Run, Rabbit, Run

Matching Pfps with @cauls-antique-pepperbox-pistol ( :)❤️) my main is @homegrowndevil Cal/24/jewish

[jjackrabbitt]

I’m on to The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid and I’m really enjoying it. It’s an easy read and the way the world building is based off of parts of this world is well balanced and thoughtful. I almost like this more than I have other fiction books, where everything is made up, a lot of the history and politics of different groups ends up a little too smooth, to me. So even with the setting and events being fictitious, the characters reactions have built in layers of meaning, mirroring circumstances here. I do think it’s a little fast paced and could sometimes use more gravitas, but it kind of works with Évike’s character. She’s very sheltered in some ways, practical, and not always the most tuned in (?) to things, I think. So even though she’s taking this seriously, there’s no way for her to know the full extent of how grave everything is. Which isn’t a complaint, I’m enjoying seeing her run headlong into trouble, and harassing Gáspár all the way there. It’s a delightful combination of traits! She just can’t stop poking at him and I think he needs it! So far they’ve mostly been in the middle of nowhere, and repeatedly coming close to death. I don’t know what waits for them once they get to the city, but I do hope that it only gives her more opportunities to annoy him

[jjackrabbitt]

I’ve (finally) finished Angela Davis’ Women, Race & Class. The last chapter has actually left me really confused. All of the chapters up to that point I understood well, and agreed on the majority of the points made therein! The last chapter is on the obsolescence of housework. There’s plenty of personal reasons that I can’t square that as a solution to anything, but the rest of the book seems to stand in opposition to this in some ways as well. Even in that same chapter, she points out that one way that in order to further destabilise certain demographic groups (in this case, black Africans in South Africa during apartheid), disrupting domestic life can be very effective. In that particular situation, the fear was that if people had stable homes, they would build communities, they would support each other, they would organise, and they would claim political power together. The larger argument of the chapter is that by curtailing their ambitions to finishing household chores that need to be done every day, women are being isolated and reduced as people. The proposed solution to this is to socialise housework, allowing women to become untethered from domesticity and be a larger part of the workforce. Personally, I think this is a very city-person opinion. Sure, hypothetically, you could assign a group of government cleaners to go clean apartment blocks in more urban areas. But which people are going to do that? It’s not going to be considered a respected position that people are vying for, it’s going to be the same people who are already doing that kind of work. Which she points out (again! In that same chapter!) that a large portion of housekeepers are nonwhite women who are already at an economic disadvantage. This wouldn’t be a solution for them to make things better for themselves and their communities, it would still be diverting their energy and time into caring for other people’s troubles and mess. The reason I say it’s a city person opinion, though, is that I live more or less out in the country. It’s not as rural as it was even five years ago, but even now it’s still a long ways away from any solution like that working. Like, the mailman is often a guy in his personal truck, with a magnetic sticker that says USPS, and a little light that he sticks up on top when he’s delivering mail. There’s one grocery store for the area, and the next nearest one is at least a 15 minute drive. Which isn’t terrible, but if you don’t have a car :/ also! I was seven when they built that store. My first grade class went on a field trip to the grocery store, because it was that exciting. The roads largely weren’t paved in my town until my dad was a kid. Like, it was dirt. and some of them haven’t been repaved since then. I know people who grew up thinking that it was normal to be entirely toothless by the time you were 30 and have to wear dentures. Because the nearest dentist was 3 hours away and no one could afford it anyway. It wasn’t just that one family, either, it was the town, and that was in the 90s. So, no? There’s not going to be anyone around to go clean everyone’s houses and fix things that need fixing and take care of animals, and then I guess go back to their own house to do it again? Because everyone else is, I guess, working office jobs or factory jobs (which. Is a whole different topic for this area) or whatever. On top of that, if it’s a situation where things are divided up to where people are taking care of certain areas, you might have to drive an hour to reach the furthest place that you’re cleaning. And I’m not saying that the rest of the book is wrong or Angela Davis is dumb or anything, I’m just wildly confused about how this was determined to be a solution?? Yes, clearly women are oppressed by being relegated to being housewives, but I don’t think the solution is to take Everyone out of their houses and make them work to be Economically Productive.

[jjackrabbitt]

I know I’ve made a ton of kinda jokey posts about oh the wights are one big death cult, etc, etc, but. I enjoy listening to my podcasts while I’m at work and today it’s all Know Your Enemy and Live Like the World is Dying. Both are excellent, Know Your Enemy examines different facets of the American political right, and Live Like the World is Dying covers a bunch of different topics and how they can be applied to whatever flavour of leftism you prefer. This is all beside the point. Anyways, the Know Your Enemy episode that I’m on right now is Military Education and American Manhood. This is a disturbing and fascinating topic on its own, but I can’t help but think again of the wights just a little bit. They have Jasper Craven, an author of a book dissecting this topic, on right now and the way he’s explaining how often these military academies spend the first year or however long just focused on completely breaking a person down. They do this to make the person into someone whose loyalty is absolute, and anger is easily directed and has little meaningful connection to anything outside. Which is also standard cult tactics. I haven’t dug into Rigg’s aentire personal life, I don’t know how much time he’s spent outside of America, or what kind of views he has on the military, or many other things that may have influenced his writing decisions. I simply find it so interesting that the wights are set up to so closely parallel institutions like the American military, I presume largely unintentionally. Obviously it would be a very different series if stuff like this did get any page time, I just like thinking about it

[jjackrabbitt]

N E Ways. The life altering events did occur so now you get the spark notes version I sent my boyfriend. Pay attention to women or I’m going to get you.

[jjackrabbitt]

Y’all know when you’re making clothes by hand, it’s often suggested that you make a paper and/or muslin version first, sometimes in miniature? My point is, if Horace is so into clothes and making them, maybe he’ll sometimes make small versions first, sized to go on Enoch’s homunculi

[puddlewater39]

Being reincarnated as a maggot may sound displeasurable until you are wriggling & feasting W/ all of your brothers and then it's fucking awesome

[jjackrabbitt]

Podcasting men are terrorising me.

[annabelle--cane]

stop. analyse that text through the lens of its author's intentions and original historical context. okay now take the author out back and kill them dead and analyse that text as though it were published by your mutual yesterday and is in direct conversation the contemporary discourse that's most relevant to your life. okay now pick your favorite angle of interpretation and come up with the strongest possible argument against it. now imagine that the text is your best friend and that it means you well and that you naturally give it every benefit of the doubt because you're on its side and you want the best for it. now imagine that the text wants you dead and it'll eat you if you don't eat it first. now pretend that you found this text locked away in a cave with no evidence of when or where it came from and you have to divine its meaning solely through its internal coherence and nothing else. okay now address the elephant in the room aspect of the text you've been ignoring because you find it boring or confusing or uncomfortable and become the number one expert on it. now spend forty minutes assigning all the characters dnd classes with at least three sentences of reasoning each. okay now do the cha cha slide.

[jjackrabbitt]

Don’t know if I’ll get around to actually get to draw the thing I want, but here’s my practice Noor

[jjackrabbitt]

I’m trying so hard to draw Horatio and I can’t get past his fucked ass hair. I refuse to not give him a terrible middle part because that’s his hair and I’m committed to having them be exactly as weird as they are. But 🙄

[cauls-antique-pepperbox-pistol]

Do you have any Horatio headcanons? Specifically in his relationship with Jacob and Noor? He's so interesting but not many people talk about him and it makes me sad.

this is probably gonna be a mix of Horatio facts and Horatio + Noor and Jacob facts. probably mostly Horatio facts but i do have thoughts about his relationship to Jacob and Noor! (important note: both me and my partner @jjackrabbitt came up with a lot of this stuff)

first to answer the specific question:

so generally speaking i think of Horatio being like a big brother to Jacob and Noor. i remember a few people being like ooo new dad character for Jacob!!! which yaay. but Horatio seems more like a brother to them for me, personally. he strikes me as still somewhat young? not as young as Jacob and Noor, not even close. but like he’s in his 30s maybe? i dunno (physically speaking, of course. i know in reality they’re all extremely old)

i think Horatio’s whole mission/purpose/task is to protect Noor, and also Jacob, but Noor specifically, since she’s one of the seven. H tasked him with this, he even gave Noor and Jacob the coordinates to V’s loop while was a half-hollow-half-wight-thing. he was tasked to make sure the prophecy is fulfilled. so when it was all over, peculiardom was saved, he was like well shit what now. cause aiding Noor in the whole prophecy thing was his only purpose, was all he ever thought about (wight behaviour. we’ll get to more of that in just a bit)

i don’t think H ever let him super close to little Jacob/Noor, or if he ever met them as a hollow at all, but if he did, he still remembers them. he does remember Abe pretty well, so that’s the connection he’s got to Jacob in a way

this next thing is a bit more complicated, cause it goes into how wights work. basically we think that when hollowgasts evolve into wights they imprint on the first person they see and will listen and follow them, and depend on them. like ducklings, i suppose. i don’t think he full on imprinted on Jacob and Noor, like most wights imprinted on Caul or other more authoritative wights he sent instead of him. but i do think it made him focus a lot more on the two, specifically Noor

we like to think that when all the horrors are over, Horatio and Noor, and probably Jacob as well (Joor is canon after all), have a fun little beach vacation. Horatio hasn’t had one in over a century and maybe doesn’t even know what that is anymore, or maybe has never had one! but yeah anyway they are going to the beach and honestly he’s probably constantly on the lookout for danger

that’s all the Horatio, Jacob and Noor related stuff i have i think. but there is some more Horatio stuff. i dunno if i’ve ever shared any of this. i definitely very badly need to

Horatio headcanons:

used to be a spy working for the ymbrynes. that’s right, he was never really Caul’s right hand and a member of the Claywings, but just pretending to be. Percival Murnau was a spy as well, working together with him and they were pretty good friends (perhaps even more than that. but neither of the two would admit). that was until Caul started being a little flirtatious with Percival, and he was immediately head over heels, making him a true member of the Claywings. Horatio was also in contact with Myron Bentham, he was the one who he gave the loop collapse instructions to and Horatio disguised it as his own idea. despite trying to stay out of the experiment, Caul insisted he join in and be there that day, he had the idea after all :)) (Caul wasn’t suspecting anything yet. he didn’t know Horatio was a spy until after Percival evolved into a wight and told him about it after learning how to speak again. so for Caul i think this was just a safety measure/an attempt to have control over the situation by having everyone be there for the experiment) so anyway. Horatio turned into a hollow. yadayada. we know the rest

Horatio used to be kind of sassy. i think, even now as a wight, it’s still coming through a little, just not as much, cause he has like. zero emotions. for now. but when he was on the job, he knew not to be and play Caul’s very loyal advisor, so Caul wouldn’t get suspicious

about his emotions. i know he has someone else’s face on and that’s why he can’t show much emotion, but i do think as a wight he’s struggling with that in general. he has to relearn emotions. and oh, he will. but that’s not until later. and it’s a good thing, too. there’s so many impressions crashing in on him at all times, the world has changed, he has changed, the people, who he turned into monsters with, have changed. his old friend has changed by…a LOT. he has to come to terms with the fact that Percival is a huge slug-like slime monster man now and that he’ll likely have to watch him die/kill him himself (he will). thankfully, he’s processing all that like it’s nothing in the beginning. though i do think that as he’s been a wight for longer, he will start to feel things and emotions will come up. like he’ll start being an actual person again

he misses H so so much. i know he once talks about how he loved him but also really hated him at the same time (cause i guess you’re full of hate as a hollow. i dunno about that, Riggs :P), but Horatio can’t go a minute without saying H’s full ass name. he has so much respect for the man. like that’s literally his dad

kind of related to the above: we have thought about H surviving and Horatio evolving into a wight and just kind of assisting H with things as he gets older

maybe he helps Alma and Isabel with the loop/council stuff? he goes back to working for the ymbrynes. we just don’t know what happened to him in the end (same goes for other characters) and i like to imagine they welcome him into the family with the ymbrynes acknowledging that he used to work for them as a spy and therefore can absolutely be trusted

Horatio is (or was) a librarian like Jacob. which is why he can also somewhat talk to hollows (i personally think wights can’t do it the way Jacob can. they give them commands, but not like that). gives me goosebumps to think that Horatio was right there at Caul’s side and neither of them knew he was a librarian and could have been of even more use to Caul

Horatio calls Percival “Perce”

the two of them even lived together back then. was very annoying for Horatio when Jack would come over to see Percival

as a wight, Horatio is still wearing that kerchief around his neck that he was wearing as a hollow. if i remember correctly.

this just in from @jjackrabbitt: Horatio is actually from New York and had an ymbryne, named Miss Oriole (since he has a New Yorker accent. i do think it can be due to my belief that wights pick whatever accent they hear when they evolve (similar to the imprinting thing), but we thought it would be fun if he was really just from New York. and then somehow, for whatever reason went overseas to Britain

his full name is Horatio Wythe

[jjackrabbitt]

Adding stuff :)

As for Horatio remembering Abe, I think he remembers V well too. Obviously Abe, H, and V didn’t spend a ton of time together and when they did it was mostly for their work. But I do think they were pretty comfortable together and friendly with each other. So whatever Horatio saw and remembers of that, he can tell Noor and Jacob more about V & Abe

For the imprinting, I think you could also compare them to sheep dogs? Like think about it, they’re really unwaveringly dedicated to a particular task (regardless of whether it’s a good one), and they can be independent while also following orders. I do think this can apply to Horatio as well, with his job of making sure Noor and Jacob are safe and the prophecy is completed. The prophecy would go the way that it goes whether or not he was paying attention, but that’s not going to stop him

Horatio’s putting floaties on Noor and Jacob before they get in the water /j

Whenever Percival & Jack got involved, Horatio just kinda kept all the information he gathered away from where Percival could see it and Percival agreed to not mention any of it to Jack. But that doesn’t mean that Horatio wouldn’t loudly complain about Jack to Percival. He gets to participate in the time honoured tradition of hating your friends stupid boyfriend

I really do think it’s a fun idea for Horatio to be a librarian, because then before 1908 he wouldn’t actually have any way to know what made him peculiar. So even though he can be in loops and ymbrynes (+Myron and/or Jack, depending on if either of them got any bit of that part of being a bird) can definitely tell he’s got something, he’s kinda just some guy. But if Jack had actually got into the library at that time it would have been uh. Real Bad

Someone needs to give him a really terrible middle name

Also. I thought when we decided on Wythe that it had the e on the end, but I’ve just checked again and it’s Wyth, it’s a Welsh byname for left-handed. Maybe we change it, maybe we don’t

[jjackrabbitt]

Hey. Did you guys know that the tons of keratin based animal by products that come out of slaughter houses each year can be hydrolysed into very effective fertilisers that could eventually replace petroleum based fertilisers, as a renewable and more efficient fertiliser. And that if Sharon did get his abattoir, it would be very easy to take all that keratin by product and make these fertilisers (because they can be made at low temperatures with little pressure and not super complicated chemical solutions) and use them around the Acre to grow things. And they’re even good at helping make polluted soil less toxic.

[skyrim-forever]

The worst characters are the ones were you only get like three pieces of lore about them but the lore is so fascinating and hits your brain at just the right angle to have you behaving like a feral dog in front of your conspiracy theory cork board

[grimark]

it’s been my observation after watching various tv shows that “lieutenant” is one of the most homoerotic ranks you can be

[annabelle--cane]

important Character traits:

paranoia

control freakism

sense of self-worth so low that it loops back around into being totally dismissive of everyone else

a warm-hearted kind center beneath 200 protective walls of bitterness that doesn't actually make the bitterness better in any way at all even a little bit

bisexuality

crushing feelings of responsibility

zero understanding of own bodily autonomy that bleeds out and affects how they treat others

a lil petty vindictive sadism they maybe don't wanna look at too hard or acknowledge

full self-awareness of all their most negative traits without working to fix those traits at all

internalized misogyny

a mysterious undefinable hunger that cannot / should not / must not ever be sated

asexuality

[annabelle--cane]

"this is soooo [character] apart from the internalized misogyny" and? give them some internalized misogyny. if they aren't already canonically a woman then toss a little womanhood in there and make them feel bad about it. I don't care if they live in a setting without gender discrimination, find a way.

[jjackrabbitt]

Creepy!!!

[jjackrabbitt]

Hey if you ever want to angry cry in the laundromat, go read Women, Race & Class by Angela Davis