Simon and Baz work as tour guides in a small museum on a small island, fighting over who gets more positive comments from visitors and conspiring to uncover the managers’ plots to pass the time.
But when, exactly a month before Christmas, a £2 million reindeer sculpture gets stolen from the museum, a new challenge arises. Who will find the thief first?
A choose your own adventure mystery. (As in, you get to decide what happens next.)
For @carryon-countdown day 1: First Year.
Run to read the first chapter so you can vote on what happens next:
I really just have to summarize Thomas's entire life:
He was in a committed relationship with a male swan named Henry for 18-24 years before a female swan named Henrietta showed up and mated with Henry.
Thomas was initially jealous of the pair and attacked them, breaking 2 of the 5 eggs Henrietta had laid. However, once the remaining eggs hatched, Thomas warmed up to them and helped raise them.
Henry couldn't fly because of an injured wing, so Thomas taught the cygnets how to fly.
When they needed to reduce the goose population in the pond where Thomas and the swans lived, they dyed Thomas's feathers red so he wouldn't be separated from Henry.
Henry, Henrietta, and Thomas remained in their happy throuple for years and raised 68 cygnets before Henry died in 2009. After Henry's death, Henrietta found another swan and flew away, leaving Thomas alone.
Thomas finally met and mated with a female goose in 2011 and had his own babies. However, another goose named George stole them and raised them himself.
As Thomas grew elderly and blind, he was relocated to a wildlife center where he raised orphaned cygnets.
His caretaker at the center described him as "pretty high maintenance."
Thomas died in 2018 at the age of around 40. He had a funeral that included a small coffin and a procession that was led by a bagpiper. He was buried under the stone where Henry was buried, the two finally reunited in death.
Before and after his death, Thomas has been celebrated as an icon of the LGBTQ+ community for obvious reasons.
Ok ok these all sound intriguing then I saw VAMPIRE PRIEST and yeah, this please?
Hehe thank you for asking.
This idea is more or less two days old and I am obsessed with it, though sadly I don't think I'm going to start working on it anytime soon.
It's going to be a historical fic, but I don't plan on making it historically accurate—it would be too much work, and this is going to require too much research even without the accuracy issue.
So it's going to be set in the vague “Middle Ages” of fantasy stories.
Baz is, as expected, a vampire priest. Or a vampire monk.
I'm so excited to play with vampirism to make this universe a world where Baz can be a clergyman without, you know, burning to ashes on the spot, but still feel all the discomfort and conflict about being a vampire AND a priest/monk/whatever. Because this story is all about the inner conflict.
Well, not exactly.
Because the Mage is some kind of inquisitor, engaging in hunting heretics, witches and vampires. (And possibly other creatures.) (And “innocent” people, too.) (Not that heretics, witches and vampires are guilty of anything.) I haven't decided yet if he should be a mage who hunts other mages, or if he should be Normal. I'm leaning towards Normal with a dark secret... We'll see.
Simon is the Mage's apprentice. He definitely is a Normal with a dark secret. But unlike the Mage (who knows his own secret and is hiding it), Simon doesn't know what's “wrong with him”. (Does the Mage know? Very likely.)
So they go around Europe ridding the world of evil in the name of Catholicism. All very happy and joyful.
Until one day they arrive to Baz's monastery.
I'm thinking of Baz in this fic as someone who's deeply religious but disillusioned with the Church as an institution. He decided to be ordained only because he didn't want the duties of a first born to fall on him. He just wanted to be left alone, not have to marry and produce heirs, and be free to spend his days reading and studying in a huge library. His father already had another male heir so he had nothing against Baz fucking off to a monastery. (He was probably quite happy to have his vampire and possibly deviant son out of his sight.)
He's living his quiet, comfortable life between books and inner turmoil, and then the murders start happening.
Baz knows immediately that the murderers are vampires, which isn't good for him. It draws attention to him. So, he starts investigating.
This is when the Mage and Simon arrive.
The vibes are inspired by The Name of the Rose. A murder mystery set in a monastery, but probably with more witches and vampires and less theology and philosophy (though that depends on how much I want to research).
Clearly, the Mage starts suspecting of Baz, and manages to frame him for the murders.
Simon—who until then believed Baz was evil and all—suddenly has a (motivated) change of heart and decides to prove Baz's innocence.
Things happen. Boys kiss. It will end in flames. (Who burns? Stay tuned to find out.)
Thread on alternative views of iconic landmarks you (probably) haven’t seen before 🧵
1. Mount Fuji from a plane window.
2. Arc de Triomphe, Paris
3. Aerial view of Kaaba, Mecca
4. A view of the Taj Mahal that you do not usually see, highlighting the stark contrast between opulence and poverty divided by a single wall.
5. Top down view of the Statue of Liberty
6. The backside of Tutankhamun's burial mask
7. The dome of St. Peter’s Basilica seen through Rome's most famous keyhole.
8. The worn steps of the Tower of Pisa
9. Photographer Alexander Ladanivskyy, in collaboration with the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism, captured an extraordinary drone shot of the Great Pyramid of Giza from an unusual perspective.
10. The Shanhai Pass, where the Great Wall of China meets the ocean.
Thread reader isn't loading the images so, in the interest of archiving them as amd when Twitter collapses:
11. A backside view of the Great Sphinx that features its giant tail.
12. The back panel of Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa
13. The Eiffel tower from below
14. Inside the Colosseum, Rome
15. View from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy.
The tower began leaning during 12th-century construction due to soft ground. By 1990, the tilt was 5.5 degrees. Stabilization from 1993 to 2001 reduced it to 3.97 degrees.
16. Central Park, New-York
17. A rare view of the Statue of Liberty from the balcony on its torch. People can be seen looking out from the crown.
Public access to the torch has been barred since 1916.
18. Sydney Opera House from top
19. Aerial view of Cloud Gate, also known as The Bean. Perhaps not an "iconic landmark", but an exceptionally unique perspective nonetheless.
the thing is that childhood doesn't just end when you turn 18 or when you turn 21. it's going to end dozens of times over. your childhood pet will die. actors you loved in movies you watched as a kid will die. your grandparents will die, and then your parents will die. it's going to end dozens and dozens of times and all you can do is let it. all you can do is stand in the middle of the grocery store and stare at freezers full of microwave pizza because you've suddenly been seized by the memory of what it felt like to have a pizza party on the last day of school before summer break. which is another ending in and of itself
Reasons Why Fans of Color Leave/Don’t Interact with Fandom
Casual racism that is brushed off as “an innocent mistake” or “they didn’t mean it” and then everyone pretending like it didn’t happen and moving on with their day (repeat)
Speaking over fans of color about issues that pertain to them specifically
When fans of color speak out about something that makes them uncomfortable or why that don’t interact with it (usually because of the racial/ethnic bias) they are accused of being anti’s or pro-censorship
Characters of color being used as scapegoats/bashed/plot devices
Characters of color never getting happy endings/real development
Backlash against characters of color if they do anything other than be a white character’s side kick/best friend
Actors of characters of color being harassed for something their character did or didn’t do
White characters/actors getting all the attention/credit despite the fact that they are a side character to a POC or on the same level as the POC
Fanfic authors patting themselves on the back for writing a “realistic” character of color and it’s just a bunch of stereotypes
Being told that they should be happy they were even included when they call out the above people
White fans crying about persecution/exclusion because their fav character/trope/kink/ship isn’t loved by all
Fan artists re-imaging characters of color as white/lightening skin tone
Everyone rushing to a white fans defense after a well deserved call out while the fan of color receives hate
Never having a safe fandom space and always having to be on guard with new people/fandoms/chats etc because they’ve been burned before
Yesterday I almost cried because my baby cousin ran up to my grandmother and was like. “Ha! Buhbuh ba ha.” And she said okay you want to show me something? And he led her over to the garden patch and crouched down and pointed at rocks and plants and was like. “Ah. Habah ba ah” as she listened attentively.
And I was like that happened 1,000 years ago. Probably 10,000 years ago. Maybe 100,000. The youngest human in a group went to the oldest one and said to the best of their ability “come see.” And the adult went.
this is such a beautiful post it doesn't need my dumb addition, but i can't fit this in the tags. at the archaeological site Dolni Vestonice in the Czech Republic there are a bunch of really really fascinating finds and I'm only going to tell you about one tiny detail of one of the most interesting sites in the world.
at this settlement 20-30,000 years ago there lived a person who appears to have been a sort of sorcerer-grandmother-ceramics artist and her workshop was preserved very well in the sedimentary layers. her hut where she had her kilns was full of little sculptures of animals and people that seem to have been made to explode in the kiln on purpose, we're not sure why but nevermind. the relevant detail is that when you sculpt something with your hands and then fire it, your fingerprints can be preserved in the surface of the clay forever, so we have fingerprints of ancient ceramics artists that have survived for tens of thousands of years. and one of the major artifacts from Dolni Vestonice has a fingerprint on it that is so small it could only have belonged to a child
so this shaman-grandmother-sculptor, who was buried with her pet fox by the way, had children running through her workshop and touching everything she made while she was at her mysterious work of creating the world's oldest ceramics, none of which appear to be bowls, bottles, pots, or any "useful" items at all, but rather a collection of animal and human and sometimes anthropomorphic figures, some of which appear to be self portraits. exactly the same as sandersstudios' grandmother being led to the garden by an excited baby. we've all been the same for 30,000 years.
WONDER WHY THOSE ALL DON’T LOOK LIKE THE SAME COLOR? BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT
OTHER THAN BEING PART OF THE SAME FAMILY OF BLUES, THEY ARE NOT ALL THE SAME FUCKING COLOR! WHY WOULD THEY ALL BE THE SAME FUCKING COLOR! DO YOU THINK WE JUST NAME NEW COLORS FOR KICKS!?!?!?
WHEN DESCRIBING A CHARACTER’S GOD FORSAKEN EYE COLOR, PICK ONE YA GODDAMN HIPPIE
The world is oftentimes such an ugly place, but sometimes it can be so beautiful.
Like, when two choirs, one from Croatia and the other from Zimbabwe, met on the opposite sides of a Lisbon subway station and both sang to each other.
I unfortunately do not know what the Zimbabwe children choir sang to them (although it was so beautiful), but the Croatian klapa Kastav sang 'Kuća puna naroda' (a house full of people).
And let my reward be a house full of people,
my life, give me a voice, so I can embrace you with songs.
my general opinion on what people should be "allowed" to portray and what topics they should be "allowed" to explore in fiction is that you can make whatever art with whatever themes you want but i'm also allowed to think the way you handled it was tasteless and should've been done differently. my negative opinion on your handling of sensitive topics is the price of admission for publicly showcasing your work. this is not a pro-censorship stance because i am not The Government
this is getting really popular so i’d like to add the important caveat that your criticism of a work is no more unassailable than the work itself. just as one is entitled to be critical of something someone else is entitled to disagree with that criticism. i add this because some of you pretend to give a fuck about thoughtful analysis and then when someone points out flaws in your argument you declare that all criticisms are valid. this is untrue. the status of a hater is no more sacred than that of a liker. get off your high horse and engage in the thoughtful discussion you pretend to believe in or perish by my blade
There are a few great confessions in the Simon Snow series. I originally thought of Baz's confession about the tape recorder to Simon but when I went to reread the scene, I was reminded that it also includes my FAVORITE confession.
From Carry On:
He also says I tried to throw him down a flight of stairs that year. Really, we were fighting at the top of the staircase, and I got in a lucky punch that sent him flying. Then, when my aunt Fiona asked me if I’d pushed Simon Snow down a flight of stairs, I said, “Fuck yes I did.”
To Any Way The Wind Blows:
“I pushed him down the stairs!” he says.
“I always thought that was an accident,” I say softly.
Baz wheels on me. “Are you fucking serious? You never shut up about it!”
and finally:
“It was an accident,” he says quietly, “when I pushed you down the stairs.”
“I know,” I say. “I always kind of figured.”
“You fucking menace,” he whispers. “You literally never shut up about it.”
Euan Morton does a superb job with this scene and I love it so so so so much so here are the stairs that Baz accidentally pushed Simon down.
These stairs are based off of the Hall Staircase in Christ Church College, Oxford, which was built sometime in the 1500s which keeps with Watford's approximate age.
I designed the bannister of the staircase in Procreate, cut it out with the Cricut, then made the stairs based off of my one (1) semester of stagecraft I took in 2012, where I was tasked with building several 3-step staircases.
Here are some in progress pics in case you're wondering about the structure underneath:
These stairs are sturdy enough for a teeny tiny Baz to push a teeny tiny Simon down them.
