I'm just gonna leave this here

"And then, the way it comes so easily to me, the way I'm better at it than the rest of them—does that make me even less human than Embry or Sam? Sometimes I'm afraid that I'm losing myself."

I made an annotation about this, but it feels like a parallel of sorts: Jacob having a much easier time with adapting to being a werewolf, because in a literal sense, he is genetically "born" to be a werewolf; then there's Bella later in Breaking Dawn where everything is so easy for her and she ~conveniently~ skips the newborn phase she dreaded since Eclipse because all this time she was "born to be a vampire".

The difference here is that Jacob is horrified about it his "born to be a werewolf"-ness whereas Bella revels in it to the point she wants to laugh/sing(?) It's such a stark contrast with Jacob feeling "less" human and fearing the loss of his self (and possible humanity) because he's far more natural at being a werewolf. Then you get Bella, who is far more natural at being a vampire, is dismissive of her humanity (I distinctly remember her constantly talking down about her human self, e.g. limiting weakness, hideous human, etc.) yet she...adjusts around humans just fine? Wouldn't embracing her vampirism mean she has a harder time passing for human? Would've loved to see her struggle with accidentally breaking things because she underestimated her strength, "walked" a little too fast in one of her visits to Charlie that he freaks out, but we don't get that.

Maybe it's because I've read stories with vampires who struggle with humans/human sensibilities because they've been vampires for so long or bask in their nature that they're so far removed from humans so I kind of expected (wanted it) with Bella to some degree. Instead she's so far removed from all the downsides inherently with vampirism that she's hardly a vampire.

Yeah this is an interesting parallel! Jacob's a natural and it disturbs him; Bella's a natural and she revels in it.

And the thing is, for me personally, Jacob's take is much more interesting and what I find compelling about 'monster' stories. I don't want to read about werewolves and vampires who are 100% happy with their fate that's not why I read books about them! I want the angst, the who am I? the what have I become?

"Wow, being a vampire is easy and fun, what was everyone so worried about? Why did you describe it as a fate you had to raise above? A destiny none of you wanted?" could maybe be nice in an 'awkward teen finds herself' sort of way but as a vampire story? Especially when from Edward's POV I was getting all the 'woe, vampirism' stuff I wanted, it was personally a let down.

Like, sure, Emmett and Alice are happy vampires. But Emmett still had to leave his big, loving human family behind. Alice had her memory erased and was alone for years. Bella just wakes up two days (not even the full three!) later and continues her life with her husband and in-laws and dad and best friend and new baby. Her adjustment to vampirism is so easy and boring that we have to tack on a whole new plot with Irina seeing Renesmee and tattling to the Volturi.

Jacob worrying about it, the whole thing with watching his friends join this 'gang' and not understanding it until he was pulled into it, too. That's good stuff! That's the monster content I want! (Even though the shifters just like, objectively aren't monsters IMHO. They turn into big wolves, not Creatures, and they do it to protect people. Not monstrous).

You get a Yellow Jack

Source details and larger version.

In the credits, Guillermo thanks the following:

Mary Shelley, who wrote the book (obviously)

Bernie Wrightson, whose illustrations in the 1983 graphic novel were the inspiration for the Creature

Boris Karloff, who played the Creature in the 1931 film

james asked him about it one night when they were in bed. regulus simply answered, “i love you, more than i have loved anyone else.”

[ boys & broomsticks. ⋆˙⟡ for the @drarrymicrofic november prompt: bolt | title from the hand by annabelle dinda (which i’ve been listening to on repeat) ]

drarry | word count: 338 | rating: t

_ _ _

Harry knocks on the door of the conference room, thoughts collected, file a subtle shield, grounding.

“Alright, good news,” he says, stepping inside. “You’ve passed Tier I testing. It meets all of the baseline regulations.”

“Of course.”

Draco’s voice (in spite of its lilting self-assurance) has taken on a professional slant, an attempt at objectivity that belies itself.

Harry taps his biro against the clipboard, gaze trailing over the documentation— the careful typeset and photocopied marginal notes, scrawled in neat, familiar script.

“Surprisingly swift.”

“Surprisingly?” Draco echoes, brow arch.

Teasing, Harry realizes.

He can’t help the laugh that slips at that.

“Actually, assuming full approval, it’ll be the fastest daily use model on market.”

Draco’s answering smile isn’t one Harry’s seen before: Small. Proud. (Together— small & proud.)

“Yes, I’m aware.”

Harry flips through the spec sheet, reviewing the notes again. His brows draw down at a single line, slid into a list of bullet points without fanfare.

“Flame repellent?”

Draco shuffles, slight.

“Yes.” The air shifts as he takes in Harry’s expression, the careful concentration. “Something wrong? If you view Appendix F—”

Harry waves a hand, dismissive, half-apologetic.

“No, nothing wrong. It’s just not a standard feature.”

Draco hums. “It’s warranted.”

“Sure,” Harry murmurs, absent, trying to recall off-hand any existing models with similar charms, anything within the standing regulations that might run counter. He leafs through the pages of the manual, the appendices bowing open.

“You’ve done testing for it?”

He spares an upward glance, eyes flicking over the frames of his glasses. Then falters.

Draco’s throat has gone pink, his lower lip dropping around a loose breath.

Suddenly, the feel of heat— roar and cacophony, sweltering, sweat-slick down spines, knees bracketing thighs and fingers wrenching into robes— ash, and smoke as heavy as storm clouds, air dry as bone, burning.

A blink. There— & gone.

Draco’s gaze cools, effortful, the flush at his collar forced into easing, ebbing.

“Extensive.”

_ _ _

Approval: Firebolt Fiend (D. Malfoy)

instead, all her brainspace spent on that song would be replaced with the vivid memories of roman gladiator, taylaurius velox. she's able to hide this at first, but her music begins to take on a gradually romaner and romaner tint. at first, people are like "damn, she's getting REALLY conservative, huh" and other people are like "wow, she's so deep, she knows what a rubicon is" but eventually travis kelce leaves her out of nowhere (he wasn't sure if dating someone possessed by a roman gladiator made him gay or not and anyway he was getting sick of being like "we're going to play the lions" and taylor being like "LIONS? WHERE?") and taylor publishes an entire brutus themed album about this betrayal and it's beginning to weird people out

and so eventually travis kelce is getting like, bomb threats sent to his family for leaving taylor and eventually he's like "okay, okay, i left her because she kept having all these vivid nightmares of gladatorial combat and she kept saying that football was giving her the ick because we never actually killed anybody for the glory of rome" and then he just gets more bomb threats because he left a struggling woman during a mental health crisis

and eventually taylor is writing music about her forbidden roman senator lover and her fanbase is either whittled WAY down or WAY up because people want to watch this trainwreck happen (or maybe she influences culture so hard that we're just all really into rome now) but she's being super cagey about the name of this roman senator. until. and now here's the twist:

weird al has been getting all of the same vivid memories of taylaurius velox. and he still has all his memories of her old songs. so he's writing all these detailed song parodies of taylor swift songs that don't exist anymore including specific details about their shared gladiatorial reality that taylor has never shared with anybody else. including that her lover's name was publius, and she's been calling him Poob for short

at this point a lot of original swifties are leaving. they could do the brutus stuff, but they really can't survive poob. taylor makes a clapping back at the haters song including the lyric "these bitches don't know publius" and it ends up all over all sorts of merch. there's a renewed archaeological interest in roman gladatorial combat

most importantly, the internet discourse is the best it's ever been. does this make taylor swift transmasc? is travis kelce problematic for leaving his fiancee while she gradually morphs into a roman gladiator? is this good queer representation? if taylaurius velox was a gay man, does that mean the gaylors were technically correct? is weird al morally wrong for capitalizing off of her music if she cant remember it anymore? was weird al sent by god to torment taylor swift?

Stellan Skarsgård & Lesley Manville