VirgoNowhere

24|| random reblogs of stuff I like

[fakelawyerbug]

Imagine Celine post Rumi's birth at the Hanok going through records trying to secretly find anything she can about small demons or half-demons. Rumi, bundled up in a sling against her front hidden from the elder hunters that live there still.

Celine discovering that Rumi is not the first half demon. She's just the first half demon that's been allowed to live.

Celine vowing immediately that absolutely no one else will ever know about Rumi's patterns.

Celine putting Rumi in a wool-knit hat to cover her dark purple curls and a onesie to cover the two small lines on her arm before heading to the hanok to go through the archives, trying to find anything that can help her figure out how to even being to raise a child like her.

(Do the patterns mean that she already belongs to Gwi-ma? Celine wonders. Do they mean she's already lost her soul?)

And the archives are absolutely no help.

Rumi isn't the first child born from a human and a demon. Far from it in fact. The other children -- infants, if she's being precise -- never live for very long.

Of the 107 demon-human children known to the archives, 56 were stillborn, 31 died within the first six months, none had lived past five. Most of them had simply...faded, growing weaker and weaker no matter what their caretaker had tried. 11 had tried to eat the souls of their caretakers. 4 had shifted into something so inhuman that they were put out of their misery. 21 had been drowned (or abandoned or smothered or) -- reasons unknown.

Celine holds Rumi close, tucks the baby to her chest; wondering if it would be kinder to kill the baby now than to see her starve or twist into something monstrous or for her to be taken away and abandoned on the side of a mountain.

"Just breath, unnie," Miyeong had said. "No one is expecting us to save the honmoon overnight."

Celine had nodded. "One day at a time right?"

"One day at a time, Rumi-ya," Celine murmurs into the soft curls of Rumi's hair. "We'll figure it out, the two of us."

[frozenwolftemplar]

Post-canon, Huntrix is going through the archives. They chose this day on purpose; Celine's in the other side of the country on business and is guaranteed to not surprise them, and while they have plans to talk with her about...everything, they're just- not ready yet.

("When do you think you'll be ready, Rumes? It's been months." "...I don't know. Just- not right now.")

They're looking for information on half-demons. For a while they don't find any and are on the point of declaring Rumi a first-of-her-kind creation (one Zoey the field researcher at heart is very excited to document, even if it turns out patterns are the beginning and end of Rumi's demon-ness post-new-Honmoon) when they find the scrolls, shoved all the way in the back of a chest, which itself is shoved back in a corner, almost like someone was trying to hide it.

Or at least forget about it.

They unroll one, read, and the quiet of the archives changes from that of a scholarly library to a tomb.

107 known demon children, none living past age five, and over half of those dying before life really had a chance to start. 20 (Zoey did the math) demon children being lost to the hellish half of their parentage. 20 children dying horrific deaths.

107 known demon children- 108 now- and only one lived.

The cool of the archives sinks into their stomachs. Zoey's lip is quivering, and Mira has paled like she's one wrong move from being sick. Rumi's hands are nearly creasing the vellum, her grip has become rictus stiff as the implication of the scroll- that she was never meant to live- settles on her.

"Do you think Celine knows about this?" Zoey asks in a hesitant whisper that cracks through the quiet.

Rumi's about to reply with an automatic 'no,' because surely if Celine had seen this- well, Rumi wouldn't be here reading it; Celine was a Hunter to her core, and she would have done her duty rather than risk her or someone else's soul being consumed by an abomination.

After all, 20 caregivers before had slain their charges like rabid dogs.

But then her eye catches on a note at the very bottom, written in ink that's not dark and discolored with age and in an unmistakable hand.

"Addendum May 2010 by Kang Celine: if a halfling lives long enough, they can be chosen by the Honmoon."

The cool of the archives becomes stifling. Rumi jerks to her feet, the scroll falling to the floor. "I'm- I need some air."

All through her walk through the corridors to the garden, the realization roars in her head.

Celine knew. Celine knew the risks, knew what I may become, knew how it was all supposed to end and tried anyway.

Why?

A photo frame on the wall of the den catches her eye as she passes: her and Celine, when she was maybe five or six, at a park; judging by how Celine's in her work clothes it's at the end of work day; judging by how young Rumi is, it's when she was just starting up Sunlight Entertainment and was always tired when she came home for the day. Rumi must had begged to go to the park and Celine, exhausted, had agreed to take her. It's one of the rare photos of the two of them together. She's looking at the camera, gap-toothed and grinning with ice cream smeared around her mouth, and Celine is looking at her, eyes soft and full of-

Oh.

How had she never noticed?

-love.

[pokkin]

Had a dream that markiplier was struck by lightning and imbued with electrical abilities. People were encouraging him to use his powers for good but he just went back to playing videogames. All the videos were about three minutes long because as soon as he got jumpscared there'd be a brilliant blue flash and he'd fry his computer.

[anik]

i love this guy

[agentofdeterioration]

The Catalogue of Ships in the Iliad is, to a modern audiences, what classicists have called “boring as hell,” but I can’t help but think that if you were watching Homer recite it it would have been more like when comedians go, “anybody here tonight from Chicago?” and the Chicagoans in the back start cheering

Homer’s like, “and there were forty black ships from… LOCRIS” and the Locrians in the crowd start going absolutely nuts

[ohevoyev]

why are british people always so mad when people make jokes about their accents. sorry you say yewchube. it’s funny though innit

[bees-and-mice-and-frogs-and]

This is something I’ve been dying to talk about.

There’s something called culture. People (especially USAmericans) think of culture as cultural dress, cultural food, cultural music. These are culture, but they are only the very superficial aspects of it. Like the icing on your cake. Far more deep rooted is the more meaty bits of culture: the attitudes, the ideas, the taboos.

There’s a guy on tiktok who has done a series that shows this very well, of Germans Vs Irish. In one video the German offers the Irish person two kinds of tea, green or black. The Irish person keeps putting off the choice with things like “Oh sure whatever is easiest”, “Which have you more of?” and, “Ah sure I don’t want to cause a fuss” whereas the German just wants a straight answer. This is a cultural difference of politeness.

Here in the UK, accents mark your class very openly. They let everyone know where you’re from (though this has become less pronounced in the last 50 years,) and what your background is. A lot of people (especially northerners, but also a fair contingent of working class southerners) face discrimination on the basis of their accents.

Some of us (myself included) even change register (though I believe USAmericans call it code switching) in and out of our regional accent and a close approximation of RP. We learn to do it because it makes us seem more intelligent (even though it shouldn’t) and helps us be taken more seriously.

Thus, our country carries a lot of baggage when it comes to accents. Especially those of the working class who have had their accents made fun of, or have faced discrimination based on it.

So when someone outside the country (usually USAmericans) makes fun of our accents they’re stepping on a lot of cultural taboos and boundaries. Especially because the “It’s Chewsday, gonnae wot-ch sum yewchube innit” is a working class accent.

Now, that’s not to say we can’t take a joke, but this is the kind of joke you share with someone who you have been friends with for a while. My boyfriend often will pick up on the way I say certain words, in much the same fashion I pick up on his idiosyncrasies of speech (English isn’t his first language so he says stuff like close the lights, which is adorable.) If we aren’t predisposed to liking you, then the joke you’re trying to make is more like an insult.

The way I like to think of it is if you were in a pub, and made those sorts of jokes to someone. If they knew you, and they liked you, they’d probably laugh along. If they didn’t like you or know you, they would punch you in the jaw.

HOWEVER: I recognise this post as a joke. I don’t personally find these jokes offensive, but then no one really makes fun of me or considers me stupid because of my accent.

[badolmen]

Oh that actually makes a lot of sense! It’s like how it’s assumed in media that the southeastern Appalachian (‘hick’ or ‘redneck’) accent is audible shorthand for ‘this American character is stupid.’ That sentiment reinforces negative stereotypes about that region which has historically been home to a large working class population that has suffered from an underfunded education system and other systematic abuses. It is ultimately an underhanded joke, but not everyone from America (or even the region necessarily) considers it to be offensive despite its classist nature.

[mighty-meerkat]

yes, that’s basically it! it grinds my gears when certain Very Online Americans will quite rightly say that europeans have no right to mock the us’ lack of healthcare/gun control and working-class accents…but then turn around and act like working-class british accents and foods are hilarious and should be mocked ‘bc of colonialism and the bp oil spill’ as though all british people are directly responsible for the oil spill. and then some of them conveniently forget that there are in fact british people of colour - in the wake of brexit, a smug american blog defended saying that british people upset by the referendum were getting ‘karma’ for the british empire, even when british poc pointed out that they were the ones most likely to be negatively affected by brexit, by saying ‘obviously i don’t mean you’, to which said british poc responded ‘THEN WHY DID YOU SAY BRITISH PEOPLE’

[stormclouds-chainmail]

The hatred, by the privileged of England, towards Scotland and any Scottish accent was so pervasive that my mother wouldn’t let my brother and I develop a Scottish accent. She was born in Jamaica but her family moved to London when she was 11. She moved to Scotland when she was pregnant with me. Both my brother and I were born in Scotland and spent out entire childhood there. Mum was adamant that neither of us would have the local accent. It was “common” and “low class” and “would hinder us in the future”. She used to fine us half our pocket money if we used any Scottish slang or said anything in a Scottish accent. I got bullied at school for having a “posh English accent” but she thought my job prospects were more important than a modicum of happiness at school. My outsider status was doubled by that. I was brown and “English”.

Even now, after decades in Scotland, I still don’t sound Scottish. The English hear a slight lilt but that disappears as soon as I spend any time with them.

I feel alienated on two fronts now, skin colour and accent. And one of those was avoidable if it hadn’t been for the prejudice against against perceived lower class accents. Even in Jamaica Mum learnt to speak in an English accent like the white girls at her school. She could switch between the two. Jamaican with her parents, posh English everywhere else. Why couldn’t I have had that?

[amuseoffyre]

The fact that a lot of regional actors are expected to code-switch their accent patterns the a kind of neutral English accent in Britain shows how pervasive the classism is.

When Christopher Eccleston was cast as the Doctor in Doctor Who, people were surprised that he used his own northern accent, instead of performing with an accent like every Doctor before him. That was only 15-ish years ago.

Even now, this still happens - James McAvoy made a very vocal protest a couple of years back about a critic who complained about the use of Scots accents and only applauded the “plummy English” accent of one character in a play.

Regional and working class accents were used as joke accents for decades in British media. Look up old broadcasts and notice how many people only speak RP English (ie. the formal pronunciation that smacks of elocution lessons and enunciation). As media accessibility and productions expanded, there have been more regional accents showing up, but it’s still a big problem.

[sillyjimjam]

Putsimply when you mock “innit” you’re mocking poor people and often people of colour. Boris Johnson doesn’t say “innit bruv”.

[phoenix-ghost-town-deactivated2]

I would like to add that there was a study by the Worcester College that found that people talking with a Birmingham accent were twice as likely to be accused of a crime as people who speak RP. Accents carry huge baggage in Britain.

[official-linguistics-post]

official linguistics post

[wyrmicelli]

me tongue-deep in a sandalwood candle: 🤤

the tjmaxx employee loading a fourth tranquilizer dart into their blowgun: i need backup

[snowown]

[throo]

Wh-what do you mean it’s from a birthday cake

[throo]

We could have been eating him

[hadesisqueer]

Two World Cup finalists from opposing teams in this fucking picture, this sport isn't real

[hadesisqueer]

Context for anyone who is wondering: Lamine Yamal's parents won an UNICEF raffle for a charity photoshoot in which Barça players posed with kids, and 5 month old Lamine happened to get 20yo Messi. Which is like. Literally insane

[joyflameball]

[thestuffedalligator]

There’s a certain folkloric idea that if you die at sea, your soul is sort of. Inextricably stuck in the sea. Because your body is irretrievable, your soul is also irretrievable, down out of the reach of the gods who look at the surface of the world. In Norse mythology, they said that the souls of sailors who died at sea are caught in the sea-goddess Rán’s net and dragged into her domain, a distinct and separate afterlife alongside Hel and Valhalla. Davy Jones Locker. The funayūrei. A lot of cultures agree that once sea has a hold on you, even when your body has rotted and dwindled and been made food for crabs, it still won’t let you go.

Do you think we’re going to wind up saying the same thing about astronauts.

[zooophagous]

I have been a sheep caretaker for like two days and already I'm like. Wow. I get it.

I get why these were some of the earliest mammals to ever be domesticated. They look up to humans with this sort of dumb but all at once innocent and pure and trusting expression. They're happy to see you. They follow you around. They like to be rubbed under their chins. Maybe its just some latent Scottish highland shepherd DNA I still have in me but I look at my sheep charges and suddenly I see why the love of God for humanity is so often described as a shepherd and his sheep. I'd fight a wolf for these guys. I'd go way the Hell out of my way for them. I'd carry their young for miles on my own back.

[upward-bound]

nearly 80k reblogs and how many of you eat lamb

[zooophagous]

The ancient shepherds I'm referencing also ate lamb lol

[selkypostergirl]

love my downward spiral :) #myspiral #descending

[selkypostergirl]

#descending

[selkypostergirl]

#descending

[selkypostergirl]

#descending

[selkypostergirl]

#descending

[selkypostergirl]

#descending

[selkypostergirl]

#descending

[selkypostergirl]

[selkypostergirl]

[doodlezandoodlez]

kara doing all of that for her dog is completely understandable btw. like on a surface level yeah most people would go to hell and back if their pet was unreasonably injected with a lethal dose of poison, but krypto is her only connection to her home other than clark, and one of her main sources of comfort after everything she went through. like he was a raggedy stray who ran up to her and her only during her moms funeral where she instantly picked him up and took him in, stuck with her when her father sent her to earth, kept her company on a planet where she was grappling with her sudden superpowers under the yellow sun and her only living relative spoke a language she couldn't understand at the time, and went with her as she travelled from planet to planet to drown her sorrows, and you're telling me you wouldn't go berserk for that dog if you were her??

"home is wherever you are, buddy"? yeah, yeah it is

[solargeist]

a dream I had

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Metahuman with super healing powers whose entire job is that once a week they go to a nearby hospital and are put into a medically induced coma for 24 hours while all their organs and blood are harvested, and kept there until they've healed up again.

They get paid a small stipend by the Heroes Council for this, and they live off that.

No crime fighting, no obvious heroics, and they only took a Super Identity because it's technically hero's council policy. Nobody's ever seen them in a cape.

Every so often the Heroes council will release an official report to the public, and there'll be another bunch of news articles wondering how some unknown super calling themselves 'Meat Factory' somehow consistently holds the record for most lives saved across the city.

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

It is essential to my vision that they are not at all sanctimonious about this.

Like, they regularly act like they're getting away with something. They joke about how they get to earn money in their sleep. They show up to their hospital visits in deliberately ridiculous disguises, on the excuse that they need to 'protect their identity'.

Part of their employment contract is that they get served the same post-operation vanilla ice cream that they normally hand out on the childrens' ward. Also a sticker. Their overnight bag is covered in stickers.

[shinyhappygoth]

Okay, Meat Factory is awesome and hilarious, but if they're being harvested for and regenerating absolutely everything, may I suggest an alternative super name: Theseus.

[guabiju]

Tumblr sexy man of the year if you people weren't cowards

[ube-kun]

Not mama, but another baby

[yesbothways]

To me, the most compelling scene in the new Supergirl was when Kara speaks with her father after seeing that he is making her an escape pod. The dialogue is in Kryptonian. And that is the most poignant and elegant dialogue in the film to me. Kara's lines and the emotion put into her saying to him, "I am only one tiny life," and her calm, clear articulation of her vision of herself being allowed to die beside her people and her mother and father was so profound and existential. And when he explains why they need to her live, you know she would agree. The price, the sheer weight, the endless gravity of that is so obvious. I am honestly not used to that depth in these superhero films. Both her desire and that of her parents felt so authentic. That conveyed tragedy and profound love. An impossible situation. A critical, defining experience. That was the heart of her character to me. When she flew up into space to scream in silence, that was a compelling image. That dialogue, though, hit me deep in my soul. This film would have been worth it for that exchange alone for me. I just can't think of anything I've seen that was like that before.