanes were, he’s been fascinated by them and has been determined to reach the sky to join them. He seems to view gravity as a personal insult…” she chuckled then added “Being a parent to Scott Tracy is 90% catching him as he leaps from places he shouldn’t according to all the laws of physics be able to reach.”
Her husband reached over and squeezed her hand with an affectionate smile and added in a much softer tone:
“In his pram he watched the birds, it was the only thing that settled him. You won’t be surprised to learn that all of his bedroom decorations are aircraft-related. He’s not even remotely interested in space travel or what his mother and I do other than that we both flew planes first.”
Felicity could see it all but felt the conversation had gone off on a tangent. She took charge again and tried a different tack:
“But to achieve his goal he is going to need to have decent grades at the end of his education and the foundation of that starts here. He has so much potential and… look, I couldn’t give a damn about the class interruptions, please don’t think that is what this is about. I can handle all that, it’s what’s going on in his head, how he sees himself and I think we need to have something in place so that he and all his future teachers understand that… I hate to say it but for some, a formal diagnosis is the only way to persuade people that a child isn’t deliberately…”
“Ms Miles.”
The sigh escaped this time.
“Yes, Mr Tracy?”
“Do you happen to know the criteria one must fulfil to train as either a commercial airline or a military pilot?”
“Offhand? Not, precisely, no.”
“There is also an exclusionary list. Certain conditions, diagnoses, other events on a medical record that may prove to be a barrier to acceptance. Many people in the field don’t agree with everything on the list, but at the moment it exists. You’re clearly a smart woman, Ms Miles, and I can tell you’ve already worked out one of the conditions noted on that list.”
He wasn’t wrong. She hadn’t released her breath since the word ‘exclusionary’. But it forced its way out now in a quiet groan and then a whisper:
“ADHD.”
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Atomic Ask Bomb 3!!
We got a shorter one this time around! I hope everyone's evening is going well!
Content Warning: Long-ish, Discussions of Ableism + Queerphobia, Weird Cronus Moment™.
Same. I'd read a fanventure about that, I think.
Like, I don't personally believe WV would be allergic to being a mentor or something of a father figure, but I do have to wonder the level to which he was wigged out by the way that Dave and Karkat treat him, because Dave in particular imprints on him in a way that is... Kind of strange.
The later portions of Homestuck really baby WV. It's upsetting.
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Easy. The actual things wrong with them.
A lot of the discourse surrounding them is fabricated, or has such poor priorities it might as well be fabricated. Most critical conversations about them surrounds things people just made up over the course of years of mythologizing their #Problematicness.
For Example: Most of the discourse surrounding why Horuss had problematic writing had to do with how he was "Bad Otherkin Representation", when the real issue was the fact that Hussie was conflating Being Otherkin with having a Dissociative Disorder, and in turn saying both of them are the exact same level of Fake And Gay for the exact same reason, because to Hussie they were the same thing. To this day, people get startled every time I point out that Horuss is canonically a System despite him bringing it up just as regularly as he does being Therian. Those are totally wack priorities.
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...That's scary... I don't even have words...
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LOL. The Lost Weeaboos was a Grade A bit. Thank you Aranea, very cool.
Honestly, I don't even count Cronus as a "facade character", because it's not like he's making any efforts to hide jack shit. It's been... Interesting, watching several people refer to "his facade" lately, when, like... What are they talking about, honestly? He's pretty bold-faced about his whole deal. This isn't really a Dave situation where you could be capable of falling for it when you're younger, because Cronus couldn't be doing a worse job at "hiding" how awful he is. He's not even trying, because he knows he can get away with it. What are the other Alphas gonna do? Leave?
Hope you're having a good time!! The Alpha Trolls may be a Trash Heap, but they are my Trash Heap.
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There comes a point where it's almost comedic how unaware people are of it... Like, what do you mean you know he's a Horse Therian but not that he's a System? He literally calls himself the Host of a System and talks about Switching. IN THOSE TERMS. He's not even obfuscating it by using some esoteric Troll terminology, he is LITERALLY using the words "Host", "System", and "Switching".
It's painful. I know this is a moment befitting of an XKCD comic, but... Jeez. You'd think these things would both be on the same level of common knowledge, considering how they're traits that are directly related to each other and given equal amounts of screen time, but nope!
Unfortunately, it is a situation where this is relevant. Sad!
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All characters will become AroSpec and/or ASpec with the help of my Beam Attack.
... Except for Cronus. It's just not funny when it's him. Due to The Themes. It's not fun to headcanon a character as any minority when a huge part of their character is that they pretend to be minorities for Pity Points to eventually cash in for Sex. Ew. Making him literally anything other than Just Cronus plays directly into so many vile Queer stereotypes it's insane. Those are stereotypes that have gotten people actually genuinely killed. Just... Ew. Gross.
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When Dick wakes up, he feels warm and content. The scents of his family surrounded him, safe and protective and home, and it’s the best feeling in the world. Dick stretches luxuriously, feeling the lingering ache of heat exhaustion, and curls more firmly around his siblings. Counting heads is an automatic habit, and it’s only when he goes hunting down the source of surprise when he sees three dark-haired heads does he realize where he is.
Bruce, he thinks, elation and dread mixed together, but then he sees the white strip of hair. That’s not Bruce. That’s—“Jason?” Dick asks, confused.
Green eyes flutter open, and Jason gives him a strained smile, “Hey, Dickiebird. How was the beauty sleep?”
Dick shifts up—dislodging Damian from on top of him—and stares at his nest. Jason is stretched out along his side, Damian is in his lap, Tim is on his other side, but curled away. The room is empty of anyone else, any other scents than him and his family.
Something in his heart beats to a steady rhythm of wrong, wrong, wrong.
Dick can’t smell Slade. He expected to spend the whole heat with his mate, hoped that it would be enough to placate him, but he doesn’t smell Slade at all, only his siblings.
“You came back home,” Dick says to Jason, to distract himself from the growing pit of dread in his stomach, but the way Jason’s eyes flash only make it worse.
“I didn’t exactly have a choice,” Jason growls, tilting his head—there’s a bruise on his neck, green-purple, a claiming bite. Dick goes cold. “Looks like your mate wanted to collect all of us.”
The words are bitter, but underneath the venom is fear. Dick knows that submission from claiming bites takes a couple days to fully shake off, so that new pack members don’t immediately challenge the alpha. Jason makes no move to shift away from where he’s half-curled around Dick, even when Dick sits up fully.
Why—why would Slade do this? Dick doesn’t understand—if Slade wants leverage, he already has Damian and Tim and Alfred, there’s no point in bringing in Jason, not when Jason is undoubtedly going to challenge Slade the moment the submission wears off. Not when Dick is already giving him everything he wants. “What happened?” Dick croaks out, because it feels like he has pieces of a puzzle that refuse to fit together.
“Ask the Replacement,” Jason says coldly, and Dick turns to Tim, heart clawing up into his throat.
Tim is not curled away from Dick because he’s asleep. Tim is curled away from him because he’s crying, and Dick wipes the tears off his little brother’s cheeks with trembling fingers. “Tim?” Dick asks softly. What did you do? “What happened?”
Tim ducks his head, refusing to meet Dick’s gaze. “I—I thought he would be distracted with your heat,” Tim whispers, and Dick feels the crushing hollow of horror open in his chest. “I—left. I wanted to—to find Bruce, but he—he came after me.” Tim shakes with a silent sob. “He just—brought me back here. He didn’t say a-anything about punishment.”
“And then he showed up and attacked me and dragged me back here too,” Jason adds.
Dick draws Tim into a hug and shoves all the furious words down. How could he be so stupid—did he not even consider the risks—did he really think he’d be able to defy Deathstroke and get away with it—Slade was alarmingly patient over the past couple weeks, and now all of that is ruined—
“It’s okay,” Dick says with a calm he does not feel. “Shh, baby bird, it’s okay.”
Jason’s level gaze shows that he knows it’s not. Damian is watching him silently, and Dick knows that League training would’ve given him an idea of what angry alphas do to pack members who disobey them.
The fact that Slade didn’t punish him immediately, that he brought Jason here, that he waited for Dick’s heat to be over is not a good sign.
Slade is vicious enough when he’s running on blind rage. When he’s calculating, planning and thinking things through?
Deathstroke could take out the entire Justice League, given sufficient time and materials.
“It’s okay,” Dick whispers, knowing in his heart that it’s not.
~#~
“Grounding,” Dick says numbly, “What do you mean by grounding?”
Slade just blinks at him. “He’s not allowed to leave the house? Restricted TV time? No video games?” Dick stares at him, and Slade huffs, “Kid, I’m not quite sure why you’re asking me. Surely Pennyworth has better suggestions for you, he managed to raise the Bat.”
“Suggestions. For me.” It feels like his head’s been stuffed with cotton. Dick can’t comprehend what he’s hearing. “You—you’re not going to punish him?”
Slade quirks an eyebrow. “He’s your brother,” he says in the same tone of voice of someone handing back a crying child to their parents.
“And—and Jason?” Dick forces himself to ask. There has to be something he’s missing here. He feels wrong-footed, like walking on flat ground after swinging on bridges and tightropes. “Why did you claim him?”
“You were asking for him,” Slade says, and Dick can’t find a lie in his tone. The statement is simple—like it’s obvious that Slade would do anything Dick asked him too. Like if Dick was heat-drunk and calling out for his wayward brother, Slade would just...go and get him.
Dick feels abruptly lightheaded.
“Dick?” Slade says, alarmed, and strong hands close around his elbows and maneuver him until he’s sinking down on the couch. “Are you okay? Do you need some water? Dick?”
Dick grabs the hem of Slade’s shirt before the alpha can leave, drawing him back onto the couch and fitting into his arms, curling up against him until Dick can feel Slade’s scent envelop him, protective and warm as the tears start falling.
“Dick?”
“Just need you,” Dick says softly, because—because he forgot. Why he called Slade. Why he asked Slade. Why he trusted Slade, of all the alphas he knew in the world.
Slade’s arms wrap around him, gentle and strong. “Okay, little bird,” he murmurs, and Dick allows himself to exist in his mate’s presence.
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i have something to say!!! about the differences between victor and elizabeth in the way they experience/express emotion, and what that means for the themes of gender in the novel
i briefly begun (began??) to talk about this in the tags of this post by the magnificent @frankingsteinery (i wanted to add this on to the original post but this ended up being kinda long) and i would like to clarify and expand upon what was said because i theorized a bunch of stuff unsubstantiated like an idiot 😭 raving under the cut
for context here are the tags that inspired my thoughts:
i left my little analysis in the tags because i was really just spitballing on the spot and when i do that i'm usually wrong 😭 but i'd actually find it fun to substantiate some of what i said w evidence from the text
to expand on my ramblings and robin's own additions in their reblog (with brilliant quotes that i did not even consider to search for because i am quite stupid). when i try to explain exactly how elizabeth and victor have differed in their approach to an early parentification role (elizabeth moreso in being groomed to emulate her mother in role and spirit, forced to remain domestic, unworldly, and unable to even entertain self-actualization, since the moment caroline dies she is the eldest female figure in the immediate family and must assume that role of maturity) (victor moreso in the fact that he literally. made a guy when he was like 20), i find this quote from alphonse quite telling:
"...but is it not a duty to the survivors that we should refrain from augmenting their unhappiness by an appearance or immoderate grief? Excessive sorrow prevents improvement or enjoyment, or even the discharge of daily usefulness, without which no man is fit for society."
victor immediately dismisses this advice as being:
"...totally inapplicable to my case; I should have been the first to hide my grief and console my friends, if remorse had not mingeled its bitterness, and terror its alarm, with my other sensations."
he acklowledges what is expected of him from society at large and actively claims himself incapable of it. he is not the reliable figure his family so desperately hoped could be upheld before they came to realize that he is really, irrevocably capricious and mentally unstable.
on the subject of the other quotes added, i think that in them we can see this shift in the family's perception of victor: they begin by expecting him to assume his prescribed role as the family's eldest man (besides alphonse cause he's old and useless) and caregiver, to be a stable and unshakeable foundation on which the family can always rely, but as victor remains on the trauma conga line and spirals into worsening mental health, the happiness of the family is reliant on victor's rapidly fluctuating states of health.
"Come, my dearest Victor; you alone can console Elizabeth..." (side note that after this quote he immediately starts taking about caroline, a bit of a freudian slip on alphonse's part in that he conflates caroline's very existence with a comforting and reliable disposition, and elizabeth is explicitly asked to 'take over' for caroline when she dies)
at the time alphonse writes this, henry (<3) has been purposefully concealing the extent of the "nervous fever" victor has suffered; alphonse is not aware of the trauma his son has undergone and how it has changed him, and so he automatically assumes that victor, upon returning home, now older and more educated, will embrace these expectations.
"'We all... depend on you, and if you are miserable, what must be our feelings?'"
at this point of the novel, however, elizabeth knows how mentally unstable victor is, and is begging him to come back happier than he left. everyone in the family at this point is so conscious and aware of victor's poor health, and thus his explosive and outwardly demonstrative emotions affect the family very deeply. in short their dependency on him shifts from perceiving him as a source of stability to perceiving him as a source of instability.
back to my original comparison!! jesus this is all over the place thank god i'm not an academic.
to reference alphonse's first quote that i referred to. it seems to me that elizabeth, unlike vic, takes alphonse's advice in stride. contrast victor's response to alphonse's quote with this description of elizabeth:
"She indeed veiled her grief, and strove to act the comforter to us all. She looked steadily on life, and assumed it's duities with courage and zeal."
indeed, she demonstrates this; victor often describes her as handling her grief in silence (literal silence, but ykwim):
"...a thousand conflicting emotions rendered her mute, and she bade me a tearful, silent farewell."
"...I turned to contemplate the deep and voiceless grief of my Elizabeth."
in fact, the only time she comes close to being as expressive as victor is when she blames herself for the death of william, and in part her extreme reaction stems from the fact that she percives herself as having failed the duty that her mother bestowed upon her - it is unmotherly to allow such a thing to occur under her watchful, feminine eye.
even in childhood they had a very stark difference in temperament, elizabeth's more traditionally and overtly masculine:
"Elizabeth was of a calmer and more concentrated disposition, but, with all my ardor, I was capable of a more intense application..."
and, especially for a female character, she defies the will of her father several times:
"At first I attempted to prevent her, but she persisted, and entering the room where it lay..."
"Soon after we heard that the poor victim had expressed a desire to see my cousin. My father wished her not to go..."
all this considered, i don't think it's much of a stretch to say that while it should be vic's role, elizabeth is the "man of the house" (a sexist idea in its own right, but im communicating this in terms i think mary shelley might have intended).
tldr i just think this is such a fascinating exploration of family dynamics in frankenstein, and a brilliant portrayal of two opposite sides of the spectrum when it comes to people dealing with the undue parental and familial responsibilities they are made to uphold in youth. the lack of academic attention these themes have attracted is absolutely bonkers to me. anyway elizabeth the girlboss and victor the malewife <3
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you know now im thinking of a lot of implications. why do the new peace era machines still run on blood? is it because after 200 years of war, the most advanced technology humanity has is so firmly rooted in persistent violence? how does v2 get its fuel, how do the streetcleaners get theirs, how do the terminals, even, if we choose to believe they are also blood-powered machinery? are there blood donations by people willing to give? or is it taken by force like their earliest predecessors? is it all so deeply entrenched in a culture of violent conflict that humanity couldnt even begin to find alternatives?
YEA YEA REAL......i really love how much information we got about the war in this update, and its implications really are. insane. I KNOW IT'S ALL BEEN TALKED ABOUT BUT. i'd have to think humanity truly is just too deep into this technology to change it, particularly with how fast they seemed to have needed to force the new peace. like i keep thinking about this massive timeline that has consumed humanity for generations...how it was 200 years. v1's final firmware update was in 2112, the guttermen fought in trenches, and the earthmovers, massive beings with an incomprehensible amount of technological advance, were its end. that's mindbending when you try to conceptualize just what a people would be like by the end of it. i know this takes place in an alternative timeline, but this war has been humanity. it began in TRENCHES and ended in machines capable of leveling a city in a single blow, machines the blotted out the sun with their rampant destruction. i've thought about this idea with the new peace for a long time, but it's becoming more and more likely that this peace is built on blood just the same. it's 200 years. it's all the technology they have. and their world is dependent on machines (i'm almost beginning to think their industrial revolution, if there is an equivalent here, was robot-based), they can know no other way forward. unfortunately for them, it was tech all based in centuries of war and so it must carry forward. the new peace was a veneer imo large-scale atrocities ended because they had to, because people could live only on the earthmovers, and they were dying. but blood was still needed, just like when the guttermen were made, and i'm increasingly sure it was harvested just as unethically. anyone that proved any kind of "threat" to the peace could be used in this capacity with little push back- civilians this embattled, desperate for security yet now inherently bloodthirsty (hah), would be easily against those deemed malcontents. so the machines go on, powered as they always were...i just have to wonder what finally did them all in
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I just recently started following you so i don't have the full lore of your murderous gay religiously traumatized doggos, BUT, from my understanding, they are Italian and i don't know what part of Italy they are from, yet i can't help headcanoning Vasco as Tuscan, while Machete is probably from some part of Veneto. And as an Italian who has heard Tuscans and Veneto dialet, well it's an hilarious mental image.
Vasco is indeed Tuscan, Florentine to be specific. He comes from a wealthy and influential noble family that has lived in Florence for centuries. He's proud of his roots, and it's usually easy for strangers to tell where he's from. He's a resonably successful politician and has worked as an ambassador and representative of Florence on numerous occasions.
Machete is originally Sicilian (ironically about as far from Veneto as possible), although he was taken to mainland at young age and has lived in several places since then, before ending up in Rome. The way I see it, he exhibits very little local color, his demeanor and (even though Italian hadn't become a standardized language yet) way of speaking are formal, neutral and scarcely give away any hints about his personal history, at least in the 16th century canon.
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yeah that's fine I didn't need my heart anyways
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And for bad oversharing medical news the arrhythmia from december never went away but I thought maybe the throat infection was still there right so that could be a reason but then I went to a specialist and not only is it practically cured (just lingering a bit) but my lungs sound fine as well! which means! the shortness of breath is probably something wrong with the oxygen in the bloodstream and the slight chest tightness is also extremely worrying I could only make an appointment to get it checked next friday and that sounds like way too long
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I watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s for the first time this morning and I can’t stop thinking about how much I hated it. I can’t figure out why. But I also watched the first part of Barry Lyndon and I’m really into it so there’s that too
Rant in tags because I have thoughts and opinions
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I love the fact that Yunho stayed true to his artistry throughout the years. Sadly the same can’t be said for younger male idols like Taemin or Kai, in my opinion, who strayed so far away from what we saw of them doing in their groups. And it got me thinking; how much of it is them and how much of it is SM’s marketing strategy? How can their group self and solo self be soooo different? For me they’re not selling their solo self well enough to convince me that that them you know what I am? It feels almost like they’re acting (yes, every performer acts a little bit) but with Kai and Taemin it looks like they’re both playing a role…
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That hate anon i got is still really funny to me lmao
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"he told me how much he hoped you'd be happy too. get tired of being just a pure cold detective. be human instead." i hope you DIE i hope we ALL DIE. IN WHAT WORLD IS POIROT A COLD UNFEELING UNCARING LONER. ROMANTIC LOVE IS NOT A REQUIREMENT FOR BEING CONSIDERED HUMAN. explodes
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