#hag-seed

[the-dust-jacket]

LET'S PUT ON A SHOW: six novels about playing Shakespeare!

(Pictured: Romeo and Juliet Together (And Alive!) At Last; Foolish Hearts; King of Shadows; Star-Crossed; Hag-Seed; Station Eleven)

I love a good let's-put-on-a-show story, especially a Shakespearian one, and I feel like it's been ages since I've picked one up. If you've got recommendations please let me know!

#William Shakespeare #Happy Shakespeare Day #Romeo and Juliet Together and Alive At Last #Hag-Seed #Station Eleven #Foolish Hearts #King of Shadows #Star-Crossed #Barbara Dee #Susan Cooper #Emily St. John Mandel #Avi #Emma Mills #Margaret Atwood

[doresworld]

17/07/22

Books I’ve read this week!

I was in a bit of a reading rut and my tbr pile kept growing, so I decided to try and challenge myself to reading as many books as I could this week.

On top of that challenge I also ‘forced’ myself to write a review for every book that I read, so that I can actively interact with the book a bit more rather than read them and put them back on the shelf. It definitely helped to do this, because honestly at least three of these books were a bit disappointing and it was interesting to actually work out why I felt this way about the book.

Overall I read 2,163 pages which is absolutely mind blowing, and my tbr shelf is now begging to be filled back up with new books (but I must resist as I still have a few more left to read).

Unsure if I’ll be attempting this again this coming week but we shall see!

#dores world 🌍 #dore is off world 🚀 #reading #reading challenge #july reads #do androids dream of electric sheep #childhood’s end #hag-seed #norse mythology #bury my heart at wounded knee #dances with wolves #extraordinary insects

[thatstudyblrontea]

Female writer anon here — I now have a new issue….

I have too many books I want to read 😅

I’m currently nearly finished with a very long book (1124 pages, I think the author is trying to break my wrist) but I already want to jump into the next part of the series (and the next) but I’m also reading A Little Life (beautiful and painful and unfortunately relatable) but Hag Seed will be delivered sometime within the next day or two and I’m really curious about it and can’t wait to start reading it buuut I also brought a book called Jonathon Strange and Mr Norell that I really am curious about. And none of this is mentioning the small stack of history/science books I’ve been wanting to read or the ever growing Greek classics that I’ve been collecting to read.

The obvious answer is to make a list and then whittle the list down to be more manageable but I think what I really need is more hours in the day dedicated solely for reading.

Hi!! I'm so happy to hear from you again – and oh my god you got Hag-Seed already!!! I so hope you'll like it!

Now, this is the point in my answers in which I give a useful and constructive advice. And I would, if ~200 books weren't currently holding me at gun point daring me to pretend to know how to read faster.

The real thing is, you'll find time. There's no reason to rush. Books won't leave you, won't expire. I've come to terms with the fact that I probably won't even be able to read all those I already own – what with them being mostly classics and therefore taking more time to be read, or with my degree requiring a lot of reading – but it won't stop me from picking up a book I want to read more!

Just read what you feel like reading at the moment, forget the lists – reading books you enjoy will make you read much faster anyway! Just, maybe, try to keep in mind that some books will take more time (some Greek classics, for example), so if you're indecisive between one of those and another book, choose the latter, so you'll be able to start the next sooner.

Hope to hear from you as soon as you delve into Hag-Seed (good and bad impressions are equally welcome, I'd just love to discuss the book), and good luck with your reading!

#ask #asks #answered ask #reading lists #female writer anon #Hag-Seed #margaret atwood #reading problems

[fuckingwhateverdude]

what are your top 3 books you'd show to someone to help them get to know you?

ooohhh good question!!! not necessarily books which i feel are a reflection of me but prob 1) h of h playbook by anne carson, 2) kafka on the shore by haruki murakami, 3) mary, called magdalene by margaret george <3

#basically 3 books i read that i deeply deeply enjoyed LMAO #ive been reading sm lately thank u for asking :) #readng hag-seed by margaret atwood now and im stunned as well

[friend-crow]

Hagging Out, Seeds Edition

In an effort to executive dysfunction-proof my garden, most of what I currently have is either perennial or else does a pretty good job of reseeding itself (mullein, foxgloves, and fringe cups really need no encouragement, especially the fringe cups). There are a couple of plants that I like to collect some seeds from for good measure, though I usually scatter the majority of them.

The main flower stalk of the one mullein I had this year is already done, though there are about a dozen smaller ones that have since started blooming. I plan on making witches' torches from the main one, so I cut it back* and gave it a good shake over the area I'd prefer the next crop to come up in. I've planted a couple of native ground cover starts near there (wild ginger and pacific waterleaf), but it'll take them a little while to take over, so in the meantime I'm hoping the mullein will crowd out some of the usual Spanish bluebells and creeping buttercups come spring.

I don't cut back the foxgloves until spring, because some pollinators overwinter in hollow stems. I do, however, give the stalks a vigorous shaking to spread the seeds.

Columbine and love in a mist are the seeds I actually save. Both produce cute seed pods, and I'm particularly fond of the sound dry columbine pods (left) make when you shake them. I spread most of the seeds, but saved a packet of each in case they don't come back, or else don't come back in the areas I'd like them in next year.

Another plant that I don't save seeds from is Kenilworth ivy. My grandmother introduced these to the garden before I was born, and they're pretty chill for a non-native, fast spreading vine. They can't hold their own against some of the more invasive weeds mentioned above, but they're nice for filling in areas I'm not ready to deal with yet, like the planter full of composting leaves and wood the ones pictured are in. They're also really nice along walls and borders.

A fascinating thing about them is that while they're in bloom the flowers are phototropic (moving towards light), but once fertilized they become skototropic (moving away from light - relatable), and embed themselves in dark areas, thus planting the next wave of seeds. I mention this only because it's seed-related and think it's fucking cool.

Anyway, none of this is particularly ritualistic, it's just something that does (or depending on mobility and the aforementioned executive dysfunction, does not) happen on a yearly basis.

*It took me until the following morning to figure out that the grit in my hair was mullein seeds. This will happen when you're dealing with seed heads that are a few feet taller than you.

Thanks to @graveyarddirt for hosting another round of hagging!

#hagging out 2022 #seeds #gardening

[pagan-stitches]

Hagging Out: Veneration

Great-Grandma Hazel has been on my mind a lot this Thanksgiving weekend.  We used her china at Mom’s dinner and while tracking down the pattern to answer a question from @hrusewif I started looking for an old photo of my great grandparent’s wedding and stumbled on her recipe for poppy seed torte.  So I decided that since she seemed to be reaching out to me I’d spend some quality time with Great-Gran.  I went ahead and made the poppy seed torte and after lighting a candle and some incense I moved into the other room and had a cozy, informal sit down with her over a cup of tea (this time for real the very last teaspoonful of Russian caravan, I actually threw the packaging away this morning) in one of her old china cups (pattern: Homer Laughlin “ferndale”), and a slice of the torte.

Transcript from an article I wrote over a decade ago:

John Marlow and Hazel Caldie Marlow on their Wedding Day in 1912

After I got off the phone with Mom and then my maternal grandmother ("Granny") this Mother's Day morning, I was thinking about food--as you know I often do. Go figure! Several years ago I was reading a book about ethnic food traditions in America and the foods we inherit through our mothers. I remember quizzing Mom and Granny to death on the foods that they both grew up on. I have tons of notes somewhere that I took, probably buried with my genealogy stuff that is a come and go hobby, but some of the things I remember them talking about was the huge gardens (Granny was raising twelve kids on Grandpa's small salary) and all the potatoes down in the cellar, about night-time smelt runs, and kolaches, the Friday fish fries at Grandpa Thibodeau's ice cream parlour, and my mom's paternal Grandma Hazel Marlow's frosting--which was evidently something amazing.

Great-Grandpa Thibodeau's ice cream parlour (in an earlier incarnation as a "confectionary store") in Ashland, WI. Pictured are his brother William and sister Gertrude, circa 1910. My Granny, Lorraine Thibodeau Marlow, grew up in the above apartment.

You may have gathered from the above description that my Mother's family is not from the South! Mom is mostly descended from French Canadians who immigrated to Wisconsin at the turn of the century. Except that my Great-Grandfather married a half Scottish lady (the other half, of course, was Canadian French), Hazel Caldie, whose grandfather Thomas Caldie had hacked their farm out of the wilderness in 1862 near what would become Stiles, Wisconsin.

The extended Marlow family sometime in the twenties, probably on the farm (I think outside Denmark, Wisconsin). Grandma Hazel Caldie Marlow is circled, one of my great uncles is directly below her, the man above her is my Great-Grandpa John Marlow, and on his lap is another of my great uncles (my Grandpa wasn't born yet). I believe the rather stern looking lady in the top row center is my great-great Grandma Marlow (doesn't she just look like the matriarch of a farm family?), and the graying gentleman with the moustache and white shirt to the left is my great-great Grandpa Marlow.

I never did get the frosting recipe, but Mom managed to track down some of Grandma Hazel's other recipes from my Great Aunt Bev, who still had an old recipe box of Grandma Hazel's. My Aunt Mary requested this recipe, which she had childhood memories of:

Grandma Hazel’s Poppy Seed Torte

Ingredients:

2 cups graham cracker crumbs

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup poppy seed

1/2 cup sugar

6Tbls. flour

Dash of salt

2 cups milk

3 egg yolks

1t vanilla

3 egg whites

6 TB sugar

Directions:

Mix crumbs sugar & butter. Reserve 1/2 cup for topping.

Mix poppy seed, sugar, flour, salt & 1/2 cup milk to smooth paste.

Scald 1 1/2 cups milk, add the flour mixture slowly.

Boil 5 minutes (turn the heat down if necessary)

Beat egg yolks & vanilla, add slowly to custard white stirring rapidly & cook five more minutes.

Cool.

Put the mixture of crumbs, brown sugar & butter in pyrex pan. Pour custard over. Beat egg whites stiff , add 6Tbls. sugar, beat until thick & holds peaks.

Put over top and sprinkle with crumbs. Bake 15 minutes at 325 degrees.

Like most of the family recipes from Wisconsin, this is not Scottish, or French Candadian, but Eastern European! Which, I always find rather amusing, since it is actually on my Dad's side of the family (Nebraskan pioneers) that I'm descended in part from Moravia (the Tesars, Yuraceks, and Ludvics).  

One of my favorite pics of my great grandparents--what are they smiling about?

Great Grandma with one of my mom’s 8 brothers.

End Transcript

Doing research this morning I realized that what we thought was an Eastern European recipe is actually German, however it is very much a regional Midwest, especially Wisconsin, traditional favorite.

I’ve been told I look a lot like my Great-Grandma.  She, my mom, and I are tall ladies and all exactly the same height!

I really enjoyed going down this rabbit hole of memories and spending some time with my Great-Gran.  Thanks for hosting @graveyarddirt​ I know I’m early, but I wanted to get it all down while it was fresh.

#Hazel Caldie Marlow #poppy seed torte #hagging out #hagging out november 2022 #ancestor veneration

[ghostdrinkssoup]

I am such a margaret atwood anti it’s not even funny

#she wrote hag-seed and that’s enough of a crime imo #idk if she’s a terf but I wouldn’t be surprised #she has terf vibes #my dislike is mostly irrational she just didn’t pass the vibe check #me an empath #also handmaid’s tale lmao idk I didn’t enjoy that book either #it didn’t spark joy #txt #ghost speaks

[elgatodeltren]

playing the audiobook at 1.25x speed (derogatory)

#I only speed up books I don’t like that I have to read #I did it with hag seed in April #now I’m reading run rose run #the audiobook is fully voice acted it is BIZARRE

[raviollies]

BOUND TOGETHER

Stained Glass depicts a family tree with the father's side being broken and Lorelai's portrait weeping, a depiction of Lorelai's past as she had accidently killed her father.

The Skull has fangs, the nature of vampirism being tied to undeath, the Black Roses surrounding reinforce the theme of decay, death and dishonour. The Blood dripping from behind it is the price she paid by spilling her father's blood for her vampirism.

Blythe is depicted Dancing - a call back to her nature as performing to make herself liked and play a character to hide her true self.

Pomegranates, an allusion to the Greek myth about how Hades tricked Persephone to be chained to the underworld using pomegranate seeds, Theta tricked Blythe to become a hexblood to chain her to herself

Butterflies and empty cocoons are found in the Daffodils, both are symbols of rebirth, new beginnings and metamorphosis, tying back to Blythe's journey from Elf to Hexblood, and the eventual possibility of being a hag.

The Tied Magpie in the Mirror is reflection of Blythe's true self, a bird being captive by Theta, Magpies are considered an omen of bad luck, believed to have a drop of devil's blood underneath their tongue

Broken Elven statue is Raha's ties to his cultural identity are broken and decayed. The Creeping Vines symbolize the lack of upkeep to preserve this past. The flowers surrounding it are the Spring Snowflakes, known to bloom at the end of winter/beginning of spring - a new beginning to life and hope.

The Empty nest is representative of him having lost his family, and leaving behind the Elven commune he stayed with afterwards. Having left, and no one in his family being alive, all that's left is an empty nest.

A Borzoi is running from the statue, symbolizing Raha running from his past and wishing to distance himself from what hurt him. Dogs are often tied to symbols of loyalty, love, and protection, all things that are true to Raha's character as an individual.

A Red Ribbon surrounds them, the red string usually symbolizes the old myth of the red string of fate, binding people together.

#blythe #raha #lorelai #dnd #oc #below cut is a giant explanation of all the imagery #because i cant shut up #my art

[imyourbratzdoll]

Dark! Ari Levinson notices you across the bar after he was separated with his ex wife and has to have you for himself

this is short. I hope you like it.

warning - smut, semi-public sex, dark?

18+ only, please. gif isn't mine, divider by @newlips

Y/n is bent over the bathroom sink, and the man from the bar, whose name she learnt was Ari is behind her, thrusting his thick member in and out of her tight cunt. Her eyes roll to the back of her head when he finds her sweet spot. His veiny hand moves down her body as his long thick fingers locate her swollen button, pinching and rubbing it. 

“A–ah, too big, Ari. Slow down.” Y/n’s words come out choked as his pace picks up, the bathroom filled with grunts and groans. Ari leans down and begins to plant soft kisses and hickeys across her flesh. “Oh, fuck. Right there.” 

“I knew you’d like this, you naughty little minx.” Ari bites down, his cock pounding deeper and harder into the small woman. Feeling her clench and pulsate around the thick member, he lets out a deep groan at the feeling. “You should feel special, baby girl, when I saw you across from me at the bar. I knew– fuck –I had to have you.” Ari’s fingers pick up a quick pace, flicking the swollen bean as he continues to destroy Y/n. “You gonna be my new wife, baby? You gonna let me show you off to the old hag I call an ex wife?” 

Y/n pants, her mind fuzzy as she nods, feeling her core tighten and needy whines leave her lips. “Gonna cum, please can I cum?” 

“Go ahead, baby. Let go.” Ari grunts, struggling to thrust as her walls tighten and squeeze the bulging member, cream coating his base as she lets go. “That’s a good girl.” Ari feels his balls tighten, thrusting a hard thrust into her sensitive cunt as he buries himself deep, letting go of all the pent-up tension he’s been holding. 

Y/n’s cunt overflows with Ari’s warm seed, both letting out sighs of relief as Ari pulls out, tucking his soaked cock back into his pants before zipping up and pulling Y/n’s dress down. Once she’s turned around and facing him, his hand comes up and grips her chin, a dark smile forming on his face as he looks down at the tiny woman. 

“I hope you said goodbye to everyone, baby girl. Because I’m never letting you go, ever again.” 

thank you for reading!

feedback and reblogs are greatly appreciated.

#imyourbratzdollasks #imyourbratzdollwork #chris evans imagine #answered #anonymous #asks #anon reply #chris evans angst #anons welcome #chris evans x female reader #chris evans x reader #chris evans fanfiction #chris evans #chris evans blurb #chris evans characters #chris evans drabble #chris evans fan fic #chris evans fan fiction #chris evans fandom #chris evans fanfic #chris evans fic #chris evans fluff #chris evans imagines #chris evans one shot #chris evans oneshot #chris evans x fem! reader #chris evans x reader fluff #chris evans x y/n #chris evans x you #chrisevans

[monstersandmaw]

Male orc (Rhuarc) x female character - Part One (sfw)

Disclaimer which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

Thank you to the two people who explicitly expressed interest in this story via my inbox. This one's for you. Here's Rhuarc the single dad orc and his girl, and how they met. I've even got some visuals in this one too!

Content: kidnapping, attempted human sacrifice, violence, some light gore, implied age gap, older male character, single father orc x small human female

Wordcount: 4344

Rhuarc tried not to resent the fact that the Jarl of Markarth’s crusty old steward had looked him up and down as he’d stood in front of the so-called Mournful Throne, and decided that the orc was either entirely expendable or utterly stupid enough to take on an entire Forsworn camp. By himself.

Apparently it was the latter though, because with his two adopted girls waiting for his return in Whiterun, Rhuarc was most certainly not expendable these days. Perhaps twenty years ago, he might have hurled himself at the nearest frothing lunatic disrupting trade routes and abducting travellers off the roads without much care for the damage he took — the fact that he’d lost the sight in his right eye before he’d turned nineteen was testament to that — but these days, his contracts required thought and planning.

Kill the leader of Hag’s End, an old Nordic tomb complex nestled away in the frozen mountains to the northeast of Markarth.

Easy.

By himself.

Less easy.

The place was huge, and crawling with more Forsworn than termites in a mound, and there was every chance he would encounter a hagraven there too. Fuck, he hated those things. Whatever unnatural magic was used to create those half-bird, half-women, he didn’t want any part of it.

His own magic was fairly rudimentary by the standards of the average mage: a few fireballs here, a few healing spells there, and he could make a pretty decent lance out of ice if he had to. After all, orcs were known primarily for how ferociously they could bludgeon something into Oblivion, but magicka did coil its way through some of them too, and his mother had been both an alchemist and a mage.

Now though, as Rhuarc crept up behind the Briarheart warrior who led this bunch of rabid lunatics, and slipped his arm around the man’s throat to hold him still while he ripped the strange replacement heart out of the half-undead creature’s chest, he wondered exactly what kind of magic these people used that let them replace an otherwise healthy man’s beating heart with the poisoned seed of a Briarheart tree. And what special kind of lunacy allowed someone to undergo it willingly. Perhaps it wasn’t willing though? What did he know about these people?

As the orc’s fingers curled around the prickly seed that was about the size of an apple, the magic of it felt at once too cold and too hot; the way white hot metal feels in that moment of pure shock if you touch it by accident before the pain kicks in. He released the disgusting ‘heart’ and it fell with a splatter of gore onto the snowy carpet covering the cosy little platform, from where the man ruled over his clan of Forsworn. Rhuarc would have to find a scrap of cloth to wrap it in so that it didn’t leak everywhere between there and the city of Markarth, but he was looking forward to depositing it directly into the stuffy old steward’s lap as proof of the kill and the contract fulfilled.

The Briarheart warrior went instantly limp in his arms and Rhuarc laid him down silently on the frozen ground, already starting to plan his next move. A shout went up a second later from somewhere to his right — his blind side — and an arrow pinged off the bastion wall beside him. With a curse, he rolled and ducked behind the hide wall of the leader’s large tent, breathing hard. Of course he’d missed one of them, and if she alerted anyone else, or that lurking hagraven, Rhuarc was fucked. He was tired. And cold. His joints weren’t quite what they had once been, and his muscles were seizing with the cold and from crouching in dark doorways and corners on the long and winding way up to reach this part of the secret redoubt.

With a careful peek around the support structure of the leader’s tent, he realised that this new Forsworn hadn’t actually spotted him properly yet, and he hefted the haft of his war axe in his hand. Throwing a weapon away was never a great idea, but he didn’t have a bow on him, and if he called magicka to his hands, a hagraven would certainly sense it. Not a chance he wanted to take, and given that the place was called Hag’s End, he thought it pretty fucking likely that there was one of the bird-legged, psychotic matriarchs of the Forsworn roosting up at the top of the complex on that balcony almost directly above him.

So, he drew back his arm and sent the blade of his war axe whirling away to bite into the breastbone of the Forsworn before she could spot him or cry out again. She fell with the clatter and rattle of bone and fur armour, her silly antlered headdress skittering away behind her, and he was off running immediately to release the weapon from her corpse and seek a new hiding place in case the commotion had drawn others.

As it was, Rhuarc crouched for a long few minutes behind the gruesomely-displayed corpse of an elk that had been partly taxidermied by the cold and stuck on a stake, with his breath billowing all around him, and the stillness of snow in the air. Had he got them all? He was spattered all up one side of his body with blood and even had a red streak in his otherwise white hair that he’d shaved close to his skull above his ears and left long enough to tie back into a ponytail on top. What a mess. Still, it would be worth the groaning bag of coin he was going to get for clearing the whole bloody encampment and making The Reach a little bit safer for travellers.

Just as he’d begun to relax, half thinking of getting the girls each a new dress with his earnings, a scream like nothing he’d ever heard before tore the silence in two and his blood went cold.

It had come from the balcony above him where a spar of stonework jutted out into the winter sky like the bowsprit of a ship, and it hadn’t been the harsh shriek of a hagraven. The scream had come from a woman in blind, abject terror, and the sound of it shocked him back to his feet before he’d even realised it.

Rhuarc thundered up the stone stairs behind him and shouldered open the carved doors of the inner sanctum of the tomb, plunging into the relative darkness without stopping to think.

Not thinking was a sure way to get himself killed, and by some miracle of the fates, he skidded to a halt just in time to avoid a pressure plate in the floor that would no doubt have unleashed some kind of magical or poisoned trap on him. Whoever lived here clearly didn’t let just anyone inside, and blundering around like a panicked mammoth wasn’t going to help anyone.

“Think, you thick-skulled orc,” he growled at himself, chest heaving and heart pounding in his ears like a war-drum. He was only a few heartbeats away from slipping into that infamous, orcish berserker rage, and he never ever wanted to find himself on the far end of a state of mind like that again. Caked in blood and viscera and surrounded by an array of corpses with no memory of how they had been felled… He shuddered and forced himself to steady his breathing before moving on.

What he confronted as he wound his way carefully and methodically through the dark, blood-stained hallways of the upper Nordic tomb proved to be as great a test of his prowess with blade and his magic as any he’d ever faced in his forty-six years.

Savage witches clad in long, magicka-laced, black robes hurled spells and curses at him that he only just dodged or warded in time to sink his axe into their skulls, but what made his skin crawl the most was the hagraven who seemed to be taunting him, letting him get one or two shots in before a swirl of purple and black magic enveloped her and she vanished to somewhere else in the complex.

Was she an illusion? Had he lost his mind or, worse, accidentally imbibed some poison from one of his victims that was making him hallucinate? He’d spotted enough deadly mushrooms growing in the dank corners of the dungeon that the suspicion remained, even as he ploughed on through the coven of crazed witches towards the woman who had let out that heart-rending scream.

Just as he sensed he was gaining the top of the tower, the hagraven disappeared amid a final storm of eerie, flickering magicka, leaving him alone in an echoing chamber at the top of a staircase lined with mortuary shelves.

Over to his left, an arcane enchanting table crackled with residual magicka from a recent use, the blueish runes on its onyx surface glowing in the dim light, and on his right, an ancient monument reared up like a tombstone, carved with a script he couldn’t read. He had no time for any of that, and paused just long enough with his hand on the last door to gather his breath and the last ragged remains of his strength, before shoving all his weight into swinging them open and stepping out onto the snowy balcony beyond.

A blast of freezing air hit him full in the face, but it wasn’t the cold that stole his breath and his senses.

There on a low, wide, stone altar, a Nord woman had been bound hand and foot, stretched out and completely naked, and she was thrashing weakly despite the wounds at her wrists and ankles from the ropes. Tears tracked pale lines through the dirt on her face and her bare chest heaved with broken, choking sobs as she arched her back in futile protest.

Over her prone figure loomed the emaciated figure of a hagraven with a glinting, black dagger raised in her taloned hands.

Rhuarc didn’t think.

He hurled a bolt of ice at the creature, and might have been surprised to find that it had actually struck her right in the stomach if he hadn’t already been concentrating on drawing the ambient moisture into his hand to freeze into another shard of ice as thick as a tree limb. The hagraven let out a shriek that should have made his ears bleed, and hurled a fireball at him for the indignity of him getting a hit in first.

Searing flames exploded all around him and he smelled singeing, though he wasn’t sure if it was his fur armour or his own skin, and he didn’t care. He leapt forwards, diving into a roll in the snow to douse any lingering flames, and as he came up he launched a second spike of ice directly at the hagraven’s weathered, distorted face. Her black, beady eyes narrowed and she bared rotten teeth with a snarl as she clenched her clawed hand and prepared to fling a second fireball at him.

Rhuarc had closed the distance between them in a few powerful strides though, and before she’d finished the spell, he grabbed her by her flimsy arm and felt the snap of it breaking in his grip as he yanked her away from the altar. Before she could even muster a screech, he lopped her head off with his axe. He didn’t stop to watch her abandoned carcass slide over the edge of the parapet, down into the void of snow and cooling corpses below, and turned instead to the woman laid out on the table.

The dagger had fallen from the hagraven’s claws to land beside her right hand and she was reaching frostbitten fingers for it.

“Easy,” Rhuarc said, holstering his messy axe at the loop on his belt and realising he probably looked as frightening as the hagraven had. Six foot six and broad as a barn door at the shoulder, Rhuarc now had blood all up his face from one of the witches, a nasty burn on his shoulder that was only just now making itself known, and a long cut on his abdomen that was oozing blood down his solid paunch. As he’d got older, he’d lost the iron definition he’d had in his youth, but he was probably the strongest now that he’d ever been in his life.

No wonder the woman was staring wild-eyed at him like he was some animal barbarian, but his heart physically hurt in his chest when he saw the welts and bruises standing out starkly on her pale, Nordic complexion. Her long, midnight black hair was loose and lank and greasy, her lip was split and swollen, and there was a vibrant, purple bruise all around her left eye socket. Those dark brown eyes glared up at him with fierce defiance though, and her fingers found the hilt of the knife.

He smiled. “I know I look a sight,” he said in a low, quiet rumble, holding both hands up, bloody palms towards her. “I’m gonna help you though. Let’s get you healed up and out of here. I’m not sure what you can wear though…”

“My… My clothes are in… were in… a chest… in there,” she croaked, twitching her head slightly towards the chamber he’d just left. The swelling in her lip clearly made talking painful, and she sounded like she hadn’t had any water for days. That, or the thick, raw, red line around her throat was responsible, flanked by distinct, finger-sized bruises the colour of a ripe plum. It made his orc blood boil to see marks like that on a person’s body, but he made himself focus on the more immediate task of helping her.

“Alright. I’ll untie you — may I use that dagger?”

She nodded and reluctantly let her fingers go loose again. With the rope lashed so tightly around her wrist, she didn’t have enough purchase to lift her hand free of the hilt, so Rhuarc carefully slid his bloody fingers underneath hers and he eased the blade out.

Concentrating, he sawed steadily through the thick rope, and she hissed as she flexed her fingers when the rope finally sheared and one arm came free. The raw chafing showed him just how hard she’d fought her captors, and he found the warmth of pride glowing in the pit of his stomach for this stranger and her resilience. Methodically, Rhuarc moved his way around the table to free her ankles next before finally cutting the ropes binding her left arm to the cold table, and all the while keeping his eyes off her naked body as best he could.

“We need to get you somewhere sheltered. Can you sit up?”

She tried valiantly when he asked, but her strength failed her in a rush and she slumped back down with a gasp.

Rhuarc dropped the knife to the stone at his feet and stuck his right hand under her head just in time to stop her cracking her skull on the stone platform of the altar, and he cradled her lolling head in the palm of his hand. His already-bruised knuckles clunked against the altar under the full weight of her head as she surrendered at last, spent.  

“Easy,” he said. “I’ve got some magic. I’m going to heal you, alright? Keep steady, then we’ll find you some clothes and get you out of here.”

Her dark eyes rolled as the golden light of healing magic washed around her, and she slumped at last into unconsciousness.

Rhuarc picked her up with detached efficiency and carried her out of the biting wind and back into the tower that formed the top part of the tomb’s inner sanctum, marvelling at the Nord’s resilience to the cold. He knew that her people were tougher than most humans in these conditions, but still, with everything she’d been through, she probably should be dead.

Her small body was soft where many Nords were made of hard muscle, and he suspected that she had not been raised to be a fighter. That the Forsworn would snatch her away from whatever battle-free life she’d led before and defile her like this made his blood sing all over again and his hands itched to sink his axe into a nice, crunchy, Forsworn skull. He let the thought go with a growl around his thick tusks and shouldered the doors open.

With her pressed against his bare chest, he felt the tingle of magic in her blood too, and he recalled the way her body had drunk his own restoration magic down like water poured onto dry sand. Perhaps the fact that she was probably a mage had been why the hagraven had been about to sacrifice her in that unholy ritual.

Inside the echoing, stone room with the enchanting table, Rhuarc found the chest she’d mentioned, and he crouched down awkwardly in front of it with her half-draped across his lap, her naked body propped up by his right arm. He really didn’t want to have to use one of the beds in the tower that the witches had clearly slept in, but if the woman needed to rest, then he would stay with her and see that she was safe.

Just as he was fiddling one-handed with the catch of the chest, which luckily wasn’t locked, she drew in a deeper breath and came-to with a mewling sob of discomfort. Her bare legs were touching the floor and the room wasn’t much warmer than the air outside because of a huge hole in the ceiling, but at least they were out of the wind.

“I know,” he said without looking at her. “I’m going to find you something to wear. Just give me a second.”

“Thank you,” she rasped, and the sound became a sob as she squirmed in his arms, trying to curl inwards on herself. Whether that was to cover her naked body better or simply because she was hurting in every way humanly possible, he wasn’t sure. “Thank you. I thought that was it, when… when she… she —”

“Shh,” he said, briefly tightening his hold around her shoulders with a slight curl of his right arm, worried that if she grew too distressed, he might drop her. “It’s over now. You’re safe.”

“Thank you,” she said again, and then added with a little sniffle, “My name is Syl, by the way.”

“Rhuarc,” he grunted, finally lifting the lid of the chest. “This your stuff?”

She peered forward and nodded. An undyed linen shirt and brown trousers had been roughly stuffed into the wooden chest, along with a pair of softly-worn, fur-lined boots, a thick, fur-lined jacket, and a small alchemist’s pouch that fitted on a belt around the hips. He had something similar himself for the road, choosing to forgo the usual traveller’s pack with a bedroll and cooking pot. He hunted or foraged for what he needed and cooked it over an open fire and slept under the stars when he absolutely had to, but mostly, he actually planned his journeys to halt at an inn for the night these days, because he was too damned old now to be sleeping out of doors in the grass like a bloody wild boar. He also thought he glimpsed some linen underwear and wrappings in the chest too, but he didn’t let his gaze linger.

“You… need a hand?” he asked quietly, but she shook her head.

“I can just kneel here for a moment. I’ll be alright,” she said in a steady, if rough voice. “Thank you.”

He nodded once. “I’ll be over there,” he said, gesturing vaguely with his thumb over his left shoulder.

He helped her slide off his lap where he’d crouched beside the chest, and steadied her briefly with a hand at the small of her spine to stop her tipping backwards. Her flesh was still cold from lying out there on the table, but she couldn’t have been out there for too long before he’d found her, or she’d have died of exposure. Even a Nord couldn’t survive naked in the snow for very long.

Only then, with his rough palm pressed against the pale softness of her skin, did it strike him that it had actually been a very long time since he’d seen another naked body, and the feel of her skin beneath the calluses of his palm distantly stirred the cold embers of desire in him that had lain dormant and out of mind for longer than he cared to remember. Even for an orc, he wasn’t exactly short of people showing interest, but it just… hadn’t been something he’d wanted. Then of course, he’d found himself the adoptive father of a pair of ten and eleven year old girls, and all thoughts of romance and the so-called ‘Dibellan arts’ had evaporated completely from his life like autumn mist.

With a sigh, he banished the faint and inappropriate sensation and levered himself stiffly to his feet. As he did, he felt the cut in his lower belly pull with a sharp prick of pain and when he looked down at it, he found it already suppurating. His thick, naturally green, orcish skin had turned a nasty, angry red around the slash and something was oozing out of it that wasn’t blood. Poison. Fuck.

Glancing around the room, he wondered if there were any ingredients stashed way that the witches would have used, but he was in the wrong part of their stronghold for that and anyway, who knows what they might have been brewing in there? Thinking about what limited stocks he kept in the emergency pouch on his belt, he drew out two carefully-sealed glass bottles and tipped their contents into the cupped palm of his left hand. It was hardly ideal, but it would do for now, and he smeared it onto the open wound.

The flash of pain made him grunt, but with a soft fizzing, the powders got to work and nullified the festering poison before it could spread.

“Rhuarc?”

When he turned around at the sound of her voice, he found Syl looking at him from where she was still kneeling in front of the wooden chest.

“Are you alright?” she asked with a frown.

Her alto was still hoarse and rasping, and he wondered if she was still in pain. “I’m fine. Are you? Did I heal you enough?”

At his question, she smiled, and something in his chest slipped sideways when he saw it.

How could a woman who’d just been through the torment she had experienced still find the grace to smile like that? And at an orc of all creatures.

“Yes,” she said, and, now that she was dressed, she stood slowly; cautiously.

She wasn’t very tall for a human, perhaps five foot five at most, and her body seemed somehow even smaller in her loose-fitting, practical clothes. He could clearly see the swell of her hips though, and the definite curve of her breasts, and her dark eyes looked very large as she regarded him. In an attempt to tidy herself up, she had tied her lank, black hair back off her face in a low ponytail, but she still looked like she’d taken one hell of a battering, despite the healing magic.

And yet, there she was on her own two feet, and her resilience was suddenly as devastatingly attractive to him as were her natural good looks. Rhuarc swallowed thickly, utterly floored by what he was feeling for the first time in decades.

“You’re hurt,” she said, eyeing the wound in his stomach.

He felt her open herself up to start channelling magicka, and his own mismatching eyes went wide. “No, don’t!” he gasped, taking an involuntary step towards her and holding out both hands in a kind of warding gesture. “Please, you need to conserve your energy. I’ll heal myself in a moment. I was just waiting for the poison to work its way out first.” No point sealing up the cut with all the vileness still inside, after all.

Syl walked slowly towards him, moving like a black cat along a wall, with her gaze focused on his bare paunch.

Rhuarc’s breath caught and he froze. He couldn’t have moved so much as a muscle then, even if an army of hagravens had descended on him.

When Syl came to a halt in front of him, she brought her fingertips up to touch the fevered flesh around the wound. Very carefully, she let a tiny thread of golden magic seep into him, and he honestly did not mean to let out the noise that left his lips. He hadn’t even known he was still capable of making a sound like that.

Pleasure curled deep and visceral in his gut, both from the whisper-light contact of her fingertips against the trail of hair on his stomach, and from the way her magic coiled and twisted inside him, stitching him up from the inside out and cleansing the last of the poison’s putrefaction in the same deft stroke. She wasn’t just some hedge witch with a little magic: Syl had to be a master of the school of restoration with a healing that skilled.

“There,” she breathed. “Just looks a bit of a mess now,” she added, eyeing the blood that still covered him in a series of spatters and smears.

He couldn’t catch his breath for a moment, but he cleared his throat and stepped back. “Not much different from usual then,” he said a beat too late and painfully aware that his gruff bass sounded far more winded than when he had fought his way through the entire complex to reach her. “Thank you.”

With a long inhale, she let her hand fall back against her side and turned her big, dark eyes up to regard him. “So… what happens now?”

I hope you enjoyed this one? I'm fairly certain most people aren't going to read down to this point, so if you did, please consider reblogging it to help it find more of an audience, and give Rhuarc and Syl some love?

And if you want to learn more about how they fall in love on their journey away from Hag's End, be sure to leave me an ask or a comment! Otherwise I'll assume there's no interest and won't keep sharing it. :)

Masterlist | Ko-fi (tip jar)

#rhuarc the orc #orc #orc x human #male orc x female human #single dad orc #fantasy orc #exophilia #orc boyfriend #monster boyfriend #monster dad

[loudrats]

Loud Rats Book Club 2023

This year the rats became literate!

We suggested a number of books each month and then voted on one to read (somehow Fish managed to read all 12 of them… wild!). The ones in red are the winners, but there are some other really good books in there.

Hopefully you can find your next favourite read below! :)

January

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson

The Butchering Art by Lindsay Fitzharris

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller

The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy

Fledgling by Octavia Butler

Pirates and Prejudice by Kara Louise

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin

February

Adua by Igiaba Scego

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

The Passion by Jeanette Winterson

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

March

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

The Humans by Matt Haig

Cane by Jean Toomer

Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa

The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin (#1 Broken Earth Trilogy)

Young Mungo by Douglas Stewart

April

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrel

Dubliners by James Joyce

The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

May

Mary: An Awakening of Terror by Nat Cassidy

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

Where You Come From by Saša Stanišić

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Gwen and Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher

June

Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh

Our Hideous Progeny by C. E. McGill

Swimming in the dark by Tomasz Jędrowski

Girls like Girls by Hayley Kiyoko

Diary of a Wimpy Kid 17 by Jeff Kinney

Zami: A New Spelling of my Name by Audre Lorde

Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

July

Kid Youtuber 9: Everything is Fine by Marcus Emerson, Noah Child

Bored Gay Werewolf by Tony Santorella

Hit Parade Of Tears by Izumi Suzuki

When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back: Carl's Book by Naja Marie Aidt

Pandora's Jar by Natalie Haynes

The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

Mapping the Interior by Stephan Graham Jones

August

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

Small Game by Blair Braverman

Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi

September

Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood

The Employees: A workplace novel of the 22nd century by Olga Ravn

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

October

Linghun by Ai Jiang

Eyes Guts Throat Bones by Moira Fowley-Doyle

The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers

The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley

Catch the Rabbit by Lana Bastašić

Kindred by Octavia Butler

November

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Life For Sale by Yukio Mishima

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Liberation Day by George Saunders

Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter

Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

December

Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes by Maurice Leblanc

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy

#loud rats #book club #to be clear the ones who won weren’t the BEST choice we just love democracy here

[deathbecomesthem]

Pencil / 2

Previous

Inspired by my rewatch of My So-Called Life, I give you a taste of an Angela Chase-esqu reader pining after Eddie Munson. Teenage angst abounds. ~450 words

He talked to me today. He was late to class, which isn’t exactly out of the ordinary, but he looked upset when he came in. Mrs. O’Donnell threatened to send him to the office for a tardy slip, she’s such an old crone. God, I hate her so much. She’s so mean to Eddie, and for no reason. I can tell he’s trying really hard. He never flicks her class, and it starts at 7:30. I can’t say the same for the rest of the class, it’s never full. Me and Eddie are always there, though, even if he’s a little bit late. 

Anyway, today Eddie sat down in his chair like always, saying he’s sorry for being late. The old hag didn’t make him go to the office, thank god. I was looking at his hair, like always, but he turned around. I almost died. I thought for sure he could tell I was staring at him and he was going to tell me to stop being so weird. But, no. He asked to borrow a pencil.

“Hey, uh, do you have an extra pencil?” 

He looked so tired, he had sleepy seeds stuck to the corner of his eyes, and his face was kind of puffy with lines across his cheek. His hair was dry today too. He must have overslept. I wonder what his bedroom looks like. I bet it smells like him. Oh god, I bet he sleeps in his underwear. Sometimes I can see his boxers creeping out of the top of his jeans when he leans over.

So, yeah, he borrowed my pencil during class. And when the bell rang, he gave it back to me. He smiled at me and said, “thanks”. I’m writing this with the same pencil. My fingers are running along the places where his teeth bit into the wood. He made a lot of marks during that class, it probably helps him pay attention to have his mouth occupied or something. Speaking of his mouth, it really is so perfect. His lips are so, ugh. I just can’t even think about it without wanting to stab my eye out with this very pencil. 

I tried to fit my teeth on the marks, tried to line up my bite with his. His mouth must be bigger than mine, because they didn’t quite fit right. I wonder what it would be like to kiss him. Would our mouths work together? Would he fill in the places where my lips are lacking? I think that if he would kiss me, I might actually die. But at least I have this pencil, and that smile he gave me.

#eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson angst #eddie munson au #eddie munson blurb

[stromuprisahat]

Adoptive mommy reunion

Siege and Storm- Chapter 14

Alina paints her as some sort of defiant heroine, when the hag was the only person aware there's"need" to help Alina.

Of course Alina's looking forward to meeting Ol' Bags- it's her new mean mommy. There's no "care" without scolding and a stick.

Her performance!

Alina: ... but I'm trying to care about MORE now!

Baghra: Fuck it! Mommy says NO!

As if she didn't know Alina sees her opinions as a word of god and internalizes the hell of them.

You couldn't make a meat pie from what you know... that's why ~I~ am here to tell you!

She humiliates Alina, makes her doubt her own judgement and then introduces herself as an authority on wisdom.

Alina struggled half of the first book with imposter syndrome. I'm sure she's not susceptible to inferiority complex, now that she thinks she's good for something only thanks to crutches in a form of two extraordinarily powerful amplifiers.

Thinking about it, Baghra constantly calling Alina "girl" won't be accidental choice of words. There might be considerable age difference between them, but Alina's supposed to be adult and public figure of world-changing importance with suppressed interest in becoming either. Encouraging her view on self in such infantilizing way ensures she'll lose the little ambition and responsibility Alina managed to gain.

Baghra plays her like a fiddle. She knows Alina's fear of corruption- she planted the seeds herself-, she know of her temper and past of weak, unwanted orphan, she knows of Alina's gullibility, she knows how to make herself pitiful. And Alina eats it up, scared of reaching for MORE.

Isn't that what this is all about? Alina's mentality of abused orphan, used to be looking up to unkind older female figure, kicked in. While she wants to be wanted, this is what she grew to expect as "affection" and caring, so she latched onto Ol' Bags, and the hag's just using it for her own purposes...

And Baghra gets exactly what she wanted...

Well played, ya old cunt! Well played! As if "hope" ever had a place in Baghra's vocabulary.

#Grishaverse #S&S Chapter 14 #Baghra Morozova #Alina Starkov #grishanalyticritical #self centred and paranoid #Siege and Storm #Grisha trilogy #V #books #quotes #Leigh Bardugo #anti Baghra #anti Mal

[savinghorsesandridingcowboys]

Newsies as things my friends have said (2/?)

Davey - don't krill over spilk milk

Race - As opposed to all the other withered old hags at the age of 32?

Jack - I bet you have a really long tongue because you have really long legs

Davey - Where did you get that from?

Les - Uh-huh

Race - I have the need. the need for kneed

Jack - my mom used to have a belly button

Davey - USED TO??

Katherine - I cant fall in love with an emo girl in these conditions

Spot - If you send me the fish one I'll bite off your toes

Les, after the newsies got their shit wrecked - If you're ever having a bad day, just remember how bad the dinosaurs got nerfed

Davey/Spot - I need to throw away my gum

Jack/Race - I'll eat it

Elmer - mmmm. ife

Token Pulitzer - Well, we force-fed him apples with the seeds. Hopefully he dies soon.

Race - I caught an acorn barnacle! Will it grown into an oarnk... wait.

#newsies live #jack kelly #davey jacobs #racetrack higgins #spot conlon #elmer newsies #katherine pulitzer #the boys #ig? #fictional characters #musicals #live laugh lobotomy

[pagan-stitches]

Great Grandma’s poppy seed torte, a midcentury regional Wisconsin favorite. @hrusewif sent me down a rabbit hole of memories and I’ve changed my plans for @graveyarddirt ‘s hagging out to include some cozy ancestor time that I’ll be spending with Great Grandma.

#great grandma Hazel #poppy seed torte #hagging out