A tumblr dedicated to my crossover OT3: Victor Van Dort (Corpse Bride), Alice Liddell (the American McGee's Alice games), and Smiler Alton (my The Smiler rollercoaster-based OC). (Also sometimes Victor and Alice on their own.) Features fanfic, Sims, and more AUs that is probably healthy. I'm Crossover_Chick over on AO3, and have a separate RP blog, The Valice Multiverse!
And, of course, link posts aren't working again, so I must provide you with the link to The Epilogue in this regular text post instead. *shakehead* Anyway -- please enjoy my beloved crime trio enjoying their post-score downtime with:
->Alice running into one June Thatcher while shopping for food in Nightmarket
->Victor coming across Alice and Smiler playing "hunt and prowl" to train the relevant skills...and giving them both the best presents they've ever gotten
->And Victor taking his first proper steps toward Whisper-dom by completing construction on his spirit mask :)
Good stuff, if I do say so myself. :D Already looking forward to starting the next one!
after i made my wooden doll, i was musing about what other unusual materials i might use for a bjd. my partner suggested paper, and also gave me access to their craft paper collection -> i made this.
she is almost entirely made of paper & cardboard. the joints are wooden beads & worbla, because i did figure out a way to make ball joints out of paper, but it really was not worth the effort. all her limbs have tubes of rolled-up cardboard in them to keep the structure sturdy, and the origami flowers are glued around those.
this is extremely different from any doll i've made before, and i had so much fun working with pretty papers & figuring out how to turn them into a poseable 3d object.
Daryl Hall & John Oates - You Make My Dreams by hallandoatesVEVO
One more from the Brotzly playlist to start off the new year! I was perusing said playlist when I came across the song name and the lyrics cosmicocean had chosen to represent it:
“on a night when bad dreams become a screamer/when they’re messin’ with a dreamer/i can laugh it in the face/twist and shout my way out/and wrap yourself around me/cause i ain’t the way you found me/and i’ll never be the same”
This struck me as pretty Valicey (particularly with the Forgotten Vows couple helping each other with bad dreams in “Remembering You”), so I decided to track down the song.
Imagine my surprise when, instead of the more romantic, balladish song I was expecting, it’s a peppy 80s pop hit that I’ve heard before! I’ve just never paid that much attention to the lyrics in the past, beyond the “You make my dreams come true” of the chorus. So, yeah, unexpected Valice there. But it’s a good, bouncy song, I like the lyrics now that I know what they are, and – well, it just starts the whole year off on a good note, doesn’t it? *nods*
Was browsing my "#song saturday" tag again and stumbled across this -- and discovered that I'd never once reblogged it! So I figured it was time to bring this blast from the past back around. :) This is still a fun, bouncy song, after all -- and it being fun and bouncy means it automatically fits Valicer as well as Valice. Because Smiler always brings the fun and bouncy vibes to the polycule. :) And they too are only too willing to help when Victor and Alice have bad dreams, as per the original post. (And Victor and Alice are willing to help with theirs, though fortunately Smiler is much less prone to nightmares.) If any person in the polycule is gonna wrap themselves around another, it's gonna be loves-hugs Smiler. XD
Panic! At The Disco: Victorious [OFFICIAL VIDEO] by Fueled By Ramen
Another “Throwback Song Saturday but oops the original post’s video got deleted!” So to hopefully avoid that problem this time around, here’s the official video!
Which I should have linked the first time because OMG IT’S FREAKING HILARIOUS. XD Brendon Urie is clearly having waaaaaaay too much fun in it, let me tell you. [giggles like a madwoman]
At any rate, my thoughts from the original post still apply, only more so – this has definitely become a “Catch Us If You Can” AU song, with murderous vigilantes!Victor and Alice going after the scum of the East End and openly enjoying killing all these bastards. It just feels right for them. The funny video is just the icing on the cake. Go forth and enjoy, my peeps!
Bringing this back after a looong absence because I also brought the Catch Us If You Can AU back after a looong absence earlier this week, and I thought it would be fun to feature one of the songs I associate with it on Saturday. And I went with this one both because I just like it -- it's a fun, bouncy song that makes me smile --
And because I think it goes well with the "Valicer" versions of Catch Us that I featured back on Thursday! Specifically Variant B with Smiler being a traveling Joy Serum salesperson who gets caught up in Victor and Alice's activities after one of their targets tries to get Smiler to use their Serum on his child captives (Smiler is like "no" and helps Victor and Alice take the guy and his cronies down), since that's the version most likely to keep helping Victor and Alice with their murders. You know the lyric "throw the bait, catch the shark, bleed the water red?" That now makes me think of the trio's dynamic once Smiler's on the team -- as they're better at talking to people than fighting them, they lure in targets with fancy patter and help keep them distracted while Victor and Alice get in to do the actual killing. Something about "I'm like a scarf trick, it's all up the sleeve," also makes me think of Smiler -- not sure what. Maybe it's because I picture them talking and gesturing like a stage or street magician while doing their sales? *shrug* I dunno, it just feels them.
Anyway -- yeah, Valicer Catch Us If You Can song now! And just a good song in general. :) Enjoy!
Reverse love triangle where character A is trying to play wingman and set character C up with character B, and character B is trying to play wingman and set character C up with character A, and neither A nor B realises what the other is doing.
AKA "I would like to make it clear that I'm shoving Smiler into my own Valice AUs, not just into poor @thesatiricaldemon's 'Beneath A Broken Sky' via memes and ask games and whatnot." XD Yes, inspired by my semi-recent meme shenanigans, I have decided to make a couple of posts talking about how I would add Smiler into some of my older Valice (and Vemilicia) AUs! Obviously, "Smiler in the Forgotten Vows Verse" has been covered in the Hypothetical Valicer Forgotten Vows Verse posts, and "Smiler in the Secundus Verse" by the Smiler In Secundus stories -- and while I didn't initially go into it intending to make it an update to an older Vemilicia AU, Multiplayer Wonderland did pretty rapidly evolve into "Smiler in the Somebody I Used To Know Verse." So today we're going to be covering another one of my older Valice AUs that I have some ideas on how to make Valicer --
Catch Us If You Can! Which is admittedly an AU I have not talked about in quite some time, so let me give you a quick rundown of what the deal is with this one:
->It's a "Bad/Dark End" AU of The Forgotten Vows Verse, with the divergence point being when Alice shoves Bumby in front of that train. In the main FVV timeline, she does so without anyone seeing, and thus is able to get Victor out of his Bumby-induced panic attack about being trapped in the dark, take him back to Houndsditch, find proof of what Bumby was doing, etc. In this timeline, however, someone runs into the station the moment Alice shoves Bumby onto the tracks, screams, and immediately runs off to find the nearest policeman. Alice, panicked, is thus unable to wake Victor -- especially since Wonderland is screaming at her to run before she's caught and hanged the whole time -- and is eventually forced to leave him in the station, shooting one final command his way in an attempt to keep him safe -- "Just go with the police and do what they tell you!" Because she figures he'll be safe with them -- he's a rich white boy, after all, and he's at least vaguely friendly with Harry Hightopp!
->...And then it's revealed that she figured wrong, because, when they also have no luck snapping Victor out of his Thirteen state, the police are like "well, we can't have him just sitting around" and send him to Rutledge. As you might imagine, David and Lum Monroe are very eager to get their hands on him as their newest patient. :(
->Victor proceeds to spend roughly two months in Rutledge suffering through the various "treatments" and abuses by the staff, especially the Monroe twins. However, in a sick twist, said treatments actually do help restore at least some of Victor's memory and personality -- mostly by reminding him of some of the bullshit he went through even before his parents sent him to Bumby (some of those other psychiatrists suggested treatments of their own, remember!). Once he's a little more himself, his parents come to visit him, and Victor asks if he can come home --
Only for Nell to ask in turn if he's given up this ridiculous "corpse bride" business. And when Victor replies that no, he still remembers Emily, and he isn't ever going to forget her again, she informs him coolly, "Well -- you can stay here until you change your mind, then."
...cue an enraged Victor lunging for her and William and having to be dragged back by the astonished orderlies. He screams invective at them and tells them to get out, as he never wants to see them again --
->And from that moment on, Victor turns into one of the most unruly patients and biggest escape risks Rutledge has ever seen, fighting back against every treatment and taking every opportunity he can to make a run for it. Unfortunately, none of his attempts are successful, and while he does get some minor revenge on some of the people mistreating him -- including straight-up biting the Monroes multiple times -- all it really leads to is him being restrained and tortured all that more often. :( After about another month of this, Victor starts to succumb to despair, believing he's going to die in the asylum --
->And then, one rainy night, the door to his cell opens -- revealing an absolutely guilt-riddled Alice. Having been on the run for the past three months, she hasn't had the opportunity to learn what became of Victor until recently, and the minute she discovered he was in Rutledge -- well, she had to come and break him out, no matter the risk to herself. She gets him free of his straitjacket, apologizing profusely all the while (Victor assuring her that he's just happy to see her again), then uses a master key she stole to open a bunch of the other cells and release a bunch of the other patients to cause a commotion and help cover their escape --
->But as the pair run for the back yard and freedom over the fence, they end up running straight into David and Lum, who were carting around some equipment for one of the doctors. Naturally, the twins are not eager to let Alice and Victor just go by them, and a fight breaks out --
But unfortunately for David, Alice came armed with a knife, and she is only too happy to stab and slash him to death for his previous abuses against her...and unfortunately for Lum, Victor spots something sharp on the cart he was wheeling around (like a scalpel or drill), and is only too happy to jab it into him until he stops moving too. The pair then flee out the back and over the fence into the rain, successfully escaping all other pursuit...
->And ending up at, hilariously, Radcliffe's old abandoned townhouse, as it was the first place Alice could think of to go. Alice again apologizes for not getting Victor out of there sooner, while Victor again assures her that he doesn't blame her (and starts talking about how maybe she should have shoved him on the tracks for coming close to killing her as Thirteen, which she promptly shuts down). Talk then turns to how, despite saving Victor from Rutledge and the children from Bumby, Alice doesn't feel much like a hero, as she doesn't know who is in charge of Houndsditch anymore, and she does know that there are plenty of people like Bumby in London who would find the children easy pickings...prompting Victor to note that they did just prove that they are very good at killing people...
->And cue the pair becoming a duo of serial killers on the streets of Whitechapel and other assorted environs -- Alice armed with her trusty blade, Victor with a straight razor he picks up -- targeting anyone who bought from/worked with Bumby and others of their ilk. The public are like "good on you for killing that scum" for the most part, while the police are a little more mixed in their opinions since the pair are making them look bad. (Though I imagine Harry Hightopp and Fred Tarrant in particular are not trying very hard to catch them.)
->(And if you're wondering -- June still makes it to Houndsditch like in "Remembering You," only to find no one there but the children; after Bumby's death and Alice's role in it are discovered, she vows to stay and give the children a proper guardian. Dr. Wilson joins her after a little while after he reads the story in the papers, and together they keep Houndsditch running reasonably well -- I haven't decided yet if they eventually find Bumby's journal and realize "Oh, Alice had every reason to kill that asshole." As for Victoria and Christopher, I'm not sure what's going on with them in this AU -- I think Victoria at least probably wanted to visit Victor in the asylum, but the elder Van Dorts paid good money to keep her out, as according to them she's part of the problem. They're likely stunned when Victor and Alice end up as known killers -- though given who the pair kill, maybe not as horrified as they could be.)
...all right, that wasn't really quick, but it's not as long as it could have been, damn it. :p Anyway, when it comes to adding Smiler to this verse, I have two potential ideas:
A) A variant on the aforementioned Hypothetical Valicer Forgotten Vows Verse, where -- along with everything that goes wrong above -- Smiler's escape from rural Lithuania takes a little more time, and thus they don't arrive back in London again until after Victor and Alice have established themselves as serial killers. And while trying to put their life back together and figure out where Victor's gone, they hear tell about a pair of murderers targeting the worst scum you can find in the East End --
And go "You know, I wonder if I could hire them to kill Dr. Kelman." Both because Kelman is a monster and because Smiler is angry and bitter about being separated from Victor, damn it. They thus track down the duo, coming across Alice after a kill. They explain what they want, and Alice says she's willing to hear them out, but she'll need to get her partner first --
And then she calls over Victor, and he and Smiler have a mutual "!!!" moment upon seeing each other. Things are naturally awkward for a bit, but Victor is completely on board with killing Dr. Kelman and freeing the people of the Sanctuary, so he and Alice agree to take the job. They all end up traveling to the Sanctuary together as a result, during which Smiler does their best to help fill in the gaps in Victor's memories, and they both struggle a bit with the fact that their old feelings for each other are rearing their heads anew. Fortunately for everyone, Alice soon takes a liking to Smiler herself, and quickly realizes she has no problem sharing Victor with them, so the usual polycule is formed after all. :) Not long afterward, they get to the Sanctuary and take down Kelman (or at least enable Miles Cedars or the other patients to take him down) --
And I haven't fully decided where it goes from there. Possibilities include the three staying in England, with Victor and Alice continuing their murderous ways and Smiler providing a safe haven for them to hide in; the three staying in England, but Victor and Alice giving up their killing to settle down somewhere quiet with Smiler; or maybe Smiler talking them into leaving the country entirely (possibly going back to Lithuania, ironically) to have a true fresh start. *shrug* Any and all feel reasonable!
B) Or a sort of sequel to the original idea where, some time after Victor and Alice establish themselves as killers, they're strolling through Billingsgate, trying to figure out where their latest target is holed up, when they come across a new street seller pitching their latest product to the masses. Naturally, this seller is Smiler, peddling Joy Serum. Victor and Alice decline to partake when they offer them some --
But, by sheer chance, the man they were trying to find appears on the scene shortly thereafter, and -- upon hearing what Joy Serum does -- asks Smiler to meet him and some associates at a certain dock later that night for a potential big sale. Smiler does so, with Victor and Alice tailing them and lurking in the shadows --
And finds themselves presented with a literal cage of crying, frightened children. Turns out the guy wants Smiler to dose them all up so they'll be happy with what's about to happen to them. Smiler's response is "No, because I've never tested this on children and I don't want to give them too much and hurt them and also this is evil," causing the guy and his associates to be like "Well, I guess we'll just have to take the drug from you and kill you then" --
And cue Victor and Alice bursting from their hiding places and going on the assault! They do pretty well at taking down the group of bastards, though one of them does manage to corner Victor when he drops his straight razor -- however, Smiler smacks the guy over the head with their case, gives Victor his razor back, and cheerfully goes "You keep slicing them up, and I'll get the kids out?" Victor is like "...sure," and Smiler thus gets the cage open and directs the kids to run. The brawl eventually gets the attention of the police, and the trio end up fleeing together to avoid capture --
And when they finally stop to take a breather, Smiler is like "Well that was exciting! Don't think I got your names -- Smiler Alton!" Victor and Alice, a little bewildered, introduce themselves and thank Smiler for their help -- Smiler thanks them for rescuing them in turn --
Then is like "So where are we going now?" Victor and Alice are initially like "what's this 'we' business?" -- only to learn that Smiler actually doesn't have a place to stay at the moment, having arrived in town only recently and not found a place they can afford. Feeling a bit guilty, and acknowledging Smiler did help them, they go ahead and let them stay with them in their base at Radcliffe's townhouse. Which in turn, leads to the following --
I. Smiler discovering that Victor and Alice spend pretty much all of their time finding new targets and then killing them and being like "You know you're allowed to have a life outside of being serial killers, right?" before gradually coaxing them into allowing themselves time off to enjoy hobbies and things like that again
II. Smiler eventually revealing their own backstory to the pair -- they're the child of one Dr. Kellard Kelman, owner of the Sanctuary; they and their father had a very antagonistic relationship, as Kelman's whole things was "social compliance" and Smiler was never very big on that (right down to not having an established gender); they fled the Sanctuary a little while ago after finding their mother in the basement as a non-responsive vegetable and realizing that Kelman probably intended to eventually do the same to them; they harnessed their talents at chemistry to become a peddler of tonics and serums and whatnot --
Oh, and during a low point early on, they were contacted by this eldritch god named Mar-Mal and given a blessing to help them spread its joy on Earth, hence why they have glowing yellow eyes. Victor and Alice are both like "what," as you might imagine. Things only become weirder and more awkward when they ask what the blessing is --
And Smiler has to admit it conferred upon them some mild mind control powers. They swear they can only use them to make people happy, however (hence why they didn't use them on the men trying to kill them in the fight where they all met), and also swear never to use them on Victor or Alice unless they specifically ask. Smiler's proven themselves an asset by this point, so Victor and Alice decide to trust them, figuring there is never going to be a situation where one of them will ask to be mind controlled, right?
III. Smiler going with the pair to help out with another job -- only for things to go a bit lopsided, leading to the trio having to hide in someone's house. Leading to Victor and Smiler hiding together in a small dark closet...and Victor starting to have a panic attack both from the darkness and the confined space reminding him of Bumby and Rutledge respectively. Smiler tries to calm Victor down normally, but doesn't have much success --
So, desperate, they ask Victor to trust them and let them use their powers on him. Victor's naturally reluctant and scared, but agrees because he too doesn't want to give away their position. Smiler thus hits him with a hypnotic gaze, dropping him into a trance until Alice finds them and tells them it's safe to come out. Leading to --
VI. Victor realizing he enjoyed being hypnotized by Smiler and having a lot of "what the everloving fuck" feelings about that. Especially since he can't find any evidence that Smiler made him enjoy it, or made him forget anything while he was under. He eventually talks to Alice and Smiler about it, and Smiler says that probably his brain just liked the lack of anxiety, even given his past history with hypnosis. They then tentatively offer to hypnotize him again, saying they think they might be able to use their powers to help regain his remaining memories -- Victor, after a lot of thought, agrees, with Alice insisting on sticking around to observe and make sure there's no funny business. Smiler thus puts Victor back under, helping him find and recover some more memories --
Leading Alice to realize she enjoyed watching that and have to deal with her own "what the everloving fuck" feelings. XD Fortunately, they all end up talking soon afterward, feelings are put forth, and the trio end up becoming a polycule in the aftermath.
V. Smiler eventually being kidnapped off the street after a sales day by Kelman's minions and brought back to the Sanctuary to be "corrected"...only for Victor and Alice to discover what happened, follow them, and storm the place to get Smiler back. Dr. Kelman and a lot of his staff end up dead as a result, and the poor drugged Smiler is rescued just before being brought into surgery (having had their head shaved beforehand -- Victor reassures them "hair grows" when they realize)
VI. And things ending with the trio continuing their reign of terror over the scum of the East End, with eventual plans to retire and escape to some other country once they're a little older
...you can probably tell which of these I've put more thought into. XD But yes, those are the two ways I'd do Smiler becoming part of the Catch Us If You Can Verse. Next time, we add a couple of people to the polycule as I talk about how I'd do them becoming a part of a certain colorful soulmates AU...
please read this even if you're not indian. especially if you're not indian.
you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.
first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.
now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:
in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.
and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.
and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.
it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:
• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.
• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.
• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.
• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.
• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.
• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.
and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.
what i'm asking:
if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.
if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.
india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.
@weirdkev27 As per your request, here is a fic starring the Ventrue version of Phillianne Tropy, getting interviewed about her Embrace...and the interviewer noticing that her story sounds rather similar to another she's heard...enjoy!
--
[cut to: PHILLIANNE TROPY – Ventrue, pale blonde, pink suit, surprisingly bubbly smile – seated at her desk, expression thoughtful as she leans her chin on her hand]
TROPY: How did I become a vampire? Bit of a personal question, don’t you think? [she chuckles] Oh, don’t look so nervous – I’m one of those Kindred who don’t mind sharing. [she leans back in her chair, tapping her fingers together] Let’s see – back in the mid-1800s, my father and I were living in the Austrian countryside, in a “schloss” – you’d call it a castle – that he’d earned doing work for the emperor and his army. It was a beautiful place to live – the view from my bedroom window was amazing – but it was also a rather lonely one. The nearest village was a pretty lengthy ride through the woods, and there were no other schlosses near ours, so there was no one my own age to visit with. I didn’t have any siblings – my mother died when I was quite young, sadly – and my father spent most of his time busy with the work of running the place. And while we did have plenty of servants, I wasn’t exactly encouraged to make friends with them. [she sighs] Most of my time there was spent wandering around the halls and grounds, making up little games for myself and trying not to be too bored and lonely.
INTERVIEWER: [making notes] I see – it does sound very isolating. You really had no one else to talk to?
TROPY: Not really – just the occasional traveling merchant or farmer who came by to deliver food. Father did try to arrange for the daughter of one of his old army mates, Bertha, to come by once, but right before she was supposed to visit, the poor girl was afflicted with a mysterious wasting disease and died. When I heard the news, it made me feel like I was cursed to be alone! [she shakes her head] Terrible business.
INTERVIEWER: I can imagine – I’d feel the same way. But how does this relate to your Embrace?
TROPY: Well, not long after the news about Bertha, Father and I were dining one night when we heard a crash outside. We ran out to discover an overturned carriage in front of the schloss, and a young lady on the ground, with a woman we presumed to be her mother standing over her. We naturally offered our assistance and had some servants right the carriage while we brought the young lady and her mother inside. The mother told us that they’d been racing to reach the home of an ill relative before she passed, so she couldn’t stay long – but then added that her daughter was of a delicate constitution, and she wasn’t sure if she would be able to continue the journey after that shock. My father was a rather soft-hearted man, and the story combined with my desperate glances at the girl caused him to offer to house the daughter while the mother tended to the relative. [she giggles] The mother promptly went, “Thank you so much, I shouldn’t be gone more than three months, maybe four,” then was out the door before poor Father could raise any sort of protest. He spent at least a week afterward muttering about “duplicitous women” and watching the valuables like a hawk.
INTERVIEWER: [laughing] I mean, can you blame him? I’d be doing the same in his position! It sounds a lot like the “mother” was just looking for any excuse to dump her “daughter” on someone!
TROPY: It does! Though we never did find out why she did it...anyway, the daughter, Carmilla, woke up a little bit later, and after I explained what had happened, we started chatting. Didn’t take us long to realize we had a lot in common, and –
INTERVIEWER: [raising her pen with a frown] Hold up. Carmilla?
TROPY: ...yes?
INTERVIEWER: [squinting at Tropy] As in – the literary Carmilla? The one from the story by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu? The prototypical lesbian vampire? That Carmilla?
TROPHY: [smiling] Oh, you know your vampire literature! I’m so used to everyone just being familiar with Dracula I didn’t even think you’d recognize the name! [she waggles a hand] And to answer your question – sort of. Le Fanu heard our story second-or-third-hand and put his own spin on things. What happened in reality was a lot less “evil monster of forbidden sexuality seduces and drains a young woman almost to the point of death, then has to be put down by strong men” and a lot more “somewhat-secretive Kindred helps lonely young woman figure out her sexuality and develops a mutual infatuation with her, Kindred nearly gets killed by angry man, Kindred agrees to turn young woman after she helps save her, the two end up running away together into the night.”
INTERVIEWER: [making a lot of notes] I see...well, given views on lesbians back then, it doesn’t surprise me the story would get twisted in the retelling. I assume Carmilla murdered a lot fewer people in real life then.
TROPY: [sighs] Yes, she was much more careful about how she fed than Le Fanu made her out to be – but, as you said, the views at the time meant that his version was equal parts horror story and morality tale, so... She didn’t kill any of the maidens in the village, and Bertha... [her expression grows sad] Bertha was an accident. What happened there was that Bertha got genuinely sick from something shortly after meeting Carmilla, and Carmilla was trying to Embrace her to save her life – so to speak – when her father interrupted. It was just terrible timing that killed her.
INTERVIEWER: [making more notes] I’m sorry to hear that. Are you two still in touch? I’d kind of like to get her side of the story, if she’s willing.
TROPY: [shaking her head] We broke up quite a few years ago, and fell out of touch soon afterward. I do hope she’s still around, though. She made my last few months as a human very happy, along with my first few years as a vampire. [she grins] I wouldn’t be the woman I am today without her.
CAMERMAN: [from behind the camera] Hey, uh, as long as we’re talking about her – can you tell us if the Camarilla is named after her? I mean, it’s like one letter difference.
TROPY: [laughs] No, no – that’s just a weird coincidence! Remember, her actual name isn’t Carmilla – it’s Mircalla. She just considered it a a fun game to use anagrams of her original name whenever she took on a new mortal identity.
INTERVIEWER: [blandly] Whereas you prefer puns?
TROPY: [blinks]
INTERVIEWER: Come on – “Phillianne Tropy?” I knew that had to be a fake name as soon as I heard it.
TROPY: [narrows her eyes] It’s a real name now that I’m using it. Now do you want the full story of how I became a Ventrue or not?
I've seen a bunch of "fandom etiquette" posts on my dash today and I'm going to say something that is maybe going to be unpopular but;
The absolutely pervasive mentality that unwanted criticism or critique shouldn't be given and should be ignored is why fans of color don't stay in fan spaces.
And I am not going to mince words here:
A lot of you are racist. A lot of your fan works are racist.
That might have been difficult to hear. And if it was, you should probably reflect on why that was.
"Fandom etiquette" has created a space where fans of color either bite our tongues and eventually leave or say something, get dogged on, and then eventually leave.
So much of "fandom etiquette" seems to be about insulating creatives from Feeling Bad and hostility to any kind of negative feedback is a pretty big contributor to why bigotry festers in these spaces.
#imo the potluck analogy applies- it would be rude to critique someone's icing technique at a potluck bc it wasn't as good as at the bakery #but if they had decorated their cupcakes w hate symbols it wouldn't be rude to tell them that's gross and gtfo #in fact it would be inappropriate to NOT say anything in that situation #or to complain that another guest who did point it out was 'ruining everyone's potluck' #and pointing out racism in fan works is 100% the second thing not the first! (via destructions-daughter)
There's also a tendency to conflate anyone who critiques general trends with bad faith randos. Like, there is fandom behavior that is 100% racist and should be talked about, but there are also trends of racist/sexist/ableist preferences.
If I say "I am uncomfortable with fandom's tendency to write trans men as feminine and submissive" I do not mean "I think every person who writes feminine submissive trans men should be chased with pitchforks". I don't even mean "any cis-person who writes feminine or submissive trans men should be chased with pitchforks". I mean "I would like writers to seriously think about why this is so common, why they write that, and if it fairly and genuinely engages with what it means to be a trans man, or if they just think it's hot when submissive people have vaginas and didn't want to write omegaverse of m/f".
Similarly, when people say "fandom is systemically less interested in black characters, less willing to give flat black characters rich fanon than flat white characters, and less interested in black characters in ships", the response is not to explain why you, personally, just happen to like popular white guy in that fanon. Your job is to look at yourself and ask if you tend to "just happen to be more interested" in the popular white guy across fandoms, be honest, and start unpacking that. Sometimes it's easier to love the flat character who's already getting 10,000 fics with headcanons and art and meta.
If somebody says "I wish there were more gluten free options at the potluck. I hate always showing up and not finding anything I can eat*", they are not asking you to throw your cake in the trash and weep. They do not want to hear your long speech about how actually this is your grandmother's recipe, and you've tried it with rice flour actually, but it just didn't work. You think about what you can do, and you listen to how they feel.
*The metaphor here not being that you can't read fic that isn't "good rep". The metaphor here is that it can be isolating to be in spaces where nobody is trying to make sure people like you are welcome.
to anyone in the areas impacted by the wildfire smoke, my #1 biggest piece of advice as someone whos been dealing with wildfire smoke in the NW united states for years, is build yourself a Corsi-Rosenthal Cube
they perform as well as expensive HEPA air cleaners, and are comparatively VERY inexpensive. all you need is a box fan, 4 air filters, a piece of cardboard, and some duct tape!!!!
i think it took us maybe a half hour to put ours together, if that, and we replace the filters every 3 months. it's really made a HUGE difference, both when the air quality is bad, but also with our allergies
Also just a handy, DIY air filter in general, if a bit bulky. For a less bulky and cheaper (but also less effective) solution, you can simply tape one filter to the fan, cut a shroud if you'd like.
just FYI, this is quite literally what the climate scientists at my work who specialized in wildfire smoke impacts recommend. it works great, it's cheap to make, and it will make a noticeable impact on your air quality.
i have asthma & keep one of these running in my room perpetually. after I set it up the difference in my sleep quality was pretty much night and day. Dont waste your time on proprietary air filters; SIMPLY bust out the duct tape
I accidentally did a Wikipedia binge about 1st wave feminism and fashion and stumbled upon the 1890s bicycle suit. Do people know about this? Why didn't anyone tell me about this? This is dope as hell.
Wikipedia talks about the bloomers and the leg-o-mutton sleeves, but I'm also noticing a lot of these outfits have absolute supervillain lapels, which I also like a lot.
Panic! At The Disco - The Greatest Show (from The Greatest Showman: Reimagined) [Official Audio] by Panic! At The Disco
Yup, you're actually getting a new song for today's Song Saturday! (Well, "new" in the sense that I haven't featured it before, the song itself is seven years old.) This is something that's been in my Likes on YouTube for a while, and which I happened to listen to again while getting dressed one morning recently. And while I was listening to it, all I could think was --
"Well, this has Smiler vibes." XD No, seriously, it was very easy for me to picture my Smiler Alton OC, especially the ones who are traveling salespeople, singing this song -- particularly the beginning. "Ladies and gents, this is the moment you've waited for" does sound like a line they might use to get people's attention for their products! And the whole pre-chorus bit, especially the first four lines (thank you Genius Lyrics):
Don't fight it, it's comin' for you, runnin' at ya
It's only this moment, don’t care what comes after
Your fever dream, can’t you see it gettin' closer?
Just surrender ’cause you feel the feelin' takin' over
Yeah, I can totally see them either standing in front of or weaving through a crowd, using those lyrics to pump everyone up and get them excited for what's coming next. :D I'll definitely need to keep this song in mind the next time I write Smiler pitching a product!
