#i just noticed that now there are two ways to spell this fictional country

[ispeacetoomuchtoaskfor]

On the Subject of Susan

I'm going to be a little blunt and my words may seem antagonistic here. But no hate, please. I'm just trying to analyze and provide my analysis based on the very simple facts. Now.

I've never quite understood the anger at C. S. Lewis for how he ended Susan's tale. Mainly, I suppose, because I had the whole story.

Everyone gets angry that Susan is "banned from Narnia" because she likes lipstick and nylon stockings and being a teenage girl in the 1940s, but no one seems to understand that that's not quite how it went, much less that Susan still has a chance.

Let me work backwards a moment and explain the latter. You see, to quote Lewis himself, in a letter to a girl called Marcela in 1955,

"...Haven’t you noticed in the two you have read that she is rather fond of being too grownup? I am sorry to say that side of her got stronger and she forgot about Narnia... ...She is left alive in this world at the end, having been turned into a rather silly, conceited young woman. But there is plenty of time for her to mend, and perhaps she will get to Aslan’s country in the end—in her own way. I think that whatever she had seen in Narnia she could (if she was the sort that wanted to) persuade herself, as she grew up, that it was ‘all nonsense’”

Now, there's a lot to unpack here, but first and foremost, my point is quite simple. "Perhaps she will get to Aslan's country in the end-in her own way." It was always meant to be open ended, for Susan. Narnia is not forever closed to her, unless you and she choose so.

"But Peace!" I can hear you saying, "There's that whole 'too fond of being grownup' phrase!" Why yes, yes there is, how clever of you to notice. The whole point of the latter portion of Susan's arc is that she chose that- lipstick and nylons and "being grownup"- over Narnia. She grew and she chose to forget Narnia.

After all, what sort of modern teenage girl (in England, during WW2) would be so interested in medieval times and what they probably explained to their friends to be a good old game of pretend? No, no, she can't remember Narnia right now - she's going to the cinema with a few girl friends, she's going to a party, she's focusing on everything but there and inevitably, after pushing it away for so long, Narnia let her be.

You see, C. S. Lewis was a very Arminian (and yes, I spelled it correctly) Christian theologian. And while I'm sure most of you here on this hellsite would like to ignore that, it is relevant to how Lewis wrote his fiction. After all, it's at the core of his basic beliefs, despite his being a staunch atheist in college and into his adulthood, and despite what you may like to think, it crept into his writing even when he did not intend it. For example, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is called an allegory for the story of the Resurrection, despite Lewis' arguments to the contrary. He insisted that it be seen as what it is, very heavy symbolism. Very heavily used Christian symbolism, that is all over the Chronicles whether you like it or not.

Let me explain why this is relevant to Susan, what Arminianism even is, and how that term applies here. Susan is, so to speak, a symbol of an atheist left behind, after all of the Christians she called family died. In a situation where you regard Christianity as true, she is left on Earth while they have gone on to heaven. And this doesn't mean that the gates of heaven are closed to her, quite to the contrary! They would be closed on the day she died insisting that Jesus Christ was not Lord, plain and simple. She has a choice to make, so long as she is alive.

Now, to Calvinist theologians and Christians, Susan never had a choice. Either Aslan, the God symbol here, chose to bring her in, or he didn't. Calvinists believe in a thing called predestination, the concept that every believer that would ever be brought to heaven is chosen specifically by God. Arminianism declares the opposite. It's a whole thing in Christian theological circles, but that's irrelevant to this discussion. In any case, the core of Arminianism is that you and I have a choice in whether or not we believe in God, and in whether or not we go to heaven.

To an Arminian theologian, God, or Aslan in this symbolic case, can influence our choice, Susan's choice, up to a point. Once we reach that point, once Susan forgets, God, or Aslan, steps back. He accepts our choice, allows Susan to forget. It's up to us, up to Susan after that.

Lewis was an Arminian theologian. He made the point, repeatedly, in his theological works, about people having a choice.

He repeats that point with Susan.

One last thing, before you go. You see, there was another letter about Susan, after The Last Battle was released. He'd been asked if he ever intended to finish Susan's story.

This was his answer.

“I could not write that story myself. Not that I have no hope of Susan’s ever getting to Aslan’s country; but because I have a feeling that the story of her journey would be longer and more like a grown-up novel than I wanted to write. But I may be mistaken. Why not try it yourself?”

Well, my people? Now that you've heard what I had to say (and say through quite the essay, my apologies), why not? Go, do what you do and tell her story for yourself. The author has encouraged fanfiction, so go on! And don't worry about Christianity and symbolism too much. It may help you understand how and why Lewis wrote what he did, but unless you're determined to have your tale in his style and overlapping seamlessly with canon, it's unnecessary. Unless you choose to make it a part of your life, you don't have to be concerned about it.

Feel free to ask questions, and I'll answer to the best of my ability, with Google by my side!

Also, I nearly forgot. There are absolutely other problems with Susan being the last of her family, left alone in the aftermath of WW2. This is not the place to talk about those, however, merely to help you understand why she "is no longer a friend of Narnia" and to remind you that there's always hope.

Oh, and besides that, don't forget that I'm talking about the books and not the movies thank you very much, while The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was absolutely perfect to canon the other two were not and I'm not going to consider them in this post. I do appreciate them, but when dealing with book canon they're both nos.

#susan pevensie #the chronicles of narnia #the problem of susan #narnia #narnia susan #well this wasn't my plan for 3 am but here we are #arminianism #calvinism #my theology is very arminian leaning #but i tried to depict the two sides fairly #or as fairly as i can at 2 in the morning #if you want to know #im arminian with a touch of predestination #i believe that you get a choice #but also that sometimes #like with paul #god will smack you upside the face with undeniable proof of his existence #even then denial is an option #just not denial of his existence anymore more denial of his sovereignty

[haileyywrites]

Subject two finds a lone child in Dragonspine and saves them from freezing to death. They bond over being all alone and abandoned by those who brought them to this world. Albedo is worried once he finds out about your existence...

-> "Primordial" Albedo or Subject two x reader! Platonic!

-> Reader has they/them pronouns - no specified gender! Reader is a young child! I have not played the quest where he is introduced so he might be ooc - this fic is purely fictional so might not be lore accurate! Some angst as reader is abandoned by their mother and so was subject two! Very fluffy ending!

The snow crunched under the boots of subject two as he made his way through the icy landscape that was Dragonspine. He wasn't following any directions or had a direction he was going towards, he just walked around aimlessly. Occasionally he would watch the wildlife or keep an eye on the treasure hoarders and fatui soldiers, but otherwise he really had nothing to do. He felt cold but not due to the temperature, it was more internal - more emotional. It was a feeling he had cone to know all too well throughout his miserable life. He was lonely. So incredibly lonely...

Even Albedo had company, wherever it was one or both of his assistants or even the little girl - Klee. He was never alone for long, even if he wanted to be. Subject two hated him so much, despised him so much. He had everything he didn't... He had a name, friends and family, including his creator. Those around him admired him and called him a genius. Yet he ws left in the dark, no one could know he existed or his true "identity" - which was the lack of one. He was no one, he was nothing...

He stared at the pure white that covered the earth under him and couldn't help but feel angry and agitated. He wanted to scream and shout, but wasn't sure what he would even say... He wasn't sure if he was capable of it, but he wished to cry. He wished to let his tears fall until he was dried entirely of them, perhaps then he wouldn't wish or need to do it in the future. But the sobs and sniffles his hearing picked up wasn't coming from him...

He looked around confused, it sounded like it was coming from a child... It could be Albedo's "sister" which meant it wasn't ideal to approach the sound, but he couldn't help his curiosity. Carefully he looked around and walked towards the sound without making much noise or at least not enough to draw your attention. He was glad to see it was indeed not Klee, but a lone child out here spelled out bad news. You were clearly not even clothed enough to survive a few hours in this weather and there was no fire nearby... Where in the world were your parents?

He shouldn't intervene or even allow you to notice him, you were likely from Mondstadt - if not the city then at least from the country, Albedo could easily hear of his involvement and it would create a snowball effect into disaster. But you were surely freezing and if you weren't already suffering from hypothermia, you very soon would be... He never particularly cared for humans or their offspring, but watching and hearing your cries seemed to awaken a human response from him. You needed him, and he needed to help you.

He cautiously approached but made sure you heard him coming to not startle you. You heard the snow crunch and looked up to see the blonde man approaching, despite looking rather serious he didn't frighten you like most strangers would. He made sure to come closer slowly to show he wasn't a threat.

“Hello... Are you alone out here?” He asked in a calm manner.

“Yes.” You managed to say in between sobs.

“What about your parents? Why are you alone?” He questioned.

You paused for a moment as your sniffling quieted down, but more tears gathered in your glossy eyes. It seemed to be a touchy subject for you...

“My mother left me here. She said she didn't want me anymore and now I'm all alone, I'm so cold...” You whimpered.

...

It seemed you had more in common than he would have thought... It seemed human creators hadn't changed much in between the centuries since his own discarded him. The incredible ability to create life, yet they so easily throw out all their hard work for one reason or another.

“My mother didn't want me either.” He responded with a monotone voice void of any emotion, yet the hurt he felt was as deep as yours.

“Why didn't she want you?” Your question was blunt and most would consider the question rude, but you were a mere child and simply spoke your mind openly.

“She deemed I wasn't good enough, she would go on to create another who could fufil her desires abd I was discarded in the snow, like you.” His look was distant as he recalled the past.

“Oh...” You simply replied.

He snapped out of his thoughts as your body shivered violently from the icy winds. He quickly shrugged off his coat to carefully wrap it around you to shield you from the harsh weather the best he could without a fire. Right, a fire. You would need to warm up before hypothermia or the sheer cold claimed your short but tragic life.

“I have a camp nearby, you'll get warm there. Come.” He held out his gloved hand for you to take.

Though following a stranger was what you were always taught against, you didn't have any other options. You were freezing and desperately needed warmth or you wouldn't survive the next hour. So you took his hand and held onto it tightly as you traversed the snowy mountain side. It was dumb of him to show you or anyone where he was camped at, but he would think about it after you were out of the cold.

He arrived at the cave he called home at this time and laid you on the furs he would sleep on. He quickly scrambled around looking for anything to light a fire with, he didn't light fires often to avoid being found out, but this was an emergency - luckily he had some dry branches and papers to create a small fire. You pulled the coat tighter around you as you got as close to the fire as you safely could, the heat felt uncomfortable but comfortable at the same time as your freezing body began warming up.

“I'll have to get some soup for you, you must be starving.” He stated and began looking outside.

“Please do don't leave!” You shouted quickly.

The blonde was shocked by your outburst, “It's okay. I won't leave if you don't want me to.”

He sat by yourside in front of the fire and kept you company until you eventually passed out. He made sure you were in a comfortable position as you slept and made sure to not let the fire die out. He could have easily slipped out to gather ingredients now that you were asleep, but if you woke up you would surely panic if he wasn't by your side.

Being left by your mother had created a severe fear of abandonment, even if the one to abandon you was a complete stranger to you... He couldn't blame you for this, young humans were incredibly attached to their caretakers, in most cases that being their mother. It was hard not to see himself in you, being abandoned in this snowy hellscape by the one who created. It was strange to think of it as a coincidence, it felt more like fate or destiny for one unfortunate soul to come across another with that many similarities.

Subject two heard you mumbling in your sleep, but the sound of your voice was filled with fear... He gently reached to shake you awake until he snapped you out of your nightmare. Tears had once again formed in your eyes and despite lacking social skills most humans possessed, he felt the incredible urge to comfort you.

“It's okay, I'm here. I'll look after you.” He said reassuringly.

“Thank you... Then I'll look after you.” You weakly whispered.

You held out your small hand for him to hold and he accepted. He continued to hold onto your hand the entire time you slept, never moving an inch in fear of disrupting your sleep. Logically he knew you likely wouldn't, but he couldn't help himself.

When you awoke the next day it was time to get you something to eat and perhaps visit Mondstadt for some new clothes, though it was incredibly risky... But for you he was willing to take it. For someone who was always level headed and calculated every step he took to avoid risks, you changed it all. He was taking risk after risk to accommodate you... It wasn't good or smart, but he couldn't care less. Perhaps deep down it was because he wished someone - anyone would have done so for him...

Like he expected, he gained a lot of attention from the people of the City of Freedom. Albedo was surely going to hear about this one way or another, but with your new clothing you would be able to handle the cold and thus had no reason to return to Mondstadt anytime soon. Next came teaching you to live and survive out in the mountains, making food would be where to start. It didn't take long for subject two to notice someone watching the two of you...

“Good. You should go up ahead to gather some more, but be sure to remain within shouting distance.” He patted your head gently.

“Okay!” You exitedly, yet cluelessly ran off.

Thankfully you had grown to trust him rather quickly, otherwise you would have had to witness what was to come next... Subject two waved you off with a small smile before turning his head to look over his shoulder and address the uninvited person spying on the two of you. Just like he had expected for Albedo to find out and come confront him, he just didn't expect it to be so soon.

“I know you're there.” He stated coldly.

“Then you know why I'm here.” Albedo replied.

“Whatever you think this is - you're wrong.” Subject two answered.

“You're not trying to copy me by having them fill the role of Klee?” He asked sarcasticcally.

“This has nothing to do with you. I found them in the cold. They're all alone, but they don't have to be. So I'm taking care of them.” He explained.

Albedo remained silent. He was wondering if he could truly trust the words of his brother - he seemed genuine, but he could deceive and lie as simply as he breathed air. For your sake he truly hoped things were as innocent and coincidental as he said them to be. The statistics in his head told him to believe subject two's words, but after everything he really didn't want to.

“I hope you're telling the truth. Because if you're not, nothing will stop me from protecting them from you.”

With those words Albedo walked off to the direction of his own camp. Just then he could hear you running towards him with your boots crunching in the snow with each step. He looked towards you to see you smiling with arms full of pinecones, just like that the smile returned to his face as he greeted you.

“I found so many! Are these good?” You exitedly asked.

“Yes. Let's go to cook them together.” He held his hand out for you and you took it without hesitation.

A/N: I'm working on the requests I've been sent but I wanted to throw this out since I finally finished it - it's been sitting in the drafts for a while lol Anyway feel free to like and or reblog <3

#genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact fanfics #genshin impact fic #genshin impact fandom #genshin impact x you #genshin impact angst #genshin impact fluff #genshin impact subject two #genshin impact albedo #genshin impact albedo x reader #genshin impact albedo x you #albedo genshin x reader #albedo genshin impact #albedo #primordial albedo #subject two #genshin impact primordial albedo #genshin impact primordial albedo x you #genshin impact primordial albedo x reader #albedo kreideprinz #primordial albedo x reader #primordial albedo x you #subject two x reader #subject two x you #genshin impact subject two x reader #genshin impact subject two x you #genshin impact x reader platonic #genshin impact platonic #platonic genshin impact

[dedalvs]

Just learned from another answer that you're involved with the languages in Shadow & Bone, so I'd like to ask you about something that's been eating away at my enjoyment of the show.

I realise that you're probably not involved in this particular linguistic aspect of the show, but maybe it came up while you worked on the languages: the fictional countries and their languages are clearly based on existing European (and neighbouring) regions. Why is everything pronounced like it's English, though? (For example, Genya doesn't get the g sound the name has in Slavic languages.)

Part of it is because the names are the way Leigh pronounces them. She wrote the books, she created the names, she gets to say how they're pronounced. But maybe I should back up. The show Shadow and Bone is based on a book series written by Leigh Bardugo. She created the stories and characters. This is why her pronunciations are important.

Now that is also filtered through the fact that on the show, there isn't anyone to ensure consistency. The same character's name is sometimes pronounced two different ways in the same scene. Either no one noticed, or no one cared. That's life. For what it's worth, we did produce a pronunciation guide at the very beginning, so that, at least, all the names would be pronounced consistently. I've been on a set, though. A single piece of paper can be important for like ten minutes, but then something happens, and pretty soon the whole world has shifted.

For authors and future authors on here, though, a great way to avoid this is to not base your names or languages on existing names or languages. It's a fantasy world. It should be original. Also, the way you spell things in the Roman alphabet should be consistent and obvious. Don't be cute. It doesn't matter how your name looks on the page if it's adapted for the screen. Your name with three x's and an apostrophe is neither cool nor original. You make think it looks cool, but if you actually spell it the way it's pronounced, your readers will end up thinking that looks cool, because it's not the look of the name that's important: it's the character.

For more on naming, I wrote up an essay called "Names Aren't Neutral" which you can read here.

#conlang #language #sotetsiraly #snb #s&b #shadow and bone #shadow & bone #grishaverse

[cicada-circuitry]

#God tho this does make me want to pull back up that notebook fic snippet i had#of Margo confronting Molly about this too but like with science.#Margo would know. Just saying. She knows. ⃪ does this mean you have Molly/Margo fic?

Hi anon! sorry this is now several days late but boy do I. ( watched FAMK for the first time in February, wound up with Pages and pages of fic snippets (for a couple ships, margo x molly included) in chicken scratch on physical paper which is always a great sign that im being normal about a show, thought I'd cure myself if I just watched the whole thing a second time and absolutely only made it worse. )

I meant to answer this ask by just typing up the quick excerpt of the fic I was talking to myself in the tags about but...... started typing and did not stop. It lives over here now! Was not the one of the notebook fics I thought would see the light of day but you know? why not.

(I assume if you're here you, like me, have already read all the fics to be found but if you have Not read everything in that tag already, highly recommend. this fandom may be small but boy did it have good food on offer when I rolled in four years late fresh off a few episodes and absolutely screaming.)

Since I went ahead and dropped that one on ao3 at like 4am i'll throw in something a little more typical of the the notebook archives - how about this thing that exists entirely bc i noticed that used bookstore you can see beside the Outpost in season 1 and it gave me Ideas

Sometime post crossword-quiz / pre- run-in at the Jazz club.  

Margo walks fast past the Outpost on her way over to Bargain Books. When she can, she prefers to park down at the other end of the street and not have to go by that eyesore of a bar in the first place, but when you double the size of the astronaut program with twenty female ascans, you turn street parking into a blood sport. On her salary, no way is she playing chicken with the corvettes, not even to avoid mustering a polite smile for a coworker at his inebriated worst. 

Most days, that’s only an issue if she swings by after dark, the hour when everybody’s trickling out and stumbling home for the evening. Otherwise, the dingy whitewashed plywood keeps a nice impenetrable wall between book-seeking passers-by and drunken test pilots. Today, however, a spell of perfect weather is conspiring against her. Someone has the door propped open with a rusty paint can, letting the sound of laughter of clinking glass spill through it onto the sidewalk. 

A flash of green catches Margo’s eye before she can make it past. Despite herself, she recognizes that shade in an instant. It’s the flannel shirt she had to reprimand earlier that afternoon for bringing a lit cigarette into the sim. Molly Cobb, bent over a pool table, chin twisted up towards Patty Doyle, grinning like a woman about to win.  

Just Margo’s luck that this is the perfect time of day—indoor light matching outdoor light—for Molly to catch her eye straight through the open door as she makes her shot. 8-ball, dead in the pocket. 

For no reason she can think of, Margo feels heat rushing up into her cheeks. 

She stalks into Bargain Books in a hurry. 

The sweater-vested owner behind the front desk gives her the polite nod reserved for a good customer (and disinterested conversationalist) as she beelines for Paperback Fiction. She finished Matheson’s Ride the Nightmare last night— should have picked up two when she noticed how short it was in the first place, but nothing else tickled her fancy when she was in here a week ago, so here she is again, browsing spines. Maybe it's time to cave and finally grab a 10¢ copy of Rosemary's Baby from the stack on the end, seeing as it’s the one highly recommended title in her genre-of-choice the entire country seems to have read in the last couple years, but she already knows the ending (and the entire premise of demonic pregnancy does not appeal for tuning out after the work day). 

She’s dubiously eying the back-cover blurb on a Chandler detective thriller instead when a voice over her shoulder says, “Oh, Patty loves this shit.” 

To her great chagrin, Margo jumps, gasps, and drops her book. “Jesus, Molly.” 

“My bad.” 

Molly squats down to pick it up, slouchy brown corduroy flexing over her thighs. She fixes a bend in the cover before offering it back to her, but when Margo tries to take it away, Molly doesn’t let go. Instead, she adopts a playfully quirked brow and tugs it back towards herself inch-by-inch, bringing Margo, frowning, a step closer than she was before. “Came here to see if I could talk you into a drink.” 

Margo’s voice comes out approximately four steps too high as she looks around for some explanatory audience and says incredulously, “In there?” with a jerk of her thumb towards the Outpost’s adjoining wall. 

“Yeah. NASA central, shithole though it may be, but I never see you around.” 

“Well, I’m not an astronaut.” 

“Neither are the five white-shirts who monopolize the best booth in the back six nights a week. They don’t check for a pin at the door, Madison. That’d be no way to run a business. It’s a bar. Come have a drink with me.” 

“With… you.” She asks because she expects there to be an and. Me and the other ascans. Me and the rest of you white-shirt types in the back. Me and Patty Doyle. 

But Molly just raps the cover of The Lady in the Lake with her knuckles and says again, “With me.”

#margo x molly #thx anon!! be warned if you give me an excuse to say literally any words about this show im going to say them!! #whats that tumblr rule about like as long as you put a certain number of tags the next tags don't sort into search? #love to categorize things for myself dont necessarily need the entire fandom tag seeing my questionable 4am fic offerings #is it five tags is that enough? #for all mankind #molly cobb #margo madison #the notebook fic probably mostly wont see the light of day bc its a lot of just going absolutely overkill #writing single protracted conversations about every event that made me mildly insane through the entire show #which does not come together well into something that actually Goes Anywhere or god forbid Actually Ends #but yes lol i very very very much do have fic

[razieltwelve]

Accents Are Amusing

Although I've lived in Australia for the vast majority of my life, I did spend some of my formative years in the United States. This has led to my developing a somewhat unusual accent. When I first arrived in Australia, people would routinely remark on my American accent. Over time, I had assumed that I had lost that accent in favour of a more Australian one.

Not really.

Apparently, I still have something of an American accent. However, whenever I speak to someone who isn't Australian (e.g., an American), they will typically comment on how I have an Australian accent. I believe that my accent is probably a mishmash of the two (Australian and American), and what people hear is what they are least familiar with.

Australians will, of course, pick up on the American accent since they're used to the Australian part. But Americans, and most other people, will pick up on the Australian part since they're more familiar with the American accent.

My American accent and Australian accent also clash on certain words. These words include, but are not limited to:

Tomato

Water

Comfortable

Aluminium

Library

Rather than pronouncing all of these words either the Australian way or the American way, I instead pronounce some of them one way and some of them the other way, which has definitely thrown people off in the past. Making things even funnier is that fact that my accent is noticeably different from the accent that people from my country of birth typically have (I wasn't born in the United States). When I go there, people seem split between my having an American accent or an Australian accent. Oops.

Moving from spoken accents, the fact that I learned to spell the American way resulted in some degree of adjustment being necessary when I moved to Australia. For example, many words ending in 'our' in Australia simply end in 'or' in America (e.g., colour, endeavour, favour, etc.). There is also the issue of 's' vs 'z' in some words (e.g., realise vs realize).

For whatever reason, despite converting to Australian spelling for almost everything, I continued to use 'z' instead of 's' in some words right through university. I only noticed it when my PhD supervisor pointed it out to me. Thankfully 'find and replace' is a thing in Word because the thought of going through 98,000 words manually was terrifying.

In any case, I think it's fascinating how accents can evolve and change over time and how they are perceived differently by different groups. Even how you spell can be influenced by your upbringing, as can the idioms you use in everyday speech. I'm sure some of my friends find my use of Australian vernacular with what they perceive to be an American accent to be quite amusing.

If you’re interested in my thoughts on writing and other topics, you can find those here.

I also write original fiction, which you can find on Amazon here or on Audible here. I’ve also just released a new story, Cosmic Delivery Boy!

Also, Cosmic Delivery Boy is now available on Audible! You can get it here.

#personal #musings

[deliciousnecks]

Today’s a very special day. It’s my master’s Accession Day. It’s the anniversary of when he was crowned Supreme Viceroy for Al Quolanudar.

#what we do in the shadows #wwdits #wwdits spoilers #i just noticed that now there are two ways to spell this fictional country #harvey guillen #because why not! #i like this one better

[littleaxebad]

Gradient Days

I am once again dealing with anxiety by writing. A little Jalim story with colours instead of chapter titles. Please be gentle with me, I haven’t written fan fiction in years. And please forgive the multitude of spelling mistakes, it’s not my strong point. I am also not fantastic at dialogue, so I hope you like flowery descriptive nonsense.

Summary: Jason is given five days to visit Salim.

Enjoy!

Cherry Blossom Pink

Jason stood awkwardly at Salim’s front door, sudden apprehension overtaking his previous eager anticipation to see the other man. Rachel King, true to form, had bullied her way back into power at Camp Slayer, and seen to it that Jason be reunited with Salim come Hell or high water. There were restrictions of course: Jason couldn’t leave Salim’s property; had to be driven there and back again by a discretely armed escort; and had been granted only five days of peace (among some other, more administrative requirements). And now he was standing here, hand poised to knock, and Jason had come over with a curious case of jelly-legs and violent stomach butterflies. Apparently no one had noticed him approach the house because he had been standing unaccosted on the door step for a good two minutes now.

“Come on man, just knock…” Jason quietly chastised himself, “just fuckin’ knock.” 

The escort was still watching and waiting just outside the high walls of Salim’s yard and would not leave until Jason was firmly established within the house.

“Those fuckers are gunna start attracting the wrong kind of attention if you don’t fuckin’ knock. Bring your fist forward an hit the door. Hell, hit it with your fuckin’ head, just KNOCK.”

Jason gave three sharp raps on the door before the immature part of his brain made him headbutt it. There was a painfully long moment of silence, and then an even more painful moment of movement… and then the door swung open and there was Salim. Jason’s vision swam slightly, his mind knocked about by the apprehension and anxiety, suddenly terrified Salim would turn him away. He could see a miniature version of Salim hovering over the older mans shoulder as well which wasn’t helping.

“Hey…” Jason finally croaked, and it sounded so pathetic.

Salim’s surprised expression broke then, and Jason was astonished to see tears form in the corners of his eyes. A sunlit smile danced across Salim’s face and before Jason could try and regain some footing, he was pulled into a warm, spiced hug. Jason dropped his overnight bag automatically, arms reaching around Salim’s broad shoulders.

“I thought I would never see you again,” words were whispered against Jason’s ear, “I thought they would send you home and I would never see you again.”

“Well,” say something smart, or funny, not something foolish, “here I am.” Nailed it.

Jason felt more than heard his escort leave, and heard more than saw the miniature that had to be Zain invade their personal space to collect Jason’s bag and retreat into the house. 

Eventually Salim pulled back, and Jason grinned at his damp cheeks and wide smile.

“Yes, here you are… would you like to come in?”

Coral

The first day with Salim had been more emotional than Jason was expecting. He had spent several months being questioned, poked, prodded and berated - meaning he had spent several months angry or irritated or both, surrounded by angry and irritated versions of Nick, Rachel, and occasionally Eric when he decided to grace them with his presence. But with Salim it was different; warmer, open and inviting. Salim was sympathetic to what Jason had put up with, openly admitting he wished he had brought Jason home with him.

“Nah, you had your kid to worry about, and ‘sides, they woulda just come after me. I wanted to spare you the bullshit - the crap those hazmat asshats were spewing about what a fuckin’ detriment to my country I was for saving you - I can’t imagine how they woulda treated you… Rachel spittin’ venom is what got me here but only after they’d milked us dry of information. Zain is way more important than me.”

Salim nodded into his tea cup.

“I probably shoulda called ahead though… can you even put me up for five days?” “I’d be happy to ‘put you up’ as you say, for however long you wanted to stay here. Zain will be in England by the end of the month, and I will be very lonely.” Salim’s eyes danced a little when he spoke, proud as punch of the son he’d single handedly raised. Jason smiled back, caught up in the moment. Zain was a good kid, if a little bit loud and unaware of personal boundaries. He’d grilled Jason on American folklore and myths and Jason had had absolutely no idea what the kid was talking about for the most part. Jason’s knowledge of monsters began and ended with Fresno nightwalkers, alligators in the sewer, and Mothman. And vampires, of course, but he wasn’t ready to touch that one.

When Salim offered to cook dinner, Jason offered to clean up. When Salim offered his bed to his guest, Jason politely declined and took the couch. When Salim bade him goodnight and trotted off to bed, Jason kept the lamp on and had a sneaky look around. They’d spoken about what had happened to them since they emerged from the House of Ashes, and Jason knew plenty about Salim from the five hour conversation they’d had waiting for evac, but Jason wanted to see how Salim expressed himself without commentary. What he saw was pictures of Zain, earthy toned furniture probably selected by the absent wife, and books - lots and lots of books. Some that Jason couldn’t read, but some that he could. He settled back down on the couch with a battered copy of Murder on the Orient Express, and read until sleep overtook him. 

He awoke to the smell of breakfast cooking, the sounds of Salim humming and Zain talking over the top of the humming, and the feeling of someone having tucked him in a little too tightly. 

Vermillion

“Where’s Zain?” “Next door.”

Jason had emerged from the bathroom to find the two of them suddenly alone, in a house that suddenly seemed to be holding its breath.

Salim was at the kitchen counter, preparing the sweet tea Jason was becoming accustomed to. They hadn’t spent any time alone yet, although Jason had been left alone with Zain when Salim went to buy groceries the day prior. The kid could talk the ears off a boulder. 

“I thought, perhaps, we could talk about… the nightmares?”

Jason’s stomach did a little backflip - he hated talking about the nightmares, even to Nicky, but here in Salim’s home they had dulled and quietened until they were only shadows in the back of his mind… and he was terrified to admit this, to open up to the possibility of what it might mean. Salim, carrying the tea into the living room, and moving Jason’s haphazard attempt to ‘make the bed’, did not have the same qualms.

“I have slept easier these past two nights,” he admitted to the coffee table. Jason joined him on the couch and also directed his eyes towards the tea, “and Zain has not had to deal with my midnight laps of the house. I must admit, I hadn’t noticed, sleep has been so peaceful with you here, I seem to have simply accepted it. But Zain is bright enough to put two and two together, which his why I sent him to his friends.”

Jason gracelessly choked on his tea at the unsaid implication of Salim’s confession, which he was still directing to the table. 

“You want me to stay?” He asked the coffee table.

“Yes,” came the quiet answer, “I think maybe you belong here.”

They drank their tea in silence, not looking at the other, afraid to break the glass that hung in the air. Jason couldn’t stay, it was not part of the agreement, but he couldn’t go either. Salim was right, they calmed each other, just by being around. The sword and the shield belonged together. Jason knew that when he was standing at Salim’s door. He knew that when he was defending the Iraqi to those hazmat bastards - knew it when he turned back to watch Salim walk away, bittersweet flowers blossoming in a long quiet heart. But they would come for him anyway, no matter what he said, no matter where he belonged. So they drank their tea in silence, and when Salim rested his hand on Jason’s thigh, Jason entwined their fingers in silence too. The coffee table suddenly seemed so loud.

Maroon

The sun of the forth day crested on Salim and Jason sitting on the wooden boarder of Salim’s pumpkin patch, eating their breakfast and casually chatting about nothing. The weight of their understanding hung in the air like a welcome raincloud, bringing much needed relief to a suffering savanna. The armed escort would turn up tomorrow and they would have to pry Jason away from the doorframe like a cat. 

Zain was still next door, but had briefly appeared to say good morning with unfiltered exuberance. Jason could understand why the kid stole and acted out - the abandonment that came with a parent leaving was nothing a teenager had the capacity to comprehend. Hopefully a structured learning environment would iron out his creases and dial his voice down a few decibels. He’d not explained these thoughts to Salim, though, it wasn’t his place to guide a parent and God knows he wasn’t exactly a shining example of a human being. 

In the afternoon Salim had to go into town for more food and some things for Zain and Jason was left alone. Curious by nature and still coming to terms with his own sense of belonging, Jason had amused himself by exploring Salim’s bedroom (without opening anything or looking into anything that wasn’t already opened). There were, naturally, books everywhere - on every surface and flowing out from beneath the bed. Salim apparently wasn’t very tidy or spartan (although Jason had to admit that home life was leaching that trait out of him), but every corner of the room represented him. The bed smelt of the same spiced cologne that Salim wore; he seemed to have three books on rotation with various items marking their pages (a wallet sized photo of Zain, a recipe for bread, and a scrap of paper with scrawling Arabic in delicate penmanship Jason assumed was Salim’s); even the soft linen shirt hung over the doorknob spoke of Salim. Jason sat down on the bed and ran his hands over the sheets. He listened for the sound of Salim returning and when he heard nothing, he put his head on the pillow, nestled into the indent, and breathed deeply. And that is where Salim found him, half an hour later, sleeping soundly, holding Salim’s pyjama shirt to his chest. 

Salim crept back out and busied himself tidying the house, putting away the food and items for Zain, and then packing up the sheets on the couch. He moved Jason’s overnight bag into the bedroom and set about making dinner. He said nothing when Jason emerged, soft with sleep, grinning sheepishly. Jason said nothing about the couch. They ate dinner listening to the radio, played a few games of cards despite Jason’s competitive streak lancing out whenever he lost, and retired to the bedroom in relative peace after Jason accused Salim of cheating. Salim, settled in bed while Jason busied himself in the bathroom, chose a book at random and began to read. He looked up briefly when Jason climbed into the bed dressed only in boxer shorts, went pink around the ears, and turned back to his book. Jason dropped off in moments and Salim was able to put the book down and watch him sleep: study the angles of his face, the uneven tan of his body, and the haphazardly splayed legs under the covers. 

“If you don’t stop starin’,” Jason drawled into the pillow, “I’m going to kick you.”

“I think I could take it.” Was the snarky retort, but Jason was beyond a reply.

Cherry Red

Jason was staring up at the ceiling, eyes unfocused, breath coming hard and fast. They’d been sitting on the couch, discussing Jason’s imminent departure, when Salim gestured to the metal pole propped up against the wall and jokingly suggested they fight off the escort. Jason had lost his composure almost instantly, so desperate not to leave this man who made him feel so whole, so safe and so complete, that he practically climbed into Salim’s lap and melted into the older man’s mouth. Salim laughed against his lips, strong hands holding him close, the unspoken raincloud of understanding bursting over their heads. They didn’t make it to the bedroom; stretched out on the floor of the hallway, with Salim pushing Jason’s shirt above his head to trap his hands together, roughly tugging down his jeans and casting them aside before undressing himself. His eyes were hungry, lips parted, as he bent down to claim Jason - kissing his lips, his neck, his chest. 

“You are beautiful,” Salim whispered, “so beautiful.” “Have you seen yourself?” Jason managed to huff out, and Salim laughed again. He had such a wonderful laugh. 

“So we fight?” Salim said, leaning back and palming Jason through his boxers.

“Hell yeah we fight.”

Then Salim was on him again, roughly grinding their hips together, Jason rutting helplessly against the hot friction. The ceiling swam in and out of focus as Jason tried to buck and breathe at the same time, starved for Salim’s touch. His sensitive body mapped the feeling of the floor against his back, the texture of Salim’s boxers against his thigh, the shape of Salim’s cock against his own. They moved together in rhythm, Salim’s weight heavy and solid and reassuring - fingertips against Jason’s overheated skin that spoke of love and safety and belonging. 

He would stay. He would stay.

~~~

The escort never came. Not that day, or any day after. What came instead was Rachel and Nick, and a tumbled and confused outpouring of information about someone called Bradshaw who had angrily and legally taken over the temple ruins. 

When Rachel handed Jason his passport and papers, she told him there would be more bullshit to come, that he had been discharged, and that dishonourable might be the word that preceded it. She’d done so much, that he could not repay. “Thank you, ma’am” had to be enough.

“You two take care of each other.” Her posture was stiff, still unsure, but decided. Nicky was more accepting, more open. “Yeah - and Salim, if you hurt my boy, I will end you.”

Jason hustled them out into the sunset.

“If I hurt you,” Salim breathed into Jason’s ear, appearing behind him and shutting the door, “I promise it will be because you beg me to.” 

Jason found himself with a curious case of jelly-legs and violent stomach butterflies.

#jason x salim #salim x jason #jalim #salim othman #jason kolchek #HoA #house of ashes #the dark pictures house of ashes #the dark pictures anthology #supermassive games #fanfiction

[wolf-and-bard]

The Geraskier dark academia AU of my dreams (because writing these up keeps me sane; TLDR at the bottom because this escalated):

-Jaskier is so ready for college. Like, the readiest he's ever been for anything in his life. He couldn't wait to get out of his stuffy family home, away from his narrow-minded hometown, he is ready. He signs up for a Liberal Arts major, moves into a dorm, drinks his brains away during the first week. He makes an archnemesis, he makes friends, he live-documents the whole affair on Snapchat for his friend Triss who lives across the country, but is always with him in spirit. Life is good.

-Jaskier doesn't think twice when his roommate Zoltan invites him to come along to a party at the Kaer Morhen fraternity house because hello? Orientation week was last month, high time he goes to an actual frat party full of guys like wardrobes that eminate sexual self-assuredness and hopefully some sexual flexibility as well. He puts on his most revealing shirt and too tight jeans and joins Zoltan. The fraternity house is old, red-brick with sandstone pillars and iron-wrought gates which would seem rusty if not for the ivy that curls around them. It's chock-full with people of every kind of major and age, most of them drunk beyond reason by the time Jaskier and Zoltan arrive. Zoltan disappears in a tangle of rugby-players and leaves Jaskier to his own devices. He befriends a group of Archeology majors, their leader being a cute blond called Filavandrel, and they share a bottle of red wine, round and round. He meets his archnemesis, the one he spent all orientation week bickering about music with, Valdo or some nonsense, and they do tequila shots. It’s a nice party and Jaskier has the time of his life until he returns from the bathroom to find a god of a guy standing in the hallway.

-"Oh hello," Jaskier mutters under his breath. Before, his evening was aimless, he let the wave of the vibe take him wherever, let the alcohol blur the world around him. But now, he has an objective. And that objective stands all by his lonesome, scowling down the hallway. Man, does he brood well. Jaskier usually goes for people that are easy to read if some casual fun is what he has in mind -and it's not out of his mind just yet - but this guy intrigues him; there is more to him than simple dudebro-ness. He has shock-grey hair and startling amber eyes and seems to cast the longest shadow. Jaskier wants to ride him. Jaskier also wants to serenade him on a starlit wooden bridge and collect all the guy's deepest secrets and desires to keep under his pillow and draw divine inspiration from. Okay, that may be the Tequila shots talking. He scurries over to the bar, downs another two, then approaches the guy.

-"Hi," Jaskier says as he sidles up to him. The guy half-heartedly raises his beer in greeting.  Taciturn, dark, dramatic. Jaskier decides to go for it. "I absolutely adore the way you just stand here and brood." (Jaskier will only learn much much later that he accidentally used some weird Kaer Morhen frat code and set off a chain of events that changed his life forever). "Lamb," the guy calls out instead of answering, something that makes Jaskier think he's so far gone that he's actively hallucinating. But no, seconds later a guy with equally lush red hair and equally thick arms appears from the crowd. He wears a scowl which has Jaskier's throat tighten. "What is it, Wolf?" Wolf, huh? "Go collect Goat and Kitty-Cat. I found him." And Wolf-Guy grabs Jaskier by the back of the neck and hauls him through a door, down some stairs - is that marble? are those torches? GARGOYLES? - and into pitch blackness. Jaskier squeals. This is what he imagined when he dreamt of college. Well not exactly this, but close enough.

-They bind him with silk scarfs and put a blindfold over his eyes which, okay. Jaskier knows he shouldn't find this as sexy as he does, but he can't help it. He has no sense of self-preservation and this will just be the best of fuel for the first assignment in his screenwriting class. "Oh, this is fun," he murmurs when someone tugs off his boots and someone else smears a fatty paste onto his lips. It smells like... okay it smells lot like his uncle Matthew's pigsty. Weirdly disgusting. "Who are you guys anyway?"

-They don't speak at all that night, don't take off the blind-fold until way later. All night, Jaskier can hear them rustling around him, chanting in some language he doesn't understand. They give him several drinks, most of which honestly taste like asphalt, but make his insides go fuzzy. When the blindfold comes off eventually, Jaskier finds himself on the front-seat of a pick up truck, Wolf guy behind the wheel. They are parked behind the frat house. "Look, I don't think you're a suitable candidate. The guys all said they want to keep you, but my friend recognized you from the freshman introduction party and we usually only inaugurate sophomores." Jaskier blinks. He has absolutely no idea what's going in anymore. His friend Triss is probably worried sick because he hasn't checked in all evening. The faint taste of burned rubber clings to his lips and all Jaskier can think is: Fuck, is this man hot. "Go out with me," he blurts. "Go out with me, I'll show you how suitable I am."

-Over the course of a month's worth of introductions, preparation and inauguration traditions (which, among other things, have him dropped butt-naked in the middle of the forest, requiring him to find his way back to campus; have him spend more time learning long-dead languages than he is comfortbale with; have him getting thoroughly intimate with Eskel's (Goat) helper syndrome, Lambert (Lamb) and Aiden's (Kitty-Cat) ostentatiously loud fucking, Coen's (Hawk) frequent absences and Geralt's (Wolf) quiet, but passionate idealism) Jaskier learns the truth at the core of Kaer Morhen. It is more than a fraternity, it is a brotherhood of students that spend their free time in rituals to protect the college, its city, likely even the whole state from supernatural creatures that threaten to cross over into the world. The existence of these is no surprise to Jaskier who's come out of an adolescence of escapism and coping through fiction and song, but the fact that there are handsome tough guys who work to banish him is too much of a dream to be true. It is true. Unofficially, the call themselves Witchers. They catch wraiths in cricles of runes, they re-direct necrophages into Kaer Morhen's basement and slay them with blades of silver. They brew potions and cast minor spells to get rid of mutated insectoids. And Jaskier is to be one of them. They call him Lark.

-His first ritual goes bat-shit wrong. Jaskier is reasonably sure he did everything right, but the wraith doesn't stay contained after they bound it . "Fuck," Geralt growns after, pressing a cloth to the gaping wound in Jaskier's shoulder while they wait for Eskel to whip out the first aid kit. Jaskier shudders, can taste blood. "There shouldn't be fireflies here, right?" - "Ah, nope," Lambert says. He keeps snapping his fingers before Jaskier's eyes. "Hey, Lark, stay with us, okay?" - "He's fine," Aiden says, inspecting his nails. "If anything, it's Geralt we should be worried about. He's about to have a full blown panic attack." Geralt grunts and holds Jaskier closer.

-"Does this mean I can ask Priscilla to let me copy her homework," Jaskier asks later. He's in bed, bundled up in one of Kaer Morhen's bedrooms. Portraits of alumni line the wall and a hearth crackles away. Geralt sits next to the bed, a pretense-book on his lap. His eyes bore into Jaskier, wide, haunted. "Jask," he breathes out shakily. - "Hello, big guy. How are we doing?" - "Better now that you're awake. We... we had to call in Vesemir. He will want to talk to you." - "Alright, okay," Jaskier says. He knows who Vesemir is of course, but he has no idea what exactly his job entails or what having to talk to him means. "Geralt?" - "Hmm?" - "What did I do wrong?" - "Nothing. You were uncharacteristically precise... but it turns out I was right all along. You're not suited for this kind of work." - "Because I'm not big and buff like all of you?" Jaskier asks, pouting. Geralt has the audacity to laugh. But he also takes Jaskier's hands and kisses his knuckles and huh? What? Jaskier's brain short-circuits. Fuck when did he fall so hard for Geralt? "No, Jask, you're perfect. I mean, uh, ah, perfectly annoying." That bastard. "The wraith went crazy because it turns out you're an amplifier. That means supernatural creatures are pulled to you and can draw from you to manifest easier in our world. You wouldn't have noticed this unless you ever passed by a spot where the spheres overlap significantly. As it is, your participation in the ritual poses a danger." - "TLDR: I'm fired?" - "That's for Vesemir to decide... truth be told, I don't want you to go. But I can't stand the thought of you being in danger. Because of me, this." - "Go out with me, Geralt. Please. One coffee," Jaskier practically begs. Yes, his shoulder is minced meat and he feels exhausted from the blood loss but Geralt has never been this open and honest with him. "...fine."

-Jaskier heals up under the diligent care of his friends. Priscilla is allowed over too, practically drags him though his classes with tutoring and copies of her homework and sugar-coated emails to his various professors. Triss video-calls him three times a day. Eskel's med school expertise leaves Jaskier with the most neat scar he is ever going to get out of this, Lambert and Aiden hang out to play Gwent with him, a strange card game they invented and custom-painted, Coën even pops in to bring Jaskier his guitar and a venti Matcha Tea Latte even though the nearest Starbucks is miles away. Geralt... Geralt is there almost all the way. He sleeps in the chair at first, then - on Jaskier's stern insistence - in the bed with him, though careful to keep his distance. He helps Jaskier into the shower, something so strangely intimate without feeling innately sexual, he takes him out on slow walks. Geralt doesn't talk much, but Jaskier knows he feels responsible. It's fine. Sure. Absolutely fine. Jaskier is so far gone for this man by the time he moves back into his own dorm that he considers getting injured again just to have Geralt by his side. They never do go out for coffee.

-Vesemir doesn't so much invite Jaskier as have him called out of his choir session by a girl about Jaskier's age. She has the same hair color as Geralt and Jaskier thinks he's seen her around Kaer Morhen's bigger parties. "Hello, Jaskier," she says sweetly, but one look at her tells Jaskier she's deadlier than any of the frat boys. If his drunk memory serves correctly she also does a phenomenal keg stand. "Ves sends me to collect you." Which has Jaskier even more impressed with her. None of the boys dare to call him anything but Vesemir or Sir, even when he's not around. - "I've been expecting this," Jaskier says, shouldering his bag. The girl laughs and grabs his arm to guide him out of the building and across campus. - "You are cute," she says. "Geralt said so, but I thought that was just because he's so infatuated with you. I'm Ciri, by the way, his younger sister." Infatuated, huh? Jaskier has just enough brainspace left to save her name. Ciri. They will have to become very good friends. Infatuated.

-It turns out, Vesemir isn't half as scary as the boys made him out to be. He's closer to sixty than fifty, has a stern face, but a kindly voice and the first thing he does after dismissing Ciri with a meaningful glance is offer Jaskier a glass of whiskey. Jaskier sneaks a photograph of the bottle's label when Vesemir stands at the window and glances down at the campus, hands clasped behind his back. Triss will never believe this. It's the sort of alcohol that exists only in myth, at least to college students. "So, Mr. Pankratz. I'm afraid apologies are in order." - "Please, I prefer Jaskier." - "I know," Vesemir says and turns. "I would kindly ask you to delete that picture, my office and its contents fall under the terms of the non-disclosure agreement you signed when entering our brotherhood." Jaskier gulps heavily, the whiskey suddenly sour on his tongue. But he's quick to paste over a smile. He's gotten this far with the mysterious Kaer Morhen fraternity, he can pull all the way through. He deletes the picture. "Good," Vesemir says. "Now down to business." Vesemir gives him two options. Jaskier can consult a local magical artisan and have his memories of Kaer Morhen's true purpose removed. It is an easy procedure, won't cost him anything. Except for his new-found friends and the love he feels for Geralt. Except for the only place he's ever truly felt at home. Jaskier chooses the latter option which is to become the fraternity's chronicler.

-After that, things are supposed to calm down and they do, for a bit. Geralt still dodges any and all attempts Jaskier makes at flirting even though it's evident his resolve is thinning out. Jaskier observes and documents the rituals, begins to collect old notebooks. He's planning to go above and beyond his job and compile a comprehensive history of Kaer Morhen and its members before he's graduated. He may not be able to partake in the rituals or help the guys protect this city from monsters, but he can play his part. Leave behind a legacy.

-Between that and his normal studies, hanging out with his theater group, meeting Triss on alternate weekends and throwing epic frat parties, all of Jaskier's time is consumed. There are several instances in which Geralt and him almost manage to have their coffee, but then they have Eskel on the phone because Lambert and Aiden managed to give themselves poisoning over a simple Endrega job, or Priscilla needs an emergency stand-in for her weekly performances at a local bar, or Jaskier is simply too tired and falls into bed, sleeping over Zoltan's aggressive snoring. Jaskier doesn't mind so much. They catch glimpses of intimacy, Geralt's hand on the small of his back as he guides him downstairs for another ritual, a good night kiss on the cheeks once it's done, a spot of quiet homework-doing in Kaer Morhen's common room together, their legs pressed close under the table. One of these days, Jaskier will find the courage to close the last bridge between them. He just wants to wait until Geralt seems absolutely comfortable with it.

-All is as well as can be until Vesemir comes up with an idea. Because more and more creatures have been getting through and they are unable to hold off all, he wants to capture one of them, an Archgriffin, to bind in their world and act as guardian against lesser creatures. "You're mad," Aiden says. "That's fucking brilliant." - "It's a good idea," Eskel and Coën agree. Lambert keeps exchanging grim glances with Geralt because they both know what this means. They will have to use Jaskier to lure the beast. Which is why they both protest the idea heavily and Geralt gets into a fight with Vesemir. Jaskier is not there for it, but Aiden and Lambert tell him later, once he's back from theatre rehearsal. He watches them fight over it too and then it's only him and Lambert. Jaskier steals one of Zoltan's bottles of spirits and they get stupidly drunk, wandering around campus all night until Eskel collects them and tucks them into bed at Kaer Morhen. "I will not stand to lose you," Lambert slurs, arm dragged over Jaskier's chest. "You're like, almost my best friend. Plus, Wolf would be devastated." - "Aiden seems to think it'll be fine," Jaskier says, snuggling up to Lambert. - "Yeah, fuck him." They fall asleep like that and the first thing Geralt does when he finds them is kick Lambert all the way down the stairs.

-In the end, Geralt and Lambert are outvoted, not that they can stop Vesemir. Geralt is more silent than usual throughout prep and Jaskier can't seem to cheer him up. He knows his life is likely on the line, but he wants to help so badly. These guys are his family after all. If he can make their lives a little easier by doing this... well, he wants to. He needs to. Being in Kaer Morhen is the first time he seems to have a purpose other than writing angsty teenage songs. Eskel keeps checking up on him. Vesemir writes preliminary excuses for all Jaskier's exams which leave him with only A's, something Priscilla does not appreciate in the slightest. Lambert and Aiden fight and fight and won't stop fighting over this whole affair until Jaskier sits them down and makes them talk. Geralt... remains quiet. Jaskier can tell he doesn't sleep. Can tell he rarely eats. He decides now is as good a time as ever.

-It's the night before and the others have all returned to their dorms, but Jaskier stayed in Kaer Morhen under the pretext of Zoltan having his girlfriend over, and Geralt rarely ever goes home. He has a flat off campus, but Jaskier suspects it's drab and lonely. He gets it. Kaer Morhen has soft fluffly beds and fire places and wards and books. Currently, it has the two of them, bundled up in one of the upstairs rooms. They share an armchair before a low fire, not an unusual sight for them, not anymore. And still, Geralt pretends they're just friends. It's ridiculous. "You know I'll be fine, right?" Jaskier says. He has his head tucked under Geralt's chin and has been humming show tunes under his breath for the last half hour, something that usually puts Geralt right to sleep. Not so now. "I can't know that," Geralt replies. He lifts Jaskier's hand which he's been holding and traces the veins on the back of it with his thumb. "You've no idea how dangerous the ritual is. Even more so with you being an amplifier." - "So protect me." - "I will. I promise, I will." - "Geralt, when are you going to finally give in?" Jaskier sighs and pulls back a little. Geralt stares at him, a little cross-eyed and Jaskier gives a shaky laugh. "I'm going to kiss you now. Pull back if you don't want to, but allow it and I'll never let you go." Geralt allows it, kisses back. It's the first night they indulge in a love that has been growing for almost a year and it's gloriously sweet, blazing, beautiful. It leaves Jaskier with faith that, even if things go sideways, Geralt will get them both out of it alive.

-The ritual goes well thanks to the Witchers' meticulous preparations, the dozen or so warding spells they put on Jaskier and Geralt's reflexes that save him from a swipe of the Griffin's claw. They bind the creature to one of the basement holding cells and celebrate with excessive amoutns of vodka and cake. "All is well that ends well, huh?" Jaskier asks from where he sits on Geralt's lap. Strong arms hold him and his chest is full of nightingales that flutter and sing. He watches Eskel drunkenly dance-offing with Coen in a corner, watches Lambert and Aiden make out in another. Vesemir took off, but Ciri is there, lounging next to them on the couch, nose buried in her phone. "I will never put you through such danger again," Geralt grunts, his nose buried in Jaskier's hair. "Of course, love." Jaskier relaxes into the embrace. All is well, though it is not nearly the end of this story.

-TLDR: Kaer Morhen is an occultist fraternity that keeps supernatural beings away from campus. Jaskier, unable to participate in the actual rituals due to a genetic predisposition, becomes their chronicler. Geralt worries a lot. Jaskier tries for the longest time to get him to go on a coffee date or something. Lambert and Aiden are a disaster couple. Eskel keeps them all together, literally and figuratively. Ciri is the one who got all the brain cells.

#witcher #the witcher #modern AU #dark academia AU #geraskier #geralt x jaskier #gerlion #geralt #jaskier #lambert #vesemir #eskel #aiden #coen #priscilla #zoltan #triss merigold #lambden #lambert x aiden #my writing #I just want someone to write this for me #novel length please #maybe I'll return to it one day #also greatly inspired by Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo #a fantastic novel #filavandrel #kaer morhen #college AU #headcanon #my geraskier dream AUs

[drwcn]

Hi! I hope you are doing okay with all the discourse going around. Im white and raised in a very white society so i will never have a say in it, but i was wondering, is there any way i can educate myself more in asian/chinese culture? Im aware i consume content thru western lens and because of that i dont really get all the nuances of the shows, but i would like to have at least some backround. Im guessing just watching the shows doesnt give enough of that, can you maybe reccommend some blogs or books to check out? (If you dont thats totally fine and im sorry if i said anything offensive)

Hey friend! Not offensive at all, no worries. Honestly, I’m not too sure. I think just keeping an open mind about things is a really good start. I’m not really sure which blogs to recommend but if I could recommend some dramas? Since it’s probably easier to watch a show then read a book?

《The Story of Minglan》 is a good one to sort of parse out the intricacy of historical Chinese society in the Song Dynasty, keeping in mind that different dynasties have different practices, so even amongst different time periods there were differences. 《The Story of Yanxi Palace》 is another good one for Qing Dynasty (circa 1740s) if you wanna get into imperial harem stuff. (Or you can watch 《甄嬛传》 or 《如懿传》 for harem stuff. I just think The Story of Yanxi Palace is the most palatable, most aesthetic, and most fun out of the three. The other two are kinda tragic?) There are other dramas but I feel they’re not as... accessible?

Chinese historical dramas come in 3 flavours: serious dramas, idol dramas, and those that ride the fence. What I mean by idol drama is...everyone in it is young and hot and the writing is eh and the acting is eh. More often then not there’s a lot of modern elements to it. The Untamed is so popular because it’s idol drama done really well.  (xianxia and wuxia genre used to be more quality when I was a kid, but now they’re kind of ehhhh.) I would say Minglan and Yanxi are both successful because they ride the fence. 

On the other hand, serious historical drama has A LOT of politics and can be quite dry especially if you’re watching it through half-assed subtitles. The actors typically are more seasoned, older. People jokingly say that idol drama is what mom watches and serious drama is what dad watches, and honestly given my parents’ tv habits...it’s pretty accurate 😂.

Some really well known ones from the past 20 years are: 

The 《铁齿铜牙纪晓岚》 series 1-4. I would only recommend part 1-2, 3-4 are not as great. This one has quite a bit of humour but it might fly over your head a bit because of the language barrier. The story surrounds a well known government official and scholar named Ji Xiaolan  纪晓岚, his frenemy and colleague the (EXTREMELY corrupt) prime minister He Shen, and the Emperor Qianlong. For better or worse these three are depicted as both liege and subjects as well as friends. Trying to see Ji Xiaolan and He Shen one up each other while Qianlong tries to balance his court and rule the country is quite interesting. I won’t pretend this is an easy series to follow, but it’s actually quite fun. 

《汉武大帝》 - is about Hanwu Emperor of the Han Dynasty circa 150 BC? He’s one of the most famous emperors of distant history. It’s basically about the course of his life and the many people that featured in it. 

《大明王朝 》- my memories of this one is very vague, but it is about the Ming Dynasty (the dynasty before the Qing Dynasty c. 1500,1600.) 

《The Advisors Alliance 军事联盟》-  2017 two-part television series based on the life of Sima Yi, a government official and military general who lived in the late Eastern Han dynasty and Three Kingdoms period of China. circa 150 AD. 

As a side note, a lot of serious dramas for a while now have been focused on the Qing Dynasty, just because it’s the last imperial dynasty before Imperial China fell into decline, WWI and WWII ravaged the country and communism happened. Even a lot of idol drama are about the Qing Dynasty (I feel like I should do a post about this, just to string things together haha). 

So for the Qing Dynasty, because they are Manchurian, their last name is Aisin Gioro or in Chinese Aixin Jueluo 爱新觉罗. Their earlier emperors are much more well known than their later ones and have been the focus of MANY dramas. (You’ll notice their names in the beginning spell very different than the Chinese names you’re used to, but once they take over China, the emperors’ names start to become more and more mainland Chinese and less and less Manchurian.) 

Nu’er Hachi 努尔哈赤/ Nurhaci - The granddaddy of Qing Dynasty, but was never officially Emperor of China during his life time. 

Huang Taiji 皇太极 - Nurhaci’s oldest son. He led the campaign against the Ming Dynasty but died before the campaign was over 

Fulin 福林, Emperor Shunzhi 顺治 - Huang Taiji’s 9th son. He is the real first Emperor of the Qing Dynasty. His uncle Duo’Ergun 多尔衮/ Dorgon was his regent as well as his commander-in-chief. Dorgon was the one who won the war against the Ming Dynasty and instated his nephew as the Emperor. Fulin was 6 years old when this happened, and now you may wonder why the fuck is that? It’s because Fulin’s mother, Huang Taijii’s widowed concubine Consort Zhuang (name: pu’erji-jite bumubutai  (pinyin) 博爾濟吉特 布木布泰/ Bumbutai Borjigit, Da-Yu’er 大玉儿) remarried her brother-in-law Dorgon. Whether Bumbutai and Dorgon were actually in love is....contestable. Certainly one of my favourite serious dramas that depict this part of history is《大青风云》. 

Xuanye 玄燁, Emperor Kangxi 康熙 - Fulin’s third son. Very famous. Very long reign. Serious drama associated 《康熙微服私访记》， 《康熙王朝》

Yinzhen 胤禛, Emperor Yongzheng 雍正 - Xuanye's 4th son. His reign was highly contested because some ppl believed he forged the succession document. It’s probably not true. He was an efficient emperor but very austere, very severe. Not well liked. The best serious drama about him is probably 《雍正王朝》and the aforementioned《甄嬛传》. The former is 100% politics and a fictional re-telling of historical events whereas the latter is 100% harem drama and 100% made up. 《步步惊心》is an idol drama about a girl who transmigrated back to this time and fell in love with Yinzhen. Lol. 

Hongli 弘历, Emperor Qianlong 乾隆 - Yinzhen’s 4th son. I think he’s the longest living/reigning emperor of Chinese history. SOOOOO many dramas were made about him or set in his reign. Of the serious drama category:  《铁齿铜牙纪晓岚》 that I mentioned earlier is really good. There are others but I won’t name them here.  《如懿传》 is a serious drama about his harem, but really terrible? I really didn’t like it (just my personal view). Incidentally it was released around the same time as《The Story of Yanxi Palace 延禧攻略》which is also about his harem and MUCH better in my opinion, because the actor for Hongli in Yanxi is much better skills-wise. 《还珠格格》was the OG idol drama about Hongli’s children. I gave a brief synopsis about it here. It was made in the 90s but damn...so nostalgic. 

There’s many more emperors after him, but they’re not as important. 

Okay yeah, so I’m not sure if any of this is really helpful, but definitely watching serious drama gives you much better context and understanding of Chinese culture than idol drama. I mean when the drama has flying and magic...the historical relevance sort of falls to the side. 🤣

ADDENDUM: I made a typo earlier. Fulin is Huang Taiji’s 9th son, not Nurhaci’s son. Also Abahai is Huang Taijii’s mother’s name (wikipedia lied to me on this one XD). 

#culture #Anonymous #corie replies #recs

[x0401x]

Jeweler Richard Fanbook Short Story #15

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Richard-sensei’s Cooking Classroom

On a bright morning in Kandy, a provincial town from Sri Lanka, a man was standing still in his kitchen. Leaning against the wall was a Japanese book titled “Breakfast for People Who Live Alone”. There were three items on the menu. Just an omelet with ketchup on top, boiled sausages and fruit salad yogurt.

Regardless, the kitchen where the man was standing was an explosion of colors, as if it were the atelier of some Dadaist painter. Perhaps he was wrong in trying to make an omelet, the blond man thought, tilting his head despondently. Loved by the god of beauty, his blond hair swayed smoothly, and on the wall behind him, the exploded omelet was scattered in all directions, giving off an artistic atmosphere. It was obvious that in order to cook an omelet on a frying pan, it was necessary to shake up said pan, but the specific method of how hard one should shake it had not even once made an appearance in his life, much like fairies and unicorns from fictional stories. As a result of him jerking the pan with moderate adjustment, the omelet had flown off, hitting the wall and dripping down under the influence of gravity.

The beautiful man cast his eyes at the opposite side of the kitchen with a melancholic look as well. His golden eyelashes reflected a rainbow-colored prism and shone like an emerald-green sea under the morning sun. In a corner, where a microwave and water heater sat on top of the kitchen table, something orange had burst all over the place from within the microwave. Just why did food blow up so often, the man wondered, silently ashamed of his ignorance for trying to reduce just two rules of thumb to common sense. When he put three vacuum-packed blood sausages in the microwave and warmed them up, the sausages lost their original shape with a faint explosive sound. Obeying the instructions that said, “Bain-marie or microwave”, the man had chosen the microwave, which seemed less difficult, but probably due to some process being neglected or the heating time being incorrect, the sausages had undergone a magical transformation, looking like some sort of eerie monster.

Moving his feet so as not to make a sound, the man headed to the dining room, lightly placing a hand on the large table and elegantly gazing at the tabletop. Fragments of yellow and green were floating on a sea of white.

“Fruits yogurt,” the man whispered, as if it were a magic spell, heaving a spring breeze-like sigh.

It was just chopped fruits floating on yogurt. Taking into account the possibility that he could not cut the fruits too meticulously, the man was out of luck to have a slicer with him, and by the moment he realized that this one was apparently not supposed to be used for fruits but rather for slicing things such as cabbages and carrots into thin pieces, the fruits that he had failed to chop had gone flying over the table, surrounding the bowl of yogurt and instantaneously creating a Genesis-like scene on the tabletop. It was chaos.

On 360 degrees, no matter where he looked, it was a foodstuff hell. After looking around one more time at the artistic misery he had created and sighing coarsely, he started anew and began doing a quick cleaning.

   “Morning, Richard. You slept well, I see.”

“Good morning, Seigi. So you wake up early even in Sri Lanka. Short sleepers have shorter lives. Didn’t you go to bed yesterday when it was already past midnight?”

“That’s fine for today. I have a guest here, after all. I’ll catch up with my sleep tomorrow.”

“I have not done so much to be called a ‘guest’.”

“There, there; let’s leave that for after we eat.”

His face looking like he was checking on something, the man whose appearance was impeccable even first-thing in the morning, as usual, glanced at the kitchen and dining room of my Sri Lankan house, and then let out a tiny sigh, stopping by a place close to the garden.

“Hey, could it be you woke up early this morning? Like, around 5AM...”

“Why?”

“I wonder if it was my imagination.”

In this three-story house, the first floor was a shared space for the dining room and bathroom, while the second and third floors had bedrooms. The room that I used as my main one was on the second floor, and the room on the third floor was used when Richard came over to be my overseer, but only the first floor had a bathroom. Whenever someone was going down to the first floor, one could tell by the sound of them stepping on the stairs. That was no big deal when I was alone, but this was the kind of house that would disturb other people’s sleep if I didn’t walk quietly whenever I needed to use the toilet in the middle of the night.

At around five o’clock, probably because I was drowsy, I had the feeling that someone had gone downstairs. I went back to sleep thinking that maybe Richard, who was looking after me despite having a jetlag, felt like having a late-night snack or something, but it was apparently a wrong guess.

Said man, dressed in a soft-looking shirt and the beige pants that he usually wore when he was relaxed, was standing still with eyes wide-open. It seemed he had noticed what was on the table. I was happy with the reaction.

“I’ve got breakfast for us. Hope it suits your taste.”

“Why? You said yesterday that your breakfast was just cereal and fruits.”

“I indeed said this yesterday, but I wanted to show it’s really not like that every single day. I also didn’t want you to worry for no reason.”

Plain omelets, sausages and fruit salad. For some reason, this house had many pottery dishes from European brands instead of Sri Lankan ones, but they were working out well for today. The paintings of green and pink pedicels over a white background were apparently from a German brand. It was actually my first time making a breakfast like this, which looked like it could show up in a commercial for some newly built apartment building and wasn’t as filling as its appearance suggested, but it had been surprisingly fun.

“I saw the recipe book in the kitchen. It’s a present for me, right? Thank you. I was happy to read a book in Japanese after so long, so I decided to make the part that showed up when I opened it into our menu. Now, now, please have a seat and eat up.”

For about solid ten seconds, Richard stared at the one-plate breakfast, his gaze looking like he was seeing a stone that he had never set his eyes on before, but then, after giving a start as if just remembering that I existed, he sat down with his same-old graceful demeanor.

“Well then, shall we?”

And so, Richard ate breakfast next to me. At times like these, this man would become extremely well-mannered, taking notice of and praising the details, such as the fineness of the omelet’s texture and the beauty of the fruit cuts in the yogurt, as if he were evaluating a five-million-yen jewelry or something. Even while being in Sri Lanka, I sometimes thought that if there were teachers like him in middle or high school around Japan, it would save many children.

“Thanks; that makes me happy. I’m benefiting from it too. Getting so many compliments for just boiling sausages.”

I didn’t know very well how to describe Richard’s face when I said that. His expression seemed like it could be the theme of a masterpiece painting, as if the exceptionally beautiful man had suddenly been reminded of an indescribable pain in the depths of his chest, but was struggling not to expose it in his facial expression. When I asked what was up, the reply was a gentle smile. His usual face was already back.

“I believe I have already said this several times, but you are extremely smart. You decipher the texts, assemble the methods in your head and put them to practice. There are more hardships in this process than you can imagine. Nevertheless, you specialize at it. This is clearly a talent of yours. Be sure to cherish it.”

“I will. But, well, I think doing my best because someone else’s gonna eat it also counts.”

For security reasons, I wasn’t allowed to invite guests to this house. I was sometimes called over to the house of a local friend I had made, and then I’d cook a simple dish there, but guests that make several meticulous dishes on the spot were probably not very welcome. So whenever there were days like these, when “guests” officially recognized by the house’s owner, Saul-san, occasionally came over, it was a great opportunity for me have a change of pace.

While thanking Richard for washing the dishes, I cleaned up the dining room and before moving on to stone study, which was my daily routine in the morning (at any rate, I had to examine stones thoroughly, guess their prices and drill the right and wrong ones into my head; pretty simple), I asked him about lunch. Richard-sensei was very busy. No time for leisure.

“You’ll be off again in the evening flight, right? What we gonna do about lunch? If you’re leaving at three o’clock, then you’ll still be in Kandy at noon, right? Can we go to a restaurant I like?”

“What a good thing it is that you found a ‘restaurant you like’ in this country. Allow me to accompany you.”

While smiling, Richard was about to let out a yawn, yet he hastily bit it down. He was like a prideful cat. As I thought, he seemed a little sleepy. When I suggested him to go to bed again, he said that he didn’t mind it, since he was going to sleep in the night flight either way. And yet he was calling me a short sleeper.

I glanced at the dining room and the kitchen. They were neatly organized. From their tidy and orderly state, I could tell with just a look that I obviously hadn’t cleaned them to this point last night. There wasn’t a single speck of dust on the floor. Despite the difference between the inside and outside of the house being so vague. There was no evidence left, but it was clear that something had happened here. Not a murder, but a more peaceful and heartwarming incident. The suspect showed no signs of confessing. So I wouldn’t say anything either. No particular comments on the multiple rags and some food remains at the bottom of the organic waste bag. I only had one thing that I wanted to say no matter what, so I hoped he’d just let me say it.

After finishing the meal, I waited for the beautiful man to stand up, and then I went behind Richard, clutching his shoulders. I was going to say it before he turned around, asking what I was doing. It was best if I didn’t see his face. There was no telling what I could say when I was staring at him in fascination.

“I myself don’t know very well what I’m talking about, so I want you to forget it in two seconds, but I was reeeally happy for this morning. Really happy. To a shocking extent.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I said I didn’t know either, right? I don’t get it, but anyway, I was happy. That’s all! Aight, study time.”

Without looking at Richard’s face until the very end, I started knocking a thousand gemstones in my workspace on the first floor. I had to look over them while it was morning. This was my current job. Richard didn’t say anything else, but his back looked calm under his shirt, so I was a bit relieved as well. Thinking back on it now, I had taken the wrong path at that time. I should have told him “not to overdo it” more clearly.

Two weeks later, Richard came back, but this time, I heard a small explosion at 6AM. Three times in a row. What did it take for things to turn out this way? The current time was already 7AM. Between getting up right now or not, which one would be less of a hassle later on? I didn’t even want to think about what had been made of the dining room. There was no one other than the two of us in this house and this wasn’t a matter that I had to go as far as asking the landlord, Saul-san, for advice on, so I knew I was the one who had to deal with it anyway. I wanted someone to decide in my stead. What should I do?

#housekishou richard shi no nazo kantei #housekishou richard #jeweler richard #the case files of jeweler richard #nakata seigi #richard ranashinha de vulpian #richard ranashinghe de vulpian #richard #jr short story collection #tsujimura nanako #yukihiro utako #novel #my translation

[letterboxd]

A Cinematic Outcoming.

From Istanbul to Chicago, and C.R.A.Z.Y. to Spirited Away, Letterboxd member, writer and film programmer Emre Eminoğlu explores the films that drove his gay awakening.

“I see it as my duty to never shut up about how representation matters.” —Emre Eminoğlu

I was one of the luckiest ones, yet I had no idea how lucky I was. Growing up in Istanbul, Turkey, a predominantly patriarchal, conservative and homophobic society, my luck was being born into an open-minded, secular and loving family.

In this bubble, I was isolated from the struggles of the majority of my people. I was not bullied at school by my peers, I was not forced into being someone else by my family. Yet I still had that voice in my head. As soon as I realized something could be different with me, I became my own bully and forcefully adopted a fictional persona: ‘exceptionally normal’.

Coming out was hard, but coming out to myself was harder. Although I was perfectly aware of my sexual identity, I could not come to terms with the possibility of being ‘abnormal’. Cue cinema. Watching films was a way of escape for high-school Emre—it still is—and it was inevitable that I would come across some LGBTQ+ films. I was not consciously in search of a ‘truth’ about myself but I started seeing my reflection in them, as they slowly disarmed the bully I involuntarily created.

Twenty years later, now, as a 34-year-old gay man professionally writing on cinema and television, I see it as my duty to never shut up about how representation matters. Streaming LGBTQ+ shows on various platforms, seeing widely released, mainstream LGBTQ+ films, listening to the music of openly LGBTQ+ stars, and hearing words of wisdom like “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?”, I am confident that the personal, inner bully that I created twenty years ago would not survive a week in today’s world.

‘C.R.A.Z.Y.’ (2005)

Jean-Marc Vallée’s C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005) was definitely not the first LGBTQ+ film I ever watched, but it was an invaluable juncture in my life. It was a hot summer in Istanbul, freshman year of college was over. One of my best friends, who had been accompanying me through most of my cinematic discoveries, told me about a French-Canadian film with this guy on the film poster with David Bowie makeup on his face. We headed to an independent theater in Kadıköy to see it.

Zachary Beaulieu was different. As the lone gay son in a family of five boys, he too was forcefully adopting a fictional persona, and his way of escape was music. He was constantly worried about how to be worthy of his parents’ love, how to realize their ideals of him, and how his difference and truth contradicted all of that. Zac’s 1960s basically mirrored my story in the 2000s. I perfectly muted the life-changing enlightenment I was going through and did not vocalize my inner screams.

In two hours, C.R.A.Z.Y. helped me realize my true self and admit my sexual identity after all those years. It was a personal threshold I had been longing to cross… but there was still a lot to go through.

‘Les Amours Imaginaires’ (Heartbeats, 2010)

Liking someone, falling for someone, being loved, dating someone, sex, refusals, misinterpretations, heartbreaks, break-ups, bad sex. On the other side of the closet, I was being introduced to new, sometimes euphoric, sometimes gut-wrenching experiences. But coming out to my friends was still a challenge. I was feeling so lonely keeping all these wonderful and horrible experiences in my chest.

But I was not alone: LGBTQ+ films were my life’s understudy. The same heartbreaks, worries, and disappointments I was going through were right there on the silver screen. I took note as two best friends, Francis and Marie, fall for the same guy and navigate their friendship in Xavier Dolan’s Les Amours Imaginaires (Heartbeats, 2010). I studied how a popular student, Jarle, falls for the new guy in school, but cannot risk his reputation to be with him in Stian Kristiansen’s Mannen som Elsket Yngve (The Man Who Loved Yngve, 2008) and I watched as close friends Tobi and Achim become lovers, until one’s need to keep everything secret threatens to destroy the relationship in Marco Kreuzpaintner’s Sommersturm (Summer Storm, 2004).

Things were not always accessible via online platforms and the internet, so film festivals were often the only chance to see the latest independent and queer films. Two of the biggest film festivals in Istanbul, thankfully, had LGBTQ+-focused sections; !f’s Gökkuşağı (Rainbow) and Istanbul Film Festival’s Nerdesin aşkım? (Where are you, my love?) felt like home.

‘Tomboy’ (2011)

Being the lone avid cinephile among my friends, I was used to seeing half of my festival picks alone. Even before coming out to myself, my hopes for a romantic relationship included, among other things, having a festival partner. When I, fortunately, found the one, I was delighted to have also found the perfect festival partner. Shortly after our first month together, the first film we saw at a film festival was Céline Sciamma’s Tomboy (2011).

Although I was a 24 year old cis man, I was more than able to empathize with the title character, a ten-year-old trans boy. With his family unaware of his true identity, Mickaël experiences the liberation of a fresh start when ‘mistaken’ for a boy after they move to a new neighborhood—finally able to introduce himself as Mickaël, not Laure.

Changing my career path, a new job in the creative industry, and a stable relationship had similar effects on me. I was still not completely out to my parents, or some of my friends, schoolmates, and acquaintances from my past, but I was freed of the obligation to explain anything to my new friends or colleagues. I would proudly introduce them to my boyfriend, or simply correct people by saying I was attracted to men during a conversation. The perfect festival partner turned out to be a perfect partner as well—over the past ten years, he has helped me grow and be proud of myself.

‘Weekend’ (2011)

We moved in together in the fifth year of our relationship. Right above our bed hangs a poster of Andrew Haigh’s Weekend (2011). At the time we saw it, it was just another film that we watched together and liked—no significance, no symbolism. It is the story of two young men, Russell and Glen, who are fascinated by the connection they find between each other, and are surprised how their one-night-stand evolved into the perfect weekend. When Glen reveals that he will be leaving for another country the very next day, it only makes their connection stronger, and their time together more precious. Being a timid and socially anxious person, none of my romantic relationships or my friendships had formed this organically. Even my first date with my partner was a disaster. We built what we have now over time, slowly and patiently. I did not believe in ‘weekends’.

And yet, one summer night, we met a guy on Grindr, as we occasionally did. What we thought was just another one night stand was in fact a transformative experience for us both. Intense conversation, a triple connection, the drinks we enjoyed instead of hurrying to bed, and the passionate sex turned that casual one-night-stand into a magical reality for us. We realized that we still had feelings and instincts to discover in ourselves and in each other. Over a week-long, unexpected, unpredictable polyamorous fling, we learned to act as one instead of two—only to find out that he was leaving for another country the very next week. This was our ‘weekend’.

‘Hamam’ (Steam: The Turkish Bath, 1997)

Thinking how LGBTQ+ films of other cultures and languages had played a significant role in some precious, threshold-crossing moments of my life, it was alienating not being able to feel embraced and represented openly in Turkish cinema. There were certainly multiple Turkish LGBTQ+ films or characters, but they were in films addressing more urgent issues—right to live, violence against LGBTQ+ individuals, honor murders, trans murders—rather than the nuanced experience of queer love.

Although I discovered it years after it was released, Italian-Turkish director Ferzan Özpetek’s Hamam (Steam: The Turkish Bath, 1997) was a mind-blowing experience for me. The relationship, and the sexual tension, between Francesco, the Italian heir to a building with a Turkish bath in it, and Mehmet, the young son of the family managing the compound, felt much closer to my story and my cultural, familial identity.

Aşk, Büyü vs. (Love, Spells and All That, 2019)

Today, I am glad to see more and more filmmakers finding the courage to maintain the LGBTQ+ narrative in Turkish cinema, despite the oppressive, intolerant and exclusionary policies. Some are telling the youthful, urban stories I was longing for at the time: In Leyla Yılmaz’s Bilmemek (Not Knowing, 2019), Umut, a high-school athlete from a middle-class family in Istanbul, is bullied by his so-called modern and open-minded teammates after not replying to a query about whether he is gay or not. In Ümit Ünal’s Aşk, Büyü vs. (Love, Spells and All That, 2019), Eren and Reyhan, two adult women reunite in the magical atmosphere of The Princes’ Islands on the Istanbul coast, decades after they were forcefully separated by their parents.

The story of me coming out to myself all started with an urge to escape reality through cinema, and on the way, I found films that gave meaning to my muddled existence. When I saw Levan Akin’s And Then We Danced (2019), I smiled as I noticed the Spirited Away poster in Merab’s room; this minor detail another reminder that I was not alone. Merab, a gay dancer who is part of a very traditional and conservative Georgian dance company, was dealing with similar challenges in his life. He was trying to discover his true identity in a society that does not celebrate being different. He was too, finding an escape in cinema.

Coming out was hard. It still is. A recent Instagram post by the 27-year-old actor Connor Jessup, who came out as gay two years ago, reminded me coming out is not a single moment, but a never-ending process, a ‘becoming’. He writes, “When I first came out, a friend wrote to me and said, ‘Now you can really start coming out.’ Start? I thought. I just did it. But he was right. […] I’m going to keep trying. I’m going to keep looking.”

I keep trying, and looking. Learning about myself, my identity, my relationship. And LGBTQ+ films keep helping and inspiring me, just as they did in my journey to accept myself and become the person I am today. This is the power of cinema; unconsciously, you see your past, actuality and possibilities through the stories filmmakers tell. And I am so grateful to these filmmakers.

Related content

The Ten Greatest Turkish Films of All Time, according to the Turkish Film Critics’ Association

Emre’s Favorite LGBTQ+ Films: a personal top 50

Queer Films in Turkish Cinema—a list by Atakan

The Top 100 Turkish Movies of the 21st Century: Emre’s personal favorites

#letterboxd #pride #pride 2021 #lgbtqia cinema #lgbt film #turkish cinema #turkish film #queer cinema #coming out #jean marc vallée

[sleepylixie]

Pearls & Lilies 

Seawalker/Merman Jeongin X Spellcaster! Fem Reader (platonic)

1.6k words, fluff, Beware of a singular mention of injury ( no toes were farmed in the making of this piece of fiction)

Fantasy AU, Supernatural! SKZ, Part-2 of Prince of Pearls from the In Umbra Universe (this can be read individually) 

A/N: I’m back with my favourite merman! A Happy late( in my country and his)  birthday to the Maknae on top Yang Jeongin ehe~ Here is my little addition to the In Umbra fic collection AT LONG LAST. Hope you like this! Do let me know what y’all think :) 

Time flowed slowly in Atlantis, it seemed- almost like the underwater resided in a whole different plane of existence from the world he’d been a part of not too long ago. Jeongin realized this when his mortal body clock prompted him to sleep twice in a day- It was a nice feeling, like he was watching mortal time tick past him without taking him with it. Turned out, he wasn’t wrong.

Atlantis and the expansive merpeople kingdom had an entire plane to themselves, much like the ones the other supernatural races had for themselves- it was called Thallasia.

He remembered sitting with a cherry-haired female mermaid named Yeri and her brother Jungwoo before his first day of classes, listening intently to their long-winded descriptions of Thallasia. They spoke highly of the underwater plane, with its depthless trenches with blinking lights for the houses built into the sides, the meadows filled with coral that glowed in the dark and castles built of granite, agate and studded greenstone.

Jungwoo even went as far as to whisper of a secret pathway into the mortal plane, promising to show him later in the day when he noticed Jeongin’s attention visible pique at the words. That very night, Jungwoo showed him the seaweed-covered tunnel and led straight into the darker, murkier open seas of the mortal plane.

Seawalkers- mortals turned merpeople- were allowed to go back to land whenever they wished provided they never divulge the existence or location of Thallasia and Atlantis. Unlike trueborn merpeople, they retained the power to use feet or fins as they wished, which allowed seawalkers to tread land as and when they wished. The secret of Thallasia was a well-kept one to the landwalking mortals because seawalkers were created woefully rare and far in between. 

That pathway became one of his most frequented corners of Atlantis in no time. Every other weekend’s sunrise would find him slipping through the seaweed and swimming down the long tunnel into the mortal seas. His personal plans of reuniting the merpeople with the landwalkers only solidified with every visit he paid to Busan and the towns that were rapidly developing around his hometown- but with his visits, he came to developing one new relationship. You.

He remembered his first steps on land, Jungwoo’s head poking out of the water as he watched Jeongin with bright, curious eyes. The feel of the sand on his toes pulled a wide grin to his face, his eyes welling up with tears from emotions he was yet to place. It was at that moment when he realised, he missed the land.

He missed having legs, feeling the crisp air in his lungs in the midst of a long run on the sand, feeling the fine grains under his toes. He missed climbing up trees for fresh fruit, his palms and soles chafing against the rough bark of the trees. He missed watching the sunrise and set and the chilly breeze against his arms but most of all, he missed his parents. Despite loving his new seawalker life and all the novelty it offered, it wasn’t entirely his own: Jeongin’s blood might have always sung for the oceans, but his heart was mortal born and raised. 

//

“Hello, seawalker.” Jeongin’s lips quirked up of their own accord when he heard your voice, drawling and accented before you slipped into the chair in bench in front of him. Salen’s Bar and Inn was a supernatural haunt he’d taken to rather quickly, with the boisterous crowd and young owners who knew how to keep their patrons happy. One of the owners named Hongjoong, a former seawalker who had renounced the ocean after centuries of piracy, often enjoyed Jeongin’s  whispered stories of Thallasia and Atlantis.

“Hello, charlatan.” he mockingly raised his glass of orange juice at you. You gasped in mock offence, reaching over to smack his arm. “How dare you! I am a respectable young lady, a successful tradeswoman at that!”

“Say what you will,” Jeongin chortled, sipping his drink. “But the only reason you sell anything if because of magic. Doesn’t that make you a fake?”

“I tell all of them it’s magic, it’s their fault they don’t believe me!” You laughed aloud before flagging down one of the waiters, placing your usual order and a mug of hot coffee. “Jeongin watched as you settled yourself further onto the bench, pulling off your heavy midnight cloak and fixing your sleeves and dress around your now cross-legged feet.

His first meeting with you had been an odd one. Jeongin’s mother had run out of ginger and herbs and threw him out of the house to do a grocery run for her, late in the evening. Quickly making his purchases, he decided to take the scenic route back home, away from the beach road and through a copse of trees. What he did not realize was that somebody else had taken that exact route that evening and had panicked at the sound of him following them.

Imagine Jeongin’s surprise when he was waylaid by an angry-looking girl with green sparks lighting up the tips of her fingers, telling him to back off from her trade items before she sliced his toes off. It was one of his life’s greatest embarrassments that he’d screamed in a rather high-pitched manner when you’d appeared out of thin air, your eyes shining unnaturally bright against the darkness of the copse.

After copious amounts of explaining from Jeongin, you relented, letting him pass with a begrudging apology- but Jeongin insisted on walking you all the way to your doorstep in a gesture of goodwill.

You were a spellcaster from the skinwalker plane Kyrmena- particularly from Gumiho territory, where your accent came from. Your parents had let you travel the country when you became of age, letting you learn more of the world by yourself. Busan had captured your heart for its serene beachside and the approachable people, which was why you set up a little home for yourself in Salen’s Inn, trusting Hongjoong and Yeosang’s hideout for the land living supernatural races.

That had been more than 6 months ago, the two of you becoming fast friends over Jeongin’s weekend visits. It was now tradition for him to take up this particular table at Salen’s before you bustled in from your market run, your hair tousled from the sea breeze. You were always the last person he met before heading back to Thallasia, bidding him adieu at the beach when he left.

“Yeosang has been begging me to make him a pearl and lily circlet for him lately,” you were saying, your accent curling curiously as your hands fluttered around you. “But who’s going to tell him the only pearls I have are the fake ones? I’m not going to give a dear friend a fake pearl circlet!”

Jeongin leaned on the table, his fingers lacing together as he stared at you incredulously. “Are you dense or just well and truly blind?” He asked, his voice betraying the extent of his exasperated amusement. You stopped and stared at him, your eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“You’re talking to a seawalker, “ Jeongin pointed exaggeratedly to himself, “about lacking pearls.” Your eyes widened, palm smacking against your forehead in a rather comical manner. “Wow, I’m truly a few bolts short of normal today.” you grumbled before fixing Jeongin with a beseeching stare.

“Get me some pearls, please? My usual contact for them ran out and I’m sure I’m going to get orders from the seamstress for more pearl and rose-petal necklaces.”

The people of Busan had been collectively fascinated by the pretty young lady who set up shop in their market one day, your trade consisting of the most beautiful flowers laid over pieces of precious stones and jewellery. They flocked to your shop in awe, your wares sometimes running out before the day passed- how did your flowers not wilt for weeks? How did your jewellery never lose their shine? Little did they know you set a time-slowing spell on your pieces, slowing down the flowers’ wilt and the jewellery’s dulling to a great degree.

Jeongin sighed loudly, rolling his eyes despite the smile on his face. “Whatever. Meet me by the beach at dawn in 4 days.” Your eyes brightened immediately, a smile stretching out your lips as you slid off your bench to give Jeongin a tight hug, squealing excitedly.

“You’re the best.” you giggled, as Jeongin grimaced at the bodily contact, taking your original place on the bench. “I’m sure you spent your days dealing with me just so you could ask me to get you pearls for free one day.” Jeongin sighed dramatically as he sipped on his orange juice.

“Wait, you knew ?!” You gasped, your hand raising to cover your mouth in mock shock. “I thought I was doing a good job at pretending to be your friend!”

“You clearly weren’t.” Jeongin responded with a straight face, your eyes meeting and stares holding for a split second before you burst into pointless giggles.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get you those snacks you like from Daegu the next time you visit.” You grinned at him just as Yeosang dropped by with your order of food, your attention now speared on the dark-haired Fae boy. Jeongin watched in amusement as you explained Jeongin’s agreement to get you pearls for his long-awaited pearl-and-lily circlet, Yeosang’s green eyes lighting up in pure excitement at the prospect. You giggled as Yeosang patted the top of your heads in thanks before wandering back to Hongjoong, prompting you to focus on your food.

Jeongin held your friendship with him at the highest of regards, despite not knowing you for very long. You were fierce yet easy to amuse, soft with your sentiments and so very talented with your hands. Watching you piece together the strangest combinations of metal and flowers into the most beautiful pieces of jewellery would never stop fascinating him- your artistry effortless and so, so charming.

It was almost easy for time to slip by faster with you, your easy banter with him making time pass faster than he’d expect it to.

For once, however, he didn’t really mind it.

Taglist: @aliceu @decembermoonskz @kisskissbanggang @lavenderbexlatte @jl-micasea @cuokka @cotccotc @straykidsownmysoul @illicit-roses @fylithia @stellarmonsterr @soya-zz @popisdead (Dm or drop me an ask to be added or removed!) 

Network tag: @inkidz @kpopscape @districtninewriters​

I’d love to hear what you think of this story! - Elliana.

#stray kids #skz #stray kids imagines #skz jeongin #jeongin x reader #skz fantasy au #skz fluff #stray kids fluff #skz x reader #stray kids au #stray kids scenarios #skz scenarios #jeongin #yang jeongin #kpop imagines #kpop #ellaskz #kpop scenarios

[lady-plantagenet]

A Bygone Era - Chapter 11

This is the newest chapter of a long-term fictional project of mine. It is a story centering around the lives of Lady Isabel Neville, George of Clarence and Richard Neville 16th Earl of Warwick (heavily also featuring Anne Beauchamp 16th Countess of Warwick and Anne Neville). It is told alternating between their POVs, occasionally dipping into that of others from the outside eg Cecily Neville, Margaret of Anjou’s. It is based on history, as opposed to TWQ series!

Points of views so far include: Anne Beauchamp Countess of Warwick, Lady Anne Neville, George Duke of Clarence, Lady Isabel Neville, Richard Neville Earl of Warwick,Cecily Neville, Dowager Duchess of York and Margaret of Anjou

This chapter is through Margaret of Anjou’s POV:

[Text]:

10th July 1470

Among roses red and white presided the daisy - or so she had taken to inwardly correcting herself when whispers of her unenglishness would close around her like mocking rattles shook by the fauntkins that once haunted her nights. And then Edouard was finally born to her and those nightmares were assuaged only to be replaced by newer, more detestable faces: York, Warwick, Salisbury. And so the rattling returned after eight years, but it was that of armour.

At Angers she was now Marguerite again, although every time she would look back to her hands, she could believe it less. The long, white fingers that had once flashed brilliantly over parchments, whether it was a charter she penned or a match she wove for whichever gentlewoman of hers was yearning that week, would never straighten out as they once did. At times when she held her reins, she would cringe for their finery. Ma mère Isabelle, sage Yolande, to which end will your memory guide me when not even you have known exertions such as these?

But before her stood only her father, René with as many chins as he had titles. It was only in his presence that she would even dare examine her wrists or roll a fallen hair into her lap, checking how it greyed. Behind him the ‘Mary in The Burning Bush’ sizzled with the draft, bellowing forever through those red halls of her childhood. Even after the longest absence, she could still point to curls of orange paint and placings of ultramarine which Froment let the Duke of Anjou add by his own hand. Beauty in devotional dialogues as in verses he exchanged with the renowned Charles D’Orléans, the sarcenets and masks whirling in every colourful performance of the Passion of Angers, would there ever again be a place for her there? She would sometimes wonder - if, for all the families with men riding out, grizzling in battle squalor so to keep the brute from their ladies’ doors, whether god had played a twisted experiment on the men and women of her house. Twisted still, how the contrary courted every generation.

He was now looking at her, crossing his fleshy arms in a manner so familiar that she anticipated his tact from a league away ‘When I rode at Jeanne D’Arc’s side in the crusade of Orleans, she- ‘ strange of him to resurrect La Pucelle like this, helped to the flames by the Earl of Warwick’s very own father-in-law. She lifted her hand. Those same granddaughters of Warwick would come in her presence with their ancestor’s banners mingling in their skirts as in their overmighty subject blood and pack into her own robes as their grandmother of Salisbury had done some March procession ago. May they burst like the blistering skin of a snake. ‘Whither you come again father to sacrifice your own daughter in the interests of the country, only now this is to be made my own doing?’

Réné’s hands fell to the side, the sound broke her thoughts. Velvet was not supposed to make that sound when it met, she looked back and saw the black had faded from the fabric, not unlike the scarlet sunsetting the halls - at least now that she chanced another look. Mary in the Burning Bush, her father’s gaze followed hers to the painting. She burns but is not consumed, La Pucelle...

Her father’s rings were boring (digging/gripping could work) into her shoulders, however they did not dig much. Gentle impoverished man, I see I shall fight for you too. ‘The divine mystery’ he whispered behind her as if he himself beheld it now ‘jesu, her only son, ma fille, likewise as he, our only light. Marian’s sacrifice’

‘Sometimes, I think my king husband is much like the spirit of Most High’ she murmured not unkindly, for Henry’s was not the beacon laying the flame that would make ashes of the heart. Longing, in the end, had but one care, to cocoon, stifle and transform that which was unruly. Not yearning, the yearning that brought with it no peace; the gaudling of her London court for which the fashionable youth adored her, daughters of Chaucer down to her gilded ladies would forsake the altars for their Guinevere. Had the Yorkists only the craft to have seen that tale through complete materiality... She gave out an unbalanced sigh, while her mind addled on whether monsieur Warwick’s imagination coming to them would leave the brutes with naught else but smashing the cocoon, however snuggly lain in its stony bower.

July beams lingered, heat shattered off the floors, and so she tried to pull at the linen that clung to her wrist, more that it was unfashionable it was a grey that summer suns liked to singe ‘Have my thoughts wound about your tongue, mon père? you do not appear to have any words for response’

‘Ah?’ He turned her towards him raising an eyebrow ‘I was not aware you sook any, was there are question I did not note?’

‘Yes’

His amusement faltered when he saw her unamused ‘Ah, yes, your sacrifice. It was ever your way Margaret, though whether it is for France or your son I do not know’

Her robe drew their shadows when she fell back, black thistles on grey from the gallery’s corners. ‘I’ she shook a crooked finger ‘you ask me this? I who- have you any idea why it is that the English so hate me father? It is not for I traded tin and wool; it is not for my founding of colleges...’

Now it was he who raised the hand ‘Indeed ma marguerite, your kingly husband rules over a nation of merchants huddled in village kingdoms. They who would cast the white of a lady’s hand anywhere but in council. The jealousy of the English is legendary, I know’.

‘Not that either’ her voice was terse while she took her seat on the stone bench. It was much more worn than she had found it years ago, if rock would splinter rather than burn. ‘It is because they think like you and my cousin le roi. Henry and Edouard’s people, once they were also mine - descendants of Charlemagne as are we? They have never forgotten how I had Maine and Anjou surrendered, all for you et comme ça I became France’s agent. Not a queen for England was I: mercantile where their English roses are industrious, that was, before I was the wastrel of a lavish court where their ladies stayed stately patrons steeped in pious splendour... and yet the Yorks are not England, not more than Pembroke, Somerset, Suffolk, Exeter’

Réné stepped back and huffed a laugh, the way his lips sat after, thin and waved would have looked shrewd in other men’s faces, never in his, sat among his folds of pink and white skin ‘But the Monsieur le Warwick is’. He shuffled next to her, the pale blue of his eyes renarrowing as he concentrated on setting down his fleshiness on the little space, she could concede him on the bench ‘Not as us, ma marguerite, kings of Jerusalem, rulers of Majorcas and Minorcas...

‘Must he too make them different’ she realised she sounded like Henry, looking up with eyes rounded and rimmed so darkly by unsleep that she did not notice the footsteps approaching ‘Can crowns and people be so? The English and the French? Ah to stoop l’Agneau into an alliance with a subject, to have my posterity sat on thrones built on concessions, to they themselves be so as well?’

‘And so, you helped them to it when you gave Berwick back to the Scots. An act singing of the auld alliance’ Father and daughter looked up, it was something said with all the bitterness of an erstwhile groom of such a match. ‘I cannot say I minded that much’ Louis XI of France had just returned from mass, crossed himself and twitching his long Valois nose, Margaret was reminded how this was a man who went to prayer mechanically as in all manner of things; mimicking other’s gestures with the mind’s thoughts separate. Perchance all ceremony was indeed same to him, the prie-dieu of vespers though softer than the stone under his breaches and spurs when he had knelt with his Stuart dauphine at an alter times passed. She had died and he had burned all her poetry Margaret was horrified ill-befallen queen to be.

He was prudent, like Salisbury’s prudence but York was now a house of alchemists. Why have at Boccacio’s matter when bare re-anatomization could make for Lydgate’s fall of princes? Sometimes not even names need be changed. Her wandered to Queen’s College with a sigh; she could be angry no more.

He did not walk as much as swept with the blue heaviness of his robes as they cooled the sun off the flagstones, atop his head comically lay only a black skull cap which made his face smaller, less discernable.

‘and Carlisle’ she feigning her approval ‘France never breathed while England was strong’ behind Louis, Réné stood up shooting her bewildered looks. Just as nor would my son buttressed in from the North and South. But sectioned up part and parcel from within?

‘You now speak like a prince madame. A prince of France’ he spoke barely moving a lip ‘good did it you this spell at Angers, I see we are past ravings for vengeance’ he stayed the way he also did but now swung his eyes from one side to the other like a pendulum ‘I always know when to come, as does Warwick it seems. Two days ride they tell me’

‘Him? He’ she grabbed at the column grilling the window behind her as though she meant to wield it ‘here?’

Her father shrank away and Louis’ voice curled in amusement as he flicked a speck of dust from his collar ‘St Mary would do well, resplendent enough for an oath, the floors need no bending from our treasury without offending Monsieur’s apparent newly exalted tastes’

His confusion at her silence could almost have been taken for indignance, he now turned to her father with the same look. ‘I told her, nephew, we are agreed, Fortescue would not write to you without her consent you know that. She noticed how he hated being called that. ‘Marguerite-‘

‘That was in May’ she gathered her thumbs in an inward gesture and under her chin ‘before I knew they made a mockery of our assistance; all he did these months was spend all that Bourrée had given him and without profit. A lord without profit, think sire think.’

‘Leave the costs of their presences to me’ he retorted ‘all his sailors and had they ten children each are the poor’s bread sat next to you and yours all these years’

‘Maine and Anjou were scores that’ Margaret hissed ‘and you forget that by even deigning to compare your obligation to us as that towards Warwick. Edouard is a prince of France too - remember that.’

He huffed laying both hands on the counter-table. His sleeve’s fleur de lis pattern dragged to clarity when he stretching, lit the three candles that lay atop although it was daylight. The servants were sent away, he seems a very practiced man in these respects. ‘So I hope that you remember that when you prevail over that idiote de York’

‘Believe you in the right of Lancaster then?’ she heard an ounce of hope in her father’s voice ‘That Lancaster is good for the country? Warwick is either to be turned water crossing to his ruin or turn for my grandson? Advising a York had always been futile’. Had he not heard what had just been said?

‘Yes -oncle’ he narrowed his eyes, chaffed his heel while he spoke ‘rather... good for the world as well I think’

Margaret approached him, catching his sleeve when he tried slightly turning his back ‘it is good you see, for Pembroke will be governing besides your friend Warwick and we can insure an even goodlier reign over England under an even redder rose’. He looked over his shoulder with features pointed in irritation, The King of France was but around her age, yet he looked as those old English bankers that bit their coins and and found they were not gold.

Nearly two years ago, Jasper’s enterprises had cost Louis much, but now he had come back with only little accounts of assizes and short-lived sieges. Inwardly, Margaret felt pleasant. Apart from her, no one angered them as he did, he was now to Champagne, on his continuous quest. With every return she felt she could reclaim new pieces of her old court, and unknowingly his gallantry rebuilt her court of chivalry, regarbing her a Guinevere when he knelt. Regarbed, for the love they both bore Henry was second only to that for Edouard. As did Catherine de Valois, faithfully, as her welsh suitor longed, yearned and served. Wedded and then to die for his step-son’s cause. She once wondered whether such a musing could ever cross a busy mind like his, the welsh do have their romances, as do the French. But even though England pools them all to herself in the end, lovely waters of red and blue they stay.

‘It is good of you’ Réné said, patting his gut in a manner going with his satisfaction ‘that you also hold that an alliance between these two kingdoms is an ideal. You may yet grow to be known as the Europe’s bringer of perpetual peace, le prudent est la meilleure que l’universelle aragne, non?

‘Oncle...’ his dark eyes dropped to his simper and Margaret was beginning to realize was something Louis used to mock, ‘yes, yes. I also happen to know men like the Monsieurs Warwick and Clarence and they do not fall easily and will always know where to find me at every exile, especially now that Edward will never allow them to the force of Calais again. Though I had their wives housed with my Queen and gave the princeling a bolt of pretty green silk to appease him, one month since landing at Normandy they have caused me nothing but trouble. They did not spend all the coin Bourrée gave to them to affront you but to bade me recognize them, and loudly enough to bring Burgundy in his throes of idiocy, to tell me how I am breaking our treaty of Péronne by not attacking them for what they did to his ships. Attack? Ack all these men think about is hitting one another with their sticks of steel - dense as their skulls’

She raised an eyebrow Craven ‘Then you would not object to having Warwick kneel during the audience. He who bespoiled us, your treasury and my virtue- ’Many hard hours had been wasted like this. she felt herself being grabbed by the shoulders to which she responded by looking back at him in confusion, he proceeded to slip down and now she felt more shocked. ‘Marguerite, belle cousine, I beseech you. We need Warwick to invade and you need him most. France will not bear war with Burgundy, think on your hatred for those carver princes of your kingdom, just so is my wrath for Charles le Temerraire, he is like your York for me. The father and son merged in an even greater traitor. England has not razed to the ground, but if France falls, I split, just as my father had when he betrayed the maid of Orléans to them - the English and the Burgundians. Marguerite, I am not my fool father, I will not betray you and so you will not betray me. Do not trifle, dissimulate instead, I urge you as one sovereign to another. Take this as my kneeling in lieu of Warwick, as repayment for my father’s debt towards the maid’ And an England divided would suit you just as well, if not better than an alliance. Far less costly. His words sounded well-chewed, but such thoughts were overborne and unheard, thoughts paling to those for spirit of the Maid ‘who had raised Charles to throne’ and how it had ‘renewed in the Queen’. You who once followed a peasant girl follow now a queen, soft sprang the echoes, Captain Margaret.

‘Maman!’ her son came bounding in like a sprig, a tall, stately boy whose features were never left by the serious air that his childhood hung about them. His father’s blue eyes were squarely cut in his face and shone whenever in the presence of men with whom he could prove his mettle - he had the leanness of someone who never grew too easy. Just so, upon sight of Louis his tone dropped and he pecked her on the lips before sitting himself at the edge of the stone bench. ‘Comme les anglais’ her father joked and even the king managed a small smile ‘like the English princes’. She knew well that they were too old for this custom, but how many mothers so raised their sons so alone and unattended by others, the lord’s manger had straw for warmth where St Michel only stones.

‘I met the lady Anne’ started Louis ‘a vivacious girl, t’was her proud sister’s wedding festivities, but she did not strike neither me nor my brother le duc as one much saddened by much’

Your beloved Monsieur must be ever in god’s gratitudes to have found in you the wedding land for all his daughters and woes. And so now Margaret would lean onto his marital prowess as he unto her martial, for she knew Warwick had no third daughter, no alter avenues for alliance.

‘It is a shame cousin’ she said stroking her son’s cheek, faced away she could still feel some disaffection forming itself in that proud head ‘how you let harbour the joining of Isabelle to that shaking boy’ at that Edouard removed his cap while his mouth twisted in a callous smirk, the fringes of his yellow hair, had long been growing over his face and the concealment was timed perfectly for Louis not to see. The universal spider hated recall for parts in webs he left to the wind for miscalculated threads layed and they both knew that well.

‘Yes, Clarence still shakes but for quite something else, but that blunder is of no account, for remember - the sisters are co-heiresses one is as good as the other, the stately Isabelle may be marble, but Anne is the clay, with perceptive eyes, childhood and better French’ his face softened while he paused, as if readying for the next persuasion. ‘Do you know? She had approached us at the second day festivities, coyly to ask us if now that her sister is married and her English suitor had forsaken the match, if we now had a French prince for her, so that she may honour her sister, and remain apace. Her father had laughed, and not long after her mother - it was that which rather shocked me’

It was a little girl’s boldness that Louis would not know to invent. Margaret smiled, close-lipped but slipping involuntarily like a streak from the fireplace strays to a nearby pot, leaving in its wake a black but warm smudge as its patronage. If god have given her all her father’s spirit, we may harness her boldness to ours.

‘Perceptive?’ Edouard peaked one eye as he slipped back his blue skull cap. He could not image what would have to twist in a fourteen-year-old girl’s eye for anyone to see such moods. In hers he had only known the same that dwelled in all other men’s eyes. It is he who is most like la pucelle Margaret thought a little tinged with guilt.

She approached Edward in his bright brocades with the shift of her faded ones, she cringed at the sound as she regathered her skirts over to her knees, waiting for the dust to settle ‘So what say you my son?’ From the corner of her eyes Louis raised an eyebrow to her father’s fidgeting.

He held them all paused a minute, and then scrounged up his nose. ‘One may be good enough for a pretender’s traitor brother but not for us’ he raised his chin in a way that never before so struck the image of a Henry looking up at mass, and proclaimed ‘we will not be compromised, concede to servants who so tear our country asunder, those who injure our person so with illicit raisings of arms and slander’. My son, our son.

Réné had long slipped off from their side, so he made his way forward to finally speak ‘mais petit-fils, can you not see how Warwick’s acceptance of this marriage would be the strongest declaration to the world that he retracts his statements?’ Such was ever his wont- playing bubbling grandfather, but while gently nodding his head with her son, blue eyes smiling on blue, Margaret wondered if there was another tact she had not quite noticed before.

Edouard slipped away with disappointment and suspicion forming into one of his pouts, little matter as they were all rosebuds to Margaret. His look to her was unshaped and she knew the thought that what stood behind those heavy-lidded eyes remained unsure ‘Édouard, if I may brook those insults levered at me, then you must learn to as well. Your justice must bend to compromise’ perhaps you may transfer some of this Marian devotion to your wife, lose some for me if you will. When she store at the painting again, the flames no longer appeared to flicker, nothing moved but an orange light, muting all with the mark of the day’s descent. She wondered if this new girl’s hair hued the same, held any of the colour’s warmth, would at least for Edouard.

Louis lifted one finger and thrumping it on Edouard’s shoulder, the youth looked up ‘do know something else, you may have an annulment should the union outstretch its use. Without consummation there can be no bind, papal dispensation notwithstanding’

‘She is all but fourteen, it is true’ her father murmured ‘Monsieur appears to have a woman’s heart when it comes to his children. Or so that is the impression you have given me’

Louis nodded ‘I know better than to presume to know his mind, but he readily shows himself willing for a delay. Of what cause I do not know’

‘Ah now the dog insults us!’ Edouard blurted

‘Hushhh’ Margaret did not hide her grimace ‘he is now to be your father-in-law, lay him before you as a shield, for soon we may have no more swords’

Find the rest of the story on AO3… (link in the reblog)

#margaret of anjou #richard neville 16th earl of warwick #anne neville #louis xi #edward of lancaster #edward of westminster #rene of naples #a bygone era #i wrote this #r&r please xxx #i would appreciate it so much! #whether here or on #ao3 #the white queen #the wars of the roses

[syos-princess]

Belvedere AU

Tag List: @minty-fresh-kicks @of-comfort-and-love

This is an AU I‘ve been working on for a while now and, even though I‘m a little nervous, I‘m so happy to finally share it!

I called it „Belvedere“ because it’s the name of the fictional kingdom it plays in! Belvedere is inspired by France during the Baroque/Rococo Period (the fashion and interior mostly) but this AU also has many fantasy elements, like magic, so it’s not „historically accurate“.

Little Premise:

“In a beautiful kingdom called Belvedere lives a young Crown Princess. One day her father talked about a possible marriage to her, because with him and her mother getting older, she’ll inherit the throne sooner or later. She agreed and, soon after, suitors all across Belvedere were invited to the palace to “fight” for her hand. The Princess shall choose one of these men to be her husband and future Emperor of the kingdom.”

(All the characters with little summaries are under the cut!)

(Please keep in mind that these are just summaries. They all do have a more deeper backstory but posting everything at once for 15 characters is just too much for one post!)

Princess Jules of Belvedere:

A smart and beautiful woman in her early twenties, who lives in the royal palace located in the capital. She is the heiress to the throne of Belvedere and the future Empress. Jules is more trained than other princesses, because, besides the usual studies, she also learned how to fence from her father. The Princess really loves her people and wants the best for them. She is quite accepting of the “competition” idea to find a suitable husband. Though, secretly, is Jules already interested in a charming young man, who she met at a masquerade two years prior…

Lord Syo of House Kurusu:

Syo is the oldest heir to one of the most influential noble houses in the south of Kingdom Belvedere. A lot of wonderful artists and musicians are born in the south, so it’s no real surprise that Syo is also very musically talented. He loves to sing and to play on his violin. It’s something that runs in his bloodline. He isn’t so keen on the idea to compete for the Princess’ hand at first, because his heart is already beating for this mysterious woman he met two years ago, until he meets and recognizes Jules as her.

Lord Kaoru of House Kurusu:

The youngest heir to his noble house and Syo’s identical twin. He really looks up to his brother and can get protective quickly. They’re both very similar to each other, though there are a few things that set them apart, like their height. Like Syo, Kaoru also got selected to compete for the Crown Princess’ hand in marriage. Though, he quickly notices Jules’ and Syo’s attraction to one another. He wants to help his older brother to win the Princess’ heart and favor of her family.

Lord Ren of House Jinguji:

Ren is the older cousin of Syo and Kaoru and the youngest brother of three. He doesn’t have a good relationship with his brothers but is quite attached to his cousins. On the outside, he is a charmer and isn’t afraid to flirt with whoever he finds interesting. But deep down is Ren actually a huge romantic who just wants to find “The One”. He is one of Jules’ selected suitors as well but he recognized her as the girl Syo gushed to him about in the past. Ren joins Kaoru on the quest to give them the fairytale ending they deserve.

Lord Tokiya of House Ichinose:

Tokiya is a “wandering noble” who loves to travel across and beyond the country of Belvedere to find inspiration for his books. He is also the older cousin of Princess Jules to whom he is very close to. They regularly exchange letters when he is on his travels. He is a very quiet guy with a big heart for poetry. Tokiya is the only heir to his noble house but his parents are supportive of his traveling. Though, he knows that he has to take over their responsibilities someday in the future.

Apprentice Cecil:

A young court magician in training. He is the apprentice of the current court magician, Camus. Cecil is a positive young man who loves to learn and see new things. Unfortunately, his curiosity leads him to be very distracted sometimes and, due to that, messes up the spells a lot. He gets scolded by Camus regularly but Princess Jules smooths the situation over for him. Cecil still has a lot to learn. Though, he is a great person to have as a friend. In his freetime, he loves to hang out with a young court jester around the palace.

Cook Natsuki:

Natsuki is the royal family’s head cook, something that he always wanted to be. The Princess and he know each other for a long time and would definitely consider themselves as friends. His cooking apprentice sometimes has to taste test his “experiments”, which don’t always turn out to be good. Nobody can really stay mad at him for anything, though. Natsuki seems to be very interested in Jules’ court jester, Nubbles. And what is about him sometimes being seen in two different places at the same time?

Sir Otoya:

Otoya is a young knight and one of Princess Jules’ protectors. He’s an orphan, who got left on a monastery’s doorstep as a baby. Nothing is known about his origins. Otoya, despite his past, always stays positive and is adorably innocent sometimes. It may not look like it to people but he does take his guard duty seriously. Jules and Otoya, in private, often talk casually like friends do. Many rumors say that he is actually the illegitimate son of an eccentric and unmarried duke far up in the north of the kingdom.

Sir Masato:

Masato is Otoya’s partner in knighthood and Jules’ second assigned protector. He originally comes from an old bloodline that achieved their status and riches through their self made teas. But Masato followed his late uncle's footsteps into becoming a knight. He seems very stoic at first but he deeply cares about the people close to him, especially his little sister. If you look closely, you can even see a light smile. Masato sometimes joins in on the casual conversations of the Princess and Otoya.

The Guardian Spirit „Satsuki“:

The Guardian is a very old water spirit living in the beautiful forests on the outskirts of Kingdom Belvedere. He is watching over its people, though only a chosen few, like the royal family, still remember him to this day. The Guardian has a human form in which he is „Satsuki“, a young blonde man. The lake, in which he lives, is said to be magical. During a full moon, your deepest wish would get fulfilled if your heart is pure. The Guardian’s biggest hope is to finally reunite with his “long lost” twin someday.

Court Magician Camus:

Camus is the Royal Court Magician and Cecil‘s teacher, who is actually a little scared of him. He has quite the demanding and cold aura around him but he secretly cares a lot about his apprentice. Camus was born into a prestigious noble family but, due to his affinity to magic, his parents sent him to a retired wizard to strengthen these powers at a young age. Jules’ parents think highly of Camus and his abilities. He and the Princess are on respectful speaking terms.

Knight Commander Ranmaru:

He is the boss of the Royal Guard. Members of Ranmaru’s family have been knights for generations, so it was no surprise to many that he would follow his predecessors into this career. He is very serious about his work and duty to protect the royal family, which can lead to him being stricter to his subordinates, for example Masato and Otoya. But it’s clear that Ranmaru has a heart of gold. He secretly lets Jules train in the training area at night sometimes.

Royal Spy Ai:

As the royal spy, Ai has many tasks to manage. Though, those are no problems for him. From simple reports to dangerous undercover work is he your man. Ai is incredibly smart and logical and Jules likes to challenge him to a game of chess, when they both have time. He also has quite a mysterious side to him, because nobody really knows where he comes from, not even Ai himself. Though, Ai also doesn’t seem to be very interested in finding out about his past. Or maybe that’s just a facade?

Royal Advisor Reiji:

Reiji is the most trusted advisor of the current monarchs. He and the Emperor go way back and, even though Reiji is almost a decade younger, both of them have been great friends since then. He is a noble-born man who likes to wear his heart on his sleeve but isn’t naive like some people may think. Reiji has known Jules since she was little and she sees him as an „Uncle Figure“. He was also the one in charge of sending out the invitations to the eligible suitors.

Court Jester Nubbles R. Pudding (Nana‘s S/I):

Nubbles (many speculate it’s not her real name) is a young court jester, who roams around the palace in her crazy, colorful costume. She’s really mischievous just as she is funny. Nubbles is a few years younger than the Princess but they’re still quite close friends. Nubbles hangs out with Cecil every day and often causes mischief with him. When Nubbles isn’t causing “trouble”, she’s doing her best to make Natsuki laugh whom she finds quite “adorable” and “interesting”.

#ramblejules #I really love this AU with all my heart and will probably post about it more in the future! #I give it the tag ‘👑 belvedere au’! #Oh...and self inserts from my friends/mutuals are always welcome. If you want to ofc! 👉🏻👈🏻 #👑 belvedere au

[justfinishedreading]

The Diary of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain

Spoilers (Sort of)

Before reading this book I had never read anything by Mark Twain, but I had heard that he was a great comedic writer and I was looking forward to my first experience of his writing. The Diary of Adam and Eve is his somewhat comedic and satirical version of the biblical legend, told in diary entry form, alternating between Adam and Eve. It’s important to explain that The Diary of Adam and Eve is not actually a single work of fiction; during his lifetime Mark Twain wrote seven short texts on the theme of Adam and Eve, published in different literary journals. These texts focus on different ideas within the context of the legend and do not always follow the same storyline or describe the same events in a consistent way.

The first text contains ‘Extracts from Adam’s Diary’ and ‘Eve’s Diary’, we’re first introduced to Adam (of course), he talks about the arrival of a curious and chatty creature who calls herself Eve. Adam is a solemn and territorial recluse; his diary entries are brief and mostly talk about how annoyed he is that Eve keeps hanging around him and thwarting his frequent attempts to run away. It is Eve who introduces the word “We” to Adam, before her, the possibility of the concept of a collective never occurred to him.

Eve’s diary entries are much longer and philosophical, in them she questions the existence of the creatures in the garden of Eden, their nature, and her own existence and feelings. She examines lions and tigers and tells Adam she believes their teeth look like they were designed for killing and consuming flesh, yet these animals currently eat grass and flowers. Adam tells her that animals killing each other would bring Death to the garden, which is something that has not yet happened. Eve’s observation is telling us that if animals were already “designed” this way, to inflict death, then it is with the anticipation of an event the creator already knows will happen. According to the Bible, Disease, Pain and Death were released onto the world once Eve and Adam ate the forbidden fruit, however if God’s world was already designed and created in preparation for such an event, was it ever Eve and Adam’s fault for disobeying an order given by a being who already knew the order would be disobeyed? With time recluse Adam warms up to Eve, although he doesn’t seem to have many redeeming qualities, one thing I will say for Adam is that I don’t recall him ever even thinking about blaming Eve for their “downfall”.

There are some amusing scenes in this first set of texts, for example Eve gives birth to Abel while Adam is away travelling, when he comes back Eve explains nothing and Adam is perplexed by the baby and keeps trying to conduct experiments on it. He is also obsessed with trying to capture another one from the wild. Twain gives both Adam and Eve a child-like wonder and amazement at the world and entertains us with stories of Eve trying to fetch stars from the night sky and wondering who stole them when day approaches.

Eve is convinced that she is some sort of experiment. The way the story of Adam and Eve is interpreted is usually that Adam was made in God’s image, God then took a rib from Adam and made Eve, therefore Adam is closer to God, and Eve is somewhat inferior because she is a copy of a copy. But if we think about what happens with anything that is created, the first creation is never the best version, usually with each new creation it is better than the last, it is improved. In this light we can view Eve not inferior to Adam but superior.

Eve tells us that she sometimes acts silly, or she conceals things from Adam in order to save him from feeling embarrassment, she realizes that he lacks some of the abilities she has and she does certain things to dumb herself down in order to not hurt his pride. This is something many women can relate to, myself included: needing to tip-toe around some men who have fragile egos and high tempers, this is one of the amazing things about this text, it was written a century ago, and by a man, and yet it is refreshingly feminist. We’re currently going through another feminist revival, and during a time when a lot of machismo and sexual harassment by celebrates is being exposed on social media, and we are losing faith in men in the public eye, it’s hopeful to read a work like The Diaries of Adam and Eve and find a male voice not blinded by ego, not threatened, but with an understanding nature.

Regarding humour, there are certain jokes that aren’t very funny, that are baffling and which I can only presume are related to some event or common joke specific to the time and place Twain was writing in. However there are other amusing scenes, for example interactions with dinosaurs are always funny, in this text and the others we see that Twain has an interest in science and the scientific method, the existence of dinosaurs is proven and Twain is not about to leave them out of Eden, so we get Eve trying to ride a brontosaurus, he “followed her like a pet mountain. Like the other animals. They all do that.” Eve, bright as she is, is also humble, she notices that several animals, particularly the dog and the elephant seem to understand her, and talk, but she does not understand them, and in this case they must be her superiors. In a later text Adam and Eve find a pterodactyl. They name him Terry.

This first section ends on a bit of a sad note, Eve theorizes why she loves Adam, that it is not a product of reasoning, she naively states that she would still love him even if he abused and beat her, words which made me very sad to read. In the end she says she is “only a girl, and the first that examined this matter, and it may turn out that in my ignorance and inexperience I have not got it right.” It is a true portrayal of First Love, of thinking that it’s noble to love someone even if they hurt you, and yet Eve has the wisdom to perceive that her understanding of this may change with time. In a later text Eve describes meeting Adam for the first times and thinking he must be some sort of reptile based on how emotionless and inactive he was.

From Adam’s analysis of their love we have simply, and touchingly, these few words written on Eve’s grave: “Wheresoever she was, there was Eden.”

The above points all relate to the first text in this collection, and it was the one I liked most, the one that gave me what I most expected. I would have loved a full novel written in this style, with themes and events expanded upon, but I can understand how it would have been financially and socially damaging for Twain to write such a book in the early 20th century American south, the novel would have ended up banned and part of book-burnings by religious groups across the country, then and now. It’s a shame, there’s are so many good ideas here, surely somewhere someone has written a novel on Adam and Eve – I should do some research on this.

Now regarding the other six texts, they all have differing tones, they were clearly written with specific different themes in mind, written as one-off literary amusements, imagine the opinions section in a newspaper, with articles bouncing off ideas contemporary to the time. I’m just going to mention a few aspects that I found interesting without really describing each individual article.

Eve writes “For we were children without nurses and without instructors. There was no one to tell us anything.” Throughout all these texts by Twain, God is absent, we hear Adam mention once or twice that he was instructed by God to not eat the fruit, but that’s it. Later when Satan appears, Adam and Eve are full of questions. In this imagining of Eden there is no dialogue between God and Adam and Eve, and before those of you who are more religious rush to protest, why should Twain not write their relationship as it currently is for so many of the Christian faith today? Sure there are some who say they speak to God, have a special relationship with him, but for the vast majority there is no clear two-way conversation going on. As Eves says, they were left alone, they discovered, HAD to discover, things by trial and error.

There’s a moment when just before eating the fruit, Adam and Eve have a discussion about what is Good, what is Evil, what is Pain, Disease and Death. Since they have experienced none of these, since they have seen none of these, they have absolutely no concept of what they could mean. How do you explain colours to someone born blind? So, whilst they were warned that eating the fruit would release a bunch of these (completely unknown) concepts, they decide to go right ahead.

Some other humour to note: Eve writes “the ability to spell correctly is a gift; that it is born in a person, and is a sign of intellectual inferiority. By parity of reasoning, its absence is a sign of great mental power.” As someone with a level of dyslexia myself, I welcome this thought. A good story from Adam is when he and Eve asked Noah what happened to all the dinosaurs? “he coloured and changed the subject.” After some persuasion he blames it on his sons for not carrying out their duties correctly, he then says that the dinosaurs and some other animals were left behind because they knew they would be needed for fossils one day… and also there were some miscalculations regarding the ark…

Amongst the jokes and the theological theories, there’s also commentary on the current state of affairs: Eve muses that the human population is too great in number and will consume the earth to devasting effects. This written by Twain a hundred years ago. Wow, what would he think if he saw us now?

There is a truly gut-wrenching and touching moment when Adam and Eve experience Death for the first time; Cain and Abel fight, Abel is hit, but none of them know what death is, they do not recognize or understand the moment he dies, instead they take him to his bed and wait, and wait, for Abel to wake up. All they comprehend is sleep, and therefore they presume that that’s what’s happening. Eve writes of spending hours by Abel’s side, covering his cold body with wool in a futile attempt to warm his body. There’s another diary entry describing her anguish as Eve begins to suspect that this might be what Death is.  

I’d like to end with a small but significant sentence, Adam writes about Eve: “She was never able to keep her composure when she came upon a relative; she would try to kiss every one of these people, black and white and all.” Apart from the fact that all other people of colour are ignored and humanity is basically divided into just white people and black people, and that nowadays the need to specify black and white people in such a sentence almost has the oppose effect and actually sounds racist, but given the time, and the fact that Mark Twain was born in the south, it is a sentence that has good intentions behind it, it is a sentence that is saying: we are all relatives of Adam and Eve, independent of colour. We are all family.

Review by Book Hamster

#just finished reading #the diary of adam and eve #mark twain #adam and eve #feminism #feminist icon #eve #feminist #God #creation #creationism #forbidden fruit #the story of creation #evolution #dinosaurs #theology #the bible #comedy #comedy books #comedy fiction #noah #myths #legends #Religion #the nature of religion #Christianity #stories from the bible #satirical #death #Gender Issues

[dontcare77ghj]

Wolf, Witch, Human

Natasha x reader x Wanda

Masterlist      Sleep Series Masterlist     Halloween/Supernatural Masterlist     

Natasha had been a werewolf since birth. No-one was 100% sure as to how or why she was able to turn into what was supposed to be fiction, but Natasha never questioned it. It was just who she was. Being a werewolf means she is different to the rest of her teammates. Her steaks were rawer than others, the full moon meant she changed into a large wolf and her anger was more substantial than the others.

Natasha wasn’t sure why she was easier to anger than the others, she put it down to her other side most of the time, but she was. The smallest things could make her rage build and when she got angry, the wolf took control. She would turn no matter the phase of the moon and attack whatever triggered her anger.

Wanda helped. When Wanda came along and learned of Natasha’s issues with anger, she did the best to help her. She made charm bags, potions and other things with calming herbs, sigils and enchantments. Because of Wanda, Natasha had lavender and chamomile tea every morning, had charm bags under her pillows and in her bag and was constantly carrying a crystal, or sigil, or herb with her to control her inner beast.

All these worked really well, until Y/N. She was like every potion; charm bag and spell Wanda had created in human form. Wanda felt it too, the girl was enthralling with her sweet smile, soft voice and calming demeanour. And they wanted her.

Reader POV

You’d been with the team for nearly a year since your brother had introduced you to them. You had been born with the ability to teleport yourself and anything you were contact with to anywhere you wished. For most of your life you’d kept it a secret, with only your late parents, uncle, your aunt and younger brother knowing, and trying to learn the lengths you could go.

You didn’t do much with the ability, traveled the world for a bit, until your brother joined The Avengers initiative. He was close with Tony and he’d mentioned you and your ability. At Tony’s insistence Peter brought you to meet the billionaire and after several more meetings you were asked to join the team.

You’d quickly become close with the Stark along with Wanda, Natasha and Steve. With Tony, Peter was what connected you and Steve the two of you shared a drive to keep the little guy safe, along with your insistent need to rush headfirst into a fight, but with the women there was something else.

They were gorgeous and you were immediately attracted to them both but there was something else you couldn’t put your finger on. Whatever the reason you felt so drawn to them you didn’t mind. They were good friends, great friends and you really enjoyed spending time with them.

Even though you’d been with the team and friends with the two women for a year, you’d never been around Natasha when it came time for her to shift. Either you were busy, or she was, but you’d never seen it, until now.

The three of you had been sent out of the country for some undercover work since a week ago. The three of you had been so busy, that none of you noticed the change in the moon’s phases.

You were all together in some ritzy hotel, the three of you attempting to blend in and trail the targets.

“I haven’t seen my guy yet.” Natasha commented, concealing her murmuring as she drank a cocktail. Because she was the most noticeable of you all, she had been forced to wear a piece of tech that altered her face and a blonde wig.

“Neither have I.” Wanda confirmed, discreetly scanning the room.

“I have my eyes on the prize.” You said from your seat at the bar. “I’m going to engage.” You told the two, standing from your seat and grabbing your clutch.

“Be careful.” Natasha begged, making you smile fondly.

“Always am.” You said before moving over to the man. With your drink in one hand you began walking in the opposite direction of the man, the two of you bumped shoulders, causing your drink to spill.

“Oh goodness, I am so sorry about that.” You said innocently, grabbing a handkerchief out of your clutch to dab at the mess on his jacket.

“No, I’m sorry. Completely my fault.” The man laughed, taking the handkerchief out of your hands. “How about I get you a new drink, you know, to say I’m sorry?”

“Only if you join me.” You said flirtatiously.

“Of course, I’m Damien.” He told you, leaving a hand for you to shake.

Bingo, you thought taking his hand in yours. “Eve.” You replied. The two of you moved over to the bar but before you could get any information out of the man, you noticed Wanda move over to Natasha who appeared to be very distressed.

“Oh, my is that the time?” You asked, hastily standing up ready to follow the two. “I’m so sorry, but I forgot I have somewhere to be now, we’ll have to do this another time.” You quickly said, moving away from him attempting to follow Natasha and Wanda out.

You caught up to them as they were leaving the hotel entrance. “What’s happening?” You asked Wanda as Natasha was bent over growling.

“She’s shifting, we need to get her out of here.” Wanda told you, a slightly distressed look in her eyes. Making sure there was no-one around you moved to Natasha’s other side and helped pull around the corner.

“This way.” You said, moving them both behind the corner. “Wanda, take my hand.” You added, one hand still clutching onto the slightly calmer red-head, or blonde now.

Wanda took your outstretched hand with no hesitation and you quickly transported them both into a lush forest.

“Is there a chance anyone else will be here?” Wanda asked, shedding Natasha of her wig and mask.

“No, this place is completely private.” You said, blushing when Wanda began stripping Natasha’s dress.  “She’ll be fine here.”

“Great.” Natasha growled as her bones began cracking. “Y/N come here for a second.” She said, beckoning you over. Hesitantly you moved over to her, she grabbed your hand and pulled you in closer. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply for a few seconds before she fully transformed.

“Do you want me to go?” You asked Wanda, who was watching Natasha check out her new surroundings. Wanda turned to with a smile and shook her head.

“No. Come, sit with me.” She said, reaching a hand out to you. You took it, returning her smile, and the two of you sat on a fallen log.

“Wanda? Can I ask you something?” You asked after several minutes of comfortable silence. She hummed in response and turned her head toward you. “Why did Natasha smell me before?”

“It’s normal.” Wanda quickly assured. “It’s so the wolf knows your scent is that of a friend.” She added quickly, smiling at you and giving your hand a quick squeeze. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

“Oh, okay.” You said, nodding your head. Her answer seemed logical, so you saw no point to question it any further. “Her wolf is beautiful.” You commented as said wolf began to come closer to the two of you.

“She is.” Wanda agreed, running her fingers through Natasha’s slightly red fur. “And she’s usually quite gentle, and much more affectionate, in this form.” She added as Natasha sat in front of you.

“Hi, Nat.” You cooed, and slowly reached a hand out to her. She rubbed her nose against the palm of your hand before laying down in front of the two of you.

“I almost forgot,” Wanda started, turning to you. “Where are we exactly?”

“A forest in Sweden.” You replied with a smile. “I found it while I was traveling a few years ago. I loved the cities here, but I wanted to find my own little place. And I found this mountain and this forest, and they were untouched by anyone.”

“It’s beautiful.” Wanda complimented. “It’s so peaceful.”

“And Natasha will be safe here until she turns back.” You added, smiling at the witch. “And so will we. There’s a little place we can go to for the night, Nat will even be able to access it.” You added, jumping to your feet. Wanda grabbed your outstretched hand and started to follow you.

Leading the two women, well woman and wolf, you walked for a few minutes before stopping at the base of a tree which had a set of stairs carved into it.

“I take it these stairs weren’t always here.” Wanda commented as you led the two up the stairs.

“You would be assuming correctly.” You told her, leading her up to a platform. Standing on the platform you smiled as Wanda’s jaw dropped. “And before you ask, this wasn’t here before either.”

“How did you do this? How long did this take you?” Wanda asked, staring around her in amazement. “This must have taken you so long.”

“What can I say? I like to keep busy” You shrugged, leading her and Natasha into the main part of the house. “It’s been home for years, it didn’t matter where I was in the world I always came back here, so I thought I might as well truly make it home.”

“This is fantastic Y/N. Thank you, for sharing this with us.” Wanda said, pulling you close to kiss your cheek. You blushed a bright red at the affection before maintaining yourself.

“Of course, what are friends for?” You said, clearing your throat. “Come on I’ll show you to the bedroom.” You added, pulling her towards the next room. “There should be clothes in the chest there, make yourself at home.”

“Where are you going?” Wanda asked as Natasha circled the room.

“I’m not going far.” You promised, smiling gently at the witch. “There’s a hammock in the living room, I’ll stay there tonight.”

“No, no this is your place, you get the bed.” Wanda said.

“Wanda, you and Nat can’t fit into that hammock. The bed has plenty of room for the two of you.” You said, shaking your head slightly.

“There’s more than enough room with the two of us. We’ll share it. It’s your bed and we all need some sleep.” Wanda compromised, staring intently at you. Knowing you weren’t going to win and how tired you were you gave in and raised your hands in surrender.

“Okay, I can live sharing with the two of you.” You smiled. The two of you stripped out of your fancy dresses and into the spare clothing you stored here. You both laid together on the bed with Natasha in between the two of you.

“Night Y/N.” Wanda smiled, curling closer to Natasha’s warmth.

“Good night Wanda.” You replied, already falling asleep.

Non-reader POV

When Natasha woke up the next morning, she was still in between Y/N and Wanda, who was already awake.

“Morning.” Natasha murmured to Wanda.

“Hey.” Wanda said, leaning in to kiss the red head. When the two pulled away they both turned to look at their still sleeping bed mate.

“She’s so gorgeous.” Natasha whispered, smiling at the H/C woman.

“We should ask her soon.” Wanda suggested, wrapping her arm around Natasha’s waist. “I think she would say yes.”

“Soon.” Natasha agreed, leaning back in Wanda’s hold. “We’ll ask her soon.”

Reader POV

“Here’s to the hundred year old virgin!” Tony cheered as you all clinked glasses. Steve’s cheeks turned bright red as the rest of you laughed in amusement. 

It was Steve’s birthday and in true Stark fashion, Tony had organized a large party complete with fireworks for the 4th of July and plenty of alcohol for the guests consumption.

“You mean Bucky hasn’t tapped that?” Clint asked, the team laughing as both men turned red.

As the team joked about Steve and Bucky’s sex life, you moved over to the bar to get another drink.

“That dress looks fantastic.” Diana said, coming to stand behind you with a flirtatious smirk plastered on her face. Diana was a former member of S.H.I.E.L.D and was one of the best agents they’d had, so you and the team had gotten to know her before S.H.I.E.L.D fell.

“Oh thanks, Diana.” You said, smiling as you turned to face her. “Your dress is really nice too.”

“You need to wear things like this more often. Other than your suit or what you wear undercover, we barely get to see these legs.” She commented, gazing down at your legs. She wasn’t wrong. You did prefer comfortable clothing, jeans and t-shirts compared to short, tight, uncomfortable clothing.

“That’s because I prefer my jeans.” You told the blonde, leaning against the bar. “Can’t do much in one of these dresses.”

“I’m not saying I don’t like your jeans.” Diana smirked, raising her hands in innocence. “Your jeans still show those legs, but I guess I like seeing them up close.”

“Diana, my eyes are up here.” You said, feeling somewhat uncomfortable with the woman.

“I’m sorry.” Diana apologised, raising her eyes to meet yours. “Tony made the drinks a bit stronger than I thought they would be.”

“I think that’s what everyone thinks. Once Clint tried to jump from the roof into the pool after a bit too much.” You commented, smiling at the memory.

You and Diana stood by the bar, continuing to talk casually for a few more minutes when she started to move closer.

“You know, I found this adorable little café a few streets away from the Tower. Maybe you would want to join me one day?”  She suggested, shifting her body closer to yours.

Understanding, finally, why Diana had initially followed you over to the bar you began to feel awkward with the situation.

“I’m sorry Diana, but I’m not interested in having that kind of relationship with you.” You admitted, rubbing your neck. You attempted to move away from her only for her to come stand in front of you.

“Y/N you don’t have to decide that now.” Diana said, grabbing your hand in hers. “Just go on one date with me and you’d see we’d be good together.”

“I said no, Diana.” You said firmly and pushed past her. She grabbed your arm and turned you towards her. Before she could say anything a loud growl startled the two of you, and probably the rest of the party as well.

Turning your head, you could see Natasha storm over to the two of you, with an angry Wanda following her. Natasha grabbed you by the arm, less aggressively than Diana had, and pulled you into her chest. She slammed her lips to yours and her anger seemed to dissipate from her system.

You were in shock from the red head smashing her lips against yours, you almost didn’t kiss back. After a few minutes Natasha pulled away and Wanda pulled you into her arms and repeated her girlfriend’s actions.

“She’s ours.” Natasha said, glaring at the stunned blonde. “Don’t touch her again.”

As Wanda pulled away, Natasha grabbed both your hands and dragged you both out of the room. You were still in shock at the actions of the two and didn't say anything until you reached the elevator.

“What was that?” You asked as the doors closed behind you.

“That was us staking a claim.” Natasha said, shrugging casually as she wrapped her arm around your waist. 

“Jesus Nat.” Wanda sighed, nervously playing with her hands. “We should’ve asked before we did that and we shouldn’t have just stormed over like that but Nat said-”

“Wanda breathe.” You said, grabbing her hand in yours. “I’m not mad you both kissed me, little shocked yeah, but I’m not mad.”

“We should explain a bit.” Wanda told you as you arrived on their floor. She and Natasha led you into their bedroom. They sat you down on their bed and stood before you, Natasha looking calm and Wanda still looking nervous.

“We’ve like you for a really long time.” Wanda admitted, giving you a nervous smile.

“Since you first joined.” Natasha added, sitting next to you. “There’s something about your scent. It intrigued us.”

“Are you saying I smell?” You asked, feeling self conscious.

“Yes. I mean no.” Wanda rushed. “Oh God, Nat you take over, I’m failing at this.”

"What she means is your scent is intoxicating. It makes the wolf calm and it draws me and Wanda in. You said you were human and it just made us all the more curious.

We all started to get closer and it wasn’t just your scent that we were drawn into. It was you. Your personality, your laugh, your love of your family and your love of travel. Your scent was still intoxicating but we both fell in love with you, for you.” Natasha said, her hands holding yours and staring intently at you.

“We love you, Y/N. We’ve loved you for a long time.” Wanda said, finally gaining her confidence back.

Your mouth felt dry. You couldn’t believe this was actually happening.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for his.” You admitted, smiling giddily. Standing from the bed, you pulled Wanda into you and kissed her deeply. The woman gladly responded and wrapped her arms around your neck.

Natasha pulled you away from Wanda and kissed you as passionately as she had before. Natasha let out a growl as you pulled her red locks.

“Two can play this game, malen’kiy chelovek.” She smirked, throwing you onto their bed. Wanda stood next to Natasha and smiled as her fingertips glowed red and Natasha’s eyes flashed yellow.

This was the start of a long, happy, relationship. A relationship between a werewolf, a witch and a calming human.

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