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inkyblinders · 3 years

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Dancing with the Devil: Part II

Part 1

Pairing: Luca Changretta x Reader

Author’s note: This was so embarrassing to write not because of smut...but because I’m crushing hard on Adrien Brody right now. And I can’t even share this obsession with anyone because… he’s kinda niche? Someone please reassure me that I’m just going through a phase because dear God why can’t I stop watching Darjeeling Limited just to see him ahhh.

The story picks up right after the end of Part 1, so I recommend reading that first. Comments, likes, and reblogs are always appreciated, let me know what you think!

Summary: Following your meeting with Luca Changretta, you face the Shelby family and Tommy's reaction. (2.6k words)

Warnings: Smut, angst, swearing

Tag: Let me know if you would like to be added or removed

@anythingwriter, @rrtxcmt, @shut-chan

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You barely make it into your bedroom before he is all over you. The buttons of his crisp, tailored shirt fall like marbles. He moans when you nip the skin of his neck, right over his tattoo of the black cross, legs tangled together like a depraved waltz.

When he grinds into you, you shudder deliciously at the hardness that meets between your bare thighs.

How easy would it be for him to kill you after he fucks you, leaving your corpse twisted in the bedsheets. You know Tommy would find it when he eventually remembers that he has not seen you for days.

“Signorita, you know I come to you with the most honorable of intentions.” He murmurs, as if sensing your thoughts.

“You're not a very honorable man then.” A laugh that turns into a gasp as he trails his hand lower and strokes between your legs. No, not very honorable at all. And pretty soon all thoughts of honor are forgotten as he coaxes a moan from your throat.

His fingers are magic. The cold outline of his onyx rings scald your skin each time he crooks a finger inside you. Knowing exactly what you need, seeking your depths, swirling, rising to rub the clit, all the while exploring the flushed expanse of your body with his other hand.

Shoulder to breasts to hips and back again.

Without meaning to, you’ve let this stranger take control of your entire being. But God, do you crave this pure ecstasy.

It’s as if he wants to know precisely how much you can take before you're undone. So when you clench around his hand and feel the familiar ache he is right there, helping you ride the wave of pleasure, never breaking the rhythm of his thrusting fingers even as you curse, rake your nails down his back.

You almost cry out his name when you come. But you bite into his shoulder instead.

“Sweetheart, I’m gonna have to hear you next time.” He growls.

His words barely register as you come down from the high. Aftershocks spark like tiny flames. Now you are wearing his scent as much as he is wearing yours.

“Be inside me,” You whimper, tugging at his soft hair, urging him for more.

He rasps an empty warning, “What's my name, sweetheart?”

Of course. All this time you've never acknowledged you know of his identity. There was no use in trying to hide it now.

“Luca,” you breathe. And his eyes gleam with approval.

With a snap of his hips, he plunges into silky warmth. The fullness stretches you to your limit, head thrown back. It’s good, so good. Every withdrawal of his thrust is a blessing because you know what follows next. It’s him inside you again, wrapping you with his touch and the scent of tobacco and roses.

“Does your Tommy fuck you like this? Like the way I do?”

“He’s not mine.” You choke out, punishing Luca with a bite on the neck that elicits a chuckle rather than a yelp of pain.

He kisses you, your foreheads pressed together. “A damn shame for him.” Soon he starts to quicken his pace, going faster, more erratic, his breathing heavy upon your ears.

Yes, you urge him, come on, now.

And this is your chance. In a flash you roll on top of him, pinning down his shoulders with your hands. He tries to arch up but you stop him with a knee.

“How many men did you bring, Changretta?” You ask, making your voice rough to mask the lust, pressing your hands around his jugular.

It's a pleasure to see him like this. Shocked at your actions, maybe even scared. Naked with want but unable to do anything to relieve it. Unless he tells the truth.

“Fifteen. Why baby, am I not enough for you?” He laughs breathlessly, hands trailing goosebumps along your hips, tracing the contour of your breasts. The jib doesn't hurt you. After all, men have said worse. He tries to surge into you again, and his hot member pulses on your thighs.

“Do you swear on your honor? That you’re telling the truth?” You insist, squeezing him harder. The touch brands his skin as much as it brands yours.

In a voice full of self-mockery he says, “Yes I swear on my honor. Now let me in, clever Isabel.”

You take him in you, the sensations amplify a thousandfold. You try teasing him, going slowly in and out, but soon you are caught up in the sensation of him completely at your mercy and you ride him, faster, until you keen his name, until he too is undone.

****

Through the haze of dawn, he stumbles out of bed and gets dressed. Before he dons his hat once more, Luca leans down to whisper in your ear, as soft as sin.

“You tell Tommy Shelby he may expect a visitor in the night. I'm coming for him as the angel of death. The vendetta has begun…” He kisses your hair.

“I’ll see you soon, sweetheart.”

The door clicks shut. You rise from your pillow, and a small, hard lump rolls next to your hand.

It is a signet ring of onyx and gold.

****

“So we all get a death letter from the mafia, but Izzy gets jewelry?” Ada huffs as the family filters into the betting shop. As usual, Tommy holds court at the front of the table, brooding over a glass of whiskey. You roll your eyes as Arthur and John try to cover their snort of laughter with a cough.

“If you want it, you can have it, Ada. He’s probably planning on killing me too.”

“Doubt it. You’re not a Shelby, and we’re the ones who killed his father. Well, someone did, to be precise.” She shoots a bitter look at Tommy, who doesn’t even have the decency to look ashamed.

Despite Ada’s matter-of-fact tone, the words cut to your heart. Not a Shelby.

It’s not her fault. No one knows you’ve been sleeping with Tommy, not even your dearest friend. It’s a lonely secret to keep, but at least you can look at the family square in the eye and not have to worry about the things they say behind your back. Or worse, pity you.

You can handle the violence and moral ambiguity of Tommy’s business. But to lose the love and respect of the Shelbys would break your heart.

“What was the mafia man like, Izzy?” Finn asks eagerly. It’s obvious the boy is thinking of the dashing, gun-wielding gangsters he’s seen in the pictures.

“He was a wrinkly old brute. Kind of like your arsehole brother Tommy.” A smile to take the edge off the insult. But Tommy only looks off into space. As if he hasn't paid attention to this entire conversation.

Arthur clears his throat. “Now, let’s get one thing straight. It was me who pulled the trigger on his dad, so the blame falls on me.” He pats Linda’s hand even as his voice is heavy with guilt.

“No one’s blaming you Arthur, you weren’t the brains behind the operation, no offense.” Ada says. He is about to say something when Polly cuts in.

“Stop squabbling like children. We’ve all voted for truce, despite everything Tommy’s done to us—” The words nearly having us hanged hover pointedly in the air. “—So let’s focus on the matter at hand." She fixes Tommy with a sharp look.

“What’s the news from Camden Town? Will Solomons help us?”

“No.” He says tiredly. And all of a sudden you feel sorry for teasing him. He look gaunt. There are shadows under his eyes, even more so than usual. Without you to remind him to eat, you can imagine his diet for the past few days consisted more of alcohol and cigarettes than anything substantial.

“Spent three hours on a fucking tour of his bakery and another pretending to drink his piss-poor rum. I think he was trying to get me sloshed so I’d forget what I came for.” Tommy rubs his head.

“He’s refusing to send his men to help. Said he’s not going to go after another oppressed people.”

“Did you tell him the Italians are rounding up Jews in their country as we speak?” Polly asks incredulously.

“Wouldn’t make a difference to Alfie. Besides, that’s just an excuse. He’s really just a fucking coward.”

Polly looks troubled at this, as does the rest of the family. Everyone had been counting on Alfie’s friendship with Tommy, however peculiar, to help them with the vendetta. What they hadn’t expected was his extreme sense of self-perseverance. How are they going to protect themselves now?

“Before everyone panics, I’d like to say something.” Tommy clears his throat, setting down the whisky.

“As you may all know, two nights ago our Izzy encountered Mr. Changretta in the Garrison. He bought her a drink and asked her to deliver an official beginning of the vendetta.” He chooses this time to finally look at you. You hold his gaze until he looks shiftily away.

“We can also assume that he has been scoping out Small Heath, looking for any weaknesses on our turf. Now, Izzy has something to share with you all.”

You stand up uncertainly. The last time a woman other than Polly tried to speak her mind at the table it had been Esme, who still refuses to come to the betting shop unless Tommy is not here.

“While Mr. Changretta was, er, indisposed at the Garrison, I found some items in his coat that I think could be useful.” You fish out a passport and a stack of papers from your skirt pockets.

“Good job, Izzy! Oh, I knew we could count on you more than my idiot brother.” Ada beams.

“Becoming a right little spy, eh?” John ruffles your hair good-naturedly. As everyone gathers around, Polly gives a low whistle.

“Goodness, if this is your definition of an ugly brute, I wonder who’ll really catch your fancy, darling.”

You flush. The documents were obtained shortly after Luca had fallen asleep. It was an exercise in agility, trying to extricate yourself from his tangle of limbs, especially when you wanted nothing more than to stay in bed, encased in his warmth.

To your own credit, the papers were highly useful indeed. Some were maps of Birmingham, circles drawn in places where the Shelbys are known to frequent. The Garrison. Charlie’s Yard. The Arrow House. There was also stationary from The Stanton, a hotel just outside of the city.

There had been another piece of paper in the stack, a letter. But you kept that for yourself.

“We all have Izzy to thank for bringing us this valuable information.” Tommy’s voice rises above the chatter. “I will be personally examining all the documents and think of a plan. In the meantime, everyone stay alert, stay armed, and stay together.”

“Now if no one has any further questions, I need to have a private word with her. Alone.”

*****

You twirl the onyx ring around your finger as everyone filters out. It’s much too big but you still wear it anyways. The thick band of gold is comforting in its own way. And despite what you told Ada earlier, you don’t want to give it to anyone else.

Tommy’s curt voice snaps you from your reverie.

“Was it good, then?”

A small muscle tics on the underside of his jaw. His previously blank expression is now cold. The coward in you compels you to feign ignorance.

“What do you mean, Tommy?” You ask lightly.

“Did it feel good to have that fucking wop inside you?”

You burst out laughing. “Christ, Tommy. Did you pick up that word from Alfie? You sound bloody ridiculous when you’re trying to be crass, you know.”

“Don’t fucking change the subject, Isabel.” Tommy snaps.

“Oh, so I’m Isabel, now? You only call me that when you’re trying to get me in bed. Is that what you want? A bit early in the evening if you ask me.”

“What I want for you is to tell me how it felt having that man inside you, inside---”

You blaze with anger. “My sex life is none of your business, even if you are an occasional participant. I did what you would have wanted, and now I’ve got intel on the Changrettas that could save your arse!”

“Do you know how dangerous it could have been? Fraternizing with the enemy is exactly what got us into trouble with the Changrettas!”

“And fraternizing with them again has given us an advantage. We know how many associates he’s brought with him, and where they are staying. Good God,” Your eyes widen as you see the mutinous look on Tommy’s face. “Are you jealous?”

The silence of the room presses in until it's almost palpable. Finally he rubs a hand over his eyes, looking utterly defeated.

“I have no right to.” He says, pained. “But I am, just the same.”

The admission of his feelings would have made your heart soar a few days ago, before you met a man who enchanted you in the Garrison. You only laugh bitterly.

“What makes this different from all those other times you made me seduce the men you wanted to spy on?”

He says nothing. But what else is there to say? The past is in the past, and so many hurts have been caused by the both of you, it would be impossible to untangle it all.

You soften your voice, laying a hand on Tommy's arm.

“Let me continue seeing him. He wants me, and we can use that. You know it will be help, you know it might save us all.”

A breath flutters in your chest as you wait for his decision. If Tommy allows it, you’ll do it in a heartbeat. The Shelbys are your family, whether you're one in name or not.

But if he refuses, then perhaps… Perhaps he might actually care for you, deeper than jealousy, deeper than he admits.

“Very well.” Tommy says finally, and something in your heart shatters. The corners of your mouth curve up in a wobbly smile.

“Thank you for trusting me, Tommy. I won’t let you down.”

“You would never let me down, no matter what you do. Just…Be careful, Izzy.”

He closes the distance between you and enfolds you in a hug. You enjoy this quiet warmth, as fragile as spider's silk. With a small laugh, you pull away, patting his arm before turning to the door.

You don't look back to see if he follows.

#luca changretta #luca changretta smut #luca changretta x reader #peaky blinders #peaky blinder fanfic #peaky blinder imagine #tommy shelby

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dlamp-dictator · 3 years

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Good, Unused Operators Allen X Recommends Leveling

Welp, 7-16 is kicking my tail at the moment because of the goddamn Herald spam... Jeez, five Heralds than increase mortar attack speed. This game can be a real pain sometimes, I swear.

Anyway, while I’m agonizing over how I now have to power level Cliffheart for this latest map, I’ve been thinking a lot about certain operators. With this limited banner going on and the regrettable amounts of whaling I did for W I’ve had some time to ask myself about all the operators I have and some of their utility. A lot of gacha games tend to be pretty cruel with their pull rates and meta, and Arknights is probably one of the few games that's decent with both. Due to the way maps work, most meta picks are only for about 60% of maps and supply maps, there’s still some strategy involved. The Blaze-Weedy-Saria trifecta can’t conquer everything, thankfully.

So I wanted to take some time to discuss the lesser used and off-meta Operators of this game and explain some of their utilities.

Zima

I only feels fitting to start this out with a Vanguard, and Zima has pulled in clutch for a lot of these chapter 7 maps. Kit-wise Zima has Scavenger’s attack boost plus DP on kill with her S2, making her a machine of DP on certain chokepoints. Not only that, she actually pretty tanky for a vanguard, matching up to some low level defenders in terms of defense. Where Texas would crumble like the glass cannon she is, Zima stands tall and can give a beating as well as she takes one. Not only that, but her personal talent at E2 lets her lower the DP cost of all Vanguard operators, meaning you can jet out Myrtle very quickly and maybe have some DP to spare to quickly drop Zima afterwards. However... it takes quite a while for her S2 to get ready, so it’s best to keep her on maps that don’t need the attack boost immediately.

Perfumer

I admittedly don’t use Perfumer since I have Angelina and Ptilopsis, but her passive healing talent means characters like Vulcan, Hellagur, and Utage can have reliable, passive healing for free, which is always nice if you don’t have Sora or Angelina. Something I think a lot of people look over with 4-stars is that they’re cheap to promote. You don’t need insane 5th tier resources or a lot of chips and LMD to promote them. And while AoE healers aren’t meta, they’re helpful at times.

Shirayuki

Shirayuki is another cheap 4-star to upgrade, but her kit is actually really good. An AoE sniper who’s S2 gives her arts damage. And anything in this game that gives a character arts damage tends to be a tier higher than they would be otherwise, as very few enemies have heavy arts resistance with the exception of certain bosses. And again, she’s a cheap unit to promote, so if you don’t have Meteorite or Sesa, Shirayuki is a good pick. This woman carried a lot of my Annihilation runs before I got Sesa, so don’t under estimate her.

Waai Fu

Waai Fu is a fast-redeploy operator that can silence enemies and keep those exploding spiders at bay. She can outdo Red and even Lappland in some regards depending on the map. She does good damage if you level her up enough and her base skills are great in the workshops. She’s one of the many unexpected MVPs of my Contingency Contracts runs, saving my tail more than I care to admit.

Gummi

She’s a cheap Saria who’s S1 is extremely reliable. I’d honestly recommend her over Saria in some cases thanks to her lower DP cost. I don’t get much use out of her S2, so I can’t say much there. She’s worth promoting though, especially if you don’t have Saria.

Cutter

This is a blind recommendation since I haven’t used her much, but she’s essentially a cheaper Ch’en with more spammable skills. And while I already have Ch’en, she’s next on the list of Four Stars I want to level.

Broca

As much as I clown on Infall for simping him, and as much as I will continue to clown on Infall for simping him, any guard that can do arts damage is instantly more valuable than most, especially how clustered these Chapter 7 maps are getting. And Broca is an AoE Guard with access to arts damage. And while his S2 makes him stunned and block 0, Specter’s S2 has a similar drawback, and she’s in the meta. This is also another blind recommendation, but one I feel very comfortable making, as his S2 increases his attack range and you can just place him in front of a Defender to solve this problem.

GreyThroat

I talked about GreyThroat on this blog before, but just to reiterate, GreyThroat is a weaker Exusiai, but she also has high DPS, and has an easier time getting potential and a shorter DP cost. She can melt bosses with weaker physical defenses like Frostnova and Mephisto, and you don’t have to worry about her auto-activating her skill when it isn’t needed like Exusiai. She’s a good character to promote and raise if you want a cheaper option instead of Exusiai.

Pramanix

On that end, I also said on this blog that Pramanix is kind of niche, but great at debuffing enemies. Her range is insane and her DP cost is generously small considering her utility as both debuffer and emergency caster. She’s pretty good for Contingency Contracts, but... not really viable anywhere else, not safely viable anyway.

Sesa

Anyone with Sesa that hasn’t E2′d him yet is honestly sleeping on him. Sesa is fantastic and is probably one of the better AOE snipers. I haven’t done much with Meteorite since I got here way after promoting Sesa, but Sesa’s damage on his S2 melts chokepoints. In the right hands this man is unstoppable. He’s destroyed entire clusters of enemies in just two bombs with his S2. His only downside is that his S2 turns his bombs into timed explosives, so some enemies can just walk away from the explosion without getting hit. His targeting’s also a little weird, but in the right chokepoint everything dies.

Sora

I think ever since Aak came onto the scene people kind of forgot Sora existed. She can stun or buff enemies depending on your needs. This is great for chokepoints and she can give passive healing like Perfumer, though for units in her range only. This is a great support unit overall. Nothing I’d recommend you should bring all the time, but... she’s good regardless.

And... that’s it for now. Time to go back to 7-16 kicking my ass...

Ugh...

Well, next time I’ll probably talk more about Arknights’ gacha and gacha elements... when I conquer this goddamn, cursed level.

#arknights #your dictator is speaking

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apothecarinomicon · 3 years

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Spring week 2 part 2

I brought the adventurers back to the cottage. This was the group that had been in the dungeon since last week—and they seemed to have run afoul of one of its denizens. I’ll admit I was excited—I haven’t given up on my dreams of adventure, and I had a lot of questions I wanted to ask. I thought it might be tactful, though, to wait until we weren’t in the midst of a medical issue before grilling them.

The one with the issue was the smallest of the party, and given the what she was wearing looked to be a witch herself (I noted wryly that we as a group did seem to have a distinctive style of dress). I got her to remove her hands from her face so I could assess the problem. She revealed that her nose had three large warts, all an unusual violet color. This, I’d actually seen before—it’s called Toad Nose (aka Witch’s Nose, though thankfully that pejorative name has fallen out of fashion), and it’s extremely common. In addition to causing visible warts, it can affect the mood of the patient, making them irritable and low-energy. I knew off the top of my head what I could use to cure it. I actually already had some potentially useful reagents at the cottage (the songberry, the princess toad droppings, and the vampire venom would all work for the mood aspect of the ailment), but I wanted to save them for emergencies if I could. Since I had to go foraging for something to help with the warts, anyway, I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to pick up something extra while I was out.

I had Ailean hop up onto my shoulder and told the group I would be back as soon as I could. The largest one, the clear muscle of the group, asked where I was going, and I told him I had to collect the ingredients for the potion. He asked why I didn’t have them around the cottage and I said I’d only just moved in and hadn’t had time to build up much of a stock yet.

For whatever reason, he didn’t seem to believe me. He stood and got very close and asked how they knew I wasn’t working for the Queen of the Strange. Both of the other adventurers told him to back off, but he stayed where he was.

I told him first of all that I didn’t even know who the Queen of the Strange was, and secondly if I was working for an enemy of theirs I would have left them where they were, helpless in the middle of a dungeon. Then I fired back, asking why as an adventuring party they didn’t have a healing member.

The third party member, the one in the black cloak who looked like she’d be good at sneaking around, admitted that their fourth party member had left the party, citing responsibilities in her hometown to tend. Having met these three, I couldn’t blame her. Then, the one in the black cloak stared at me for an uncomfortable amount of time, before turning to the others and saying that she believed me, I was actually going to go look for potion ingredients.

The big guy announced that he was coming with me but I said absolutely not. I didn’t need a seven-foot asshole stomping after me, trampling the plants and scaring the animals that might cure his friend. He said I seemed awfully defensive for someone with nothing to hide. I said he seemed awfully paranoid for someone who came to me for help.

He didn’t have a response to that. I told them to sit tight and that I’d be back as soon as possible.

────⊱⁜⊰────

I headed to Meltwater Loch first, remembering to bring a pair of wool gloves. There’s a species of frog known as smooth-croak that’s abundant there whose mucus helps with warts. Skin-to-skin contact is best avoided, though—while it does feel lovely and makes your skin very smooth, it’s rather painful for the frog.

Finding a smooth-croak was easy (as I mentioned above, they’re everywhere at the loch), and I was able to get enough of its slime on the gloves for the potion. It and Ailean were croaking back and forth the entire time—I assume she was comforting it, assuring it I wouldn’t hurt it. As I was folding up the gloves and putting them in my basket, though, something caught my eye. A bit deeper into the loch, there was a cluster of ancient planks floating on the surface of the water. Below them, there appeared to be a half-buried crate.

I waded into the shallows to get a closer look, and found it wasn’t a crate—it was a chest. It wasn’t buried at all, either. Instead there was a nearly-whole skeleton wrapped around it. The skull laid on top, as if whoever it used to be died while resting their cheek atop their possessions.

Now, while I’ve made a habit of saying ‘yes’ to things that clearly present themselves since I’ve gotten here, I hesitated with this one. It occurred to me that it had clearly been here for a long time, and at the same time it was easily visible from close to shore—where people would have come wading frequently. So, why had no one gone and retrieved it before me?

My gut told me to leave well enough alone and that’s exactly what I did. Maybe I’ll ask Evander about it and come back to it in the future.

────⊱⁜⊰────

I went to Moonbreaker Mountain next, this time looking to climb nearly to the summit. To help with the mood portion of the ailment, I was hoping to bottle a goat’s echo. That’s not the name of a plant—I was looking for a literal echo. It’s a magic thing; it’s difficult to explain. Don’t worry about it.

As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m not in the best of shape. By the time I made it to the top of the mountain, I was wheezing. I sat down on a boulder near a larger outcropping, and once my heart was no longer pounding in my ears I began to hear a bleating from the other side.

I hurried around, only to find not a goat but a sheep on the other side. I sighed and went to continue looking, only to find it following me. I asked what it wanted, and it trotted over to the far side of the mountaintop and bleated again. I followed it and looked down the side. At the bottom was what looked to be a small farm, with an isolated house, two fields, and a few other buildings scattered around.

I asked it if it was lost, and took its body language to mean yes. I told it I was sorry, but I had a patient to heal and I didn’t have time to guide it down the mountain. I told it I’d send someone up to help it as soon as I could, but that I had to keep moving.

A little while later, I did find a goat. It was walking along a sheer cliff face, slowly making its way up. They’re notoriously skittish creatures, so I stayed low and tried to make as little noise as possible, waiting for it to cry so I could catch its echo.

Before I got the chance, a great snapping of wood and clattering of rock sounded behind me, startling me and scaring the goat into bounding up the cliff face and out of sight. I cursed and strode over to investigate what had ruined my plan. I found none other than the big guy from the adventuring party, fallen over on his ass and trying to scramble out of sight.

I, of course, asked him what in the fuck he thought he was doing. He said he was just making sure I was safe as I collected what I needed. I reminded him that I didn’t need his protection, and that as a matter of fact he’d just scared one of the ingredients away. I told him to go back to the cottage and wait like I told him.

He said he just thought the timing was kind of funny, how his friend had been cursed and they’d run into the one person who could help immediately. I told him he could think whatever he wanted, but unless he wanted the warts to spread over his friend’s entire body until she was unrecognizable, he’d stop getting in my way. That’s not something that Toad Nose actually does—as the name implies, it’s limited to the nasal region—but I was tired of his bullshit and needed him out of my hair. It worked, and he sheepishly made his way back down the mountain.

I immediately returned to the lost sheep and said I’d help it find its way home.

────⊱⁜⊰────

It took about a half hour and a lot of soothing words to coax the sheep down the other side, and by the time we made it to the farmhouse the owner was outside waiting for us. She introduced herself as Ainsley Tennant, and I told her my name in return. She thanked me for bringing the sheep back and asked if I was the new witch in Greenmoor. I nodded, and she said she could tell from the clothes (this left me a bit miffed, as I thought I was wearing a rather sensible ensemble today). She said I was a worthy successor to the title. When I asked how she knew, she told me that the sheep I’d returned was named Senga, and that it had belonged to my predecessor—not as livestock, but as a pet. She said it was typically very skittish and wary of people, and that it had trusted me immediately was a good sign.

It took me a moment to process this. My predecessor had been painted as a loner by the information the townsfolk had given me. I suppose I had just assumed she was cold and antisocial—not nearly the kind of person who’d keep pets, especially not such nontraditional ones. It made me all the more curious about who she was, what she was like when she lived here, and what might have caused her to disappear.

I was curious about Ainsley, too. I asked her why she lived on the other side of the mountain from Greenmor, instead of with the others in town. She said that—like my predecessor—she wasn’t much of a people person, and that by the time she’d arrived in Greenmoor the need for livestock and crops had been met by the families already living there. Rather than try to fill a niche she didn’t have a passion for, Ainsley decided to be entirely self-sufficient. She said complete independence from anybody else was a short-lived pipe dream, but that she was proud of how much she was able to rely on herself for food and shelter in the end—though she mentioned it had been a bit lonely since my predecessor had disappeared, as she was the only person from town Ainsley had any kind of social relationship with.

I was curious to learn more about my predecessor, so I said I might be able to come around and visit every once in a while. She said I would always be welcome. Then, I said I had to get back to treat a patient. She thanked me again for guiding Senga back and gave me a bit of honey—to sweeten the potion, she told me. Then she sent me on my way.

────⊱⁜⊰────

As it was getting dark by the time I made it back over the mountain, I decided to suck it up and use one of my stored ingredients for the potion rather than spend any more time searching for a new one. So, I headed straight back to the cottage. I could hear the adventuring party bickering loudly as I approached. I steeled myself and opened the door.

They didn’t even acknowledge me, so I didn’t interrupt them.

I wasn’t paying too close attention, but the other two seemed to be angry at the big guy for following me—not because I had told him not to, but because it left only one of them in fighting shape in the case of some potential ambush. I decided if I never saw these people again after today I would be happy.

I decided before I even started brewing to call the potion Toad Turd Tonic, after one of its active ingredients. I figured it would make for a nice gross-out if any of these jackasses thought to ask what it was. Here is how I made it:

First, I built a fire and put the cauldron over it.

I put my mucus-soaked glove into the water, so that the slime could leach out as it heated up.

As I waited for the water to boil, I crushed the princess toad droppings I got from Glimmerwood Grove into a fine powder.

Once the mucus-water reached a rolling boil, I removed the glove with a poker and added the powdered droppings and Ainsley’s honey.

I stirred it briskly until it all combined into a uniform green concoction.

The final product was slightly thicker than water, but still poured fairly easily. Wordlessly, I thrust a cup of it at the afflicted adventurer, finally interrupting the group’s yammering. As soon as she’d downed it, the warts simply popped off of her nose and onto the floor. It did not occur to any of them to pick the warts up—they left them there for me to deal with.

The big guy was eager to leave and went outside as soon as his friend was cured. I was no longer eager to ask these three anything about adventuring, but there was one thing I was curious about. I asked the newly-cured patient why she couldn’t heal herself—she was clearly a witch. She said her training wasn’t in healing, but rather in illusion magic.

Of course it was. The worst magical vocation.

Then on that subject, the one with the black cloak said they were in need of a healing party member, and had the nerve to ask me to join their party. For any other group, I might have considered it. But to her I said that I had too many responsibilities in Greenmoor to just leave, and that I didn’t think I fit in with the group dynamic anyway. Thankfully, she didn’t press the matter and instead handed me my payment.

As they left, the big guy suddenly turned, trotted back to the doorway and said: “I just realized we never got your name.”

“What a shame,” I said, and shut the door in his face.

⇦●〇●⇨

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margridarnauds · 4 years

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Your "Grace O'Malley" tag is extremely gratifying--it's so nice to see actual scholarship. So with that in mind: Have you read Morgan Llwelyn's novel, and if so, what do you have to say on it?

Hi! Thank you so much! I’m glad you like it; it can feel a little bit like I’m shouting into the wind, given that Gráinne is one of my more niche focuses. I still kind of want to do something that actually looks at the EVIDENCE, but I digress.

Morgan Llewelyn….I have mixed feelings about. I last really looked into this book when I was toying with doing my undergrad Capstone Thesis on Donal O’Flaherty, about….4 years ago, now. Time really does fly. So, I forced myself into a refresher, just to remind myself what I missed.

[warning for references to rape, incest, and some of the most Cursed™ lines I’ve ever been forced to read in my life, and that’s including the zombie blowjob scene.]

Final Verdict: 2.5/5 - DEFINITELY not the worst retelling of Gráinne’s life (I’ve seen....Things), but also not the best, either, and with some very, very glaring flaws that make it impossible for me to really enjoy.

My main take away from it is that…as far as its depiction of Gráinne, it did about as well as its source material. I can tell, looking at it and reading it, that she really looked hard at Anne Chambers’ book. Which is unfortunate because, as I’ve made……………relatively clear over the years, I think that it’s very, deeply flawed. And, unfortunately, Llewlyn stuck rather close to the book, leaving in things like Donal’s “murder" of Walter Fada Burke (if the patronymic don’t fit, you’ve got to acquit), Sexist™ Incompetent™ Donal™, and…..Hugh de Lacy, which, in my personal opinion, owe more to Chambers lack of critical reading of her own sources than they do to the historical record. ESPECIALLY Hugh de Lacy because…the name. Very odd that one of the major Anglo-Norman officials should share a name with Gráinne Ní Mháille’s boytoy. Very odd. Especially given that the pattern of “Love interest of Gráinne’s killed off/Gráinne seeks revenge” is VERY similar to what we hear of the Defense of Hen’s Castle. Almost as if they come from the same story.

This also leads us to the scene where Donal tries to rape Gráinne in her sleep which, honestly, I loathe with every fibre of my being. Nope, nope. Hate it. Hate. It. Oh, God, I forgot about the references to Donal!Incest. Why is this a mini-genre of Gráinne Ní Mháille historical fiction. Why. I can think of at least…..2-3 books that do this. Why God. Why.

Lest anyone think that this is the Donal fangirl in me jumping out, in general, I feel like Llewelyn’s treatment of most of the characters is ultimately paper-thin. Richard Burke is also given this treatment and, while I wouldn’t REALLY expect a sympathetic Richard Bingham (nor would I particularly want one - I’ve spent a lot of quality time reading his complaints and cackling), even HE’S done a disservice.

On a technical level, I don’t REALLY like how she handles the timeline, it jumps around a little too much for my taste. We’re treated to constant flashbacks with little warning, including ones that could have been just as easily folded into the timeline proper. And, while Llewelyn has a rich, descriptive style, she also writes an, honestly, impressive number of lines that will haunt me for all the wrong reasons. I’ve detailed a lot of them under the readmore, but some highlights:

She had gazed in wonder at the child—his perfect ears and fingers, the miniature penis that would eventually become a mighty rod for transmitting further life.” This is, I’m sure, what every mother thinks when she sees her newborn son’s penis for the first time. Why. Why God. Why. Why. Why.

Okay, another candidate for Cursed Lines: "Richard noted the high color in her cheeks, and saw how her nipples stood out strongly under the soft fabric of her gown.” If this were a male author, I would be-Nah, it’s still bad. It’s just bad writing, I’m sorry. In general, I found that she massively sexed up Gráinne’s life, for no real reason that I can tell except for that it felt almost like she felt like it was necessary to prove that Gráinne was a Real Woman™? There’s a very....odd way that her sex life is treated, and it grates on me. We have to deal with Donal, Richard, Huw(uwu), Philip Sydney, and Tigernan, all in the course of one book and, honestly, I don’t really CARE about Gráinne’s sexcapades, and they’re generally written with so little development or feeling, even and especially in the case of her GREAT LOVE HUW, that I found myself actively groaning. My take on Gráinne, at least the Gráinne that I know in the sources, is almost asexual. I don’t deny that she had sex. She obviously did. (FOUR CHILDREN.) And I think that she might very well have enjoyed it. (Not that there’s enough evidence to KNOW.) But I also think that she was a profoundly pragmatic woman who didn’t fixate on it that much. Again, I could be wrong! When we have as little as we have to go on as we do with her, it’s impossible to know! But I just do not see her as jumping into bed with guys that often, especially not in cases where there was no clear benefit. There’s this...trend, where Gráinne HAS to have a love interest, in every major adaptation of her life, because it’s almost like people are afraid to have her without the anchor of sex and romance. (For what it’s worth - I do think, simply because of the amount of time that they spent together + the fact that they did have at least three children with one another, that Donal was probably her favorite of her two spouses. I don’t KNOW this, because I can’t. The evidence isn’t there. I don’t know whether they loved one another, whether it was a great romance, whether the sex was good, or even if it was just a mild affection, but I do lean towards him, even if I can’t say that he was the Great Love of Her Life™. I think they complimented one another’s lifestyles quite nicely, and that’s all that I can really give.)

Llewelyn also has a very, very obvious bias against Catholicism that ultimately makes me wonder whether she ever meant to engage with 16th century Ireland on its own terms. As an atheist in Celtic Studies....look, I can GET having many, many mixed feelings about Catholicism, but it WAS the religion of the land at the time. If you want to have ANY understanding of the people and what was going through their minds, you have to try to engage with them on their own terms. I’m not in any hurry to convert to Catholicism, but I do try to consider life through the eyes of medieval and early modern Catholics when I’m analyzing sources made in that time. And trying to separate it off from the Good Pagan Times, to the point of creating a 16th century druid woman to voice your opinions on free love/organized religion/etc. is just going to get you into disaster. (Though Evleen did give us one female character who is a friend to Gráinne, so...victory?) Bonus, by the way, for the Evil Priest who schemes against Gráinne and is fucking boys on the side. (It seems like they’re of age, at least?) We’re told that he has reasons for what he does, but it comes as a bit of a last minute attempt at creating the illusion of a three dimensional character. I feel like Llewelyn, ultimately, should have stuck to Pre-Patristic times. I shudder at what she would do with, say, the Mythological Cycle, I don’t particularly want her touching my baby (if she touched Bres in particular, I would probably cry) because, at this point, I don’t trust her with ANY medieval materials (mainly because they’ve all been CONTAMINATED by CATHOLIC HANDS, oh NO), but I feel like it’s where her heart truly is.

IF she’d stuck with pre-Patristic sources, we wouldn’t have to deal with 16th century characters thinking things like: " He would go in the style of his warrior ancestors, fearless in the face of death; the ancient, pagan Gaels had known death was only a brief incident in the ongoing flow of life, a transitory happening of little importance.” Admittedly, Llewelyn herself SEEMS to realize this, as she has him cross himself afterwards, but I really, really don’t think it would be the sort of thing to cross a man’s mind in the Early Modern Period. There was very little evidence for reincarnation that was that explicit (One of the papers that I did was on the existence of reincarnation in Pre-Christian Ireland, so I actually CAN speak on this one with some degree of confidence - My ultimate findings were that it probably did exist in some form, but the evidence makes it hard at times to draw definite conclusions), and I’m not sold that they would…understand it as reincarnation, as SUCH. We can look at what, say, Julius Caesar wrote about the druids’ beliefs and apply them to medieval Irish texts, but a man living in 16th century Ireland wouldn’t necessarily have the same luxury, especially since relatively few figures are given reincarnation narratives. It’s like…she’s applying the Mythological Cycle, but she momentarily forgets that these characters wouldn’t have VIEWED the Mythological Cycle like we would have, and it’s rather jarring. No one else might pick up on that, because this is my field. This is the ONE THING I can be pedantic on.

Now! There are some things I actually do like! Outside of Chambers’ questionable grasp of historical interpretation and the resulting taint, I can tell that Llewlyn did have a solid grasp of the FEEL of Early Modern Ireland. As I noted above, she’s a very fine author, the kind I honestly ENVY as a historical fiction writer, the type that is so confident and descriptive that, even when she’s wrong, which is often, I find myself reaching for the sources just to make sure. Her descriptions are vivid and visceral, pulling me immediately into the FEEL of Ireland in the 16th century, a way of life on the verge of collapse.

When she isn’t being descriptive in all the wrong ways as detailed above. I do feel, for whatever it’s worth, that as someone with the background in this material that I have, I was kind of doomed from the get-go. I THINK that for someone who isn’t a Celticist (in training), it would be much, much more enjoyable, BECAUSE she is so confident in her style and her way of evoking the mood that it wouldn’t really stick out. I happen to be both blessed and cursed in that regard.

It’s clear, as well, that she has a grasp on the literature of the time - References to the things like the first Gaels coming from Spain make my heart SING with joy because it’s a very clear allusion to Lebor Gabála Érenn and the Mythological Cycle, which is my specialty, and there are plenty of times that I can tell you EXACTLY what sources she had to hand while she was typing on a section. It’s just a pity to me that she seems to try so hard to toss it all away in order to bifurcate Early Modern Irish society into Pagan VS Catholic, since she fundamentally did betray her own sources there. And, unfortunately, the way she tends to show her research is about as subtle as a blunt nail, in a very “As you know” manner: See: “I have heard the brehons chanting the laws governing fosterage, describing every article of clothing that must be furnished a child and every detail of the training the child is to be given.” Like, yes, the law texts record this, but I can’t really see someone from the 16th century SAYING it that bluntly, you know? Also, I’m not really sold that they would be chanting it out loud as a ritual thing, rather that a lot of the law tracts are in a simple Question/Answer format because it would have, presumably, made it simpler for the Brehons THEMSELVES to remember that way.

I do like that Llewlyn’s Gráinne…she’s attractive, yes, but she’s not conventionally attractive, and she’s explicitly said to be big and tall as a man. I feel like a lot of pop cultural depictions of Gráinne want to make her dainty and beautiful, despite living in an incredibly harsh, stressful environment. I think that her outfit’s a little too much “Modern pirate”-y for my taste, but I’ll allow it because, tbh, it looks really, really badass and, whatever clothing Gráinne would have worn, we probably wouldn’t have really recognized it as “Pirate-like”, since our vision of pirates in the modern day is mainly an early 18th century one. I do appreciate that Gráinne has that hard, pragmatic edge that I respect in the Gráinne that we read about in the State Papers and in Bingham’s recollections - a very matter of fact, no nonsense woman who would do whatever it took to survive. Though I do think that she probably didn’t really spend that much time thinking about Elizabeth. It seems slightly unrealistic to me that, knowing how pragmatic Gráinne was, that she would really, really concern herself that much with Elizabeth, especially when she would have had powerful women like Iníon Dubh closer to home. There are some really nice, poignant moments as well that the hard edge masks, like the moment where she asks after a piece of hair that sent on to her son Owen. When Gráinne is in her natural element, having fun on the open sea, taking vengeance, and getting to be angry and proud and fierce, as well as the moments where she shows a softer side....those are the moments that make it for me. But then we’re back to the sex and romance, to the point where the book is literally divided by which man she’s screwing at the time.

Also, despite wanting to LOATHE Tigernan, as an OC love interest of Gráinne’s, I did find myself warming to him, as he has a nice, laid-back dynamic with Gráinne built on trust and filled with plenty of banter. Next to her, he is probably the single best developed character in the book, though, unfortunately, he does get it through a ton of space devoted to his thoughts, his pining for Gráinne, and his intense jealousy for the many times she chooses someone else over him (mainly because he never tells her he loves her and then he feels like she owes him for what he does for her - yes, there are some Nice Guy tendencies here, but, honestly, after about the second or third time this happened, I was very pro-Tigernan running away and finding a better gig for himself.) No, besides being Catholic and lower class, we don’t really have that MUCH on him outside of being Gráinne’s first mate, but, honestly....that’s still more characterization than the others get, and, at least as of Chapter 24, he hasn’t done anything TOO atrocious.

My PETTIEST of bitching/impromptu liveblog beneath the cut:

A VERY pedantic thing: Llewelyn says, multiple times, that the English would anglicize her name “Grace”. In reality, no one in Early Modern England did that, it came much, much later. In all the Letters of State, she’s referred to as “Grany” or a variation of that name - An English attempt at “Gráinne.” That’s also why you’ll notice that I tend to refer to her as Gráinne here - It was the name she was known by in her own time, it was the name her contemporaries called her, and so it’s the name I call her.

"He wore a full and drooping mustache in the old Gaelic style, though otherwise he was cleanshaven.” Again. MINOR nitpicking. The Gauls were the ones who, traditionally, we associate with the droopy mustaches. In the sagas, beards are given a TON of prominence, to the point of being the marker of being a man. So. Odd choice on Tigernan’s part there. I know that Llewelyn didn’t intend to write him as a 16th century Irish coxcomb, but…well.

"He realized he had made a bad mistake in referring to her peculiar relationship with her husband. He had been in the castle at Bunowen himself; he had seen with his own eyes that Grania’s belongings were taken to one bedchamber, and Donal O Flaherty’s were put in another. Many might speculate in private about the arrangement, but only a fool would have mentioned it to her face.” As I’ve mentioned before, I really, really don’t think this relationship was as loveless as it’s generally portrayed as. I don’t know whether they were PASSIONATELY in love (and unlike a certain biographer, I won’t try to fill in what I don’t know with what I WANT her to have had), maybe they simply got on, but they did have three LIVING children. And I underline “living” because there were likely more. “Likely more” means that they probably did regularly share a bed, at least as much so as their respective schedules allowed.

“Aye, and didn’t she put her children out to fostering before they could stand? A woman’s not usually that anxious to get away from her children that she takes to the sea to avoid them.” Given that fosterage could begin VERY early, I really, really don’t think anyone would have questioned this at all. Gaelic Ireland, simply put, often didn’t have our own conception of the nuclear family, and this was generously provided for in the law codes. Fosterage was useful as a way of maintaining ties between both neighboring families and, most especially, between kings and their vassals, with vassals often fostering kings’ sons. (That way, if the king should die with multiple possible heirs, it means that the kids have people backing them for the kingship.)

"I think that husband of hers had been crying poverty so loud and long he made her deaf to everything else” - Not to be #TeamDonal on main, but the facts as they’re recorded tend to have a strong pro-Donal bias. Take the words of his 17th century relative, Ruari O’Flaherty: "Of all the western O'Flaherties, Donel an chogaidh , although not the chieftain, was the most powerful and opulent.” Most. Powerful. And. Opulent. Yeah, Donal wasn’t crying poverty to anyone. Could he have been lying through his teeth? Maybe. Who knows? But this is ONE thing we have on Donal’s personality, recorded not too long after he died, by a historian who would have had close access to O’Flaherty sources. I believe him. And, I’d even be willing to commit the ultimate heresy and say that Donal’s success was not due entirely to his wife.

She does use the proper terms in a few places! Such as “rechtaire” for “steward”. (Io stem, masculine.)

“You are a noble Irishwoman, you go to no man’s bed unless you want to.” COMPLICATED. Arranged marriages were definitely the norm, and, in the legends, we get to see the unfortunate downsides of what happens when a woman is coerced into a marriage she doesn’t want, generally by an older man, while she is generally pining over a younger one. I wouldn’t say it was something that people LIKED, the fact that this entire genre exists is a pretty good example of people being like “DON’T DO THIS SHIT”, but I can’t say it didn’t happen. Examples of this include Fingal Rónáin, Tóraigheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne, Longes mac n-Uislenn, Aided Con Roí, etc. I would not say that it was considered to be an IDEAL, it was something that was definitely warned against, but it could, in theory, happen. It wasn’t necessarily a legal form of marriage, but it was a form of marriage.

"Shorter than Cuchullain or Brian Boru,” PETTIEST of pettiest bitch complaints, but Cú Chulainn is generally described as short. I know, I know, not what she’s going for. But still. Let me be a petty bitch on this one thing.

“Times have changed,” he said impatiently. “Those are archaic luxuries, and luxury has worn thin here. Perhaps in Umhall there is still leisure for sitting around listening to bards, but it takes every resource I can command just to maintain my territory against those who constantly nibble at my borders.” MOST. OPULENT. AND. POWERFUL. Okay, but one thing that she does get right, and is right to emphasize, is the importance of the bard - chieftain relationship. This was really, really one of the key relationships in a chieftain’s life, to the extent where one of the privileges of the chief ollaimh was the right to sleep with the king in his bed. And yes, it was EXACTLY as homoerotic as it sounds. For a chieftain to not keep a bard - It’s actually a really, really stupid move on Donal’s part, not just for the sake of tradition, but because…who’s going to be there to remember him and keep his memory alive? Who’s going to write praise poems for him (and for Gráinne! The chieftain’s wife was often celebrated in verse.)

"Grania had brought a handsome marriage portion with her, her own property under the Brehon law, for a woman of her rank must be able to stand on equal footing with her husband.” Accurate - Gráinne would have, most likely, been a cétmuinter, or chief wife, under the law, and her union to Donal would have been a union of equal contribution. (Donal also might or might not have owed her a “Thank you for your virginity!” Present on their wedding night.)

“The priests are right in giving husbands authority over their wives,” he had shouted at her then, while she pleaded to be allowed to keep her babies with her longer. “The old Gaelic way gave women too much freedom altogether, and you are a fine example of the folly of that custom.” Kill me now, kill me now, kill me now, kill me now. This is just….GAR. GAR. Or, as Llewlyn likes to say every five seconds…*Dar Dia*. Suffice it to say, the question of how much freedom post-Christianity Ireland had for women VS Pre-Christian Ireland is an endlessly long topic that has to begin with how we define “freedom” and, specifically, which women get it. (Sucks to be a slave girl no matter what.) But also, while women definitely DID have power (EVEN POST-CHRISTIANITY, THANK YOU VERY MUCH)…that doesn’t mean that it was that COMMON, or that post-Christianity radically changed how (un)common it was. This is just…too blunt, too much of a caricature, and also happens to be insanely, insanely anachronistic. (Also: What would a 16th century chieftain really KNOW of the Old Gaelic Way? He would know about women like Medb, yeah, and he would probably see her as evil and uppity, depending on which stories he’d read - Though as a Connachtman, he would probably be inclined towards being on her side. But that doesn’t mean he would have really thought “Oh, yeah, pre-Christianity, women had SO MUCH power.” Lawlessness and chaos tend to be features of pre-Christian Ireland in the medieval writings, but I wouldn’t really say that liberated women….were? Especially because in those same writings you have women like Emer who, while distinct in their characterization, are still very much proper and chaste women who keep to the house.)

“I warn you, Grania—you will accede to me in this or I will send you back to Clew bay and denounce you throughout Connaught for a lack of womanly graces. Is that what you want, to be sent home rejected with your shortcomings shouted from the hills?”

“Who would believe such charges?” she had demanded to know, outraged at his unfairness.”

I’m just going to say it now: She could sue him SO MUCH in a proper Brehon court if she could get some witnesses to say that they heard him talking shit without cause. So. So much. So. Much. Donal would be losing a solid chunk of his goods. Though I will point out that, technically, since Gráinne isn’t sleeping with him, she isn’t doing her proper duties as a wife, laid out by the Brehon laws, and so, yeah, he could probably have a case against her. (For what it’s worth: If he was refusing to sleep with her, she could ALSO divorce him, with him explicitly being at fault and having to pay up. It was equal opportunity, in that sense.)

The Brehon law keeps being called “pagan” and…no. No non noon no. It had its origins in pre-Christian Ireland, likely, and that’s why a ton of legal scholars, with a few noted exceptions, tend to be strongly Nativist, but that doesn’t mean that, by Gráinne’s time, it hadn’t been more or less adapted into Christian marriage in Ireland, albeit sometimes semi-awkwardly. (For example: Polygamy was allowed, but the law very much privileged the rights of chief wives, including their right to toss their husbands out on their ear for taking in a woman over their head.) There’s this odd obsession in the book with Brehon Law =/= Christian Law, and that’s definitely not the case. You wouldn’t have had two marriage ceremonies, one under the church and one under the Brehon Law, because the Brehon Law would apply no matter WHAT. It’d be like forcing a couple to undergo a ceremony after their official wedding where a bunch of lawyers read out of a law book to them. It just wouldn’t happen.

“The Augustinian monks of Umhall, who taught me history in my childhood, explained that when the Romans left England and that land sank into barbarism, it was missionaries from Ireland who took God’s words to the British tribes and taught them to read and write.

“Perhaps they hate us, Donal, for being a more ancient and educated race. Perhaps they mean to drag us down by treating us as savages until we do not remember ever having been anything else. And along the way they can take our land from us with a clear conscience because we are only savages and deserve no better.”

On one hand, it DOES capture that note of PRIDE that tends to be there, loud and clear, in the texts, especially, say, Auraicept na n-Éces, which claims that Irish is a perfectly formed language, made from all the best bits of the Tower of Babel’s languages. (And….well….”The land of saints and scholars”. Ireland WAS a hotspot of monastic activity.) And, honestly, I support showing off the literary side of Ireland, since it doesn’t get discussed enough. That being said, no monk in his right mind would have said that it Irish missionaries civilized Britain. Why? Because Patrick came from Britain. Or, rather, Britannia, more accurately. He wasn’t an Englishman, not in the modern sense, he would probably be Welsh today, but he was from a monastic, educated family (despite claiming his Latin was poor in his Confessio, it’s actually quite good - Patrick was a MASTER at using humility as a rhetorical device).

"Grania slept naked. She liked her skin to breathe as she slept, not encumbered with a gown that would twist and bind.” “And then Gráinne froze her ass off because the nights in Ireland, even in the warm heat of summer, are cold and bitter as a Norseman’s frozen tit, if there were, in fact, any Norsemen in Ireland in the 16th century, and frequently require multiple blankets + a solid duvet. Gráinne then died of pneumonia several weeks later, making for a very short book.” Also. Again. If this were a male author. I would have committed a murder at this point.

Reference to saffron dye - NICE. This was really a staple of the clothing, for both men and women, to the extent that it features a LOT in accounts of Ireland at this time.

“By the paps of Danu!” No one. In 16th century Ireland. Would have shouted out “By the paps of Danu!” “By the Washington Monument!” “By the Lincoln Memorial!” “By the stunning cliffs of Oregon!” Sounds rather silly, doesn’t it? (Though if you WANTED to start shouting “BY THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL!” Well. I’m not here to stop you.)

"She was small for a Gaelic woman, and pale, a tiny wraithlike creature who exuded a contradictory air of resilient strength.” I’m not going to say that Chambers is WRONG, because, of course, Irish women come in a variety of shapes and sizes. You know, like people everywhere. But I WILL say that, during my time here, it’s the only time in my life that I’ve felt at home, because, for the first time in my life, I’m not short. Also, I want it on the record that now, whenever I see her, I’m picturing the little old woman who sits in on research seminars and who has the entire department scared shitless. Tiny, but MIGHTY.

"Her only ornament was a triskele of silver in an ancient pattern, suspended upon her flat bosom by a leather thong.” The Triskele is a Neolithic symbol used through the Iron Age, DEFINITELY not in use, in Ireland, by the Early Modern Period.

"“Evleen Ni Brien-“ That would be “Ní Bhriain” in modern Irish. Normally, I wouldn’t be THIS nitpicky, but hey, if you’re patting yourself on the back for the research you did and then can’t be bothered to put in a fada + the proper possessive form of “Brian”. I also don’t THINK that the “Ní” form had been adopted yet, I’m fairly certain that’s modern, so it would, more properly, be Evleen iníon Bhriain. Though, since it emphasizes that she’s from the Dál Cais and the O’Briens are predominately associated with them, I’m going to GUESS the proper form would involve her father’s name. It would be “Evleen iníon *possessive form of father’s first name* Uí Briain”.

"He had only heard whispers of such people, but enough tales still abounded concerning them to make them readily identifiable—even if this one did claim the noble name O Brien.” You know, in Reign, when you have a bunch of druids dancing in the forest and everyone was like “That’s fucking ridiculous!” Yeah. Yeah. That’s exactly how I feel right now. Druids DID last for some time in Ireland after Christianity, but not INTO THE 16TH CENTURY.

"“Of course not. But neither can I forget that it was the strictures of that faith which kept me bound in marriage to a man I learned to despise.” Divorce was still a thing. There was no problem, in theory, with getting married at a fully Catholic altar and then dumping them for getting jiggy with the serving girls a few years down the line. Llewelyn’s misunderstanding of the relationship that the Church and the Brehon laws BOTH played in the lives of people (SHOCKINGLY ENOUGH, the Catholic Church was NOT seen as pure evil by every day people at the time, who had to flee into the arms of the Brehons for comfort from Mother Church. Note that I’m saying this as a confirmed and strong atheist.)

Can I just say that the scene where Gráinne’s feeling up Hugh (the OC) in his sleep would be MUCH creepier if the genders were reversed?

"But he was not the man he had always been. He was some different person here.” Wow, the sex must be REALLY good!

"set in violet shadows that spoke of wonderfully sleepless nights.” Why is it that when I stay up doing an all-nighter, I end up looking like a raccoon going through its emo phase, but when Gráinne tumbles some random dude for a little while, she gets “violet shadows?” It’s not right, I tell you.

"“Was your marriage so bad, Grania, that you have turned your back on your own womanhood forever?” GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Well. Now I know where The Pirate Queen gets its “Your ultimate worth as a woman and happiness in life is decided by whether or not you have a dick in you” philosophy. I wish I hadn’t known. But now I do.

“That’s the way it is with men,” he said. “They touch us. For the feel of strong arms around her and a solid chest to lean her head upon, a woman will put up with a lot of misery. It’s the curse of our skin to be hungry for the feel of a man’s skin.” GAAAAAAAAH. GAH.

"God the benevolent patriarch promises us rewards in the next world if we’re willing to sacrifice in this one. But maybe I don’t believe in patriarchs anymore.” Totally a thing that the real Gráinne Ní Mháille would have thought. Because women, in general, in the 16th century had the terminology to make these critiques in this exact way.

" If one satisfaction was snatched from her she would find another; if she lost love she would embrace hate, and glory in it.” Oh, god, not THIS motivation for a female character, please. Gráinne Ní Mháille was a hell raiser from birth, there’s no reason to think that, because she lost her boytoy, that really radically altered her life path.

“I wonder if Tigernan thinks you and I are damned,” she asked her husband. “We were wed in no chapel.” Given that there were nine degrees of marriage under the law, of varying types of legality, I doubt it.

Yay, exactly what this book needed: More sex!

I’ll be real: Richard Bingham playing Weddingcrashers at Margaret’s wedding only to nearly get his ass handed to him by two members of Gráinne’s family is truly an #Iconic moment. 10/10, if the rest of the book was like this I could die a happy woman.

"It was not an Irish face, but the eyes were unforgettable.” ….what is an “Irish face?” Especially post-Norman invasion? What does an Irish face look like?

“There are rumors he gained his inheritance by murder, and it is said outright that he and his mother between them drove his first wife into her grave.” Yay, the return of the Oedipus complex! My favorite thing in this book!

"Grania herself slept alone in a tiny walled guest chamber above, but she was aware of Richard sleeping in the same house. A strong man, sleeping naked in a bed … .

How people change, she thought to herself with amusement. This is definitely not the same Grania whom Donal an Chogaidh knew.”

Yay, MORE sex! MY FAVORITE THING. IN THE WORLD. BECAUSE YOU KNOW WHAT MY FIRST THOUGHT WAS WHEN I READ THE LIFE OF GRÁINNE NÍ MHÁILLE?"**MORE SEX**.”

" If Richard took her at all, he must take her under the old Gaelic concept of “marriage for one year certain” to see if they suited one another.” Ah, yes, the old Gaelic concept of marriage that mysteriously shows up in no legal texts, legends, or genealogical tracts. A very authentic Gaelic tradition, very old, much wow. (For what it’s worth….the Telltown marriages are as close as this comes, but the thing that makes them stand out is that everyone KNEW they were the oddballs.)

"According to pagan custom—which still lived in uneasy truce with Christianity in many parts of Ireland—there were ten degrees of marriage, all the way from a union between propertied partners of equal rank to union by abduction or the mating of the mad. From any of the ten a child could result, and the brehons therefore had allowed for every child’s rights to be recognized by the social order. No human containing an immortal spirit could be illegitimate.” The astonishing thing is that it’s very, very obvious that she read Cáin Lanamna for this…and then proceeded to not apply it to any other time except for when it was necessary.

"How can I be Grania if there is no Tigernan at my shoulder?” Yes, because we all know that the thing that really defined Gráinne Ní Mháille was, in fact, the men in her life.

"Evleen smiled. “At least it isn’t fettered with Christian chains,” she said. “You were wise.”” Oh, God help me. There’s no way to have a marriage in Early Modern Ireland not “fettered with Christian chains” because Christianity IS the religion of the people.

Remember when Gráinne was described as “More than master’s mate” to Richard Burke, implying a union that was mutually respectful? Yeah, me neither. I’m so glad he’s a one dimensional sexist with mommy issues. That’s such a new, innovative take on their relationship. I LOVE to see it. (Note: I’m saying this as someone who HATED Chambers’ blatant shipping in her biography, but hey. I can’t deny what the first hand evidence says. Unlike Chambers.)

" I’ll get the O Lee—he’s our ship’s physician, and at least he can-“ Unless the chieftain of the O’Lee family moonlights as a ship’s doctor, you wouldn’t call him The O’Lee. Just say “I’ll get Aidan O’Lee.” Or, even, “I’ll get the ship’s leech!”

“TAKE THIS FROM UNCONSECRATED HANDS.” I won’t say that all’s forgiven because, I’ll be honest, I really, really hate this novel at this point, but you know what? This forgives at least some of this novel’s sins. One of my favorite tales about her being brought to life on page by a very talented author does make for a high point, between this and Gráinne avenging the boytoy.

Okay, I’ll be real: The O’Donnell and Gráinne boasting about their respective kids is really, really cute, and I accept it because my very first exposure to Early Modern Ireland was “The Fighting Prince of Donegal.”

The O’Donnell talking shit about English poetry is…..very accurate to the time and the mood. My personal favorite genre of Early Modern Irish poetry is probably “The English aren’t shit.”

"Black Hugh nodded. Grania stood up, and Philip Sidney rose with her, as smoothly as if they were joined at the hip. Tigernan uttered a strangled curse. The sasanach was taking hold of Grania’s arm as if she were an old woman and he were a blackthorn stick for her to lean upon! Was that some English custom, insulting the strength of women? Or did he mean to grab her and make off with her?” Honestly, for once, Tigernan is a #Mood.

"But when Philip’s hands moved over her body, Grania discovered that all human landscapes have a certain similarity. She knew his touch as male, and hungry, and when she returned it in kind she felt a familiar rising response that flattered her and made her eager for more. Within the bed they did not seem to be foreigner and Gael. They were just man and woman, enjoying each other.” I ENDURED THE SEX SCENE WITH PHILIP FUCKING SYDNEY. SO THAT NO ONE ELSE HAS TO.

And, just like with Richard, no one can match up to Wonderful Boytoy Huw.

"She prances along the seaways as if she had a man’s balls, John, and by the bright blue eyes of God, it should be my hand that grabs those balls of hers and crushes them.”” Oh, GOD, I THOUGHT THAT THE PIRATE QUEEN’S MOST INFAMOUS LINE WAS JUST BAD LYRIC WRITING. I DIDN’T KNOW THEY TOOK IT *FROM THE NOVEL*. WHY, MORGAN LLEWELYN. WHY.

Look, I’ve made it to Chapter 24. There are 32 in total. I COULD read the rest of the way, since I want to see how poorly the treatment of Elizabeth is going to be (I’d be very shocked if there isn’t some variation of Not Like Other Girls involved), but also: I do not care at this point. I might pick it up again, but also: A bitch is tired. And illiterate. Perhaps, if I’m ever feeling brave, I’ll take on the last eight chapters, but for now: I’m calling it.

#long post #grace o'malley #gráinne ní mháille #chaos-yet-harmony

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suhmayzooka · 4 years

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cursed child broadway, feb. 23, 2020

third time seeing cc in three months for one reason: my sister is, in her words, “in love with joey labrasca” (karl). she thinks he’s absolutely perfect. this past week i’ve endured her talking about how hot he is. i mean, i’ve gotten quite a bit of good lily luna material for my fics now, but at what expense? did i need to know that joey’s (very mild) acne made him look handsomer? did i need to know about how deep his eyes are? did I?

i teased her about what she’d do if he wasn’t on, and she said she’d be so upset.

we get to the theatre, i look at the cast…and james romney was karl.

my sister was shocked. the love of her life, who most likely has forgotten about her existence, wasn’t there for what looks to be our final time seeing the year 2 cast. she was devastated.

we also got to see antoinette robinson as hermione and tom patrick stephens as ron! and sarita amani nash was myrtle!! and kimberly dodson as polly!!

james!karl was great and i will bombard my sister with as much james romney content as i can in order to piss her off further :)

patrick du laney was the sorting hat and aaron bartz was the station master. we actually saw aaron walking into the theatre as we waited outside for part 2. he definitely has the draco swagger.

anyway let’s get to the good stuff!

~james snyder as harry! great as usual. i don’t think he did much differently than last time, or if he did it wasn’t very noticeable.

~diane davis as ginny – same w james. i think she held on to albus longer when they hug in godric’s hollow this time?

~jonno roberts as draco: okay this guy singlehandedly inspired me to start a fic back in december (that has…….yet to be finished………) with how his draco and bubba’s scorpius behaved and this was no exception. idk whether his mic got caught on something or if he was really bringing it all out, but when he shoves scorpius’s head against his desk in the dark world, he GROWLED the “you do NOT use her name in vain” line ???? i’ve never heard him say it like that, it’s usually more of a hiss. idk how to describe how he said it other than “growl.” almost like an animal.

then when he said “do it safely, i can’t lose you too” he’s looking directly at scorpius. it’s different from how i’m used to seeing him and closer how i picture him saying it; usually he’s looking away, like he’s afraid of showing vulnerability to scorpius. but here, with him looking directly at him, and said with so much emotion and love, even in such a dark place…oOOF

he refused to let go of scorpius when they met again in godric’s hollow. my heart…..always one arm around scorpius’s shoulders, or one hand on his chest, as scorpius clings on to him.

~kimberly!polly SMILED and giggled when she stepped in blood? “oh, potter, i’ve got blood on my shoe!” *delighted* and then as the staircase rolled away, she turned on her stomach to gaze down at scorpius, grinning flirtatiously. this is my second time seeing her as polly, but from what i remember, katherine!polly wasn’t as sadistic in the dark au as she was. i personally prefer kimberly!polly.

~sarita!myrtle!! like w kimberly!polly this is my second time seeing sarita!myrtle and i don’t really remember much about lauren!myrtle to compare, but sarita!myrtle was hilarious. she got a round of applause just for appearing. “girls….*turns around, stares directly @ albus* AND BOYS” *albus turns around, confused, as if she’s talking to someone behind him* UGHHH she’s so good and she’ll absolutely kill it as (main) polly, i can feel it.

~this was my first time seeing jack pravda as young harry! his voice is deeper than zell’s, and he was so adorably confused in the graveyard scene. “why are there so many flowers?”

~antoinette!hermione was a lot less playful than jenny!hermione. she does try for comedic effect, but she’s a bit more serious overall. she was so scary in the first timeline! when she waves her wand to dismiss the class and she’s standing all alone, she looks out with such a distant, despairing expression, then composes herself immediately.

~tom!ron was very funny! again, my issue with ron in cc comes down to how he was written. he may have been relegated to shitty comic relief (why……is one of the first things he says……a fart joke…..?), but it’s up to the actors do what they can to flesh out some semblance of a likeable character from the bs that the script gave us. and tom!ron was great!! he’s not as…dopey? dorky? as matt!ron, who’s very funny but a bit—childish? i guess? tom!ron feels more like an adult who still has a childish sense of humor, if that makes sense.

~ROMIONE. watching a new take on romione was like falling in love w romione all over again. tom/antoinette was a very loving pair. jenny/matt tease each other a lot more, but tom/antoinette are more tactile. their kiss was so sweet

~there’s hardly any love for sara farb’s delphi for some reason. i’m not sure why; her shift from delphi diggory to delphi riddle is so chilling. delphi diggory has a high pitched voice and is really goofy around albus. scorpius absolutely hates her lmao. as soon as she switches, her voice drops to a low growl and she’s downright terrifying. i’m sad to see her go!

~WILL CARLYON. is it possible to fall in love with the portrayal of a character in a handful of scenes? he’s got like five lines total but oh my god. one thing a lot of people note about nicholas!albus is the way he’s so obviously a fourteen-year-old child. will’s james sirius potter is SUCH a thirteen-year-old in the opening scene…it’s somewhat disconcerting watching this very-obviously-twenty-something-year-old man flap his arms going “WATCH OUTTT FOR THE THESTTRRAAAAAAALS” but it works? it’s believable?? he’s so close with lily luna. this is my third time seeing him and every time he pretends to pounce on her and hug her during the thestral line i fall in love?? ginny scolds him and he is sheepish, but he won’t stop making the troll face at albus. “SLITHERING SLYTHERIN STOP WITH YOUR DITHERING” *smacks albus*

~yeah i promised jsp content and i’m fucking delivering

~he’s sO excited watching albus get sorted. when the hat goes “SLYTHERIN” he’s absolutely shocked. he’s confused. he just stares at albus, confused, until yann (jonathan gordon, who once again gives us a delightfully dislikable yann) says some shit and james just turns to him and swats his hand at him. he genuinely looked ready to fight yann. i couldn’t tell but i think he tells him to stop?? it was hard to hear but his mouth definitely moved, i think to tell yann to cut it out.

~the scene with the students eavesdropping on mcgonagall’s meeting with the parents. oh my god i don’t think he did anything that much differently than last time but i need to talk about this because i didn’t do it justice in my last recap.

~they sit on the stairs (iirc) top to bottom craig, yann, karl, rose, james. i’m gonna ignore craig, yann, and karl since there are some serious family feels going on w rose and james

~jsp and rose begin the scene smiling, snickering as they hear that albus and scorpius fucked up. “ahaha they got into deep shit” but then when they learn that they wrote rose and hugo (??whom??) out of time and then killed harry, their faces fall. james’s eyes become vacant, far-off as he learns what happened to his brother. his breathing becomes heavier and faster until he’s a few breaths from hyperventilating. he leans his forehead against the stairwell/banister and shakes his head, mouthing/whispering “no…no…”

~nadia brown’s rose is such a little shit but she’s so good in this scene. when she learns that she didn’t exist in the new timeline, she grabs james’s shoulder and he grabs her hand. they don’t let go for the rest of the scene.

~i’m like half convinced that will got the part because of his amazingly expressive eyebrows. i think my sister calls it “back row acting?” his eyebrows can probably be seen from the back row. after the mcgonagall scene is over he sits on the stairs, raising one eyebrow at rose and hermione, then goes back to reading the scroll.

~i didn’t mean for this to become a will carlyon fan account but he deserves it. according to nicholas he’s the biggest potterhead in the cast. he’s a ravenclaw. he can sing. he’s so fucking valid and i’m so glad he’s staying for year 3. he’s got two followers on youtube and one of them is me. please guys like no one talks about him and i’ll fill this niche. same with the lovely sarita. she’s so kind and so beautiful and so talented she can sing so well and she gives everything during wand dance listen i spent the beginning of this thing making fun of my sister for liking joey so much but sarita……..

~cc nyc said straight girl/lesbian solidarity

~anyway…

~nicholas podany as albus. so. Many. Tears. i didn’t realize this before but his whole body trembles when he cries?? i first noticed this when he and harry were in the slytherin common room. i was like “are his pajamas vibrating?? is this an optical illusion (they’re striped pajamas)???” no, his whole body was shaking with suppressed crying. once i noticed i couldn’t un-notice and this continued for the rest of the show.

~bubba weiler’s scorpius didn’t seem much different from usual? i could go on about him but….that’s what my unfinished fic is for……one day……….

~okay so this is where i elaborate on the scorbus moments that made me want to YEET myself off the roof of the theatre (if you had to make sense of my typos on discord: i am Sorry)

~the slytherin dorm scene: scorpius tickles albus to wake him up. he then makes himself comfortable on albus’s bed and won’t stop rubbing and patting his thigh.

~in addition to being austistic, bubba!scorp is bisexual (jon case would be proud) and here is PROOF: to flirt, bubba!scorpius leans against objects, sprawls his body out, plays with his hair, etc all extremely cheesy, greasy, suave moves. he blows a kiss to polly as he’s sprawled across the stairs. when he ROLLS down the stairs (looked painful…) to see rose at the end, he plays with his hair, shoots her a finger gun (further proof he’s bi), and lowers his voice. but the comparison i need to highlight is THIS: when he says rose smells like bread, (1) he leans against the suitcases, trying to look suave, and (2) his face is instant regret. he silently bends back and mouths “WHAT WHY BREAD?? WHAT??? WHY???” and now…when he delivers his “ENGORGIMPRESSED” line to albus, he (1) leans against the sink, (2) grins, lowering his voice, and when the pun doesn’t land, (3) his face immediately falls, instant regret, the literal definition of “oH MY GOD WHAT WHY DID I JUST SAY THAT” the same expression he had when rose wasn’t impressed. coincidence? i think NOT. he’s trying so hard to flirt but he has no idea how to interact w people im --

~delphi in the church: when the adults have all surrounded delphi with their magic in the center of the stage, albus, ginny, and scorpius are huddled together. scorpius is behind albus, clutching his shoulder and hand. albus breaks free for “SHE’S A MURDERER I’VE SEEN HER MURDER” (an underappreciated line imo) and scorpius just watches him, clearly wanting to help but not knowing how

~the final hug. my initial, endorphin-fueled reaction was, verbatim: “THE FUNAL HUG NSCWR SEEN IR LAST SO LLNG NEVER SAW NICJ HUG HIM BACK NOSES ALMOST TOYCHONF.” not even this is enough to convey my reaction to the final hug, but i’ll try my best to transcribe it.

scorpius: runs up the stairs, grabs albus into a hug

albus: stunned for a moment, then wraps his arms around scorpius’s shoulders and hugs him back, burying his face into the crook of scorpius’s neck. this is the first time i’ve seen him hug back, at least so fiercely. they stand there for a good 3-5 seconds, then albus says, quietly, “what’s this? i thought we didn’t hug.”

scorpius, pulling back but still close to albus: “i wasn’t sure whether we should…” *looks up at albus, literal inches from his face* “in this new version of us…” *more gazing into each other’s eyes for a few seconds*

albus: “well…you better ask rose if it’s the right thing to do…” he sounded unsure? not as playful as before?

scorpius: *stares at albus for a few seconds* “a..aaha………..yeah right!”

he turns around and runs down the stairs. albus goes “i’ll see you at dinner!” and scorpius turns around, smiles at him, and walks off, albus grinning and gazing so lovingly as he departs i’m gonna c r y

i can’t think of anything else to say about the show itself? but my sister has given me a lot of material so i’m gonna talk about what went on with her because it’s relevant to our stage door interactions.

as we ate, she described how she would rewrite cc. she has valid and absolutely invalid suggestions. she would keep the father/son issues, make scorbus canon, remove or rewrite rose, and rewrite delphi’s backstory (valid). she would remove the sorting hat and the dark timeline (not valid).

during the intermission between acts 3 and 4, we started looking through the playbill and she started gossiping/venting about how much she hates the people in her school’s theatre (valid, since they’re bullying assholes). i brought up a meme i sent her that i saw on twitter about how no high school theatre guys can sing, act, dance, and not be sexist. somehow this discussion went back to nicholas podany? she was like, “i’ve been listening to his songs and deep blue is a low-key bop.” i asked if she heard his most recent song, telling myself. she hadn’t and she immediately went to soundcloud to listen to it. her reaction was PRICELESS. she absolutely adored it. she was dancing in her seat, going “okay this is actually really good??” like ofc it is? i don’t recommend bad songs? she tried to replay it but then her data ran out and the lyric theatre wifi is shit so she got very upset. then the lights turned off and she reluctantly took out her earbuds.

there was a little girl (around 6-7ish, i’d say) in the very first row dressed as hermione for part one--complete with a doll and a broom. for part two she was wearing a hedwig costume that looked homemade! she was very adorable, and bubba waved hello to her when he came for the curtain call.

stage door:

~sarita came out first! we told her that this was our third time at the show and second time seeing her. i congratulated her on being cast as polly and she was so happy! dare i say…..loml

~tom and antoinette were so happy to have been the first cover romione we saw! tom was like “ah, you saw the best ron (himself)!” we were in front of a man from the uk who had seen the london show five times, and he and tom struck up a conversation about where they were from.

~nadia brown was so happy to see us! she didn’t remember us lmao but she’s so friendly

~edward james hyland (amos/dumbledore) was…politically campaigning?? the people in front of us were from vermont and he was like “ah…vermont…do you support bernie??” just like that. they were caught off guard but i think they gave an affirmative answer, and he was like “and if he doesn’t get the nomination…?” they were still caught off guard and he just went “you’ll vote blue, right…? cause it’s the right thing to do….?” idk i’m firmly liberal but i thought this was a weird place to get political but okay

~EVERYONE was telling nicholas podany about how much they love telling myself. he was telling the people in front of us about how it was mastered/mixed by solange’s producer(?) and my sister and i exchanged :0 looks. she was getting shy, but i was like “tell him! he’ll love to talk about it, i guarantee it!” because even though i produce 0 content, i *am* an artist and i *do* know that we artists love validation

~so he came to us and she started talking about his songs! we’re fortunate that it was a more rock-y song so we’re…able to sound like we know what we’re talking about lmao. growing up our mom would play us classical music (check out beethoven’s wig yo) and our dad would play us the ramones. one of my earliest memories was arguing with my sister (probably around 4 at the time) about the lyrics to “i wanna be sedated” ahh… (she was correct btw)

~(don’t argue with me the ramones may not be poets but they’re valid)

~i was right! he was SO excited to talk to us!! my sister complimented the song and the production. she said “i ADORE your new song!! it’s a high key bop!” and he broke into the BIGGEST smile. she was like “i’m gonna play it until i hate it” and he said something along the lines of “i was in the studio listening to it nonstop for 8(??) hours i can’t stand it.” he was talking about how he made the song with his “own scorpius” but i forgot who…he said scorpius and my mind blanked lmao. he’s brought this person up before in interviews so i can probably find it. she complimented the fact that it was different from his usual stuff and he told us about how he had a rock band in high school. @nick where tf is your rock content pls deliver

~i actually spoke this time and cut in to tell him about how she was trying to listen to it on repeat but the signal gave out. she was trying to tell me to shut up but it’s my legal duty as the older sister to embarrass her.

me: “I told her about your song during the intermission—”

her: “don’t!”

me: “no, nO, i told her and she was listening and then she ran out of data—”

him: “aaAa noo!”

her: “I listened to it!”

~then i told him that we loved seeing how he played albus and that we’re going to miss him, that we were going to see the cast change show but we couldn’t get tickets (i kindly left off the reason why), and he was so sweet about it *clenches heart* he told us how much he loves being able to experience this, that we’ll be so lucky to have james romney take over, etc etc i kinda wasn’t listening bc I was too emo, but I remember going “…but I don’t want to say goodbye…” and he just. gave me a sad look like “I know.” there was so much pity in his expression. why is he leaving us.

~the uk guy behind us was talking about how he’d seen the london year 3 and 4. nicholas was like “oh, joe and dom? yeah i’ve spoken to joe and dom—wait, no, i haven’t met dom? i know he has an impressive social media presence” and they started talking about how different actors bring different things to albus and how the show allows them to explore different aspects to their characters and he just…wasn’t making any of this any easier for me lmao i’m mourning the loss of nick!albus and it’s not even march

~i feel bad that we weren’t able to speak with fiona reid (petunia/umbridge) because nicholas was talking to us.

~jonno roberts. this was the first time i’ve interacted w him at sd. his draco has made such an impact on me, he’s my favorite actor in the show, and what do i say? what great words come out of my mouth? “hi you were great.” my sister KICKED me with her heeled boots. good thing i’m a lesbian because my doc martens protected my feet from the force of her anger.

~james snyder was enraptured in conversation with the people in front of us and just took our playbills to sign as he spoke with them. then he went “hi,” passed over us to talk to the guy behind us. my sister was like “you were great!”

~tbh sd was kinda messy bc we were at the end of the line and the barrier things didn’t allow for the actors to get enough room to interact with the fans at the back. also jonno was standing there and he’s not a small man.

~saw several male actors leaving sd, waving goodbye at us and just walking away. MOOD. i was exhausted and i wasn’t the one running around on stage!

#ccsquad #cursed child #hp #i see cc

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detectivedreameater · 4 years

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Woah, Oh, It’s Magic|| Natalia and Marley

TIMING: Current PARTIES: @castillos-curses SUMMARY: A date, a staring contest, and a happy ending.

Anyone who suggested Dell's needed a portfolio update, and Marley wasn't opposed to being the one to show them the ropes, especially if it was an attractive woman. Natalia seemed eager, too, to know what Marley had up her sleeve for the after party. And boy, was it gonna be a good one. She'd have to test the waters first, of course, but Marley had great intuition, and her intuition told her that Natalia was more than what she showed. Whether that more was a good more or a bad more, was all that was left to be sussed out. Either way, it was a win for Marley. She got to the restaurant a few minutes early, not her usual game, but it was important that she did this time. Watching someone's approach could tell you a lot about a person, and if Marley could get just thirty extra seconds of establishing a baseline with Natalia, she'd take it. Finally, dark curls appeared from around the corner and Marley couldn't help but notice she looked much nicer in person than in her online profile. "Good to see not everyone lies on their online profile," she jested, giving a grin.

Natalia wasn't the hugest fan of Dell's - to be honest, she barely went to any of the non-supernatural spots in town on any kind of a regular basis. But it was the most well-known and, she thought, least offensive of prospective human only bars to suggest for a first meetup. Marley seemed incredibly against the idea, which was just further points in her favor in Nat's mind. This Marley was not only hot, but also a cop, and potentially a cop who was well in the know? It was like hitting gold. She arrived at Dell's perfectly punctually, dressed down, unsure of what to expect for the evening. "You weren't expecting a catfish, I hope?" Nat replied with a smirk, tossing her hair as she peeled off her denim jacket. "It's nice to meet you - officially, and all. Though, I am sorry to have brought you somewhere that you have such a detestation for."

Marley gave a light chuckle, grinning from behind dark sunglasses again. She wondered if Natalia would immediately find them odd. She found a lot of people who were in the know did. "Maybe," she said coyly, strutting up to the door, "it works out either way for me. I'd just arrest them, so." She pulled it open to allow for Natalia to go in first, giving her a hand wave before following her in. "The only thing Dell's is good for is cheap pre-game drinks. And they're on you, so," she shrugged, heading up to the bar, "I can't complain, right?" Gave a grin as they reached the bar. Natalia was certainly nice to look at, even dressed down. Casual but still cute. Extremely attractive, with an air of mystery.

"Arrest someone for posting misleading pictures on a profile?" Natalia laughed, thinking she was going to like this woman just fine. She stepped inside, curious if Marley was going to keep the sunglasses indoors as well. Her online account didn't give off any markers of her being some kind of supernatural - but then again, not everyone was as obvious as herself. "Fair enough," Nat agreed, bouncing into a stool against the bar. "Two beers?" She asked the bartender, once gaining his attention. With a sly glance at Marley, she added quickly "And a round of tequila shots - thanks." He bustled away to get their drinks, and she grinned at Marley. "Might as well pre-game correctly, right?"

"It might not be real grounds for arrest, but it'd sure give them a good scare," Marley said with a snicker, following suit and pulling herself onto a chair next to Natalia. She hadn't taken her for a beer kind of gal, but the two tequila shots definitely made sense. Natalia was a confident woman, and she seemed very sure of herself. Marley appreciated that. "What's the point if you don't do it right?" When the bartender returned, she scooped up her shot and held it up to Natalia's, ready to cheers. "Here's to an exciting night," she grinned, before tossing it back, that burn traveling all down her throat. "So tell me," she said, leaning on the bar top, "what brought someone like you to White Crest?"

"I hope so." Natalia clinked her shot glass against Marley's, downing it in sync. She let out a small cough at the burn, licking her lips against the smoky tang. The plain taste of the cold beer made for a nice chaser and she took a sip, glancing at the mirrored lenses of her date. "Business, mostly." Nat answered truthfully, "Turns out White Crest, Maine is a great place to make a ton of money for my incredibly specific business." She laughed at the absurdity of where she had ended up. "I'm sure the cops around here are kept as busy as me, with everything that goes on." Her eyebrows raised questioningly, though the question was innocent enough.

Marley grinned. She couldn't help it. She was in a good company, drinking free alcohol, and everything Natalia said had that little devious hint to it that she often found herself using. "Business? What kind?" she asked, sipping her beer. She liked the tequila better, but this would do for now. "Oh, yes, we're kept plenty busy. There's definitely a lot more murder here than in Albany, but I like staying busy. Beats sitting around bored, plus every case here is always so...interestingly different. It's fun finding a new way to say 'coyote attack' when it was very obviously not a coyote. But hey, what Sarge says goes, and if I get paid at the end of the day, that's what matters," she answered, taking another long sip. Normally, she'd be looking around the entire place, picking out things that piqued her interest-- but here, only Natalia did. "I take it you're enjoying the town, then? You don't seem as timid about this place as most others I've met."

Natalia was leaning more honest than she might normally have. Marley seemed to be taking everything she said in stride, and perhaps throwing in some coy comments of her own. "I run an occult shop - on Amity Road. This town has proven incredibly lucrative for me." She chuckled, surprised at the woman's forthcoming nature, and surprised to hear her reference all those bogus 'coyote attacks' she kept seeing in the news. "Yes, those 'coyotes' just don't know when to quit, I think." It was interesting that she mentioned her Sargent enforcing the cover ups - was the entire police force 'in on it', so to speak? "I do like it here," She agreed reluctantly. "Money's great, I've made a lot of connections for my work...but I've been all over the world - it's a bit /quaint/ here, for my taste." Nat shrugged, taking another drink of her own to match Marley. "There are far more intimidating places in the world than White Crest. Though, I've never been to Albany - can't speak for that one."

"Occult shop, huh?" Marley said, grinning as an idea struck her. "Sounds like a very niche business, but I can definitely see why it's something popular here. Whether it's real or not," she added on, wondering how she'd react. Marley had a hunch, but it was always more fun to guess than be told. "Didn't think running an occult store would warrant world travels, or, er-- 'connections'," she went on, putting quotes around the word, a brow raising from behind her frames. "Don't bother, Albany is boring. Quaint is one word for this town, but maybe it's just because you're hanging out in the wrong places. C'mon," she said, downing the rest of her beer, "let's get out of here. I wanna take you somewhere fun." Slid from the bench and held out her hand, looking at her from behind her frames sharply.

Niche was right, though in this town that niche was a bit more mainstream than one small pocket. Natalia couldn't suppress a smirk at the question of validity of her shop. "I get plenty of business from people who believe and who don't." She replied coyly. "I didn't always have an actual store. Before this, I would travel all over buying and selling rare occult items for clients." This was, strictly speaking, the truth, though it was a little more in-depth than she let on. But Marley was moving on quickly, and Natalia liked that restless energy - it crackled between them as she wondered what her idea of 'fun' would actually entail. She finished her beer in suit, leaving a couple of tens on the counter to cover the tab. Her hand grasped Marley's after a second's hesitation and she scooped up her jacket on their way out. "Fantastic - what did you have in mind?"

"And what about you?" Marley asked, not so coyly this time. "Do you believe or don't you?" She took Natalia's hand and wrapped her cold fingers around hers, leading them out of Dell's-- finally-- and towards the street that led to Amity. She knew exactly where she was going to take Natalia, and she was increasingly more excited to see the look on her face when they arrived. "It's a surprise," she said with a devious grin, hooking their arms together as they walked. "Tell me more about this fascinating job of yours while we walk."

Natalia was again taken aback by her upfront nature. It was rare that people so bluntly asked if she was being serious or not. "I do." Natalia decided to answer honestly, based on her own suspicions of her date, they could have a lot more in common than she though. "You could even call me a witch!" She made a pretend scary face, wiggling her fingers for dramatic 'magical' effect. "But would /you/ believe that? That's the real question." Once they hit Amity, Nat had a pretty good idea of where they were going - but it was a little shocking Marley even knew it existed. Their arms entwined, she chuckled. "I don't know what's there to tell. Taking away the exotic items and locations, I'm just a glorified import and export curator." Importing and exporting endangered species, killer monsters, deadly weapons...but still.

"You know, when you say it like that, I think I do," Marley said, grinning back at Natalia. The truth was, of course she did. Marley knew a few other spellcasters, after all. She tossed her head back and laughed at Natalia's display of finger waggling. "I get the feeling it's a little more than that, but fine," she said, pausing once they'd reached the entrance to the 'Dancing Dryad'-- a front for what was really inside. Marley reached into her pocket and pulled out a matchbook before leading Natalia inside. The little song and dance that was played to gain entrance to the Magic Circle was one Marley had done many a time, and she presented the matchbook along with a dip of her glasses-- proof she was of the supernatural variety-- before turning back to Natalia as the new door opened. "Now it's time for some real fun."

Natalia watched Marley present the requisite items for entry into the Magic Circle with a smug feeling of superiority. She /knew/ it. Hunters should hire her out for her impeccable ability to spot a supernatural being from a mile away, really. "I know how /I/ know about this place - but how do /you/?" Nat didn't miss that moment with Marley dropping her shades, though she wasn't actually able to see her eyes from this angle - more and more intriguing questions popping up as this night went on. As they headed inside - the bouncer giving her a nod in recognition - she looked around, hoping not to see too many people she knew here. "I like your idea of fun - this is certainly a better spot than Dell's, you were absolutely right."

"Can't a girl keep some mystery about her?" Marley followed Natalia in and up to the bar, ordering some nice drinks for the two of them, before turning back to her. She tapped the lens of her sunglasses. "So you are a real witch, then, aren't you?" she said, handing Natalia the drink. "Looks like I just keep getting more and more lucky tonight. First, you're a gorgeous lady, not an old man trying to catfish me-- and now I find out you're a real spellcaster?" She looked around the room, before finally pulling her glasses off. Even inside, the low glow of her red eyes was visible. "I suppose I owe you a little secret, too, since I know yours."

"Yes, really," Nat replied, taking the drink offered. She wondered if she should do a little fun spell to prove it, but really didn't feel like messing it up and losing face. She laughed in response with a hint of a blush creeping up her ears. Gorgeous, huh? Marley's secret finally revealed, she grinned like the cat that ate the canary. A /mara/. And a cop?? How wonderful. "I wonder if there's even one normal human in this town?" Nat asked, chuckling. "It is nice to not have to pretend for the rest of this night - how incredibly tiresome."

Marley grinned. "Unfortunately, there's all too many normal humans in this place, it really kills my vibe sometimes," she said with a wave of her hand. "But tonight we don't have to worry about that at all, right?" She tucked her glasses into the 'v' of her shirt and led Natalia to a more private booth in the back. "So, I take it you come here often? I caught the way the bartender nodded at you. One thing you should know about me is that I'm really good at reading people."

They settled into a quiet booth near the back of the bar, away from the crowd beginning to form at the bar, and she sipped on her drink. It had a bit of a fizzy sensation up her nose, without any carbonation to speak of - magic. "Yes, you caught me." Natalia sighed. Just /how/ good at reading people, she wondered? "I'm quite the regular here. This is a decent place to do business, and as you put it - regular people really kill my vibe." She smiled in response, looking into her faintly red eyes with interest. It was while looking in that direction she caught sight of a regular of her own - fucking Keith. He was making a vicious beeline for their table, so it was too late to pretend not to see him. "And here comes that business right now to ruin my night." She whispered to Marley, standing up and trying to head him off. "Keith - babe, I thought I told you I don't do refunds. You asked to curse your ex-wife, and I did!" The man got close into her space, eyes flashing angrily, and jabbing a finger in her face. "She's a worm! You turned her into a fucking worm! We have kids! The cat tried to eat her!!" Natalia stifled a giggle - it was kind of funny, and she'd been drinking. "No, Keith, /you/ turned her into a worm. I think your words were 'make her feel what she makes me feel like'? Curses are very literal. I only sold you the kit, you did it your-" As she tried to calm him down, he got a fistful of her jacket, shaking her a bit as he kept yelling. She stopped talking pretty quickly.

Marley was about to reply when Natalia looked straight past her. Turning her head, she noticed someone stomping towards them. A little ruffled that her night was being so interrupted, Marley opted to stay put as Natalia rose from the table to intercept him. She took a decent sip of her drink-- letting it fizzle in her mouth-- watching the two. A client, it seemed, mad about what he'd gotten for his money. Marley very nearly spat out her drink trying to suppress a laugh, putting a hand over her mouth. It was, however, very quickly stopped when the man grabbed her date. Marley was out of her seat in mere seconds, glad, for once, that her glasses were already off. "Hey!" she snapped, in a low growl. And instant the man's eye line went from Natalia to her, she stared him down until he was nothing but a crumpled mess on the ground, stricken with the fear she knew she instilled. When she felt satisfied enough to stop, she blinked and stepped back. "Didn't your mother ever teach you not to hit a lady?" she said flatly, before sliding back into the booth as if nothing had happened.

Natalia eagerly slid back out of the man's reach as he quickly dropped her and focused on Marley. She watched Marley stare the man down - no words exchanged, no physical blows dealt, yet he fell to the ground in a heap, shaking and terrified. Her mouth popped open, impressed and mildly scared. Mildly turned on. "Get the fuck out of here, Keith - I don't wanna see you again. Ask Vera to help you, she needs the money." He scrambled away, half-tripping and half-running. Nat sat back down into their booth, eyes fixed on Marley with an incredulous expression. "Thank you...for that. I'm terribly sorry to have /work/ interrupt our evening." She cleared her throat, still amazed at having seen a mara in action. "That was...interesting."

"If there's one thing I hate more than someone interrupting me," Marley said matter-of-factly, sipping her drink, "it's a man who thinks he can put his hands on a woman without her permission." She let her eyes wander from the table and up to Natalia. She didn't find her intimidating like everyone else, right? Did she think she was a monster, too? Like Deirdre? Like Erin? Like the rest of her kind? Ruffling her brow, Marley looked down, sliding her glasses back on. "Interesting is one word. I'm sure he'll think twice about messing with people now," she said, grinning again, though softer this time. "Now, where were we?"

"Agreed." Natalia nodded sagely, taking a drink with only the slightest of shake in her hands. Though she acted unflappable all of the time, having someone bodily grab her and scream in her face still took a minute to get past. "You're quite the knight in shining armor, I'm even more glad to have your company tonight." Her smile was flirty, looking over the rim of her glass. It was downright attractive to watch someone mentally scar a guy on her behalf. "I think the night was /just/ getting interesting, don't you?"

Marley, being the person she was, noticed the slight shake in Natalia's hand as she took a sip. Marley watched her for a moment, giving a smirk back. "I prefer the dark, no shining here." After a second, she removed herself from her side of the booth and slid in next to Natalia, taking her drink from her hand and setting it on the table. She looked at her evenly from behind her glasses, letting her know that she wasn't a threat to her right now, wondering if she needed to reassure her, before leaning in and pressing her lips to Natalia's. She tasted like sweet cinnamon and alcohol. When she pulled away, she murmured, "What do you say we get out of here? My place is right down the street."

#chatzy #chatzy: natalia #natalia #woah oh it's magic

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randomarcanatingz · 4 years

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the arcana characters as youtubers

nadia

always has her hair and makeup impeccably done for her videos and when she meets fans,,,no one has ever seen her look like less than an 11/10

makes videos on fashion trends and fashion history (think a less experimental safiya nygaard), ones where she gives advice to viewers who send in questions, and unboxing/review videos for beauty items and clothes

people always comment calling her “queen” which she thinks is sort of cute and “mom” which just confuses her (“for the last time--i appreciate all the kind words but i DO NOT HAVE ANY CHILDREN”)

has never been demonetized once and doesn’t plan on it

whenever her videos are sponsored, she manages to sneak the sponsorship in smoothly, in a clever way

goes to vidcon but typically is too busy to stay the whole weekend

wrote a book on self care and how to be independent and successful that became one of the best-selling youtuber books ever

isn’t a huge fan of collabs on her own channel, but appears occasionally on portia’s or asra’s

does a yearly giveaway of high end jewelry and makeup for her subscribers, and holds a charity donation event for her birthday (like colleen ballinger’s childhood cancer one)

seems to avoid scandals effortlessly, but actually works hard to stay out of drama

asra

has absolutely no theme to his channel and just rolls with whatever video idea he can think of at the time

some examples include an instructional tarot reading video, a docuseries on the stigma against reptiles (featuring faust in every episode), a collab with nadia where they just drink tea and talk about current events, and him playing the weirdest children’s games he can find online

LOVES meeting fans and spends the whole weekend at vidcon, has like 7 meet and greets, and appears in every panel that will let him participate

his videos are low on editing and mostly just edited for length, but any special effects he does add in are not subtle at all (aka random sparkles and dramatic jump cuts)

has been dubbed a “cinnamon roll” by his fans but he isn’t afraid to call out other creators if they say something problematic

is very expressive and there are many reaction images and videos of him all over instagram and twitter

doesn’t usually make travel blogs but he does travel a lot, so most of his videos don’t have the same background

all his merch is tye-dye and the best seller is a mug with a faust-shaped handle

follows a bunch of fan accounts for him on instagram

tons of fans ship him with julian and while he’s not super into it, he finds the shitty instagram edits hilarious

julian

the KING of clickbait titles but his fans don’t mind that much because it just parallels his dramatic personality

“Staying in a Haunted Hotel???” (it’s not haunted, he just heard the people in the room beside him talking at midnight and thought it was ghosts), “I Solved the Jon-Benet Ramsey Case” (he didn’t, it’s just him discussing theories on it), “Proof the Government is Plotting Against Us” (no solid proof, just off the wall conspiracies that he explains confidently)

makes videos of him exploring supposedly haunted places, ones where he discusses unsolved crime cases and what he thinks really happened, and conspiracy theory videos

very active in the comments section; likes every nice comment he sees and replies to them with a winky face

also very active on twitter and instagram, especially past midnight, and replies to tweets and dms from fans

sometimes collabs with asra for conspiracy videos which immediately leads to 20 fanmade compilations titled “julian annoying asra for 5 minutes straight”

is always sponsored by the weirdest, most random companies that have no relation to the kind of videos he makes at all

does 6 hour live streams where all he does is look at cursed images on reddit

is determined to not let any of his subscriber’s discover that his birth name is ilya

random haters have tried to cancel him multiple times but it Never Works he is literally immune to being cancelled

portia

vlog QUEEN !!! her videos are mostly vlogs of her daily life, with a few scripted videos scattered here and there, usually involving pepi

contrary to her brother, her titles are very blunt and true to the content and are in all lowercase (“a day in my life”, “getting frustrated in my garden”, “buying my cat clothes online”)

she tries to make her videos appeal to everyone, but 90% of her demographic is still teenage wannabe aesthetic vsco girls

has never done a proper collab, but her vlogs always end up featuring nadia, julian, and some of the palace guards

has a popular merch line that sells unique items like flower seeds, pet food bowls, and baking tools

her favorite thing is seeing her fans’ reactions when she picks up one much taller and heavier than her for a picture at vidcon

fans all agree that she has bde

sometimes makes so-called “family vlogs” where she hangs out with julian and mazelinka and calls them “the maz squad”

for april fool’s day, she posted a fake giveaway announcement video where she claimed she was giving pepi away to a fan

her twitter is mostly retweets of fanart and sweet messages from fans (and pictures of pepi, obviously)

muriel

has the smallest subscriber count of the group but it's surprisingly high for someone who never wanted to be popular in the first place

his videos are very niche and are usually on topics like how to survive in the wilderness and how to raise chickens

many of his subscribers think his quiet personality and unique videos are all an act or persona and muriel does not understand why

he's only ever been to one (1) fan event/meet and greet and it was when he tagged along with asra to vidcon

despite his protests, asra always plugs muriel’s videos on his twitter, so they share many subscribers

he doesn't really have any haters because those who actually watch his videos think he's super sweet and those who don't are too scared of his huge stature

didn't want to include inanna in his videos initially, but caved after fans saw her in the background of one and demanded she make an appearance more often

fans (and asra) keep insisting he change his username to “the mountain man” but he heartily refuses

does his own editing but also isn't great with technology so sometimes his videos are strangely edited and include parts he meant to edit out (but it's kinda endearing)

has never sold merch, never plans to, and ignores any requests to do so

lucio

listen i'm not comparing him to the paul brothers but you know …..

makes prank videos, makeup tutorials (but it's the same look just varied SLIGHTLY every time), and vlogs where he not so subtly flexes how rich he is

his merch is supposedly “the highest quality and extremely stylish” but that just means the prices are sky high and the quality is not that great

goes to every convention he can and holds random meet ups because he craves attention

isn't mean to his fans because he couldn't bear seeing his sub count go down, but will absolutely TEAR his haters to shreds and get their channel taken down somehow

gets demonetized all the time and complains about it (as if he needs more money)

people are either a huge fan or they HATE him there is no in between

uses clickbait just as much as julian but people are less forgiving about it

none of the other people in the gang really want to collab with him but julian did once, got tricked into eating a beetle, and refused to do it ever again

king of scandals, tweets random controversial stuff and then deletes it

#the arcana #arcana #the arcana game #nadia satrinava #muriel #asra #asra alnazar #julian devorak #ilya devorak #portia devorak #count lucio #lucio #youtube #youtubers #the arcana imagines #the arcana imagine #imagines

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writings-of-a-british-fangirl · 5 years

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Unrequited (Ivar Ragnarsson x Reader; light Hvitserk x Reader)

Title: Unrequited? Summary: You see Ivar kiss Freydis, and even though you're not together, it still hurts. Why? Because you've been in love with him as long you can remember. Warnings: Angst, Swearing (what? These are my niche lately lmao), Sexual References (no actual smut) Request: N/A

A/N: I had to include some Hvitserk x Reader! Eventually, I will get around to writing a one shot for him!

Want to read more of my stuff? >>Here<< OR >>Here [Mobile]<< [Got any feed back? I’d love to hear it!] Want to see the upcoming requests? >>Here<<

Ivar Ragnarsson~Unrequited?

It was no secret that you and Ivar were close; in fact, it was probably the reason you were still single. Every man was far too scared to even go near you because of Ivar The Boneless. This was still despite the fact that the two of you were nothing more than friends! No matter how much you wished it, Ivar was just your best friend and nothing more. He’d never shown interest in you like that, even when you flirted with him.

It had hurt, of course it had hurt. Even when he pulled you closer, there always seemed to be a barrier. Not emotionally, you told each other everything, but mentally. It was as if the very thought of something else with you to Ivar was unthinkable.

But, you stayed by his side because you loved him. Blindly. Unconditionally. Probably more than you should. His brothers saw it, the longing in your eyes, and had their fun teasing you about it. It seemed the only Ragnarsson oblivious was Ivar. Typical: the man you love is the type that doesn’t get hints.

You followed him all the way to England. It was a leap of faith, for sure, but it was an important journey and you knew that you couldn’t not be by his side. At least, you thought he needed you there.

That was until you saw him with Freydis.

He had kissed her. You had only wanted to talk to him about battle plans, check up on him about how he was dealing with his parents’ deaths. Ivar didn’t reveal much to anyone about his emotions but you hoped you could at least remove some weight from his shoulders. Instead of finding him alone, you saw him kissing her and her kissing him right back.

You’d never been in so much pain. The battles and fights were nothing compared to this pain.

You ran to the only person you thought could help: Hvitserk.

Despite being a well-known ‘ladies' man’ and having the Lothbrok ego, he was kind to you. You’d grown up with him and while you weren’t as close to him as you were with Ivar, he was still a good friend to you. He could heal the hurt you were feeling.

You stormed into his tent and found him alone. You were thankful for that. Immediately, he could see that something was wrong, and brought you into a warm hug.

“I fucking hate your brother,” you sobbed into his chest.

“Which one?” he jokes to you, trying to lighten the mood.

You pull back and begin wiping the tears from your face.

“Which one do you think?”

“Hm, what has Ivar done now?” Hvitserk murmurs, leading you to sit down on his bed.

You sit beside him and fiddle with the blanket he places over your lap. Although it hurts, you’re not sure if it’s your place to tell Ivar’s business to everyone. Then again, Hvitserk wasn’t everyone: he was Ivar’s brother and if you asked you knew that he was capable of keeping a secret.

You sigh.

“I saw him kiss a thrall,” you try to stop yourself from crying as you recall the kiss in your head, “He kissed her, Hvitserk.”

“Y/N…”

“I know, I know, I’m stupid for ever believing that Ivar could see me like that… I just thought that because we were so close and he’d never been with a girl that he was… I don’t know hinting that he wanted to be with me.”

“You’re not stupid,” Hvitserk says, gently taking your hand, “Ivar is, though.”

You laugh and Hvitserk physically relaxes at the sound of your laughter. He smiles and uses his index finger to raise your chin to make you look at him.

“Listen to me, Ivar is a fool if he doesn’t want you.”

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Do you want me like that?” you murmur leaning closer.

“Yes.”

“Then fuck me, Hvitserk.”

“Fuck. I can’t,” Hvitserk curses, frustrated, “Believe me, I want to. I fucking want to make you scream my name but you don’t want this.”

“Yes I do,” you whine, “Hvitserk, please.”

“Don’t,” Hvitserk protests, but his resolve is breaking, “If you still want me to, I’ll fuck you later. Just not now, not when it’s too fresh.”

“You’re right. I hate it when you’re right,” you sigh, “For the record, if I wasn’t in love with your stupid brother, I would be all over you.”

It is Hvitserk’s turn to laugh.

“I’d like that, in another life.”

“Can you sleep with me though? Just sleep? I can’t be alone right now,” you ask.

“Of course, stay in my bed. It’s much more comfortable.”

You gently remove your boots and your outer furs and lay down on the bed. Hvitserk was right: it was extremely comfortable. You begin feeling sleepy almost straight away. Gently, Hvitserk slips under the covers next to you and places a kiss to your forehead.

“Sleep well, shield maiden.”

~~~

You woke up in the morning still in Hvitserk’s bed. It was early, you could tell, and Hvitserk was still sound asleep beside you. He looked so peaceful and innocent.

Gently, you rose from the bed and put your furs and boots back on. You stepped from the tent and found that most people were still asleep. As quietly as you could, you slipped back in your tent. To your surprise, you were met with a very angry looking Ivar.

“Ivar?” you ask in confusion.

You expected him to still be asleep, especially if he had a busy night with that slave last night. He glares at you from across the room and you make your way to him cautiously. You hadn’t seen him this angry in quite a few months.

“What’s going on? Is something wrong?” you question further, standing in front of him.

“I came to see you this morning because I needed your opinion and counsel. Imagine my surprise when I come to your tent and find it empty. I ask around and I found that you didn’t come home to your tent last night- you went to Hvitserk’s. And spent the night,” he talks with a very accusing tone, one that you feel yourself getting angry over.

What right had he to be angry? To be jealous?

“Yes, I went to see Hvitserk last night and I ended up falling asleep in his bed.”

Ivar rolls his eyes.

“How does it feel? Being my brother’s whore?” Ivar mocks.

“I’m no one's whore, Boneless,” you all but snap, “Let me make this extraordinarily clear, I went to your brother, we talked and I fell asleep. That is all that happened. I didn’t fuck him.”

“I-“

“-And, even if I had fucked him,” you interrupt him, looking down at Ivar poking him in the chest with one of your fingers, “Even if he had fucked me all night long, it wouldn’t concern you.”

“Of course it concerns me!”

“And why is that, Ivar?!”

“Because you’re my- my best friend!”

“What? So that means that no man can touch me? That I am meant to live untouched for the rest of my life?!” you argue back, “If all you get from this friendship is a power trip from controlling me then consider it over!”

“Don’t be-“

“-Do you enjoy hurting me?”

“What?” his voice softens and his expression looks almost child-like.

“I said do you enjoy hurting me?”

“I’ve never… I would never hurt you, Y/N.”

“You hurt me every day. Every time I have to acknowledge the fact that you are my friend and nothing more, that you see me as nothing more than a distraction, you hurt me,” you murmur, “And, you especially hurt me when I have to watch you kiss pretty blonde slaves. You hurt me when I am in love you and all you do is keep me around for is… Pity? I don’t know and I’m really not sure at this point.”

“Y/N, I-“

“-No, I get it. No Ragnarsson can resist a pretty thrall. Why would you want me, huh? I can’t give you anything more than she already does.”

He sits in silence.

“You know what, forget I ever said anything,” you say, shaking your head, “I think it’s best if we… Don’t talk for a while. Stay away from me, okay?”

“No! Not okay!” Ivar protests and grabs your hand, “Come back and listen to me.”

“Ivar you’re hurting me, please,” you plead, tears forming in your eyes.

He lets go in an instant.

“Please,” he begs, “Please don’t leave me. I… I need you. I love you.”

“Fuck you, that’s just cruel,” you say, eyes looking into his, “Don’t use that against me. You don’t love me-“

“-Why do you think I got so… so jealous about you and Hvitserk?” he questions, “It’s because I love you! I always have! I just… I never thought someone as perfect as you could love a cripple like me.”

“Why did you kiss her?”

“Because you wouldn’t.”

“You never asked me,” you whisper, slowly calming down, “I’ve never cared that you were a cripple, Ivar. It’s never gotten in the way before, why would it matter now?”

“I… I thought you’d want someone normal and strong as your husband.”

“There’s no one stronger that you, Ivar,” you smile, placing your hand on the side of his face, “I don’t need normal.”

He leans into it.

“And you’re going to have to ask first.”

“What?”

“For my hand in marriage.”

Ivar smiles, then frowns.

“I’ve been an idiot,” he admits, “I… I’m sorry.”

You know how infrequently Ivar apologises and you’re proud of him for doing so.

“I’m sorry too,” you reply.

Ivar changes mood and pulls you into his lap. You yelp out in surprise but immediately get comfortable when he wraps his arms around your waist. He nuzzles into your neck and you giggle as his hair tickles you.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks.

“Yes.”

You put a hand either side of his face and bring him in for a passionate kiss. He smiles into it and kisses you back eagerly. You pull back and peck his lips.

“Can we do that again?” Ivar says, his eyes sparkling up at you.

“Yes,” you laugh.

“Everyday?”

“If you’re good,” you tease.

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worryinglyinnocent · 6 years

Text

Fic: The Darkness Within (43/?)

Summary: When washed-up paranormal investigator Rum Gold meets Belle French, he does not quite know what to make of her claim of a supernatural presence in her life, but sensing her genuine fear, he begins to investigate. What he uncovers shakes the cynicism he has so long held to its very core, and he calls in the help of disgraced ex-priest Father Macavoy to help him lay some demons to rest…

A slow burn, eventual rumbellavoy. The rating may increase in later chapters.

Rated: M

[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [Seven] [Eight] [Nine] [Ten] [Eleven] [Twelve] [Thirteen] [Fourteen] [Fifteen] [Sixteen] [Seventeen] [Eighteen] [Nineteen] [Twenty] [Twenty-One] [Twenty-Two] [Twenty-Three] [Twenty-Four] [Twenty-Five] [Twenty-Six] [Twenty-Seven] [Twenty-Eight] [Twenty-Nine] [Thirty] [Thirty-One] [Thirty-Two] [Thirty-Three] [Thirty-Four] [Thirty-Five] [Thirty-Six] [Thirty-Seven] [Thirty-Eight] [Thirty-Nine] [Forty] [Forty-One] [Forty-Two] [AO3]

====

Forty-Three

Upon reflection, Joseph really should have had more of a plan in place before he embarked on this particular trip. He knew, of course, that the house that Gold and his father had inhabited in Glasgow was a house, and would have people living in it, but for some reason his brain had failed to make the connection that if there were people living in the house then he would not be able to just walk in and start poking around in old grandfather clocks or similar for the final piece of the blade.

He had been standing outside the address, on the other side of the road, for about ten minutes, and with every passing moment, he became ever less convinced that he was going about this the right way, and ever more fearful that someone was about to report him for loitering with malicious intent. It certainly looked like he might be casing the place to rob, and in a way he was. He just didn’t think that the house’s current inhabitants would miss what it was that he was going to take from them.

It was beginning to rain, so he decided to cut his losses and go and find himself a nice dry coffee shop to sit in whilst he considered his next move.

The building was one house that had been divided into flats before Malcolm and Gold had moved there, and had been divided up even further by the time that Belle’s aunt was living there, and its tenants had gone from private renters to students, and back again, at least, that was what it looked like from the outside. The place looked too neat and well-maintained and in too gentrified a neighbourhood still to be used by students, even though increased housing prices meant that they were still living in tiny studios designed for students rather than working professionals.

Stirring his coffee, Joseph looked at the house in his mind’s eye and tried to work out where the most likely hiding place for the sword would be.

Naturally, Malcolm would want to put the final piece of the blade in a safe place; it wouldn’t just be lying around in one of the rooms somewhere. And considering that the blade had not been moved all during the conversion of the building into flats out of a single house, it was probably very well hidden, either within the structure of the house itself, wedged into one of the load-bearing walls which would not be knocked out and possibly lead to its discovery, or in a part of the house that would not have been touched by the conversion.

The cellar.

Attic space and basement space would have been converted into flats; people always wanted to get the most out of building when converting it so that they could get the most income from it. But no-one could live in a cellar with no natural light, so it was likely that if it was hidden in a room anywhere, it would be hidden in the cellar.

There were only two drawbacks to this idea, of course. The first was that Joseph didn’t know whether the building had a cellar or not and the second was that even if the place did have a cellar, he was still faced with his original problem of not being able to get into it.

It was probably time to do a bit of lying through his teeth. This was not Joseph’s favourite occupation, nor was he particularly good at it. Whenever they had been trying to gain access to places that did not necessarily want them before, when he and Gold had been working together, he had always let Gold do all the talking. The man had a silver tongue when he wanted, and it had got them out of more than a few scrapes in the past.

The first thing to do would be another trip to the archives to see what he could dig up about the house’s property rights and deeds. The people who worked there were probably getting to know him by name at this point. Once he knew whether the flats were privately owned or managed by a landlord, then he could make his next move.

He finished his coffee and left the cafe as the rain eased off to a light, misty drizzle, still with the threat of a downpour at any moment. Joseph didn’t feel the wet or the cold as he moved through the streets and back past the place that he so desperately wanted to get inside, and he took another good look up at the building. There didn’t appear to be a visible basement of sorts, but there was an undercroft. The house was built on a steep incline so the front, facing the road, was higher than the back, leaving a strange gap that could be filled with either rooms that only faced one way, or like in this case, an open space used as a carpark.

It was an interesting construction, and Joseph decided that he had nothing to lose by investigating. He wandered around the block to the back of the building, ducking under the barrier that marked the undercroft out as private land, and stood there for a while, looking around. Unfortunately the existence of the undercroft itself put paid to his theories of there being a cellar, as it would have been here underneath the carpark and not attached to the rest of the house.

Then again, Joseph thought, looking around at the sturdy brick walls that surrounded him on three sides, the house was very old. It might well have been built before the advent of carparks, and since it had been one house before, well, there was no need for one family to have this much open space for their vehicles.

He went over and examined the walls, looking for any signs that the undercroft had been enclosed at some point. At first glance there was nothing to show that the space had not always been open; the converters had been very clever when they had been making it fit for purpose, but there was metalwork sunk into the bricks that had been sheared flat where it had once stuck out prominently. There had been a gate or door of some kind here before, meaning that he was currently standing in what had been the house’s cellar.

Now, the question was whether this space had been opened up before or after Malcolm had split the blade and hidden this final piece. If he had originally hidden it in an enclosed cellar which had since been converted, well, the thing could be anywhere now.

“Can I help you?”

One of the residents had come out of the building and was looking at Joseph with the wariness of someone who thinks they might be dealing with a person who wasn’t all in the right mind.

Joseph shook his head.

“No, I’ll be moving on now.”

He quickly left the undercroft before any more questions could be asked, making his way in the direction of the archives to see if he could find any building records. First it was census information, then works on magic and curses and ancient cults, and now it was building records. He wondered if the librarians and archivists ever took a look at the things that their patrons had inquired about and borrowed works on and thought they might need some kind of medical help.

The blade had obviously still been there in 1972 when the entity had transferred into Belle’s aunt, so if the undercroft had been opened up before then, he should still be able to find the blade somewhere in the vicinity. Since 1972 was their last concrete date for the entity being bound to the house, then anything that happened after that point would be completely up in the air and he would be back to square one.

It was getting late by the time he finally found the information that he was looking for, and when he saw the building plans signed off by the council, he could have kissed the archivist who had been helping him.

The undercroft had been opened up into a parking area in 1970, prior to which it had just been a unused space under the building with only one way in and out - through the building itself.

Where better place to hide something that definitely did not ought to be found by anyone?

In the waning evening light, Joseph made his way back to the building, hoping that he wasn’t drawing too much attention to himself and that he wouldn’t bump into the same resident who’d found him in the carpark earlier.

Standing in the dim space, Joseph tried to work out what the best hiding place for part of a sword - and presumably the part with the hilt - would be. It had obviously been here since the undercroft was opened as it had been here to infect Belle’s aunt. The trouble was that there weren’t really any hiding places in the open space, so he was going to have to do some detective work. He really hoped that it hadn’t been hidden in what had been the cellar floor and what was now concreted over.

Joseph decided that it would be best to be optimistic, and to that end, he examined the walls first, looking for any kind of hidden niches that might ostensibly hold part of a sword. The brickwork looked to be fairly uniform all the way around the building, and there were no doors or nooks to speak of. Still, he was determined not to give up hope and start chipping away at the floor just yet. He just had to go about this sensibly. The blade must have been hidden extremely securely if it had not been disturbed all throughout the building’s conversion, so he knew that he was going to have a hunt on his hands.

He went over to one of the pillars that provided support for the building above and examined it closely, but again, there was nothing to be seen. The other pillar proved just as fruitless, but something about it caught Joseph’s eye. It wasn’t the same as the first pillar, and he didn’t know what it was about it that was different.

He went over both pillars again, peering at the brickwork and traces of the metal supports that they were built around, and then he paused.

Considering the age of the original building, would they have been bricking around steel supports at that time? He was no expert on architecture, but he thought not, and he brushed his fingertips over the little nub of exposed metal. A check of the second pillar confirmed the little flicker of hopeful suspicion that had begun in the pit of his stomach ever since that thought had occurred to him. There was no sign of a corresponding piece of metal on the other pillar. That could just be because the cement between the bricks had not eroded enough to expose it, but the cement on the first pillar looked to be fairly intact of itself. In fact, it looked like it had been filled in; it was a very slightly different colour to the pointing on the rest of the pillar.

Joseph took out his pen knife and began to chip away at the cement, alarmed when flecks of brick began to come away as well, until he realised that the brick was not in fact solid, but a facade of cement coated in brick dust.

As despicable as Malcolm had been in trying to pass the entity on to his young son prematurely, Joseph had to admire his dedication to detail and concealment when it came to the final part of the blade.

He continued to scrape with the knife until there was a sudden jolt and he gave way to a hollow beyond. It was only small and thin, just enough to get a blade and a short handle in between the bricks without weakening the pillar’s supporting structure.

Joseph grabbed the handle, heavy with cement, and slid the final part of the sword free of the pillar. It was dirty and tarnished from so many years hidden, and it would take a while to get rid of the bits of cement on the hilt, but it was definitely the same blade, with the same detailed engravings on it.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

Joseph didn’t stick around to find out who the indignant owner of the voice was, and he legged it out of the carpark, pausing only to put the blade piece into his bag for concealment. He wasn’t the most noticeable of people, but he would definitely be noticed if he was running around Glasgow carrying half a sword.

Whoever had hailed him in the carpark did not pursue him, and Joseph made it back to his bed and breakfast in peace. Once he had his breath back, he laid all three pieces of the sword out on the floor. They fit together perfectly, creating a blade of impressive length and weight, with no pieces missing.

They had the blade. Now all they had to do was work out how to use it.

#rumbelle fic #macelle #Joseph Macavoy #Fic: The Darkness Within

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we-steer-the-ship · 6 years

Note

Tbh, while I am fond of you trying to promote body positivity, I feel you tend to go overboard, like with the Harvest Goddess story.

Thank you for your honesty, anon. And trust me, I do understand where you’re coming from. I do feel there is a bit of confusion in regards to the things I write and that’s definitely my fault for never giving a proper explanation to differentiate the two factors going on here in my little story telling experiments. So if you’ll indulge me, I would like to try and explain.

The two key elements at play here are: 1.) Body positivity. Specifically, fat acceptance. And let’s be real, the kfp franchise has built itself around that by having its main character being a fat panda who, among other things, was insulted for his weight. And, 2.) Feederism. A lifestyle that is pretty self explanatory but, for the unitiated, basically means that things like feeding/eating, fat, being fat, weight gain, etc…are things that make someone happy. And in certain contexts, it can also add to more adult-like stories (or as you guys like to call them: sin). (Side note: a person who lives a feederism lifestyle may not always be into all the things I listed as it varies from person to person. But generally speaking, these things are all aspects of feederism).

In the past, I’ve written fics that typically fall into one of these two categories, but there is often overlap as I try to fuse the two together. For example: “Living The Panda Life: Part 1” is more of a body positivity story. It’s a simple slice-of-life kind of tale centering on Po and Tigress celebrating their ten year wedding anniversary. The only significant change in this AU is that Tigress is now fat and she is also happy and confident in her appearance. But then “Living The Panda Life: Part 2” goes to the other category by focusing more on the Feederism aspect. Delving into things that were sort of hinted at in part 1 only now they get the spotlight. (Side note: I would like to point out that part 2 was really only written because I received several requests for it as many readers were curious to see a new type of sin fic).

But as you can see, there is a clear divide between those two parts as they each have a different focus. Part 1 focuses on their life and family and romance, it just so happens that Tigress is also fat. Part 2 takes a peek behind the curtain to spotlight the how and why Tigress is fat and showing how much she actually enjoys it.

Now, why do I do this? Well, as stated above, this is an experiment to try and tell stories that have both elements in them. For years within the fat acceptance community, people have argued back and forth on whether body positivity can coexist alongside feederism. Some say you can only have one and not the other, others say you can have both, it’s all over the place.

Me, I’ve always felt you can do both. And in the format of story telling, if done right, you can have both elements present in the story. Now, am I doing it right? I have no clue. I’m just testing it out and trying new things with it and seeing what comes of it. Whether it turns out good or bad, I at least want to try. And in the meantime, I’m having fun doing so.

So with a story like “The Harvest Goddess”, I’m attempting to merge the two into one. Body positivity is exemplified by the inhabitants of the cheetah village being accepting and loving of fat bodies. Feederism is exemplified by the introduction of Kora (and will be expanded upon once Lady Qwin makes her debut).

So again, I’m trying to do both. “The Harvest Goddess” is, at its core, a story about Tigress coming to discover herself in new ways and find answers to questions she’s always had. It just so happens this character driven drama (which will get more emotional and dramatic in upcoming chapters) also happens to be set in a place where fat is the standard of beauty and feederism is just a part of their collective everyday lives.

The women of this island are all fat to some degree. Some are only slightly chubbier than Tigress while others are bigger than Mei Mei. Then there’s Kora who is the biggest cheetah on the island. The women here love themselves and their bodies and celebrate the beauty they see in themselves. That’s where the body positivity comes into play. And as the story goes on, it becomes apparent that the reason all the women here are larger is because they openly indulge on an overabundance of food and have no qualms about whether they put on a few pounds or not. Some women though, like Kora, actively enjoy eating and gaining and are still openly loved and supported by everyone around them. That’s where feederism comes into play.

An attempt to blend these two facets together into a cohesive story that has drama, emotional stakes and all the other things people love about stories and fanfiction. Just wait until we get to chapter 6 and you’ll see why Tigress is so important to these cheetahs. From there, the story becomes more of a character driven drama with a few tear jerking moments, angst, happiness and love.

Also, in regards to me going overboard. That is also true at times, and is ESPECIALLY true with “The Harvest Goddess” and the will-probably-never-be-posted-even-though-its-been-finished-for-months “Living The Panda Life: Part 3”.

The overboard approach to certain elements is meant to appeal to a certain niche audience of followers I have who want these specific kinds of things in a fic. Plus, for me, it’s just fun to write and try to push the extremes and deliver fics that are vastly different than the other 99% of kfp fics out there.

I have had people ask me how such extremes work because its unrealistic and shouldn’t exist. First of all, this is a series about anthropamorphic animals that talk, do kung fu and use things like chi and even straight up magic (like in LOA). So, you know, it’s a fantasy. Its NOT meant to be fully realistic. But having said that, I still create realistic (or at least semi-realistic) reasons within the story as to how these extremes are possible anyway because it keeps the naysayers at bay.

For example, (and this will obviously be described in more detail in upcoming chapters) but you noticed how the cheetahs use a very powerful form of chi in “The Harvest Goddess”? Yeah, that’s an important plot detail that will come into play soon.

Even in my other stories that are currently in development like my Zootopia fic “A Growing Girl”; Xing’s extreme weight is caused by newly developed and untested experimental medicines that end up working too well and have rather extreme side effects on her. In my story “Heavy Hearted”, Juryo is so large because she was cursed by a witch (think Beauty and The Beast type of magic spell). And in “The Harvest Goddess”, the use of a new and more powerful form of chi is a contributor to these things. I always try to have these things make sense within the confines of the story I’m telling.

And lastly, if you think “The Harvest Goddess” is overboard now…well…let’s just say you are NOT going to like when Lady Qwin finally appears in the story. Fair warning.

Thank you for letting me explain myself. I hope this rambling has made sense for not only you, but anyone else who is reading this and has had similar thoughts or questions.

At the end of the day, these are just silly little stories about talking animals who do martial arts and sometimes some of them get fat. So let’s not take things too seriously and just let everyone here have fun in their own way. Some of my fics are aimed at a specific audience and are not intended to appeal to everyone, while my other more “normal” fics are meant to appeal to the general audience at large. So there’s something for everyone either way. I just enjoy writing what I write and greatly appreciate whoever finds enjoyment in them.

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eunych-born-eunych · 7 years

Note

tell us more about witchcraft tumblr

oh boy. follow @alkaloidwitch for my unironic witchcraft opinions. I’m a witch! and a materialist with a background in empiricism/scientism, also a materialist in the marxist dialectical sense! you can be all of those things at the cost of your popularity among idealist witches, non-witch materialists, and most of all:

Normies.

my materialism and my witchcraft both grow out of madness; human beings are computers complex enough to perceive things that are not real. For things I know to be real, there is materialism; for things I know to be chimerical, there is witchcraft. as the chaos magicians, wankers that they are, put it: belief is a tool. believing something now may serve a purpose, even if you do not intend to continue believing it later. Playing make-believe with my literal demons now will help me try to make sense of the material world better later.

And it is imaginative play, much as it is deadly serious; much of what we do in life is imaginative play of some kind. let’s pretend there’s a thing called money and let’s pretend it belongs to this specific kind of paper, these specific bits of metal. let’s pretend a corporation is a person. let’s pretend sex is simple; no, let’s pretend sex and gender are different; no, let’s pretend to stop believing in gender and start pretending to believe in ungendered sex.

materialism, again, is the resolution. imaginative play doesn’t have to be bad, but things that are only imaginary play by certain rules; we learn them as children. so when your imaginative play, witchcraft, seeps into your view of the world (as it must), other people calling themselves witches are sometimes going to believe or imagine mutually-contradicting things; the politest way to resolve an imaginary conflict is to come up with some imaginary solution, the more minimal the possible, and stop talking about that because it’s gonna harsh yr witchcraft to get snippy.

entirely different things happen when people come, materially, into conflict. and witch tumblr frustrates me a lot because my tacit acknowledgement that

“none of this is real like rocks are real, so when your imaginary collides with the material world, the material world is always going to trump. if it is materially bad, I don’t care that your imaginary justifies it, and if it is entirely immaterial there’s no point arguing about it”

…is not super popular with tumblr witches. there’s lots of, like, arguments and discourse and positivity posts about the wildest shit.

a three-screens-of-scroll witch tumblr textpost: positivity post for lazy witches! uwu // • positivity for lazy witches who [emoji-capped bullet points all the way down]me: it’s so inspiring that lazy witches can be positive despite the incredible scrutiny and terrible hardships the morning people witches subject them to, ⭐⭐⭐⭐🌟

so, like, I don’t have the same reaction to the idea of demon apologia that OP did. thinking highly of demons just isn’t that uncommon in my circles. to me, that post’s fucking ridiculous because why would you ever bother making it? if you wanna work with demons, do it, but like… other people don’t like demons, and make their own witchblr posts from that perspective, and you can resolve that conflict by just ignoring the imaginary content that is not meant for you.

a clarifying example is in order.

‘don’t use sigils you find on the internet, anyone can upload a curse and say it’s a different spell!!’

my guy. that is so far from being anybody’s real, substantive problem. you would never know unless they told you. their imaginary isn’t accessible to you and you can ignore it. if someone tells you they made a sigil you used to be a curse, and you feel like you have indeed been cursed, that’s still an event internal to you. and after all, someone could lie and tell you their beneficial sigil was actually a curse after you’ve already used it, just to fuck with you.

I can’t get this level of panicked about that level of made-up problem! if the idea of curses hidden in graphics created by random Internet denizens appealed to me, I’d engage with it on my own and not waste time trying to convince other people they should care about my niche paranoia.

the thing is, cultural appropriation is way less imaginary than witchcraft. there’s a real, economic impact to the mass-production in the West of symbols indigenous to ‘exotic’ colonies. there is a real dehumanization involved in treating someone’s proudest and most mundane garments, alike, as being a gaudy costume purchasable cheaply from any two-bit metaphysical store.

(privilege claim for the next bit: I’m a white, American settler-colonialist. that’s a me. I’m a that.)

and on the subject of metaphysical stores…

… run by white settler-colonialists who claim to have spirit animals and have no sense that there might be something inappropriate about shopping for toys in the cultures and religious practices of living indigenous populations whose homeland we are still occupying by force, whose access to their own cultural history we are still actively sabotaging, to sell bastardized sweatshop lookalikes whose significance is less than half-remembered and wholly stripped of context to other white settler-colonialists

there’s endless newb questions in this form:

Q: “can I use this color candle to mean this thing?”A: “I don’t care?”[a reblog insisting that actually they CAN’T use that color candle to mean this thing is the version that went viral]

, which indicates extreme hesitancy to break the rules of the imaginary.

on the other hand, witch tumblr is actively resistant to any demonstrable criticism. these same people fretting about candle colors also throw bizarre tantrums mocking the concept that they should stop cleansing with smoke from white sage, a critically endangered sacred herb that isn’t farmed, and how dare you say they shouldn’t call their white ass waving burning herbs in the air on occupied land ‘smudging’.

no-one cares if you think about the candle differently; stop asking for our input on that shit, because you don’t need it and we have better things to do. on the other hand, people very much do care if you engage in the alt religious scene’s rampant bigotry, but you don’t wanna listen to us on that. those priorities are fucked.

also witch communities have long, long memories, and some things happen again and again. a sampling:

the annoying

‘fluffy bunnies’ who read one barely-researched pop-Wicca text and are here to tell non-Wiccan witches what they’re doing wrong.

relatedly, ‘curse-shaming’, a practice in which even ‘respectable’ Wiccans participate, is genuinely aggravating if you’re at all into, like, historical witchcraft, because for a very long time (Wicca under that name had no public presence before 1954) there’s been not much more traditional for a witch than a curse.

arguments about “male witches” (that no-one acknowledges arose out of transmisogynistic practices in Dianic Wicca, and not really in reaction to men).

‘the Burning Times’ (not real, any historical events embarrassingly misrepresented).

“Easter is a pagan holiday;” relatedly, “Easter is Eostre is Ishtar”.

“Christmas is a pagan holiday.”

the ugly

an entire alt-history of Europe and European magical practice in which Jewish people play no perceptible part.

neo-Nazi physiognomies being passed around as “correspondence charts”.

every reputable resource on Norse mythology, Heathenry, or Asatru has an explicit public disavowal of Nazis, for very good reasons.

anti-Black propaganda, dated to the sixteenth century, about Afro-Carribbean syncretist esoteric/religious practices being repeated with all explicit reference to race left out on Tumbler Dot Com in 2017.

gentiles doing Kabbalah.

an all-white vision of the Hellenistic Mediterranean.

that one girl who stole black people’s bones from burst/eroded graves in a Louisiana graveyard and posted about it on Tumblr (one of witchblr’s few big mainstream crossover posts), leading to her arrest.

the (mostly) harmlessly bizarre

god-marriage

god-phones

what is a familiar really? (& relatedly: sex with spirits. EXTREMELY traditional, by the way),

etsy shops where you can buy custom spirits (NOT as in alcohol),

chemically-treated quartz named as if it was a real mineral,

“correspondence charts” broken alphabetically into individual readmore posts listing the magical properties of various objects (with a reblog later on in the chain complaining that people need to be more obsessed with pointless minutiae)

minors-only witchcraft discord server drama that you’re actively, unsuccessfully trying to avoid learning about

looking for witchcraft podcasts that aren’t run entirely by dudes

“my dog is horrifyingly sick, what spell should I cast?”//”GO TO THE VET”

a wealth of incredibly shitty and boring and unreadable esoteric PDFs by snake-oil salesmen

skyclad discourse

my tarot cards just read me for filth

thirty-year-old woman who should know better by now: christian witch is an oxymoron

christian witchblr: the Law of Attraction is just the prosperity gospel for Democrats

someone’s angry about the existence of secular witchcraft again

#madz #witchblr exposé #asks #j0ules

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acapelladitty · 7 years

Text

Professor Jonathan Crane has a very interesting encounter with one of his students, a Miss Harleen Quinzel, who is much more than she appears (AO3 link at bottom)

Keeping his voice as even as possible, Jonathan swept his eyes slowly across the lecture hall as he posed his question.

“Can anyone see the flaw in Mr. Lloyds' hypothesis?” Total silence met him as each student valiantly fought to avoid his eye lest they be chosen to answer him. “No one at all? I am disap-”

“He had failed to account for the inclusion of environmental factors which may add bias to the results. His decision to host the questionnaire within a cramped, dark office space may create anxiety within the participant and skew the results.”

As the female voice rang out confidently across the room, Jonathan raised an eyebrow. Impressive. She had picked up the obvious issue and had been able to explain it perfectly. Seeking out the source of the voice, his eyes met a young blonde woman who sat a few rows from the front.

“Correct, Ms?”

“Quinzel.” The woman smiled pleasantly as he focused on her.

Wanting to further test her, he pushed his glasses back up his nose and continued.

“And how could this bias be eliminated?”

“The questionnaire could be presented to the participant within a more open space which may eliminate some anxiety but it is impossible to completely eliminate the bias as we have no knowledge of what fears the participants may already possess.”

“Excellent!” Giving a rare smile, Jonthan nodded at her. “Now, you are all required to take note of Ms. Quinzels' observation and I would like each student here to discover at least two other issues which could arise from Mr. Lloyds' method. We will discuss your findings on Wednesday.”

Walking back behind his small podium, Jonathan clicked the small laptop to bring up the next screen of the powerpoint.

“Now, as you can see -”

x-x-x-x-x

The remainder of the lesson continued on in regular fashion, with the majority of students putting in the minimal effort while their desperate eyes darted to and from the large clock which would signal their freedom.

Before long, the shrill cry of the bell announced that the lesson was over and the quiet auditorium erupted with noise as bags were ripped open and chairs were vacated. Sighing, Jonathan walked to the other side of his small table and took his seat again, ignoring the class as they left. He had no more lectures until the late afternoon which gave him some time to finish marking the rest of the lab reports which he had collected earlier in the week.

Leaning over the desk, his pen was poised over the paper when a soft cough grabbed his attention.

Glancing up, he realised that he was not alone.

“Miss Quinzel!?” He exclaimed as the blonde stood confidently before him, “Would you like to speak with me?” He gestured to the empty chair which sat on the opposite side of the desk.

Smiling at him, she slid into the seat.

“Sure, Doc.”

Returning her smile, with a small one of his own, Jonathan corrected her.

“I prefer Professor.”

“Sure, Professor.”

“So what can I do for you, Miss Quinzel?”

“Call me Harley, everyone does.”

“What can I help you with, Harley?”

“Can I just say, Professor, that you are one of my favourite lecturers here,” Harley began, her voice full of praise, “and it was your lecture last year on the development of phobias in the modern world that inspired me to take this class.”

“I am pleased to hear that.”

“You were also the lecturer who stuck up for me that one time I almost got suspended and I always wanted to say thank you for it.”

Hmm. He had never seen this women before today and any memory of having assisted her was not coming to him.

“I did? I must apologise because I cannot reca-”

“It was early last year,” Harley elaborated, “and I almost got suspended cause some creep tried to put his hands on me in my social class and I knocked him out with a very hard punch. Your signature was on the bottom of the sheet which said I was allowed to stay at the university.”

A memory hit him and he nodded in recognition, giving her a simple explanation.

“I do not like bullies.”

Recalling the incident, he also remembered a little bit more about the woman before him. She had been one of the few to receive a full athletic scholarship into the university. For gymnastics, he was sure. At the time of the incident she had been in the top third of her class and if her work today was any indication she was still excelling.

His thoughts were interrupted as Harley spoke again.

“I actually have a favour to ask of you, Professor Crane.” Her voice was still friendly but the lightness of it caused his interest to perk.

“Yes?”

Placing his hands on the desk, he cursed silently as he accidentally knocked his pen off the edge. As he bent down to retrieve it he amused himself with considering what kind of favour she could need. Most likely an extension on a deadline. Students these days had no respect for deadlines.

Pulling himself upright and placing his hands on the desk again, he was surprised to notice that Harley had not appeared to have moved a single inch.

And yet the top button of her blouse had come undone.

Refraining from rolling his eyes and a little disappointed with her actions, he sat silently as he waited for her to continue.

“I was planning on interning at Arkham over the coming summer and I would love it if you gave me a recommendation, Doctor Crane.” Still as happy as ever, she even went so far as to bat her eyelashes at him.

Setting his mouth in a straight line, Jonathan shook his head as he glanced back at his papers.

“I do not have that kind of power, Miss Quinzel.”

Her body leaned forward enough to force Jonathan to look at her and when his gaze locked with hers he found himself momentarily caught off-guard at her expression.

Gone was the bubbly attitude and friendly exterior, now replaced by staunch determination which was only overshadowed by a look of pure hunger which he recognised.

Ambition.

With absolutely no trace of an accent, she argued his rejection.

“Yes, you do. When new criminal patients are admitted into the asylum you assist on the majority of their evaluations and I am aware that you host both private and group sessions with patients who have conditions which range from depression to sadistic psychopathy.”

Clearing her throat, she continued.

“Your word would mean a lot to the staff and I know you could get me in the door. My grades are good enough to make me a serious candidate but I want to be certain of a place.”

All thoughts of the lab reports gone from his mind, Jonathan focused fully on her for the first time since she had taken the seat.

“Why?”

“You are notorious for being the final word professionally on phobias and human fear. That is your niche.” She gestured to him with a hand. “I have a very large interest in extreme personalities and Arkham is perfect for me to explore that niche interest.”

She had done her research. The majority of his published works were centered on human phobias and their varying origins. An idea had even come to him recently and he had started a private project which was designed to explore whether or not a chemical compound could be created to stimulate the brain into experiencing fear and anxiety.

Fear was his niche.

“And to what end would you like to explore these personalities?”

Her serious expression disappeared and was quickly replaced with another one of her bright smiles, a smile which did not quite cover the ambition in her eyes.

“I want to help people get better. I want to help these people overcome their illnesses.”

She was lying.

But he did not particularly care.

Arkham was truly full of the worst of humanity and if his private project came to fruition he was hoping to get permission to use some of its criminal inhabitants to volunteer to test the formula.

Considering the woman before him for a minute silently, his instincts were telling him that she bore no genuine ill will towards the patients. She was ambitious, but not dangerous, and if she wanted to experience the fresh hell that was Arkham Asylum then he would not stop her.

She had caught his interest and that was a rare occasion in itself.

So he would do it.

Pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, he gave her a sharp nod.

“I will see what I can do for you, Miss Quinzel. On the condition that you continue to excel in your chosen subjects.”

“Aww thanks Doctah Crane! You're the absolute best!” She exclaimed, clapping her hands together excitedly. “Also, I really hope your meeting with the faculty goes well!”

Again off-footed by the blonde, Jonathan covered his shock and asked.

“How do you know about that?”

“People talk.” She shrugged.

“I am not concerned by my meeting.” He confessed. “I will most likely receive a small disciplinary for my actions, perhaps a week off with no pay, and then I will return to my work immediately.”

“If it makes ya feel any better,” Harley soothed him, “I would have loved to have seen a gun fired in class. It would be really scary but exciting, yeah?” “Not everyone shares your opinion, child.”

“Everyone else is boring.”

Checking her watch, Harley jumped from the seat like it had burned her.

“Sorry Professor, but I need to get to my next class or i'm gonna be late! Thank you again for helping me out.”

“Think nothing of it.” He offered evenly, watching her passively as she practically ran from the auditorium, her shoes clacking against the flooring in her hurry.

As soon as she had disappeared from sight, Jonathan pulled the glasses from his face and sat them down gently top the stack of paper before him.

Miss Quinzel was not prepared for Arkham.

Twisting his mouth, Jonathan estimated that she would last a month at the most before the stress caused her to request a reassignment and he had no doubt that a tell-all, exploitative novel penned by one Dr H. Quinzel exploring the sensationalist world of super criminals would soon find itself on the best sellers list.

But he would fulfil her request and make a recommendation for her internship. He could type up the letter in the early hours of the following morning, just before he started to prepare for his meeting with the faculty board and faced whatever asinine punishment they had in store for him.

With her grades and his influence within the asylum, he had no doubt that she would be accepted. It was a dangerous job but the incarceration of super-criminals such as Victor Fries and the Joker had resulted in the security of the asylum being drastically improved and it was almost impossible for the inmates to physically harm the doctors.

She would be safe from any potential attack and, after all, it was only an internship.

What was the worst that could happen?

AO3 link - http://archiveofourown.org/works/11248272

#jonathan crane #scarecrow #harleen quinzel #harley quinn #gotham rogues #fic #hope ya enjoy guys #if not then i am sorry lmao

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danielvineakacaptaincrack · 4 years

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Quixotic

The word i was given to research on is the word Quixotic, and initially i had no idea what the word meant, but after reading up on the word, realising it meant Extremely Idealistic, Unrealistic, and Impractical (As well as chivilous), i knew i was about to make a really fun character in terms of its ideology. With the word given, i have a very free range of creating many characters with outrageous, overambitious, and unrealistic views, of all sorts. Many Character tropes came to mind as i was researching this word. Such as: - A man who believes the earth is flat and tries to build a home-made rocket to prove his theory. A story based on Mike Hughes AKA “Mad Mike” a 64 year old man who died in his own experimental rocket to fly himself out of earth’s atmosphere to prove the earth was flat. Unfortunately, he was ill-fated and his rocket spiraled and crashed in his test in California. - An Ancient Roman General that waged war on Poseidon, the Roman God of the Ocean, and ordered his men to attack the ocean by the shore. This was based of Caligula a notorious Roman Emperor that was known for so many horrible and outrageous acts in his short time in power and even before he was in power, but one that stands out as both hilarious and “Quixotic” was when Caligula ordered his men to attack the Sea in a way to wage war on the God of the Ocean. - A Crazy Scientist/Inventor that creates very impractical inventions that all probably have very niche applications. There are many cartoon characters that fit this description such as Dr Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb, Miu Irma from Danganrompa 3, Dr Freeze from the Batman Comics, and countless other examples. I actually dont plan on working on this idea at the moment as its a very stereotypical trope that we see over and over again. And additionally, its very easy to mistake the word “Quixotic” and “Crazy” in the same line, where many Quixotic personalities in real life and in history are actually respected by many for their visionary and out-of-the-box way of thinking. As much as this would be an easy trope to fall back on, i wanted to make something different. - A Sensible person who has experienced something personal that drives them to have a mindset and goal that OTHERS will consider Quixotic. Another thing about the word Quixotic is that often when we call a character Quixotic, we are only viewing them from such a narrow and personal perspective. Due to the lack of perspective, the viewset and actions made by certain character will be seen as “Unrealistic”, “Impractical” and “Over-Visionary” but in the eyes of the character taking out the mindset, because of their experience no one else has experienced, it has been an absolute necessity in their eyes and believe they are preforming the greater good. In their Perspective too.. I have a few examples of this that come from the same Show of Attack on Titan (Shingeki No Kyojin). The content i am about to share may be Spoilers for those who haven't read the books yet, so proceed with caution. Eren Jaeger and Zeke Jaeger are two examples from this show that show very Quixotic personalities as they both try to solve this war and social hatred for their race. From Chapter 91 onwards, The Half-Brothers Eren and Zeke Jaeger team up to end this war that has lasted thousands of years and free the Eldian race. Eldians are a small race of people who can unwillingly be turned into giant mindless man-eating humanoids due to an ancestral curse. From Zeke Jaeger perspective the very act of an Eldian being born is a sin as all it does is create more suffering to the Eldian itself being forced to be a victim of what their race is rumored to have commited thousands of years ago. Zeke has worked under his enemies as a war-chief to eradicate his own kind, the Eldian Race. But Zeke himself follow’s through on this plan, not because he agree’s that all Eldians must die, but he see’s no possible way to achieve peace. But having not be born into this word would relieve them of their suffering. Though to our mindset this is absolutely horrible, But because of his knowledge, he knows that his kind are used as weapons by their enemy, turning Eldians into Mindless Giants to wreak havoc to their enemy’s military and towards Eldians themselves. Zeke’s plan is to use the curse of his ancestors to (Magically?) stop every person of Eldian Ancestry to be unable to have children. The Gene that creates these monsters, in his viewset, needs to end to create a peaceful future for all. Eren Jaeger, The main character of the show, on the other hand, Though he does agree on teaming up with his Half-Brother Zeke, he lies and deceives everyone to perpetuate his own goal in liberating Eldia. Eren See’s the beauty in his people and believed they deserve to be liberated from the war forced upon his race for thousands of years. Though he does agree with Zeke that due to the nature of Eldian’s biology the fear of Eldians will never end, He instead uses Zeke’s plan and position to create a structure and vows to use the curse of his ancestors, and use the giants to massacre the rest of the world. Eren would use this to finally free his people from any form of oppression ever again from the cruel world they are fed to. Though both of these characters both seem drastically horrible, but due to the situation they are in and what they personally have experienced their extremely visionary and Outrageous ideas seem to be the only solution to peace in their minds as a more democratic and civilised method in solving this war over the Eldian race has failed to cease for thousands of years and with the rise of Technology, something needs to be done immediately to either protect the Eldian race from extinction, or save them from this cruel world. The book has yet to be completed as per today, but it's theorised that none of their plan succeeds. and a third and more beneficial solution will present itself. - A man who uses a chivilous and charming personality to hide his Quixotic and devious goals. This example actually comes from a character in my own book i am attempting to publish if i ever get around finishing the book. I initially didnt know the word Quixotic while i was writing this character but the word seems to fit so well with his personality. Jupiter, a character from my book is a character who is an incredibly unrealistic visionary who uses his charm and chivilous personality get get himself on the right side of a war to eventually achieve a goal he knows no one will accept. He lies and manipulates others with a cheesy smile on his face and preaching trust. Throughout the story the main cast are forced to work with him despite knowing he has a plan he does not wish to share, but his obsession to protect the main character and even suffering bodily dismemberment to protect his side of the war helped him gain trust over time. Even though he actually does mean well and does plan on helping everyone overall, even both sides to this war, when his motive was revealed, it was inevitably him versus the world in a race against time to stop him from achieving his goal. I plan on creating a character in a very similar fashion to Jupiter would create my own personal flair to the character as i have swelled deeply in the psychology of Jupiter and his personality. I understand why Jupiter does anything from the back of my head and designing a character with a similar personality. of course i wont have the luxury of giving my new character alot to say and show alot of backstory if any at all, but im sure i will be able to think of something short and a design that will mix well with the Pygmy Kingfisher and the phrase “As Free As A Bird”

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