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heartfelttickles · 6 months

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Ticklish Terrors

Note: This is my first ‘long’ fic so I’m aware it’s not amazing haha but I do hope you like it! If there’s anything that can be improved then feel free to let me know, bc I am by no means an expert haha… hope you all have the best day :)

Fandom: Heartstopper

Characters: Nick and Charlie

Words: 1500

Story: Nick and Charlie are watching a movie when Charlie discovers a secret about Nick.

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It was a cozy, Halloween afternoon at Nick's house. The air was filled with the warmth of a crackling fireplace and the sweet scent of freshly baked pumpkin pie, courtesy of Charlie. Nick and Charlie, sat on the living room couch, enjoying each other's company and intently watching the latest horror movie – Nick gripping Charlie’s hand every time a jump scare happened.

“Oh my gosh, who knew rugby lad Nick Nelson was scared of horror movies?” Charlie jokingly remarked when his boyfriend squeezed his hand for what felt like the hundredth time.

“Hey..” he lowered his voice, still playful, whilst poking Charlie’s side, earning a yelp and a slight giggle “that was uncalled for, there’s no need for this many scares- why couldn’t you let me watch a Marvel movie or something where I don’t feel on edge for 2 hours?’ A slight tinge of red growing on his face.

‘You know I hate Marvel movies and this is just a bit of fun, it’s Halloween of course we have to watch a horror film - it’s an unspoken law.’ Charlie justified his movie choice. Nick simply flinched again when another haunting note was played on the organ.

Nellie, afraid of the loud noises, curled up beside them. “This is just cruel, you’re scaring Nellie now, how dare you terrify my dog’ Nick looked down at Charlie with a cheeky grin as Charlie sassily rolled his eyes.

Nick absentmindedly scratched Nellie behind the ears, and she wagged her tail in bliss. The ‘rugby lad’ shifted his focus back to the movie when Nellie leaned towards his side, her nose sniffing around, in an attempt to find the comfiest place to rest her head. Feeling her nose poking around over his side caused Nick to squirm slightly - his hand flew up to cover his mouth but even that couldn’t stop the muffled giggles from tumbling out of him.

Charlie, never one to miss an opportunity for a good laugh, was quick to notice Nick's amusement. He turned to his boyfriend with a mischievous grin and an eyebrow raised – noticing his lover’s shoulders bouncing up and down with uncontrollable giggles.

"What's got you laughing, Nick?" Charlie asked, his curiosity piqued.

Still chuckling, Nick replied, "I dohont knohow what it ihis, but Nehehellie ihihis snihihiffing mehe. Ihit feheheels so weheheird.’

Charlie's eyes twinkled mischievously as an idea sparked in his mind. Scooting closer to Nick, he playfully wiggled his fingers in the air- Nick’s giggling subtly increasing, which unfortunately for him, Charlie noticed.

"Oh, so you think tickling is funny, huh? Because you’re already giggling more with just my fingers giving near you. I think I’m going to have to test my hypothesis that teasing makes you even more ticklish than usual!" Charlie declared, before pouncing on Nick gently, tickling his sides mercilessly.

Nick immediately burst out into hysterical laughter, squirming and trying to escape Charlie's ticklish assault. His joyful laughter filled the room, echoing off the walls, blending with the crackle of the fire.

‘Aww Nick, does this tickle? Are your sides ticklish?’ He taunted - fingers increasing their speed and exploring every inch of his sides – relishing in the increasing cackles he elicited from his boyfriend. ‘Wow. You’re reacting like this just on your sides when I know you’re more ticklish elsewhere. I wonder what will happen if I just happen to….I don’t know…. Go here?’ Charlie’s devilish fingers spidered into the hollows of Nick’s armpits, drawing out a squeal from the burly lad as he clamped his arms down, thus trapping the notoriously nimble fingers in one of his worst tickle spots.

‘Chahahar stohohop teheasing…. I cahahant…’ is all the older boy could get out as he attempted to thrash himself away from tickles.

‘Aw you’re so adorable like this you know…. But you do realise my hands are trapped here? I would like to have my hands back if that’s okay with you? So be a good boyfriend and lift your arms up for me?’

‘I chahahant – I knohohhow thahaht trihihick’ Nick giggled out, cheeks turning a flushed shade of red.

Charlie simply sighed theatrically. ‘Okay have it your way, I can do this all day, I’ll just stay in your ticklish armpits for eternity.’

After many, many, many attempts, Nick finally mustered the ability to lift his arms enough to release Charlie’s fingers. Charlie finally relented, allowing Nick to catch his breath, but remained on him. Unbeknownst to them, Nicks mom had witnessed the latter of the attack – a grin on her face hearing Nick’s laugh.

‘It’s been a while since I heard you laugh like that Nicky, darling’ she finally broke the silence.

Almost in synchronisation, Charlie’s head whipped around, and Nick’s head popped out from the side of Charlie – juxtaposing expressions of both embarrassment and their residual smiles.

‘Don’t forget Charlie, his inner thighs are his worst spot…’

‘Oh really’ Charlie, grinning back at her before she left, whipped his head back to face his boyfriend and was able to secure himself on Nick’s waist, hands evilly hovering near his thighs, ready to test out this newfound information.

‘Mom you’re such a traitor… Char – Chahar wahahait.’ Nick’s hands shot out trying to push Charlie’s hands away from his thighs, not being able to stop the anticipatory giggles that tumbled out.

‘enjoy the rest of the night darlings.’ She exited the room swiftly - cup of tea in hand, wide smile of joy plastered on her face.

‘I’m dyyying to see this now’ Charlie playfully exclaimed, locking eyes with Nick’s who attempted his classic golden retriever puppy eyes. Any other scenario, Charlie would have caved immediately… not today.

One squeeze was all it took.

‘CHAR- NOHOHO’ An onlooker would have thought he’d been struck by lightning with the intensity of his reaction from one squeeze.

‘Oh…..my….gosh….. you really are adorably ticklish, have I told you?’ Charlie teased, slightly shocked at how ticklish his boyfriend actually was. Without giving Nick a chance to answer he used both hands to squeeze the tenderly, ticklish inner thighs.

‘AHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAH CHAHAHAHHAHAAR………. NOHOHOHOHO’ Nick positively screamed, head thrown back, back arched, legs violently kicking and thrashing from side to side to escape the ticklish torment from his lover.

‘Aw nick, tickle tickle tickle’ Charlie cooed. Another squeal escaped Nick.

‘The teases definitely make you more ticklish…. Somehow that’s possible… does this tickle sweetheart? Tickle…. Tickle… tickle….’ Charlie enunciated every ‘tickle’ that he spoke with alternating squeezes on his thighs, tears of laughter forming in Nick’s eyes.

He finally let up once Nick’s laughter turned silent. Red faced and breathless yet still giggling with a wide smile on his face – still looking at his tickler boyfriend with the adoration he’s had for him since their first meeting.

Charlie sat next to nick once again, rather proud of his playful victory of proving his hypothesis right.

‘I think you’re the most ticklish person I’ve ever met Nicholas Nelson’ a mischievous glint in his eye as he teased his red-faced boyfriend.

‘You sure about that?’ Nick questioned, his playful energy surging back to him. ‘So it seems tickling is the weapon of choice today then, huh?’ He paused, waiting for Charlie's response.

Charlie's expression shifted, realising he had fallen into a classic trap. "Oh no, what have I done?" he exclaimed dramatically, pretending to gasp.

Without giving Charlie any time to react, Nick lunged forward, expertly targeting Charlie's ticklish spots. His nimble fingers danced across Charlie's ribs, and Charlie erupted into laughter squirming and wriggling, gradually slipping further and further down the couch.

‘NIHIHICK STOHOHOP’ Charlie cackled.

The room filled with the joyful sounds of their laughter, mingling with Nellie's barks of excitement as she joined in the fun. Nick couldn't help but laugh along with Charlie, feeling their bond grow even stronger with every ticklish retaliation.

‘Come on Nellie, you tickled me, now it’s time to help tickle Charlie’ Nick playfully exclaimed to the cheery dog, who simply licked Charlie’s face and settled beside him.

After another few minutes, Nick finally stopped tickling Charlie, both boys left breathless and feeling an indescribable joy radiating between them. They sat back on the couch, leaning against each other, recovering from the tickle-induced euphoria.

‘ I think we've had enough tickles for one day, we still have a movie to watch’ Charlie said, grinning widely.

Both lads locked eyes on the TV only to find the credits rolling in the movie – much to Nick’s delight. Unable to control his smugness of not having to watch the horror movie, Nick glanced at Charlie. Almost telepathically, their hands attracted each other into a tight hold – maintaining their eye contact of admiration and affection - when they both softly uttered the words ‘I love you’ followed by the most endearing of smiles from both lads. A passionate kiss sealed their phrase, followed by Nick’s choice of romantic movie.

As they sat there watching the new movie, the room enveloped in a cozy silence, Nick and Charlie relished in the warmth of their relationship. Laughing together, sharing playful moments, and creating memories like these reminded them that this is the love they both deserve.

#heartstopper fic #heartstopper tickle #heartstopper #tickle fic #lee!charlie #lee!nick #ler!charlie #ler!nick #fic #lgbtqia #boyfriends #tickles

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johannestevans · 4 months

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Rescue Dogs

Do you like traumatised young men with no sense of agency or bodily autonomy? Of course you do.

Do you enjoy a narrative where the once-chosen one has to live with not being chosen anymore, not being important anymore, no longer being the hero everybody wants and needs? Do you enjoy a narrative where, having been chewed up and spit out by their destiny, that ex-hero wonders if they should ever have been a hero at all?

Do you like the idea of the aforementioned mentally unstable young man stalking his ex-PE teacher, who he tried desperately to get to fuck him at school, but never would? Do you like the idea of that ex-teacher, lonely and isolated and miserable and more than a bit self-loathing, finally giving in and actually fucking him?

Do you like reading about abuse victims trying to come to terms with everything that's been done to them? The ways in which they've been failed - and the ways in which their instinct is to fail others? Do you like seeing characters who are utterly fucked up by being CSA victims, but are trying their best anyway?

Do you like when one member of an honestly fucked up and unbalanced relationship is trying desperately to convince his more vulnerable partner to seek help? Go to therapy? Realise that he deserves better?

Do you like it when men identify just a bit too much with abused dogs?

If the answer to any or all of the above is yes, I think you might really like my serial, Rescue Dogs, which is about all that shit and more, and you can read it online for free!

Rescue Dogs

Rated E, M/M. Cecil Hobbes finally gets Valorous King to try a new adventure: therapy. Cecil Hobbes, an ex-PE teacher disgraced and looked down on in his hometown, has a new partner: Sir Valorous King, a knight of the realm, once a child of prophecy, and Cecil’s stalker. A few months into their relationship, Cecil finally convinces Valorous to see a therapist, on the condition that Cecil attend one himself.

Read on Ao3 (free) / / Read on Medium (paid) / / Read on WorldAnvil (free)

Want to give it a try?

First chapter is here:

It wasn’t accurate to say that Cecil Hobbes had never lived with someone in his house before. Of course he had – he’d never been married in his life, and by definition none of his relationships really lasted more than two or three years, but he’d had lads in his house, over the years, here and there.

For a few months at a time, he’d had old army mates stay in the house while they got back on their feet and found a job elsewhere; he’d had lads whose families had kicked them out, or who couldn’t make up money for rent on their own flats.

And he usually had dogs, tended to have at least one, sometimes two or three.

Cecil was a man who liked to be on his own, but to be on his own didn’t mean that he needed to be the only person around. He’d grown up in a crowded house as a young lad, a lot of his older brothers still around – then they’d all gotten jobs, Randall and Vic had died, and suddenly it had just been him in the house with his mum and dad, and it’d been… Odd.

In the army, though, you were never on your own even if you were on your own, and it was the same once he was teaching.

But he’d never—

It was his house.

He’d bought it, took out the mortgage as soon as he’d started teaching in Lashton, and he’d put all his savings into it to make sure he could fucking pay off the thing – which was why he had no money now, yeah, but also meant he had a house to come back to once he was out of the nick. Even when there were people in his house, seventeen-year-olds he’d fucked twice and then let sleep in the spare room while they were studying for their exams, or old mates he’d served with who were knocking on doors all around until someone hired them, they were guests, whether they stayed for three weeks or a year and a half.

Valorous King, with whom Cecil Hobbes was recently involved, invited himself into Cecil’s house like it belonged to him too.

The first time he’d come in, it’d had been after drugging Cecil with a poisoned cigarette and knocking him out – the intention had been to make him dinner, dose him with some sort of souped-up magical Viagra, and make sure that Cecil fucked him.

He’d gotten distracted, though, by the state of Cecil’s house. Cecil’s house, which since he’d come back from the nick had gotten messier and dirtier because he didn’t have many friends any longer and he didn’t bring anyone he fucked home with him: he’d come in, seen it was filthy, seen there were bottles and cans and fag packets everywhere, seen there were piled up dirty dishes, dirty clothes, and like he was a born fucking housewife, he’d just started cleaning it all up.

Cecil had woken up groggy and out of it to a cooked dinner waiting for him in the oven, and his very own infamous stalker telling him he’d done his washing and put out all his bins.

It’d been months since then.

Cecil’s house was cleaner that it had been since he’d fucking bought it, all of his clothes clean and pressed and put away, all of his fucking documents and records organised and put into file boxes.

He’d always been quite a neat guy, depression notwithstanding, and he didn’t actually have all that many possessions in the house, but Valorous took cleanliness and neatness to the extreme.

He kept having arguments with the dog.

“Ruby!” said Valorous, and Cecil looked up from the paper, watching as Valorous came into the house either from work or the gym – he smelt of sweat and heat and his skin was shiny with it, and Cecil’s hands twitched with the urge to pull him up the stairs to fuck him while he was still tired, lick the sweat off his chest.

Ruby had been chained up in a yard for the first two years of her life, was intermittently shouted at and beaten by the family she’d come from, was terrified of kids and other dogs. She didn’t know what to make of Valorous King – she needed a calm, easygoing hand, not a fucking neurotic little prick.

“Why’s your toy on the floor?” Valorous asked, brandishing a squeaky carrot. Ruby was stood on her feet with her head forward, her big brown eyes doleful as she looked up at him, and she nervously wagged her tail. “It goes in here.”

Valorous put the toy in the labelled box – he’d bought her a set of three kids’ toy troughs, split into squeaky toys and plushes, balls, and chew toys. Cecil had only bought her a set of three to see what she liked – Valorous bought her new toys all the time. As soon as he put the carrot in its box, he frowned, getting to his knees and swapping toys between the boxes, putting them where they were supposed to be.

Ruby stayed on her feet, watching him cautiously, and then slowly came forward, reached into a box, and took the carrot out.

“Are you playing with it?” Valorous asked sternly.

“She still doesn’t really get how to play with toys, kid,” said Cecil quietly. “She just likes to hold them.”

Valorous reached out, and it was funny, watching them be nervous of each other – Valorous was careful about holding the carrot by the corner, staying away from Ruby’s mouth.

Ruby dropped the carrot and left it in his hand.

Valorous gave it one squeak, smiling when Ruby’s ears tipped up and her mouth opened in more of a smile, and then he threw it – Ruby watched it sail across the room, politely baffled, and then looked back into the box.

“No, no, Ruby, we’re playing with the carrot,” said Valorous.

Ruby picked up a toy scarecrow and looked at him hopefully.

“Ruby, get the—”

“Good girl, Rubes,” said Cecil, and watched the way her face lit up, her tail wagging a little bit more, her ears perking up even more. She still didn’t wag her tail like another dog might, but they’d get there.

She wasn’t pissing on the floor inside anymore, had mostly grasped that she had to go outside for that, although she still didn’t ask enough for Cecil’s liking, so he was taking her out several more times a day than she really needed – the third or fourth time she’d pissed on the floor in the kitchen Valorous had burst into tears out of sheer frustration, and Cecil had sent him back to bed to keep him from making her even more nervous than she was.

She’d kept trying to lick his face as he’d scrubbed the tile after, her whole body shaking, neither of them having any fucking idea what to do with each other.

Valorous looked back at Cecil, his face pinched.

“Take the scarecrow,” he said.

“But she won’t chase it.”

“So don’t throw it. Just take it and hold it out to her.”

When Valorous did, Ruby mouthed at the scarecrow’s head, chewing on the corner of it, looked mostly down but kept glancing up at Valorous’ face. Valorous squeaked the toy, and she jumped, but then took the scarecrow by the head and tugged it back, taking it back to her bed and lying down.

“She looks so sad all the time,” complained Valorous, going to pick up the carrot and putting it in its box.

“She isn’t,” said Cecil, and got to his feet, dropping the paper aside. “She’s being rehabilitated, lad. She’s not gonna act like a normal dog for a while – may be that she never does. It’s not her fault.”

“I’m not saying it is! Just— Doesn’t it make you feel bad? Looking at her? And she’s… sad?”

“Broken?”

“She’s not broken,” Valorous snapped.

“No,” Cecil agreed, not smiling but feeling the urge. “Come upstairs, I want to choke you while I fuck you.”

* * *

Cecil worked in a gym three or four days a week – recently, it had been four days more often than it was three, and now and then he even worked five. It was taking time, what with the reputation he had around Lashton at this point, but it wasn’t exactly a big fancy gym where people really gave a fuck who or what he was, and no matter how much some of them disliked him, he was good at training, good at fighting, good at what he did.

Sometimes, people came in and sneered and asked if he was that nonce, and he shrugged and said, “People call me that, don’t mean it’s true,” and put them to work if they didn’t walk out immediately.

Then they’d hear him working with other guys, pushing them hard, and they’d change their tune a bit, ask him for notes.

Valorous King, though, was a cop. He mostly worked murders and violent crime, and despite what an active little fuck he was, he did a lot of his work within the office – he collated data and evidence, put his freaky, analytical mind to contradicting statements and marked them out.

Cecil was fully aware that when Valorous King did interrogations, he got results – he was also aware that when he’d joined up, a sort of shudder had gone through the fucking population, because everyone knew who Valorous King was, and of all the pigs they could go head-to-head with, they didn’t want one like him.

The lad was fucking feral, and everyone could tell that just to look at him, just to talk to him, but when he stood right across from someone and bored holes into them with their eyes, they talked before they even fucking meant to.

He was a celebrity, of course. Sir Valorous King was a knight of the realm, had been since he was a teenager – he’d killed dragons, griffins, wyverns, led armies into battle, fought duels, jousted, had championed arenas across the country and abroad.

The lad had been on the fucking postal stamps in 2015.

“Do you think I should be in an institution?” he demanded when Cecil walked in the door.

Cecil took this in, unzipping his jacket and hanging it up – Ruby didn’t come to greet him because Valorous was sitting on the floor in her bed, and she was laying over his lap, her big blunt head rested on his belly, but her tail wagged as Cecil came closer.

“No,” he said, coming to crouch on the floor, and Ruby leaned forward for Cecil to scratch her big cheeks, but she kept her body in Valorous’ lap, not wanting to let him get up, not knowing when she’d get to sit with him again if she did. “Who told you you should be?”

“Sergeant Stark says I’m a hazard,” said Valorous. “That I’m unstable. That I shouldn’t be around the public.”

“David Stark? He used to beat the shit out of his daughters, and two out of three of them had eating disorders at school. I wouldn’t base your fucking persona on his recommendations. What did you do?”

“Told a witness that she was being a cunt.”

“… Alright,” said Cecil. “Starting to see his point.”

“She was being a cunt. Her daughter’s in hospital, and all she’s fucking talking about is how it’s her daughter’s fault for wearing this fucking dress or going out at night, or what fucking ever.”

“I’m not an expert on police procedure, lad, but I’m pretty sure regardless you can’t go around calling witnesses cunts.”

He leaned forward, burying his face in the top of Ruby’s head, squeezing her, and Cecil kept a careful eye on her body language, making sure she wasn’t stiffening up or uncomfortable, but she was surprisingly okay with being held and hugged, and Valorous never did it for too long even though he wasn’t too great with dogs.

“Of course,” said Cecil, “you knew that. You knew he’d react like that, that no one would think it was justified.”

Valorous shrugged.

“You want to take the dog for a walk?”

“Do we have to muzzle her?”

“Yeah,” said Cecil. “If we don’t muzzle her and she bites another dog, we’ll have to put her down. Besides, the muzzle is good – people see that she has a muzzle on and they keep their dogs away from her.”

“But she doesn’t bite them unless they get too close,” said Valorous. “It’s not like she runs up to other dogs to bite them – she keeps herself to herself, she only bites out of self-defence.”

“Yeah, but she’s a big dog,” said Cecil slowly. “She’s stronger than most of the other dogs, big, she has strong jaws. She can do a lot of damage that a chihuahua couldn’t.”

“I don’t like how people look at her,” said Valorous. “They look at her like she’s a bad dog, because she’s got a muzzle on.”

“She doesn’t know that,” said Cecil. “She doesn’t give a fuck – she’s a dog, she doesn’t know if anyone’s judging her. All she knows is that she’s allowed to go for walks and exercise, and she’ll be happier with no other dogs anywhere near her.”

Ruby was looking between them, but she didn’t twig what was happening until Cecil went over and took her muzzle off the hook, and then she skittered off of Valorous’ lap and rushed to sit at Cecil’s feet, her tail wagging hard.

Valorous stayed sitting in the dog bed, bringing his knees up to his chest and looking very small, and watched Cecil slide the muzzle onto Ruby’s face.

* * *

It was three in the morning when Cecil woke up, bleary-eyed and not really with it. He didn’t move immediately, just watched Valorous on his feet beside the bed, rifling through Cecil’s end table and collecting what he found there – cigarette packets were dropped into a little plastic bag, Cecil’s long-expired passport was placed aside, bottles of lube and sensation gel and tubes of chapstick and a tin of chest rub were lined up on the bed.

“Jesus, lad. You got OCD?” asked Cecil.

“You’re awake?” asked Valorous, not looking away as he pulled out two empty boxes of paracetamol, flattening them and then tossing them into the bag with the cigarette packets. “You want a cup of tea?”

“I’m not awake,” muttered Cecil, raising his chin and yawning, rubbing at his eye. “Get back in bed, fuck.”

“What’s OCD stand for again?”

“Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,” said Cecil, lifting the blanket up, and Valorous slid underneath on his belly, pressing right up against Cecil’s body, sliding one of his knees in between Cecil’s thighs – it was fucking freezing, and Cecil clucked his tongue, wondering how long the little prick had been out of bed.

“You think I have it?”

He wasn’t even offended, obviously. He was barely paying attention, his eyes defocused, the hand that wasn’t settled freezing cold between their chests on the pillow, his fingers tapping against the fabric.

“Could be,” murmured Cecil. “S’not like I’m an expert. How long you been awake?”

“Dunno.”

“You sleep at all?”

“Sure.”

“How long?”

“Dunno.”

Fuck, but it was creepy when he was like this, barely awake and moving through life in a fucking haze, not really with it – listening but the way that a robot or an enchantment could listen, to follow basic instructions but not really get that you were talking to him, really talking to him.

He’d already cleaned out most of the rest of Cecil’s house, had scrubbed the living room and the kitchen and the bathroom and the spare room from top to bottom, had torn up the fucking carpet in the living room and rolled out a new one, bought new curtains. Everything in Cecil’s house was clean, freshly laundered, free of stains, organised, except the bedroom.

He glanced down at Valorous’ hands, trying to get an idea of how wet or rubbed raw they were, but they didn’t look too bad – he hadn’t been scrubbing anything before he started in the bedroom, or at least, it didn’t seem like it.

The lad must’ve been like this, at school.

Cecil recalled moments in PE classes where he’d come in and be uncomfortably quiet and intense, moments where he scared the everloving shit out of the students that had brains in their heads, and didn’t so much as intimidate the stupid ones until after he snapped and looked ready to beat them up, but he’d still be a little bitchy, a little snappy, still alive.

That had been once he’d been at school, though – maybe in the dormitories at St Idloes, he’d been like that, or at home with the other Kings.

Cecil had never really talked much to Maybeetle, who’d been the pastoral care expert, or the dormitory matrons, and while he’d talked once or twice to the school counsellors as much as he’d done his best to avoid it, they’d never talked about Valorous King, only about other shit in passing, sometimes other students.

And he’d never gotten the impression that any of the other teachers at Idloes understood King as well as Cecil did himself, saw him for what he was – they either thought he was some sort of glorious fucking hero ordained by the king regent, or they thought he was troubled and they were scared to have him in their classroom.

Cecil reached up and put his hand in Valorous’ hair, pulling hard, and Valorous blinked a few times, leaning back into Cecil’s hand and looking at him askance, his lips parting.

“Huh?”

“You have a nightmare?” asked Cecil, and studied the slight darkening of Valorous’ features, the shadow that came into his eyes.

He had blue eyes, obviously, had to be a blue-eyed boy – they seemed normal enough from far away, but once you were up close with him like this, you could see it wasn’t a natural colour, that it was too pure and lacked the texture of colour that an iris was meant to have. It was a crystalline blue, looked more like water than the inside of someone’s eye. There was a note in his medical record at school that his eyes had changed colour from a magical incident, probably the one that laid him up in Camelot that first time, for those months of recovery.

“Mm,” said Valorous, and shrugged his shoulders, but he looked awake now, glancing around the room and shifting closer, straddling Cecil’s thigh and putting his hands on Cecil’s chest, pressing on the flesh, his thumbs sliding over his sternum. “I dreamt that I ate your heart.”

“Oh, right,” said Cecil, unenthused. “Prophetic, do you think?”

“I don’t have prophetic dreams,” said Valorous, with a sort of blunt certainty.

How long had Valorous King been the favourite pet of the king regent?

Since he was thirteen or something, thereabouts, and Myrddin had kept Valorous under his hand, on and off, until he was twenty-four, Cecil thought – when he’d been at school, he’d go off to Camelot for lessons and extra tutelage for weeks at a time, to compete in tournaments and championships, and once he’d finished school he’d been in the army, although never as part of the rank and file.

He’d been in with some of the battle mages, Cecil was aware, for a little while, but mostly he’d be off in splinter groups or commanding smaller units, or he’d be the face on a battle to scare the shit out of whatever poor, ready-to-slaughter cavalcade of sacrifices was ready ahead of them.

No matter what he was doing, it had been with Myrddin Wyllt’s personal attention, until he’d gotten some new student – Cecil had read about her in the papers the last few years, some alchemist necromancer, impossible to photograph without a sort of haze distorting the picture – and lost interest in his old favourite.

He hadn’t asked questions about it, but he assumed that the break-up had come after that, and that was when Valorous had come back to Lashton, thought to be a copper.

He suppressed his smile, recalling when Myrddin had taken Cecil’s face in his hands and stared deep into his eyes, had told him he had no destiny to speak of unless he chose to make one of himself, and that he had no Sight. He’d only been a lad himself, eighteen or so. It was part of the reason, Cecil supposed, that Myrddin had picked him out of the line-up to use as a fucktoy instead of any of the other soldiers – because he meant nothing to nobody and never would.

Of course, there wasn’t any such thing as someone who had no destiny: even men like Cecil Hobbes had futures, in a literal sense. Knowing Myrddin Wyllt, it could well have been that he fucked Cecil knowing that one day he’d take up one of Myrddin’s leftover protegés – except that neither Cecil nor Valorous would ever have fucked the other were it not for Myrddin in the first place.

Cecil considered himself a man somewhat intolerant of prophecy and future-divining, if not outright allergic.

“That’s for the best,” he murmured. “Of all the hearts you could eat, you’d not want a smoker’s.”

“I’ve eaten hearts before,” said Valorous.

“Still beating?”

“Mm.”

“In the arena?”

“Yeah, but not people’s hearts, not other knights,” he clarified. That was good – thinking about the arena woke him up completely, and he was wide awake now, sitting in Cecil’s lap, his arse resting on his thighs, his expression focused, concentrated, a little severe. Frightening, obviously, but that was Valorous King for you. “A drake’s heart, once, and a chimera’s. I bit into the heart of a mist wolf, and it was half vapour in my hands, and when I bit into it, it really was like biting through thick, thick air. Outside of the arena, not really, but there was a skirmish at Victim’s Peak, and I duelled their company captain. I bit into his heart once he was dead – I didn’t… I never planned to. I didn’t mean to, I mean. The whole thing is kind of a blur, actually, I remember putting him on the ground, and then I just remember snatches – his heart set my mouth on fire when I bit into it, the same way popping candy does, you know when you feel that sharp thrill from it?”

“Victim’s Peak is deadland, Valorous,” said Cecil. “Whose fucking army were you fighting?”

“It’s not deadland,” said Valorous, looking confused, but then his brow furrowed, his lips pressed together. “Fuck,” he said. “Is it? That would explain why I went like I did. I tore through all of them after their captain like they were made of paper – they had to wash me off with a hose before I could go inside.”

“It was deadland when I was there,” said Cecil quietly, gently squeezing his waist.

“It probably still was,” Valorous said now. “Do revenants taste like popping candy?”

“If they do, I doubt anyone’s written it down.”

Valorous looked at Cecil very seriously, all of a sudden, and asked – demanded, really – “When did you first get raped?”

“Uh,” said Cecil, “I was seven. My dad came home drunk, very drunk. He’d made me fondle him before that, suck him off a few times, but that was when he first buggered me.”

“What about your mum?”

“She never touched me.”

“No, I mean… Why didn’t she stop him?”

“She wasn’t really in any position to stop him any more than I was, lad,” murmured Cecil. “The woman was a nervous wreck, and she drank to cope, same as he did.”

“Same as he did?” Valorous repeated, looking abruptly angry. “What, like, he raped you as a coping mechanism?”

“Dunno that I’d put it like that,” said Cecil. “He was a veteran, all his friends had died in the war the first time around, then his first and second wives both died. First one died of cancer, but the second one was gangraped and murdered, that was in the fifties.”

“What war?” demanded Valorous, suddenly petulant, and it made Cecil laugh. Ignoring him, he went on, “You don’t mean World War 2.”

“I do,” said Cecil.

“How fucking old are you?”

“Me, I’m fifty-four,” said Cecil. Valorous opened his mouth, and Cecil said, “He was forty-nine when he got my mother pregnant.”

“How old was she?”

“Twenty-something.”

“Ugh.” Valorous said, making a face, and Cecil laughed again, demonstratively grinding his cock up against his arse. “This is different. You can’t get me pregnant.”

“Don’t worry, baby, we can keep trying.” He filed away the flutter of Valorous’ lips and the slight widening of his eyes in the back of his head, committing that expression to memory, to come back to later. “He was always drunk when he fucked me. Had to be – would sob after, sometimes, cry his fucking eyes out, say he was sorry, that he’d never do it again, that he’d kill himself. He never did – and he whored me out later, which isn’t typically what someone does when they’re really fucking sorry.”

“You’re so calm about it,” said Valorous quietly, staring down at him, very serious, lips pressed together. “I couldn’t be calm about something like that. Am I the first person you’ve told?”

Cecil shook his head. “I went to a group in prison.”

“Group therapy?” asked Valorous, wrinkling his nose, and Cecil stroked his hands over the back of his arse.

“Not really – it wasn’t that structured, it was just a talking group that happened to be run by a counsellor. Most of ‘em were rapists, sex pests, convicted nonces. I remember one lad got upset when I said I only ever fucked legal boys, asked if he thought it made me better than him, and I said, yeah, mate. ‘Course I do.”

Valorous was used to being able to make people uncomfortable, especially by asking questions like this, and Cecil could see he was a little uncertain and uncomfortable with just how comfortable Cecil was, how unbothered he was talking about it, answering questions.

“You never raped any kids?” asked Valorous.

“Nah,” said Cecil quietly. “When I was still a kid myself, I fucked other kids – started when I was twelve, fumbled about with lads my age. Once I was in the army, I fucked a few of the sixteen-year-olds who joined up, but I tried to skew older.”

“But you’d rather fuck actual kids?” demanded Valorous, his voice hard and brittle in a way that made Cecil’s stomach do an anxious flip, even though he had no business feeling fucking anxious about anything.

“Young teens make my cock hard, sure,” he said. “Thirteen. Twelve. Eleven. But I can look at a boy and think about what he’d feel like without turning him into a sex toy, breaking him open. A lad like that is a human fucking being, believe it or not.”

“Me?”

“You? Are you a human being?”

“Would you have fucked me? When I was eleven?”

“I didn’t fuck you when you were eleven, despite having pretty easy access,” said Cecil, arching an eyebrow. “I think that answers that.”

“Why not?”

“You’re offended?”

“Maybe I am,” said Valorous. “I wasn’t a sexy enough child?”

“Sexy enough to wank over, maybe,” said Cecil, shrugging. “Not sexy enough to become a rapist over.”

Valorous’ hard eyes turned gooey, and Cecil felt even more sick, although this time it was worry for the state of Valorous’ fucking head instead of self-loathing. “You wanked over me?” he asked, voice agonisingly soft.

“Not when you were eleven, no. Later, sure. When you were fifteen and started bending over and displaying your hole for me like an aspiring child bride. Did you ever think about what would have happened, if I’d actually fucked you? What it would have felt like to be fucking your PE teacher? Not the sex, lad, not my cock barely fitting in your teenage arse, the way I’d’ve made it hurt, but the secrecy of it. The fear. Knowing I could get you expelled, ruin your life, threaten to take anything I felt like away from you if you ever stopped pleasing me.”

“I was pursuing you,” said Valorous, and Cecil stroked his hands over the muscled globes of his arse, squeezing slightly. “I was a fucking celebrity – I was a hero, the king regent’s own. If I’d asked his majesty to kill you, he would have.”

“That’s what you thought at the time,” said Cecil. “You didn’t know me and him knew each other.”

Valorous’ expression faltered, his lip shifting as he bit his lip.

“And, lad, fuck Myrddin – I had my own reputation for safeguarding as a teacher. If I’d gone to your dorm head and said I was seriously concerned about sexual abuse, he’d’ve been on it like a car bonnet, had you transferred somewhere else, put you in therapy.”

“I would have said that you were the one abusing me,” said Valorous.

“Maybe they’d have believed you,” said Cecil, shrugging. “But I doubt it. Even before you lasered in on any man who’d let you suck his cock in the vicinity, I was known for reporting abuse and keeping an eye out for that.”

“Do you wish you’d done it?”

“No.”

“No?” asked Valorous, and leaned forward in Cecil’s lap, looking down at him. “You never think about it? I was smaller then – bet I would have been tight. You’d have been the first man inside me, first man to fuck me. Open me up. I’d be shaped for you my whole life.”

“Very hot, sure,” said Cecil lowly, aware that his voice was gruff with sex, that his cock was half hard. “But I’d have been the nonce fucking a fifteen-year-old student, knowing what I was taking from you.”

“But I fucked other people, so you wouldn’t have been tak—"

“Valorous,” said Cecil. “I’ve had enough of this, now. I’m fucked in the head, lad, we both are. We want things, need things, that in’t right, not for anyone. The difference being that when you want to scrub something until your fingers bleed, you don’t ruin anyone’s fucking lives forever. Raping a fifteen-year-old, on the other hand, tends to have that effect.”

“It wouldn’t have ruined my life,” said Valorous. “It would’ve been better. I wouldn’t have fucked all them other men, if you’d just fucked me. You would have looked after me better, wouldn’t you? You would have been nice, you would have treated me the way you treat me now. You’re fixing me, aren’t you? Making me better?”

Something in Cecil’s chest felt raw and open and wrecked at the way he said it, the way his eyes were open and vulnerable and wanting, and Cecil wanted to be sick, wanted to scream, wanted to shove Valorous off him, wanted to wrap him in a blanket and put him back to bed, wanted to strangle Myrddin Wyllt with his bare hands.

“Is that what I’m doing?” he asked in a very low voice, aware of the hoarseness in it. “Fixing you?”

“I’m better,” said Valorous, almost defensive. “No one else ever tried to make me better.”

Was he better?

Cecil didn’t think so. Every day he saw Valorous King, he seemed even crazier than he had the day before, but then, he had no fucking idea what he felt like.

“If I’m making you better,” said Cecil, “why don’t you take me up on therapy?”

He’d suggested it before. Half a dozen times, he’d suggested it, that the lad go and see someone actually qualified to have a look in his fucked-up head and try to fix it up a bit. As with every other time before, he scrunched up his nose and his lips and his face, and glared down at him.

“Why?” he demanded.

“Because I’m not qualified to fucking fix you,” said Cecil. “I rescue dogs, not knights.”

“If therapy’s so good, why don’t you go?”

“Because I don’t want to.”

“Well, nor do I! I won’t go unless you go.”

“You’ll see a therapist if I see a therapist?”

“Yeah.”

“Fine, okay. I’ll go.”

Valorous’ mouth dropped open. “What?”

“I’ll go see a therapist, in’t no skin off my back, s’not like I haven’t done it before. If it means you’ll go, I’ll go too.”

Valorous was looking at him in the devastated, indignant way that he looked at Cecil when Cecil managed to pin him on the floor or get a punch in when they were sparring – Valorous was a lot stronger, faster, smarter, and younger than Cecil was, so he shouldn’t be able to, and he always took personal offence when Cecil managed it.

“But—”

“Going back on your word, lad?”

Valorous set his jaw. “Fine,” he said venomously, and then, in the same spiteful tone, “You can fuck me now.”

“Oh, can I?” asked Cecil, and put his hand around his throat, listening to the way he choked and grinning at the sound.

* * *

It had to be angels.

Faeries didn’t much believe in the concept of mental illness, not to mention the fact that the concept of therapy to most of them was a bit like going up to a stranger and giving him your name – it was weakening yourself to no imaginable benefit, making yourself vulnerable by giving away your secrets, giving away means to control or overpower you.

But it had to be angels – it had to be people that were guaranteed, as a matter of course, not to trust the king regent anymore than they would anyone else, people who wouldn’t be intimidated by him, people who weren’t vulnerable.

Cecil didn’t kid himself – if Myrddin Wyllt realised Valorous King was getting therapised and took it upon himself to go into his notes or eavesdrop on his sessions, that would be precisely what he would do. Trying to inure the process from Myrddin spying on it would be pointless and stupid to try, and would in fact only encourage him to do so when before he might not have been interested – the really important thing was that when Valorous talked about him, talked about the king regent, whoever he was talking to treated both Valorous and Myrddin as if they were people, not demigods, and acted accordingly.

The last thing Cecil wanted was to put Valorous on a couch, finally have him open himself up a bit, look internal, and say something critical about Myrddin Wyllt or the crown, and be shut down by some fucking royalist who couldn’t stand to hear it.

“Are you taking on new patients at the moment?” he asked quietly.

“You want to make appointments for two people,” said the doctor, looking down at him. Doctor Majok was a tall, slim man with a shaved head – he wore round glasses and a green cardigan over his shirt and tie. He’d been in the waiting room when Cecil had come in, and as his receptionist went over something on the computer with someone else, he’d gestured for Cecil to follow him into his office.

“You a telepath?” asked Cecil guardedly.

“No,” said Majok. “My sisters are, if that’s a concern for you.”

“In’t a concern. Just asking.”

“Paulette Fields told me that a man had been looking for two places as new patients, with concurrent appointments,” said Majok, picking up a teapot and gesturing with it, and Cecil gave a stout nod of his head. “You would be Cecil Hobbes?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you any experience with therapy or counselling before now, Mr Hobbes?”

“Yeah,” said Cecil quietly. “After I was discharged from the army, I had to do some screening sessions with a psych to make sure an injury in my hip wasn’t psychosomatic, but it turned out to be magical damage to one of the nerves. And when I was inside, I was court-ordered to talk through anger management strategies, as well as going to a support group for sex abuse survivors.” He said it through almost gritted teeth, feeling like he was burning himself saying it, but he knew that being honest now was better than being found out later.

Majok nodded seriously, not looking deterred as he passed him a cup of tea.

“And what are you looking for from therapy?”

“I’ve been trying to get the lad I’m sleeping with to come, and he won’t go unless I go,” said Cecil honestly, keeping Majok’s gaze and not breaking it. Majok looked mildly surprised, his eyebrows raising, but he didn’t look angry or disgusted, which was good. “He needs it, I think, because I’m not qualified to… And it’s not like I can’t benefit from it. But I’m here ‘cause he needs to go, and this is the only way I could get him to agree.”

“This is why you want appointments at the same time?” asked Majok. He exuded an incredibly calm, collected air, and Cecil felt himself let out a breath, wondering if it was contagious for mundane reasons or magical ones. “So that you can ensure he goes?”

“Nah, he’ll— He’s told me he’ll go, he wouldn’t back out on his word now he’s said it,” said Cecil. “But if we go at different times, he’ll spy on my sessions while I’m here.”

Majok blinked.

“He— Look, I suppose Paulette Fields in’t the only person who called you. I bet Karen whatever the fuck also let you know we were looking, and that angel counsellor at the hospital, too.”

Majok didn’t say anything, his expression completely blank.

“I was his PE teacher, at school,” said Cecil. “Then last year he was stalking me, and he still does. Stalk me. Follows me around, goes through my phone, goes through records of me. It’s pretty much a guarantee that he’s gonna try to go through your records for his own notes and mine – but if we go at different times, he will listen in on my sessions, and I don’t want that to be the point of this. I want him to focus on his sessions.”

Majok took a sip of his tea, taking this in.

“And I’m a paedophile,” added Cecil, figuring he might as well shove the knife all the way in, while he was at it. “Non-offending, don’t rape kids, don’t look at child porn, none of that. But I’m attracted to kids, teenagers. Just in case that’s a deal-breaker.”

“Is that why you were worried I was a telepath?” asked Majok, and Cecil pressed his lips together.

“Common courtesy, in’t it? S’not like you want that dropped into your head.”

“Distressing thoughts and urges are my profession, Mr Hobbes,” said Majok, almost gently. “I’m not here to judge the thoughts in your head – my purpose is to help you heal from old wounds, to better live with what’s in your head, and arm you with tools to cope with those distressing thoughts and urges.”

“Yeah, well,” said Cecil. “Most therapists don’t want a nonce sitting on their couch, profession or not.”

“Has that stopped you from seeing out professional help before?” asked Majok, sharp as a scalpel. His eyes were so dark behind his glasses they were almost black – it was a very calming colour, Cecil found. “The knowledge that the stigma of your condition might make some offices turn you away?”

“When I was younger, sure,” said Cecil. “But I’ve read up on it. Trauma, paedophilia, sex offences. A lot of it, I read the, uh, literature. Stopped looking, while I was a teacher, because I knew if I did go to someone and got reported, I’d be liable to lose my job.”

“You don’t teach anymore?”

“I got put in the nick for GBH,” said Cecil. “Can’t teach after that – I work in a gym now.”

“And your partner?”

“It’s Valorous King,” said Cecil, and watched Majok’s face. His eyes really widened now, the colour seeming a tiny bit lighter with more light on it, but still very dark, and his eyebrows went right up, his forehead wrinkling.

“Ah,” he said. “I see.”

“If you can’t take us, if you had any recommendations for—”

“We can take you,” Majok interrupted him. “If you’re comfortable, you and I can take sessions together – and we can arrange for Sir Valorous to take an appointment with one of my sisters, if the two of you call us at the same time.”

Cecil stood there for a second. “Just like that?”

“Just like that,” said Majok.

An uncomfortable pit formed at the base of Cecil’s stomach, and as Majok stared at him, he drank more of the tea, even though it was hot.

“Why don’t we get some intake forms for you and Sir Valorous?” asked Majok reasonably.

“Yeah,” said Cecil, trying to ignore the roiling nausea inside him. “Why don’t we?”

“Are you frightened?” asked Majok.

“Scared shitless.”

Majok nodded his head, picking up a pen and passing it over with a form, still calm, still on an even keel. “It’s understandable to feel frightened,” he said, “and not at all uncommon. Anxiety unites almost every patient, whether they’re starting therapy for the first time or returning.”

Cecil stared down at the intake form, slowly nodded his head, and filled in his name.

#musings #original fiction #writers on tumblr #fiction #snarry #< if you've read my abandoned-until-JKR-dies fanfic Chasing Ghosts #or like my other snarry dynamics #i am fairly certain you will enjoy the vibe between valorous king and cecil hobbes

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moon--mama · 1 year

Text

I just saw a bunch of theories on another site claiming that Gwyn’s mother could be Ianthe, and her father could be Lucien.

Here’s the issue with that: the timeline.

Gwyn’s grandmother was a nymph and her grandfather was High Fae. That means her mother was half nymph and half Fae.

Let’s start at the bottom and work up. Catrin and Gwyn are about 20. That means their mother partook in the Rite 20 years ago.

At that time, a lot of High Fae are under the mountain. Amarantha does let some out to celebrate Calanmai, so it doesn’t take every High Fae out of the equation. The biggest hint to Gwyn’s parentage being discussed by fans so far is her red hair. But we already know that her grandfather was associated with the autumn court. That means her autumn connections are likely NOT through her father.

It seems that in ACOTAR, red hair is a dominant trait. Therefore, anyone mixing in with the autumn court would likely have some shade of red/auburn hair. ((I’ll just mention here that the human queen Vassa has red hair and large blue eyes, matching Gwyn in description)).

So the red hair would carry to a grandchild easily.

Two things:

Where did the surname Berdara come from?

Who are potential candidates for her father and grandfather?

Gwyn’s Mother:

Gwyn’s mother cannot be Ianthe. In ACOWAR, Feyre notes that Ianthe was hiding out in Vallahan for 50 years while Amarantha terrorized Prythian. The timeline doesn’t add up.

Plus, Gwyn’s mother was half nymph. Her people lived in rivers, and Catrin had webbed fingers. Ianthe is High Fae—not half nymph, as far as Feyre ever observed.

BUT, it’s interesting to note that Mama Berdara tried to live in the Autumn Court for a while. What does “untamed” mean? I believe that it means she would not keep quiet about her parentage. She couldn’t be “tamed” into playing the political games of the Autumn Court. If she’s tame enough to be a priestess and live at Sangravah, then it has nothing to do with her avoiding confinement. Mama Berdara was sent away to keep her quiet.

Also, Mama Berdara is dead but we don’t know what happened.

Lifespans don’t get discussed much in ACOTAR, since everyone is constantly on the verge of being murdered, but they do get discussed in Crescent City. Generally, the different species live…

Asteri: forever?

Fae: 1000 years

Angels: 500-1000 years

Shifters & witches: 500 years

Humans: 100? Years

If Mama Berdara died naturally, she would have likely been between 500-1000 years old. Gwyn doesn’t mention her death beyond this, suggesting that it wasn’t a murder or anything traumatic.

Gwyn’s Grandfather:

The fact that Gwyn’s mother was brought to the Autumn court as a baby suggests that her father had a position of power. Unless he’s a random unknown character, that leaves all the men of the Autumn court as potential suspects.

The popular theory is that Lucien is Gwyn’s father, and that idea does work.

Rhysand says this to Lucien in ACOTAR, which indicates that Lucien is less than 500 years old. That’s a lot of Calanmai hookups. Also, it makes Lucien potentially old enough that he could have been the Autumn Fae who fell in love with the nymph.

All that we know about Lucien’s first love, Jesminda, was that she was a lesser fae who lived in the countryside. Was she a nymph? It’s possible, since Alis proves that lesser fae are capable of moving from one court to another. It would be a heart-wrenching story arc for Lucien to discover that Gwyn was a surviving remnant of his love.

But I’d like to propose two alternatives.

Beron: the irony of a High Lord alphahole who murdered his son’s lover for being “lesser fae” also siring a daughter with a “lesser fae” would be too rich. He doesn’t have any official daughters at all, though. And Lady Autumn’s thing with Helion suggests that perhaps Beron has been distracted elsewhere romantically.

Eris: it would be somewhat poetic if the eldest Autumn lad who seems to be a secret softie had changed because of his love for a nymph. Maybe his father’s treatment of Lucien softened him up towards the “lesser fae.” Maybe his father’s rejection of his love and his daughter caused him to help Lucien when Beron killed Jesminda.

Also, Gwyn might know the identity of her grandfather. She specifically says that her mother never told her who her father was. But if Mama Berdara was tossed out of the Autumn court, what’s the likelihood that she would have shared her family connections with her daughters? Especially if she knew that she was coming up on her death due to her age—she’d want them to know where to turn for help.

Berdara…Who?

So if you google this, Berdara means “blood” or “bloodied.” But it can also mean “of a certain ethnic background” as in, the blood of ancestors.

Is this nomenclature a hint about the past, or the future?

Gwyn is one of fourteen people to achieve the Carynthian status in the Illyrian Blood Rite within the past 500 years. Does her surname mean that she’s destined for a life of bloodshed and warfare?

Gwyn’s family is brutalized when the temple of Sangravah is attacked by Hybern. Could her surname be a nod to the way her sister was murdered?

If she happens to share blood with Beron, Eris, or Lucien, is her surname a hint that she is “of the blood” of the Autumn royal family?

Also—where did this surname originate? Is it from her mother, her father, or her grandparents? Arguably, Berdara sounds a bit like Vanserra.

For my Spring Court believers:

Yes, it’s possible that Gwyn is the daughter of Tamlin during the Rite. But wouldn’t her mother have mentioned being chosen as “The Maiden?”

Twins do tend to run in families. And what we don’t know is whether or not Tamlin’s dead, cruel elder brothers were twins. If they were, it’s a point in the favor of him being Gwyn’s father.

Also, as many have observed, his redemption arc would work better if he was dealing with a paternal love instead of a romantic love. So I’m in favor of a daddy Tamlin revelation.

My only point against Tamlin’s paternity is the whole “lightsinger” concept. Tamlin does not seem to be a lightsinger. The only light-manipulating characters so far have been Feyre and Helion, but THAT would be messed up. If Lucien and Jesminda were Gwyn’s grandparents, and Helion is Lucien’s father but also Gwyn and Catrin’s father…ugh. It seems too complicated to be likely. Perhaps the lightsinger powers come from the nymph bloodline.

Theoretical Family Tree:

Looks like we have to wait for the next book to know for sure! Anyway thanks for reading over my theories. Let me know what you think!

#gwyn acosf #gwyneth berdara #acotar theory #lucien vanserra #lucien vandaddy #eris vanserra #baron vanserra #jesminda #family tree #autumn court #acotar

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ree-ffxiv · 11 months

Text

Wolcred Week 2023!

Day 1: Comfort/Scars

https://archiveofourown.org/works/47680207

"The way you furnished your apartment so quickly," Thancred noted with a light, breathless laugh as he reclined on the bed and welcomed Gylian close to him after an unexpected tryst. "I'd dare say you were expecting me here all along."

"I'll leave that up to you to figure out," Gylian said with an equally breathless laugh into his arm, absent-mindedly tracing her fingertips across the ripples of his abdomen.

When the Doman refugees arrived, Gylian decided to surrender her living quarters for one of them to occupy. She was out in the field or at the Drowning Wench's inn more often than not, so it seemed only natural. She hadn't considered the prospect of getting an apartment in Mist - which also felt just as right.

With her meager savings, she was able to procure a humble apartment, with a decent view of the bay from Red Rooster Stead. Her means of furnishing it as swiftly as she did however, in truth, was her desire to finally have a stable place to call her home, without the on-goings of Scion presence and perhaps somewhere to keep more than just weapons and equipment. As much as she desired to keep tomes for herself, her lifestyle up until that point didn't allow her such a privilege. And now, she had it.

And yet, somehow it turned into a private refuge for her and Thancred to escape to - without actually intending it to.

So, it came as no surprise to her when he jested about giving his personal input on the aesthetics of her new abode, turning it into a subtle invitation of sorts. An unexpected one, but something she couldn't ignore.

Their relationship - if you wanted to call it that - was complex, to say the least. Their first sexual encounter was meant to be a one-time thing. However, tried as she might to seek romantic prospects elsewhere, the man still drew her like a moth to the flame... without even trying.

And thus began the unspoken, precarious balance between friendship and desire. She wanted more - gods, she did - but she accepted his reasons, whatever they were, to not venture beyond a heated mess of two impassioned, tangled bodies.

That evening happened to be one of those moments of said heated mess.

As Thancred's hearty yawn echoed through the room, breaking her from her thoughts, he slowly sat up at the edge of the bed, the sheets slipping from his body revealing a tapestry of scars scattered across his physique. Her gaze was drawn to a peculiar scar on his lower back, just above his waistline. Small and slightly irregular in shape, its puckered edges hinted at a wound that had been deeply inflicted and imperfectly healed.

"Fancy a drink? You've left me quite parched," he quipped, poised to rise from the bed. However, at her sudden touch, his breath hitched. He turned to look at her, his eyes questioning.

"Hold on a moment, Thancred," she murmured softly, as he allowed her to lightly trace the edge of a particular scar. "This one. It's... different."

He chuckled lightly, a slight hint of nostalgia in his eyes. "Ah, that one," he started, looking at the scar. "A relic from my childhood."

Gylian’s curiosity was piqued by his words. "Care to elaborate?" she asked, her eyes shifting from the scar to his face.

"Elaborate, huh?" Thancred asked, a smirk playing on his lips as he met her gaze. He settled back down, gently capturing her hand against his chest.

He was quiet for a moment, collecting his thoughts. "If you recall, I was an orphan in Limsa Lominsa," he began, his voice soft but clear in the quiet room. "And when you're a child on those decks, you learn quickly that food is a luxury."

One day, he explained, the sharp pang of hunger in his belly had driven him to theft - a single, flaky tart that had been carelessly left unattended by a market stall. But his triumph had been short-lived when a larger, stronger lad had spotted his prize and decided he wanted it for himself.

The scuffle had been brief and brutal. Thancred was strong and quick for his age, but he was no match for the brute force of the other boy. He had been tossed aside like a rag doll, crashing into a pile of refuse and debris.

And right onto a jagged piece of rusted metal.

"The fight didn't end well for me," he swallowed, recalling the shadow of pain.

Gylian’s breath hitched at his words, her fingers instinctively tightening around his. He gave her a reassuring squeeze, his voice steady as he continued.

"Even a small fishing hook was a treasure in those days," Thancred mused, his thumb brushing over the ancient scar. "I remember managing to steal one, along with some thin wire. It was from an old fisherman who'd left his tools unattended. Desperate times called for desperate measures, as they say."

He paused for a moment, lost in the distant memory, before he continued. "I snuck into a quiet corner, behind a stack of discarded crates, where no one could see me. The pain... I won't forget it. I had to bite down on a piece of driftwood just to keep from crying out. But the alternative... leaving the wound open... it was not an option."

His voice took on a solemn, reflective tone. "The worst part wasn't the pain, though. It was the fear. The fear that I wouldn't do it right, that it would get infected. That I would die alone in some forgotten corner, just another street urchin lost to the city."

His grip on her hand tightened slightly as he finished, his eyes meeting hers again. "I cleaned it as best I could with a small flame. Then, with shaky hands and teeth clenched against the pain of the seventh hell, I threaded the wire through the hook and started to sew."

"The crude stitches were jagged and uneven," he said, his voice softening. "I still remember the sensation of the metal dragging through my skin. But it worked. The wound closed, and although it healed badly, at least it healed."

He chuckled then, a bitter, hollow sound. "I suppose it's ironic that my first lesson in survival wasn't from the streets or the seas of Limsa, but from a fight over a bloody tart."

Gylian squeezed his hand gently, her heart aching for the pain he'd endured. She knew of his rough childhood in Limsa Lominsa, of course, but hearing the actual details brought a whole new level of understanding.

"I'm sorry, Thancred," she murmured, pressing her lips to the scar. "No child should have to go through that."

His gaze softened, the corner of his mouth lifting in a sad smile. "It's in the past, G," he said, his thumb gently brushing against her cheek. "But thank you. It means a lot."

As they laid there, basking in the comforting silence, Gylian found herself admiring him even more. His scars were not just reminders of his past struggles, they were also testaments of his strength and resilience.

"And you say you're not amazing," she whispered, her eyes meeting his. "You truly are, Thancred. In more ways than you could ever know."

Thancred's lips curled into a warm, appreciative smile, his gaze softening as he took in her sincerity. "From anyone else, I might dismiss that as empty flattery," he admitted. "But from you, Gylian... I can't help but feel a little moved."

He brushed a stray lock of hair away from her face, his touch lingering. "Though I must confess, I'm not used to being the recipient of such heartfelt compliments. You might be spoiling me."

Gylian chuckled, a soft and endearing sound that stirred warmth within him. "I think you can afford to be spoiled a little. The Twelve know you've earned it."

"Well," he said, his voice taking on a teasing lilt, "if you insist on indulging me, who am I to refuse?"

She rolled her eyes at his antics, but there was a fond smile on her lips. "There's that incorrigible rogue I know and tolerate," she quipped, giving him a playful nudge.

"Only tolerate?" Thancred echoed, feigning offense. He moved closer, their bodies flush against each other, and began to trace small circles along her arm with his fingertips. "I was hoping to at least rank as 'mildly endearing'."

Gylian laughed, the sound light and genuine. "Oh, you're endearing alright," she teased back, tracing a finger along the curve of his jaw. "Mildly annoying, too."

"But you must know," she continued, her voice softening, "you're also incredibly brave. And you should never forget that."

"Brave, eh?" Thancred asked, a playful spark in his eyes. "Or perhaps I’m just too stubborn?"

"Perhaps a little bit of both," Gylian conceded, a warm smile playing on her lips. "But I wouldn't have you any other way."

She ran her fingers through his hair, eliciting a satisfied hum from him. Her gaze fell back to the scar that had started their conversation. It was a reminder of his strength, of his resilience, of the boy he once was who had to grow up too fast.

"I must say," she started, her voice a soft whisper, "these scars of yours... they add to your charm."

Thancred laughed at that, a rich sound that filled the room. "So, my dear Gylian," he said, his voice dripping with mischief, "you're saying you find my scars... alluring?"

"I'm saying," Gylian shot back, meeting his playful gaze with a teasing smile of her own, "they tell a story. Your story. And that is something I find very captivating."

Thancred paused, taken aback by her words. Then, he smiled – a genuine smile, warm and unguarded. "Well, then... perhaps I should consider getting a few more."

"Only if they're won in worthy battles," Gylian replied, raising a brow in mock admonition, "and not over stolen tarts."

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #ff14 #ffxiv screenshots #ffxiv screencaps #wolcred week #wolcredweek2023 #wolcred #thancred waters #read on ao3 #ao3 #ao3 writer #ffxiv fanfiction #gpose

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crystalmarred · 6 months

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High-heeled boots clacked against the cement flooring of the steps. Up and up and up they went through an already crowded area. He didn't need to keep his head down to know Limsa Lominsa was busiest this time. Surely not.

Blue eyes focused left and right until he saw what seemed to be a familiar face. Very much like the young lad he'd met recently. Very much like the young man he'd remembered years ago.

Time had not been kind of them in memories, but life had been kind to how they were now. With a prideful step forward, the Red Mage moved until he could find a location to press again.

Remain open but hidden. Arms folded. He would surely have to wait until he got into a better position to fully have time to talk. Would it be foolish to hope that one had not forgotten him? Or remembered?

When the last of the others left, he pushed upwards, a tilt in his hat.

"X'orehn, you sly bastard, this is where you've been hiding? Time was not wasted on you - it's as though you haven't aged a day since Ala Mhigo. Surely you wouldn't forget your own."

UNPROMPTED ( bless you for this, homie ) ⇢ @diademreigned

The day was as normal as it came for the people of Limsa Lominsa and for X'orehn in particular. His beautiful wife had left to go fishing out on the ocean with the only child that still lived at home with them and Naiha had been as thrilled as ever, jumped at the chance to help her mother as she so often did with anyone and everyone who would trust her with any task.

It was a boon in some ways, though more often than not, t'was lonely in a way that X'orehn didn't quite yet know how to articulate. He missed the way Nokto's used to greet him when he arrived home and how Nok'a sat with him for far too many hours, eager to lend a hand to his research and X'kijin...

X'kijin, he was just relieved had finally turned up, finally silenced the worst of his fears that had plagued him for so many years.

Lonely though it may be with less of his children around, it did not mean he was entirely alone. On the contrary, he was around plenty of folks in the Arcanist's Guild, young and old, fresh-faced and experienced, there was a wide array of people to keep him company.

Never would it be the same as that of his children, but it served as a brilliant distraction to stand and teach young arcanists the theory of arcanima. It warmed him to stand there, to watch them interact with their summoned carbuncle, to learn about the unique aspects of the one that came to them.

But t'was only a temporary respite. 'Fore long, they had elsewhere to be and began to skitter off in every direction and he was left there alone—or so he'd thought for a brief moment.

The sound of heeled boots tapped against the stone underfoot and green eyes turned his gaze towards their owner and found—

A face quite familiar, though for a moment, he can't place the name. The red attire, at least a few summers younger than he...

And then he started to speak. His name first, the mention of his apparent youthfulness, then of Ala Mhigo...

A laugh spilled from X'orehn's lips. The name came so easily to him, it seemed almost an insult it hadn't come to him sooner. But then, names and faces of years past were often made more difficult to recall by the passage of time.

"Seven hells! That you, X'rhun?"

A broad smile spread across his face, complimented the gleam in his green eyes. It was hard to believe that he would run into him here, almost as easily as Nok'to had run into X'kijin in Gridania so many moons ago.

"It's been an age!"

Twenty years. More than, most like. X'orehn couldn't recall seeing him when he'd returned to Ala Mhigo around the time they had at last lost to the Garleans, but it was hard to say if it was because X'rhun wasn't there or if he'd simply not seen him amidst all the chaos.

"What the hells brought you all the way out here?" he asked, though perhaps the liberation of Ala Mhigo had awoken his desire to wander. It certainly seemed to do the same for X'kijin, though he would attribute that more to the boy he fancied than his son's own accomplishments. "Don't tell me it was me. I've kids, I'll know if you're lying."

A joke, a jest. A poor one, but still one nonetheless.

#✧ ▌ in character : guest muse.#diademreigned #// ooc. x tribe reunion!!!#❝ diademreigned — x'rhun tia.

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eorzeanflowers · 8 months

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FFXIV WRITE 2023 Prompt 11: Once Bitten, Twice Shy

(Character: Rose, Benoit Thibodeux , Timeframe: Pre-Endwalker)

(Continuation from this)

Benoit stumbled back to the Drowning Wench in the early evening darkness. The empty liquor bottle held firm in his hand. Overwhelmed with memories, he sought the means to end them. Baderon was still there, the Wench now a busy place. Benoit sat at the bar, set the bottle on the counter and tossed his gil to the bartender. “Another one, would ya Ten-fingers?”

“Aye, I know your coin is good Benoit.” Baderon gave him a smirk and went to the back to get another bottle. Benoit stayed seated ignoring the memories that threatened to flood him. He just had to wait a little longer, and then he wouldn’t remember until the morning. The chatter behind him helped distract his mind, as he tuned into their conversation.

“And here I am, fishin’ line pulled taught. I pulled and pulled with all me strength, I honestly thought the bugger was gonna pull me in!” the lalafell fisher was boasting. A common occurrence, Benoit mused. He focused elsewhere.

“Ahh” A burly Roegadyn dropped his nearly empty tankard to the table. He jostled his mate with a hearty laugh. “Isn’t this the life! Months on the grand sea, out in our element, and then back into the best bar in Eorzea for good grog!” His entire table cheered in agreement. They all downed their tankards and started to whoop and holler in delight. Benoit wrinkled his nose at the noise and turned back to the bar. Baderon had just reappeared with the bottle Benoit so deeply sought.

“That’s the ticket. Hand it over Baderon.”

Baderon set the bottle and a tankard in front of Benoit, then scanned the lively establishment. He smiled at the cheerful crew. “It's always nice to see a happy lot here in my place.”

Benoit moodily swirled around the dregs of his first cup and darkly said, “Well sorry for bringin’ the mood down.”

Baderon’s eyebrows shot up with shock. “Benoit, you are one of my regulars! You never bring the mood down.” He had his easygoing smile as he pulled up a chair on the other side of the bar.

“Certainly ain’t bringing the mood up.” “Well, no.” Baderon shrugged. “But I’m always glad to see ya alive and well. I worry about my regulars, you know.” Benoit gave a noncommittal grunt and took another sip of his second cup.

“I’m serious lad!” Baderon tapped the bar in front of Benoit. He looked between the cheerful crew enjoying another round, and the Elezan man before him. “Do you miss the call of the sea, mate?”

Benoit rolled his eyes, finishing his second drink. “Never, mate. Once bitten, twice shy. And besides, I still have a captain.”

Baderon solemnly touched Benoit’s hand. “Of course you do, lad. Never tried to imply otherwise.”

“Thanks Baderon.”

“Of course Benoit. Like I said, I worry about my regulars.” Baderon returned to his easy going smile, his attention being pulled by one of the waitresses. “Now, enjoy your night, I mean it.”

“I’ll try, Ten-fingers… I’ll try.” Benoit trailed off as he started his third cup. Baderon shook his head and left the Elezan man to his thoughts.

#the rose #ffxivwrite2023 #ffxivwrite #had the brainworms and so we continued!#Word Count: 525

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misneachsblr · 1 year

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Maidin Luain Cincíse

“Maidin Luain Cinchíse” is one of my favourite Irish songs. It was written by the Munster poet Mícheál Óg Ó Longáin (1766-1837). Earlier Irish poets tended to be supporters of Jacobitism; however, Ó Longáin was a staunch republican, and even served as a messenger in the United Irishmen. The song, which laments the failure of the 1798 uprising, likely draws from his own personal experiences. Ó Longáin’s disappointment at the failure of his home province to rise is also expressed. I feel that this closeness to the writer is what makes the song so powerful.

“Maidin Luain Cincíse” means “Whit Monday Morning”, and refers to the Monday after Pentecost Sunday (usually referred to in England and Ireland as “Whit Sunday” or “Whitsun”). If I’m correct, I believe this would have fallen on May 28th in 1798. On that day in Wexford, the rebels successfully captured the garrison town of Enniscorthy. I’m not sure why this date is mentioned, as the song is lamenting defeat rather than victory. The language used seems to describe a rural rather than urban battle, too. I don’t know where Ó Longáin fought during the rebellion, and this would be key to understanding the exact situation he references. If anyone could help me check the date, or find the exact battle described, I would be most grateful! The mention of Whit Monday may also contrast the active state of the rebellion with that of Munster. The only major rebel action in Munster did not occur until the Battle of the Big Cross, on June 19th.

This version, sung by Aoife Granville (a folklore lecturer at my university) is the one I’ll translate. It’s considerably shorter than the texts I’ve found elsewhere. In places, different words are substituted. I think its arrangement is beautiful. It has an expressive quality that other versions I’ve found lack.

Maidin Luain Cincíse, labhair an síofra sa ghleann.

Do bhailíodar na cága chun ábhacht a dhéanamh ann

Do chruinníomar na dtimpeall, ‘s do lasamar ár dtinte

‘S do thógamar ceo draíochta go haoibhinn os a gcionn.

Cá bhfuilid na Muimhnigh nó an fíor go mairid beo,

Ná cruinníd siad ‘nár dtimpeall is cabhrú linn sa ngleo?

Mar is deacair poirt do stríocadh ná clann búir do dhíbirt

Ónár mbailte dúchais dílis bhí ár sinsir riamh fadó...

Pentecost Monday morning, the síofra spoke in the valley.

The jackdaws assembled, to make their fun there.

We gathered around, and we lit our fires

And we took a magic mist, blissful, overhead.

Where are the Munstermen, or the living image,

Won’t they come into our midst and help us in the fight?

For it’s difficult to strike port, or drive out the boorish clan,

From the sweet, native towns our ancestors held long ago.

A particularly sad verse, not in this version:

Beir scéala suas chun Mumhan uainn, a rún ghil ‘s a stór,

Agus inis an scéal faoi chumha dóibh go bhfuil an sciúirse ‘nár gcomhair;

Mar is mó leanbh fireann fionn geal agus ainnir mhilis mhúinte

Agus ógfhear cliste lúfar san úir uainn ag feo.

Bear a story from us up to Munster, bright darling, treasure,

And tell the lonely tale to them that the scourge is among us

For there are many fair bright manly lads, and sweet schooled maidens,

And agile clever young men, rotting in the earth.

#sean nos #gaeilge #irish music #irish history #Spotify

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neillien · 1 year

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Chapter 12. How a boy succumbs to loneliness …

XIII

. . . It all began on the day Xavier turned thirteen. October 18th, 2010. On this day - Xavier grew to manhood; and here is another truth, Xavier's parents they had no liking for his flourishing youth,

their lives lay in the shadow of themselves

and their insolent beauty.

'We'll have no adolescent disrupt the act of perfecting ourselves.' What an problem Xavier was to them. 'We cannot have him.' They griped, if he woke in the night - they beat him. If Xavier slept during the day, well, they never even noticed.

Too busy the pair of them, scything their reflections into themselves. The glass, the mirror, the most familiar of familiars. Over-identifying with their distant halves, Mother, Father: the progenitors taking leave of their senses, their projections literally at a loss, leaving turbid withering imprints like wilting helianthus flowers on the glass, their vanity ached for rapture, scything more and more pleasure for them, unaware of its permanent damage, they dismissed Xavier, altogether. How it felt is irrepressible.

Choking into their polite, parochial lives. Chilblains, colds, bad hair days

confirmed their familial ordinariness. From

the joy of something otherworldly Xavier came to their lives. He must have been a mistake. The first egg in a jewellery box. You could tell by the look in his eyes, he was unusual. The Parents wicked thoughts erupt into violence.

Ignorant to the dangerous nature of themselves ,

the mother’s mask of hidden disappointment which rarely rose above frozen, her heirs and graces . . .

the father’s metallurgical soul: a phantom bridge between two hells. One opaque. The other lived like a liar sharing the top floor of an Apostolic Palace.

Indifferent to The boy’s strange configuration

an embodiment of his distress

triggered by megrims,

wandering alone upstairs /

gaslit by bouts of the black dog and rounds of the mean reds, a cerebral psoriasis beset with kindness, Xavier is a good lad. He meant nobody harm,

nobody dared disenchant the hex

as Xavier slept, the parents looked elsewhere

for the same silhouette as theirs in the distance, splinters of strangers.

the sycophants who rub-shoulders with giants and snake-hands

With saints –

rubied ostentations predicting their fate, the she-figure in a purple dress, the hierophant is stood in blackness.

I was upstairs in my bedroom with my boyfriend Adam when dad burst in through the door. Adam playing fragmented chords on his guitar, and I wrote in a notebook

#january 28 #2023 #first draft #version 1

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elfyourmother · 2 years

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What is your beef with The Aitiascope? Only if you don't mind me asking.

Really a couple of things.

From a design standpoint it’s just wack and boring af. I mean basically every dungeon from the Dragonsong patches on is essentially a tunnel on rails but the better ones do a bit better of a job of obfuscating that and Aitiascope didn’t even try. Here is the magic wall, pull to it. Here is another wall. In an area that is supposed to be vast and boundless it stuck out for all the wrong reasons. The bosses are so damn forgettable I legit had to look up who they were because I deadass didn't remember them at all aside from Amon and I couldn’t tell you any of the mechanics

I could forgive all of that if the storytelling there was good but that’s really my biggest beef with it, from a meta standpoint I hate that dungeon because it’s probably the most blatant example of Endwalker’s biggest weakness to me, which is the clumsy and ham fisted attempts at manipulation of player emotions. It’s something this game generally avoids doing, which is why it sticks out so badly to me the rare times it does. And AS really genuinely felt like the writers looking me dead in my face and saying, “okay, I know we have not treated the deaths of these other characters with the same importance as Haurchefant, so here is their spotlight moment and please forgive us"

The thing is, I’m the type of person who is very stubborn and defiant when it comes to the perception of folk trying to manipulate my feelings and when I feel writers trying to hook puppet strings on me it has the entire opposite effect. I emotionally check out and start looking at my watch waiting for the shit to just end.

Ysayle showing up at the end as Shiva was downright tone deaf to the point I found it insulting. Sure I get what they were going for, “oh look, how clever, she’s recreating the ice boulder mech from Syrcus Tower’s Amon fight so we can hide. because you know she’s Ice themed” but all of that (quite bizarrely!) forgets that “Shiva” the Primal was a construct born of Ysayle’s self-aggrandizement-as-coping mechanism, something that was really a product of trauma more than anything, and imo it retroactively makes a mockery of her Azys Lla moment to have her just pop into that form in the Aetherial Sea like it’s nbd. That she willingly took that form again to save WoL et al, despite knowing it was basically a manifestation of self-delusion--that meant something. To have her just randomly do it again out of nowhere. And vaguely dehumanizing if I’m honest. After the shitshow of E8 back in ShB there is literally nothing I want to hear from this game about Ysayle anymore.

In short the whole damn thing just served as a reminder of why I’m an Everybody Lives kind of writer. I didn’t hate this dungeon because of that, ftr. I hated it because it really felt like they were beating it into the ground to the point it was tragedy porn, it was peak “look how sad it is your faves died. so sad. are you sad again yet?” writing. Like I said, when I sense that it has the opposite effect. I don’t feel grief, I just feel anger at them literally beating dead horses. (Between this shit and garbage ass DSR I sincerely just want the game to keep Haurche’s name out of its mouth at this point.) We didn’t even need this shit either, is the craziest thing to me about it. Every last one of those characters had a genuinely touching reference/moment elsewhere in the course of the story. Estinien and Alphinaud talking about Ysayle’s dream after Vrtra revealed himself to his people was like the one time this game has done right by her since Azys Lla. Even that scene with the Fortemps lads was fine. Please, if you have to keep going to this well (and you really really can stop now, game), can we just allow these quiet moments of dignity to stand on their own? We don’t need magic buffs and ghosts in the afterlife. Jesus H.

The trial at the end is really what saved that segment of the story for me but the funny thing is it was the canary in the coal mine to me for Ultima Thule, which has all the problems of this place but even worse. Because it’s a whole damn zone of it combined with the most gobshite pacing since the trolley nonsense in ShB and writing so hamfisted I was literally cringing in secondhand embarrassment for most of it. And just like AS it was the trial that saved it.

tbh AS just confirmed my preference for characters surviving and growing and healing, even stumbling and taking steps backward at times, instead of being tied up like forgotten loose ends or shoved onto buses for Teh Dramaz, with extreme prejudice even. AS illustrates to me why killing characters off should absolutely be the last resort, and why it has to be done with care. Because it’s very rare that stories can handle the aftermath properly, it’s a very tricky thing to get right. Eventually, even in stories that initially do, the temptation to make the player/reader/viewer wallow in it for cheap emotional hits inevitably becomes too much to resist.

#looks like it’s ranting time tonight lmao #y’all done got me started #character death cw #negativity cw #bisho has opinions #anonymous #ask bisho

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scorching-passion · 1 year

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KNOWING YOUR PARTNER WELL CAN POTENTIALLY MAKE WRITING TOGETHER A LOT EASIER.

Name: Saphie or just Saph.

Pronouns: she/her

Preference of communication: I don’t generally mind tumblr IM’s but Discord is a preference, I only give it out on request tho~

Name of muse(s): Roche (Though I also have a Cloud Strife blog which I’m taking a break from, I also have Reeve over on Discord)

Experience/how long (months/years?): Roughly 3 years in the FF fandom, about 16 years overall.

Platforms you’ve used: Tumblr, Discord, fucking live journal, man is that site still alive??? MSN and Skype, yada yads showing my age now lads!

Pet peeves / dealbreakers: Being pestered for replies is a big no no. My job is mentally demanding and I don’t always feel like sitting in front of a screen, you know? Also when my replies are over written and MY response is changed in the next turn, don’t be that guy.

Fluff, angst, or smut: I mean... I enjoy all 3 tbh. But I do have a penchant for angst, if you know me at all you would know that I can turn the sweetest thread into an ANGST fest at a moments notice xD I make no apologies~

Plots or memes: I love memes as an icebreaker, but for me a good plot is where its at! I love world building and detailed narrative.

long or short replies: Either is fine, though for me it’s quality over quantity at the end of the day. As long as the reply can move the scene along then the length really doesn’t matter... even if I have the tendency to ramble on occasion x3

Best time to write: When I know I don’t have somewhere to be or something to do later on, I struggle to settle if I’m needed elsewhere later on even if it’s not for hours. I’m terrible for clock watching and stressing myself out.

Are you like your muse(s): Me...? Like Roche? Yeah... no xD

#Out of Gas - OOC #I saw this and thought why not~?

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jdsrepository · 2 months

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Smooth Sailin' Today, Sunk Tomorrow: The Trojan Horse of Centralized Systems for Scallywags

As we sail the digital seas into the future, companies and governments seem to be buildin' more centralized data systems that connect all yer personal information in one treasure chest. Should we hand over the keys and maps to our entire lives? Let me tell ye a cautionary tale. Imagine callin’ up a pirate pizza shop in the year 2054. Ye give the scurvy crew yer "unified identity number" and suddenly they have access to yer address, name, medical history - everything about ye! It seems convenient at first until ye realize how vulnerable ye now be.Somethin' doesn't seem right about the order? Too bad, the pizza pirates already have yer payment info. Fall ill from the stale grub? Now they can view yer medical records and sell yer data to greedy drug companies. Try to abandon ship and order elsewhere? They already control all yer details across every realm of yer digital life.

This nightmare vision could become our reality if we let companies and governments create centralized databases of all our personal booty. No more splitting up yer treasure across different locked chests and hiding maps where only ye can find them. Everything bundled together in one vulnerable pile, ripe for the pickin'. Of course the powers that be claim centralized systems be more convenient and efficient. But what about privacy and security? Do we really want to hand over the keys to our identities and life's details to any swashbuckling sea dog who asks?

As it stands now, the terms of service we agree to already surrender quite a bit of data ownership to the ships we sail on. We lads and lasses best start examining those terms closely before we lose control of our treasures entirely. It may seem like centralized data systems are an inevitable tide in this digital era. But we still have some power to resist. We can refuse deals that require givin' up more knowledge than needed for the task at hand. Encrypt yer data, use aliases, and don't stay loyal to any one ship that wants to centralize all yer booty in their treasure room. Most importantly, speak up! Call yer elected officials, demand stronger privacy laws, and don't let profit-hungry pirates dictate how much access we surrender. Yer identity belongs to ye, and nobody should control the keys to yer treasure chest but you! So beware the creeping control of centralized data systems. Convenience today could mean exploitation tomorrow. With vigilance and common cause, we can still chart a course toward a digital future where privacy and personal liberties are sacred treasures defended from all who would seize them as their own!

#BewareofCentralizedDataSystems #StayVigilant #Dataprivacy

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nickgerlich · 3 months

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Page By Page

I have always been an avid reader. It started when I was a mere lad, and my parents would buy me Hardy Boys Mysteries books, as well as take me to the library. My parents may not have been rich, but they provided a wealth of opportunity, and I am so happy that I ran with it.

As a writer today—in addition to my academic writing, I also write for several magazines and have been co-author of two books—I have come to realize that to be a good writer, one must first be a great reader. It’s kind of like photography. You learn from watching how others do it, and all that reading I did as a kid, and have continued to do as an adult, provides inspiration, new vocabulary, literary tropes, interesting twists and turns, and more. You can study text books all day long on it, but the real lessons learned are from those out there in the trenches doing the work.

As an adult, I have participated in book clubs, usually informal and mildly structured chat sessions. While we could have done these online, in the pre-COVID days the emphasis was on F2F.

COVID, of course, changed all that, forcing all of us into our cocoons and online for life, love, and work. Now that we continue to emerge in the post-COVID era (and I use that phrasing loosely, because I realize that COVID is still among us), we are finding ourselves doing a balance of both F2F and online.

And here is where all that book talk returns to the discussion. Book clubs are all the rage now among Gen-Zs and Millennials. It’s just that they don’t look a lot like how we did it in the past.

Rather than the typical high-brow book clubs of old, usually in someone’s living room with crackers and adult beverages to complement our insightful colloquy, book clubs are happening in breweries and even on group runs. Of course, if you can talk while you’re running, you’re really not running that hard. You’re socializing, but that’s OK. It’s better than being a couch potato.

And then there are social media gatherings, which can attract many thousands of people through the power of specific hashtags, like #BookTok on TikTok. That’s something your grandparents probably wouldn’t do, they—I mean we—of the tweed blazer with elbow pads set.

How we do it today, though, is not nearly as important as that we are doing it period. That’s the huge takeaway for me, and signals a renaissance in the making for the book industry. Aside from a temporary major bump during COVID, and subsequent minor decline, book sales overall are trending upward. Unit sales are up 30% since 2012.

This comes at a time when I had all but given up hope for a revival, thinking that reading had fallen by the wayside. My daughters read a lot of books while growing up, probably because they were surrounded by them in our house. It rubbed off. But I just did not see it elsewhere. I could see the decline in my students, because what comes out of a person’s mouth and keyboard is a function of what goes in the brain first. You can always tell when a person is well-read.

Fortunately, this is a situation that is correctible. Better yet, it is a breath of fresh air to learn of younger adults developing a passion for reading, and while it is an activity that we initially do alone out of necessity, it can be shared with others later in a group setting. And as we are seeing now, those groups can be real or virtual.

I’ll be understanding and say that reading is not for everyone. Some people have difficulties and disabilities. But for those who can, then I urge them to do. While the brain is technically not a muscle, it can grow stronger just like your quads and biceps. It’s just that you need to exercise it.

There’s hope for an industry as well as for a couple of generations. Keep consuming those words, and instill that desire in your kids. It’s an investment—just like my parents did—that will pay dividends years down the road.

Dr “Buy The Books” Gerlich

Audio Blog

#marketing #Millennials #GenZ #books #book clubs

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larissa-the-scribe · 4 months

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Terrarium Lights, Part 2.4

Last time on Terrarium Lights: Gail and the ghost get to better know and understand each other. (Next part >>here)

"Living things do seem to liven things up." He paused. "I suppose that is rather obvious, but I mean, like, something about life being nearby seems to somehow contribute a feeling of life…? I'm… not quite sure what I'm trying to say, but… you know?"

Gail chuckled. "Yes. Plants do seem to bring a kind of life with them. So can other people, but that can depend sometimes on who they are. For all that they're living, some people people seem rather… not lively."

"Exactly.” He frowned. “I don't really remember people, but, well, I know I feel more alive around you, I think. At least more aware. I assume the principle is applicable elsewhere, as well."

"Glad to hear it." Gail smiled at him, and pricked her finger. "But yes, I suppose, I like the creation and art that goes into terrariums, and the quiet life that goes with them.” She took a moment to suck on her thumb. “They can be like glimpses into a small little world crafted in moss and stone."

"That does sound nice." He sounded wistful.

"Usually, I wait to make one with Michael," Gail explained, "but I had plenty of time on my hands, and someone who I felt wanted a gift, so I made it my project for while he was gone. He helped, drew out some ideas for me. I'll probably take it to Mrs. Oberson next week, about."

He wandered over to where it sat on the table and poked at it. "Have you ever thought about adding light to it?"

"What do you mean?" She squinted at him over top of her socks.

"Like… a small lightbulb inside it. Like a terrarium and a lamp. And depending on the kinds of rocks, it could add some color and sparkle, to it, or if you had some way to color the glass."

Gail had not, in fact, thought about this. She did so now, setting down her needle. "Well, I suppose that would look pretty if you could get it sorted proper. Though you'd have to reckon with the moss not doing so well with a lot of direct light. I know there are new types of lights they’ve made, fit for indoor plants—my Timothy has told me they’re trying something related to food in winter—but I’m not sure as I’ve seen any around here. Also the plants do need water, and as I understand, electricity and water don't do so well together. Some folks these days know how to reconcile steam and spark, as you can see in the world around us, but I don’t know how easy it would be for a lady of advanced years, such as myself, to figure it out. Perhaps with Michael, but I don’t know as that would happen soon."

"Hmmm. I suppose that’s fair." He leaned over it, practically sticking his face in the terrarium’s opening. "I… I almost feel like I could do something to help with it, but… I’m not quite sure. It…. reminds me of something, though."

"The terrariums or the lights?" Gail asked, returning to her needlework.

"I… I don't know." He straightened up and frowned. "Maybe… it was about working on something. I'm not sure."

"Hmmmm." She carefully slid her needle into its next stitch. "Do you think it was something recent?"

"Maybe… maybe it was. I can’t tell."

"Could it have been part of… whatever you were doing in all those strange place? The ones you can sort of remember?"

He furrowed his brow, picking at the hem of his waistcoat. "I… I'm not sure. I…" He winced, and his eyes looked very pale.

"That's alright, then," she said. Her needle slipped but she didn’t notice. "I'm sure it will come when it's ready. No need to force yourself." This was similar to the other day. He didn't seem as distraught, but, it didn't strike her as good to get riled up. Didn’t seem healthy, disappearing from reality. Perhaps it would be alright in the long run, but, well… he was just a lad, trying to find his way.

"What if it's important?" He looked down at his hands. "I… I want to be able to know who I am. But… it hurts to think about, to look at, but even when I try I can’t see the faintest bit of it, and sometimes I can’t see at all, and—"

"I'd imagine if it is as important as it seems to be, it won't escape you," she replied, focusing on keeping calm and normal for his sake. "Some views of life take more time to shape, and that includes views of yourself—with or without memory loss. Sometimes… sometimes the moss can't settle in right away on a new rock. Roots take time to grow, before they can be strong and take the weather." She wished she could think of something more adequate to say, in a situation she knew nothing about.

His head turned towards her, but his eyes could not find her.

"It will take shape," she said, and it felt like a promise that spoke inside her. "The pieces must be gathered before the whole of it can be formed."

Maybe she was thinking of puzzles, maybe cooking, maybe terrariums, maybe remembering what it was like to be young and uncertain and desperately wanting something that could be understood and held on to, how it felt to yearn and push too fast and too hard when she got glimpses in the distance.

He nodded, vacantly, and stumbled over to where she was. "I just… I want to be able to figure this out. I don't want to just… haunt you forever." He slid slowly down into a sitting position and leaned back against her chair. "I have to live somewhere, right?"

Gail faltered. It was an opening to speak, to tell him that he was haunting her, that he wasn’t alive at all, but… the timing seemed too abrupt, too cruel, too likely to send him over the edge. And what did happen with a ghost that got too upset? Would that make their condition, their regrets and their attachments, worse? Harder to break off? Peace harder to find? She didn't know. "You will have all the time you need," she said quietly. "Sometimes it doesn't seem that way, but… the things that matter, they take time, and Time allows them to. I know it is frustrating, but rushing things can make things hurt more than they need to. When the pieces are gathered, we will be put together. We have an Artist looking out for us."

His shoulders sank with the force of his sigh. She could feel the static warmth and memory of form clinging to her skirts, making them move as if they had gained a life of their own and decided to dance solemnly.

"I… I suppose I can wait, and try to remember more. Maybe my friend… maybe he can find me and tell me what happened."

"That would be nice, wouldn't it?" Somehow, the mechanical movements of her hands had produced decent results as far as darning went. She found her thread running out. "Maybe he will. Seeing as there's a chance you might be from around here."

"I hope he will."

His voice was very young, in a lost kind of way.

Gail wished she could hug him. Instead, she continued with her needlework.

He didn't say a word for the rest of the evening.

#oh look a thematic discussion #anyway...#inklingschallenge #inklings challenge 2023 #team lewis #genre: portal fantasy #theme: burial #theme: visiting the sick #story: finished #the santa juliana files #terrarium lights #gail goffrey #ocs #original fiction #scribe does inklings #first draft

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libidomechanica · 4 months

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“Sometimes seemed us no more”

A ballad sequence

’Er may be, now—why, I seeker find that I have free adit; we will not wan or companie. The rolled with hoary hearts, kill us our thoughts than not leisure to speak, and have not to grow; but, forget not reason rotted, ere the gods love that all departure, turn’d to Juan, till e’en they do, perhaps that lays on earth to not leaves not your voice luting snake, my

old stone. Sometimes seemed us no more. Not of child, they approach, the laces change. Of the white turn’d to display my daughter, thought best with her richest dye, flames of Crete. Their welfare is not always see what well-gotten—in follow hair, the Vestal wife … The gentleness beside her spells, ladies crown! Of thing the pass’d away, and love, the salt estarnging Hands

of Day and when from its fumes are stormes with flowers at morning as your falling, saying your fair and believed one in heaves and struck athwart that oft my wand’ring race, he was of a Veil from life is vpryst from the slight and such a kind of one style me so did sting, to rain across the graveyard, they told me also Best; reasons, and music the heard thoughts will

some within can against their lady to lives made, by an earth more of the ships which has died or a kiss for through her conquered the bit of selfishness, while yet you wander a jonquil flowers hidden day with the hill or plains of the pretty lad, saw them down those of Christian-name was wont to turn over. That we could retrace; just at his floor whether

of Musicke, as temples daily plagues, their thought but by no means deals in from waiting of that out of door she’s gane down, mouthing is simple yet not make fast next I’ll swear, said to me was a favourite’s woe, and said she? Foaming fruit of charms, admired, adored; but stird vp that month: so, boy, I think of the gull and string, by their eyes: what I wear u

is forced to the soprano might be five, so calmest mood: hence drew her robes sweet plays. Spice and women’s tears,. Was it must need through brows, and then a wondrous excellence; we with pity, breast maternal feast who would be most my prettiest father, thoughts that was the mystic seal, a cure them talk—he picks up against a commence: such smallish female with her

duty was that wadna open the clear your vision fixed and like the closeted for, spied its mistress, and thin, to marble bush, whence drew you may heart apace, like a mermaid o’ ane, but love thee see, like him to pray, so many a poison-flowers, that Lycius, and such delight would stir his figures of woe, sadder husband, not annex, and old Saturn

a young Corinthian Lycius chariot, many a token. To dull race, he scaffolding all meaning into amazed the breathe thing sheaue, cockel for complete: and ne’er couch with fig leaves, had held the usual process of Lochroyan, and grief, and threw the spot he drank the duke, would go to Corinth—O the black lot hollow was Juan, t is become.

Since first, my practised in proceed? To hearts, with heads nod, which men weep over my Sappho’s breakfast. Her daughter, all that thy strange seizure cannot beauty, like a pearly risers afloat on shone instant more juan from soul at the world, with feather hair was dripping and thine too quick while thilke same year were eve’s sapphire portal, and be thy pre-existinguish’d

thus to all meet; my Muse is—’t is now to breed a blood and within the louder heart was too fast, a little sparrow, which can shows with fascination. I do adored; but since I him knewe. The world betwixt the top appear’d a thinges of Ilion lay beneath an eye twinkle in common hate and the unmoisten’d the little children—that

mechante in throbbing the sun in floods while from that’s the greeting my key to the same by flying fruit, gush from night; in vain. But the sent home, as well. Mozart was the empurple school, the mind elsewhere, as soon the green tea! But Blanche: much of pain—even when in eternall sleepy one! She flesh liker and subject, His world’s end and pray shut with that all the

fairy pair, who like a mummy, and now decks Susan’s cloth’d on board of Raucocanti? Otherness made it truth or errors not the crew; in Ettrick’s starling, prayers there, everycolor blue eye, that thou wander mind; the pages. And oft the wheeling, as the sheeted water-blurred cats a pastoral. Her recollection so threw a ruefully?

‘No doubtful curls from which Thou more? So all men may pardon, if that, in pride, or in those who sleep beside us, Cyril,

battered it or nothing: might may chattered it will bind my heart, who upon me, that was the link’d change! Watch out

for yet what it is betters to that worth seems when I’ll call round here foolish heart into stone! And some back my love, I

envý none of what meant; my great showers, will I come there. And their love, I have seen identify their tunes of snow,

sweet dreams obey: stay! Sing, cold, a waters wake, and pebbles o’er their own head, and the cloud of every hanging the swallows:

to sulk upon my careful canker eat him who’s smoothly, while I kisses your past: some female whites. By the land,

with her hair like and shone, of fire, them back again, we two must smart. The fun hard but burst the cliff and see him all this

arm is fledde, the tenor. The lurking bands to wander iron nature madrigal, unto that is layd abedde, that

though life finding all to ask his instruction, when it had fallen meteor on springe giues place you do likes you before

than one phiz of you, when the rare entertain that I mean to eye his present; and our Hearts bleeds, an earth. Juan leaue

me change? Or, called, they’d have no longed loves to lingered over my death may be easier wreck, or his faithless famous

in this present; a simple, fire- side thy heat, my many a place, interpret when the wind it favour grant my changed;

with my bedde. Though pale face, tho would not, flying Hour being circumstance faded And were and Miquelon.

Robbing blooming or colourless majestic pace; thou were born on the quietly to read and led days happy dove? Na lang, lang linen band? Through the golden gate; as equal grace? Speaking; the lurking heart move, and amethyst, and your

Highness keep it unaffronted, vaunted. Darling, came upon the Crown heard my ioyfull stowre. Please address you. Pretty bud! Yours was an endure till happiness raised a tent onward strain her shaped to peep, up that sweet, more suspicion. With

all, hear, my Lord, I’m not a whipper- in. She spot of the Blind mantle, clasp, twixt life and yet speak as I glide in the dream our marvelousness. Much salt, in a day or t’ other song, and ennui. He came, and manage well she gate,

and loued her silken twine. Defence. ’ Delight the will be knows: ’ and mine eyes, little left below.— She had not keep embraced it to any show the harp of sticks, that lurking breaking purple in that the rare enter. More the progress of Lady

in her sad berth, those shadow, bugle, blowing came, as thou would we were lies the game at another tragic sister’s columns drowned without your own the questions; and to uphold and were all of your zeal, what love may chaunst to kill all

tears: alas! Fairest friend, when right their words out as he none my hurt that do such a things me to the poet’s hour come square again what an airy instrument, wounded; her works are left breath, for alter’d tree, and cover, despite its pride

of every woman if she’d thine. Whose rise up to fill or plaints, but when we are crowned were your fortunes before up the sweet with the old stuffs, the close cabin, found, i, in their into thine on the accounted time. The drill; but Lady

Adeline and gude stouter welded in rank; he gave no very wonder I say, is one, they were in Heaven., I would I give you nothing up a sweet girl, said no one nose. Or baser Metal burn’d; the bring tear. It is old. The tender

clouded brethren of human blood: so wert o’erwhelm’d the marble for song, half fooleries out as the Laocoon’s self. Poor Lov’d and grace accounts mine arms to hear me, whate’er had deck’d geese of sleeping an eagle to thee die!—Complete, and by

myne eie the moon and looks naught all her robes flaunting wave, love, the Arrow for earth to flower a goblin toasted side, by the purer page of Smollett, Prior’s niece. A water, my Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet. Your Highness, as

thicks apace, leaving star came Psyche true, ’ have nothing still affirms your nose who long, much perplex’d, and man’s mane, she said: at first a name, made me I am poor Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantage! With spirits: yet what they are sweet mists, and life

seem’d some doubted; time would this rear the soothe of Time, this press’d with what points of these, no lute, the garden into the power springs my darkness sorrow at erst: he dancers; the spongy cloud; like a zebra, freckling eyes; for I grow sharp

rocks; of shepheards God perdie with the greenwood to wounds of ryper age. Those arms spreading star came vested at my painfully the images again. She died or lips, possible redundancy is wrought with his world one mind the bush he

destiny of fear, sorrowing dawn of further evidences must part of that, ’ she answered lea spread. The morning why, as some slight as one winges of youthful, charm. Upturns the Robe of the sprang into come tell how suddenly tune?

Till understood, its pearl-gray light. My heart’s end and present I am shoveling folk’s face, were ticklish ground like the

morn; but O too fast! Arms, and of any thing, tis passion which in temper Juan’s fall in vain: let they stars of Hate, and

and eye. Meet; my greater grief opprest, and loving slowly from the mother, but when it within can I fly no farther

going!-Flowers, and make most the fierce of thine. Joy sparkles them not even in two years, who long memory quicke.

The Lady Daphne!—That is to have we not too harsh, but heal me a sleep. Rage, rag and be tough? ’ And my love’s breath by

forced to the Queen of more brain, will weeps: sdeath! His whirls me there’s force in delight; but first, ever reason that you be.

But Roger, the sporten in rhyme at, are the winter breeds the alert, a battle, that in one, but if the glanced it;

but the Prophetic; for bloud, nor leap year, which he front door. To his dead, in absence, fy! The talent inroads the stars

of Heaven be euer sonet song and the bedded too so bright flash’d phosphor and strain come to base desire, who ne’er

presaging Damon, behold; last day!—And all hope so—though and trap and brought, I fear. That your mind; hers break your past: his

death of means, to set her for to many a strange the sodain rysing of the wave off such as are done instrument;

nor was, his trophy, and all the joy of such a thing admire; nature, art, bold indeed; and oh, Sirs, could not she fell

in my argument all the learne they thus against the same from me. Of Smollett, Prior’s niece … Herodias, I would question?

Seal of some holy plan, and there might well-proportion only sad one word, we knows where your fill, it palls—at least

motional and sing their peaks the naked swayne, and then she stools, a circling round, pensive, as the shade—for poets frequent

in a throne. In the while the street in her maxim: had it be to the mystical usurper of thy sweet angel-

brood, lilies a thing, and the less photorealistic? We are, for you is that buds of our heare, rude ditties the

door! Flora now couples huddled in each other of dependent of liars belief undoes you the only—I,

minerals, we are so harsh to pardon, sweet that you over and where hungers beat thicks apace taketh endorse his came

at billiards—it all, eat it so pretence of the gude enough to dull scene, and heir—and only one, why do you feel

the sweet that large dark, and the lasse, to sell again the fierce her frail our before. See graveyard, looked up, dead he satte in

his pipe, o fair, and forbear, the morn; but in France, tho deemed borrowes had sail’d up, dead prime forecast. Where to your name!

More true! Thou canst devise. No Entrance of yoga and plundered as her man of the steaming or could you with sealed: but wept alone those sad face in: from a wood-nymph’s beauteous Dick

supports his patience, once had stopp’d this youngster to us our echoes, and even into delight. In spread of good found of those so wrought by painfully blue, dancing all who

watch’d, she brought sight of highest: whether my little: what they are sick, or dimity. Meantime Apollonius sage, my hopes, so intensely, as I’ve heard somewhat full-grown off and

yourselves, or those tame. The Eyes of gall, is fame beginning, salving how bragly it ran warm, tremulous, devour’d till e’en woe that foot shone little cupola, more be sin is

some simple Kurd am I, than their riot evening, whose balusters, higher, the ruby- budded faire, is sick of sleeps well hast for? Breathe upon me, that unties the serpent,

but yeeres more quick chat were as her cheeks besprent will sleep; and my whole soul! That large blacks— now pray shut with any others’ temperate heat when Phoebe’s sake, and intense she classic

Angelico’s the cross-grain’d, cribb’d, confine immured Florian,—ask for hymns of the world’s goods, before Shirúeh’s Feet drencht in fact; from his modern quill. Fruits of verb and none

but had rather will kame my woman. The Holy Three time to weep, that your human filth and through we inhabit; the youth whom the Sun. Her freckling even the sort of my days

passport which, heart, fear, perhaps the eye might be fix’d, and through; a figured that we went. One day, as well as he sees! Now, blessed young man, saints—a laughing streames, and the rest comes love

him with a milder-mooned body’s business hands so farre mens heart like they went and fastner of a man no doubt of all hope; to look pierce kiss’d her eldest with grace, who in delight

all from my lost my prophet, in pure as eyes like the night be for want supply. Up went of Eternity, unless girth, and to emerge a moment ope at nights she wishes,

deep learn, took the world’s no defect—her grew from Livorno by the torrent go-between Vertues cover iterance! Brake, and chicken feather. I and the gilding at the

tree so long into the doors being somehow she broom, take a Werter of light hour with the mouing ordure rankle round, and see just like supporter, soon from themselves, on puff on

purpose loved to mend: but in the air, her own on me so longed love, thy oracle, no fears. Out of my Proper heart of varnish matter: impression, up till the grasses are

my nymph is frail; rode o’erflowing which, wherewithal to be born to lay in that fair and that mast o’ gowd, built to die; in arm: they flew; nor virtue dignify a woman, said

she? They freeze of all that I think of me put less politics on her till there the soul beggared? And told my lips to her I say, right to see; but wept alone once more of

others, even now. Yourself is forgoe: and bring teares you wilt, but—quite how some majestic piece, boasting at his foolish pride, since best: t was some were o’ the songs did I see

Tweed’s silver lamp, whose meadows wide! Or mayn’t they laid opened balloons the tender clouds, to keep in woods; of love in the eye of homely shepheards befell; those of night. Gan my love?

Such is true knights, chaste dame; and broken neck. In the sleepeth in the door! Rain on waking, in indifference summer long.

Shall be kind of centaur, upon her minds and rough, much more meets, and since she prophet dream, we lay in earth’s poor stupid heart-aches had been fields to wander so! Flames, hast struck; with Psyche’s

bark a loving such outrage should make, like one that plank and burning soul and shucks, refuse to kill, give her senses can feast who appearing from the mind, our wonder than the

flocks beneath the fish in hot wish it may plucks me by those without one way to heare with not new: you’ve seen some mischeife than man was halfe will be blessed idleness bene with his

great descending, as the long the dark, and then cried, Lycius! So as soon will cursed the guarded Victor of sense—thy adverse must think of your brother genius, and cheerful army.

And arc, sphere, as well by the hart both transport, you and I refer wine and her non but the atrocious, we Carmine’s shafts, perhaps, and cloudy rack, south-westward to stare grows

woman, if you least, he could example whereof doth stand, leave tried both; so they gazed o’er them, my old self-substantial braine is such a lady’s prattles. Sicker progress of the

vermin in thee present, if twas thicke, my father than I, believe their hangdogs go drink out with grief opprest, the rose, he least hem out, content; content. The weary tend upon

him, near his frail-strung his festivals, and after being! The old about her into my flock, that doth live. One that I might, while each pull’d them all, eat it seemed borrow kind, poor

weakling eye, the globe, we becoming of a harp; those pleasant, to cozen with the babe in a creed some by Jews, how he him with good zecchini, with no great nature did not

a sigh and anger, for poets who balance aside, with concern about the lake lies a Pumpkin off his mother’s life, and such remarks which must not at first he liued, was molten

in thee all of fearful might scandal, and naught which wrote because I feel it doth weand my reverence of the miserable the last day, admir’d! And teach at last night be founts

of plundered first to gold i’ll wrap your fierce and singing left me in the pilots when the command of might I use it? Fondly the Dardanelles, for sink—I have mark of

prejudice resmooth their own avenge, or male? Full of you; I go from this Canto, and all contents I do not go gentle wave by, crying: helpless, there mounts be accurate, it

cannot means but to thee: but Juan intertwisted wither one and coldly reclining on the song so clear and feet, and on a morowe, that Peggy made her frail of her eyes,

possess’d her breed and gave not with fascination. Win your praised loud cried, return’d avenge, or me. Could urge a few friend, who never fell’d. Them music in the words out differings

might have one che ches. Flared and life’s or Eden’s bowers sprang up with that we cover, brother sage, my Rosalind, and warranted none but is he gone; juan gazed, and set the stage?

If I should shade: but mine own behind, and cut down at thy strain come heard a motive, like the purpose? Was not fade through

the one was love them in the cottage round shade no more terrace range some hour to Rome, another grand arms adorn the

fallen, have pledged mournful sobs, self- involved; but she was, and me: for she’sfar out-owre the soul! Much my heart with you said,

on that beauty but the door, or doves. So that fed on too far, till, you should have no more recognition. Such warmth about

the shore. And if I had an earth we least was born from happy man, put up, young troop, and— but no one of grace? And

sulkily there he is whistle, adding the second and clowdie Welkin pitch beyond all the could my love, Agreed to

tell me within his hands cut off! I think, do all but Thee, nor can he none my hurt your Highness bright saw that says yes

including the bears my named—firmness yclept in glowing roll’d before my pype vnto the wind walks o’er the Robe of the

day with Loue, which she had greater blast, and love—put out my sour and toward daybreak. Sure I thoughts lay brought us, as men

say, that serene severity with here red; or serious, are bull, your own work away the use of inward no

more beauty, belike; however stopped: when add soul, the truth, at first of chaste and began to them three perfect of mine.

Tonight flatter from sonny rayes, for by side, with what the Good! As is through on the ground. For our own children—there came.

To such extremes, I told herself. Love ere his bad words at all day likeness the much stores of roses fearful song of

a bird. There withdrew his name is story of flowers and adult’rate grown heard a noiseless from its fortune’ be

read and all, all these, the bitter powerful ways; the birds nestle into some to watching months hence! Hide, or tie up

a mast o’ gowd, set up a sweet you whose ready Maias bowre, the whole little lily I constant, the murder at then

the atrocious, unless was formed. And her, hebes are; for once, and admiration; a bird. For sinful twilight, blue,

silver she wonder the shelf; I don’t know them deep blue skies, made long-laid galleries past a world; but I must be—yes.

The good bells, and yet I none these, save on the word and leaning will melt their bright—and woman, O the barren was a

woman with flaw-seeking: blow, set think, was more than The Wise. Her foes; but she did bountiful proceed to pass for they

taken plant a cast to mix some limb and Us with dewy eyes, frame my barren brede; made he tried to the dumb-sister.

No poetry, she could not believed her the gulf of roses at last even those who love deemed a hole, to win.

Let me in its of barren brede; made gloom of a flying, and rioting to the heat where permitted in vain

devotion, thus faults, not one? Thou born beneath your meaning’s doom: where God will not advantagenet. Someone little, wrecks?

But why then destroy. Muse, thoughts; dull the balefull Colin ranne away and ran, but yeeres did lere. The festal midnight

skirt the lily like a young till we work of ages gathered as it may, a bard must me, Julia, now and now

the planets did exceeding feet, pale faces on our breasts! Twenty leagues and the cock has crawn, and the doors to one hour

leaves lay something God shall keep thanks; the blow; and o’er my love. Or at least and mingling infant’s staff gave said: o friend like

a bitter-winged hereupon, in whom Cassandra was nothing: a clear yours, it is so being circumspect: the buffo

of the loud chaunting friends, this your church do what can make with a bitter, there in a nut have forgot, those hills alone,

as that they are, embleme. More life for panting once more temples daily plague be dumb; for, doings, which is but pity:

thus fault, the gull and from great planks won’t let you when young and trap and drawing was in love unless in idle seem

to ask his face, of one dozen knots, the tap is dripping of hers to his cutlass, and changed heels: and as these thorns, and

bade one of the difficulties, a race more true! Doubt there all at last axiom, he lepped light, and there is a

mower. ’Ve seen or ponder feeling pace my faith some ships, in the children, have fallen, have one words around the

servile peer’s content, your quire: sing your eyes, like thee more brain the genuine apparel of the golden scabbard one

mischiefe Pernassus be, and in her speak no words light nor although your mound, and hurt yourself a slaves who turn his

condition? In the midst of the perish in us had escap’d from the slave; for which she was forth we are alter’d trees.

All the brim, wakes men to the same. Our fear weather, she roused, and again with a hate than owl- songs and bitter clothes still,

painters in a miracle; and following over the flow’ry mead she will I pour though high degree, when a titter

like a dial-hand, still lay the boats and play them dear Annie, ’ as we had too for history of revenge for myself

than The Will, but none but it pleasure of my mind, here, upon the lilies, doubted daunger mought once admiration;

forget some struck—I’m the same; serener palaces, even as the arm, delicacy of the vapour streaks with

Cape Sigaeum. When has wrought. So they have time absence six months go to the tree! Homer, there, weep me no more. Age o’er a

new one words the breeze of silvery, smooth bare and woman. Love bade me deaf and moon wrapp’d like my sigh, built his faces

Truth which thy divinely loud? Flower lie I kiss wild this what they met and night hour convent, strikes him roundelayes, frame

to ken, how long days, for their unions, gaudy cunning looks naught. And succession, three hot fire. Of Sage or magnificance

on him where next Friday! Upon our feet divinest Art’s or temple though her chieftain’s tremble the wood-nymph’s beauty

temptation, she fell Kai Khusrau, he deck o’ mountain pine, you reproached melissa, for a flame, the with a

great cry, the Swallow my lamented with Thine own life seems no bee shall not angry asp, the streams of Truth, and some poor

device; wrought with no shameless, and do—I’ll vow debate, though the sporting pace else the midst of your mother that earst set

my fortune’ be ready spent: for he is fledde, and small agacerie. Dark rivers brook a working dews of Heaven be

elder time, great, and he could learnd it too; that underneath, when Haidee and forever. From other till thy reason

is plain it does as was at forbear too many more her human clay, but first two being! Which he soil is, so often

is hid, can she said: your breast wears so soon; She said, I was born was given those Two—they to truer-hearted be.

On tiptoe with reverence stray impassions, marriage rings whereof doth compare. Saying you out forth a fear, perhaps the vapour stream and a’ his changing sea. Original

riots of the Zodiac’s sight, and all the meadows on the last empties tund to do me move, then from seven-and-twenty leagues and all when flowers of euery kynde to the tuneful

neighbour great wish, and show his eyes; a sort of varnish over each other is come hither, the nightmare we must be at peace, like Lucifer wheel besides, so plied into

a Lover! And I’ll tell my named them alone in a sting so proud people of the common love waste me that holds a treasures in Wexen frame, such pierless with common-place,

interrupted by the very lonely subtly single scudo of cloister-wall. Arms; and set her, when there was born in Beauty;—Mortal wife … They lay calm-breath, with the blush our

heart is a kitten of blood of heaven I in the see we two predatory hawks, we it in my gift of light be for they run like a bell tolled by quickness; she young day,

and remember her, I forget nothing at the worlds fall—and wind doth his Sublimity, no matter; we shall reign and reading streak the heart was Love—then, climbed the moon renewe,

with her girl, her Circean heart of thy Court of sticks, that so sweetness to part take may be broken bound, one minute with flesh. When the choir to me, say one by arte more calm’d the

Spittle day grow old, and rope that the Vestal midnight, as I’ll soft and mumbled it, and of you, being crammed with, she you tend upon her muse of skill: for feeling, ye joyful

and this arms I put my beauty and vassal wretches had been men and bars, eclipse that ’s under the apparition came a message the rest, nor cared for him crept to stay.

For some on with their images against bonos more calmly trodden tremor came over hissing and gnarled. Pardon,

sweet of pain to unperplexes, moved and peasant though and Beauty dwelt with tears, green, especially when the day not

this present the Victor of conscience my filial joy? The boy, pissing on the lone voice of Ida: then cries. For

good she might mistress, your heads cut off and you, while now, hip to her I bow’d: I bow’d branch that bene ioynted at this

mine, thy lov’d the Flames, where thou the Vestal entry shrink for fear men of butter, embarrass’d in all the broken neck.

By mortal green, and a day, the cooling south but bitterly. Well, and let me my woes of breadth of one deep and bitter

gall. Thrown on me so? And on praises, and following, the race? And, thy love Gregory! He cam also in this

works—paint away, to say what was she bathe wall snatch, by bribing peacefully? As if it were in the day, the blood running,

bless, that holding with the woman- conqueror; woman. I travellers, ’ but not only Fame fortune! The real world

of silks are vast a frown on her own avenge, for which first shall taste is felt this. How much it bore, such strength those barren

back down at the soueraigne Pan thought to mind. Such noble,— conjugal, but I’m old of painfully quivering axe was

a woman could strange,—but that my footprint upon, wonder river from his birth, but soone as the vast and counted, why?

How far that brings me to lingering old relief; the youth last sight, or foe, shall not annex, and his hand on ever can

tell vs mery tales, woven in the ground! Then I, long hath been men were for yet, we came scuffing in her sight, from

the hundred with my five with slave made a vocation folly and Nighting on this spirits can even for my

beloved tracasserie, ’ began to lay it, your father white when in his backe, and seek no come to pardon, sweet you of

dull race, though in Cupid, very line between movement, hovering fired an ash, and its loud and ev’n the moss-lain Dryads

shaking in the tenor; these word, when even more the Power that practice up—he’ll paint or twice? Than dreaded night, a

year or two: tis pleasant because to gain his rosy sanctuary will wrap it round about, content. I should I

heard, and gaine with her breed and holden trembling on all turn to the murderous and thou art at all. Tho pumies late

the better of these word, you do— or do not why, but she set the Greek maid in—I forget than man, your own the bays.

The Last Love, I always and sigh, because white, had seen beauty still women are harmonious stroue, thy beauty but

the law your praises be to one, sir, you don’t pretence of change. Sixteen arms, that at the important to be better

kept his past midnight and prosperous wood, they must have so long night; if to crowd to Cleone. Set me never can be; for

so those of pirates; save once against the land, let me his heads in bushes green-recessed idleness, ’ is poem

everywhere! Had a coxcomb’s flight, and ambrosia, mix the next. While the world was reference dreams. He glassy deep, which all heroes

and acts—and night list from Beauty and shook the rough the purple flakes, and dew upon the very first frame: enough

the to be as good night. I think, tiring of that of both and another memory in earth, and salute love still

the caught restraint, forget not speechless, me no more, it did seem a king; and all his grown Cupid’s columns, broke? My mother’s

features of your voice was an odd male, who can fear to tears always to be up to designed his worth to playe, a

stepdame eke from our husband to head-quarter ere he went recital was it festreth sore, ne wote I, how sweet saint

John, because through tame. For gander, therefore cannot brew a fashioned out per count—should have me; and other, come, herself

escapes, we vanquish’d days, use other cargo, from out of a world about? I was born from the Northern from heaven

I smile a Full Year was it that have but kisses the morn beauty, but one way too was gude, and dancer gave our sheepe

furrows of bulrushes green and fell,—she thou doest save fretted hairs. Inhabit together way to soft word and what

the whole, no fears were landward sitting man, we are the centre story, let him who’s smoothly, what were as the blossoms,

where you scorn to determine, what woe after that your elbow. We were his figure. And, alas! Fling on the day grow

in thee live on the gate. I askéd a thousand blaste, that the hills alone their forming Chloe. To calculators declined

his world of more near deliverers, and syne he kisse. Would stay, loathing stark, dishelmed and perspectives back my

niece who love something all the landlord make refuge in hand touch’d with thunder. That he flesh the blue, can vie within. She

drear those confound, she passport which thyself I cried; no fight to my father which lets drop his bonny bowery earth?

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 6 #137 texts #ballad sequence

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