#but i was wondering if i should give them some slavic names or something like that :0 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wendimydarling · 3 years

Text

Cover the Mirrors

Summary: Amber is earning a masters degree in mythology and folklore; when a handsome stranger sweeps her off her feet, she’s left wondering how, and struggles to keep up with his lifestyle.

Pairing: Vampire!August Walker x OFC (first person reader)

Word Count: 6826

Warnings: Alright, we ready to get into the menu of delights we will be reading today? Okay but seriously, if you are triggered by anything on this list, it is your responsibility to not read this work of fiction. The warnings are as follows: manipulation, subtle exhibitionism, fingering, penetrative sex, mention of oral (male receiving), biting, clawing, choking, blood, male violence, gore, non-con, rape, spitting, fear play, primal play, breeding, mention of death, torture, and potentially cannibalism, if you squint.

A/N: Okay so this story is based off of this thread where @killjoy-assbutt-1112 gave me a fic title, but I added another twist to it that I’d been brewing for months; I was excited about it but now I’m not. Whatever, I’ll give it to you anyway. Sources for my vampire lore came from here and here. Cover art was made by me; August was drawn by the amazingly talented @cheyentjj and has been used with her permission. Thank you so much to everyone who brainstormed with me, and a special thanks to @agniavateira for betaing!

“If you look at the Slavic region, vampire folklore runs rampant. One especially interesting specimen is the Pijavica. The Pijavica (translated “leech”, or “drinker”) was a rare species of vampire— traditionally male, and a powerfully strong, cold-blooded killer. The potential for conception is most commonly believed to be through the incest of the deceased with his mother during his life, though some believe that one can be created through the exceptionally malicious and evil acts of the deceased before his death.

The birth of a Pijavica is attributed to many different causes, including suffering an “unnatural” or untimely death such as suicide, excommunication, improper burial rituals, or even simple causes such as an animal jumping or bird flying over either the corpse or the empty grave, being conceived on certain days, or being born with a caul, teeth, or tail.”

I paused my typing, fingers leaving the keyboard in order to brush loose strands of hair from my face. Around me, the baristas of my favorite coffee shop were buzzing like worker bees in an old hive; they were gearing up for the lunch rush, and I realized I’d been here four hours already.

This place had long been my go-to study zone. It was small; there was just enough hustle and bustle to keep me from descending too deep into the abyss of studying and yet, it had the respect of the patrons that a library does. The owner, Fred, made sure that conversations were kept in hushed tones, courteous to those of us who needed to work in noise instead of quiet.

“If ya wanna be loud, go sit at a Starbucks!” He’d huff at those who didn’t heed his warning.

My eyes took in the familiar surroundings as I stretched. An oversized wood-burning fireplace filled the wall next to the vintage cash register; it was sandwiched between two built-in bookcases housing stories of all kinds that were meant to be read and enjoyed. The old stone clackling ran all the way up the wall, and a custom mantle made from an old oak tree that had fallen in Fred’s backyard sat delicately above the firebox. Yes, this shop was magical. It held a special place in my heart, and I’d visited so often that old Fred had deemed the table I sat at as “my table”. It was always kept reserved for me.

I reached for my coffee without looking; my brain needed more caffeine. I’d spent months on this master thesis, and yet for some reason, the notion of vampires was such a struggle. I didn’t understand the fear of those who lived back then. The origins of bloodsuckers were chaotic, the “treatments” laughable and still, people were willing to kill their own offspring over such nonsensical superstitions. Cold drops of stale roast hit my lips in a harsh reminder that I’d finished my previous dose. I sighed heavily and dropped the cup to the wooden surface of my table. Eyes closed, I laced my fingers around my neck and drew my elbows together to stretch my spine. Coffee. I need more coffee.

“Having trouble?”

A man’s baritone, smooth as whiskey interrupted my thoughts. My body jolted at his leisurely tone, and I nearly tumbled off the chair as my eyes snapped open to view the intruder. Sitting across from me was anything but a man; I was in the presence of divine artistry, two breathtaking orbs of gray-washed sky centered below auburn curls that adorned his perfectly symmetrical face. A sharp nose pointed to his strong jaw, while an amused smirk tugged at the corner of lips that I’m certain could send even a nun to her bedroom for self-maintenance. He wore a crisp, pinstripe suit, the buttons of his dress shirt undone sinfully low, revealing a smattering of additional curls.

My oversized turtleneck sweater and leggings suddenly felt subpar.

“The name’s Walker,” he mused further, gesturing a large hand toward the empty paper tumbler that was now lying on its side. “What were you drinking?”

“I--I um,” I fumbled with my words, embarrassed by my sudden inability to form a proper sentence. “I had a flat white? With two extra shots of espresso.”

The man named Walker had the cup in his hand and was out of his chair before I could blink; he was already ordering another coffee by the time I managed to process his intentions. I watched him hand the barista a bill I couldn’t see, but by the shocked expression on her face at the man’s declination of the change, it must have been a sizable amount. He sat down at the table again and stared at my chest unabashedly, making it clear he wasn’t just looking but imagining as well.

I should have been offended or felt objectified, but instead I felt drawn into his gaze.

“Having trouble?” He asked again, gesturing this time at my laptop.

“How long were you sitting there?” I blurted out, still too flummoxed to answer his question. Walker laughed and I swear, time stood still. Never in my life had I heard something so beautiful.

“Long enough.”

His reply was short and cryptic, a dismissal of my burgeoning curiosity. The barista chose that moment to bring two orders of coffee to the table, offering both of them to Walker by mistake. I took in her awestruck countenance, and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that if my face matched hers I’d sink to the floor and die of shame. That notion shook me from my stupor and I was finally able to address his question.

“It’s my master thesis,” I explained, taking a sip of the scalding liquid he handed me. “I’m a History major, with an emphasis in mythology and folklore.”

I took another sip and tapped my phone, large numbers greeting me on the screen. Numbers that told me I was extremely late.

“Oh my god I have to go, I’m so sorry!” I apologized, scrambling to pack my things. In my haste I knocked my drink off the table. Resignation sunk in deep, submission to the knowledge of further humiliation at the impending spill. None came however, as Walker caught the drink in his hand before it crashed to the dark tiles.

“Thank you,” I murmured, gawking at him in bewilderment. Who was this man?

“It’s my pleasure,” he said, standing to help me collect the remainder of my books. “I’m interested in your thesis, could we perhaps discuss it over dinner? I don’t want to keep you from your next engagement.”

“I—” I stared at him, his face open and inviting. I’d been asked out before, but never this abruptly, and never by someone who looked and behaved like him. It sounded like an adventure…or a good story to tell on girls’ night at least.

“You know what, sure. Why not?”

I scribbled my number onto a napkin and slid it his way, grabbing the rest of my gear and heading toward the door. As I pushed against the hard metal, Walker’s large fingers caught my wrist, wrapping around it like ivy wraps around a lamppost. They were cool to the touch and yet somehow, my entire body immediately felt heated.

“We forgot first names,” he chuckled, “I’m August.”

I grinned sheepishly, pulling my arm from his surprisingly firm grip. The clank of the metal door handle resonated with the introduction I threw over my shoulder as I left the warmth of the shop and the handsome man behind.

“Amber.”

It took August a full week to call me. I felt like a fool; Did I leave on a poor note? Had I offended him somehow? Did he simply decide to change his fucking mind? I was kicking myself for saying yes; how could I have agreed to go on a date with a complete stranger? Now that I was no longer in his flustering presence, I began to see reason again. I knew nothing more than this man’s name, and the fact that he was more than likely rich. He could be a cold-blooded killer for all I knew, and I had every intention of telling him off.

I was in my apartment when he called. Still stuck on my thesis, I was currently unable to determine how best to explain the theory behind the sexual appeal of vampires. In my frustration, I hung upside down over the side of my bed, reading a book that discussed the many different works of literature revolving around vampirical romanticism and hoping the blood rushing to my brain would help me ascertain how to go about my explanation. The book was written by two authors who essentially argue the whole time, one of them convinced that the human fascination with vampires stems from the cannibalistic nature of bloodsucking or that it alluded to other bodily fluids such as semen, whereas the other stood firm in his belief that it held a much simpler cause; it was nothing more than the presence of oral fixation and sadism that caused the fantasy to plant its seed.

My phone vibrated but I ignored it, too engrossed in my book to be bothered with answering. I was so close… the answer was right there, it just continued to escape me. It wasn’t until my phone vibrated a second time to notify me of a voicemail that I put the pages down and picked up the electronic device.

The moment I heard August excusing his delay in calling to a work emergency, I immediately sat up and hit redial. There was something in his voice that made my heart quicken and my pulse race; it made the hair on my arms stand on end. I regretted sitting up so fast as it rang, the blood surrounding my brain draining quickly into the rest of my body. August answered on the second ring.

“Hi, Amber.”

“I—hi.”

I rolled my eyes then flinched in pain, congratulating myself sarcastically on how pathetic that response sounded with a slap of my palm to my forehead.

“Please, allow me to apologize again for waiting so long to call,” August insisted, seemingly unphased by my lack of vocabulary. “I still intend to take you to dinner, that is if you haven’t written me off completely.”

“No it’s fine, I totally get it,” I assured him. I had completely forgotten my earlier annoyance. He had explained it after all, and it could happen to anyone.

“Perfect. I’ll send a car tonight then, at seven. Wear something revealing please, I wasn’t able to see that pretty little neck of yours last time.”

My insides shook with an unexpected pang of shocked arousal at August’s request. The sexual confidence saturating his tone had me instantly reduced to nothing more than a deep desire for him to drag me to my knees by my hair. Why I wasn’t offended by the dominantly abrupt way this man spoke to me, I’ll never know. I put on the best flirty air I could manage in my stupor.

“I think I can manage that. Might have to charge you though.”

August laughed for the second time since I’d known him and I smiled, proud that I’d caused such a melodious sound to grace this earth.

“I like your spirit; you’re gonna be fun. I’ll see you tonight.”

“I—okay bye,” I managed to say before he hung up. I stared at my phone stupidly, as though I thought he was going to call again. Instead, the large clock face glared up at me like it always does, an ever present reminder that I live on a different plane of time than the rest of the world. I fell back on the bed, thinking about the man named August.

He likes my spirit? I hadn’t really shown him much, I’d been unable to do anything but stammer and trip over my words like a schoolgirl would when confronted by the cutest jock at school. What could he possibly see in me? The woman I truly was, the one I knew was underneath the bumbling idiot finally answered me. You’ve got three hours, Amber. Show him what you’re made of.

Resolve set in, and I bounced off the bed and walked toward my closet. For whatever reason, he’d chosen me, so I was going to let my confidence in that thought override all the self-doubt that was threatening to surface. I pulled my favorite dress from the hanger and set out to work. He wanted revealing? Then revealing is what he’d get, but I was going to do it my way.

The car was punctual, though I was less so. I scrambled to put diamond studs in my ears while being driven to some unknown location, my nerves making my hands shake. Once again, the notion that I could be driving to my death crept up my spine, but I brushed it off. Rich men send cars, it’s what they do. And I am an intelligent woman, I wouldn’t let myself be put in that situation.

Would I?

Touching the final stroke of Red Wine lipstick on my lips, I pulled my loose curls over my shoulder to expose my neck and put my things in my vintage black clutch, staring out the window at the ancient building that housed the most expensive club in town. I was suddenly grateful I’d chosen such a fancy dress. I fidgeted with the soft hem of the sleeve at my wrist, drawing it back and forth between my fingers while I waited for the driver to come to a stop.

I saw August there waiting, looking sharp as ever in another expensive three-piece suit, buttons undone just as low as the first time. This time however, I felt much better matched to his attire, and my confidence rose right next to my excitement. August came down the steps to open the door and I took his hand, hiking the burgundy velvet up to my thigh so that I could exit the car smoothly. The heavy fabric dropped to the ground the moment I freed it from my grasp, allowing August to study how I’d chosen to honor his request.

August drank in my covered form, taking in the way my dress hugged my curves and accentuated what it needed to. His eyes darkened as they lingered on the single large triangular section of bare skin that started at my shoulders and came to a point between my breasts, and I watched his tongue dart out of his mouth softly. He looked downright hungry. August stepped closer, fingertips grazing the flesh on my collarbone before he fastened his grip onto my nape and inhaled the hair at my temple deeply, pressing his lips to my ear.

“You are simply mouthwatering,” he growled, low and possessive. His hand released my neck and slid down to the small of my back, sending a shiver down my spine. My insides quivered at his touch, fragrant drops of dew pooling rapidly in the flimsy lace that guarded my mound from potential intruders.

“You wanted to see my ‘pretty little neck’,” I teased his earlier arrogance, lifting my skirt to traverse the steps leading inside, “I thought I’d frame her for you, give her the spotlight.”

August cocked an eyebrow at me in amusement, sensing my challenge. His fingers dug into my hip a little harder than necessary as he guided me through the establishment with nothing more than a nod to the hostesses. Apparent jealousy marred the face of one, and I thought I saw a hint of worry on the other. We were gone before the emotion could register in my mind.

I was escorted to a private booth in the upstairs of the establishment. While the first floor was crowded and full of people, the second floor was empty; August had requested it for our use alone. I could hear the hum of nightlife below, the haunting, non-lyrical melody of a soft alto wafting over the balcony as we walked past, the whispered promise of an enchanting night. A few tables and chairs were strategically placed on the floor, hugged by back-to-back rounded booths on either wall. Light ethereal curtains hung on either side of them, offering privacy from the guests who would typically sit in the next box over. August led me to the corner booth nearest the balcony so that we could look upon the stage if we chose.

“Our table, milady,” he joked, leaving a wet kiss on the back of my hand. Though the charade was seemingly in jest, it could not have been farther from it. His piercing eyes never left mine and I gasped at the feel of his brazen tongue on my skin. The suggestion of what he could do with it hung thick in his gaze, lacing the air with the succulent first tendrils of decadent tension. Playing along, I took a sharp breath and curtsied. I stayed low as August stood to show him the appeal of my figure at this angle, tilting just my head to look up at him. He stood there, head held high like a king, and the smile I received at my display was downright sinful.

“What a treat you are,” he murmured, cupping my chin briefly. My breasts swelled as I stood, consenting August the claim to chivalry by way of settling me into the alcove. He swept my hair over my shoulder again, trailing a single finger down my neck in admiration before taking his own seat. My insides were nothing but a pile of kindling, and every touch he gave was a spark that threatened to ignite the dry leaves into a burning flame of need.

The courses came and went just like those moments, every phrase emphasized with physical intimacy of some kind, whether it be just a gossamer brush of his fingers on my ear or an intentional grasping of my hand. He went as far as to boldly stroke the back of his knuckle along my cleavage, making me dizzy with desire. Each touch was avaricious—like he owned me—and I had zero qualms about letting him.

We ate our fill, but August made no move to leave the comfort of our small corner. With the noise of people below dulled by the far reaches of our seclusion, it was easy to converse. I told him more about my master thesis and the Pijavica, how they could read minds and enjoyed the power of persuasion, how they were impervious to all but decapitation, and how only their offspring could kill them. He listened intently, sharing tales of his own career. It was how I discovered that he was a doctor.

“I don’t practice anymore though, I prefer to study and learn. Specifically, I’m attracted to tears.”

“Tears?” That struck me as odd; it wasn’t often you came across someone who had such a unique field of study. “Why tears?”

August swirled the whiskey in his glass and downed it abruptly. He subtly indicated to our attendant for another before continuing his explanation.

“I’ve always had a fascination for the small things, things that people don’t seem to think matter; the mind-body connection, you know? For example,” he brushed a thumb over my cheekbone, “Did you know that the cellular structure of tears looks different based on the type of tear?”

August cupped my neck with both of his hands, tilting my head this way and that, his calm features set in measured focus as he spoke.

“Basal, reflexive, emotional... they all look different.”

I closed my eyes, letting him caress my skin. August’s touch was intoxicating, addicting. Even his scent was an aphrodisiac to my senses. I couldn’t get enough of it, lured ever closer to his sturdy frame, letting him manipulate my body how he saw fit. He nuzzled my hair, his soft spoken words dripping with lust into my ear.

“In fact,” he went on, “Even among those categories they differ, dependent on the stimuli.”

I could feel his breath on my neck, his lips surrounding the pulsepoint in my veins as he spoke, my jaw his destination. A hand snuck under my skirt, skimming along my trembling skin toward the seeping treasure that awaited him at the end of his journey. I spread my legs willingly, inviting him into my deepest of secrets. August hummed as he went on, sending spirals of tingling vibrations through my chest.

“The sting of onions, the sadness of grief… the satisfaction of overwhelming pleasure.”

“August…” I breathed, but my voice was severed as August simultaneously laid claim to my mouth and my womb. Thick fingers penetrated me in the same moment as his probing tongue, and it was in that moment I knew I was lost; August Walker could pull everything from me and I wouldn’t care; I’d want it, need it. He had spent all night teasing me, testing me, manipulating me and filling me with nothing but a desire for more, leaving me empty and wanting. He had succeeded, I now craved him above all else in this world.

August lifted my skirts, hoisting me with little effort to straddle his lap and I cried out in shock. The sound of my sudden impalement on the thick steel of his manhood was camouflaged by the crowd of people below; no one heard the echo of carnal awakening that sang through the air. When had he undressed? I bit my lip as he sank deeper into my core until the salty bitterness of copper and iron stung my chin. August’s eyes fell to the red droplet, darkening until the only color left in his pale irises was the very absence of light. With a hideous growl he ravaged my mouth, tasting every inch of my bruised lips with the hunger of an animal that’s been caged for far too long.

Thrill and terror tangled themselves in my mind, weaving an intricate web of wanton desire inside of me as August took me right there in the booth. Time itself seemed to halt, the room disappeared. Were we still in the club? Was it still the dead of night? Did I still require oxygen to breathe? Or was my life source now August’s touch, the light in my very soul dependent upon his kiss?

I didn’t notice when we left, nor when we arrived at a house that overlooked the city. I didn’t notice the lock on the basement door, or the fresh garden in the yard. I didn’t notice the continual rising and setting of the sun. I didn’t notice when I grew hungry, nor when I grew tired. I didn’t notice, not anything but passion, need, and desperation.

I didn’t notice.

Sleep drained from my limbs slowly. I awoke to black silk caressing my skin, dim sunlight shining through the wall, diffused by a covering of clouds that hung in the sky. It confused me that it was coming through the entire wall, until I realized that said wall was simply one large window, and the room I found myself in was built into the rock of an obsidian cliff overlooking the city. The room was minimally decorated in dark tones that coordinated with the nature outside, save for a striking, golden painting of a woman crying on the far wall. I clearly wasn’t home, and last night’s events slowly returned to the forefront of my mind.

August.

August was, without a doubt, the most attentive lover I’d ever had. Memories of his lips, his scent, his god-like physique that was surely carved from marble entertained my thoughts, returning my mind to the pleasure I’d never experienced in my life. Chills ran up and down my skin, alighting in wonder as my hand drifted to my sex. My fingers found my petals, swollen from overuse, aching in the dull agony of satisfaction. I stroked them gently, soothing the pleasant tenderness, moaning softly as the blood rushed to swell my clit once more, my other hand slipping beneath the silk to join in the heavenly edging torment.

A sharp, sudden sting at the brush of my inner thigh caused me to cry out, my hands snatching away from their play. I sat up, peering beneath the sheets to discover a semi-circle of divots cut into my leg. Is that a… a bite mark? I pulled at the skin and felt the dried blood crack, a small pinprick of new red seeping through the scab. I lunged from the bed to stand in front of the full-length mirror in the corner and look for other signs or markings, but what I found made me gasp.

Bruises peppered my neck, chest, hips and thighs. A few other crescents were scattered amongst them, standing out against the dark patches that shaded my skin. I took a physical inventory then, feeling the soreness in my jaw from being stretched by his cock, the ache of my neck from having my hair pulled, the shaky feeling of muscular fatigue in my legs from being tensed by orgasm after orgasm. I thought I detected a slight sheen on my skin, but I couldn’t tell if that was from the tremulous bliss of a satisfying fuck, or if it was the sweat and oil caused by said satisfying fuck. Either way, I looked happy and content. I grabbed August’s dress shirt from the floor and threw it on as I left the room to explore.

The bedroom led to a hallway, the wall to my left still nothing but expansive glass that showed off the impressive view. On the other side were large, black and white abstract prints, hung evenly spaced against dark panels. To the left of each was a shadow box with an ornate glass vial inside; each bottle was thin, no longer than my palm and differing in design from the others. Tiny, intricate patterns were painted on the outsides in white, blue, and gold, and gold stoppers sealed each one. When I entered the main room, I discovered a curio cabinet that housed at least a hundred of them, and I leaned in to look at how varied each one was.

“Victorian tear catchers,” August’s voice was suddenly behind me and I whirled sharply, startled. He chuckled at my alarm and I laughed with him, enjoying that glorious sound.

“They’re beautiful,” I murmured, turning back to look at the delicate glass. August pulled me against his naked chest, nosing my hair and kissing my neck.

“Yes you are,” he whispered, earning an eye roll from me. August chuckled and opened the cabinet.

“Would you like one?”

“Really?”

I looked at him, stunned. He simply nodded his head in the direction of the vials and I examined them, selecting one that had a white pattern on it that looked like lace.

“Mmm, a good choice. Perhaps I can collect tears of ecstasy for you,” August whispered. The thrill of what he was implying awakened my senses, and I let him lead us slowly back toward the bedroom. I felt like teasing him, so I delayed a bit by asking about the art on the wall.

“What are those?” I pointed to the first print, a cross-hatching pattern that looked like it was made of sewing pins.

“Those are tears of grief,” he stated, stopping in front of each as he walked me gradually down the hall.

“A yawn,” he said of the next, a white background with dark, fern-looking splatters. August traced his mouth along my jaw, his hand dipping beneath the button of his shirt to play with the sensitive nipples he had rediscovered. I keened as he continued shifting us toward the kitchen, struggling to keep my composure. The next print was a much darker gray, and it looked like it was covered in snowflakes.

“Any guesses?” August asked, mouthing my earlobe in tandem with the flick of his thumbs over my hardened nubs. I whimpered, my knees weak in his lustful embrace.

“Uhm… cold air?” I rasped as he sucked on my neck. August chuckled through his nose, the vibrations of his voice rippling through my chest to connect with his teasing fingers.

“Onions.”

“Yeah okay.”

I tilted my head so that I could kiss him, but suddenly the thought of onions turned my stomach. I lurched, pulling away and gagging slightly. Instead of concern, August smiled knowingly, seemingly unbothered by my retching.

“I see morning sickness has set in. It’s a little early and I had hoped you’d be able to avoid it, but alas, that’s not the case.”

My head swam suddenly, confusion mutilating all thought. I backed away from him.

“Morning what? What are you talking about?”

August took a step toward me, placing a hand on my belly and lacing his fingers in the hair at my nape.

“Women always taste better after they’ve conceived. And I can keep them longer; they make much more blood when they’re host to a fetus.”

I pushed against him, turning away and vainly attempting to process his words. Pregnant? Taste better? Blood? My eyes focused on a card I hadn’t noticed earlier in the shadow box, a single word printed on it.

Bridgette

“Isn’t it ironic,” August mused, tracing my collarbone with a thick finger, “That five weeks ago, you had a chance encounter with the very thing you’ve been studying for months, and now you carry his child.”

The room spun. I couldn’t think; my brain refused to process the nonsense he spoke.

“Five—five weeks?! No that’s not possible, our date was last night!”

“It’s more than possible, sweet morsel. Think about it.”

Bile rose thick and acrid in my throat then, threatening to spill. Memories and time started filtering into my mind, replacing the fog with everything I’d lost. The last puzzle piece clicked into place, confusion all but disappeared and I was left with nothing but the cold, terrifying truth. Pijavica. Vampire. Monster.

I’d fallen into the clutches of a monster.

I did the only thing I could think of; I slapped him as hard as I could and took off through the house, ignoring the sharp pain of a chunk of hair remaining in his hand. My heart pounded in my chest, desperate to be free of this sudden nightmare. I slammed into the front door and grabbed the handle, a strangled sob catching in my throat when it wouldn’t open.

I rattled the door knob, panic consuming every fiber of my being. Suddenly, it wasn’t just my life I was fighting for; apparently there was a life inside of me that needed protecting. The child of a Pijavica that was depending on me to escape, so that he could come back and kill his father. I have to get out. I gave up on the door in anger, spinning around and looking for another way.

“Do you know why I chose you?”

I heard August’s voice again, but he was nowhere to be seen. His voice came louder, penetrating my mind. I have to keep moving.

“It was because of your name; they match your eyes.”

I whimpered at his words, sneaking my head around a corner to survey the living space for some form of an exit.

“Amber has a historical application, you see,” he went on, louder. I dashed over the floor, desperate to be gone from him. Door after door remained locked, and my terror grew with each attempt. Every now and then I could hear August, whether it be a rustle of fabric or the knock of his foot on the wooden floor. The scholar in me knew that it was on purpose, that he was luring his prey, giving chase to his food, and yet my rational mind refused to take charge. I was being led by my flight response, and his jarring monologue wasn’t helping.

“Throughout history, whenever a goddess cried it was typically tears of amber, save for the goddess Freya, who cried gold. You met her in the bedroom.”

His laughter echoed through the dark walls of his lair, and chilled me to my core. It was no longer a beautiful sound, but grating and horrible. I was nothing but a petty human to play with, some toy that he could eat when he tired of me. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I came to the last door. Dear God, please let this one open. To my utter relief, the door swung wide and I was met with stairs. Stairs went down, and we were on a cliff. Down was good. Down meant freedom.

I clambered down the steps and flung open the door at the bottom, stumbling into the room and falling to the floor in horror and fear. There in front of me, was nothing but mirrors. A maze of mirrors, each one showing me my trembling features, mocking me, letting me know just how fucked I was. I turned back, intending to go back up the stairs and try another way, but August’s silhouette stood at the top, preventing me from going back into the house. I heard a scream and realized it was my own.

Scrambling off the floor, I took off into the maze, blinded by my tears.

“Each of those girls made it this far you know,” August taunted. I heard the slam of the door and nearly choked as I ran. “You’ll die in this room, just like they did.”

His nonchalance, his continual unconcern about chasing me, his arrogance that he would no doubt catch me made me so angry. I raced from path to path, growing ever more frantic every time I reached a dead end. I didn’t even know if this room had an exit, I just knew I had to keep moving. I tripped over something as I rounded a corner, screaming when I saw what it was.

“I see you found Bridgette,” August chuckled, and I looked up from the skeleton to see his hideous face marred with a sinful sneer. I gasped and took off again, turning this way and that. Hitting another dead end, I doubled back and ran smack into August’s broad torso. He caught me and held me close as I screamed, ripping his shirt from my body. He spun me around, pinning my wrists between my back and his belly, trailing his fingers languidly over my naked frame in an inspection of his handiwork. My jaw was gripped in an iron vice and August forced my gaze to the mirror.

“Do you see what I see?” he mocked. I could only stare in horror, for nothing but my own terrified expression stared back at me.

August had no reflection.

“Out of all the patterns in the world, do you know which tears are my favorite?” August continued to torment. He inhaled my hair deeply, snaking his tongue along the length of my cheek, tasting the stains my tears had left in their wake.

“Fear.”

I heard August growl as I fought against him, his iron grasp caging me against his cool skin, more of the cursed moisture pooling in my eyes. Glassy drops fell, retracing a new path toward my chin but August just kissed them away, shoving me to the floor when my knees buckled of their own accord. He let go of my hands to fidget with his slacks, pulling me back toward him every time I tried to crawl away as a parent would to a petulant child. On the third attempt he snapped my knee, a scream tearing from my throat in my woeful submission to his desire.

Finally free of his clothes, August lifted my hips, lining his rigid cock up against my sweat-soaked folds. He dove into my treasure without care, forcing his way into the depths of my belly, stretching and tearing my walls until he was fully sheathed. Strong arms wrapped around me again, and I felt two sharp points prick the junction of my neck and shoulder. I cried out and thrashed in fierce protest, knowing that small pinch was just a warning of oncoming pain.

August’s teeth punctured my skin easily, shredding muscle and sinew until they hit bone. I howled in pain as I watched blood drip from the wound, a familiar crescent shape joining its brothers on my body. Searing heat shot through my neck with his first draw of thick plasma; the violent removal of blood causing an intense burn that I felt all the way down to my injured leg. August released my neck and I clapped a hand over the fresh wound.

I looked over my shoulder at him; his head was tilted down, mouth still full of my blood; the lack of a reflection behind him unsettling to my senses. August opened his wicked maw slowly, dark scarlet trickling from his lips onto the junction where my hips met his, run through by his sword. He looked up at me with a nasty grin, bloodstained fangs curdling my stomach. I closed my eyes and turned away as he swiped a hand through the mess. His fingers penetrated my core alongside his cock, deaf to my sobbing objections.

“You’d better open your eyes, pet… This needy little cunt is dripping, I’d hate for you to miss it.”

August emphasized his sick joke by grasping my hair, shoving my head to the floor, forcing me to look once more into the polished glass. My desperate wails for mercy were all that kept me grounded as I watched him thrust, my battered hole be stretched beyond capacity. Nothing but empty space plundered my core, crimson air bruising the very place within me that only just last night had been treated with such tenderness and care. Not last night. His slick fingers found my mouth and violated it effortlessly; no amount of pressure I could apply would break through his tough skin.

“God, you look so beautiful.”

August pulled me up and took to my neck with fervor, latching onto the broken sliver of skin like a leech. The more he drank, the weaker I became, until there was no resistance left within me. I could see the color drain from my bloody face, I could see black slowly creep into my vision, but I was powerless to stop it. August was in charge, he held my entire existence in his hands, and he intended to extinguish it. I closed my eyes again, accepting my fate.

I was going to die.

One of my favorite places to visit is a small outdoor cafe, very near the coffee shop where I met Amber. Mmmm. Amber. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of that tantalizing woman.

She lasted so much longer than all the others, you know. I was able to feed off of her nearly three full months as she hung there in my basement, until the last drop of her tantalizing nectar was finally extracted. She smelled of carraway and saffron, tasted of sweet mulled wine, and with the rich, heady, piquancy of her fertile womb seasoning each sinew, every inch of her opulent flesh begged to be consumed. I must admit, I should have dispatched of her sooner, but fascination overtook my curious mind as her own was consumed by insanity.

First it was freedom she asked for, and then death. Sometimes she would beg to speak to her mother one last time. But by the end, she only asked for one thing.

“Please,” she would whisper, “Please… Cover the mirrors. Just cover the mirrors.”

She asked so nicely, but how on earth could I hide such beauty? Her tears were just as rare, you see. They hold a beauty unmatched by any of the others that hang on my walls. I’ve never seen such a fear pattern like hers; it is more exquisite than the dawn of a misty spring day in the countryside, more beautiful than a woman at the height of euphoria. And they way they sparkled against her skin, lustrous tracks that wound down her temples and through her hair, glinting in the mirrors with each slow rotation of her inverted body... well, it was as if I was living among the stars. Adding her ashes to my garden was such a shame.

I sat at that little cafe, eyes closed, viewing the world through my enhanced scent. Each drop of bitter coffee, the pollen of a nearby bee, the oil in the bike chains of two clumsy humans as they rolled past; each note and fragrance alerting me to its owner. A familiar scent reached my nose and I turned my head sharply, focusing on it.

Carraway… Saffron.

I smiled softly, opening my eyes to greet the woman that now sat at my table. The honey irises that had intrigued me all those months ago met mine and I chuckled low.

“Amber.”

Read on AO3.

#august walker #august walker fanfic #august walker fan fiction #august walker fanfiction #august walker fan fic #august walker smut #vampire!august #non-con tw

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horrorslashergirl · 3 years

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Decebal Avram Chirilă Headcanons

Authors Note: I did some Headcanons for my Romania Original Characters and used a lot of history references to depict his character. I think it turned out to be good, but I am very certain. Also, I have no grudge against other countries and such. This is strictly for my character. I mean; just because you create a character that kills that doesn’t mean you support real life murder or you kill yourself. Good, now that we made that clear. ENJOY!

Rebel with a cause; Outlaw by heart

Decebal is someone that both stands out and can blend in, which is a paradox. He stands out mostly because of his very tall form and handsome eccentric features; basically, when he enters a room he lights it up with his attitude. The blend in part is mostly after the big entrance in a room. He is multilingual and can fake accents, which confuses people. For example, he went to Italy multiple times and the local ones there thought at first he was a foreigner, until Decebal put on the Italian accent, speaking it fluently; the locals were confused. Is he Italian? Doesn't look like it.

He doesn't like uncultured people. He is a man who loves to learn about other countries' histories and culture, to broaden his horizons in this aspect. Knowledge is the second most valuable treasure along with Freedom. He is happy to explain culture and information misunderstandings about his country. 'No, dragă. Romanian isn't a Slavic language. It's a Latin language.' He had to explain this way too many times.

History has put a great impact on Decebal; he loves and hates it at the same time. He loves it because you get valuable lessons out of it; for example, in November 1942 Soviet forces launched a counteroffensive against the Germans arrayed at Stalingrad in mid-November 1942. They quickly encircled an entire German army, more than 220,000 soldiers. In February 1943, after months of fierce fighting and heavy casualties, the surviving German forces—only about 91,000 soldiers—surrendered. How did this happen? Stalingrad wasn't an important target, but Hitler wanted to destroy it mostly because of its name that comes from Stalin.... In conclusion, PRIDE destroyed them.

Decebal is anxious around Russians, although he does visit the country, mostly because of Ukraine and Belarus. Decebal is anxious around Russian's because of their history. One issue is that prior to World War I, the Romanians sent their gold reserves to Russia for safekeeping but the Russians did not return the gold after the war. Take it like this; Romania was an ally with Germany and Russia. The German's when they went to brothels, they brought flowers and chocolate, while the Russian beat and raped them. The Romanian women covered themselves with charcoal to make themselves ugly and unattractive to the Russians. Now, Decebal doesn't judge because of your nationality, but if you do prove you are like that, well.... Tough luck. Russia is a nation with power or strength as its national idea and they have repeatedly shown that they do not care about ideals like “legality” or “legitimacy” but respect force and military power only. This trait does not make you popular among your neighbors. Instead, you´re seen as an aggressive jackass who abuses and bullies others.

There are also many reasons why Decebal has anxiety towards Russians, all because of history. Romanians were forced to learn Russian. Romanians who are older still, almost universally, will tell you that they know one phrase in Russian: "Дайте часы!" ("Give me a watch!") Because that's what the Soviet liberating soldiers told every Romanian as they liberated them of their wrist watches (and anything else they fancied) when WW2 ended. Among other things that the Russians liberated from Romanians? The entire Romanian national treasure. Oh, and Moldova. Decebal has Moldovian blood running through his veins. Basically, Romania trusted Russia with its national treasure, Russia being an ally.

Decebal, if he is your ally, won't ever leave you on the battlefield, he is a 'go all the way or die' type. He's tired of how cowardice has affected his country and himself, so he is willing to fight till death. If you have strong beliefs and are passionate about something he will support them. Think of him as a shield of steel.

He hates the dictator-like attitude; he had to endure a lot of that shit and he is in no mood to listen to someone that thinks they're the big bad one just because they induce fear and brutality like an uneducated mindless jackass. Seriously, don't try to impose him with that kind of attitude because at some point his rage will come undone. There's a Romanian saying 'Mi-sa umplut paharul', which basically means that he won't take your shit anymore. Decebal is as scary as he is friendly. You don't wanna see this guy get into that mood. When he gets angry, which rarely happens, there's a cold wind that hits the nape of your neck, a dead silence that makes you wonder what will happen and a shadow casts his face, his almost white eyes illuminating under that shadow. Short story.... If you're the unlucky soul that has angered him, your body will be turned into shish kebab.... very tiny pieces and he will do that oh so slowly.

Getting over these dark vibes, Decebal is a music lover, one of the many things that keep his grin on and his eyes sparkling with life. He has an mp3 player with earphones in the pocket of his jacket and loves to listen to it during the most normal and abnormal times. He will listen to music at night while sitting on the roof of a house/building or..... He will fight with the earphones on and music blasting. He sings, and he is pretty good at it.

Decebal has so many faces that it's hard to really put a label on him. Some see him as a very cultured gentleman with a charismatic personality that brightens every room he enters. Then there are the ones that describe him as a hooligan, a punk, a very vulgar and blunt person who has no shame and mercy. He is really just a way too honest misunderstood guy with a vertebral column that cannot be bend.

He is a guy that appreciates the little things life has to offer. Life during Romanian communism really imprinted on his life. Give him a little piece of bread and he will be grateful to you. The food ration during that time was harsh; no more than half a loaf of bread, not too much meat, or sugar, and so on. Food is a luxury in Decebal's eyes.

Decebal is more used to the night than day, mostly because all his life he spend it in darkness. He spent months in underground jails without seeing the light of the day, losing track of time. Plus the communist government cut off electricity from 6:00 - 8:00 pm each night across the country to preserve energy. He sees in darkness like a cat and his ears are very sensitive.

Decebal loves his home country very much because he knows how much potential this little country has. Romania is Europe’s richest country in gold resources, Romania boasts the world’s largest administrative building, The largest population of brown bears in Europe lives in Romania, The Statue of Decebalus in Orsova is Europe’s largest rock sculpture, The only gold museum in Europe is found in Romania and also Romania has one of the happiest cemeteries on Earth, a reason for why Decebal makes jokes even in the face of death. On each grave there, is written dark humor poetry. Here's an example:

Under this heavy cross

Lies my poor mother in-law

Three more days should she have lived

I would lie, and she would read (this cross).

You, who here are passing by

Not to wake her up please try

Cause’ if she comes back home

She’ll criticise me more.

But I will surely behave

So she’ll not return from grave.

Stay here, my dear mother in-law!

#Decebal Avram Chirilă #Slasher OCs #Original characters #Romanian OC #Killer OC #Headcanons

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kyidyl · 3 years

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Kyidyl Explains Bones - Part 4.1

(These are all under the KyidylBones tag.)

Sorry for the pause in this series....it’s difficult to produce these when I don’t have my meds and I ran out. But I refilled them, so now we continue!

Anyway, today we’re covering something that is, if possible, even more complex and thorny than sex determination: race determination.

Ethical Statement: Race is not a biological reality. Now, hear me out before you run away. Race isn’t a biological reality, but that doesn’t make it *not real*. Race absolutely is real and effects how society interacts with an individual. But between these two statements, which gives you more information about a person:

“I’m white.”

“I’m white and I live in 21st century America.”

The second, obviously. Because skin color tells us virtually nothing about an individual. Ethnicity - where they’re from, what social groups they might have interacted with, how society might have treated them, etc. - is a lot more valuable than knowing the color of their skin. HOWEVER. And this is a big however. However, in a modern person’s understanding there is a lot of crossover between race and ethnicity. And, in fact, as with sex, when a set of remains is being evaluated for identification we must at least attempt to identify the race because that’s how they’ll be categorized in the missing persons’ database. And identifying race in archaeological remains helps us track human social interaction and migration because ethnicity doesn’t really survive intact outside of grave goods (and those may or may not be present.). And, yes, if you’re wondering, DNA tests can confirm a lot of the data that we attempt to glean anatomically but for the most part we don’t have the money to do DNA tests on remains, or they don’t have anything surviving that has intact DNA (you can have a nearly complete set of remains and not have any DNA because damage to the outside surface of the bone and/or teeth causes damage to the DNA inside it and causes it to break down.).

So since race isn’t a biological reality but it is a social reality, it’s helpful to attempt to determine the race of the individual in question. And, obviously, that’s before you even take into account that people interbreed all the time. So how can we begin to do this with any degree of accuracy, since the classifications are social and not biological?

Short answer: we can’t, but we try anyway because of the reasons I mentioned above. And there’s something that I should have added to the post about sexing a skeleton but I didn’t because I’m human and I make mistakes sometimes: we don’t ever refer to a set of remains as definitively X sex or definitively X race (well, we do when we’re with other scientists who have an understanding of what I’m about to say for brevity’s sake.), we say “this individual has _____ features consistent with or indicative ______ race/sex.” Sometimes the features are very stereotypical and we’re fairly certain that they definitely are X race or sex, but other times they’re not. And the markers that we use are based on averages, so obviously within those averages there’s a huge amount of variation - that’s why we use so many different markers. So like with any science, it’s good to remember that there’s always room for change and that it’s all theories.

Also if you want to do some reading on it, you’ll see that these determinations are still hotly debated among anthropologists because we are well aware of how racist and shitty it all is and we hate that we have to engage in it but at the same time it’s important for the reasons I mentioned above, so we’re always trying to find new ways that are more accurate and less racist.

Categories

Essentially, we have a list of anatomical features that tend to be similar in geographic regions and we go through these features and grade them according to which race category we think they most closely match. There are three, sometimes four, categories:

Caucasoid/White/European depending on what reference you’re using.

Black/African (Outdated term: Negroid. We all hate it but it’s in the literature, especially older stuff, and if you do any reading you’ll run into it.)

Asian (Outdated term: mongoloid. Same as above.) - This includes Native Americans because their anatomy is so similar to Asians, especially eastern asians, that it’s well-nigh impossible to distinguish without a DNA test. Mostly we know based on the context the remains are found in.

Aboriginal - This is specifically for indigenous pacific groups, especially in Australia and Aotearoa (New Zealand. In this lab we use the indigenous name.). They have some interesting anatomical differences that are only found in that area of the world. Obviously it’s not going to be as used in the rest of the world tho so it’s often not covered. Plus their biggest differences are brow bone size and tooth size so while it’s different it’s not AS different as the other three categories.

So as we go through the markers, we add them to these groups and then at the end average them out to see which one the remains most resemble.

The Anatomy

There are a lot of markers of race on remains, and more are being studied all the time, so I’m going to cover the most common ones in the interest of length. Also, pretty much all race markers are on the skull, so I’m not really going to get into the rest of the skeleton, even tho there ARE markers on the post-cranial (means exactly what you’d think: not skull.) skeleton. And like with physics ignoring friction for the sake of illustration, we’re going to ignore cultural changes to the bones ala the slavic squat and pathologies. We’re gonna start in on the bone pics in a hot second, so time for a cut.

I went back and forth on the most concise, easy to understand way of doing this and it took me a bit to figure it out, but I think it’s going to be like this: I’m going to tell you what we look for generally, and then give specific examples in each category as we go through race by race. So, there are a lot of things that can indicate race in a skeleton, but I’m only going to cover the easiest to digest. Understand though that there’s a lot of smaller indiciations. Like with sex, these are graded on a scale in relationship to how stereotypical they are of a given feature. And, unlike with sex, it’s much easier for the opinion and biases of the examiner to alter the results because a lot of these comes down to “what shape is this thing and which shape is it closest to”. This is, of course, subjective. The ones I’m going to cover are:

Eye orbit shape and sharpness.

Prognathism (the amount that the “muzzle” area of the face sticks out. Eg., how flat is or isn’t a face?)

Nasal shape

Nasal sill (this is the bit that sticks out at the bottom of your septum, and the “floor” of your nose/top of your maxilla in your nose.

Nasal bridge

Unique racial features.

First, I’m gonna use some screenies from my ipad to be very specific about the area of the skull I’m talking about here. These all were taken by me in essential skeleton and edited.

Eye orbit shape:

I think this one is one of the more accessible things to understand without a skull in your hand. If you think of the way that people look IRL, there are physical features that tend to be more common in various populations, and that translates to the skull (and in case you’re wondering: no, white is not treated as the baseline here, but you’ll see.). Here it’s the shape of the eye socket.

Eye socket sharpness:

When you hold a skull in your hand, if you run your finger over the part of the eye socket between the lines (really, the whole edge, but the effect is more pronounced at the bottom and on the lateral edges), it’s sharper on some races than on others. Again - this is a skeletal marker of physical features that you can see in a living person. I’m not going to point this out in the example skulls because you won’t be able to see or feel it in the images, but it’s a pretty easy to understand way of adding another racial marker to your tools.

Prognathism:

So the easiest way to understand this is twofold. First, how far does the chin stick out in relationship to the top of the nose? This shows how far the face protruded in life. Here you can see the angle is 88 (although honestly i’ve never known anyone to measure this - I’m using it to illustrate the point.), and I only know that because the ruler tool I used to draw the lines told me so, lol. The easiest way to see this is to look at the curve of the profile like I’ve illustrated with the green line.

Nasal Shape:

The shape of the nasal opening varies between racial groups. We look at the height and width from the places I’ve illustrated above. Sometimes we also look at the shape of the sort of upside down heart area I’ve outlined, because human variation means that you’ve gotta have a couple of ways of doing things.

The Nasal Sill gets two images cause it has two parts:

The top one has a landmark called the anterior nasal spine highlighted (honestly I think of it like the pointy nose thing). The degree to which it sticks out varies by race. It is part of the maxilla, and together with the two portions of the maxilla that i’ve circled forms the nasal sill. A lot of textbooks refer to the nasal sill as having a “height”. I found this confusing and I found the pictures confusing too, so I’m gonna try a different tactic with you guys. So first of all, you can feel some of these bones in your face. Pinch the bottom of your septum where it meets your upper lip and wiggle it. Feel how there’s a harder bit under the cartilage? That’s the pointy nose thing...er, nasal spine. Now - and this is a little gross but it’s ok I won’t tell anyone - if you feel down into the bottom of your nasal passages you can feel where this blends into your maxilla. The cartilage rises up and that forms your nasal passage. On a dead person, that cartilage isn’t there. So the hard bone that you feel there is all we have. Well, the angle at which that slopes deeper into the nasal passage varies by race (because nose shape varies by race). In some individuals, the anterior edge of that opening is sharp and lifted, forming a sort of dip in the area I’ve circled above. This is the nasal gutter. And if you google that, you will be hard-pressed to find anything that explains it with any clarity, especially because you don’t have a skull in your hand. But it’s one of those things that’s useful to know because it can be really distinct and easy to see the differences in.

The Nasal Bridge:

Because the shape of the nose changes the bones all around it, another indicator is what I’ve shown here. The angle of the curve of that red line, and the length of the blue line. That’s basically the length of the nasal bones. You can also tell with the shape of them, and the shape of the place where they connect to the frontal (the suture that connects them to the brow bone.), but I’m not going to cover that. We have enough nose things.

I’m going to cover unique features when I get into the examples of different races. You might be thinking that this is a lot of attention paid to the eyes and nose, and you’d be right, because although there are distinct differences in mouth shape and size they don’t translate to the bone. And, fun fact, the most accurate indicator of race is actually teeth - but we’ll cover that in the entry on teeth. But for now, I’m going to stop here and split that into its own post because this one is long and picture-heavy. So come back in a couple hours after I’ve finished and posted that one.

#KyidylBones #race #skeletal anatomy #forensics #science #anthropology #archaeology #archeology #bone #human bone #interesting things #skulls #humans

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snk-oc-guide · 3 years

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Please review my OC?

Danica Orlov Name meaning: "Danica" is the latin word for Danish, but it is also the personification of the morning star in slavic mythology. "Orlov" means "son on Oryol" in Russian, a nickname meaning eagle. Nickname(s): Red(for her hair color), Dani (by her yearmates)

Species: Human Gender: Female Age: 16 (850) Height: 170cm Weight: 60kg

Relatives:

Radek Orlov (father)

Francine Murphy (mother)

Birthday: June 3rd, 834 Birthplace: Mitras Residence: Wall Rose Status: Alive

Occupation: Soldier Affiliation: Survey Corps Former Affiliation: 104th Training Corps

Former Occupation:

Seamstress Apprentice

Medic Apprentice

Field Medic

Thief

Scullery Maid (Dishwasher)

Graduation Rank: Outside Top Ten

Titan Kills: During Battle of Trost

Solo: 0

In Team: 0

During 57th Expedition:

Solo: 0

In Team: 0

APPEARANCE: Danica is a juvenile female with thick, auburn hair that sweeps down to her shoulders which she wears up in a bun or ponytail and amber colored eyes. Standing at a height of 170cm, she is broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, fairly muscled and not very well-endowed. Her fair skin is heavily freckled, as if someone generously sprinkled breadcrumbs on a plate, and the stress and small numbers of sleeping hours of the past years have painted crows feet and dark circles permanently on her eyes.

As a soldier, Danica wears the standard uniform with the badge of the Survey Corps. When off duty she dresses in a loose, boat-necked green shirt with the sleeves rolled up, black opened vest, black tights and knee-high sturdy boots.

PERSONALITY: Danica is a reserved, mature, pragmatic and intelligent girl whose caring heart and kind nature have hurt her heavily after the fall of Shiganshina.

As a child she was open and expressive, unafraid of taking risks and getting hurt. Surrounded by people she loved and who loved her in return she led an idyllic childhood. Unafraid of work, she was completely in her element when helping around her foster family's bakery or later in her apprenticeship.

From an early age she showed restraint over her anger, not wanting to hurt those around her and preferring to just back down from an argument, although she couldn't always keep a lid on her emotions. For her to get really angry took a good reason or a buildup overtime, but when it happened she would stop caring about the feelings of others and use her words to strike where it hurt most. After reducing others to tears, Danica would feel ashamed and renew her effort to temper herself. Her self-restraint was noted by her foster family who encouraged her to always be levelheaded.

Sensitive and empathetic to those around her, Danica craved a greater understanding of people and the world in general, although she never entertained thoughts of going outside the walls. She was content with her lot in life, with her work and with her family and friends, even if they weren't related by blood. Despite wondering now and then who her real parents were she never gave it much thought as in the end she felt it didn't matter.

After the fall of Shiganshina, Danica retreated into herself, becoming listless and apathetic. It didn't help that the Beckers blamed her for living, while their daughter did not and had ceased all relations with her. That the only person in her life who remained committed soon afterwards suicide when both of them were drafted among the refugees for the culling of '46 made things even worse for Danica. She felt abandoned, lonely and depressed. Her thoughts and dreams gave her no rest, when she wasn't thinking about Adele (the Becker's daughter), she was thinking about Gigi (a seamstress and friend).

The world felt old and decayed, she was constantly tired and weary and only got up every day out of bed because she could not stand the thought of wasting away. It also helped that her new employer in Trost had taken a liking to her and had started her on a crash course in medicine, to increase her chances of coming back. Not wanting to disappoint him or to be useless she persevered. A larger part of her simply didn't want to die.

The horrors of the expedition that came from both Titans and people who had nothing to lose and no restraints anymore, left a lasting mark on Danica. Unable to view humanity with kindness or concern anymore, Danica grew to have problems relating to those around her. The loss of the man who had helped her and later her partner in crime only made her sink further in her depression. Had Hannes and one of his officer not been notified of Elia's body and found her alongside him, Danica might have just remained there until she wasted away. Hannes kindness however rekindled something inside Danica who realized she still wanted to live and that she was tired of being tired, sad, weary, guilty, ashamed, lonely and always having to start again.

Her decision to join the Garrison changes after the Battle of Trost however when she begins piecing the puzzle in front of her and realizes that things are not what they seem. Wanting to learn the reasons behind the war, but more so about the Colossal and Armored Titan who had ruined her life she decides to join the Survey Corps, even if she would come to regret it.

HISTORY: Radek Orlov was a Military Police officer whose affair with Danica's mother, the youngest daughter of a noble non-Eldyian clan affiliated with the ruling government, saw him transferred to the Survey Corps when it was discovered Francine was with child. As for Francine, herself, she was forced to go into hiding until Danica was born then give her up so that the Murphy's wouldn't be affected by scandal and that her engagement to the eldest heir of another noble clan could go through.

(rowan) you say her mother, francine, is from a non-eldian clan. that isn't possible, as all the residents within paradis are eldians. even the members of the ruling government are eldians

Francine's father wasn't completely without mercy however, even if he sent Danica as far away as Shinganshina, he also arranged for his bastard granddaughter to be taken in by a foster family as well as an apprenticeship to a seamstress when she reached her tenth birthday.

Danica grew up with the Beckers, knowing nothing of this, in a cheerful, lively and loud environment. She was best friend's with the Beckers middle daughter, Adele and often time helped around the family's business, the bakery. From an early age she developed a curiosity for herbs, brought on by Beckers varied recipes that included them and when she left their household for Madam Girard's, she was very happy to receive a book on botany from them. This passion slowly turned into gardening which became her hobby, as she would from there on always keep a small pot to grow mint in it (using the leaves alongside baking soda to wash her teeth or to chew to keep her breath fresh).

At Madam Girard's, a local seamstress of some renown inside and outside Shinganshina, Danica would spend most of her days sewing alongside her teacher and the other girls in her employment. Despite the long hours of work, she grew quite close to the other girls, the two she roomed with, Yulya and Gigi, especially. Whenever given free time, she would more often than not find herself in their company or visiting the Beckers. Sometimes Yulya and Gigi would join her at the Beckers and soon Yulya and the Becker's oldest son, Gregor grew close to one another much to Danica's great joy, as she had been the one to introduce them.

(rowan) i think it should be noted that just because danica is apprenticed with the seamstress, it doesn't mean she lives with her. it just means she basically has an internship, and will treat it like a job, except she is only getting paid in knowledge/experience. if this was a farm, i could understand having to live there, otherwise i find it kind of weird.

STORY: On the day the Colossal Titan appeared, Danica and Adele were out together. The frightening sight made them lock hands. When the breach occurred, Danica was blown back by a piece of falling debris. Adele was not so lucky and Danica was left to stare in shock at the disembodied arm she was holding hands with. Her best friend being a mere smear on the floor, Danica was on the verge of going into shock when she was jostled by the panicked surge of the fleeing crowd into dropping the arm and running. To this day she cannot remember how exactly she managed to escape to the boat, but when she came to all she could do was tremble and cry.

Upon arriving in Trost she tried to find anyone she knew and eventually stumbled upon Gigi who was quite a fright, having been witness to a Titan devouring Madam and crushing Yulya underfoot. Eventually Danica managed to reunite with the Beckers who asked about Adele. Claming up, all Danica could find in her power to do was shake her head much to the family's horror. Asked to leave and not come back by a grieving mother and father, Danica went off and she and the Beckers never spoke again. Returning to Gigi's side, the two of them eventually found work, Gigi with a local tailor and Danica with a doctor thanks to her knowledge of sewing and botany.

(rowan) i can understand grief making the beckers react unfairly and out of emotion, but considering they've raised danica since she was a baby and have treated her like she was their own, i'm surprised by their reaction. it makes it seem like they never loved her in the first place. if that's the case, i think their behavior towards her should change a bit, and danica should come off as a bit more neglected. since before it seemed like they loved and cared for her.

When the culling in 846 was called, both Gigi and Danica were drafted from among the refugees. Gigi unable to cope and fearful of a terrible death, hanged herself, much to Danica's horror as she was the one to find her friend.

(rowan) while i think this is an interesting idea, during the culling, only men were selected out of the civilians to take part in it. the women and children were left alone. it doesn't state that specifically, but if you go back to look at the images about the event, you don't see any women or children. just the male civilians and the members of the survey corps.

even if that wasn't the case, however, i don't see why gigi and danica would be selected. the world needs children to grow and take place of the older generation. they also need women to keep the walls populated. so why would two young girls be sent off to die, when the government knows they could be potential future mothers? it makes more sense to weed out the old, since they're going to die anyway.

this is just my take on it though! since nothing is officially stated regarding the people they selected among the civilians, you're free to do as you like.

Dr. Owen, despite his gruff and cantankerous personality, was in his own way of great help to Danica especially concerning the upcoming expedition, emphasizing that her medical knowledge no matter how limited might just be her ticket home. As it so happens he was right and Danica was placed among the soldiers of the Survey Corps, alongside their own medics when the expedition began.

Danica would be among the few civilian survivors who returned from the culling. Changed by the horrible things she had seen and the many wounded she could not save, Danica decided she would never again step a foot outside the safety of the walls and that she would not pursue a career as a doctor. Returning to Dr. Owen to take her few belongings back, she was dismayed to find out from his neighbors that the old man had died, knifed for trying to break up a fight.

Alone and without anything to her name, Danica is forced to sleep on the unsafe streets. In the days to come, unable to find employment and going hungry she begins stealing food to survive. Soon she encounters a young boy, Elia, a thief and pickpocket, who suffers of pneumonia. Like her he is a refugee forced by circumstances into such a life and his sickness makes it even harder to find honest work.

The two of them team up to survive and grow quite close to one another, Elia going as far as to teach Danica parkour so that they can make easier escapes during their heists. This partnership does not last as Elia takes a turn for the worse and dies one night. Once more alone, Danica realizes that nothing in her life has had any stability ever since Shiganshina, that the past year had been nothing but hunger, pain and suffering. Weary and tired of this lifestyle, but not knowing what to do she remains alongside her friend's body until two Garrison officers come upon them.

Elia's body is taken away and one of the men who found her, Hannes takes Danica to a pub for a hot meal, going as far as to secure a job for her there as a washer in the kitchens. The kindness shown to her, leaves Danica in tears and she decides then and there to enroll in the military the coming year and join the Garrison on her graduation.

When the time comes she signs with the 104th Cadet Corps. The intense training as well as her own continued practice of parkour, leave Danica exhausted more often than not at the end of the day. Despite her growing skills, she does not care much about grades as she is still quite set on the Garrison and makes sure to put in enough effort to pass, but not overtake anyone. More concerned to learn how to defend herself, she focuses only on improving herself without putting effort into any exams, not caring about the instructors opinions that she could do much better. This coupled with her own reserved nature, her inability to connect to her peers or relate to their worries, paint Danica as stuck up and someone who thinks she is better than everyone else. When she eventually learns how others perceive her, she is both mortified and distressed. Until that moment she had not realized how much she had changed the past two years and as the situation is something of her own doing and she has no idea how to change, Danica remains on the outside more often than not. Eventually as team building exercises are introduced, her natural abilities as a leader shine through and her relationship with her yearmates becomes friendlier, although she is still seen by most as stuck-up.

(rowan) danica seems like she doesn't care about the people around her, and she is only focused on reaching her goals. i thought she also didn't get close to people, as a way to protect herself, since up until now everyone she was close to either left her or died.

that brings me to wondering why all of a sudden, danica cares how others perceive her. since she never took time to get close to her yearmates, i find it weird that she suddenly cares about what they think of her.

unless, her becoming "mortified and distressed' has more to do with herself, and her realizing how much she has changed. and less to do with her finding out what they think of her.

this is just an observation i made when i read her backstory and etc, so i could be wrong in the assumption. either way, i hope me pointing it out helps in some way.

Graduating outside the top ten, Danica is stationed alongside the other cadets in Trost. Despite having lukewarm relations with most of her yearmates, she is buoyed with happiness, knowing that she would join the Garrison soon. This is remarked by the rest of her teammates: Vera Fermi, Leon Mikaelsson, Theo Durand, Kathrin Beckert and Felix Grey. Assigned to patrol the six of them, get to know one another a bit better but the appearance of the Colossal Titan puts a quick stop to Danica's joy and her first honest attempt in years to make friends. Her reaction isn't missed by the rest of her squad, who despite their shock and horror have an easier time, never having seen titans before and still somewhat optimistic as to their own chances. They manage to get Danica moving to HQ where they receive their orders. Despite her shaking, Danica is aware enough to order Theo Durand to requisition additional gas canisters and blades to carry as the possibility of running out is quite high. She assigns him and Felix Grey to divide the burden among themselves, placing the remaining Vera Fermi, Leon Mikaelsson and Kathrin Beckert as the scouting/vanguard of their squad, with the two logicians and herself as a medic behind.

Surprised but seeing the merit of her idea, they prepare and head to their assigned position only to find that the Titans had advanced. Realizing that the first line of defense had fallen, Danica has an outburst of nerves, cursing everything in sight. Devising a plan to separate and pick them off one by one, using her and the logicians to lure them in while the three assigned to the vanguard take them out works for a while. But as titans fall, her squad mates become overconfident and bite more than they can chew. Vera is caught and Leon and Kathrin jump to her rescue. They are promptly killed by titans and Felix and Theo try to make a break for it, overcome by fear. Their mistake costs them their lives but allows Danica to use their death to make her escape. She doesn't stop until she finds more of the 104th cadets and as they hopelessly watch the advancing enemy, Danica is filled with dread. Unable to stop wondering how much time they have until the Armored Titan appears, Mikasa's sudden arrival and lousy speech emboldens her and she joins the rest of her yearmates in making a break for HQ to resupply. (Things go more or less as they did in canon at HQ)

The Rogue Titan's leaves Danica without words, more so after Eren emergence.

Keeping a close eye for the appearance of the Armored Titan as they flee for the safety of Wall Rose, Danica makes a few realizations:

The Armored Titan was nowhere in sight.

The Colossal had appeared as suddenly as it did in Shiganshina and just as suddenly dissipated, much like the Armored.

Eren's titan form was already discomposing when he emerged.

(rowan) i thought danica didn't remember much after the fall of shinganshina? i thought she just remembered her friend dying, and then somehow making it to one of the boats and arriving at trost?

that being said, i find it weird just remembers something like the armored titan appearing, nonetheless disappearing. especially considering the chaos that was taking place. it'd be hard to keep track of something like that.

Although her mind is in a jumble and she hasn't yet come across what exactly is wrong with this picture, she asks Mikasa and Armin to allow her to stand with them when defending Eren. Despite their skepticism about her intentions and Mikasa's threat that she would die if she were to make a move for Eren, she is allowed to defend him to the panicked Garrison. Once Commander Pixis arrives on the scene and agrees to Armin's plan, the three ask Danica why exactly she stayed with them. The only thing Danica thinks to say is that "The Armored Titan hasn't appeared." This confuses them, until Armin straightens all of a sudden as of just now noticing the same thing. Both Armin and Danica come to realize that the Armored Titan might not appear at all, that those two titans had already found what they wanted.

(rowan) very confused as to why danica would want to put her life on the line for people she doesn't know. i'm surprised she even knew their names lol but it just seems very random for her to want to suddenly stand in defense of eren. what is she gaining? what is the point to it?

also, her assumptions revolving around the titans are weird. at this point, no one knows anything about the titans other than the fact they are out to end humanity without rhyme or reason. thinking of the armored titan and colossal titan as things with "motives" or "reasons" is not fitting for the current timeline, where they don't know anything. so her thinking that the two titans "have already found what they wanted" is weird, as titan's don't have thoughts. and as far as they know, the colossal and armored are just that: titans.

another thing i don't think fits, is danica putting the armored and colossal titans together as a pair. as in, if one appears, then the other one isn't far behind. titans don't work in teams or anything, so to expect that from them doesn't add up. even if they had showed together during the fall of shiganshina, that was just one instance. there isn't much of a pattern to turn it into something predicable.

Danica is left frothing at the mouth, her mind working overdrive as she suspects the Colossal and Armored might both be like Eren, shifters, and that the people who died five years ago were merely collateral, instead of their main objective.

(rowan) again, this is something no one knows about yet. in the current state the word "titan shifters" hasn't even been discovered. they all think eren is an actual titan who has adapted to fit in with the humans to kill them all. very far fetched, but again, they don't know much about titans except that they kill humans. eren having been a titan is enough to confuse and scare them.

the fact that the intelligent characters such as armin, hange, and erwin, took a bit to discover there were others like eren says enough about how unbelievable the theory is. according to these people, there is no world outside the walls. how could they even imagine something like titan shifters existing?

so, unfortunately, i don't think it'd be fitting to have your character draw that conclusion. no matter how smart they are, i doubt they're smarter than the aforementioned characters. if anything, danica needs more evidence before jumping to such a conclusion.

Burning with anger, Danica is quick to interrogate Eren about his transformation and how it came about to see if Armin's plan had a chance. As he tells what he remembers, Danica realizes that Eren's intent, his desire to kill the titans might have been a trigger and advises him to think only "I will pick the boulder and seal the breach" and only that. She is quick to point out that if he loses control of this power, even if he's never before realized he had it, things could take a turn for the worse not only for himself but Mikasa and Armin too. Eren agrees readily, but can't stop asking why she is so fired up. Danica tells them that she too comes from Shiganshina and that she too has lost everyone, to the trio's surprise as Danica has never even hinted at her past before. With a better understanding of one another, they part ways. The mission is a success from the start as Eren takes Danica's words to heart as well as minimal loss of life on the part of Eren's protectors. Not long after Eren and the rest of his team's triumphant return, the Survey Corps arrive. As the battle comes to a close and the Garrison and Survey Corps join forces in cleaning the town of Titans, Danica becomes aware that her suspicions were right and that there's more going on than what can be seen at first glance. Although she cannot point to why exactly the two titans waited so long to mount another attack, especially as the Armored could have just made a run for Wall Rose and no one would have been able to stop him, Danica realizes that she wants answers. Knowing that if she joins the Garisson she might not ever find out why they attacked, why so many had to die (why did she have to suffer so much), she tears up and laughs bitterly knowing that her only option is the Survey Corps if she plans to go ahead with finding answers. Even as she shakes with fear, a much bigger part of her burns for knowledge.

(The rest would be spoilers when I get to writing as it steadily turns AU, since Danica manages to save some people (Mike [by agreeing to tell Zeke everything about the VME in exchange for their lives], Gelger, Nanaba [by being there on orders to inform them about the Beast Titan, and being able to help, also by realizing that Henning and Lynne's blades and canisters might still be of use after Gelger gets injured and she and Nanaba run out]) and even befriend them. Her past also comes under scrutiny in the Uprising Arc and that is when she learns about her parents.)

(rowan) i highly doubt zeke will spare mike if danica tells him about the 3dmg. if anything, i could see him killing them both/leaving them for dead right after getting the information. the only way to spare mike, is to not let zeke get a hold of him at all lol

as for her past, i have to ask, will it really change anything? if she discovers her birthright, what will it mean to her? you said her family is a noble one, but why are they so important? what is it exactly that they do? i feel like, to have such a background, it will have to mean and result in something important. otherwise, it would have just been better to make her a random orphan in shiganshina, rather than a bastard noble child.

STATS Combat: 7/10 Initiative: 7/10 Wits: 9/10 Teamwork: 7/10 Agility: 10/10

(rowan) i think some of the stats are bit high considering the information i was given. i would make initiative, a six, considering so far i've seen her having to receive a "push" before she does anything.

teamwork, is also a little high, considering her standoffish attitude. i would make it a six.

A/N: I'm sorry for giving you more work, but I've had this idea stuck inside my head for a while now and I really need some advice if the OC is worth actually writing in the story. I've tried to give her constant character development and a believable reason for joining the Survey Corps and I don't know how much of my ideas come across since English isn't my first language and there might be some spelling mistakes. I've also added the characters I would like to save and possible explanations about how she goes about them, but I'm a bit unsure if Mike's is even possible, because while Zeke does seem practical, he's also kinda ruthless.

(rowan) no problem at all! thank you for submitting this to us, and i hope i was at least a little bit of help.

as always, i like to remind everyone that you don't have to listen to my critiques, but they are honest thoughts and observations i made. and i also say them with your best interests in mind! :)

#submission

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blackevermore · 3 years

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x Secrets of The Lake: The Company of Misery and Pain

{ Chapter 5 }

Summary: Vladimir Masters’ family tree has always been tainted by secrets swept under the rug. From generation to generation there have been countless reasons the Masters’ family had seemed to keep private from the public. Even to this day, Vladimir was no exception. But what was one to do when a restless spirit from the settlement years finally breaks free from restraints and demands you answer for your ancestor’s crimes? Vladimir doesn’t know. However, Clockworks does.

Notes: We just having fun, rewriting some of the canon, new adventure new characters. I will apologize now for any grammar, spelling, weird sentence structuring in advance. My brain writes faster than my fingers and even when I go back through to reread it I still miss things. Sorry about that!

Word Count: 3063

It wasn’t that it was hard to pinpoint where things began to fall apart for the Masters family. Rather it was who was to blame when all of it happened all at once. Could it have been the people they married or was it the family itself that had the bad luck? Either way, the Masters family had a very long list of unfortunate events that seemed to flock like birds to a nest. Vlad sat at his computer scanning through the digital archives of his family. He never truly sat down and looked through all of this, when he was younger it was more like being shown a picture and being asked to guess how far apart they were in life and death. His father did it often trying to brag about how headstrong all the men in the family were.

So many names, so much trading property or what seemed like stealing others. Not that Vlad was surprised at all by that, how else do you think he got where he was in life, it was just the game of business. Not having many divorces and remarrying, now that was surprising, he would have thought the men in his family would have had the least of the draw, or he was just shamefully projecting. Of course the latter could be farther from the truth when Vlad went through two stepmothers. Both his and his first stepmother died of unknown causes which left the last one living the longest. Luckily they were both lovely and the sweetest of women, but maybe would have been better off not in the family. At last Mrs Helena was alive, he hoped.

Vlad had scrolled to the very beginning of the files which started in the mid 16th century. The family name had just been respelt to the changing Germanic language and someone named Alger had married and inherited land in southern modern Germany; he died of an infection in the mouth at 32. From there they had seven children but only two survived due to the plague. From the two, only one was a boy and he carried the family name and expanded the family east. After that was a long line of names that either was married in, inherit, how they died, and weird scribbled notes off to the side Vlad couldn’t read. As the 16th century files ended the 17th century file started and was a lot more organized than the former. Vlad could actually read what jobs the males in his family had and where they actually ended up near the end of their life. The Masters family had once again gone through a name respelling and this time they were established merchants.

As he combed through the notes and names, Vlad had this weird ‘yes’ ‘no’ feeling, so far everyone had been a ‘no’ and his gut told him he was getting closer. Closer to what? Not sure, but he followed it anyway hoping to reach the end. But when he came across blank records, he was closer to the mid 17 century. The last family was the house of Anya with three dependents, a wife named Yolan and two sons, Vladan and Luther. In the notes it said that Anya served the ruler as a travelling merchant and was paid wealthy for it; he died of poison. The family lived in the furthest part of the eastern Germanic states which meant they would have been closer to migrating towards Slavic area. But after that there was nothing but empty rows. That was 50 years missing and that didn’t sit right with Vlad. Surely there had to be something or someone during that time. With how detailed the records were so far there had to be something- anything.

Vlad scrolled down to the beginning of the 18th century and that’s where the names picked back up with Vladan being the head of the house. There was an asterisk next to Vladan's name that read ‘only surviving heir’. Vlad sighed, of course, the family had died and was only survived by a single son. He could only imagine the tragedy that could have happened to the rest of the family.

‘Yes’

Vlad’s gut pulled as he read over the name again and the notes beside it. This man went through four wives whose names weren’t listed other than ‘wife 1… wife 2...’ and only had a daughter.

“Seems like misery was your only friend,” Vlad mumbled as he looked on and saw that the daughter took over for her father once he died of heart issues, and moved the family due to marriage. She didn’t change her name nor give up belongings and had five sons but only two of them had her last name. It seemed that it was on purpose for the lack of arguing on who got what when she died. The husband on the other hand disappeared early into their marriage, “You were truly a Wollstonecraft it seems, Miss Ursula Masters.” Sadly tragedy struck her down as well as she died of horse trampling. After Ursula the next four families had lost all the old money they once sat on due to wars and the collapsing economies. They did however maintain their pride and kept building themselves back up. By the end of the 18th century, the Masters family was in Russia and had branched off.

‘No’

Vlad knotted his brows as his gut once again pulled at him as a sign of the wrong direction. Rolling his eyes tired from looking at small prints and shitty handwriting he scrolled back up to the empty space.

“So you’re from right here it seems,” Vlad rubbed his chin and groaned. “What in the world happened and how did you get here?” As Vlad tried to think of another way to figure out the gap, the phone at his desk began to ring and broke him away from his trance. Deciding that that was enough for the day, Vlad closed his laptop and picked up the phone. Vlad had been so invested in his ghostly business he nearly forgot about his human one. Vlad pulled the phone away from his ear and rolled his neck as he tried to put on his Vlad Co. facade. Vlad pulled the phone back in when he heard a question and he politely asked the woman on the other side to repeat herself.

“I asked if you will still be holding the theme banquet this coming Wednesday.” Sha! Vlad had forgotten all about the company banquet. As a boss he felt it was important to give your employees a ‘thank you’, especially if there was company corruptness being swept under the rug. So as a treat every so often Vlad would announce he would host a banquet and give everyone the day off. Vlad felt his eye twitch as he thought over whether or not he should cancel it. Wednesday was in three days and he hadn’t even told his ghostly staff about it.

As his mind thought it over the words came out by themselves, “Yes.” Yes? Yes?! He had no time to play host when he had a ghost to deal with and any other madness being thrown his way. Why in the world would he say yes?

“That’s wonderful! Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s the theme?” The woman said, eagerly.

“Well I do mind, that’s my little secret. Surely you wouldn’t want to take the surprise away from yourself, now would you.” Vlad gagged as he sweetly replied and heard the woman become flustered.

“You’re right,” Of course I am . “ Well I can’t wait to see what you put together, Sir. You never cease to amaze us.”

“Hmm, yes, now if you excuse me, Miss Wright, I have some emails to look over before prepping.”

“Very well, Sir good-” Vlad didn’t wait for the woman’s goodbye and hung up, he dropped his face into his hands and held his breath as he tried to mentally organize himself.

Clockwork? Check.

Vengeful spirit out to kill him? Check.

Nearly being torn apart? Check.

Waking up three days later? Check?

Prepping for a banquet he forgot all about? Wonderful .

Vlad stood up from his desk chair and stretched his back, he needed to get out of the house for fresh air. Maybe go for a walk or if he was feeling up to it, a quick flight, then come back and start on what was being served at the banquet and what the theme was. As he walked around his desk and reached out a hand to draw the handle he heard the low rumble of bickering outside his door. He used his ghost sense to hone in on it and only shook his head in disappointment.

“Yeah well I could have been there for backup if you had let me go with you. How come he got to go with you?” Dani crossed her arms angrily and shot Danny the meanest eyes she could muster.

“I didn’t bring him along, he showed up by himself, he was supposed to be on his way to pick you up, remember.” Danny retorted as she and he rounded the corner to Vlad’s office. “Besides I told you it was dangerous and you would have only gotten hurt.”

“No way I’m like super badass!” Dani yelled.

“Language, especially in this house, Danielle.” Vlad opened the door and looked on towards the children. Dani turned away and grumbled as Danny sighed and gave a quick wave.

“Either she was gonna fly here and pester you by herself or I would at least try to stop her, as you can see I didn’t do much.” Danny motioned towards his clone and she stuck out a tongue.

“Well at least you showed up at the right time, I have news I think you will like to hear.” Vlad rubbed the bridge of his nose and gestured for Danny to come inside. Guess the walk would have to wait.

“Boy would I!” Dani stepped out in front of Danny and Vlad quickly stuck a hand out.

“Miss Masters, you have other things to do. This problem has nothing to do with you and I would much prefer it if you stop trying to be a part of it.” Vlad put on his father voice and it saw how it made Dani upset. She looked back at Danny for help only for the older teen narrowed his eyes and looked away. Vlad gave her the all knowing look of ‘you are out ruled’ and Dani stomped her foot. She had been told no so much in the last few days of wanting to help.

“I swear you two still treat me like some weak baby. I have control over myself and my powers, stop doing that!” The hurt in Dani’s voice almost made the others cave but Vlad stood by his words and shook his head.

“I know you’re not a baby, far from, but this isn’t your fight. Now run along.” Dani's face nearly turned red and she flew off through the walls to god knows where.

“Maybe it wouldn’t have hurt to let her listen,” Danny rubbed his arm, feeling very much like a villain. Vlad on the other hand deadpanned him and turned to walk into his office.

“You should know what happens to those that become too curious, they only get in trouble.” Vlad’s monotone voice irked Danny, the jab was unnecessary considering they both ended up as they were due to curiosity. Once they were seated in their respective chairs Vlad opened his laptop again. Danny watched him scroll through files before turning the computer around for him to look at. Danny had no idea how to read any of this, cocking an eyebrow he shook his head.

“Explain,” Danny said.

“As I looked through everything, I noticed that my family record suddenly stopped between the late 1650s to the 1700s.” Vlad began pointing towards the screen. “This may sound odd but I had a feeling this might be where Tayonna is from. However, it doesn’t make sense because there is no mention of coming to America. This name, Vladan, is the only surviving member of his family and he stayed in the empire and got married. He was one of the sons of the family before the gap.” Vlad turned the computer back around and stared heavily at the name trying to make something of it.

“Is there any way for you to throw money on this and figure out what happened in those 50 years?” Danny asked with a shrug, surely, Vlad had that power considering he was a billionaire. Vlad did not have that power. Vlad blinked a few times and shook his head.

“If only it was that easy, however, I have no idea where to look nor do I have time to fly out to one of the thirteen colonies and check.”

“Get an assistant to do it, you have plenty of those and I know it, Miss Kate is a really cool lady.” Danny smirked, he had the honours of meeting a few of Vlad’s assistants who sometimes had very nasty things to say about him. Which Danny promised not to repeat back and enjoyed listening to. Truly, what man has a random sweet tooth at 3am and demands a strawberry shortcake?

“I doubt any of them would wish to take a random trip at the moment.” Vlad thought over his few underhands and couldn’t think of a single one he could trust with this. They all had their pros and cons and yet Vlad found himself cancelling all of them.

“When did you become considerate of anyone but yourself?” Danny asked with a cocked brow and pressed lips. Vlad was a bit taken back by the question but knew where Danny was coming from.

“When I decided to stop playing childish games with a child. My company is not a playpen and my workers are not playmates I can throw away.” Vlad answered with a hiss on his lips and Danny mumbled a ‘whatever’ before throwing his hands up and standing to his feet.

“I still say send one of them out to Ellis Island to find something.”

“Ellis Island was built in the late 1800s not the 16oos, Daniel.” Danny opened his mouth then quickly closed it.

“I knew that… I knew that.”

“Of course,” Vlad wore his annoying amused smirk that he always gave Danny when he messed up. “But I will take your suggestion into consideration since it’s something rather than nothing.”

“That’s the spirit. Get it?” Danny shot Vlad finger guns and a wink and the man snickered and walked around his desk to head towards the door.

“Besides, it's not like we can ask Tayonna herself.” Vlad added as he opened the door and allowed Danny to head out first.

“Dude, I think the last person she wants to see is you or me.” Danny snorted. Vlad only hummed and they walked towards the stairs to bring them to the first floor. Danny B-lined his way to the kitchen and quickly found home in Vlad’s frig. Vlad joined him and made himself a cup of coffee for his midday crisis. “Besides, the last place I left her was at the bottom of the pond as I drug your lifeless body away.” Danny shoved a gogurt in his mouth and raised his eyebrows. Vlad huffed and looked over the top of his cup.

“Don’t remind me. Those are Dani’s.”

“She’ll understand, her gogurts are going towards a great cause. And I know how much Masters love donating towards “ good causes ”.” Danny wiggled his brows and ghosted another hand into the frig to pull out another snack to shove into his pocket.

“Don’t say anything to me when she finds out. I’ve seen nothing.” Vlad chuckled behind his drink and playfully turned the other way.

“Oh ha ha.” Danny finished his first snack and threw it away. He pulled out the next and started in on it, he made an about face and gave Vlad a concerned expression.

“We gotta make it up to her, she really wanted to help, but this is hella dangerous and she could get hurt. Tayonna isn’t gone, she’s still in the ghost zone and we both have to go back in there to deal with her.” Danny voicing his worries for not only Dani’s feelings but the threat she kept trying to chase made Vlad feel like a drained parent. He always thought of Danny as a distant son, more so now than before. So when he made Danielle and then rekindled a relationship with her he really did feel like a single father. The last thing he wanted at the moment was to cause another rift in their relationship. Having a happy Dani around the house made Vlad feel way less lonely.

“I know and that’s why I’ll ask her to aid me in planning the company banquet for Wednesday.” Vlad finished his drink and placed it in the dishwasher before snapping his fingers to turn it on.

“You’re seriously having a banquet while we’re in the middle of this?” Danny's expression quickly dropped and Vlad shooed him away.

“Correction, this is happening while I was planning the banquet. Ghosts seem to have no consideration for my very busy life. But the show must go on.” Danny could only facepalm as he listened to Vlad.

“You are such a fruitloop, ya know.”

“Yes, yes, I’m well aware.” Vlad chuckled and walked out of the kitchen. Danny was about to follow him until he stepped out and nearly slipped. He looked down and saw that where Vlad once stood was now a puddle of water with a few smaller puddles heading the way Vlad did. Danny’s first thought was danger and panic but the beeping sound of the dishwasher snapped him out of it. Besides, if she would have gotten in, not only would Vlad’s ghost security alert him, but his own ghost sense would have told him. Danny hadn’t felt any weird energy nor had his senses go off the whole time he was here. Danny calmed down and told himself it was just a leak in the dishwasher he would have to tell Vlad about.

#📖Ghost Stories👻#vlad masters #Danny Phantom #My writing #self ship community #I have no idea where this is going but its going chuga chuga choo choo #dp fanfic

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strangergrove · 4 years

Text

× VOL 001 × 04.19.2020 ×

TUMBLR | @bambixxblue AO3 | moonlight_xx

× these hearts adore (every other beat, the other one beats for) ×

WORD COUNT: 10,569

CHAPTERS: 2/?

My Tumblr prompt fics all in one place. Some pining, some angst, but usually always a damn happy ending.

1. peach, curve of an ear, coffee grounds, veined hands, thunder

2. ways to say 'i love you' - 'i brought you an umbrella.'

The writing in this is so exquisite. It feels like cracking open a favourite book on a rainy Sunday morning, when the rest of the world is still asleep. It's comforting and poetic and incredibly heartwarming.

The first chapter takes us along on a sweet little vacation to California, a last hurrah of sorts, before the kids head off to college. It's sweet and peach-soaked and you can feel the ocean breeze against your skin with every passing word. It's the exact brand of happiness our boys deserve.

The second part is an achingly beautiful redemption for Billy. He learns how to let his wounds heal, learns how to let others in, learns how to trust and love. His initial interactions when he meets Steve are so precious and it shows how complex of a person he is, the softness beneath his concrete shell. I will devour any update to this amazing collection.

× the light of day shows me how ×

WORD COUNT: 39,173

CHAPTERS: 7/7

And from Robin, a single picture: the official cast list.

ROMEO MONTAGUE...BILLY HARGROVE

JULIET “JULIAN” CAPULET...STEVE HARRINGTON

Ah, fuck.

(or, Steve and Billy are in ballet school. They're cast in LGBT+ Romeo and Juliet. Featuring mutual pining, angst to fluff, and an Ancient Slavic demon cult. It gets weird.)

This is such a fun read. The spattering of background into the story really carves out the characters so well, choreographing the story in such a way that you fall into their lives without realizing it. You sit down to watch Steve practice his role for Julian and suddenly find yourself wondering if that small stutter you just saw has anything to do with any number of little details you know of his past. You see Billy storm across the studio floor and know that he’s trying to bury something that keeps resurfacing, but he refuses to let anyone help him.

It’s wonderful watching the way the boys play off of each other, pushing one another to better themselves in both their dance and their personal lives. Watching Steve fumble with his newfound and confusing feelings is sweet, hopeful, just waiting, waiting for it to tip over the edge, for the boys to fall into the space they’ve always belong: by each other’s side.

I’ve never done ballet, only watched it here and there in movies and shows, but I fell in love with this story, the way their dances are described, their movements. So if you’ve never been that into ballet, don’t let that deter you from reading this story. It’s so much more than just ballet.

× friends should sleep in other beds ×

WORD COUNT: 13,517

CHAPTERS: 2/2

It isn’t easy being in love with your best friend.

It especially isn’t easy being in love with your best friend if he’s the practical-Godfather of your university.

(or, 'I won't let anyone hurt you; you're safe with me' prompt fill where Steve thinks his love is one-sided but it absolutely isn't. Feat. loving girlfriends and Hawaiian vacations.)

This story is beyond achingly stunning. It’s all whirlwinds and longing and the white-knuckle deathgrip of trying to hold onto something you’re convinced is going to slip away. The deep, binding relationship between Billy and Steve is beautiful and heartbreaking and hopeful at the same time. Both characters have obvious trenches of emotional trauma they’ve had to trudge through to get where they are, trenches they’re still slowly crawling their ways out of.

The words are so wonderfully crafted that I felt the sway and break of Steve’s emotions at the same time he did. I felt the longing, the sorrow, the sputtering flame of hope that just refuses to gutter and die. I want to say I wanted more of this story, but I don’t know if my heart could have handled it. No, it was the perfect length, detailing the long harrowing journey of love and friendship, of finding family that doesn’t come from blood, of holding desperately onto things that are worth the bruises they leave on your fingers.

TUMBLR | @cameorabbit AO3 | CaffeinatedBunny

× Life Is Sweet ×

WORD COUNT: 8,676

CHAPTERS: 4/4

Snapshots of domestic bliss, between loving boyfriends.

(This story will be marked as complete but I will be adding chapters as the muses come to me or when I need a break from some of my larger wip)

This wonderful little collection offers us a sweet insight into the boys' relationship. We get small glimpses into the boys' pasts that add layers to the stories. We get to see little snippets of Steve's relationship with his mother and grandmother. We get to see Billy's insecurities.

Each story has it’s own little theme, if you will, from baking Christmas cookies to battling insecurities in their relationship. Each story gives us a little more, brings us a little deeper into these boys’ lives, adds that next layer to them that has you coming back to see how they’ve developed. I'm looking forward to any future additions to this collection.

× When I run out of road (You bring me Home) ×

WORD COUNT: 5,316

CHAPTERS: 1/1

The road back to Hawkins Indiana is long and tedious with neither of them really wanting to reach their destination; so to distract them both Billy has a plan to make it as pleasurable for both of them as he can.

Uffda. This was a fun read. Now, before I dive into the review, just a heads up: this is a PWP with dom/sub. And apologies in advance for my inability to be eloquent about smut.

The dynamic between the two was a joy to read. Steve's mannerisms as a baby and the way Billy handles him as his Daddy was fantastic. It's not heavy dom/sub here, but you can tell they've had this relationship for a while. They're both comfortable in their roles and both know exactly what they're doing, and how to get a rise out of each other. But between the power play and the drops of backstory, there's actually some beautiful writing here, too. There were a few lines that I found myself rereading just because they sounded beautiful.

Also, I just have to say... The way Billy handles his own cock... Why do I love that so much? Just little things, too, like tapping it against the steering wheel while he's teasing Steve.

× I'll Keep you Mine ×

WORD COUNT: 3,926

CHAPTERS: 1/1

Billy's forged a kingdom and took an empty throne, and he'll burn anyone and anything that tries to take it from him.

(My Dudes this whole story is pretty much the Grumpy Possessive one claims the Sunshine One - Literally. And I ain't even mad.)

Here we get a gorgeously written tale that spins the events of the Upside Down in a different light. I don't want to spoil what that is, as it's not explicitly stated in the summary or tags, so you'll have to read to find out! This idea could easily be fleshed out into a much longer piece, but there's also something about just getting a small taste of an idea that is very enjoyable.

There is this persistent sense of danger beneath all the beautiful imagery. It's in the pacing of the story, in the way Billy needs to claim Steve. We get enough of a taste of this otherness to want more, to want to see exactly how everything unfolds.

TUMBLR | @wickedlydevious AO3 | wickedlydevious

× Weak Hands, Weak Lungs, Strong Heart ×

SERIES: Strong Heart

WORD COUNT: 2,771

CHAPTERS: 1/1

After the events at Starcourt Mall, Billy is recovering in the hospital and bored out of his mind. The only bright spots are when Max comes to visit.

And then Steve Harrington starts visiting too and that's even better.

There is a very beautiful light and warmth throughout this story. Billy's character feels so accurate, and the way he deals with being in the hospital and everything that entails is exquisitely portrayed here. What Billy has to deal with in the wake of the Mind Flayer grates against his entire personality, but it forces him to step outside of his comfort zone, outside of himself, and relearn how to interact with people, namely Steve.

The thing I loved most about this story is that we get to see these different facets of Billy, facets that maybe even he didn't really know were there, ones he never allowed himself to show because of his father. Still recovering, still being dependent on other people forces these different aspects of him into the world, and it's beautiful. It creates this very special sort of relationship between Billy and Steve that is just so pure and heart warming. I'll definitely be coming back to this when I need a spark of joy.

× Weak Backbone, Strong Convictions ×

SERIES: Strong Heart

WORD COUNT: 3,212

CHAPTERS: 1/1

After the events at Starcourt Mall, Steve starts bringing Max to visit Billy at the hospital.

And then Steve starts visiting on his own.

The sweetness continues with the second part of the Strong Heart series. The events of the first part are retold, but this time through Steve's POV. I've always loved the idea of telling the same events from different perspectives and this did not disappoint. The events may be the same, but you feel them differently than when they were told through Billy's perspective. Though the tone of the previous installation is ultimately uplifting, it's clear Billy is struggling. This part, however, is overflowing with hope, which only adds to the already beautiful feeling of the last piece. Don't think that because you already know the events that will take place because you read the last part that you shouldn't read this one. It's beautiful and moving and there are moments added that would be a shame to miss out on. I really hope this series continues, because it is wonderfully uplifting, but it stands strong all the same, just as it is.

× T(h)ree Mistakes ×

WORD COUNT: 4,559

CHAPTERS: 1/1

It’s their first Christmas in their own apartment and Steve reluctantly tasks Billy with getting the tree.

Mistakes are made.

This is a great read for the holidays. Billy's tree-getting adventures brought back so many memories of going to the tree farm down the road from our house as a kid and making a day of trying to find a tree that didn't look like trash and wouldn't break the bank. The feel of the story is cozy and sweet, like a warm and sleepy holiday morning. The kids, now teens, make a short but fun appearance that really makes this story feel like it's about found family.

This story is like coming home, rounding up all of your best friends you haven’t seen in ages, and making a night of the holidays. It’s sipping eggnog, the lights turned down low, and listening to the sweet croon of gentle music somewhere in the house. This story is comfort and happiness and love. Now I want some hot apple cider...

QUESTIONS? VISIT THE FAQ

FIND ALL VOLUMES HERE

#Harringrove #Harringrove fic #fic rec #creator spotlight #billy hargrove #steve harrington #billy x steve #steve x billy #Creator appreciation

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elsannabackwardsposts · 4 years

Note

I CANNOT believe I’m late for this but uhm!!! When they were training in the Southern Isles, I’m curious about what Elsa’s reaction was to Anna calling her “Elska” 😔😔

Hey Anon! I really needed a writing prompt break, and so I’m gonna do you one better than just answering this question.

I’ve written a 1,600 word BONUS FEATURE:

Elsa’s POV Chap. 20, final scene reaction. :)

Elsa Winters had always been a woman who put her all into everything she did, always given that additional responsibility with a pre-determined future’s demand hanging overhead. And her extra effort had to be there, with the looming role she was destined to one day inherit. It was ever present. Forever present, actually, if she even tried to recall to her earliest memories.

Her parents had pressed her studies, from as far back as she could remember. Academics first; completely limited in her extra circular activities all through her formative years. Homework, tutors, studying. Had she been of the age before discovering crew, she sometimes wondered if her parents would have put her through the traditional training to become a Debutante (but thank goodness that never happened). Instead, home life trained her in manners, poise, and professional behavior; preparedness that would one day propel her forward into the world with so much greatness and respect.

Despite all of that, there had been one thing, one little joy she had found and held close to heart in those young years; way before crew was destined to find its own home in her heart.

Her language studies.

She had already loved reading, losing herself in the many stories she could come across, but to explore meaning in foreign tongue was an adventure all on her own. Of course English had been the initial language to learn, taking priority in her elementary school scholastics. She enjoyed it and, with a natural born intelligence, easily excelled at every corner from the moment she memorized the alphabet.

But what may have been most amazing was that it was not just an activity that she herself loved, but a skillset that her parents actually commended. With how she picked up her second language so early on was the very first time she could ever recall feeling that semblance of pride coming from them.

Being able to converse with foreign clients with elegance in her prose and something close to native fluency would elevate her appearance by speech alone. The comprehension of detailed linguistic patterns, semantics, intonation, would also be an equal asset to dissuade any underhanded manipulation of a company trying to skirt past the reliance of an interpreter. And so, outside of school’s required language modes, she was asked to learn their neighboring country’s native tongues: some basics in Finnish for a non-Germanic input, as well as Danish and Swedish to expand on her own Nordic based language knowledge.

It was easy. Enough of the words in Danish were the same, even if pronunciation varied, while Swedish sounded so similar, but new word selection was more demanding; Finnish, she barely got a chance to begin, but internally (and never admittedly so) she was thankful that she could at least recall the bare minimum word for ‘summer’ over a decade later.

But it was just as she passed the precipice entering her teenage years that she recalled a wave of tension befalling the Winters household; her father’s ever astute, ever composed, attitude shifting greatly. The surrounding air feeling frigid for days, perhaps weeks, only heated by loud outbursts coming from her family’s study, painfully warming her ears if she opened her door a mere crack.

One day, her mother had finally enlightened her about a fallout deal that had occurred, causing a massive blow to company funds. Just as Elsa had been warned all of these years, a slip of interpretation between two national languages, Nordic to Slavic, had been a hit to her father; both fiscally, and in pride. It was that same evening that her mother told her that she would turn her studies away from the delicate intonation shifts of Finnish speech and onto the heavier, precision based consonant production of the language having felled her father’s plans.

Polish, it was. It was trickier, dependence on a new alphabet development, those dastardly consonants, a trial all its own. However, it was here, in the challenge, which Elsa began to see variants in terms. So many more words, varying descriptions of her thoughts being colored by arbitrary linguistic creations she’d never even considered, imagined. Not just one adjective, but four! It was a spark that she had found, realization hitting her like a ray of light, opening her eyes to something even more magical.

Emotions weren’t a thing she was allowed to express. A lady was polite and demur, but a business woman was stoic and firm. It was well ingrained, both in her mind and automatic mannerisms, that she was responsible to be both.

Yet having these many languages at her hand, on the tip of her tongue, categorized in her brain, associations were built, reaching to each and every aspect of her life.. including the untouched, unexplored confines of her emotions.

Of what her emotions were, or rather, could be.

In the privacy of her room, she would talk out loud, speaking to her few stuffed animals, listening to her echoes bouncing from the tall wallpapered walls, responding to her linguistic tapes in a one sided conversation flow. But it was an outlet. She could be as energetic, upset, angry, and colorfully descriptive as she wanted without concern for retaliation. She could describe her emotions, give them meaning through multiple words, infinite sound concoctions, and finally allow herself to learn what these unfamiliar feelings were, all thanks to the connection of something as unthought-of about as everyday language.

Polish stuck to her in particular. Maybe it was because of the extra effort she had to put in to learning it, or maybe it was the sense of responsibility to avenge her family’s name from a financial embarrassment.

Or maybe it was because, of all the languages she had been told to learn, Polish was the only one that her parents did not speak. Something she could call her own. Something she was free to use around the house, to express each and every thought she felt without fear for being told to stop; to actually be encouraged to say her mind all under the guise of ‘practice’.

It was during this period that she came to try out familial names, allowing herself the little pleasure to actually address her parents by terms of endearment that had been bred out of her vocabulary before she could remember; mamusia and tatuś. Stark contrasts from the formal ‘mother’ and ‘sir’ she was required to use at any other time in daily discussions. And without any close friends to practice on, she found a longing for use of such endearing names, but when put into real life social situations, joining crew and meeting Flynn, her sharing of these private language abilities was already farther away from socially acceptable than her own social ineptitude.

A longing to express closeness, forever tucked into the depths of her heart, stored within a language she held for family pride and family love; never expecting to find someone who both was allowed a chance into her heart while simultaneously drawing her mind to even think in the second language.

And yet, then she came to know the graceful grace of summer; Anna Grace Suvi.

It was a moment, so organic, filled with ease and contentedness, with friendly familiarity, and enjoying a favored topic, the most random language; a moment that she never foresaw an opportunity to share with anyone in her life. And it just.. happened. For the first time, not spoken to an audio tape conversation partner, not given to her favorite childhood toy, but given to an actual person. An actual friend. A friend she’d let deeper into this hidden part of her heart’s emotions than she realized.

“Anka.”

The embarrassment had been hot and flustering, at least after she recognized the error. More embarrassing was that she would never have even realized her slip had Anna not called her on it. Oh how natural had she felt around this girl.. but for how long?

Elsa had been quick to catch herself, spinning a tale, administering tricks that she was trained for, using supporting facts to hide misleading information in a genius guise. When Anna moved on, she silently vowed to never let that verbal slip up happen again, and she prayed that Anna would forget the entire incident by the time they reached that class lessen. A new semester should definitely put enough distance to erase such a stupid memory.

After consciously and successfully pushing that event aside, so many new worries now taxing her mind’s reserves, the brilliant blonde had certainly not expected to be wrong.

Unfortunately, that wouldn’t be the case.

Standing beneath the searing hot sun of the Southern Isles, sunblock painted cheeks red and burning from a reason farthest from sunburn, Elsa was left in an absolute stupor. Blue eyes watched the body of her Freshman Double’s partner running away with a merry pep in her step, but all the older girl could do was attempt to process the repeating term bouncing around in her skull.

“Elska.”

The knowledge that Anna had not just remembered the silly slip of tongue (and also had managed to piece the meaning together despite likely sleeping through most of her studies) should have been enough reason for why the Senior turned away, bracing herself against the hull of the prepared Double; tightly gripped fingers trembling along the carbon fiber, navy orbs wide eyed and blinking rapidly, each breath exhaled with a shudder. And she wished, really really wished, to the highest heavens, that that information was reason enough.

But as her heart pounded, she couldn’t mistake the initial trip; the flutter of delighted surprise, a zing shooting through her chest, and the wave of momentary elation. Finally, not just having discovered a person to express her yearning unspoken feelings of closeness to, but a person, for the first time in ever, to actually return the very same sentiment in a personally cherished language she shared with no one outside the privacy of her heart.

#elsanna #elsanna fanfiction #backwards elsanna #BONUS FEATURE #ask #Nothing is a spoiler #everything is either already known or wasn't a major thing to be addressed in the main plot anyway so enjoy! 😁

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slavicafire · 5 years

Note

Heya, I'm wondering if you had any ideas for "slavic" tattoos? I wanted kolovrat for a while but apparently it's somehow linked to the svastika and I don't want to people come after me. Also a lot of "traditional croatian tattoos" are often on women used as a purpose to prevent the kidnapping of young (Christian) women and their conversion to Islam. It sucks that so much of our tradition has been lost to christianity. :/

well, Kolovrat is not somehow linked to a swastika - it is a swastika.

plethora of old Slavic symbols are variations of a swastika: it used to be a beloved and cherished magical and protective symbol, a sign of luck, a gift to the gods.

of course, caution is absolutely necessary when dealing with them, and if you are not knowledgeable enough about the symbolism and modern context, especially nazi and nationalistic sentiments, I would wholeheartedly recommend to leave it alone. it is a difficult and unpleasant fight and not one that everyone should burden themselves with. after all, the last thing we want is being taken for nazis or giving any power to them.

Kolovrat, which is one of the favourite symbols among nazi-rodnovery scum, is not the best idea for a tattoo. one can wear it - at least in my honest opinion - but I would not recommend inking it into the skin.

however, it is important to remember that most old slavic symbols are based on a swastika, or are variations thereof: spirals, crosses, divided circles. we should not be afraid of them - although as I mentioned before, maybe not the best idea for something as permanent as a tattoo.

your best bet is: archeological finds, folk ornaments, symbols tied to the very region you are from. symbols used by people in art and in religious practice.

(I do not know nearly enough about the traditional Croatian tattoos you mention nor their history, so I cannot comment on that, my apologies)

reach to archeological research and reach to folk art and craft.

you can see here, example of potter marks from early medieval Poland:

(by the way, I wholeheartedly recommend this book: The Archaeology of Early Medieval Poland; Discoveries—Hypotheses—Interpretations by Andrzej Buko. it is in English and available online. if you can’t find it, let me know and I’ll send you a link or a PDF)

it is just a simple and honest trust that most of our slavic symbols are based on crosses, dots, spirals, circles, stars.

my second tattoo, for example, includes a rosette - also called gwiazda, rozeta podhalańska - an old symbol appearing throughout Poland, but especially the Podhale region. I adore this symbol immensely.

if you would like to learn more about our Rozeta and see more examples, here you can find the most incredible article by Lamus Dworski.

I insist you all do.

and last, but not least: I have mentioned folk art and craft.

and that can be the most valuable source of inspiration, not only when it comes to rozetas carved into wood, but also... EMBROIDERY. one of the most beautiful and meaningful branches of art and craft here, and one deeply favoured by yours truly.

every Slavic - and Baltic - region has its embroidery, its floral motifs, its protective and ornamental patterns. search for those, best based on the region you love most, and you will find wonderful inspiration.

a quick google will give you many examples, and some more serious research will give you the most wonderful patterns, ideas, and resources. such ties to our past, too, and our foremothers!

folk costumes, everyday clothes, tablecloths, blankets, napkins, ręczniki, you name it.

(Hafty Ludowe by Seweryn Udziela, I recommend it, so many beautiful examples, also can be found online)

inspiration is everywhere, and so many of our symbols and motifs have such old, old roots.

research, read, go to open air museums and ethnographic exhibitions. you'll find so so much!

I do really hope you'll find something worth inking into your skin, and you will wear it with pride and happiness.

#Anonymous

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qqueenofhades · 5 years

Note

Ahem. As discussed, a prompt my good lady...Lucy and Flynn + fake married in Dubrovnik + the inevitable shenanigans...

Okay SO. On the plane over, there was something in the magazine about a website where tourists can go to Amsterdam and fake-marry a local for a day, so their new “spouse” can take them around the non-tourist parts of the city, and then they go their separate ways at dusk and it’s fun etc. I immediately decided that this needed a Garcy AU, for obvious reasons.

Lucy Preston wasn’t really planning on going to Croatia. In fact, she wasn’t exactly planning to go anywhere. But it’s been a rough few months to say the least – tenure meeting cancelled at Stanford, breaking up with Noah, Mom has to go back to the hospital for more tests and it isn’t looking good – and in a fit of late-night frustration, she decided to just fly somewhere over Thanksgiving break and forget about the clusterfuck that was her life for a bit. Somewhere warm, she wasn’t picky. She suggested that Amy go with her, but Amy had work and couldn’t get away, and by then, Lucy had already booked a ticket. She’s heard that Dubrovnik is beautiful, there is a university and a state archive there so she can theoretically disguise it as a research trip, and when she was running through the apparently deeply cursed Frankfurt airport to catch her connecting flight, a text popped up from Amy. Something that she thinks Lucy should try, just for shits and giggles. Some kind of app called Untourist.

Lucy took a look at it and decided that it was basically Tinder for tourists, even if the premise tried to be more classy than that. In short, you can pick a European city from the list (More Locations Coming Soon!, promises the popup), fill in some brief preference Q&As, and be matched with a local, who will fake-marry you in a ceremony complete with photos and then take you on a “honeymoon” for a day in the city. The idea is that you get to have a personal guide, explore places off the main drag – and presumably, if you hook up at the end, that’s a nice bonus, but not one that the app strictly advertises. It sees itself as promoting intercultural connections and lived experiences, rather than anything so ignominious as arranging casual sex with a hot foreigner. Apparently it got its start in Amsterdam, though, so this would not be surprising.

The split with Noah is still raw, and Lucy isn’t planning to use the app for that purpose – or indeed, at all. But after she has landed at the surprisingly tiny airport and has boarded the bus for the drive along the coast road to the city, she downloads it on a whim that she shouldn’t think through and decides it might be fun to have someone to travel with, even briefly. After she’s signed up, created a profile, and filled in her details, she is given two options to match with, and ends up going for the latter: Garcia from Dubrovnik. She thought about Marko from Zagreb, but his profile says that he’s a Dinamo Ultra, and she decided that she didn’t want to spend the day getting a crash course in the finer points of Croatian football hooliganism. Garcia it is, apparently.

Dubrovnik is insanely beautiful, with crystalline turquoise water lapping at towering medieval city walls (souvenir shops every few streets will proudly remind you that they filmed Game of Thrones here), palm trees, red-tiled roofs, old golden-stone buildings, winding side alleys, and sunlight that pours down as rich as olive oil. Since it’s November, it’s not quite as hot as in high summer, and the tourist rush is somewhat dimmed. Lucy sleeps late at her Airbnb high on a very steep side street, as the city is spread out over several hills on the side of the tall blue mountains that rise out of the water, and almost forgets that her fake wedding is today. She jumps out of bed, puts on some makeup (just because she’s not actually marrying the guy doesn’t mean she has to look completely trollish), grabs her bag, and heads down into town, following a winding alley of staircases that are probably going to be a pain to climb back up. She hopes this was a good idea. It was mostly to appease Amy, anyway. Can she cancel, or would that count as leaving Garcia at the (fake) altar?

What the hell, she’s here now, and maybe if she shows that she’s receptive to new experiences, the universe will give her a break. Lucy trots along the palm-treed square above the city walls, finds the door with the Untourist logo by the bell, and steps inside. “Dobro jutro,” she says, which is about all the Croatian she speaks, and most people have been happy to use English anyway. “I’m Lucy Preston, I have an appointment today?”

The slick Unreceptionist greets her, gives her a waiver to sign (bad experiences and/or unsatisfactory spouses are not their fault, any meeting beyond the day is done on personal terms, etc) and they await the arrival of her dashing groom-to-be. It is twelve minutes past their scheduled start time, and the Unreceptionist is making apologetic noises, when the door opens with a bit of a crash and a man who must be Garcia ducks in. He’s tall, dark, and craggy-handsome, probably in his forties, wearing aviator sunglasses, and clutching a takeaway coffee. He addresses the Unreceptionist in rapid Croatian, looks up, sees Lucy, and nods shortly. “Ah,” he says, switching to English. “Right, you’re here. Let’s go.”

“Sir,” the Unreceptionist says, looking as if he’s wondering if Garcia himself read the details and/or the release forms before signing up. “You’re supposed to…?”

“What?”

“You’re supposed to have the wedding ceremony first?”

“I’m supposed to have the what?”

At that, Lucy winces. Feeling as if this might be an opportune moment to interrupt the conversation, and wondering if it’s too late to switch to Marko from Zagreb and risk dying at an Eternal Derby game, she stands up. “Hi,” she says. “I’m Lucy Preston?”

“I know.” Garcia glances at her briefly, up and down, and then away. “What’s this about a wedding?”

“That’s the whole point of the app,” Lucy says pointedly. “Fake-married, take me to places that aren’t touristy, then at the end of the day, go our separate ways?”

Garcia looks briefly pole-axed, then seems to decide that right, well, this is on him for failing to read the terms and conditions. “Fine,” he says impatiently. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

Lucy’s cheeks sting. Making a mental note to give him a zero of five stars on any feedback form that she might have to fill in to rate her experience today, she follows him into the back, where they are joined in a very non-legally-binding ceremony, have their photo taken (Garcia looks like this is a real funeral rather than a fake wedding) and finally are released into the wild, as Garcia (who is a good foot taller than her) strides ahead without waiting. When Lucy runs to catch up, he says, “Nobody told me there was a wedding involved.”

“Did you even read what they wanted?” Lucy’s tone is slightly waspish, but then, he isn’t exactly showering her in that supposedly famous Slavic hospitality. The sweet lady at the Airbnb was much nicer than this. “It was right there in the entire premise. If you don’t want to spend a day taking me around the city, fine, but maybe next time, try to actually – ”

“No,” Garcia says abruptly. “You’re here now. Let’s go.”

With that, he strides off toward the gate in the towering walls, down into the Stari Grad. Lucy thinks the view from up there must be spectacular, but she’s not actually going to get a chance to find out, because Garcia derides them as too touristy and refuses to pay 200 kuna to go up them. (This is something like $30, so it clearly is a lot, but the city sees no reason not to profit off all the Game of Thrones fans.) Nor does he think much of the main drag, the cathedral square, the rector’s palace, or any of the other usual sights. He says that Lucy can call him Flynn, but doesn’t explain why. She thinks it’s his last name, but honestly, she can’t be sure. He has the social skills of a broken-down dump truck.

Finally, since there isn’t much of Dubrovnik, at least the old town, that isn’t touristy, Lucy persuades Flynn to let them go up the walls, though by the face he makes at the cashier as he pays for their tickets, the poor man might be found floating face-down in the ocean later. They climb up to the winding ramparts, gazing out over the Adriatic to one side and the crowded, tiled roofs on the other, and on one steep section, Lucy loses her footing and nearly falls. She wouldn’t have gone over the edge, there are plenty of barriers, but Flynn flashes out a hand and steadies her. It’s the first remotely human or non-dickish thing he’s done, and she raises an eyebrow. “Thanks.”

Perhaps sensing by her acerbic tone that he has not been the world’s most satisfactory fake husband to date, Flynn has the grace to blush, or at least look somewhat chagrined. “I’d definitely get in trouble if you died.”

“Thanks,” Lucy says again, even more tartly. “Guess it’s a good thing for you that you have good reflexes?”

“I fought in the Homeland War.” Flynn glances away. It’s the first personal thing he’s shared about himself, in a casual, offhand way that makes it sound no more remarkable than getting milk from the store. “Come on, let’s keep moving.”

Lucy glances at him. He’s made it clear that he’s not here for the fake marriage, let alone small talk, but she paid a decent amount of money to be here with this tall idiot and he can just suffer it. “Are you from Dubrovnik?”

“I was born in Šibenik.” Flynn doesn’t break stride, obliging Lucy to trot to keep up with him. “Lived a few places around the country. It was Yugoslavia back then, though. War started in 1991.”

“I know,” Lucy says. “I mean, I’m a historian, so I was recently doing some work on 1989 and the U.S. response to the dissolution of the Iron Curtain. Technically, Yugoslavia wasn’t Soviet, right?”

“No,” Flynn says, with a sort of grim pride. “Tito and Stalin hated each other. It was…. sort of an in-between place, I suppose. We didn’t need exit visas, there was a certain amount of social freedom, and Tito liked to market it as neutral, a third country between East and West, combining the best of both and the worst of neither. Of course, he was a dictator, but supposedly a benevolent one. Most people liked him. My childhood was – ” He stops. “Well, my mother was American, anyway. Maybe that was what drew her here. Running away.”

Lucy glances up at him. She has a sense that Flynn doesn’t often talk much about his past, and decides that since they are, after all, only fake-married, she doesn’t need to pry. However, since the subject of his mother has arisen, she holds back as best she can, not wanting to dump the fraught subject of Carol Preston on a strange man who has only just met her and treated her one step above gum stuck to his shoe, but finally needs to talk about it with someone who isn’t Amy. She still isn’t sure Flynn gives a damn, but too bad for him. She mentions that it’s been hard, with the Stanford legacy and the cancer and the expectations that she would accept Noah’s proposal, and she just – well, she doesn’t know. Maybe Lucy understands a bit of Flynn’s mother, whoever she was, whyever she came here. Maybe she too was, or is, running away. Even if she has to fly all the way back to San Francisco at the end of this week, some part of her would be more than happy to fling all her responsibilities to the wind, move into some picturesque old flat in one of those tiny streets, and stay.

They descend the walls after completing their circuit, and Flynn deigns to buy her lunch at a small cafe where the menu is only in Croatian and a sign informs customers that they don’t take euros, only kuna. Lucy allows him to order something for her, and they sit there eating in semi-awkward silence. Then Flynn says, apropos of nothing, “Maria.”

“What?”

“My mother’s name.” He shrugs. “It was Maria Tompkins. She was from Houston. She moved to Yugoslavia in 1970, after the death of her first husband and son. She was traveling through Europe, I don’t know that she intended to stay here, but she met my father, so she did.”

“Oh.” Lucy wonders what it would have been like here in the seventies. Probably still beautiful, though much less developed. So Maria Tompkins fell in love, that was what made a young American woman go Red, a move that must have been regarded dimly by her friends and family back in Texas. With that sort of tragedy shadowing her past, maybe it was easier to cut all ties, to get a new passport, to learn a new language, and never look back. Lucy feels a sudden pang of sympathy with this other woman, this unknown fellow traveler, who too found herself in this corner of the world wanting to leave it all behind. Lucy has responsibilities at home, not least her job (even if they didn’t give her tenure, or at least it’s very much in academic bureaucracy limbo), her sister, her sick mother, all the encumbrances and trappings of real life. She can’t do what Maria did, no matter how much she wants to. And for some reason completely unknown to her – it certainly isn’t the pleasure of Flynn’s company – she does.

They finish lunch and head out. It’s warm enough for November that Flynn suggests they can go for a dip, though he gives her a no-clearly-not look when Lucy naively thinks this will be at Banje Beach, the main spot just south of the walls. He leads her up to the street, where they find his car and get in. It’s an Audi, and she wonders what exactly he does for a living. He has a habit of scanning their surroudings, casually flicking his gaze at passersby, in a way that she doesn’t think stems from his military service alone. In fact, she’s starting to wonder if he joined the Untourist app to case the city and/or scope out people without it being too suspicious. Maybe it’s better for everyone if she doesn’t ask about his job. He might have to suffocate her and bundle her up in a black plastic garbage bag in the boot.

Flynn, it transpires, drives like a bit of a maniac, a habit he shares with most of the other road users (especially the scooters and motorcycles). Lucy has already noticed that Croatians seem to have a rather laissez-faire attitude toward personal safety, as evidenced by their tendency to stand outside guardrails overlooking steep drops, walk the wrong way along busy highways, dart across roads in front of oncoming traffic, and jury-rig anything that isn’t actively falling apart. When she mentions this to Flynn, he shrugs. “Slavs are like that,” he says matter-of-factly. “Especially Croatians. Though if you think we’re bad, you should meet the Poles.”

Lucy laughs despite herself, since that’s the first time Flynn has loosened up to flash any bit of actual humor. Well, that’s not quite true; he is remarkably sassy, has a sarcastic comment for most occasions and especially anything involving a tourist making a fool of themselves, but this is the first time that his humor has seemed gentler, more like he’s actually enjoying himself and poking a bit of self-deprecating fun rather than lashing out at the world. They drive along the cliff road for several miles in silence, until Lucy asks, “When did you move to Dubrovnik?”

“About…” Flynn hesitates, and she senses that there’s more riding on the answer to that question than he wants to let on. “Well, I lived in Zagreb until 2014.”

“And you moved here after that?”

“More or less.” Flynn adjusts the rearview mirror, which doesn’t really need it. After a long pause he says, “My wife and daughter died in 2014. I came here for – well, I didn’t want to stay there anymore.”

“I’m….” Lucy feels taken aback, almost guilty that she’s been so derisive of his inability to read app terms and conditions, his clear aversion to the whole fake-married part. Not that they’ve really been acting like it, anyway, but still. She can imagine it wouldn’t be easy for her, if that ever happened, to stand up and play-act some stupid charade for an American tourist hiring you like a beast of burden, not when you’d had the real thing, not when it was gone. “Garcia,” she says, the first time she’s used that since he told her to call him Flynn. She has a sense that he prefers that, that Garcia is some place too personal where he doesn’t let people go, not any longer. “I’m sorry.”

He glances at her, and for a moment she thinks he’ll snap at her, but he doesn’t. He keeps his eyes on the road, navigating the tight turns with ease, until at last he says, “I’m sorry I haven’t been very much fun.”

Lucy opens her mouth by polite reflex to say that he has, and settles for a noncommital hum. Flynn seems to sense that while he might have worked his way up from zero stars, he’s still a way off from five, and parks the Audi in a pullout. They descend a narrow cliff path to the sea, he reaches out to catch her arm when her feet skid again on the pebbles, and Lucy decides she should probably warn him that she’s clumsy before she really does accidentally kill herself. But if she fell into the sea from here, she has an unaccountable sense that he’d dive in after her, no matter how odd and brusque and grumpy he is. It’s less clear whether this is because he’s starting to like her a little, or because it would be an insult to his professional competence. Maybe he’s in the Mafia.

They reach a small quay where a catamaran is tied up, Flynn strides to it and produces two life jackets, and once Lucy has climbed aboard, he swings on, undoes the ropes, and angles the sails out into the wide blue water, endless as a reflected sky. It must be a busy harbor in summer, and there’s still a decent boat traffic now: ferries, jet-skis, a few sailboats and pleasure yachts. Lucy holds on tight as Flynn carves an expert white wake. “Is this your boat, then?”

“No,” Flynn says. “But I borrow it from time to time.”

“Did you – ” Lucy gives him a very narrow stare. “Did you steal this boat?”

“No!” Flynn looks miffed that she would ask. “I know the owner, he lets me use it when I want to. What kind of man do you think I am?”

Lucy opens her mouth, starts to answer, and stops. Truth is, she isn’t sure. An hour ago she would have said a raging, self-absorbed dick with no social skills and possibly black-market employment, and parts of that are still true, but the rest, well… she can’t say exactly. He keeps letting slip these odd, vulnerable parts of him, almost in spite of himself. His past in the war, his mother running away from her old life, his dead wife and daughter, everything else. She isn’t certain what she thinks of him, exactly, but she isn’t wishing that she picked Marko from Zagreb anymore. If nothing else, Flynn is complicated, and challenging, and oddly easy to talk to, and he hasn’t told her to shut up about the family/work/life drama that she occasionally returns to venting about. Lucy thinks she’ll take that, at least.

She looks at his hands, large and sun-brown and expertly pulling and tying the knots to trim the sail, as he pulls them to a bobbing halt in the sparkling water and asks if she wants to swim. Lucy didn’t put on her bathing suit under her clothes, but she doesn’t want to go to the bother of making him drive all the way back to the Airbnb. So she strips off her shirt and jeans, and, in just her bra and underpants (hey, they’re married, even fakely), she dives in.

The water is chillier than she expected – this is the southern Mediterranean, it’s never cold no matter the season, but it is November, and she splutters and gasps as she bobs to the surface. Flynn, observing from the high-and-dry comfort of the catamaran, smirks at her, and Lucy gives him the finger. “You dick,” she shouts. “You could have warned me.”

Flynn shrugs, apparently utterly untroubled either by this accusation or by her attitude; indeed, he grins as if he appreciates this feistiness, her willingness to talk back at him and tell it like it is. Lucy spends so much time biting her tongue around absolutely everyone else that this reaction is both unexpected and deeply liberating, and once she’s swum around the catamaran a few times and adjusted to the water temperature, she takes a deep breath and dives down under the pontoons. Then she surfaces on the far side, reaches up, and just as Flynn senses danger and whips around, she grabs him by the back of the shirt and jerks him backward.

He’s wearing a life jacket, of course, so he doesn’t go too far under, but the expression on his face is worth every penny that she paid to the stupid app. He shakes his wet hair like a dog as he surfaces, and she has to say, he looks really good while doing it. “Excuse me,” he says, in a tone of deep umbrage. “Who told you that it was a good idea to start a marriage off by throwing your husband in the drink?”

“Maybe if I’m drowning you for the life insurance,” Lucy shoots back, before she can stop herself. She has no idea who this woman is, who has gone from being exasperated and shut off with Flynn to – well, she did in fact just throw him in the ocean, but there’s definitely something different about their dynamic now. It wouldn’t be a stretch to call it flirty, whether or not this is listed in Untourist’s terms and conditions (and as well established, Flynn did not read them anyway). “After all, I think we can say that you deserve it. Tragic boating accident?”

Too late, she wonders if this is a bad idea to joke about, since she doesn’t actually know how his wife and daughter died (she hopes it wasn’t that, anyway) but Flynn actually laughs, and it transforms his whole face. They spend a very enjoyable forty minutes swimming around, splashing each other, and hanging onto the side of the catamaran and letting their legs sway in the current. They’re close alongside each other as they do, Lucy is conscious of only being in her wet underwear (it’s not like he can see anything while she’s submerged, but still), and something passes between them as their eyes meet. His throat moves as he swallows, and after a moment too long, he looks away.

They climb back on the boat, Flynn looses the sail and steers them back toward land, and they disembark, Lucy once more watching for investigative purposes as he ties up. They dry off and she pulls on her damp clothes, as Flynn decorously turns his back and waits until she is done. Then they tramp up the bluff to the car (Lucy was thinking about retiring here, since it’s warm and sunny and beautiful and all that, but if she is elderly, all the climbing might be too much) and drive back toward the town center. The sun is getting low, her paid-for day is almost done, and despite the total disaster that was it starting out, Lucy is oddly reluctant for it to do so. As Flynn pulls up in front of the Untourist office, she says convulsively, “Maybe we should… I don’t know. I think they’re closed, anyway. You don’t have to drop me off here.”

Flynn glances at her, then considers it. He could offer to just take her back to her Airbnb (those streets really were not designed for sane drivers, and Lucy can see why tiny Smart cars are popular around here, but Flynn would absolutely not fit into one) and he still might. Then he says, “Well, technically, the day isn’t over. Do you suppose I could take you out for dinner?”

“You….” Lucy coughs. “I suppose you could.”

They find parking, and walk down into the old town, as the moon is rising over the walls, the towers are floodlit, the city gleams in the cooling dusk like its nickname, the “Pearl of the Adriatic,” and they find another cafe where the clientele is mostly local. They linger late over dinner, and Flynn says that he will in fact drive her back when they’re finally done, and as she’s about to undo her seatbelt and get out, Lucy hesitates. Then she screws up her courage, leans over, and kisses him very fast on the cheek. “Thank you,” she says. “I had – I really did have a great time.”

Flynn looks as surprised as her to hear it, but somehow and shyly gratifeid as well. A fugitive smile plays at the corner of his mouth, tentative, tender. For a moment, she thinks he might be about to kiss her back for real, but he clears his throat and holds out his hand instead. “Er,” he says. “Thank you, Dr. Preston.”

Lucy hesitates, fighting her disappointment, and shakes it back. Then she steps out of the car and unlocks the door of the apartment, as he waits to see that she gets inside without random Ragusan fiends materializing from the shrubbery. Even when she does step in, the car idles a few more moments, and she glances back, wondering – or perhaps it’s only hoping – that he’s chastising himself for letting her walk away. Then the car starts again, she can see his dark figure sitting too stiff and straight at the wheel, and she watches until the taillights vanish around a steep turn, and fade into the night.

#lucy x flynn #garcy #garcy ff #croatia 2k19 #extasiswings #ask

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villlainarc · 4 years

Text

To Fall in Love

Now and Ever After

Summary: In which Roman moves on, Logan returns to the grotto once more, and they both wish for something impossible.

Pairings: Logince

Warnings: entirely too much angst, and finally the ending of bittersweet unhappiness

Word Count: 1806

A/N: i apologize in advance for any excess pain this chapter may bring.

and, fun fact, the myth in this chapter is entirely made up with zero basis in fact besides the names, which are names of real deities in slavic mythology

More A/N: this is a secret santa gift for @ari-the-anxious-ace and as such, is already completed (and can be found at this very moment on ao3). but so as not to spam you, chapters will be posted every three days.

special thanks to @cringeless for beta reading :)

masterpost || 1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5 || 6

read on ao3 or below the cut

find other stuff i’ve written under #writings from the stars

It has been exactly a month—down to the hour—since Logan left him here. Alone. And not a day goes by that Roman doesn’t miss him. Not a day goes by that he doesn’t return to the grotto, hoping he’ll see him once more.

🌊

Every day for nearly a month, Roman had gone back, full of new hope. And every day for nearly a month, he returned to the ship, full of the same confusion and numb sadness that had been haunting him since he’d last heard Logan’s voice.

Roman had been lethargic, refusing to move from his bed if it wasn’t to swim back to the island, scarcely eating, unable to properly sleep. He hadn’t been able to feel anything but a gaping hole where his heart was supposed to be and the cruelest of hopes. He’d been listless and miserable for the better part of the month before something within him had cracked.

That one crack had let loose an overwhelming rush of feelings, and Roman had finally confronted his emotions. The final shattering of his heart had allowed him to truly feel his sadness for the first time since Logan had left, bringing with it a torrent of tears. He’d cried for hours, broken sobs that no one else would ever hear. He’d grieved for a relationship that had barely begun, for a love that he’d barely gotten to know before he vanished into the night.

Roman’s heart still ached with longing for something he no longer had and its brokenness hurt more than he could possibly describe, but with the pain came a sort of calm. Nothing felt right, but at least now, Roman had accepted that.

With his acceptance came determination—determination to figure out why Logan had left. Because while he had accepted that he may never see Logan again, he would never accept that Logan had broken his heart without reason.

It was then that Roman had remembered the books laid out on his desk and the strange way that Logan had reacted the night before their last song together. He’d set his focus firmly on reading everything he could about dreams in those mythology books for two days, pausing only when he had to. Those were the only two days that he hadn’t gone to the grotto in the past month, and in the late hours of the night, he wondered sometimes if he would have seen Logan one more time had he gone. (He wouldn’t have. He knew that, deep down. Logan wasn’t going to come back.)

Despite that, he read on, ignoring the temptation to stop. The answers would be worth it once he found them.

And they were. Just before Roman was about to give up on the second day, he’d found a story.

Rusalki’s Tale

It was still near the beginning of time when Rusalki was born, the forbidden daughter of Mesyats and Tiarnoglofi. Though she was hidden away from the world as she grew up, quickly, she proved to her parents that she was just as powerful as any fully formed deity. And Rusalki, knowing already that she was special, wanted to see the world and prove to it that she was more than just her parents’ daughter. Refusing to be kept a secret any longer, she left the protection of Mesyats and Tiarnoglofi, subjecting herself to the mortifying ideal of being known.

The people of nearby kingdoms immediately took a liking to her with her sharp wit and silver tongue. She was also a beautiful goddess by all accounts, but that wasn’t what set her apart. No, that was her ambition. She wanted so much more intensely than any other deity, and the mortals saw pieces of their own desires in hers. They gave Rusalki the oceans, and they prayed to her for tranquil seas and realized dreams. In return for their generosity, Rusalki granted the mortals these things.

Even after being gifted the title of Goddess Of The Oceans And Ambitions, fittingly enough, Rusalki still wanted more. This wasn’t a thing fueled by greed; she didn’t want power or influence or recognition, she just wanted for something she couldn’t explain.

The seas sensed Rusalki’s unrest and responded in kind. Though her ambitions weren’t intended for ill, the humans felt her desires and, being naturally greedy creatures, twisted them to fit their own needs. Rusalki’s immense power was growing, feeding on the response of the oceans and mortals alike. She may have been powerful and clever but without control, Rusalki was dangerous.

Other deities saw this in her. Some grew worried, but others grew angry at Mesyats and Tiarnoglofi for defying the laws of nature. These angry deities were the ones who decided that something had to be done before Rusalki single-handedly destroyed the world. They were the ones who took the fabric of her being and tore it apart. Without preamble, these angry deities ripped Rusalki’s ambitions from her.

It wasn’t supposed to be a painful process, but taking a part of someone that is so integral to who they are could never have been done without consequence.

The screams of the sea goddess echoed across the world, mourning the piece of herself that she’d lost. They whipped through the waves of the ocean, forming beings of water and pain.

Rusalki’s cries had formed the sirens. Their songs held just as much promise as she once had, and they entranced all those who could hear them.

Rusalki’s lost ambitions dispersed into mortals everywhere, and she wanted them back. She still does to this day, and she will never be satisfied. This is why sirens are said to feed on the dreams of mortals, hoping to steal back what their creator had once had.

The story officially ended there, but Roman had been just barely able to decipher a hand-written footnote near the bottom of the page.

Perhaps one day, Rusalki will have enough but until then, we pirates would do well to stay wary of songs that tempt us and voices that promise things that we’ll never have.

So it seemed that Logan wasn’t a mermaid after all. It seemed that Logan had left him for a good reason.

To protect him.

🌊

That had been one week ago. Each day after that, Roman had gone back to the grotto, whispering what he’d learned to the memory of Logan, hoping that he’d know one day that he understood. That he still loved him, would always love him.

Then, one month after Logan had said goodbye, Roman moves on too.

He decides to leave. No longer can he stand staying in a place that had once held so much promise for him, not when that promise has been stolen away. So he’s not going to.

He’d thought about singing today, trying one last thing to bring Logan back, but ultimately had decided against it. Roman is content to let the song they’d sung together a month before to be their last. Instead, he speaks.

“Logan,” he starts, taking a breath. “I miss you. I love you, and I understand now why you left. I love you for choosing to protect me, for being the most wonderful man I’ve ever met, for being… you.” He swallows. “I’m here to say goodbye, for real this time. I never got the chance to before, and I think I should. I think it will help.”

Roman sits down at the edge of the pool, closing his eyes briefly before blinking them open and staring out into nothing. “Goodbye, Logan,” he says to the still air of the grotto. “I will never stop missing you, nor will I ever forget you. I refuse to stop loving you either, with your heart of gold and eyes of starlight, a smile like quicksilver and a voice more beautiful than anything I’ve ever known. I’ll love you in all your perfect imperfections, always.”

Roman allows a single tear to overflow from the dozens gathering his eyes and trail down his cheek, falling into the water and leaving only the smallest of ripples behind. “Always,” he whispers again.

“So goodbye, my love. I wish I could—” Roman’s voice goes quiet. Selfishly, he doesn’t want to voice this one hope. Just once, he’d like to keep this for himself. “I wish you more than all the joy you’ve brought me,” he says instead, reeling his true dream back into his heart, protecting it from the world.

He stares into the depths of the pool that had once been Logan’s home, hoping more than he thought possible that his love will be there. That he’ll answer, that he’ll come back.

Roman shakes his head and stands up. He knows it’s impossible for that to happen because after all, Logan’s goodbye had been very final. No matter how much he wishes it weren’t so, Roman knows that his love is gone for good.

But still, he holds onto the wish, the hope, the dream that maybe someday… Maybe someday things could change.

Maybe someday.

🌊

It has been exactly a month—down to the hour—since Logan left Roman. Alone. And not a day goes by that he doesn’t regret it. Not a day goes by that he doesn’t wish he could return to the grotto in the hopes of seeing him once more.

Now, at long last, he has.

And now, after so long spent wishing, he regrets it.

Logan watches helplessly from behind an outcropping of rock on the other side of the grotto as Roman turns around, tears still glittering in his eyes. He wants to reach out, to sing to him, to comfort him. He can’t of course, and he regrets ever allowing himself the temptation.

Logan hadn’t heard what Roman had been saying, but he’s sure it caused him pain. He’d been crying when he’d stopped, after all. If it had been about Logan, about him leaving… then he hopes deep within his heart that one day, Roman will understand why he had to do what he did.

More than that though, he hopes that one day he’ll be able to see the one person he’s ever loved again.

He knows it’s impossible because after all, sirens can’t stop being sirens. No matter how much he wishes he it weren’t so, Logan can’t do anything but hurt Roman.

But still, he holds onto the wish, the hope, the dream that maybe someday… Maybe someday things could change.

Maybe someday.

---

taglist: @thewhiteraven73

#ts sides #roman sanders #logan sanders #logince #sanders sides au #siren au #fantasy au #roman angst #logan angst #sanders sides secret santa 2019 #original myth #unhappy ending #angst #fanfic #song of a siren au #writings from the stars

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doomedandstoned · 4 years

Text

Top 10 Albums Of The 2010′s

~By Calvin Lampert~

I think it is safe to say that underground metal has enjoyed a period of unprecedented growth and popularity in the last 10 years. But when I am saying this I am not only thinking about the heavy underground; those adherents of the Sabbath sound and this whole new wave of doom metal bands. I am thinking of the fact that (underground) metal has undergone a change in image, too.

Though frequently maligned as hipster bands (or metal for people who don't like metal), acts like Deafheaven have brought metal to a whole new audience and raised awareness of the genre as a genuine form of art that does not just exist for its own sake; that metal fans only go for gore, beer and self-referential horn-throwing. Not that Neurosis and Godflesh haven’t been ambassadors of this mindset for more than three decades already, but it feels that the understanding of metal as art seems to have finally broken through to an audience outside of the traditional metal subculture in the past decade.

I think it is in no small part thanks to some of the bands on this list I have assembled (though I may have forgone obvious picks like Alcest and Deafheaven for more personal choices). And in retrospect, it should’ve been a list of bands rather than records, as most of the artists on this list would’ve have had a claim to a spot on here, with any record they put out. Take that as a hurray for consistency. So, without further ado, my picks for the best and most remarkable records of the decade.

10. Akhlys – 'The Dreaming I' (Debemur Morti - 2015)

The Dreaming I by Akhlys

I can’t help but wonder if Naas Alcameth of AKHLYS (also of Nightbringer, Aoratos and Bestia Arcana) set out with the express intent to create what is essentially a nigh perfect atmospheric black metal record when he started working on The Dreaming I. It damn sure feels like, each strum, syllable, and beat sits at the right place; the pieces of this nightmarish puzzle fit with an unsettling ease.

Photograph by by Kuba Leszko

The sound really does justice to the underlying concept of dreams and nightmares, as you’ll rarely find a record with such an impenetrable atmosphere. Once you hit play you’re soon enveloped by countless layers of swirling guitars, all at the command of Naas Alcameth, and he seems hellbent on suffocating you with them. The Dreaming I is about as close as you can get sleep paralysis-made-music. If you put off black metal as spooky noise made by a bunch hooded esoteric nerds you might’ve found your match in Akhlys. They are just that, they’re dead serious, and the results are impressive.

9. Elephant Tree – 'Elephant Tree' (Magnetic Eye Records - 2016)

Elephant Tree by Elephant Tree

I’ve observed myself growing increasingly apart from most stoner rock as of late, sometimes even antagonizing the genre. I’m afraid I’m just burned out on it and grown embittered, so a record from those genres ending up on my Albums of the Decade list should give you a hint of just how special it really is.

That is not to say that there haven’t been some real stoner rock heavy hitters this decade, such as Gozus Revival, Valley of the Suns Sayings of the Seers or Lo-Pans Salvador, but there’s something to ELEPHANT TREE's self-titled record that just so narrowly sets it apart from the others.

Photograph by Phil Smithies

What that is I am still not quite sure, and I had my fair share of relistens. Maybe it is the tasteful balance act of the production that makes this record so wonderfully ethereal but also ridiculously crushing. Or the sleek as all hell songwriting where every hook fires but the flow remains impeccable. Or the gorgeous harmonic interplay of Jack Townley and Pete Hollands vocals. Or maybe really just the sum of it all.

Whatever it is, Elephant Tree get it so very right and it is a true joy to behold such a well-written and fine-tuned record in a genre that has become all too prone to shoddiness and idle Kyuss worship. If there is any justice in the world, Elephant Tree will be looked back as a classic of the genre.

8. Oranssi Pazuzu – 'Värähtelijä' (Svart Records/20 Buck Spin - 2016)

Värähtelijä by Oranssi Pazuzu

So many have tried to do it. Countless chonged out Hendrix worshippers. Australian neo-psych darlings. But they all failed. Turns out the holy grail of psychedelia was dug up by a bunch of dudes in the frozen wastes of Finland when they decided to throw together black metal and almost every imaginable psych rock permutation under the firmament. Absolute insanity inducing balls-to-the-wall trippiness ensues.

ORANSSI PAZUZU is their name, ego-death squared in hyperspace is their game and Värähtelijä is the latest in a slew of attempts to smear your brain across the event horizon, and their most accomplished one so far. Think Hawkwind trying to interpret the soundtrack of Interstellar with a guy being spaghettified by a black hole screaming on top of it. Huge, plodding riffs and spacey synth fuckery abound.

Film by Shelby Kray

This madness extends to their live shows, yours truly (being completely sober) suffered a sensory overload when they launched into the crescendo of the album opener "Saturaatio" at Roadburn 2016. This band is taking things to the next level, and something tells me that Värähtelijä is just another chapter in an increasingly maddening venture.

7. Conan – 'Blood Eagle' (Napalm Records - 2014)

You can’t really draw a picture of the doom scene in the '10s without CONAN. And I do mean that in quite the literal sense, as seemingly every self-respecting doom fan seems to own at least one Conan shirt and you can’t really go to a gig without seeing one.

By all accounts the band probably could’ve retired years ago and just live off those rad merch designs. But Conan knows no rest -- always writing, always touring, always scheming. Thus the band has fed a steady stream of releases to a cult-like following over the years and narrowing down the output of such an important band to just one record is no small task. My choice eventually fell on the fan favorite, 2014's Blood Eagle.

Photograph by Sally Townsend

Conan had already pretty much established themselves as the emergent sludge-doom act of the decade at that time, but as we know they’re not one to rest on their laurels and Blood Eagle was just them driving the point home and the stake deeper, solidifying a grasp on the scene that hasn’t waned ever since, and they did it oh so righteously, by the primordial might of tonal displacement and drop F glory.

Conan might have the closest thing to a universal doom appeal because they speak to your baser instincts. Songs like "Foehammer" or "Total Conquest" seem like trebuchets aimed at the synapses of your reptilian brain, and I can’t help but admire these noble DIY barbarians, who so deservedly have carved out their place in the canon of the genre.

6. SubRosa – 'More Constant than the Gods' (Profound Lore - 2013)

More Constant Than The Gods by SubRosa

SUBROSA was one of a kind. If one band calling it quits this decade broke my heart, it was them. But before doing so they gifted us three outstanding post-metal records, whose folk and chamber music flourishes felt completely unique, intimate, and anachronistic in a genre dominated by more vast and spacious narratives. They reached inward rather than outward and did so with a no-parts-wasted mentality.

In a world rife with one-trick bands, SubRosa's employ of multiple vocalists and two electric violins felt natural and unabashedly non-gimmicky, and they would reveal the true potential of their sound on 2013's harrowingly beautiful More Constant than the Gods.

Photograph by Alyssa Herrman

More Constant is remarkable for its elegant and restrained way of instilling dread. Hardly any harsh vocals, the tempo never goes beyond a steady stride, just those horrific and yet also beautiful violins, plodding guitars, and downright poetic lyrics. And SubRosa seem to feel right at home on either terrain, be it the skin-crawling lead guitar line of "Affliction" or the grandiose outro section of "Fat of the Ram." One can only hope that SubRosa will return one day. A band that was truly novel, and not just a novelty.

5. Tchornobog – 'Tchornobog' (Fallen Empire / I, Voidhanger - 2017)

TCHORNOBOG is many things. Among others, a dark, ancient Slavic deity. In the world of music, a monolithic amalgamation of extreme metal, some Eldritch chimera of cavernous black, death, and doom metal. And the beast of one Markov Soroka, though him stating that the Tchornobog inhabits his head begs the question who might really be in charge?

Photograph by Nona Limmen

Soroka does indeed seem to be guided by spirits since he started the project at the age 14, and eight years of gestation and arduous work culminated in one of the most engrossing, all-consuming records I have come across this decade. Far be it from me to reduce Tchornobog’s remarkability down to the young age of its creator, but Sorokas ambition and execution of those ambitions could run circles around a lot of veteran extreme metal bands. The man is just flat out talented. And that is not even taking his various other projects (Drown, Aureole, Krukh) into account, or his curation work through his own label, Vigor Deconstruct.

As such, Tchornobog ultimately is, among many other things, a bright spotlight shining on a young man who has all the makings of being the next big underground metal mastermind. I’m sure you’ll be inclined to agree as soon as Soroka brings out the grand piano and saxophone on "III: Non-Existence’s Warmth (Infinite Natality Psychosis)" to perform what I’d like to call Lovecraftian Lounge Music. He must have a thing for Demilich too, judging from those song titles.

4. Hell – 'III' (Lower Your Head / Pesanta Urfolk - 2012)

Hell III by Hell

There is a subtle power in melodies, particularly melancholic and sad ones. Doom, and more specifically funeral doom, have long since sought to harness the power of the melody, but I think nobody has been quite as effective or moved me so profoundly with a simple plucked melody as MSW, the singular mind of HELL.

Just one minute into Mourn, the opening (and penultimate) track of Hell III), I am already instilled with a deep sense of melancholy, but also foreboding doom. However, few songs can just thrive from having a good riff or lead -- and there’s 17 minutes yet to go. I’ll spoil you and say that in this time Hell shifts between doom, black metal, neoclassical music, and dark ambient. That’s a lot of territory to cover and it becomes apparent that for how meticulously well crafted its individual parts are, MSW never loses sight of the bigger picture and the transitions between these different sounds are seamless.

Film by Billy Goate

At the danger of sounding like a huge fucking nerd, I really am more inclined to refer to "Mourn" and its follow up "Decedere" as movements rather than songs and if the songwriting doesn’t clue you in you’ll be persuaded by the time Decedere breaks out the operatic vocals and a flute accompanied by a string ensemble. And no matter if he’s performing a contemplative acoustic piece or pounding you in the ground with some absolutely hellish (the band name is apt as can be) blackened doom, MSW always manages to maintain an aura of grandeur. MSW is not just a great songwriter, he’s a veritable composer, and III is his magnum opus.

3. Mizmor – 'Yodh' (Gilead Media - 2016)

Yodh by מזמור

If whatever has come before was bleak, then Yodh is pitch fucking black. This decade hasn’t lacked in dark records (not even taking metal into account -- Mount Eerie's A Crow Looked at Me, Nick Cave’s Skeleton Tree, or The Caretakers Everywhere at the End of Time), but taking on existential dread specifically (and thereby becoming a vessel for it) MIZMOR's Yodh remains unsurpassed in its sheer effectiveness to instill said dread in the listener and is possibly the most harrowing record of the last 10 years.

Photo by Kento Woolery

As befits the theme, Yodh genuinely sounds like the work of a broken man. A miserable slab of glacial funeral doom and grimy black metal, but delivered with a brute strength and conviction that really suggests more defiance than self-pity. I’d be remiss to not point out ALN's incredibly varied vocal performance, ranging from wretched snarls and air-starved bellows to what I can only describe as pterodactyl shrieks, all carrying the same biting vitriol as the instrumentals.

Film by Shelby Kray

Yet for all its doom and gloom, Yodh surprises with occasional moments of tenderness and outright (if melancholic) beauty, too, such as the acoustic intro of "II: A Semblance Waning" or the massive main riff of "III: The Serpent Eats Its Tail" that feels like the sort of thing Pallbearer would’ve come up with if they had been more into Mournful Congregation than Warning.

All these things combined with thoughtful, introspective lyrics make Yodh into an incredibly powerful and downright visceral record, and if for you the main draw of doom metal lies its emotional potency (as it does for me) then Yodh is an essential listen. Let ALN shout down the very pillars that uphold your personal beliefs of life’s meaning.

2. Pallbearer – 'Sorrow and Extinction' (Profound Lore - 2012)

Sorrow And Extinction by Pallbearer

Warning was the first band to try to bridge the gap between traditional and modern doom metal, and while Watching from a Distance might have a fair claim to be one of the saddest metal records out there, in my eyes it was PALLBEARER who took that formula even further and perfected it with their 2011 debut Sorrow and Extinction. To me, it’s a classic record in both senses. A landmark of post-millennium doom and a throwback to the days of yore, when Saint Vitus and Candlemass were in charge of bumming everyone out; while still maintaining the larger-than-life-feel and sonic heft of modern doom championed by bands like Yob or Neurosis.

Photo by Sally Townsend

But Sorrow and Extinction isn’t just some roided up epic doom sans the operatic vocals, Pallbearer are far too clever to suffer such a pitfall. Granted, Sorrow sounds huge, and while there’s plenty of the heavy stuff to go around what makes Sorrow so great is how catchy it is. There is no weak song on this record (admittedly there’s only five), and while most bands could only hope to one day write a riff as good as "Devoid of Redemption's" main theme, it seems like Pallbearer just comes up with them on a whim, and their ability to do so doesn’t seem to have faded three records into their career -- not even to speak of Brett Campbell's soulful lyrics and passionate delivery.

Film by Billy Goate

Then, of course, there’s the amazing guitar interplay between Campbell and Devin Holt, chiefly on the casket closer "Given to the Grave," whose second half essentially boils down to them constantly trading dramatic leads with each other like the world's most woeful ping pong game.

Sorrow and Extinction is not only a deeply moving yet utterly anthemic record, but also one that successfully marries the past and the present of doom. In that regard, it is a preciously rare and so far unsurpassed record.

1. YOB – 'Clearing the Path to Ascend' (Neurot Records - 2014)

Clearing The Path To Ascend by YOB

Writing about metal without resorting to superlatives is hard. Try to practice restraint in the presence of something whose very nature lacks restraint. I am definitely guilty of that lack of restraint; one has only got to scroll up again to confirm it. But luckily some records are so very superlative that I do not have to take that editorial high road and can fire all the “mosts” and “-ests” at will. In fact, they almost require you to use them. Clearing the Path to Ascend by YOB is one such record. Even among all these preceding superlative records it stands above and beyond.

Photo by Angelique Le Marchand

Clearing the Path to Ascend is so vast, it feels singular. It is one and it is all. When I think larger-than-life sound, Clearing comes to mind first. It has become the very benchmark with which I measure other records. Yob's big and beautiful only consists of four tracks, but they made each feel like a distinct part of a greater journey. "In Our Blood" opens with a recording of Alan Watts telling you it is "time to wake up," before the song slowly rises into a stretched-out draw and crash, eventually unfurling into a manic guitar line.

"Nothing to Win" feels like Yob's own take on Neurosis’ Through Silver in Blood. It is an unrelenting, steady 11-minute march down a highway of broken glass, utterly windswept and viciously hopeless. "Unmask the Spectre" seems to tread similarly bitter paths but manages to wrestle itself free into two grandiose spiraling crescendos.

Film by Billy Goate

The death knell of an album closer that is "Marrow" shouldn’t really need much of an introduction at this point. It still feels like I’ll see a link, post or share of it every other day. It has become an omnipresence in the doom scene, and deservingly so. Yob dials back on the gloom and shines all the brighter. "Marrow" is not just hopeful; it is downright ecstatic and by the time Mike Scheidt launches into the grand solo of the track (so very gracefully accompanied by a Hammond organ played by producer Billy Barnett) has ascended to a genuine sermon.

Though Clearing had its fair share of dark moments "Marrow" closes the record on a remarkably conciliatory note and I really think that speaks of Yob as a (metal) band. Call it a big move to offer closure -- a fitting end to such a big record. One that suits the title of ‘Album of the Decade,’ and embodies the spirit of metal that wants to be just more.

Calvin's Choice: 100 Best of the Decade

YOB - Clearing the Path to Ascend

Pallbearer - Sorrow and Extinction

Mizmor - Yodh

Hell - Hell III

Tchornobog - Tchornobog

SubRosa - More Constant Than The Gods

Conan - Blood Eagle

Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä

Elephant Tree - Elephant Tree

Akhlys - The Dreaming I

Clutch - Earth Rocker

Merkstave - Merkstave

Gozu - Revival

Chelsea Wolfe - Pain Is Beauty

Valley of the Sun - The Sayings of the Seers

Inter Arma - Paradise Gallows

Thou - Heathen

Om - Advaitic Songs

Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper

All Them Witches - Dying Surfer Meets His Maker

Horn of the Rhino - Weight of Coronation

Boss Keloid - Melted on the Inch

KALEIKR - Heart Of Lead

Jeremy Irons & The Ratgang Malibus - Spirit Knife

Woman is the Earth - Torch of Our Final Night

Weyes Blood - Titanic Rising

LINGUA IGNOTA - Caligula

Queens of the Stone Age - ...Like Clockwork

Messa - Feast for Water

Anna von Hausswolff - Dead Magic

Mamiffer - The World Unseen

Samothrace - Reverence to Stone

Primitive Man - Scorn

Fórn - The Departure of Consciousness

Khemmis - Absolution

Bongripper - Miserable

High on Fire - De Vermis Mysteriis

UN - Sentiment

Cult of Luna - Mariner

Slomatics - Future Echo Returns

MISTHYRMING - Söngvar elds og óreiðu

Dvne - Asheran

Earth - Primitive and Deadly

Mars Red Sky - Apex III (Praise For The Burning Soul)

The Midnight Ghost Train - Cypress Ave.

Panopticon - Panopticon - Roads to the North

Mare Cognitum - Phobos Monolith

Sólstafir - Ótta

Have a Nice Life - The Unnatural World

Furia - Księżyc Milczy Luty

Tardigrada - Emotionale Ödnis

Yellow Eyes - Immersion Trench Reverie

Stoned Jesus - Seven Thunders Roar

Höstblod - Mörkrets Intåg

Ulver - The Assassination of Julius Caesar

Zola Jesus - Okovi

Funereal Presence - Achatius

Wormlust - The Feral Wisdom

Daughters - You Won't Get What You Want

L'Acephale - L'Acéphale

40 Watt Sun - The Inside Room

Vilkacis - Beyond the Mortal Gate

Bossk - Audio Noir

Carpenter Brut - Trilogy

Sumac - What One Becomes

Death Grips - Exmilitary

Red Fang - Murder the Mountains

Lo-Pan - Salvador

Whores. - Gold

Truckfighters - Universe

Greenleaf - Trails & Passes

Bölzer - Aura

Monolord - Vaenir

Dead to a Dying World - Elegy

The Body - I Shall Die Here

Mutoid Man - War Moans

Neurosis - Fires Within Fires

Opeth - Pale Communion

Planning for Burial - Below the House

Triptykon - Melana Chasmata

Graveyard - Hisingen Blues

Saor - Aura

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Egypt - Endless Flight

Emma Ruth Rundle - Marked For Death

Deafheaven - Sunbather

Kadavar - Kadavar

Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats - Blood Lust

Vanum - Ageless Fire

Dai-Ichi - Dai-Ichi

Lord Mantis - Pervertor

Ne Obliviscaris - Portal Of I

Loss - Horizonless

Tome of the Unreplenished - Innerstanding

Elder - Lore

Witch Mountain - Cauldron of the Wild

Ahab - The Giant

Alcest - Kodama

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Dissociation

Sleep - The Sciences

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mryddinwilt · 4 years

Text

OUAT Book Club (Update 2)

Once Upon a Time I posted a List (I’m quite good at making lists) of fairytale retellings and the like for people to read. I thought it could be fun to have a bit of a book club. The idea didn’t take root and I was frankly awful about posting when I was reading something. But it’s the end of a year so here is an update on books I’ve read from that list, plus some new ones to add to the list, and some brief thoughts on each.

...

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

First in the series. The whole series is quite good. The pacing in all of them is so wonky. Always a bit of a slog for the first half and then it flies by. The Russian/Slavic setting and world-building are on point. Great writing. If you only want to read the first one you can.

Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen

I imagine the less you know about Robin Hood the more you might like this story. The twist in Scarlet's identity is very obvious if you know anything about the original stories and there is practically nothing in the story that evokes the iconic moments and elements of other Robin Hood stories besides a few names. I imagine the rest of series digs into those. That being said this was a lovely bit of YA escapism.

Towering by Alex Flinn

It's a modern Rapunzel and the bones of the story are okay but the plot plods and is plagued with random, unexplained coincidences. Things just get chalked up to destiny and none of it makes much sense nor is it satisfying as a story. If I had DNFd it I might have liked it better but the ending was cringey bad and brought up more questions than it answered.

Retelling Books to add to The List...

The Crane Wife by Patrick Ness

A retelling of the animal wife trope in fairytales. This was so well written. Too well written? I liked it but I am not sure I enjoyed it or really understood it. George is so intentionally bland and it somehow works. The magic is there but so muted as to make you question throughout the novel if it really is there.

The Black Swan by Mercedes Lackey

A fairly faithful retelling that gives us the added dimension of being told through the eyes of Odile. I read this one for research and that is really what kept me going through it. At 20 years old this one shows it's age a little bit. Also, rape TW. Would not recommend at all.

Circe by Madeline Miller

This was recommended to me everywhere. I enjoyed it but wasn’t emotionally engaged. A look into classic Greek mythology via a lesser known/powerful god. The prose is wonderful and the love the author has for the classics shines through very clearly. Circe is a window on all the heroes of legend, a way to reexamine so many of them in different ways. I liked this but then at the same time it had the effect of making Circe into a framing device instead of her own character.

The Lady of the Forest by Jennifer Roberson

It’s another Maid Marian/Robin Hood story. Only read 10% of it. Couldn’t get past hopping POV’s every two paragraphs.

The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff

A modern take on a changeling child. It’s an unsettling read. A bit of horror vibes. A nice brother and sister relationship though and an interesting plot. But definitely a more dark and depressing read.

That’s about it. Let me know if you read any good myth or fairytale retellings this year that I should try out. You can check the “ouat book club” tag for more random reviews. And let me know your thoughts on any of these.

#ouat book club #mryddinwilt reads #fairytale retellings #end of year post

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ofravensandgenesis · 4 years

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World Building Through Character Creation and Background NPCs

Entry 03. I was thinking over how to build out more plot points for both the underlying bones of original fiction, and also fleshing out ideas for some of the arcs in my ACABH fic. Honestly, adding more characters within reasonable limits seems to really help with that. Even if they’re just characters with a name and a few lines of description, or even just one line of description, it makes for a great springboard point to start tacking on more details. From those details, it’s a lot easier to build out the world around them in various layers. Like for the original fiction world I’m building out right now, creating the character Corwin Blackwood with the helpful input from my friends on how the name sounded, resulted in spinning up a huge chunk of the underlying world order. Originally I was going with just a two-sided state of tension and conflict, but Corwin’s family brings with it a third side that’s caught in the middle—people minding their own business that aren’t actively affiliated with either side. In terms of mechanics, the Blackwoods’ existence brought in some specific broad categories of magical beings, a rudimentary idea of various magical systems with an as of yet undefined overarching universal magic system, and social conflict regarding differing points of view relating to said beings and affiliations with them.

His name is all about his role in the story, with the meaning of his first name being “heart’s friend,” and having had a close if tempestuous friendship with the main character. The last name of Blackwood automatically brings to mind a haunted forest, and as inspired by a Netflix Castlevania fic called Baba by Crownofpins on Ao3 as recommended to me by a friend, and the Blackwoods’ home-locale and name makes me think of the Belmonts. So it was easy enough to consider the Blackwoods tentatively as a family of exorcists/monster-hunters/etc in this rough draft. (The Baba fic is pretty awesome btw, it’s got great elements of old Slavic folklore, obviously Baba Yaga for example, among other things. I shan’t spoil it ofc, but I thought it was a lovely read. Adult content warning for the fic ofc, read the tags, etc.) There’s other external factors that helped bring him about, including other recent media consumption on my part also again in thanks to my friends for recommending them, including Mo Dao Zu Shi and The Legend of The White Snake. (Content warning: Both of those works contain adult content, etc.) They’re both stories of Chinese origin that focus on romances that contain supernatural elements, with The Legend of The White Snake being an old classic tale of folklore. But what’s really fascinating to me is the mythology system that’s at play in the stories—I’m so used to “medieval” fantasy settings being European-influenced landscapes and civilizations, it was really cool to see a more involved Asiatic-inspired one. I’ve certainly seen Asian-mythos-based supernatural movies and series before, but not in this specific niche that’s more fantasy-adventure-ish. Usually the ones I’ve come across are much more heavily leaning into the martial arts category of movies as I’d classify them, or set in more modern-based times. That’s probably just a sign I need to go out and find more content of this sort to consume, honestly. But how the above two works treat the whole spirituality/magic/supernatural aspect is admittedly a huge inspiration point for me for how I’m hoping this original fic’s world will be built, and provides a great starting point to go and try to research more into stories and myths relating to those elements. It also happens to fit in neatly with me being interested in trying to learn a bit more about some of my heritage and culture, being partly of Chinese descent. That’s another thing I know I want Corwin to explore as an additional main character: what does it mean when you’re a part of multiple cultures as a person? What’s that experience like? How does that fact shape how he interacts with his world? I know it has a huge impact on how he’s perceived socially and allows him greater access to magical training via one side of his family having the history for it, and it interests me to think of exploring that in writing. What I’m not certain of is what name to label this general cluster of magical beings as—are they demons? Yaoguai? Spirits? There are associations with each word and name, and giving them a newly made up name would mean severing those ties for better or worse. There are definitely classical monstrous elements in that group, but also a lot of diversity, holding up yet another mirror to the run of the mill humans of that world. What is this group of magical beings specifically in this world’s build? Are they humans that have cultivated themselves spiritually enough to transcend, or is it a reincarnation gig, or something else? I’ll probably have to make another OC or import ideas from mythology to explain where they’re from. With regards to the FC 5 fic though, I’m currently listening to more of the in-game dialogue and commentary as provided by DanaDuchy on their account/channel (also: thanks to DanaDuchy for providing the rest of us such wonderful resources on this and other games/works) and boy the dev team did a wonderful job of just adding more of those little details to help make the setting feel alive. Like it’s honestly really cool to hear the NPCs talk about how haunted the King’s Hot Springs Hotel or the Catamount mines are, how Casey at the Spread Eagle makes the best loose meat/steamer/etc sandwiches and burgers in the entire county, the stories behind the Whistling Beaver Brewery, etc. It’s also pretty grim to hear the tales of all the people the cult’s taken and some of the things other people have seen the cult do, namely killing civilians in gruesomely inventive fashion. Which raises as an interesting problem for me as a fanfic writer is trying to figure out A) how much did the Seeds know about these particular clusters of mass murder, B) did they permit it if they knew about it ahead of time, and C) what purpose does it serve? Currently the answer to A is more than enough because the Seeds not knowing wouldn’t fit this AU nor their character builds in it to go well with the level of importance that the themes of responsibility and consequences carry both in the meta of the fic and in-world for Joshua personally. So that means for B, the Seeds are definitely permitting the additional senseless acts of cruelty noted in the dialogue and conflicted-conversations among the Peggies. Certainly they’re aware at least to some extent if not fully aware of the entirety of it, but I would assume based on the Heralds’ personalities that they all do like to know what their people get up to. They all seem like they would want to know the details of what’s going on for various reasons. I’m leaning towards having the particularly senseless murders be a mix of some acts the Seeds ordered, some acts they left open to interpretation to their followers who then took it to a dark extreme, and some acts were instigated by the followers alone. Basically: humans being humans during chaotic dark times and doing terrible, bad shit. Which leads to the conclusion for Joshua that the Seeds should be more disciplined about keeping their followers in line and not sinking down to this level of pointless evil. He’s not wild about their more purposeful evil acts either and is intent on trying to get them to stop the worst of that, but there are darker gradients of black and grey morality for him there to be more outraged by. So that pretty much wraps up C with the answer of “not much” other than humans being terrible to each other. Perhaps from the villainous perspective it helps terrorize the people of Hope County and whittle down the number of people the cult has to fight now or later, but overall that is still straight up mass murder. ...hm, that reminds me, I need to go tweak a line in a past chapter regarding the population of Hope County. I had it too low for there to be a reasonably-sized if small county aside from the cult’s numbers. Hm. I have the cult at around 1,800ish souls, with their goal being 3,000 total based on in-game commentary from nameless background NPCs, and the line from the Book of Joseph “A few thousand pure souls, whose mission would be to start over and repopulate the earth.” Doing a little quick search, there are some counties even in Montana that according to past censuses had 3,000 or less people in them. For it to feel a bit less likely that the Resistance and civilian population would be easily overwhelmed, it probably should be somewhat higher than the cult, since the county’s numbers will include those who cannot or do not want to fight—that being the old, the young, the ill, etc. Plus if the cult’s being quite so gruesomely wanton in the murdering sprees, that means they aren’t out to absorb the entire county, just most of it. But the cult must also be expecting losses on their side as well since this is a violent conquest they’re undertaking and all of Hope County’s armed to the teeth, if not as necessarily heavily as the cult itself seems to be. We’ll stick the vague number at around 2,400 civilians who are not in the cult for now then and add that to the notes—plus some of the cult’s population is certainly from the county itself pre-Reaping, not including increases that happen during the Reaping with all the active brainwashing, kidnapping, etc. Hm, given some of the generic-NPC-dialogue of how people were forcibly turned to being obedient members of the cult who actually did turn on and shoot their once-allies (and in that dialogue, the brainwashed were also long-time pre-Reaping neighbors of the speaker,) that makes Pratt’s situation in-game all the more interesting. He definitely recognizes the Deputy, whereas it sounded like the aforementioned brainwashed-individuals did not recognize their once-neighbors and friends at all. Pratt’s capable of thinking independent thoughts and he’s remained lucid enough to observe his surroundings and plan an escape, despite going on what sounds like a very dark “hunting trip” Jacob may have taken him on to hunt “deer” which sounds definitely like he was hallucinating in a bad way per his own lines. Jacob apparently isn’t a guy to miss out on using easy symbolism for his enemies, specifically the Whitetail Militia. That was probably not the only “hunting trip” Pratt and the other converts have been on, and that would potentially suggest that the converts are still possibly hallucinating much like how the Deputy is during the first portion of Jacob’s boss fight with the destroy-the-music-beacons visual effects, after exiting the Wolf’s Den. Is Pratt seeing something like that scene though? He doesn’t seem to be triggered by the music box or in the scenes where the music starts playing certainly. He’s surely been exposed to Jacob’s conditioning or at least the trials, and the list his name’s on would strongly suggest he passed his trial, dark as that is. Who did he kill as his sacrifice? Is he perhaps more immune to the Bliss effects? It seems to vary in intensity of how effective it is and how it effects people, based on their susceptibility to it—some factors may include addictive tendencies, personalities, etc, looking at generic-NPC-dialogue in Faith’s region. The sparkles that show up on the screen in addition to the red edges do lend themselves to interpreting that Jacob uses Bliss as part of the brainwashing regime, in addition to the hallucinations Pratt, the Deputy, and others seem to experience. (Also the Judges disappearing in Bliss clouds during the first half of Jacob’s boss fight, etc.) Either way, with the mention of no one expecting Jacob to go easy on Pratt, it seems like Pratt was more resistant to the brainwashing and breaking than Jacob expected, even in light of there being potentially more torment lined up for Pratt than the average captured civilian. (I suspect aside from Pratt’s involvement with the officers who tried to arrest Joseph, Jacob in particular is more likely to not think kindly of police men, given his time in Juvie and the events leading to him being sentenced to doing time, setting him on the path to joining the Army and the ensuing tragedy, and separated from his brothers when they were younger. Also possibly the lack of perceived protection from policemen in the times prior to their father Old Mad Seed’s arrest.) However, it could also be that Jacob deliberately set Pratt up to test his loyalty to Jacob and the Project by giving Pratt the opportunity to help the Deputy escape, instead (or a little from column A, a little from column B.) That music did come on awfully fast after the breakout after all, and perhaps Pratt hadn’t made his sacrifice yet. Maybe the Deputy was meant to be his sacrifice, in a less murderous way of just leaving the Deputy in Jacob’s hands. Seems like Jacob would have mentioned it if the Deputy was meant to be Pratt’s sacrifice by leaving them in the cage to their fate, but on the other hand it would fit the game’s plot and Jacob’s theme real well. Plus Jacob’s a cunning bastard and able to plot this kind of scheme out quite readily, I would say. This all probably means I need to flesh out more of the fic’s world with background NPCs here and there a bit more for the plot. That being said, I’m all excited to be borrowing with permission AU versions of some of my friend’s OCs for this. It’s definitely a new addition to the plotting that I hadn’t started out with, but feels like they’d fit in well with the plot overall. Two of the OCs will have a significant impact on Jacob as a character across his entire timeline in the past, present, and future. It’ll be an interesting challenge to deal with that, since while I do want to try to interpret the characters as close to their original canon lines and outlooks as possible, I feel this addition does open up more preexisting lines for Jacob that do fit the hints we get of his internal workings from in-game. It’ll mean he’s got more development in certain areas of his psyche and mental state, but a little bit of twisting here and there still keeps it all in line with the initial interpretation this AU’s got for him. I do feel the addition of the OCs will help bring Jacob to be more emotionally involved than he potentially was to begin with before the real-world-now with the intended future events of the fic, and this creates much more potential for up-close-and-personal levels of emotional exploration for the entire lot of them, both positive and negative emotions. ...oo, we might get to see Jacob actually losing his cool on-screen externally as a result of possible plot happenings. That could lead to an entire mess of the entire Seed family being angry and yelling at each other, creating emotional development. It’s really quite fascinating to try to work out how to get a group to actually get along well with characters like Faith, John, Joseph, and Jacob who are often at odds with each other. All while dealing with their rampant personal issues. Still something to study and test out for other original writings—haven’t quite learned how to take that kind of group dynamic apart and construct something from that inspiration yet. But definitely learning as we go. Back to listening to more NPC dialogue recordings though.

#writing about writing #writing about fanfiction #so many dialogue lines to listen to #Danaduchy is an amazing person to have recorded all of this #you all should check out Danaduchy's tumblr youtube and everything else #ACABH #writing about writing FC5 fanfiction #FC5 #fc5 au #Far Cry 5 #original fic talk #original character talk #OCs

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languagemadness · 6 years

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38 Classic Polish Books You Should Know (About)

requested by anon

That’s a hell of a Buzzfeed title, wow! I focused solely on books, but you need to remember that poems play a HUGE part in Polish literature in general. Instead of doing a list of "classic Polish texts", which would include full-on books, poems, dramas, everything, and would be probably 18637 positions long, I did only some of the most important books, dramas, and comic books. If you’d like me to tell you more about anything on this list, cover something more in detail, or make another list — shoot me an ask!

I ordered the list NOT by how much I like these books or how strongly I’d recommend them. The list is ordered from the easiest ones to the toughest ones -- literarily, not linguistically.

Also, I know that the ask was about classical books, which I too included in this list.

Let’s start with something approachable — comic books and "normal" books that are so easy and pleasant to read. Except for the two books about war — they’re approachable but the topic doesn’t really make them pleasant.

Pan Samochodzik by Zbigniew Nienacki

A series of books about Pan Samochodzik, who’s an art historian and a detective, and his job is to solve theft, smuggling, and forgery cases. He’s basically a mix of Indiana Jones and Hercules Poirot. The background for the books is life in Polish People’s Republic, but it’s actually shown not as rough as it was in real life. Apart from that, they’re basically children’s books — very light, easy, and funny.

I’d definitely recommend them, I mean, who doesn’t like stories like that? Plus, you don’t need to be God knows how good with Polish to read them.

adaptations: There are 4 movies and a TV show based on the books, each based on a different book from the series.

Podróże z Herodotem by Ryszard Kapuściński

You can read it even when you’re like 10 because it’s a very nice, easy, pleasant story. An autobiography where the author describes his travels to Asia and Africa and compares them to the travels of Herodotus. Very interesting, often funny, it gives you a full view of different people and cultures and how rich the world is. It teaches you a little bit of history, it teaches you a little bit about the modern world (I think the story starts in the 1950s), and the comparison between these two — it’s really fascinating to see that, generally, the world hadn’t changed that much.

I would wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone.

W pustyni i w puszczy by Henryk Sienkiewicz

The only book I cried on and not because it was so beautiful, but because it was so painful to read. Okay, I was like 11 when I read it, but technically it’s a book for kids, so…

It’s a story about two kids who get lost in Africa and they hike through like 5 countries to find their fathers (who worked in Africa and just happened to forget to take their children one day I guess?). Really, it’s about friendship, dedication, love, all the important values in life. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s painfully boring to read.

It’s a wonderful story, don’t get me wrong, and I loved it as a child — but the movie. The book I hated. So I do recommend it, but the movie.

adaptations: 2 TV shows and 2 movies (the one from 2001 being the most popular).

Tytus, Romek i A’Tomek by Henryk Jerzy Chmielewski

Comic books. Two friends try to humanize a monkey while traveling and exploring different areas of science and history. It’s funny, absurd, educational, and understandable for non-advanced learners of Polish.

Do I recommend? Absolutely.

adaptations: 2 episodes of a short TV show, a video game, and a movie from 2002 titled "Tytus, Romek i A’Tomek wśród złodziei marzeń" — but it’s not based on the comics, only on the characters.

Kajko i Kokosz by Janusz Christa

A series of comic books which is basically a Polish version of “Asterix”. It’s about two Slavic warriors who have all kinds of adventures and fights with Zbójcerze. It’s all fictional and to be honest, I don’t really remember much from the comics, but I know that I loved them as a child. There are also renewals of the old volumes as well as new stories based on the original story and they’re coming out even in 2018.

I wouldn’t say it’s something you absolutely have to read, but if you want to, then it’s worth your time.

adaptations: A TV show that’s still being made and a video game.

Zemsta by Aleksander Fredro

Language-wise, it is pure genius. Not too easy, though. The jokes, the phrases, the sayings — it is the base of common Polish language. Story-wise, it’s basically Polish Romeo and Juliet. Two families live in a castle and hate each other, a girl from one family is in love with a guy from the other family. We also get some more important side characters, they’re very nicely written, iconic even. The whole drama is hilarious, so yes I would calmly recommend it to people who are somewhat fluent in Polish.

adaptations: 2 movies (the one from 2002 being more popular).

Wiedźmin by Andrzej Sapkowski

I think it’s the definition of contemporary classic. It’s a series of short stories, later an actual book, later comics, and finally a movie and a video game. The book is about this witcher and a child of destiny who’s a witcher-in-training. The main character needs to protect her. The stories and comics, however — they’re obviously about the witcher, but I don’t know the details.

If I’m 100% frank, I have not read the stories, the book, the comics, nothing. So I can’t fully recommend it to you, but I can tell you this: everyone who’s into fantasy is crazy about it. I suppose if you like fantasy, Wiedźmin’s a must.

adaptations: A movie from 2001, a TV show from 2002, and a video game.

Solaris by Stanisław Lem

This one’s, on the other hand, is a must if you’re into sci-fi. It’s about contact: with aliens, other civilizations, the unknown — but it’s not specified, which actually makes the book so interesting.

It’s been translated into multiple languages, so I’d say it’s easy to get, and if you’re either into sci-fi or into modern Polish literature — do read it.

adaptations: 3 movies (in 2002 Soderbergh made it a movie, so I suppose it’s worth checking out, but I personally haven’t watched it).

Kamienie na szaniec by Aleksander Kamiński

A story of 3 boys who just graduated from high school when WW2 broke out. It’s an actual story of actual people and it is heartbreaking. If you want to read anything about the WW2 that isn’t very technical or boring, this book is definitely for you. It’s about normal lives in abnormal circumstances and you get very attached to the characters and their stories, and the book actually makes you feel things.

Would recommend.

adaptations: A movie from 1977 titled "Akcja pod Arsenałem", which is based on the book, and a movie from 2014 under the same title as the book, also only based on it.

Medaliony by Zofia Nałkowska

An omnibus of short stories about WW2. Very short, very shocking, sometimes even disgusting. The stories are about people who survived the war and they are actual things that actually happened. I don’t think I get appalled easily, but those are horrifying, really.

A good recommendation for someone who wants to learn about the more (or less) humane side of the war. I would actually say it’s a must if you want to at least begin to understand the tragedy that WW2 was.

And now we’re moving onto some more… mature books. Those are usually compulsory readings in middle school and high school, and to get what they’re about, you need to have some common knowledge. Nothing too specific, though. And there’s a lot to them that you can enjoy even if you don’t know much about general Polish culture and history, so I would say giving them a shot is definitely worth it. Plus, you can learn a lot if you’re a careful reader.

Lalka by Bolesław Prus

Hands down my favorite Polish book of all times. The best thing they made me read in school and I swear this book made the 12 years of tears and pain that I spent in school worth it. Long story short, it’s about a dude from quite a poor family and he becomes rich for an aristocrat he loves very, very deeply. But she’s a total bitch and uses him like an old rag. Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t like romance but Lalka… I mean, the lengths he went for her, the things he did for her… I don’t want to spoil the book but it’s full of dramatic events, interesting characters, surprises, and most importantly — it’s absolutely exciting for the reader! It truly sucks you in. Not to mention the book in a phenomenal way shows how Polish society of the 1870s functioned and thought. And don’t even get me started on the psychology of single characters. I’ve read only a few books in my life that made me feel so passionate about their characters. Character-building-wise, Lalka is the peak of art.

If you want to read only one book from this list, this is the one.

adaptations: Tons of plays, a movie (1968) and a TV show (1978). Pretty accurate, but I personally didn’t like them.

Potop by Henryk Sienkiewicz

There’s a trilogy: Ogniem i mieczem, Potop, Pan Wołodyjowski — and they tell the history of Poland in the 17th century. For some reason, only Potop is considered an absolute must, but if I’m honest I didn’t read it, so I personally can’t recommend it to you. Potop itself is about a guy who wants to marry this girl but she thinks he betrayed the country, so he needs to clear his name by fighting by the king’s side. It sounds very fairy-tale-like, but the background is actual history and the author himself operates incredibly well with the real and the imaginary.

The thing with Sienkiewicz’s historical books is that they are pretty damn good, so even if you’re not too much into that kinda stuff but there’s a tiny part of curiosity in you, I don’t think it’s a mistake to check it out.

adaptations: A movie from 1974.

Krzyżacy by Henryk Sienkiewicz

Basically when Poland was all… under occupation and non-existent, Sienkiewicz wrote this book to bitch about Germanization, as well as to remind the Polish people about their country. The book is about the great times of Poland, from 1399 all the way to the greatest battle of 1410 when Poland kicked Prussia’s ass. But we also get some romance, some schemes, some awful deaths… The full set if you will.

A lot of people say it’s a super ass boring book, but in my opinion, it’s absolutely fantastic. The details, the numerosity of threads (that somehow doesn’t confuse you at all), again the imaginary intwining with the real… I do recommend it not only to people who are into history, but to anyone looking for a good read that would explain a bit of Polish nature.

adaptations: A movie from 1960.

Quo vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz

Honey is this one fantastic… It’s a story about a Christian girl in Nero’s Rome and a non-Christian guy who’s in love with her. Of course, at first it looks like a love story, which it is, but there’s so much to it. The book is a knockout of a description of what life was like in ancient Rome. Everything from history, through society, to things like the time of bathing of each social class — there’s everything. And, what’s even better, it’s not boring at all! Actually, the book is unbelievably well-balanced between eventful, not overwhelming, and detailed.

I would definitely, definitely recommend. It’s not exactly a must and if you want to read a Sienkiewicz historical book, then Krzyżacy or Potop would be a better idea since they’re about Poland, but Quo vadis would most definitely not be a waste of time.

adaptations: 6 movies (the one from 2001 is the most popular one), a TV show, and a ton of plays.

Ferdydurke by Witold Gombrowicz

A book you either love or hate. I personally love it, I’m kin with this book, whatever. While reading it, I agreed with every single sentence, with every single opinion, I felt like it was me who wrote it in my past life or something. Just. An. Extraordinary. Book. Remember when I said that Lalka was the reason why I didn’t hate school? It was, but Ferdydurke is the reason I’m alive, kids.

It’s about a 30-year-old man who’s a writer (kinda), but he can’t write. Suddenly, he turns into a kid and is forced to go to school again. That’s just the plot of the book, however, because the story is simple, absurd, inconsistent, weird, and you don’t really read the book for the story. It’s what the story stands for. It’s about how pointless society is. How society creates idiotic rules to standardize people and to take away any creativity or any will to live. How people need to protect themselves and their originality but they can’t because originality doesn’t exist. And our main character explores all those philosophies. It’s a fantastic criticism of society, school, systems, classes, life.

Language-wise, it’s also a very interesting book. Definitely not an easy one. Gombrowicz was the master of language, the words and phrases he came up with, the ideas he hid within them. The language of his books creates, not only describes, the world from the books. His language is a whole different, self-sufficient being. Rare, striking, awe-inspiring.

As I said, somewhat philosophical and very metaphorical. You need to feel from your very heart what Gombrowicz means to understand this book.

adaptations: A theater performance from 1985 that you can watch on Youtube and a movie from 1991. I wouldn’t recommend watching them, though.

Sklepy cynamonowe by Bruno Schulz

Weird, metaphorical, a bit… insane? I love it. It’s an omnibus of short stories that are a description of the adult world through a child’s eyes. It’s like a dream, it’s impossible, it’s very soft and delicate and magical, really. It’s unlike anything. You feel like you’re reading a description of some very sensual dream. The stories make you wonder about the way people think, the way childhood affects your future life, the way the world works, and they make you realize that you don’t understand anything ever. But if you’re not looking for a deeper meaning, you can read the stories just for pleasure because they are honestly so sensual, sexy (but not porny, more like seductive), fascinating, and just strange, you actually read the stories with all of your senses. Makes you enter a whole different world and I will not exaggerate when I say that it changes your perception of everything.

As I said, it’s unlike anything you’ll ever encounter in life. A million out of ten would recommend.

adaptations: There is a short film from 1986 based on one of the stories from the book. It’s called "Ulica krokodyli".

Cudzoziemka by Maria Kuncewiczowa

One of my top 10. It is a story of the last day of a woman’s life. She knows she’s dying and she knows that all of her life she was in pain. So she recalls her entire life, all the big decisions she ever made, to find the source of her misery and to escape reality. It is a very sad book, but rather that depress the reader, it makes you think. It’s a story about alienation — the main character lived in a foreign country, never got to do what she actually wanted to do, never got to be with whoever she wanted to be with, and so everything she did, everywhere she went, everyone she spent time with, she felt out of place. The book was revolutionary in terms of composition and it explored the main character’s psychology very deeply. A fascinating, thought-provoking, original book.

Definitely would recommend.

adaptations: A movie from 1986.

And finally, books for the strong, books for the advanced, books for the masters. To get these, you actually need some strong background knowledge on Polish history and culture, especially society- and politics-wise. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not bad, they’re just… demanding.

Granica by Zofia Nałkowska

It is about… uhh… society, morality and the lengths a person can go to achieve what they want. Sounds complicated and serious, and it sort of is, but it’s also totally worth your time because it doesn’t really tire you as much as you could think it would. And it’s thought-provoking as well. It’s about this dude who has a wife, a career, and a lover, and he basically ruins his life and the lives of everyone around him — which is quite exciting and somewhat frightening to read. So if you’re into ambitious, psychological stuff, then I say yes! Go for it.

adaptations: A movie from 1938.

Chłopi by Władysław Reymont

It’s basically a longass description of one year in Polish countryside in the late 19th/early 20th century. Personally, I think it shows and defines the society of that time extremely well and it surely is admirable that someone wrote almost a thousand pages describing in detail things such as preparing cabbage for dinner or collecting crops. Reymont actually won the Nobel prize for this book.

Would recommend if you’re not looking for anything too thrilling. Even though the book has some iconic moments like taking away Jagna on a wheelbarrow cause she was a slut…

adaptations: A movie from 1922 and a TV show, which was later turned into a movie, from 1972.

Przedwiośnie by Stefan Żeromski

A Polish family in Russia (actually in Azerbaijan but before WW1 it was Russia, so). They live awesome lives until WW1 breaks out and the father has to leave the family. Then, the son goes a little nuts and joins communists and then there’s a revolution, the son gets traumatized and he runs away to Poland (where he’d never been before) where he’s looking for a prosperous life that his father had promised him. And Poland had just regained independence, so everyone hopes that it will be the oasis of prosperity and well-being once it’s renovated. The book is about how hope and gullibility (but mostly hope) are heartlessly crushed by reality. It is also a story about growing up because we follow the main character all the way from his careless youth through his war-and-revolution trauma to a point where he has to decide about his future. But most importantly, I think, it’s a historically important story. It was written when Poland was a new country and it was supposed to remind people that communism is bad and politics, in general, is crap, as well as propose some political solutions for the new country. That’s the general message but there are lighter moments like descriptions of Polish countryside, a lot of flirting with pretty girls, and even a murder.

It’s a good story, it’s a deep story — but not too complicated. And it’s actually very interesting, and I can promise you it’s not as heavy as I made it sound.

10/10 would recommend.

adaptations: Two movies — one from 1928 and one from 2001.

Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz

It’s an epic that describes life in the countryside in the 19th century. It was mainly written to remind Poles who had emigrated to France what a wonderful country Poland originally was, even though it was entirely under occupation, completely wiped off of any map. Naturally, everything there is presented through rose-colored glasses but still, if you’re looking for the classic of the classics, I suppose Pan Tadeusz is the book for you. If anyone wants to understand Polish literature, this book is a must.

Would I recommend? Sure if you’re here to sink in Polish culture or if you like quite full of adventure and yet easy reading. Easy as in the story’s nice and pleasant, the language is rather tedious.

adaptations: A surprisingly good and accurate movie from 1999. And the script is actually the text of the epic.

Dziady by Adam Mickiewicz

I think every Polish student hates Dziady. I didn’t, though. It’s a drama, actually, there are 4 parts of the drama, the last one not quite finished. I think the problem with Dziady is that no one really knows what it’s about. It was written in the mid 19th century, so again — Poland’s out of every map. The tzar is a bitch and Adam Mickiewicz disses him in the wildest of ways, but it doesn’t make sense until someone explains it to you. If you asked me what Dziady were about, in my opinion, all 4 parts are about love. Love for your country, love for your lover, love for yourself, love for other people, love for your family — all possible kinds of love. Sounds nice, right? That’s because it is nice. The problem with Dziady is that if you don’t delve deep into it, you won’t get it at all. The words as you read seem just like random words in a random order, no point whatsoever, skipping from topic to topic, all four parts at first seem completely unrelated. But the deeper you dig, the more you see. It is a very rich drama, there’s something in it for literally everyone, but it requires a ton of commitment and probably someone to guide you well through it.

Add it to my recommendations only if you are desperate to read it and if you have all the things above, aka time, commitment, and help. And language skills. The 2nd part, however, is short and it’s the easiest one, so do check it out.

adaptations: "Lawa" from 1989 is based on the second (which, in order, is the first) part of Dziady.

Wesele by Stanisław Wyspiański

It is such a deep drama that you just don’t get it. Kind of like with Dziady, except this one is waaay shorter and basically just disses everyone. In Dziady, the main character’s idea to show people love was to take control of them. Wesele, however, was about motivating people to do stuff by offending them.

Personally, Wesele is one of my favorites because it is just so problematic. Wyspiański attended a wedding in 1900 and then described it. Each guest in the drama (and at the actual wedding) represented an attitude that the general of Polish society had towards the country’s situation (occupation). And after 105 years of occupation, it seemed that the society didn’t really care anymore and just accepted their fate. Wyspiański was very much against that attitude. So basically what he did was he publicly washed the society’s dirty linen by pinning it onto his real-life friends. When Wesele premiered, people were actually chasing Wyspiański down the streets because they hated him so much. Not to mention that in the drama the whole offending thing is actually pretty profound and harsh. So much so that actual real-life guests weren’t enough for him — Wyspiański needed to introduce ghosts from the past, people who played an important role in Poland’s history. Of course, that was the author’s idea of motivating people to fight for their freedom.

The drama is full of references to Polish literature, Polish culture, and Polish history, so unless you’re fluent in these three, I wouldn’t tell you to read it.

I love Wesele with all my heart. If you want to give it a shot, instead of reading the actual drama, I’d suggest reading the story behind it and the summary and interpretations. This way you can enjoy it, which I think anyone should, without knowing much of the background. If I’m honest, you can’t really get much out of the drama itself. But I definitely recommend spending some time on this book, it’s definitely worth it.

adaptations: From 1973, it’s pretty good and quite accurate, but just a bit tiring.

Szewcy by Witkacy

Oh boy. A grotesque, modernist drama about the future of society, where the author basically talks about how people are doomed and headed for inevitable self-destruction. There’s a lot about how mechanic and inhumane people have become and of course tons of criticism towards society, revolution, capitalism, communism, and fascism.

I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t recommend because I didn’t really understand the language. It was a pain in the ass reading this book and if I had read it earlier in life, I assure you that W pustyni i w puszczy wouldn’t be the only book that made me cry from pain.

adaptations: Tons of theater performances that you can watch on Youtube.

Tango by Stanisław Mrożek

It’s a drama about generation gap and some ideas to live by (like conformism or anarchy). Sounds complex, but it actually keeps it very simple and short, a kid would get it, really, and yet the story actually stays with you. It also makes you wonder about a place and meaning of an intellectualist in society. Not to mention the hilarious and absurd situations like convincing your grandma to just die already.

Personally, I enjoyed it. Even though it’s about quite serious stuff, it’s hilarious, so you do read it with pleasure.

adaptations: There are multiple theater performances available to watch on Youtube.

Balladyna by Juliusz Słowacki

The main idea behind the drama is how good and evil both function simultaneously in this world and the fight between the two. A nymph sends a prince to the main character’s house. The main character wants to marry the prince, so she does a lot of awful things. Basically. It’s a nice story, though strange. A story that you would read to a child, except the language of the drama is… complicated. Let’s be honest — it’s Romanticism after all.

I would recommend it, but I wouldn’t die to make someone read it.

adaptations: There is this absolutely awful movie from 2009 (English title: The Bait). It’s loosely based on Balladyna.

Kordian by Juliusz Słowacki

It’s about this guy who plans to kill the tzar. There was a deeper meaning too but don’t ask me about it, I just don’t remember. To be honest, it was surprisingly pleasant to read and sometimes quite funny (I don’t think it was supposed to be, though). But I wouldn’t recommend it unless you know a whole lot about Polish history and culture — or unless you’re dangerously interested in it. And I mean like, you’d kill and die for it.

Nie-Boska komedia by Zygmunt Krasiński

To be honest, it’s a weirdly good story and what surprises me most about it is that it’s actually understandable, even though it’s quite a typical romantic drama. Interesting, huh…

It’s about a man who is looking for his artistic self, leaves his family to pursue his art, and then there’s him trying to protect his country. It was actually written to criticize this romantic way of thinking and living, so there are a few moments where the author just dissed other authors of the time, but most importantly, the story is a comment on the current (current for them) political and sociological events, as well as religion, and a way for Krasiński to express his opinions.

Recommend? Meh. It’s a good read but it’s not a must and you gotta be in a mood for it. Also, a solid historical and literary background would make the reading way easier.

My advice if you’re planning on reading any of these? Check the time period of the action. I swear if you do that and you pretty much can tell what the background for Poland was at the time, even just like one basic piece of information, it will make reading the book possible.

I think that’s about it. There are hundreds of other great Polish books that I can go on and on about (I can also talk about these for at least a few hours), so again -- if you have any questions, opinions, requests, anything, ask away.

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