the sylvia/mev situation is already great on its own but on a meta level the vibe charlotte kelso has been cultivating on instagram is ALSO a fascinating narrative
what if you were a world famous middle aged rockstar and the opera singer half your age you hired for a bit part in your world tour started liking comments on social media about your character and her character being in a lesbian bdsm relationship
This is why Pride is not just a party. It's a joyful celebration, but it's also a pointed and colourful two-finger salute to a world that stood back whilst so many of us died. And we'll never go quietly, never again.
so funny how the older u get ur like how the fuck on gods green earth did people used to manage all th- ahhh.. i need one of these wives everybody keeps talking about..
"how was X so successful and productive and achieving?" wife feeding and clothing and cleaning and shopping and parenting for them and also probably booking appointments and personal receptionist work. AND stimulant abuse. and shes supposed to suck you off whenever. id kill him too #feminists
do you think they say shit like this to each other. “i considered myself to be more of a girl” “in a past life i was male.” and then just stare at each other like 🥰😻🙂.
Spock at his core is a sensitive gay boy Desperately trying not to be gay nor sensitive. And everybody knows he's both gay and sensitive because he's not very good at hiding it but he's still like nobody can know I'm gay and sensitive
I remember when I was younger, anytime I watched a movie where the characters have to kill a scary monster/alien, I always thought the act of killing it was intended to be part of the horror. Like there’s this amazing creature that we’ve never seen before, and maybe under different circumstances we could’ve coexisted with it, but it’s trying to attack you and you have to defend yourself, but by destroying it you also destroy the ability to ever understand it and that’s sad and is supposed to make you feel conflicted.
It was not until well into my adulthood that I realized most people do not have complicated feelings about movies where people have to kill a scary alien monster, nor is that necessarily meant to be part of the narrative (unless it very obviously is). They just want the scary thing to die because it’s scary. I don’t have a real conclusion to this I just started thinking about it for some reason.
The Witch of Stolen Tomorrows had begun to notice an odd trend amongst her petitioners.
The latest was a farmer. He had braved the journey through the Testing Woods and arrived with his convictions mostly intact. He now sat on a tree stump by the Witch’s thornbush cottage, drinking a cup of bitter tea, and asking for a fairly standard boon.
"Oh yes," said the Witch, "I can make you a spell for a bountiful harvest, but what will you give me in return?"
The farmer gulped. "My firstborn child?"
"By the dick-shattered sky.” The Witch exclaimed. “What?"
"Oh. You don't take firstborn children?"
"I am a witch of ancient promises, timeless dreams, and fresh blood.” The Witch announced. “Of course I take firstborn children. It's just a bit weird that it was your first offer."
"I'm sorry, mistress. I don't know how this works. Was I supposed to start smaller and work my way up to the firstborn? I’ve always been hopeless at haggling." The man seemed on the verge of tears. "My wife passed a few years ago. She used to do all the business at market."
"If your wife passed a few years ago, how exactly do you plan to offer me your firstborn?" The witch swirled her tea and the steam made foul omens in the air. "I mean, sure, you don't have to be married to have kids, but it does usually help if you're not obviously still in mourning."
"Oh, my little Jackie is already born. They're five. My firstborn and, well, my only-born."
"Okay. If the kid has already been born, you don't have to say firstborn. You can just say 'my child, whose name is...' What's the kid's name again?"
“Jackie.”
“Well, you’ve gone and put Jackie in a bit of a precarious spot. You see, now that you’ve offered the child, the fatespring will hate it if I accept a lesser deal. So either I have to talk you into a bargain that’s technically worse for you, or little Jackie comes to live with me. Now, I could-”
“That’s fine mistress. I accept the bargain.” The man sniffled and wiped his tears. He looked weirdly relieved. “So, do I bring Jackie here to you, or will you come to the farm to collect? Or is it one of those ‘leave them in a clearing at the full moon’ kind of-”
“My guy. What is up? What is your deal, exactly? I’ve had, like, five different firstborn deals this week. That’s weird, right? You get that? That’s normally the worst case scenario for y’all. But at least they hadn’t had the kids yet, so they could still fool themselves that they could wriggle out of the compact somehow. And they didn’t lead with ‘oh yeah, take my first child, that’s a strong opening bargaining position!” The canopy around them began to darken and the trees began to grow thorns. “And if there’s one thing that really gets on my flat-ass witch tits, it’s when there’s something going on I don’t understand. So what in the ever-boiling piss is up?”
The trembling farmer forced out the words, “It’s, uh, it’s the levy, mistress.”
“The levy? What levy?”
“The king, mistress. He’s put a levy out. He needs troops.”
“Why would he want a child to be pressed into military service?”
“It’s the prophecy, mistress. A great foretelling came down from the Speaker of the Fates, or so the criers say. In 18 years, a great darkness will come. It will bring war and ruin to the kingdom. It will shatter the crown. So the king is demanding we send every child who’ll be over 16 when the omens come due. They’ll get raised as warriors and heroes, so they say.” The farmer looked up at the Witch, a hint of hope shining through the desperation that had cracked him. “Only, none of us want to pay the king’s fateprice with our kids. And Mrs Goodwhistle, she said that you’d probably give them a good life.
“Or, at least… you’d give them some kind of life.”
The Witch said nothing for a long while.
Then she stood up.
“I guess I’d better get a shift on then.” The briar-bound cottage behind them pricked up its leaves like they were ears.
“You’re… you’re leaving?”
“Oh, don’t fret. I’ll take little Jackie with me. I’ll take all of them.” The witch’s home unravelled, all its branches and brambles writhing down to follow its roots into the ground. “If my hearth is going to become a daycare for all the poor little prophecy-pocked bairns of this land, I’m going to need more space. And I’ll need to take them somewhere harder to find…”
“Oh, thank you, mistress!”
The Witch flicked something to the farmer, who caught it instinctively. In his sweaty palm was a seed - though it was older, darker and heavier than normal.
“There’s your harvest spell. Appropriate payment, as the scalekeepers demand. Each morning, when you go to bring in the harvest - look to the sky. When the sun is just tickling the horizon, reap a single ear of corn and put it aside. Whisper into it as if you’re talking to your child. Jackie will hear you. In the deepest part of winter, roast and eat that corn - then you’ll get your reply.”
“I… I have no words…” The farmer’s eyes and throat burned.
“No need for them. The deal must be made and the price must be paid.” The Witch held out a hand and a nearby tree bent its limbs down to meet her, offering a branch. “Now, I have much to prepare, so I will take my leave. The woods will see you home.”
And the witch took the living branch from the tree and sat upon it like a broom, then rose into the sky like a sunrise.
---
18 years later, the Witch of Stolen Tomorrows returned to the kingdom. The earth trembled as her thorned fortress - a living wilderness - bore her onwards on a thousand root-wrought feet.
Standing atop the briar parapets was the Witch’s cadre of apprentices. They were all teens and twenty-somethings, clad in the colours of autumn skies and wielding the instruments of fate.
The king, far away in his keep, felt a strange shiver through the gold of his crown. An echo of its coming shattering.
The Witch hung from a giant thorn like a sailor from a bowsprit. In her free hand, she cradled a cup of tea.
“Here is a lesson about prophecies.” She said it softly, but the rushing winds carried the words to her students. “If you fight them, they’ll put you on like a jacket and wear you as a costume as they dance ruin through your life. But if you grab them by the scruff, then you can be the one wearing destiny as your cloak.
“And then you get to be the one writing the story.”