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precious-little-scoundrel · 3 months

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Twenty Songs Challenge, written after being so lovingly inducted by the powerhouse that is sweet Mey, @the-ugly-swan . Challenge being to choose twenty favorited songs and write one shots based off of them with any pairing or fandom of my choosing. Being a weirdo and a little burned out in my own created universes beyond the fics already in works, I chose what currently inspired me most, obscure as it is.

Pairing: Henry “Hotspur” Percy and Lady “Kate” Mortimer Percy -early 15th century

Fandom: RPF, Shakespeare? Tom Glynn-Carney’s 5 magnificent minutes of a performance as Hotspur in <The King 2019> the armor alone was amply inspiring. The Hollow Crown fans feel free to imagine whoever, as you like. I love this historical pairing in about any iteration and the plot is drawn from both Shakespeare’s play and real history, the timeline, plot and politics being pretty self explanatory through the incorporated dialogue. NOTE- wordplay ahead with “cur” and “Kerr”, the latter being a Scottish clan holding great enmity with the Percy Family and charged with holding the Scottish side of the border. Also I kept Lady Percy’s name as “Kate” even though it was technically Elizabeth in the records.

Dynamic: a rough northern lord and his too good for him lady -a lady who has, through years of an arranged marriage gone horribly well, come to find his homespun gallantry and blunt ways more than a little intoxicating when knelt before her in amused deference. She could almost find it in herself to be gentle with him -if he hadn’t just started a rebellion whilst away from her at the Capitol.

Dedicated to my wifey @prompted-wordsmith who I did proselytize into the Percy cult one fevered evening with inestimable results, including her contribution of a few choice lines herein.

🕯As it Was ~ Hozier

“There is a roadway, muddy and foxgloved

Never I'd had life enough

My heart is screaming out

And in a few days I would be there, love

Whatever here that's left of me is yours just as it was”

Warnings: 18+ to be safe. a small amount of sexual content, flirtations, a husband and wife touching in public, verbal sparring and talk of making children and use of the word “bred”, swearing, use of the words “cock” and “cunt.”

The sound of hooves in the courtyard rouses Kate from her anxious stupor by the hearth, toilsome grain list forgotten on her lap. The scroll swishes to the floor at her abrupt standing, wafting out of her path as she rushes to the window.

First the clatter of a single, foremost, over-eager rider, followed at a lag by his retinue, skilled riders all and armored as befits the guard of a nobleman. They make such a clatter in the yard when they come in after him. Some petty part of her briefly considers the tactic of staying here in their chambers in protest, a quiet sign of disapproval with his errand, of discontent with his brusque leave taking two weeks agone.

Her Harry would find her anyway, and like it better that she were in their chambers. He would like it well she were so near the bed and like it ill she slighted him in her dutiful welcome -but he would not speak of that. Not one for speaking much, her husband, not on matters that plague her these days, weeks, months. Kate might have it out with him in the old way and slap him about and toss cold quips and get from him little more than the same benign aggravation and good humored laughs between, a couple dozen kisses to her neck and a grapple in the sheets.

That is what talk they would undertake were she to stay up here.

It is that lone, eager, forerunning clatter of his horse that speaks to her, speaks for him. Just as his sword and his reputation and his gruff graciousness has spoken well of him across these northern lands, his eagerness to return to her, to outstrip his men in haste to be back from his fool’s errand and into her embrace -it is all the declaration of devotion she may expect from him. It is the truest form, without jape lacing his tone or tonic of lust clouding his confessions.

Harry Hotspur, as fast to return to his wife as he is to meet a fight.

It is love, of the sort she has grown to be grateful for, and it is that and fear of losing it besides, that rushes her out from their chambers and down the polished steps, out to the great hall and past the giant outer doors, cursing a lousy servant or five and ordering a bath and commissioning supper and refreshments as she goes. The torch flames bend from her flight, a whoosh and a shadow stalking Alnwick Castle’s stone passageways until the gray light of evening pours into her sight from the opened great doors. Squires and stable boys clutter her path but they part as she dashes, nay, only a dignified hasten now, out into the courtyard where nearly all of this fool’s troup have dismounted.

There are doffed helms to the Lady Percy, the jangle of chain mail crinkling with bows and scraps of deference all around them, but she sees only him, with mist dripping on his nose and a face too boyish for the insolence he has returned from discharging.

“Kate.” he utters.

Will ever he say her name lazily? She hopes not, for that alone she will endure the unwarranted cheerfulness with which he greets her on this dire occasion. She has heard it said in anger, in jest and in passion, vows and quips, praise and warning. And now in cheerful pleasure as evening mist soaks her gown and the heavy clunk of her husband's footsteps clang ever near her on the paving stones.

“Lord husband.” she greets, hands folded over her freshly healed womb.

His stride falters and he rocks back on his spurred heels, an arms length away, an embrace so tangible she can see his jaw tick from the watering of his mouth. “Lord husband is it?” he repeats thoughtfully, eyes drifting down to the paving stones for a brief moment as if to recollect some forgotten crime, they flick up soon and in them is jesting scrutiny, “My lady wife rushed all this way, down five corridors and a furlong of Keep only to greet me thus?”

Did her rising breath betray her eagerness? Could he see her in the hall despite his business dismounting?

“Your cheeks are red.” he shows her mercy, some form of it. His form. “But -Lord husband, it is, nevertheless?”

“Unless you would prefer ought else?” she inquires, he had once thought this smile quite chilling, he had admitted after their first babe, now he finds it rousing, he has admitted after their third.

“If it please you.” his shifting stance is noisy, his tabard and sword and still clutched helm a racket of accouterments in the pattering rain.

“I have any number to offer,” she concedes, stepping nearer, a lady’s step, covering one third of the ground between them that he might vanquish in a single stride. Still, he waits. “Knucklehead.” she whispers, her breath a fog and her insult as lost as vapor in the ears of his watching men, her bearing alone must satisfy their curiosity, as must his growing smirk and rising color, “Jackenape.” Another step until each little scar on his face is visible and the little canyons each raindrop make of them. She saw his finger twitching where it grasped his visor “Cur.”

There was the slightest flinch between his brows at that, a furrow that smoothed as his mirthful lips flattened out. “Careful now, lady wife, with words like Kerr* thrown about, my men might think you presumptuous, their lady gone and married to some other, a Scottish laird at that. So sure of my death already, sweet Kate, that you must speak of Kerrs in mine own yard? Ha, ‘pon my word you are qu-“

“Hush!” Her hand, fresh warmed as it was by recent hearthside and rich velvets pressed frimly to his lips, a tingle shooting straight to her toes at touching him at last. He was silent then, only the puff of breath against her fast chilling fingertips. “Tease me not so,” she begged, her own mirth gone out in her eyes, her arch look turned to grief, “not when you are just returned from an errand all but ensuring such an end. It is too cruel, even of you. Handle me kindly, Percy, as you always have, in words this time, if not in embrace.”

He seemed to ponder this before raising that hand not occupied with his helm, clumsy and clad in gauntlet as it was, to her wrist, wrapping the chilled and layered steel round her pale flesh and gently tugging her hand from his lips, only so far as to press it to his cheek instead, their audience of men at arms unheeded. “I betook myself to London,” he enunciated, as if it were their first night all over again and his thick borderland drawl too strong for her courtly ears to decipher, “to remind a king of his debts.”

“And tell me!” she cried fiercely, a choked, barely quieted protest as her hands dug into the wet leather of his jerkin, wrist twisted from the steel grasp, “What errand is that but a fool’s? Have you no fear at all left in this bruised carcass? Do I patch up an animated corpse time and again from your wars only for it never to have soul and feeling and wisdom in it? Do I, Harry? Gone to remind a king? How do you dare such?”

“It is he who has dared too much!” he cried back, loudly where her’s had been choked, a ringing and rebauld defense, worthy of a man who would chastise his monarch in full view of council. “First his debts, and now my son’s land! We did not make children so as to watch like blithe cowards as their birthright is bequeathed out from under our feet -piecemeal!- to a courtly cunt whose only recommendation is his alacrity to pucker and bow.”

Kate glanced about her at the men making show of industry, piddling at harnesses and armaments, walking horses in circles. Her husband's words could be no worse than what he had said to the King’s own face, anyone without stomach to become a rebel would have stayed behind in the Capitol, sensing dissension brewing. Lady Percy could perceive none missing from his number. So, a war it was to be, then.

“So, a new generation of Percys is to play at kingmaking.” she summarized.

“We make no boast of it.” Harry protested in turn.

“No,” said she, “why would you with how poorly your last choice has served you?”

That caused a start from him, a step forward that was neither gallant nor eager but angry as man to man. Kate, still with hands fisted in the crooks of his armor, stepped with him, backwards to his hall. “It is your brother with the better claim.” he showed his plan at last, a slow and conniving admission, one not common for his brash ways and straightforward mind.

Kate gasped at the implication. “Edmund?”

“He was proper heir, all along.”

“Your father-“ she chose her wording carefully, “-did not agree.”

“My father’s preference is not law.”

“It is mistaken for such, often.” Kate smirked in reply. “And Edmund is not suited-“

“-Edmund is not the turd now stealing from his vassals!” her Harry rejoined, his helmet pressed to her chest, “Edmund will do.” he reiterated once more.

Kate stared at his temper, the signs of it in his flaring nose and his wild eyes, the cure was between her thighs but watching mist drops fall from unblinking lashes was sweet prelude indeed. “Edmund,” she replied quietly and in a manner to be heeded, “is not willing or suited, he prefers instead to listen to welsh bards and lay upon the lap of his savage wife.”

Her Harry rolled his eyes at her truth, an admission, or the closest to one, she would ever receive. As if battling some great inner turmoil she watched him purse his lips and heave out a sigh before in a sudden movement the helm was tossed to the ground -much to the scramble and reaction of a half a dozen squires who ran to pick it up from its puddle- and suddenly steel hands were upon her hips, tugging her near to him even as she shied away, her face turned in a pantomime of demureness. “Strange,” he said and his tone suggested he still pondered her report of her brother's amorous preoccupations, “-and her lap so less Devine than mine own wife’s.”

“Then why do you haste from it so often?” she whined, delivering a smack against his belted tabard, right where the lions paraded across his right breast.

“Only a man dying of thirst appreciates that water has a flavor.” he reasoned and Kate allowed the open mouthed kisses that crept down her neck, her face turned stubbornly still to the south wall. The blacksmith's roof will be in need of new thatching soon, before spring. Before war.

She feels stubble against her tender skin, bracketing those pretty lips she once derided him for. No warrior ought to have lips like that, it was not seemly, not when maidens were denied such richness, such fullness, such rosy hue. But there is roughness about his lips and on his jaw as it tucks into the juncture at her shoulder, that show of clavicle her dress allows drawing him in like a siren’s song. He must’ve rode hard the entire way, no inns or refreshment, no shaving or baths, straight to her as from a battlefield. The King’s city is just as loathsome as any field of carnage, but he went to free her brother, to get a ransom, to reclaim their stolen land, to remind a king.

He did it for her, and the babes she gave him.

Kate turns her face from the blacksmith's thatch and raises her hand to his face, tenderly stroking the three days' beard that's grown as he's been on the road, riding hard to get to her. They have backed nearly to the hall’s mouth, the drip of rain off the gutter patters behind her on the threshold, Kate knows he can smell supper and hear the clatter of their children racing to meet him on still chubby legs. How different is the love of home, man to woman, Harry would sooner fight for it and she would cower within. Her thumb swipes at the raindrops making farce of tears upon his cheek.

"Princess," he breathes against her palm as he crushes her into his chest, still half armored and agonized for it as he cannot feel her softness with the cuirass, the leather, the chainmail. There are curves and bosoms and soft flesh he knows too well just on the other side of this awful barrier.

Princess will be her title if his treason succeeds, if her brother wears that cursed crown. “Princess”. It sours her mouth, but it is kind of him to wish it for her.

"You will come back, Harry.” she commands of him, she declares the outcome of this brewing war, “Soaked in the blood of feckless scum, you will come back and put another babe in me. A little prince or princess," she hisses in his ear, and she can tell he freezes at that, her concession to his treason, still as stone in his metal casings.

His eyes are ever so blue as they search hers.

"So I forbid any recklessness, my Lord Husband. Because I want this - " and her hand slips beneath his jerkin and the hem of mail to squeeze his cockstand most assuredly, as assuredly as she was that he would be sporting one for her, gripping it as one might grasp a chalice of wine during a toast "- and the rest of you, in one piece." Harry slumps against her shoulder, panting into the chilled hair and too heavy for her little frame. "Or so help me God." she intones, sharper than any steel he wields. "Swear it, Harry." She gives him another punishing squeeze, and he groans, agonized, as his mouth meets with the softness of her bound bosom, his knees the hardness of the stone cobbles. If she hadn't promised a use for his cock, he'd think she was liable to geld him herself at his presumption to seat and unseat a king, but now that he is out of her grip, for a moment, and looks up at her with such longing he fears his soul has left his chest for hers.

"So help me God." he agrees, it is in providence’s hands, after all, and in Kate’s clasped one’s atop his head.

“Fool.” she says once more as she bends over him, gently pressing a hand to the back of his head, pressing his face to her belly and her chilled fingers to his sopping hair, “It is not my brother these men fight for, nor for me. Not when it is you that calls them to it.”

“For what then?” He mumbles into her womb, hands heavy on her hips, the courtyard’s occupants dispersed into the shadows of the eaves, but a couple dozen peering eyes twinkle towards them in the twilight’s gloom.

“How often have I heard it said here, in this very courtyard.” Kate scoffs, observing the strength knelt so adoringly before her, “Have I dreamed each cry of ‘no prince save he be a Percy?’ Ha, to think they fight for a Mortimer, indeed. Ha!”

Harry staggers to his feet at this poke, it is, as are so many of his Kate’s wounds, half torment, half praise. His blood pounds with the elixir of her acknowledgment of his capability. “It is well then, Kate Mortimer,” he recites, daring now to put his lips very near her own, to nuzzle his strong nose with her hawkish one, to tip a chin and bat an eyelash against her wet cheek, “it is well that you are Percy now yourself, through and through, wed-“ his lips meet hers in a brush she chases after, “-and bred.”

🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯

Hope all five of you who read that enjoyed it. 😆 I know it’s a fragment but as I’m nothing but hyper fixated when some interests resurrects in me, I’ll probably be back with more of them. Drop a note below if you’d like to be on a taglist for such developments.

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kineticallyanywhere · 2 years

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this is freaking my bean

#dungeons and daddies #dndads #dndads 2 #fanart #kineticallyart #hecking THE VAST up in here #i partially drew this to get it out of my brain #which is how i typically feel better about things #but this MADE IT WORSE #FRICK #gonna go ahead and tag this as #eldritch horror

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musclesandhammering · 9 months

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If you accuse real human people of being homophobic bc they don’t ship the two fictional white men that you do, you have empty space where your brain should be.

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local-redhead-bookworm · 2 years

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Hey, I’m in a mood to ramble about Steve today. This gets pretty long though, so pull up a chair.

I could go on for hours about how the Duffers could not write a character arc if you put a gun to their heads, but they actually came pretty close with Steve. I also really like to look at what’s actually happening in the story versus how the narrative frames it, so we’re gonna talk about Steve.

So at the beginning, Steve is meant to be perceived as “Nancy’s jerk boyfriend” and that’s it. Honestly, I’m surprised he ever made it past that, given how the Duffers handled every other male character aside from Jonathan and now Argyle. Anyway, we’re meant to see him as an arrogant rich boy who’s a jerk to Jonathan in s1, and nothing else.

But let’s set the narrative lens aside for a second. He caught Jonathan trespassing on his family’s property, taking inappropriate photos of his girlfriend. Now I know this all gets addressed later, but in the moment, it’s really not a good look for Jonathan. I think breaking Jonathan’s camera was too far, but Steve’s anger is justified. The incident with the spray paint and him calling Jonathan a slur are absolutely not being excused here, I’m merely pointing out that his actions before that point were not exactly as the narrative frames them.

Then we have his famous match with the demogorgon, where Steve actually had come to apologize to Jonathan and instead got pulled into the Upside Down mess. He jumps right into his role as the protector, and he’s a much better person because of this.

Then in s2, Steve and Nancy have been dating for almost a year. He is an extremely devoted boyfriend, and he clearly adores Nancy, but it’s obvious that Nancy is still thinking about Jonathan. Even when she helps him out with academic stuff, she continues to fling his own poor grades and his shortcomings in his face. Then she dumps him, and he is absolutely devastated by it.

At this point, it’s worth mentioning that Steve’s parents are virtually never present. Granted, some of the parents in the show are fairly uninvolved, but Steve’s parents are just never there. Let’s re-evaluate Steve’s relationships in light of this. He’s popular but Tommy and Carol have dropped him by s2, so he doesn’t have many (if any) real friends. Take this with how attached he was to Nancy, and it paints a picture of simply a very lonely teenaged boy. She’s the first person who’s chosen to stick around him in a while for something other than his status. He was so deeply in love with her, and her decision to dump him is like a knife to the heart for him.

After his breakup with Nancy, he gets dragged into the Upside Down mess again by Dustin, who at this point he probably just knows as “Nancy’s little brother’s friend.” And he throws himself into helping and protecting because he feels useful and wanted here, with Dustin, who’s like a little brother to him. He gives Dustin relationship advice and while it’s not good, it does show us how deeply his breakup with Nancy hurt him. We see him talk to Nancy briefly, and we see how deeply her words about him being a “shitty boyfriend” hurt him. He’s convinced he was the problem, as if she wasn’t the one constantly brushing him off and casting longing looks at Jonathan.

In s3, things are better. He’s much happier, and he’s overjoyed to see Dustin. However, he failed to get accepted into any colleges, presumably because of his low grades and his flopped admission letters. He’s developed some feelings for Robin and he’s still very absorbed with trying to get a date, but given the ease with which he takes her rejection and her coming out to him, he’s in a much more stable place emotionally by the end of the season. He states that he is no longer in love with Nancy and considers her a friend.

It seemed like we were through with Steve being second fiddle and hung up on romance, because he had friends now. He had his little found family.

Then everything changed with the arrival of s4. It butchered Steve’s dynamic with Dustin by having Dustin constantly belittle his intelligence. When Steve says that Nancy nearly shot him, she says he nearly deserved it, when he was coming to apologize to Jonathan. Nancy continues to insinuate that he’s stupid, and he never acknowledges this. We hear about how much this lonesome only child wants a big family, only to have to listen to him admit that it always included her. As if she isn’t still in a relationship with Jonathan at this time, as if she hasn’t constantly insulted him and made him feel undeserving of her love. The season concludes their relationship with Nancy being back with Jonathan but not communicating their problems, while Steve looks on longingly from the sidelines.

We can have Steve being clueless and out of the loop without being treated like he’s stupid. We can have Steve find belonging in his close friendship with Robin, and the older brother role he plays in Dustin’s life. We can have Steve be happy without him needing to get back with his ex who do obviously damaged his self esteem. Steve’s arc and his worth as a character do not begin and end with romance, and I’m sick of seeing another character’s story be a way to say that romance is the only thing that matters.

#steve harrington #stranger things #stranger things analysis #stranger things meta #stranger things 4 #stranger things 4 spoilers #stranger things spoilers #stranger things season 4 #and this doesn’t even begin to touch on my theory that steve is dyslexic #or all the trauma he’d have after being tortured in s3 #steve deserves better #better than Nancy specifically but also just in general #given how they’ve handled every other long haired pretty boy I’m surprised he ever became more than his first draft character #gonna go ahead and tag this as #anti stancy #my posts

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spidersrightsactivist · 9 months

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so many posts about the eroticism of surgery and bioexperimentation not enough of them talking about the song ‘electric lover’ from coyote kid’s 2019 album ‘skeleton man’

#music #coyote kid #gonna go ahead and tag this as #horse girl novel

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queenofbaws · 1 year

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so like what is the deal with the washington parents? They dont really seem to care about their children. Josh‘ issues and the twins literally dying. are they not concerned? Or just dont show it? Do you think it was different when they were children? What kind of relationship do you think the twins and josh had with their parents?

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aw man, an excellent question this chilly evening! i mean, in the canon material at least, i think the washington parents just suffer from 'don't look too close at the background characters shhhhhhhhhh' disease, where we just weren't supposed to think about them...

but if you're lookin' for my headcanons ohoho. ohoooo. HOO BOY. i got those. ;Pc

i want to preface this by saying for everything i am about to rant about, there is maybe like. 3 sentences in the source material to support. the rest, as you might imagine, is simply the product of me staring at my ceiling at night and writing in-depth character bios in my head. think barbie doll soap operas but with people who dress like they've never experienced snow before in their lives.

whenever i think about the washingtons, the first word that always pops into my head is COMPLICATED. i think they're a complicated bunch. i do think they love each other, and i do think they care about each other, i just also think there's some distance there. i've always very much been of the belief that josh and the twins were closer to each other than any of them were to their parents, but i don't think that means there isn't love there - just that it's, again, COMMMMPLICATED XD

i think the major issue in the washington fam, as a general rule, is denial. 'pretend it's not a problem and it won't be one.' is that a major issue in my family? perhaps. is this just me projecting? who's to say. but at the end of the day, i think there's a lot of avoidance and distance when it comes to talking about The Big Bad Stuff. we see that in josh, at least, how he just tamps stuff down and lets it fester, so i always just assumed he had to get that from SOMEWHERE. there are also little niblets of this here and there with like, hannah's diary suggesting she wasn't aware of what was going on with josh when he was in and out of the hospital.

so in my head, i tend to translate that as the MOMENT the washington parents realized the situation with beth and hannah was what it was, they both just absolutely, without question, 110% threw themselves into their work so they wouldn't have to think about it. not the healthiest way to go, to be sure, but...i don't know, that's just always the picture i had in my head. in the basement, josh leads sam to believe that his dad's been pretty distant ever since the movie thing took off anyway, so i just sort of stretched that into "and now that things are so fuckin grim here all the time, he's really not around." i like to believe that means it was different when they were kids, that maybe the family was closer and they spent more time together, but i'm sure the whole 'suddenly winning award(s) in hollywood' thing affected how much time they got to spend together.

i sort of paint that in broader strokes in t(a), mostly because whenever we're really dealing with the washington family dynamic stuff, we're seeing it through josh's eyes and he's Goin Thru It, but for what it's worth, in my head i always imagine there's some sort of familial reconciliation when *plugs fingers in ears and talks real loud so i can't hear anyone say the word 'canon'* JOSH AND ALL THE OTHERS GET HOME AFTER WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE LODGE BLOWS UP LA LA LA LA LA LAAAAA!

this was a lot of rambling for me to get across that YES, i do think the washingtons care about their kids, i just think they're maybe not great at showing it. i think they all need to be seeing dr hill for weekly sessions, that's what i think.

#submission #save-the-dandelions #asks #gonna go ahead and tag this as #the almosts #since thats where said headcanons gelled XD

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