#ill just imagine hot priest ;)

[moodymisty]

Author's Note: Inspired by this post. You can blame all of the unhinged horniness there for this unhinged horniness. Someone there put the idea down as space wolves or Luna wolves and I chose Luna wolves because @bispecsual gave me the brain rot. And since I'm a massive masochist, I write.

Relationships: Like five unnamed Luna Wolves/Fem!Reader

Warnings: Vaguely NSFW, Very hornily charged bullying, Astartes are very curious and grabby, Demeaning speech, Just imagine you're that one girl on the couch in the meme surrounded by massive dudes but those dudes are 8 foot tall genetic abominations, Gangbang implications(?) my warning tags are getting weird as fuck

To the Luna Wolves, serfs are a new idea- a curiosity.

But after their good deeds upon a planet of little known renown and placement in the galaxy, a few of their population offered to serve them.

Before them, most serfs were primarily stationed on Terra, and on Luna Wolves ships instead those roles were given to low ranking tech priests, or penal labor. Even then however the Astartes saw them rarely, until now.

Some of the newly conquered planet offered sons as aspirants, of which they eagerly accepted. The Luna Wolves have been eager to grow their numbers now under Horus’ leadership.

Others, older and ablebodied, offered themselves to serve as serfs.

Many Luna Wolves can't remember the last time they've seen a normal human for more than a few moments, ushering them to safely into a Stormbird or pushing them from a firefight. Or seeing their corpse flung on the far reaches of a battlefield, out of sight and mind.

In their brief periods of reprieve from battle, it's now been a struggle for their captains and lieutenants to keep their men on task, now that serfs scurry around them completing various tasks. Particularly for the youngest marines among them, it's been a constant to stop them from reaching towards the serfs, interrupting their sanctioned duties.

They will get to you once finished with your brothers, is what the current quartermaster on duty or Astartes captain says. Though haste to have their armor cleaned or bolter clips loaded isn't the thing on their mind, but instead an almost dog-like curiosity.

But after their superiors leave, they always end up crowding around you again. These astartes have barely seen baseline humans in decades, let alone a woman.

It's suffocating.

You were nothing on your home planet. Insignificant. You’d hoped joining them would bring you purpose, something to be proud of. And to get off the planet that had you feeling so trapped. And while you got your wish, in a way the thing trapping you had merely changed form.

They have you cornered in the armoring room now; Like Wolves. You went from trapped on that no name planet to trapped by five different astartes. Your palms feel hot and sweaty, but not as hot as your face.

“You’re so small, you’re going to get lost on the ship,” One says.

He grabs for your chin and holds it for a moment, forcing you to look into his grey eyes. they're stoic, but you can see he's enjoying something about this. Though he allows you to shrink away and out of his grip, looking downward at their chest armor. Or anywhere else that isn't their faces.

“Or trampled,” Says another. The one who spoke previous gives him a sour look before passively aggressively replying.

“We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”

One who hasn't spoken yet has his top armor removed, his lower half unpowered. He was training, using it as dead weight. Training concluded blood now drips down from his nose and lips but is mostly dried, partly covered healing bruises. If he looks like this, you can't help but wonder how his opponent looks.

It’s distracting.

You don’t know if it’s some sort of illness or insanity from being locked in this ship for so long; It makes him look more attractive. You hope to whatever deity or god or whatever exists out in the stars that he doesn't notice you’re staring. That he doesn't notice the way your heart is pounding in your chest and what feels like your cunt as well.

He does. As do the others. You can't kid yourself and think that with their hearing and smell that they haven't noticed that you're boiling alive, and that your body is screaming fuck me fuck me fuck me fuck me-

“He won. Out of one hundred men.”

Your gut twists and the marine behind you laughs quietly. It's deep, enough so that you swear you can feel it in your chest. You would squeeze your thighs together for some relief, but you don’t think you can without stumbling over.

“She likes the winners. Looks like you’re out.” He gestures to a fellow marine that gives him another sour look. You briefly wonder what he lost at to deserve such a jab.

“I should return to my duties,”

You meekly say, hoping to remove yourself from the embarrassment and scurry away to another quarter of the ship.

One of them blocks your path and traps you from leaving, picking you up by the armpits and holding you before putting you back down between them all. It's like you weigh nothing to them, and that they can simply jostle and swing you around like a toy.

“I’ll tell your quartermaster you were helping us.” He jerks his head in the direction of a marine clad in only the casual clothing they wear out of their ceramite. Now the focus of your attention he rolls his shoulder, and you can see the muscles of his neck and around his collarbone flex.

You swallow a knot in your throat that felt like it was going to choke you. Your hands clench tight, nails sharp against your palms. You're going to have a heart attack, you swear it. Tears well in your eyes but they don't break your waterline just yet, from sheer will alone. If any of them say another word, call you cute, small, soft, that you smell so sweet, you swear they’ll roll down your cheeks like a waterfall.

“He wants you to put on his armor. The others are always so rough, you’re so gentle with those little hands.”

The marine reaches for you, and in your back step you stumble and accidentally bump into the one who hasn't spoken at all; Just watching and sitting. You stumble over his massive armored boot and end up falling into a sit on his thigh, legs parted over it. His massive armored hand comes to grip your waist, to keep you from falling over. It covers a good portion of your stomach in the process.

You’re so tightly wound just the simple pressure alone is enough to have you clamp a hand your mouth to avoid letting out a moan that would kill you right then and there, if you weren’t already dead. Your knees quiver, toes just barely touching the ground. His massive height makes it impossible to fully stand with his thigh between your legs.

You know they can smell the way you’re leaking and staining your underwear, hear the way your heart is racing like it's going to explode. You’re half afraid you might make his ceramite thigh plate slick.

You can feel their eyes on you. They look at you like you’re food thrown to a pack of starving wolves.

One suddenly steps forward, and pushes his battle brother out of his way with a harsh slam of ceramite on ceramite before undoing the latch his belt.

“I go first.”

#Sevatar daddy bully me until I c- what who said that #space marine x reader #warhammer 40k x reader #reader insert #reader #mywriting

[dormarunt]

Berlin, episode 1 - a spoiler-filled live reaction/commentary 

Spoilers ahoy under the cut!

Our man wears a turtleneck from the get-go, which I find hilarious.

"This is my team - one of the three I've robbed with in my life - but this one is special to me as it's from my golden age". Maybe season 2 - if it exists - will focus on that other team? Or? The other 2 teams are The Cormorants and the Mint gangs? What do you guys think?

Also this is set before Berlin knew of his Helmers Myopathy (lol I took Liberties in my latest fic, I won't let something like canon change that)

Roi sees him as the father he never had, while Berlin sees Roi as "a loyal dog he walks every day" -- right, I'm totally going to write these two, and not just because Roi calls him "sir" and shines his shoes.

Damien is a Professor but for real.

During the first heist we see of the gang, a random guest clocks the team as "not police " in about a minute, seemingly based on Keyla's glasses/fidgeting -- okay I guess?? Make that conflict, Pina & Co!

Also iirc Berlin pulls out a bag to put the stolen artifact out of his ass thin air. 

Losing my mind at the smashed phone bit though, the panto is chef's kiss. (points pinky)

Berlin has TERRIBLE gun etiquette/safety OMG???

"Love doesn't last", says the three-times-divorcee. Believe him, before he marries two more times and unhinges his jaw to eat his beat friend's face. 

"What name did you choose?" "Cameron" -- the old gang's names are also chosen.

Pedro Alonso learned French for this okay? And he did a fine job ngl, much better than his Danish of S5.

Keyla is (at least partially) a plot device/Deus Ex literal Machina with her generating 650 pages of content about their made-up archeological gang ---- hopefully priest dude doesn't know how to double check stuff like awards because then Keyla would have to ~hack loads of sites/databases okay I'll stop but seriously 

He calls himself Berlin already. How or why? Unclear yet. 

Based on the iPod shuffle that Keyla's wearing the series takes place after 2010-2012 (so before he met Martin according to the little timeline I made a while ago)

The Berlin-Roi talk about a particular woman (Cameron) gives me Berlin-RIO (heheh) talk about Tokio

Oh no tell the guy who lusts over a girl to act as her dad instead - that's going to go WELL

The door hacking (Panasonic) device with Matrix-style flowing numbers and letters is PRIMO and not hilarious at all. (Rafael's hacking device was marginally more believable)

Three home invaders vs one angry little pup - I'm in the pup's corner!

Not a huge fan of Cameron just yet, she gives me Tokio vibes and not in a good way. She IS hot though. 

Come on Cameron, when a guy says not to touch his ass you don't take it personally?? Girl, that's not cute irl. If you wanna help him open that lock, warn him. Touching people without their consent is No Bueno. I get that she's supposed to be mentally ill but bit a creep?

Berlin is possibly an insomniac. He's not changed from the Berlin I know and love in that he feels that: 1) he's in any position to give advice, let alone about love 2) he knows all about love his experiences are universal 

(I trust Damian's take on love and kinda agree with him)

OMG THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED!!! --- and Berlin said "ew no?"

Oh Jesus Christ we were spared from another poop particle conversation but just barely (since when is the guy who fucks in stench-filled basements all squeamish?)

Period-inappropriate Imagine Dragons cover

That's why I started learning the guitar in high school, this scene right here, to have someone look at me with that wonder in their eyes. (all the boys learned to play guitar to pick up girls, years later I figured out that so did I lol)

The sights in this episode are beautiful though! <3

Berlin's philosophy on courting women is, according to my headcanon, stolen from Martín who's "an infantry general by vocation" and NO ONE can change my mind

Roi's sincere WTF look here is priceless 

All in all - yep, i'm watching the rest too (lol). Can't guarantee live reactions for the next episodes (unless requested/I have the time)

#lcdp berlin #berlin 2023 #Berlin netflix #Berlin spoilers #Pedro Alonso #LCDP Berlin #i prob typed names all wrong ;__; and I apologize

[theflyingfeeling]

#i'm also more than happy to discuss anything related to this AU 👉👈

hiiiii, i love AUs and i'm all ears (or eyes) as always for more details about it 👀💕 and i hope you don't mind two lil questions? 🥺👉👈

are Tommi, Niko, and Joel part of this AU as well ?

how did Aleksi and Joonas became friends as kids? asking this especially since it seems Aleksi's parents do not like their friendship that much 😅

(ps: thank you for writing and sharing this one, it was amazing 💖💕)

In this house we are extremely pro questions about fics!! 🥰

(behind a read-more because boy can I ramble lol)

I'd lie if I said I hadn't thought of how to include the remaining three into this AU; however, my ideas so far Tommi, Niko and Joel are kinda random and don't really have much to do with this fic 😅 But!! The other day I was thinking about a lonesome lumberjack Tommi (I told you it was random lol) who has been hired to do some thinning out in one of the forests on the Kaunisvesi estate. His job contract says that he's allowed one warm meal a day in the same table with the farmworkers and other staff, and that's how Joonas and Tommi meet. Joonas is feeling a bit lonely and in need of some loving since Olli's been busy wooing Aleksi (Joonas is not bitter about it though, because he's seen the two are actually falling for each other, while Joonas and Olli were merely fooling around), and Tommi is happy to provide; he's a young, single man with certain needs after all. Maybe they have such a lovely time together that they eventually end up catching feelings, and when Tommi is finished with the job he was hired for and is ready to move on to his next location, Joonas has to make a difficult decision of whether to let Tommi go and settle for just the memory of this hot summer fling keeping him warm throughout the winter (Tommi said he might be back next summer), or whether he should quit and run away with the lumberjack to become his little trophy wife 👀🥰

As for Niko and Joel, I'm not quite so sure 🤔 I'd love to picture Niko in a loose white linen shirt as well, but maybe something more... creative would be more up his alley, don't you think? The Sunday Mass is mentioned in the fic, so maybe Niko is the young cantor of the town church and Joel the sexton who's expected to become the town priest after his father, but he's so so confused about everything, from his cracking faith to the lingering looks the cantor sends him from the organ loft when they're preparing the church for the service. So far Joel's been too shy to say a whole lot to the man, but maybe one of these days... (I'm not sure how this could be knit together with the rest of the AU, but maybe Aleksi and Joel could be friends since Sunday school, since it's definitely more acceptable for Aleksi to be associated with the priest's son than a farmer's boy)

Speaking of which, the question of how Aleksi and Joonas became friends is a great one! 🤔 To start with Aleksi's background story, I'm imagining him to have been somewhat lonely growing up. As mentioned in the fic, he was often ill growing up and perhaps he wasn't allowed to go outside the house and socialize with other kids of his age or even his siblings. Maybe the housemaid that was cleaning the chambers of the family took pity on the boy and brought his own little son to be his playmate, secretly of course (maybe Joonas suffered from separation anxiety and often hung by the hem of his mother's skirt while she worked). When this was discovered by someone in the family or staff, Joonas' mother had to promise to not bring Joonas in again, because surely a dirty-handed, illiterate peasant's boy wasn’t suitable company to the young heir to the estate, but that didn't stop the two of them sneaking out to play every now and then. (As q side note, know I said Joonas is a farmer's son, so maybe we can decide the wife of said farmer worked for the family as a maid, right? 😁) I also imagine Aleksi as a bit of a loner among his peers; perhaps he attended a boarding school at some point and was bullied for whatever stupid reason kids bully each other (e.g. the pox scars on his skin), and Joonas may have been his only, most loyalest friend 🥺

In the fic Aleksi also wonders what Joonas might have told Olli about him. I am yet to decide how much Joonas knows about Aleksi to begin with: has Aleksi confided in his only friend about all the questions he has about his sexuality, or has he only implied it, or has Joonas been able to read between the lines and connect the dots himself, perhaps even before Aleksi had figured himself out? (Joonas is, after all, a few years older than Aleksi, thus more mature etc. and struggled with similar issues)

You didn't ask, but here are my notes about the Aleksi's and Olli's relationship after the fic: they may start off as just two people fulfilling their sexual needs with each other, but the talks they have during their post-coital cuddles lol I hate the word post-coital help them bond as they talk about their lives: Olli wants to make absolutely sure Aleksi feels safe and loved after he rails him (always telling him how beautiful he looks, his scars and all 🥺), thus Aleksi feels comfortable enough to share his feelings of loneliness and of not really belonging, and maybe Olli also confides in Aleksi about his life and how he ended up working at the Kaunisvesi estate (this may have something to do with the ring of his mother's Olli carries in his pocket (which he didn't actually loose in the barn lol it was just an excuse to stay behind to talk to Aleksi without revealing him to Joonas)), and they end up falling so in love!! 😭💞

Thanks for the ask, as you know I really love talking about the silly little worlds inside my head 🥺💓 ...even if they may make me seem a little crazy/weird lol

#this has been fic talk by theflyingfeeling thank you come again <3 #blind channel rpf

[everthewip]

Prompt #3: "Okay, show me."

Original fiction: Risha & Nimue (no real title yet)

Rating: G

Warnings: I don't think there really are any, but there is mention of being prejudiced/racist against half-orcs (as always lmk if i need to add a warning that I overlooked)

Other notes: Not edited or revised. This started as a solo d&d homebrew thing I started doing today because I needed something to do lol.

****

“You have served us a great many years, Risha.”

The half-orc bowed her head in acknowledgment, her expression grave; her thoughts unbetrayed. Before her, the High Priest and his attendants mirrored the gesture. He continued.

“Your debt, however, will not be repaid for another decade at least.”

Eyes, cold as steel and forged in contempt, held her own blank expression, awaiting any reaction. But Risha, with her roots buried deep in militant training, showed no hint of emotion. An orc's hot blood raged in her veins, but so, too, did the unwavering blood of a human soldier. It was the latter she had sought her entire life to emulate.

The High Priest was given no reason to see her in chains, no matter his unspoken desire; no matter his barely restrained prejudices.

His features grew tight with a forced and thin smile. It did nothing to warm his face.

“An opportunity has arisen that, if fulfilled to my satisfaction, will see your debt forgiven.”

For the first time since she had been summoned to the Temple, Risha's stoic countenance faltered. Red eyes widened, green lips parted, and she was just barely aware of how dumbfounded she must have looked before that vile man. This shift in her expression only seemed to make his more tense, as if he loathed the very idea of her freedom.

“We have a Priestess who has been with us since her birth, a young woman to whom our Beloved Goddess has chosen to break Her silence.”

This, more-so than the promise of freedom, made Risha's eyebrows lift, her eyes near bulging. Her entire body had grown tense and the Priest was once again scrutinizing her, as if awaiting some inner rage to possess her at this shocking news. Ignoring him, she glanced to the attendants at his side. One of them, a young man with a strong build – present for the Priest's protection – remained calm, his eyes as emotionless as Risha's had been; another former soldier, no doubt. But the other, an elder woman, bowed her head to hide a joyful grin.

Risha nearly mirrored that smile, even though she was not yet sure whether this was a miracle to celebrate, or an ill omen.

“As I am sure you can imagine,” the High Priest continued. “If – when, more likely – word escapes the Temple, there will be many after our blessed Priestess.”

“Some will seek her blessings, to go home with hope in their hearts,” the elder priestess remarked, her head lifting to study Risha with kind eyes and that lingering smile.

“But many more will see her as a curse and look to spill her blood.”

At his words, the woman bowed her head again, smile faltering.

“She has been chosen, our Goddess has a purpose for her, and we cannot keep her safe in these holy halls.”

By that point, Risha's initial surprise had begun to settle and she was able to close her gaped mouth and take control over her expression. She gave a nod in understanding and, for the first time, spoke.

“I would be honored to serve this blessed priestess in any way the temple requires.”

Again, the High Priest offered the thinnest of closed-lipped smiles.

“You are always so polite for a half-orc,” he stated.

Risha bit down on her tongue to keep herself contained, a task far more difficult after being given the news.

“We must do our best to keep this as quiet as possible and allow no suspicions to arise. If you agree to it, the Temple would ask that you guard and escort our Priestess to the Temple of Old Helmstead, where she will seek to divine the Goddess' purpose for choosing her.”

Old Helmstead was a long distance to send a woman bound by a debt, where she could too easily abandon her charge and escape, claiming her own freedom…

But Risha was nothing if not honorable. Besides, she knew well enough the dangers that lay in that territory. She would either succeed her task and earn her freedom, or she would fail and pay with her life during the journey. Either way, the High Priest would be rid of her. Why he would trust her, of all people, for such an important task was another question entirely, but not one she cared to consider too greatly. Never had Risha failed the temple during her time bound to it; there was no reason to believe her incapable now.

“Okay,” she stated. “Show me my charge and in exchange for my debts forgiven, I will see that she arrives in Old Helmstead safely.”

Risha, picrew used: This One

#writeblr #original writing #fictober23 #half-orc #fantasy writing #my wips #my writing #risha the half orc

[kleinstar]

okay imagine if eiden switched places with any of your other muses (from the past) and ended up in their world as their role

how does he do/does he survive/how many guys does he end up charming LOL

send me questions you have about my character! (ACCEPTING)

Err not going to go through them all bc where the fuck do i put him in osomatsu lets just not put him there....

in sekine-kun no koi he probably has a crush on sekine though. would make a good wingman. sidechara.

I do not know how I'd put him into JJBA so let's just skip that bc depends on the part too.... I'm sure he'd get some gays i mean guys but I don't know about Stone Ocean and Jojolion though, I havent even finished the latter anyway... cant survive Stone Ocean no matter what bc he's not rohan or giorno and he's just too normal to even exist in jojolion.

Yuureitou... I think he'd do pretty good with the puzzles but be freaked out about all the blood and stuff... Sleeps with Yamashina definitely at least one time and I mean honestly they'd hit it off pretty good just in general. Yamashina loses his memory in the end tho iirc?? But Eiden would accept that too so I don't know. They'd be happy together... thinking about it they're both artists too? (i think yamashina became artist like after this whole thing) maybe even help him with the publishing company thing! -- but also i think he'd get along with the others from the main cast too though! Thinks tetsuo is handsome. Survives!

i forget what i had in between but Golden Kamuy speaking... don't put him there he'd have to go to war???? maybe sugimoto saved him but like the running thing goes he neither of them knows, also ogata would hate him but he'd get along with the golden trio and likely aligned with them just in general! His role is like comedic relief and support. gets along with shiraishi especially i bet lol. he'd survive but idk he might not want to go that hard after the treasure so maybe he was there for some passing arc only and thats why he survived. I dont think he'd want to get involved with the goldhunt (granted yuureitou has that too but ...different set up so)

transported to Seiichirou's isekai (lol more isekai) uhhhh? Gets along with norbert, gets along with the Yua too though much better than Seiichirou bc Eiden isn't as stern.... I think he'd be like 'damn aresh hot but he's seiichirou simp so ill just wingman them' and try to find a hot guy on his own... Kamil works? Or East but East is worse with research than Rei is??? and not even slutty so like that'd be a struggle lmao maybe he'd go one of the princes of the i-forget-what-the-neighbouring-country -is even (not the kid tho)...or maybe that priest who got hots for seiichirou - i mean if seiichirou can somehow charm people then you bet eiden can too. Also the magic system is similar so I guess eiden would be like... lot of energy but can't use magic there either but he can provide a lot of it just needs that steamy hot dude for exchange teehee.

Idk if Romani has sextoys or not but he will introduce them ... might also end up helping kids in the school with Yua and prince Julius.

#hollowfaith #meems // #he fits to seiichirou's world perfectly #yuureitou is also actually pretty fit! #but lmao dont send this lad to war god

[jasmancer]

since I can't sleep here's my review of fleabag after watching it in one night last week:

obviously it's a well done portrayal of isolation and loneliness that's really common today particularly when it comes to mentally ill women. The use of the fourth wall is well done and a great establisher of intimacy between fleabag and the audience. I think the choice to make her suck but still be sympathetic was a good one.

I'm sure it's also no news to anyone what an overwhelmingly white show it is. the few characters of color are all peripheral to white drama, and the two black men featured are both shallow sexual objects to Fleabag. Those being Boo's love interest who cheats on her, and Hot Misogynist. The white men she treats as sexual objects are at least allowed some depth and redeeming qualities despite being altogether pretty annoying as people, but the black men are not given the same luxury by the writers. I'm gonna say it could be worse bc yeah it could be but the black men in this show in particular are sexually objectified in a way that the white ones are not.

The portrayal of fleabag's sexuality also feels kind of rocky to me. From the way things are written, it seems to me that Fleabag was quite obviously in love with Boo. My interpretation is that her choice to sleep with Boo's boyfriend as soon as Boo told her that she loved him was a subconscious impulse to make sure that he couldn't take Boo from her, but it just resulted in her losing Boo in the worst way imaginable. Every flashback of their friendship has a palpable romantic undertone.

When Fleabag flirts with the business woman at the bar, however, it's shown more as a result of her unhealthy need for sexual validation rather than any genuine attraction. the interaction quite literally starts with the business woman asking Fleabag if she's a lesbian, which she responds to kind of vaguely before kissing her. this is in season 2 where she's established as trying to curb her habit of compulsively sleeping with people for her own mental health, as well as be a better person in general, and the kiss is shown as a sign that she's slipping. There's a lot of wasted potential with the lack if exploration of the attraction to women she obviously has, it's sort of brushed off while also weirdly being a driving factor of the plot.

Her and Hot Priest are cute, and I appreciate the use of him noticing and even participating in the fourth wall breaks as a way to portray that he genuinely cares about her and listens to her in a way that nobody else does. They obviously are very similar people, which is well portrayed even though we don't get near as much backstory about the priest as we do fleabag. The heartbreak of their relationship not being meant to be is all the more effective because of the fact that fleabag is a better person now, she's made progress and has other people looking out for her, but they can't make up for this loss. it's almost akin to losing Boo. She finds and loses two soul mates, one entirely her fault, the other completely beyond her control.

overall, strong show, but the weird choices around the black characters are a pretty significant detractor.

#it speaks #long post

[critterfloozy]

Worldbuilding Notes - The Last Safe House in Rexxentrum

Just a couple of behind-the scenes notes for my fic - The Last Safe House in Rexxentrum. Read if you like, but mind the tags! (It's Astrid/OFC, explicit, and has an unhappy ending).

Reading this doesn't spoil anything for the fic, I don't think, but i honestly don't know how interesting it would be without it.

On the Location:

We never leave the house (except when we’re in Beau’s office), but I ended up designing the entire block.

Originally the house was going to be literally the last house before the city gates in Rexxentrum, but I couldn’t figure out a reason for anyone to organically mention where the house was, so that got left out. But! In my mind, it’s still there, sassily doing crimes right next to the guard checkpoint to come in and out of the city. (It also would be the last stop before some level one adventurer would leave for the wilds, or the first for someone who is looking to make it big in the city).  

Next door is the bakery - partially because most of the businesses near me that do something for at-risk or homeless youth have a baked goods component. Also - bakery ovens were huge and hot and could also be used to heat the water for bathhouses, so that would be on the other side of the bakery. And bathhouses often meant sex work, so there’s the brothel next door to that. Nearby there’s also a gambling den of some sort - for the sort of followers of Avandra that would risk worshiping an illegal god (and the house is there for anyone who is desperate and loses at the gambling den).

So that’s the community. It’s mentioned a few times that the house is in the Mosaic Ward, one of the two slums of Rexxentrum. In EGTW, the healers are sort of led to the Mudtop Ward - the other slum where illness runs rampant because of poor conditions. The mosaic ward is instead a relatively unpoliced place filled with crime, violence, and vigilantes - which honestly, sounded more like where I’d expect an illegal adventure cleric to set up shop, so.

Then there’s the makeup of the house itself. I was thinking about priest-holes and all of the various panels in Maus depicting all of the places they’d hide people, and just imagined a whole house filled with various pockets and holes - that was built that way because a smuggler built the thing in the first place The basement has tunnels out of the city. There’s eight small bedrooms on the top floor, a half-floor with four more small rooms where Mari sleeps, and then the first floor.

On being a cleric of Avandra:

So the fun part of writing this is trying to make it relatively clear that Mari is a cleric of Avandra early on, despite the fact that Mari is doing her best not to name her god or even think hard about what she does for worship. Also, Avandra is not necessarily going to be a god that the reader is going to recognize easily (I’d expect someone who is familiar with CR2 to know about Melora, the Moonweaver, the Luxon, and maybe Ioun or Bahamut - but Avandra hasn’t been super important to the story). 

Avandra is the goddess of luck, gambling, freedom, adventure, travel and trade. Mari’s community is short on traveling merchants, since they generally have to care about their reputation too much to get involved in illegal worship. The people who she ends up helping are gamblers, would-be adventurers running away from something, former adventurers, and the vigilantes who are patrolling the Mosaic Ward. For a while I was trying to figure out if the vigilantes were more like street gangs or like Reani, but decided that for Mari’s purposes, it really didn’t matter - she’s either a mob doctor or Night Nurse, but she’s not in the business of judging morality.

And the reason why it’s Avandra is because I really liked how the concept of luck freed Mari from worrying if she’s doing enough, or helping the right people. Mari’s practice isn’t going to win any sort of grants, but she also doesn’t have to spend any time writing proposals. Her help is temporary and capricious, but that’s luck for you. She’s not there to maximize the odds, she’s there to help whoever gets sent her way, however she can.

A lot of the trade involved is less about currency exchange and more about trading skills or barter. Mari is, in fact, a knowledge domain cleric - which is how she knows augury - but it’s the ‘I know a guy’ type of knowledge. Along with providing food and shelter, a lot of her evening work is connecting people who could help each other. Otherwise, her worship involves creating the starter packs that you can find in the player’s handbook to give out to would-be adventurers, performing ceremonies, food, shelter, and random healing.

The box of random cards is based on the random box of playing cards my husband has - he does close up magic as a hobby, then saves the cards from damaged decks to practice throwing them (like Gambit, or Ricky Jay). I’d imagine she gets them as tribute from the local gambling dens from time to time, and occasionally Avandra changes them to suit her needs. There are ways to use a deck of playing cards as a tarot, but it’s deliberate that, instead of a traditional spread, she’s reading meanings in poker hands. The same idea with the rolling dice -  using gambling tools are used as religious symbols. This is partially because Avandra’s the patron of gamblers, but also because they wouldn’t incriminate Mari if she is caught. 

On Mari:  

So Mari’s an Elfling (with one elf and one halfling parent). I liked the idea of Astrid getting to experience being the taller one, but not by a substantial amount (Mari is about 4’8”, Astrid is around 5’0”). There’s also the Avandra/halfling connection, and I didn’t want her to have any human parents - I didn’t want people to think that she was related to either Caleb or Allura. Plus, I liked the perspective that being mixed race but not at all human in a human dominated society would give her. If I’m going to make a character fantasy biracial, making them real-life monoracial feels a little like cheating? So she’s biracial.

(on an extremely awkward note - the physical description Mari gives of herself ends up sounding uncomfortably close to two of my ex girlfriends, but I couldn't get myself to change her height or hair color, and I really didn't want her to mention her skin tone or 3c hair as reasons why she's not sexy, and it felt weird shoehorning in other physical descriptions. Thus the Erin Kellyman reference. This is why I don't write sexytimes, typically. People read into it, and then it gets awkward.)

One of the things with Mari is that she’s relatively young (she’s in the equivalent of her 20’s), she comes from a loving family, and she still has the same worldview and values that she had as a child. Which - they’re great values, but it also means that she doesn’t fully grasp what it’s like to grapple with the problems of the worldview they grew up with. It also makes her a little naive - she doesn’t have the tools to understand the hints that Astrid is giving her about how she was indoctrinated, because she doesn’t think the Empire would abuse their own weapons. We know what happened to Astrid’s parents, but it doesn’t even occur to Mari. On a lighter note - she’s an only child, so she rightfully guesses that Bren was a former lover of Astrid’s instead of, say, a sibling. But she’s also a second generation lesbian, so she fails to consider the possibility that Bren’s a man. (it’s my favorite Mari foible, along with disliking Eadwulf because he’s too tall).

A lot of the characterization comes together in Mari’s bedroom - it’s her childhood bedroom, something that’s just her size (and would be uncomfortable for many others). She’s never had to move out. It’s hidden away, but it’s still devoid of anything incriminating - Mari’s considered the presentation of this room to others, and has designed it so it only just says ‘a person’s bedroom’. She’s a very guarded person, because she has to be. It’s also designed to put others at ease - there’s the enchanted window that she doesn’t turn on for herself (for one thing, she doesn’t want to draw attention to the room if she randomly gets raided). Mari’s work is about caregiving, and it bleeds over to how she interacts with people - and how she considers her own safety.

On Astrid:

For Astrid - the biggest problem I had was justifying her giving her real name out to a potential enemy. I’m already writing a fanfic with a minor character/OC romance, calling her by a different name through the entire fic seemed a bridge too far. The solution was - Astrid slipped up. She’s just found out that her ex/partner-in-trauma has escaped from Vergesson, and she can’t be entirely sure if she helped him escape (and then modified her memory to help protect herself) or has since found and hurt him (and then had her memory modified against her will). It’s fucking her up enough that she came up with this plan in the first place! And of course - Mari doesn’t expect her to give her own name, so.

#fanfic meta #the last safe house in rexxentrum #astrid beck

[wolfstar-in-color]

July Colorful Column: Remus is a Crip, and We Can Write Him Better.

There is one thing that can get me to close a fic so voraciously I don’t even make sure I’m not closing other essential tabs in the process. It doesn’t matter how much I’m loving the fic, how well written I think it is, or how desperately I want to know how it ends. Once I read this sentence, I am done.

It’s written in a variety of different ways, but it always goes something like this: “You don’t want me,” Remus said, “I am too sick/broken/poor/old/[insert chosen self-demeaning adjective here].”

You’re familiar with the trope. The trope is canonical. And if you’ve been around the wolfstar fandom for longer than a few minutes, you’ve read the trope. Maybe you love the trope! Maybe you’ve written the trope! Maybe you’re about to stop reading this column, because the trope rings true to you and you feel a little attacked!

Now, let’s get one thing out of the way right now: I am not saying the trope is wrong. I am not saying it’s bad. I am not saying we should stop writing it. We all have things we don’t like to see in our chosen fics. Maybe you can’t stand Leather Jacket Motorbike Sirius? Maybe you think Elbow Patch Remus is overdone? Or maybe your pet peeves are based in something a little deeper - maybe you think Poor Latino Remus is an irresponsible depiction, or that PWPs are too reductive? Whatever it is, we all have our things.

Let me tell you about my thing. When I first became very ill several years ago, there were various low points in which I felt I had become inherently unlovable. This is, more or less, a normal reaction. When your body stops doing things it used to be able to do - or starts doing things you were quite alright without, thank you very much - it changes the way you relate to your body. You don’t want to hear my whole disability history, so yada yada yada, most people eventually come to accept their limitations. It’s a very painful existence, one in which you constantly tell yourself your disability has transformed you into a burdensome, unworthy member of society, and if nothing else, it’s not terribly sustainable. Being disabled takes grit! It takes power! It takes a truly absurd amount of medical self-advocacy! Hating yourself? Thinking yourself unworthy of love? No one has time for that. 

Of course, I’m being hyperbolic. Plenty of disabled people struggle with these feelings many years into their disabilities, and never really get over them. But here’s the thing. We experience those stories ALL THE TIME. Remember Rain Man? Or Million Dollar Baby? Or that one with the actress from Game of Thrones and that British actor who seemed like he was going to have a promising career but then didn't? Those are all stories about sad, bitter disabled people and their sad, bitter lives, two out of three of which end in the character completing suicide because they simply couldn’t imagine having to live as a disabled person. (I mean, come on media, I get that we're less likely to enjoy a leisurely Saturday hike, but our parking is SUBLIME.) When was the last time you engaged with media that depicted a happy disabled person? A complex disabled person? A disabled person who has sex? No really, these aren’t hypothetical questions, can you please drop a rec in the notes?? Because I am desperate.

There are lots of problems with this trope, and they’ve been discussed ad nauseam by people with PhDs. I’m not actually interested in talking about how this trope leads to a more prevalent societal idea that disabled people are unworthy of love, or contributes to the kind of political thought processes that keep disabled people purposefully disenfranchised. I’m just a bitch on Tumblr, and I have a bone to pick: the thing I really hate about the trope? It’s boring. I’m bored. You know how, like, halfway through Grey’s Anatomy you realized they were just recycling the same plot points over and over again and there was just no WAY anyone working at a hospital prone to THAT MANY disasters would stay on staff? It's like that. I love a recycled trope as much as the next person (There Was Only One Bed, anyone?). But I need. Something. Else.

Remus is disabled. BOLD claim. WILD speculation. Except, not really. You simply - no matter how you flip it, slice it, puree it, or deconstruct it - cannot tell me Remus Lupin is not disabled. Most of us, by this point, are probably familiar with the way that One Canonical Author intended One Dashing Werewolf to be “a metaphor for those illnesses that carry stigma, like HIV and AIDS” [I’m sorry to link you to an outside source quoting She Who Must Not Be Named, but we’re professionals here]. Which is... a thing. It’s been discussed. And, listen, there’s no denying that this parallel is a problematic interpretation of people who have HIV/AIDS and all such similar “those illnesses” (though I’ll admit that I, too, am perennially apt to turn into a raging beast liable to harm anything that crosses my path, but that’s more linked to the at-least-once-monthly recollection that One Day At A Time got cancelled). Critiques aside, Remus Lupin is a character who - due to a condition that affects him physically, mentally, emotionally, and intellectually - is repeatedly marginalized, oppressed, denied political and social power, and ostracized due to unfounded fear that he is infectious to others. Does that sound familiar?

We’re not going to argue about whether or not “Remus is canonically disabled as fuck” is a fair reading. And the reason we’re not going to argue about whether or not it’s a fair reading is because I haven’t read canon in 10-plus years and you will win the argument. Canon is only marginally relevant here. The icon of this blog is brown, curly haired Remus Lupin kissing his trans boyfriend, Sirius Black. We are obviously not too terribly invested in canon. The wolfstar fandom is now a community with over 25,000 AO3 fics, entire careers launched from drawing or writing or cosplaying this non-canonical pairing. We love to play around here with storylines and universes and races and genders and sexualities and all kinds of things, but most of the time? Remus is still disabled. He’s disabled as a werewolf in canon-compliant works, he’s disabled in the AUs where he was injured or abused or kidnapped or harmed as a child, he’s disabled in the stories that read him as chronically ill or bipolar or traumatized or blind or Deaf. I’d go so far as to say that he is one of very few characters in the Wide Wonderful World of media who is, in as close to his essence as one can be, always disabled. And that means? Don’t shoot the messenger... but we could stand to be a tiny bit more responsible with how we portray him. 

Disabled people are complicated. As much as I’d like to pretend we are always level-headed, confident, and ready to assert our inherent worth, we are still just humans. We have bad days. We doubt our worth. We sometimes go out with guys who complain about our steroid-induced weight gain (it was a long time ago, Tumblr, okay??). But, we also have joy and fun and good days and sex and happiness and families and so many other things. 

Remus is a disabled character, and as such, it’s only fair that he’d have those unworthy moments. But - I propose - Remus is also a crip. What is a crip? A crip - like a queer - is someone who eschews the limited boundaries placed on their bodies, who rejects a hierarchy of oppression in favor of an intersectional analysis of lived experience, who isn’t interested in being the tragic figure responsible for helping people with dominant identities realize how good they have it. Crips interpret their disabilities however they want, rethinking bodies and medicine and pleasure and pain and even time itself. Crips are political, community-minded, and in search of liberation. 

Remus is a character who struggles with his disability, sure. But he’s also a character who leverages his physical condition to attempt to shift communities towards his political leanings, advocates for the rights of those who share his physical condition, and has super hot sex with his wrongfully convicted boyfriend ultimately goes on to build community and family. Having a condition that quite literally cripples you, over which you have no control, and through which you are often read as a social pariah? That’s disability. But using said condition as a means through which to build advocacy and community? Now that’s some crip shit. 

Personally, I love disabled!Remus Lupin. But I love crip!Remus Lupin even more. I’d love to see more of a Remus who owns his disability, who covets what makes him unique, and who never ever again tells a potential romantic partner they are too good for him because of his disability. This trope - unlike There Was Only One Bed! - sometimes actually hurts to read. Where’s Remus who thinks a potential romantic partner isn’t good enough for him? Where’s Remus who insists his partners learn more about his condition in order to treat him properly? Where’s sexy wheelchair user Remus? Where’s Remus who uses his werewolf transformations as an excuse to travel the world? Where’s crip Remus??

We don’t have to put “you don’t want me” Remus entirely to bed. It is but one of many repeated tropes that are - in the words of The Hot Priest from Fleabag - morally a bit dubious. And let’s face it - we don’t always come to fandom for its moral superiority (as much as we sometimes like to think we do). 

This is not a condemnation - it is an invitation. Able-bodied folks are all but an injury, illness, or couple decades away from being disabled. And when you get here, I sincerely hope you don’t waste your time on “you don’t want me”ing back and forth with the people you love. I’m inviting you to come to the crip side now. We have snacks, and without all the “you don’t want me” talk, we get to the juicy parts much faster. 

Colorfully,

Mod Theo

#wolfstar #disability in fandom #disabled remus #crip remus #please write me some crip remus #I beg of you #fandom meta

[worldserasingandcreatinginmymind]

Unfaithful | Part Two

Series Summary: After dreaming of your perfect wedding since you were a little girl the big day is almost here. But after meeting the priest you start to question your relationship.

Pairing: Hot Priest x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 3243

Warnings: abusive behaviour, mentions of ‘bedroom activity’ 🙈

A/N: Please be warned there will be some themes of toxic/abusive relationship in this series. Also, spelling and grammar is not my strongest skill so please be kind :)

Part One | Masterlist

- - - - -

I knew weddings took a lot of planning, but I never realised they took this much. Every single tiny detail requires a decision and more often than not that decision falls on the bride’s shoulders. 

Purple or yellow flowers?

Napkins folded as swans or roses?

Which table can we sit Uncle David at where he won’t start a fight?

I try to get Dan involved in the decision making but his response is always the same.

“It’s up to you babe”

Speaking of Daniel, I still haven’t told him we have to meet with the Priest again today. I tried a few times to bring it up but his mood changes instantly. I’ve still got a slight bruise on my wrist from the aftermath of the first meeting, but I keep it covered. I know he didn’t mean to hurt me. 

I pull the sleeve of my jumper down over my wrist as I approach Daniel in the kitchen. 

“You look nice, where you going today?” He asks as he makes himself a cup of tea. 

“Actually…” I take a breath “we’ve got our second meeting with the Priest today”

“What do you mean? We’ve already met him once why do we need to go again?” He doesn’t look as me as he swirls the teabag around in his mug with a spoon.

“It’s just church policy, he has to meet with us a few times before the wedding”

“Well I’m not going” 

“Dan-“

“I SAID NO!” He erupts, swiping his mug off the counter so it smashes and tea spills everywhere. He storms out of the kitchen, leaving me stood in the mess he’s made. I stare at it bewildered for a moment as it sinks in what he’s done and I feel my blood start to boil.

“Daniel!” I shout as I follow after him. I find him in the hallway taking his coat off the hook as he heads for the front door “where are you going?”

“Pub”

“Dan, the priest is expecting us in half an hour! Both of us!”

“Then I guess he’s doing to be disappointed. Or not. You two got along just fine the other day, it was almost as if I wasn’t even there”

“We both tried to include you in the conversation multiple times but you just… weren’t present”

“Well then today won’t be any different will it” 

He walks out and slams the door behind him. 

I stand alone in the hallway for a few minutes taking deep breaths to calm myself before taking out my phone and sending an email. 

‘I’m really sorry father but I’m not feeling well so I need to reschedule today’s meeting. Sorry.’

— — — — 

45 minutes later. 

I clean when I’m stressed. And right now I’m the most stressed I’ve been in my life so I’ve decided to stress clean the whole house. Everything. Apart from the broken mug and spilled tea. Daniel can clean that shit up when he eventually gets back from his sulk. 

I’m in the middle of vacuuming the living room when something catches my attention in the corner of my eye. My heart stops for a moment when I turn and see the Priest waving at me through the window.

I turn off the vacuum and open the front door, placing my hand over my chest. 

“You startled me!” 

“I guess now were even” he laughs awkwardly “I bought you these”

He pulls out a small bouquet of flowers from behind his back.

“Why?” I ask, not meaning to sound as ungrateful as I do, as he hands them to me.

“You said you were ill, I hoped these would cheer you up” 

I don't quite know how to react so I end up just staring at him blankly. The truth is I’m speechless. He watches my face and the smile fades from his own. 

“You don’t like them. Shit! I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have even come, I’ve overstepped my boundaries.” He rambles

“No! No! I love them I’m just-” I pause as I look down at the flowers in my hand “I think this is the nicest thing anyones ever done for me. No one ever buys me flowers” 

“Well they should.”

For some reason I suddenly feel like a shy little school girl. I smile at him and he smiles back. 

“Anyway I just wanted to make sure you're okay. Get well soon” he turns and begins walking down the driveway. I think for a moment.

“Father!” I call after him and he spins around to face me “would you like to come in?” 

He nods and walks back to me, going past me into the house. I shut the door and gesture for him to go through into the kitchen, forgetting about Daniel’s mess. 

“Oops” he says when he sees it “what happened there?” 

“Daniel had an accident. He can be really clumsy sometimes” I laugh it off as I busy myself making us some tea.

“Can’t we all” he says, taking a seat at the dining table “will he be joining us?”

“No” I respond, a bit too quickly “he uh, he had to go out. I don't know when he’ll be back” 

I carefully carry our cups of tea over to the dining table and take a seat opposite him.

“Never mind. Thank you” he smiles and takes a sip of tea “I actually wanted to talk to you about something without Daniel, if that’s okay?” 

“Sure” I shrug, stirring some sugar into my tea. 

“I hope you don't take this wrong way but-” he pauses, I can tell he’s nervous to say what he’s going to say next “Are you safe?”

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?”

“It’s just… I saw what happened in the car park the other day”

“I don't know what you're talking about” I say casually as I remove the spoon from my tea and place it down on the table. The priest reaches over and goes to touch my wrist but I pull it away quickly, instinctively pulling my sleeve down over my hand as his eyes search my own. 

“He hurt you, didn’t he?” He asks quietly and I shake my head “I saw the way you held your wrist as you walked away from him Y/N and I could see the bruises just now.”

I can’t bare the way he’s looking at me anymore so I cast my eyes down to the table, but he continues to stare at me. 

“Y/N? Talk to me, that’s what I’m here for. If he’s abusive to you-”

“He’s not” I finally speak as I look up at him again “he’s not like that, he’s kind and caring and… he would never intentionally hurt me. I just caught him on a bad day”

“And what about today? With the tea?” He gestures to the shattered mug on the floor “That wasn’t an accident was it? Is that why you cancelled today?”

“No! It’s just the stress of planning a wedding is getting to us both. But we’re fine! Honestly” 

I take a breath as I smile at him, but I can see he’s not totally convinced. He looks at me for a moment before speaking. 

“Give me your phone” he holds his hand out across the table 

“What? Why?” 

“I’m giving you my number, no one emails anymore” he jokes “So you can contact me whenever you need a chat, okay? Any time. Well apart from Sunday mornings, cause you know, church.”

“Of course” I smile

“And preferably not late. I’ve been really enjoying going to bed at 9.30 recently” he winks and we both laugh “I’m kidding. Well not about going to bed at 9.30, I do actually do that. But you can call or text me anytime and I will always get back to you. I promise” 

He gives me a really sincere smile and I feel a weird flutter in my stomach as I smile back. 

— — — — 

Almost two hours later the priest is only just getting ready to leave after we got carried away talking. We talked about all sorts. Our childhoods, our hobbies, our fears. He told me about his fear of foxes, and how they’ve apparently stalked him throughout his life. He even told me about his first ever wedding and the drama that surrounded the family. We’ve been talking for so long we didn’t realise its starting to get dark. He opens the front door and steps out just as Daniel comes walking toward the house, I see the anger in his face as he spots the priest. 

“What the fuck is he doing here!” He yells as he stomps towards us

“Daniel!” I warn but he ignores me, squaring up to the priest. I try to get between them and smell the stench of booze on him “are you drunk?!”

“So what if I am? Huh? You got a problem with that?” his breath on my face makes me want to gag “cause you know, I got a problem with this asshole being in my house”

“We just had some wedding stuff to discuss but it’s all sorted now so I’m going” the priest tries to diffuse the situation “I’ll see you both soon” 

“Like fuck you will” Daniel spits before going into the house. 

I mouth “I’m sorry” to the priest and he just shakes his head and smiles at me before leaving. 

Back in the house I ignore Daniel’s drunken ranting, going straight to the kitchen to clear away the left over cups of tea. Aggravated that I’m not paying him attention, Daniel follows me into the kitchen. He picks the flowers up from the counter.

“Did he give you these?” He asks but I ignore him, angering him more. He rips the flowers to shreds, dumping them on the floor. 

I step over them and I place our mugs next to sink, grab a cloth and some cleaner before going back to wipe down the table. Suddenly a mug flies past me, just missing my face as it smashes against the wall. I slowly turn to look at Daniel and stare him out before I dropping the cloth on the table and walking out. I grab my handbag and throw my jacket around my shoulders as I walk out of the house, slamming the door behind me. Daniel doesn’t dare to follow me, he knows he pushed me too far. 

I’ve been walking for about half an hour before I realise, I have no idea where I’m going. I’m just wondering aimlessly, letting my feet carry me wherever they want to go. Eventually I find myself standing outside the church. I place my hand on the wooden doors and pause, contemplating whether to go inside or carry on walking till I find a bar to drink at. To my surprise the doors gently swing open, but theres no one stood behind them. I take this as a sign that I should go in. 

As I enter the silent church and walk down the aisle I can’t help but imagine myself here in a few weeks wearing my white dress. I reach the front and turn back to stare out at the empty pews, picturing my friends and family smiling back at me as I stand with the man I’ll spend the rest of my life with. 

A thought that used to fill me with excitement, currently filling me with dread. 

I grunt with frustration as I flop down to the floor, sitting on the step with my head in my hands. Frustration turns to anger, which turns to sadness and soon I can’t stop the tears rolling down my face. I sit there silently crying until…

“You can’t be in here!” 

I look up and wipe my eyes as a very grumpy looking middle aged lady stomps towards me.

“Sorry”

“No ones allowed in at night”

“The door was open, I just presumed-”

“Well it shouldn’t have been and you need to leave” she ushers me back to the doors.

“Okay, I’m going. Sorry!”

“Y/N?” A familiar voice calls and I look back to see the priest emerging from his office “what are you doing here?”

“She’s just leaving Father, I’m sorry for the disturbance” the woman answers

“It’s alright Pam, she can stay” 

The woman I now know is Pam looks from the priest to me, then back to the priest again before backing off slightly. 

“Okay…” she says slowly, like she suspects something “I’ll just be upstairs if you need me. Goodnight Father” 

“Good night Pam” he replies.

She gives me one last look before disappearing out a door. I look at the priest, who just rolls his eyes and laughs as he gestures for me to follow him. 

I walk into his office and take a seat.

“So, that was Pam” he says, closing the office door and taking a seat opposite me.

“I gathered” I nod my head “She’s a bit…”

“Insane” 

“I was gonna say intense, but yeah” I laugh, feeling self conscious as I notice he’s studying my face. My cheeks are probably still blotchy and eyes blood shot from crying. There’s a small silence before he finally speaks.

“Are you okay?”

I look at him, not sure how to answer. 

“Did he hurt you?” He changes the question

“No” I shake my head “but he did break another mug. I’m gonna have to get insurance out on the ones we’ve got left at this rate” I joke but he continues to study my face, before finally jumping up out his chair.

“Do you want a drink? A proper drink. I’ve got some cans of G&T hidden away in here”

He opens a cupboard and grabs a Marks and Spencers plastic bag, pulling out two cans. 

“Are you sure you're a priest?” I laugh as he hands me a can “I mean you drink, you swear.. what other rules do you break?”

“I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you”

“Murder too?” I say a bit too loud, flinching as I hear a banging above me

“Oh shit, Pam! She doesn’t like me being loud. Or having fun in general. Let’s go outside”

“What about the foxes?” I tease and he shakes his head at me as he opens the door and gestures me to walk out. 

— — — — 

We sit on a bench just outside the church overlooking the graveyard and talk for about half an hour before I realise something. 

“You know what’s strange?” I say, suddenly changing the subject “This is only really our third time meeting. I haven’t known you for very long at all but when we talk I feel like I’ve known you for years!”

“That is strange” he humours me, taking a sip of his drink

“Our conversations remind me of how Daniel and I used to be. Back when we could talk to each other properly. These days I’m lucky if we don't end up in an argument”

“And you wanna marry this guy?” 

“Of course I do” I reply, slightly taken aback by the forwardness of his question “We’ve known each other pretty much our whole lives. We’ve been together so long- I wouldn’t know what to do without him”

“That’s not a reason to stay with someone, especially if they don't make you happy anymore. Being in love with someone and being dependant on them are different things.” He pauses, studying me “Do you love Daniel?”

I stare at him, replaying the question in my mind over and over again. 

“Y/N?” 

I realise I don’t know the answer and a feeling of panic begins to bubble inside me. I jump up from the seat.

“I have to go” 

I quickly begin walking down the path to the front of the church, followed by the Priest who calls after me. I don't stop walking.

“It’s really late, Dan’s probably wondering I am so…” 

“Y/N, wait please!” 

I stop and turn back to look at him.

“I’m sorry if that was too much, but these are things you need to think seriously about.”

“I know! I will.” I nod and flash him a quick smile “thanks for the drink” 

I hold my can up in a ‘cheers’ before turning and continuing my walk back home. 

— — — — 

As I walk up the driveway of my house I can see Daniel through the window fast asleep on the sofa in front of the tv. I finish the last bit of my drink and hide the can in my handbag as I unlock the front door and sneak into the house. I hang my coat and bag up and slip my shoes off before quietly climbing the stairs and getting into bed. 

Laying in bed my mind can’t help but wonder to the Priest. I feel bad for the way the conversation ended. I shouldn’t have freaked out and walked off like that. He just looking out for me.

I grab my phone and send a text. 

‘Thanks for not letting Pam kick me out tonight, I really appreciate it. Good night’

I put my phone back on the beside table, not expecting a reply anytime soon because its so late. To my surprise it vibrates almost immediately. I pick it up and read:

‘No problem, here for you anytime! Sleep well x’

A small smile spreads on my face as my eyes fixate on the small ‘x’ at the end of his text. It probably means nothing but I cant help but feel a flutter in my stomach. 

The feeling a quickly taken over by dread as I hear footsteps up the stairs. I put my phone back on the table and roll over in bed, making out like I’m asleep. The mattress sinks as Daniel climbs into bed next to me and I feel his breath on the side of my face. At least he doesn’t smell of beer anymore. 

“I’m sorry” he whispers as his arm snakes over my waist and he plants a kiss on my cheek “I’m really really sorry”

I turn my head slightly to look up at him, but I don't say anything. 

“I shouldn’t have reacted like that. You know what I’m like when I drink”

“That’s no excuse Daniel” 

“I know, I know! I’m sorry. I’m going to change, try harder for you. Okay?”

I nod my head, knowing full well its bullshit. He’s said this before, said he’ll be different but the next day he’s always back to his same old self. 

“No more shouting. No more lashing out. No more hurting you. I promise.” He plants kisses on my skin with each sentence. “I’m going to be the perfect husband for you and im going to make it up to you. Starting now.”

He kisses down my jaw, to my neck and down my shoulder as he gently pulls me so I’m lying on my back. Then he kisses down my chest and slips under the duvet, kissing all the way down my body till he reaches that place only he has ever been. 

I close my eyes, enjoying the pleasure that’s rippling through me as my breathing gets more ragged before I realise…

In my imagination its not my soon to be husband with his head between my legs…

It’s the dark haired, brown eyed man who’s supposed to be marrying us.

Oh my God, I fancy a priest. 

part three

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_domestic_violence_hotlines)

#fleabag #fleabag fic #fleabag imagine #hot priest #hot priest imagine #hot priest x reader #andrew scott #Andrew Scott priest #andrew scott x reader #phoebe waller bridge #nicolasfam

[ficforce]

Cold Season

I wrote this whilst I was ill… It’s likely awful. Hinawa: No one even realised that Hinawa was sick until after he had collapsed in the break room. He had been quieter than usual and didn’t seem to take notice of the chaos that Arthur and Shinra were causing whilst Maki tried to stop them, Y/N had made him tea earlier but he had barely touched it… then he just passed out. Y/N had been closest after Obi and they laid him out on the couch to check his vitals, she noted right away that his skin was hot and with his hat removed she could see how pale he was. Why hadn’t she noticed? She was his girlfriend for goodness sake! “I’ll carry him to bed, Y/N, would you mind looking after him for a while?” Obi lifted the other man like it was easy and she followed after him quickly, “He’s real stubborn when it comes to his health, he’ll tell others to take a break or rest but when it comes to himself…” “He’s like any mother hen, he puts the chicks before himself – it’s one of the things I really love about him, Captain.” Obi threw a smile her way as she opened the door for him, “But you still wanna punch him for not saying anything, right?” “That’s correct, right in his dumb face.” They got him on the bed and Y/N unzipped his orange jumpsuit, “I’ll take care of it from here, would you mind sending some cold water and a flannel down, maybe some painkillers?” The man gave her a nod and headed out, Y/N pulled his arms out of the sleeves and tried to lift him a little to get it off; why did he have to be so heavy? Hinawa let out a soft groan and his eyes opened groggily, realising what was going on he sat up and made to get out of bed, “You’ve got a temperature, Takehisa, don’t you dare get up. Captain told me to look after you.” “… Then at least let me get out of these clothes.” Her eyes widened as she realised he wasn’t going to argue and she moved so he could change into a loose pair of pants and a tshirt before he laid back down. Y/N brushed her fingers over his jaw and then removed his glasses to set aside, “You should have said something sooner.” He let out a sound that was either denial or agreement to her words, “You got a headache?” “A little.” He hadn’t wanted to cause trouble for anyone, he wasn’t good at asking for help in the first place and now he had taken a member of their team away from duty to look after him, “I figured I would be fine.” “You’re just not used to being looked after, you have me now, Takehisa, you have Company 8 too, we’re your family and we can’t have our Mother running himself into the ground.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek and spent the rest of the day looking after him. Obi: Y/N nearly jumped out of her skin when the sound of metal crashing down onto the floor startled her. Turning her head she was surprised to see that Obi had dropped one of his ridiculously heavy dumbbells, “…You forget to chalk your hands or you just didn’t like the floor?” “Felt like all the strength left my arm…” his muscles had been aching since he’d gotten up that morning and felt out of breath, he hadn’t felt great the night before but he had hoped it would go away. “I think I’m gonna go lay down for a while.”

The woman got up from her seat and reached for his forehead, “You’re a little warm, you did sound a little raspy at breakfast too – you could have caught Vulcan’s chest infection.” His eyes seemed a little glazed over and he was swaying ever so slightly on his feet, “Come on, I’ll get you some medicine and let Lieutenant Hinawa know you’re not feeling great.” Obi went with her obediently, they passed by Iris and Tamaki, the two girls sympathetic at their Captain’s condition, they agreed to let Hinawa know so that Y/N could look after Obi. “Wow, you’re fading fast, Akitaru,” his pace was slowing and he had to stop to lean against the wall as a wave of dizziness overwhelmed him, “Easy… come on, we’re nearly there.” He practically fell onto the bed when they got there, he hadn’t felt this weak since last time he was ill – it was a rare occurrence but when he was hit he went down hard, “I want the mascots at my funeral, make sure Hinawa wears something normal… tell my girlfriend I love her.” “I love you too,” she ruffled his hair a little, “And you’re not going to die… it’s just a cold.” “Will you feed me soup and rub that gross stuff on my chest to help me breathe?” Obi caught her wrist and brought her down for a hug; who knew he would be such a baby?

Rekka:

Rekka was either too stupid to stop or too stubborn, Y/N wasn’t sure which and she exhaled loudly when the man hunched over to cough almost violently. He was trying to finish his morning laps despite being told he was too sick, he’d come down with a cough a few days before and thought he could burn it out through sheer willpower and prayer. “Rekka,” she called and began uncapping the bottle of water she had brought, “Oi! If you start running again I’ll kneecap you! Rekka!” He waved her off with a dumb grin and made it a few more paces before he fell onto his hands and knees. “Nuisance is gonna be a nuisance… what a nuisance.” Karim had come out after Burns had told him to fetch the moron on the running track – he figured that the Captain meant Rekka. “If he’s not listening to you, Y/N, I’ve got less of a chance.” “Leave it with me, I didn’t come all the way across Tokyo to watch him run; he’s such an inconsiderate man at times.” “He’s hot-blooded, probably burned right through his fever. Want me to freeze him?” Y/N looked at him with a raised eyebrow, he looked vaguely serious so she shook her head and wandered over to her fallen priest. Her hand stroked his back and she handed him the bottle, “You’re setting a bad example for the kids, you tell them to rest when they’re ill but you’re out here trying to literally fight a cold.” Rekka looked up at her, his expression forced as he tried to tell her he was fine but then he slumped into her arms, “Rekka!” He was out of breath and when she cupped his cheek to bring his head up a little he pressed into it with a mumble of her being cold; perhaps he hadn’t burned through his fever. “If you’re a good boy, I’ll make you something good to eat and even bring it to you in bed, how’s that sound?” “My stars…” it was a little mumble but he sounded somewhat happy for her offer. Foien Li: Foien was a sensible man, as soon as he had felt himself coming down with a cold he had signed himself off for a few days, he stayed in his room and tried a few home remedies. There was a day when he felt terrible, he hoped he could sleep it off and start to feel better… A knock on his door alerted him to a visitor and when it opened a little he smiled at Y/N peeking through at him, “You’ll get sick too.” “Then you can take care of me,” she placed a tray down on his desk, patiently waiting for him to sit himself up before handing him a mug of hot honey and lemon, “I brought you a couple of books to read, It can’t be any fun locked up here… Did I see you at the back of the Cathedral this morning?” “I wanted to attend prayers but I didn’t want to get anyone else sick,” Foien gave a sigh as she pressed her hand to his forehead, it felt cooler than his skin and he pressed into the touch, his eyes opened a little and Y/N gave him a bright smile – she always said he had the prettiest eyes. He was grateful to her for looking after him and even though he risked making her ill and having to confess later, the man leaned over to kiss her cheek, “What would I do without you, Y/N?” Y/N adjusted her habit a little to hide her flushed face, “You’d have to rely on Karim to look after you and he’d complain the whole time…” “It would give me more of an incentive to get better.” His answer made her giggle, the sound made him feel better already. Karim: “I told you to go to bed,” Y/N walked toward the back of the Cathedral where the Lieutenant was leaning his head on the pews in front of him, his slumped over form didn’t move even as she poked him in the shoulder. “Karim, come on, you should be resting…” He raised his head and she sighed at him, he looked all stuffy and his eyes were watery, it was amazing he was even able to walk there in the first place. He never missed her choir practice, it was sweet that he would come even though he had a headache and Foien’s cold from the week before. Y/N took his hand and pulled him up slowly, “Come on.” Karim followed her obediently, no smart comments or sarcasm escaping him as they made their way through the large hallway, they reached his room and she reached

into his pocket for his key, “Should get your own key.” “Imagine the gossip,” She followed him inside and helped him with his clothing, “Though they already talk about us like we’re committing a criminal act, couldn’t you just quit being a priest and then it might be better?” “How about you stop being a nun?” He knew she was kidding, they both took some odd joy out of upsetting the really pious followers of Sol with their relationship, “If you did that though I wouldn’t get to hear you sing anymore…” Karim laid down on top of his covers and coughed, he didn’t understand how he seemed to be worse than Foien was with this, the other Lieutenant had given it to him in the first place. “So sick of being sick.” Y/N pet his hair gently, “Only two repetitions? You must be ill,” Karim gave a half shrug and pulled weakly at his pillow, “Want me to get you anything?” “Just stay with me, Y/N…” Burns: She couldn’t figure out if he was running a fever or not, the Captain retained a large amount of heat at all times, Y/N gave a sigh and offered him an apologetic smile, “I never was a very good nurse, how do you actually feel?” He hadn’t complained about feeling ill but she doubted he would be too verbal about it, the fact that he was wearing his jacket properly and looked like he was cold was really her only clue. “It’s just a bug my kind Lieutenants have gifted me – I’m a little chilly but otherwise I’m sure I’ll survive. You don’t have to worry about me, Y/N” He wasn’t used to being coddled and Leonard felt somewhat pleased by her attention, “I’ll make sure to rest a little.” “It’s hard to imagine you would ever feel cold, you can stay here for a little while and rest, I’ll make you something to eat and you can use the phone to let your Company know. It’s nearly a full hour back home for you, besides, it’s getting late.” He had only come out because she had asked him to visit on his day off, if Y/N had known then she wouldn’t have. Y/N took his hand and gave it a squeeze, “Please, Leonard, let me look after you just this once?” She was looking at him so sincerely that he couldn’t find it in him to say no, the man gave in and nodded, “Just this once.” Konro: “Konro’s dying!” Hinata tugged on Y/N’s sleeve whilst Hikage nodded alongside her. “Konro’s not dying, he’s got a cold.” She shooed the girls away toward the door and told them to go play, it was hard enough looking after her boyfriend without the twins trying to help. Y/N heard him coughing from the hallway and she couldn’t help but wince a little at how painful it sounded – his lungs were already shot from the tephrosis. There was no doubt he was suffering but he was pretty stubborn in keeping it to himself. “I brought you something to hopefully help your throat,” she knelt beside his futon and helped him sit up, Konro gave her a weak smile and once more insisted he just needed to nap it off. “Drink this, then you can take a nap… it’ll probably help you sleep better too.” He wasn’t getting much rest as it was, the coughing would wake him up and then he wouldn’t be able to settle down again for a long while. Konro hated feeling like a burden, he felt like that most days and now he was knocked out by this… it was irritating how he could fight most things but a cold simply wasn’t one of them. “You know you’re gonna get sick too, right? It’s probably too late to stop it from happening now.” “If I get sick, will you look after me?” As if she really had to ask. The man reached out and gently cupped the back of her head before pulling her close and pressing his forehead to hers, “Course I will, I won’t be as good as it as you are but I won’t let that stop me.” Benimaru: Benimaru reverted into a small child when he got ill, he had ignored it for so long that, one day, every symptom hit him at once and the Captain went down. His eyes watered, he couldn’t hear out of his left ear, his throat hurt, his chest hurt, he was cold and there was nothing he could do about it now. He’d bundled himself up in a large blanket and huddled against his girlfriend as she had sat

minding her own business. Y/N had moved the blanket a little to peek under the hood he had made with it and glassy red eyes looked at her almost pleadingly. Benimaru wasn’t clingy. He especially didn’t come into the main room, wrapped in a blanket cocoon and nestle into her side like a sad, oversized toddler. “Good Luck moving him.” Konro sighed as he entered the room, he was fully aware of the Beni Bio-hazard Blanket, “I’ll get some medicine for him… you’d better just accept you’re not moving from there without him.” Y/N looked back down at her boyfriend and reached in to stroke his hair, “You can’t fight a cold, huh?” He wriggled a little closer to her and rested his head on her shoulder, content for her to pet his hair and when Konro returned with the medicine, he made her feed it to him; his excuse being that he was cold and trapped in the blanket. She figured he was just craving the attention and felt needy from being so poorly. For the rest of that day he communicated in differently toned whines, grunts and ‘tch’, the only time he left her side was when one of them needed to pee.

#shinmon benimaru #hinawa Takehisa #obi akitaru #rekka hoshimiya #foien li #karim flam #leonard burns #sagamiya konro #reader #sick #HC

[colehasapen]

(ONE SHOT) fit two people under your skin  STAR WARS

Febuwhump Day 1 - Brainwashing

A03

Alpha-17 doesn’t believe in monsters.

He’s lived through too much in his life to believe in the creatures under the bed, or those that creep through the dark hallways and eat unsuspecting cadets. He’s seen real monsters, he’s seen cruelty and violence. He’s seen real life, and nothing can scare him more than that, but he comforts himself with the knowledge that everything dies, that he can fight to the death if he has to. He knows the pain of being taken apart piece by piece, of being tortured past his limits, of watching so many vode marching off to the death. He knows the pain of losing good men that he trained personally, the pain of losing those he raised himself from childhood.

He knows the pain that comes from not having done enough.

Millions of vode are dead, millions more will die, and Alpha is almost numb to it. He’s lost enough that it no longer surprises him.

But he’s never had anyone come  back from the dead, and yet, here he is.

Months ago, Alpha had been brought back to the warfront by the death of his little brother, one of the boys he had trained and raised from childhood to be one of the best. He had been on Kamino when news had reached him that Marshal Commander Cody had died in the line of duty, and he had immediately felt the world drop out from beneath him. Cody -  Kote  - the youngest and smallest of Squad 17, his  vod’ika  ,  his ad’ika ; his pride and joy. Cody had been one of his, he had watched him grow into the man he was, and Alpha had thought, had hoped, that out of any of them, that Cody would make it to the end of this Manda-forsaken War. Cody had been a leader, a viciously competent warrior that put even other A-classers to shame. He may have only been a CC, but Alpha would bet anything that he’d be able to beat even a Null into the ground if given the chance.

He had never imagined Cody being just another name on a KIA list.

Cody could have been their leader, had the spirit needed to be Mand’alor. He had a natural charisma that made people  want to follow him, a strength to his soul that shone like fire in his eyes. He could be beaten, but he’d never break.

But he’d still died. He had died and left his 212th without a Commander.

Eventually, Alpha had managed to hunt down the troopers that had survived the mission that had killed one of his boys. Had tracked them down during shore leave and demanded to know what had happened. They couldn’t tell him much, because of the confidential status of the mission, but eventually a pale-faced and haunted Echo had spoken up, staring down at his alcohol like it could take the nightmares away.

“It should have been me.” The young ARC Trooper had whispered, looking close to tears, and Fives had gripped his brother’s hand like a lifeline. “I had gone for the shuttle - Cody - he saw what was about to happen before any of us. He saved me. He threw me out of the way and took the blast instead.”

Alpha had volunteered as soon as he could, had hunted General Kenobi down and put his name forward as his next Commander. He knew what his  ad’ika  would have wanted; he’d want Alpha to teach and protect his men where he couldn’t, to lead his Ghosts and 7th Sky. He’d trust Alpha-17 to watch his  Jetii’s back, to be at his side when he couldn’t, because Alpha wasn’t blind - he knew what his Kot’ika thought of General Kenobi, knew what he’d felt for him. He had seen the way Cody had looked at Kenobi, had known that they’d work well together when he’d suggested Cody as the Commander for Kenobi’s Battalion, even if he’d never imagined his little brother actually falling in love with the man.

Despite how much it hurt to stand in his place, Alpha had put himself forward, had painted his armour gold, and taken the title of Commander. It fits like an ill-fitting body glove, but Alpha wears it, because it’s what Cody would have wanted. He could keep up with Kenobi better than any shiny commander could, could call the Jedi out on his bullshit and keep him and his men safe. He knows it hurts Kenobi too. He knows that sometimes Kenobi turns to him expecting Cody to be there to a witty quip or a sarcastic smirk, and he sees the way he falters when it’s Alpha there instead.

The troopers are the same. Alpha knows they respect him, that they look up to him, but he’s not Cody, and they all know it. Over the months though, they’d learned how to work together; he’s glad it was him who had taken over for Cody, because he recognizes a lot of the signs of his own training in the way the 212th troopers move, no doubt passed on by Cody. They don’t move the way CTs are expected to move, instead Alpha can see his own personalized ARC training shining through in them, and he knows that any other commander wouldn’t have been able to keep up. As the months pass, he whips them into shape, distracts them from their grief, and keeps them moving.

And then rumours of the Seperatists’ newest asset reaches them. Until Umbara, no one sees it, but they hear the rumours spread by the small numbers of survivors left behind. Some sort of new droid made to look like a clone in black armour, that never speaks, never hesitates, and always wins. Until Umbara, its nothing more than a ghost story, a monster in the night, but Alpha had never believed in monsters, it was just another clanker that he’d destroy if he faced it on the field.

It was called many things; monster, assassin, dark trooper, but Alpha would know it as another target.

And then Umbara happened. The asset had killed Krell, had saved the lives of the 501st troopers that the  dar’jetii  was tormenting. It had killed  only  Krell, had torn the Besalisk apart, and then walked away; it hadn’t even  touched the clones, had barely even looked at them before leaving. Rex had come to him afterwards, baring footage of the fight between the asset and the General, an odd look on his face.

“It fights like a vod, Alpha.” Rex had said, sounding confused and lost as they’d watched the footage over and over again, looking to learn the clanker’s fighting style to better combat it in battle. “It fights like  you do.”

Watching the figure in black and gold armour, styled mockingly after his own, a kama swinging around it’s waist and a gold pauldron on it’s shoulder, Alpha couldn’t help but agree. It did fight like a clone; specifically, it fought like one of the cadets Alpha had trained personally. It was reckless, throwing itself into battle without a care, twisting into powerful kicks and using its blaster like a club in ways that Alpha specifically remembers one of his cadets doing, something that had driven Alpha to a frothing rage.

Cody.

It fights like  Cody.

He hadn’t voiced it at the time, had stewed in his rage at the insult aimed towards his dead  vod’ika. A droid that fought like Cody, a droid that had the exact same shade of orange-gold as his  vod’ika had chosen for his Battalion. It was an insult and an affront on everything Alpha stood for. He’d held on to that anger, had let it burn hot and harsh in his gut, knowing that the moment he faced the clanker on the battlefield, that he’d  destroy it.

He would tear it apart for the insult it symbolized. To know that the Seperatists were perverting his brother’s memory in such a way lights a fire in him that refuses to burn out.

And then he gets the chance to fight the asset. He fights it one on one, intent to destroy it and avenge his little brother, when the bucket comes off and Alpha’s heart stops. All he can think of, is that that’s a face glaring up at him, a familiar face with a familiar scar. He barely remembers the chaos that had followed.

Cody.

Somehow, the asset is Cody.

Somehow, they’d managed to get the asset -  Cody, his Kote - sedated and transferred onto the  Negotiator. It had hurt all of them to need to restrain him, to strip away black plastoid to reveal prosthetics and burns. They’d gotten him back to the ship, into the medbay and under the medics’ hands, and they’d found a  chip in his head.

And now, Alpha is staring down at the limp body strapped down to the biobed, ankles, hips, chest, and arms pinned to the bed by unforgiving metal, to make sure he wouldn’t attack again when he woke up. It’s still Cody. He’s missing both his legs at the thighs, there’s metal drilled into his spine and up the back of his skull. There’s a blinking monitor embedded into his chest, scarred skin growing around it, flashing with his heartbeat. They’d shaved him, put a cybernetic implant on the side of his head, over where his ear should be and stretching around his temple to interrupt the curving, hooked scar that had become his little brother’s visual marker of individuality, the one Alpha personally remembers tending to, right before pulling Cody into ARC training to ensure that Priest and Reau wouldn’t get their hands on him again. He’s covered in twisting, healing burn scars, left from the explosion they had all believed to have killed him, and there’s dark bruises standing stark against brown skin.

Bruises that Alpha had put there, when he’d nearly broken his brother’s neck while fighting him. When he had thought that Cody was a droid programmed to fight like him.

He'd nearly killed his little brother, the boy he'd raised, and he never would have known if he hadn't accidentally knocked his helmet off.

“Manda.” He breathes harshly, nostrils flaring, and he drops down into the chair Pace had put next to Cody’s bed. He ignores the medic’s eyes drilling into the side of his head, instead reaching out to gently squeeze Cody’s limp hand like he had when Cody had been a too-small child enduring too-cruel punishments in the place of more replaceable brothers. “What can you tell about the chip?”

Pace scowls, “It only showed up on a level five atomic scan.” He says, “We only found it because we were trying to find out the cause of the strange brain activity we were picking up - it showed up as a tumour, but once we removed it -” he gestures to the petri-dish next to the biobed, “- we found  that.”  ‘That’ being an ugly scrap of what looked like flesh, pink and pocketed and flecked with old blood. “Removing it from the frontal lobe stopped the strange brain signals we were picking up, and his waves went back to baseline - what you could expect from a regular clone.” Alpha tears his eyes away from Cody’s peaceful face to glower at the strange object. “We don’t have any proof, won’t until we can see how he acts when he wakes up, but Crys thinks it could have been controlling him.”

Alpha lets out a harsh curse, “Fucking seppies.”

“Yeah.” Pace murmurs, then shifts. “Commander,” he says slowly, enough of something odd in his tone that it makes Alpha look up to meet his gaze, to see them dark with anger, “whatever it is - that chip? It wasn’t made by the Seps.”

“What?” Alpha’s eyes narrow dangerously, and Pace nods, glowering at nothing as he rubs a hand aggressively against the gray fabric of his uniform.

“It gives off a different signal than the… prosthetics -” he says the words with furious contempt, like the sentence is rotten on his tongue, “- they drilled into him.”

Alpha snarls, baring his teeth like a cornered animal as he grips Cody’s clammy hand protectively, like he could destroy whatever did this to him with his will alone. “Who  do I need to kill for what they did to him?”

“Sir.” Pace’s voice is just as dangerous, “Whatever it is? It’s  Kaminoan.”

Taglist: @a-mediocre-succulent @yellowisharo @spoofymcgee @roseofalderaan @everything-or-anything @bellablue42

#cole writes #febuwhump2021 #febuwhumpday1 #alpha 17 #Alpha-17 #commander cody #212th Attack Battalion #codywan #star wars fanfiction #arc trooper fives #arc trooper echo #winter cody au #brainwashing #Obi-Wan Kenobi #obi wan kenobi #clone medic pace (oc)

[mongooseblues]

Bless You Father for I Have Sinned (Fleabag, Hot Priest) 1/1

Did anyone watch Fleabag and/or want to read about a hot priest sneezing?

This works just fine as a standalone if u haven’t seen the show but for context: Hot Irish prob alcoholic “cool swear-y” priest and recovering sex addict and all-around hot mess main character (who doesn’t have a name) strike up a “friendship” that is just a poorly veiled excuse for spending time with someone they want very badly to fuck but can’t bc priesthood vow of celibacy and whatnot.

Here’s ~2k words in which I continuously get off on the idea of blessing a priest and unresolved sexual tension I also don’t resolve.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

“Fuck you, calling me Father like it doesn’t turn you on just to say it…”

It happens for maybe ten minutes before it starts to stick out to her. Because it’s cold, as it always is on early-spring nights in London, and while they’re both fully dressed (unfortunately), neither is probably quite dressed enough to be out in a garden at this hour. And they’re a bit drunk—not that drunk, they’re both pretty practiced—on the G&Ts he’s so fond of for whatever reason. He specifically likes the kind you get already mixed in a can, which are especially shit, but it’s almost endearing that he likes those in particular. Well, very endearing actually. Goddamn this man—or… hmm, poor choice of words.

It doesn’t really grab her attention until he combines the sniffling with pinching his nostrils together.

“You alright, you’re quite sniffly?”

“I know, I dunno what’s going on,” he says, and punctuates it with a harsher sniffle than the ones previously unacknowledged, “Think ‘m just cold.” He zips his sweatshirt up a bit as if to illustrate.

“We could get you a blanket and swaddle you up like baby Jesus.”

He laughs. She extracts from her coat pocket a pack of cigarettes, takes one herself and angles the carton toward him in offering. Mostly because she wants him to scoot closer to her on the bench as she flicks the lighter for him. The flame illuminates the angles of his face in orange, the back of his fingers grazing her hand by happy accident, and yes, it’s a little pathetic that this momentary skin-to-skin contact is as erotic as it is to her, but that’s what you get when you fancy a priest isn’t it?

“They’re always describing him as being swaddled. Odd word, swaddled. Sounds kind of violent.”

“It does kind of,” he agrees, leaning back against the bench and exhaling a stream of smoke into the night air. Her plan worked, he’s ever so slightly closer to her now, post cigarette exchange, close enough that when he sniffles she can feel the slight vibration of his shoulders through the loose fabric on her coat sleeve. It unites them like an accidental spark of electricity she can sense just faintly enough to feel jumpy. Or turned on. Or both.

She really shouldn’t be this shameless about trying desperately to corrupt a man of the cloth she wants to get under. Maybe she’d feel properly guilty if she wasn’t quite so fucking horny.

“So you did read more than just the passages I marked for you?” He asks, at once surprised and pleased and maybe nervous, grinning but also looking away for a moment as if he could disguise all of that.

“Not really, just the birth of the ol’ lord and savior. It seemed like it’d be climactic.”

“Was it?”

“Can’t say I climaxed reading it, no,” she says with a cheeky look that elicits the laughter she’s looking for, “No offense but it’s really quite boring, this book you love so much.”

“Yeah… that’s a tragically common sentiment among reviewers.” He’s scratching at his nose with the back of one wrist with such intensity it’s unmistakeable how much it’s bothering him.

“Don’t care much for the writing style either, I have to say.”

If the irritation could be resolved with a mouse-like scrunch of the nose he’d have figured it out by now, and clearly he hasn’t because he still has to shrink into his crossed arms like an accordion with a fairly high-pitched, vocal and thus somehow Irish-accented, “Hehh-ishhYUE!”

“Bless. The only way I was able to get through it was by imagining you in every speaking role.”

It’s a sentence meant to provoke him, not unlike most of her sentences, and for a minute as her eyes are on her own exhaled smoke and he fails to respond, she wonders whether it sounded even weirder than she meant it, but as it turns out he’s just about to sneeze again — squinting into the distance and bringing an arm to his face in slow motion.

“Mmff-SHOO!” He blinks in surprise as he resumes his previous position on the bench, now shifted just a bit farther away from her. Damn.

“Ugh, sorry. Every speaking role?? Ohfuck— ahh-ishSHEU!”

“Jesus.”

“You imagined me as Jesus??”

“No I mean Jesus, are you okay, did you catch something?” Of course she imagined him as Jesus.

“Ooh I hope not,” he says with a nervous look, “that’d be lousy timing.”

“The lord works in mysterious ways.”

“Thuh-that he does—” A sudden inhale, a crooked arm rising at a much hastened speed. It begins in a manageable way, somewhat controlled, but then it seems to get away from him.

“Hh… hehd’SHHUE!”

“Bless you, Father."

He mumbles a thank you bookended by soft snuffling.

“Maybe he’s sent you a plague of sneezing. He does that sometimes doesn’t he? Send plagues?”

His face just scarcely conveys amusement before it’s hijacked again by the same expectant expression, but he still attempts to talk through it, even as irritation becomes evident in every feature. “S-sometimes…”

She thinks about saying bless you in advance but decides instead to just wait for him to succumb to it. A flicker of lashes, a reveal of the very tips of canines, his entire face crinkles around his visibly twitching nose. It pulls him downward and then forward in that order, as he collapses into a crooked arm as if stumbling despite being seated.

An especially desperate, “hehhSCHOO!” that begins quietly but certainly doesn’t end that way.

“God bless you, Father, again.”

“Wow,” he says with a sniff, knuckles swiping under his nose in a single smooth motion, “Maybe I’m allergic to you. My body’s having a reaction.”

“Is it?”

An eyeroll and a grin, and then he goes back to scratching at his aggravated face in a manner that’s becoming aggressive.

“Well stop manhandling your nose that’s clearly not working.” Before she can think better of it, she takes his elbow to pull the offending arm away from his face. She can feel his muscles tense with the movement, but when she looks up at him there’s only a blurry-eyed smile chased by a nervous huff of a laugh. Another line she can’t uncross but doesn’t particularly want to.

The therapist hadn’t needed to point out that her all-consuming attraction to someone she couldn’t have was probably a healthy coping mechanism of her recently adopted abstinence. She hadn’t really expected this though — for her advances to not be rejected entirely. She hadn’t planned for hope to cease feeling like such a daft, one-sided notion.

“Should I even be blessing you or is that overkill? Or am I even qualified to bless you? Can one bless a priest if they’re not like, anointed or something?”

“You can bless me,” he confirms, looking like he’s barely got a handle on controlling his own eyebrows. Or lips for that matter. God, that mouth, those lips. Parting by accident the way she’d like to make them open on purpose.

“Little greedy of you. You’re not blessed enough as is?”

“Neh—neverhurts…” He pitches sidewards with a slurred, tellingly tipsy, “hehh-ESHHyoooo!”

“Bless you…”

“Thank you,” he sniffles with embarrassed necessity, bringing the back of a sleeve to his nose.

“Hold on, I think I have some tissues,” she says as she feels around in her bag in the darkness, “Well, cocktail napkins at least.” Another knuckle brush as she hands them to him. How arousing. How pitifully arousing. She really should come up with ways to hand him things more often.

“Ahh you were holding out on me,” he says, and then after a gentle blow, “Sorry.”

“You are coming down with something aren’t you?"

He thinks about it, bringing the napkin away from his nostrils with a final follow-up dab. “I dunno, maybe?”

“Do you feel ill?”

“Mostly just very itchy.”

How many other chances will she get… She reaches a hand to gingerly press the back of her fingers against his forehead. He blinks a few times in response, rapidly and reflexively, and swallows back a smile. There’s a burning in her stomach that’s neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

“Um, you feel okay I think?” She says, attention course-corrected back to the cigarette crumbling in her hand, but still glancing at him to measure the aftermath of the relatively bold gesture and they lock smiling eyes in the process.

If he really wanted to ward her off he’s doing a phenomenally shitty job of it. She knows he wants her. God if only that was enough, to know he wanted her.

“I think you’re right I’ve been sent a plague of sneezing. Probably trying to tell me something.”

“Something about how your new friend could take care of you?”

He grins with half of his mouth. “Or something about how I probably shouldn’t be drinking G&Ts in the middle of the night with my new friend who I like a little too much.”

Oh he… really shouldn’t have given her that.

“ExxSHHUE!!” He shakes the whole bench with this, then straightens back up, not looking entirely recovered, and says almost to himself, “And about how I probably shouldn’t tell my new friend that I like them a little too much.”

“But you did anyway and he hasn’t, I dunno, smote you down yet.”

Irritation is still etched into his features, his chest slowly swelling with air, hastily fiddling with the napkins.

“Are you actually going to sneeze again? You haven’t finished?”

He shakes his head as his eyes close and seizes into a rushed, “hehESHHyue!"

“It’s a plague I can’t stop! Snf, it’s out of my hands."

She knows the night’s over, she does. She gets the sense that she’d been invited to overstay her welcome, but it’s getting past that point now. Whenever she leaves after being around him her face hurts from smiling like an idiot the whole time and she comes away aching in more ways than one. That ache is starting already, another sign they’ve stretched this interaction too long once again.

However, alcohol. “If you tell me to leave and you sneeze again perhaps we’ll know whether or not it was divine intervention.”

“He might just be punishing me now anyway,” he sighs, remembering a cigarette he may not have taken a single drag from, neglected and foreshortening in his fingers.

“We haven’t done anything we’re just talking. I’m a—what is it, parishioner?”

“That is a word, yes. Snf! Though it implies someone who’s actually going to church to, you know, practice their faith."

“I’m a parishioner here to…” she’s not even sure what to say, she still doesn’t know shit about Catholicism aside from the fact that it’s a massive cockblock, “seek your… counsel? Guidance? Guidance counseling.”

He puts a hand over part of his face, tired but amused. “You can’t act innocent even when you’re trying your best, can you?"

She almost snorts. Is this what he thinks trying her best looks like?—No, don’t actually say— “Who said I was trying my best?”

Why can’t she stop herself from saying things like that to him? The only thing that’s going to stop her now is a ‘no’ that’s actually firm enough not to give way when she presses against it relentlessly. He honestly needs to just get it over with before he really gives her too much to hold onto. She’s not going to win out over God, the guy’s pretty fucking stiff competition.

Goddamnit, just break her heart already, what the fuck is he waiting for? This should have ended ages ago, and now it’s getting dangerously close to too late.

Was it unfair to assume he’d be stronger than her? Or is he trying to hurt himself too? A duetted exercise in masochism, mutually assured destruc—

“—ESSHHYUE!” He looks at her through wet lashes, bleary and sheepish and drunk and cute and fuck.

She sighs loudly, looks skyward and says, “Right, you’ve made your point! I’m leaving!”

#am i going to include the forehead feeling trope in every fic I ever write? ur goddamn right I am #to be fair I resisted the heightened temperature temptation aaand he’s not technically sick so I’m ‘doing something new’ #I’ve done this platonic-but-not dynamic to death and I’ll 100% do it again in the future #i have absolutely no concept of how popular this show is or isn't #but hey hot priest is hot so here ya go #i am not even a little bit catholic but neither is fleabag so no research for meeeee #mongoose writes sometimes

[sisterofiris]

Everyday life in the Hittite empire

Have you ever wondered what your life would have been like if you had been born in central Anatolia 3500 years ago? No? Now that I’ve brought it up, are you curious to find out?

Well you’re in luck, because that’s just what this post is about. So sit back, close your eyes, and imagine yourself in Anatolia - that is, modern Turkey. Are you ready? Can you see the mountains, the red river and the towering buildings of your capital, Ḫattuša? Can you hear the chariots driving up the road? Can you feel the electric brewing of a storm in the distance?

Then let’s go.

(With a brief disclaimer: while I study Hittitology, this is not intended as an academic-level post. It was written to give general, approachable insights into Hittite culture and can be used as writing inspiration or to titillate curious history nerds around you, but if you’re writing an academic paper on the subject, I would recommend you check out the bibliography instead.)

About you

First things first, are you older than five? If so, congratulations on being alive. Child mortality in this place and time is very high, so you’re one of the luckier ones among your siblings. You probably have at least a couple of those; you may even have as many as six or seven, especially if you come from a well-to-do family with access to good healthcare. When you were little, your parents might have told you the tale of Zalpa, in which the queen of Neša gives birth to thirty sons then thirty daughters who marry each other, but you know this only happens in the stories - not to normal people.

When you were born, your parents rejoiced regardless of your sex, as sons and daughters are equally valued in your society (albeit for different reasons). Your father took you on his knee and gave you a good Hittite name: maybe Armawiya, Ḫarapšili, Kilušḫepa or Šiwanaḫšušar for a girl, or Anuwanza, Kantuzili, Muwaziti or Tarḫuzalma for a boy. Gender-neutral names, such as Anna, Muwa and Šummiri, would also have been an option. Many people around you have Hurrian or Luwian names, even if they are not ethnically Hurrian or Luwian themselves. (This is comparable to the modern popularity of Hispanic names like Diego, or French names like Isabelle.)

It’s hard to say what you would have done during childhood. While your earliest years would have been spent playing and babbling in grammatically incorrect Hittite, by the age of six or seven you may well have already started training in the family profession. If a girl, you would have been taught to weave by your mother; if a boy, you might have helped your father out on the farm, tried your hand at making pottery, or spent long hours learning cuneiform. (There may have been careers requiring gender non-conformity, as there was in Mesopotamia, but as far as I am aware this has not been proven.) You know that even the noblest children are given responsibilities - king Ḫattušili himself was once a stable boy.

Now, as an adult, you are a working professional contributing directly to Hittite society. You look the very portrait of a Hittite: as a woman, you have long, dark hair that you probably keep veiled, and as a man, your hair is around shoulder-length and your face clean-shaven. Ethnically, though, you are likely a mixture of Hittite, Luwian, Hurrian, Hattian, and depending on when and where exactly you live, maybe Assyrian, Canaanite or even Greek. There’s a fair chance Hittite might not actually be your native language. Still, you consider yourself a Hittite, and a subject of the Hittite king.

Well, now you know who you are, let’s get along with your day!

Your home and environment

Your day begins the way most people’s days do: you wake up at home, in your bed. As an average Hittite, you probably sleep on the floor rather than on elevated furniture. Your floor is either paved or of beaten earth, and your house itself has stone foundations and mud brick walls, with a flat roof supported by timber beams. Windows are scarce and small, to keep the indoor temperature stable.

Outside, the rest of the settlement is waking up too. Statistically, you live in a village or small town, surrounded by forest and mountains. Summers here are hot and dry, and winters cold and snowy, with spring and autumn being marked by thunderstorms. Most inhabitants work as farmers, relying on the weather for their survival. Contagious illnesses are a constant threat - under king Muršili II, the land suffered a deadly plague for twenty years - as are enemy invasions. If you live within the bend of the red river, in the Hittite heartland, consider yourself lucky; if not, your settlement could well be shifting from one kingdom’s property to another and falling prey to both sides’ raids on a yearly basis.

Admitting no enemy forces are in the area today, you take your time to get up. You might tiredly stumble to the outhouse to go pee. Eventually, you’ll want to get dressed.

Clothing

As a man, your clothes comprise of a kilt or sleeved tunic, with a belt of cloth or leather. As a woman, you wear a long dress and, if you are married, a veil. All clothing is made from wool or linen, and a variety of dyes exist: red, yellow, blue, green, black and white are all colours mentioned in texts. If you are rich enough, you may be able to import purple-dyed fabric from Lazpa (Greek Lesbos) or the Levant. You will also want to flaunt your wealth with jewellery, regardless of gender.

Of course, your shoes have upturned ends in the Hittite style. Historians will tease you for this. Don’t listen to them. You look awesome.

Mealtime!

It’s now time for one of your two daily meals (the other will take place in the evening, after your work for the day is done). This will be prepared at the hearth, a vital element of every home, and which is likely connected to an oven. The staple of your diet is bread; in fact, it is so common that “bread”, in cuneiform texts, is used as a general term for food. It is usually made from wheat or barley, but can also be made from beans or lentils.

Worried you’ll get bored of it? You needn’t be: your society has enough types of bread that you could eat a different one each day for a whole season. Fig bread, sour bread, flat bread and honey bread are just some of your options, along with spear bread and moon bread... yes, in other words, baguettes and croissants. (Something tells me the Hittites and the French would have a lot to talk about.)

You also have various fruits and vegetables available: cucumber, leek, carrots, peas, chickpeas, lentils, beans, olives, figs, dates, grapes, pomegranates, onions, garlic, and more. Your diet is completed by animal products, including cheese, milk, butter, and meat, mainly from sheep and goats but also cows and wild game. Honey, too, is common.

These ingredients can be combined into all sorts of dishes. Porridge is popular, as are stews, both vegetarian and meat-based. Meat can also be broiled and quite possibly skewered onto kebabs. And of course, food would be boring without spices, so you have a variety of those to choose from too: coriander are cumin are just two of them.

As for drinks, you can have beer, wine, beer-wine (good luck figuring out what that is), milk or water. If you’re well-to-do enough, you may own a rhyton, a drinking vessel shaped like an animal such as a stag or bull. Don’t forget to libate to the Gods before drinking your share.

Daily work

The next thing on your plate, after food, is work. What you do depends on your social status and gender, and most likely, you do the same work as your parents did before you. You could be something well-known like a king, priest, scribe, merchant, farmer or slave, but don’t assume those are all the possibilities; you could also be, for example, a gardener, doctor, ritual practitioner, potter, weaver, tavern keeper, or perfume maker.

It’s impossible to go into detail on every career option you would have in Hittite society, so for the sake of brevity, let’s just discuss four - two male-dominated, and two female-specific.

Farmer

As a farmer, you are the backbone of your society. You and your peers are responsible for putting food on the plates of Hittites everywhere, thus ensuring the survival of the empire.

Like many farmers, you live on a small estate, most likely with both crops (or an orchard) and livestock to take care of. You may own cows, sheep, goats, pigs, horses, donkeys, and/or ducks. Your daily routine and tools aren’t that different from other pre-industrial cultures, though you have it a little rougher than most due to the Anatolian mountain terrain. If you have the means, you hire seasonal workers - both male and female - to help out as farmhands, and you may own a few slaves.

You get up early to milk the cows, and at the onset of summer, you or a hired herdsman may lead your livestock up to mountain pastures to graze. Depending on the season and the work that needs to be done, you may spend your day ploughing the fields, harvesting grain or fruit, tending livestock, shearing sheep, birthing a calf, repairing the barn, or various other tasks. Make sure to take proper care of everything: new animals are expensive, and losing one could get you into a precarious situation. In particular, you’ll want to keep an eye out for bears, wolves, foxes, and even lions and leopards.

Scribe

Few people are literate in Hittite society, and you are one of the lucky ones. You have been learning to read and write in three languages (Sumerian, Akkadian and Hittite) since childhood, and after long years of copying lexical lists and ancient myths, your education is now complete.

As a scribe, you are the dreaded bureaucrat. In a small town, you likely work alongside the town administrator, recording tax collections and enemy sightings as well as corresponding with other towns, and with the capital. You and your peers are the go-to people for officialising marriage agreements and divorces, drawing up work contracts, and creating sales receipts. If not in the town administration, you could also work in a temple, recording the results of oracles, cross-checking the correct procedures for a ritual, and making sure everything necessary for a festival is available. If you are particularly lucky, you may be employed by the nobility or even the palace, and be entrusted with such confidential tasks as writing the king’s annals or drafting an international treaty.

Regardless of where you are, two things are essential to your job: a stylus and a tablet. You may be a “scribe of the clay tablets”, in which case you will need to carry around a bit of clay wherever you go (and some water to moisten it). Otherwise, you are a “scribe of the wooden tablets”, in which case you use a wax tablet in a wooden frame, which requires less maintenance. It’s unclear whether these types of tablet are used for different purposes.

Fun fact: you likely have a few pen pals around the Hittite empire. After corresponding with other scribes for so long, you’ve started writing each other messages at the bottom of your tablets, asking each other how you’re doing and to say hi to each other’s families. Your employers needn’t know.

Weaver

Weaving, to a Hittite like you, is the quintessential female activity, along with textile-making in general. Like farming, this is a backbone of your society: without weaving, there would be no clothes, and without clothes, well, you can’t do much.

As a weaver, you produce textiles for your family and in many cases also for sale. You work in an atelier within your home, along with the other women of the household, keeping an eye on your smallest children as they play nearby. While your husband, brothers or sons may transport and sell your handiwork, you are the head of your own business.

You are skilled in multiple weaving techniques, and can do embroidery and sew fabric into various shapes (including sleeves - take that, Classical Greeks). You create clothing for all sorts of occasions, including rituals and festivals, outdoor work, and winter weather, and if you are lucky enough to be commissioned by the nobility, you put your best efforts into clothing that will show off their status. Don’t try to cheat anyone out of their money, though; prices are fixed by law.

Old Woman

Contrary to what you might expect, you don’t need to be old to be an Old Woman - this is a career just like any other, though it probably does require a certain amount of life experience and earned respect. As an Old Woman, you are a trained ritual practitioner and active in all sorts of cultic, divinatory and magical ceremonies.

Most commonly, you are hired for rituals protecting against or removing evil. Your services may solve domestic quarrels, cure a sick child, or shield someone from sorcery (a constant threat in your society). This is done through symbolic acts like cutting pieces of string, breaking objects, and sacrificing and burning animals, which are of course accompanied by incantations - sometimes in Hittite, sometimes in other languages, like Hurrian.

Far from a village witch, you are high-placed in Hittite society and trusted by the royal family itself. You have taken part in major rituals and festivals, including funerals, and you perform divinatory oracles too. This last responsibility gives you a large amount of influence over the king and queen; if you establish that something should be done, then it almost certainly will be. Use this power well... or not.

Your loved ones

After a long day ploughing fields, writing tablets, weaving clothes or reciting incantations, it’s finally time to reunite with your loved ones. For adults, these likely - but not necessarily! - include a spouse and children. You may just live with your nuclear family, but living with extended family is also common, and there may be as many as twenty people in your household. Siblings, aunts and uncles, parents, grandparents, children and babies all share the evening meal with you, and some nights, you might gather afterwards to sing and dance, tell stories, and play games.

You also have relationships outside of home. Friendship is valued by Hittite society, with close friends calling each other “brother” and sister”. You might meet up with them regularly at the local tavern for a beer and a bit of fun. Someone there might even catch your eye... Interestingly, there are no laws against that person being of the same gender as you. So, same or different gender, why not try your luck tonight?

Greater powers

It’s impossible to spend a day in the Hittite empire without encountering religion. The Land of a Thousand Gods is aptly named: Gods are in everything, from the sun to the mountains to the stream at the back of your house to fire to a chair. You should always be conscious of their power, and treat them with respect. Though there are few traces of it, you may have a household shrine where you make libations or offer a portion of your meal. Your Gods may be represented by anthropomorphic statues, by animals such as a bull, by symbols such as gold disks, or even by a stone. Either way, treat these objects well; the divine is literally present in them.

You should also be wary of sorcery. Never make clay figures of someone, or kill a snake while speaking someone’s name, or you will face the death penalty. Likewise, always dispose of impurities carefully, especially those left over from a purification ritual (such as mud, ashes, or body hair). Never toss them onto someone else’s property. Has misfortune suddenly struck your household? Is your family or livestock getting sick and dying? These are signs that someone has bewitched you.

Some days are more sacred than others. You participate in over a hundred festivals every year, some lasting less than a day, some lasting a month, some local, some celebrated by the entire Hittite empire. The most important of these are the crocus festival and the purulli festival in spring, the festival of haste in autumn, and the gate-house festival, possibly also in autumn. The statues of the Gods are brought out of the temples, great feasts are held, and entertainment is provided through music, dance and sports contests. Depending on how important your town is, the king, queen or a prince might even be in attendance. All this excitement is a nice break from your regular work!

Sleep and dreams

Phew, what a busy day it’s been. The sun, snared in the trees’ branches, has set on the Hittite land, and you are ready for bed. Time to wrap yourself snugly in blankets and go to sleep.

You may dream, in which case, try to remember as much as you can. Dreams can be a vehicle for omens. Maybe, if the Gods are kind, you might catch a glimpse of what the next days, months and years hold in store for you.

Good night!

Bibliography

Beckman, Gary, “Birth and Motherhood among the Hittites”, in Budin, Stephanie Lynn, Macintosh Turfa, Jean, Women in Antiquity: Real Women across the Ancient World, Abingdon 2016 (pp. 319-328).

Bryce, Trevor, Life and Society in the Hittite World, Oxford 2002.

Bryce, Trevor, “The Role and Status of Women in Hittite Society”, in Budin, Stephanie Lynn, Macintosh Turfa, Jean, Women in Antiquity: Real Women across the Ancient World, Abingdon 2016 (pp. 303-318).

Golec-Islam, Joanna, The Food of Gods and Humans in the Hittite World, BA thesis, Warszawa 2016.

Hoffner, Harry A., “Birth and name-giving in Hittite texts”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 27/3 (1968), pp. 198-203.

Hoffner, Harry A., “Daily life among the Hittites”, in Averbeck, Richard E., Chavalas, Marc W., Weisberg, David B., Life and Culture in the Ancient Near East, Bethesda 2003 (pp. 95-118).

Marcuson, Hannah, “Word of the Old Woman”: Studies in Female Ritual Practice in Hittite Anatolia, PhD thesis, Chicago 2016.

Wilhelm, Gernot, “Demographic Data from Hittite Land Donation Tablets”, in Pecchioli Daddi, Franca, Torri, Giulia, Corti, Carlo, Central-North Anatolia in the Hittite Period: New Perspectives in Light of Recent Research, Roma 2009 (pp. 223-233).

#Hittites #damn i love the hittites #ancient history #anatolia #history #infodump #i put so much effort into this please appreciate it

[pokeasleepingsmaug]

All That's Best of Dark and Bright

Eventually, I will find a good photo of Sihtric and Eahlswith to use for this, but for now, have one of my favorite Sihtric gifs instead!

Summary: Ever since Kjartan killed his mother nearly seven years ago, Sihtric has longed for revenge. He's been waiting, biding his time, growing stronger. He can sneak and spy and fight, and when he thinks about his name, it is not Kjartansson. 

Eahlswith has been with the army of Uhtred and Ragnar Ragnarsson since they found her, soot-stained and tear-streaked, blood in her hair and on her hands and staining her teeth red. Sven the One-Eye haunts her dreams, and she promises herself that one day, she will kill him with her own hands. 

When Eahlswith and Sihtric meet by chance in the forest, they only continue the friendship because it suits their own ends: Uhtred and Ragnar need information on Dunholm, and Sihtric will maybe give it, if she earns his trust. Sihtric just needs an escape from the living nightmare that is Dunholm, and if that escape is a Saxon girl with dark hair and defiant eyes, he will only appreciate what the gods have sent his way. 

Then Sihtric discovers Kjartan's key to power, his most closely guarded secret. Defeating him will take love, and maybe an army. Good thing he has both, in the form of a Saxon girl with dark hair and defiant eyes

AO3, if you prefer

chapter one: silver beads and sunlight

Eahlswith hates traveling with this rowdy, ragtag company of Danes a little less each day. None have bothered her, there is plenty to keep her hands busy, and even the sounds of them snoring and farting in their sleep is beginning to sound more reassuring than annoying. Besides, smelly as fighting men on a march can be, most of them make it a point to wash once a week, or sometimes more if the weather is hot and the day’s work is particularly strenuous.

She sometimes says her prayers and sometimes not, and she is still not sure if she forgives God. She doesn’t think he much cares for her opinion of him, anyway, and if a few missed prayers are enough to send her soul to hell, maybe heaven isn’t a place worth striving for.

They have been camping on the edge of Kjartan the Cruel’s lands for a few days now, and Eahlswith dreads the day they will pick up and begin to move closer. Kjartan must know they’re nearby--Eahlswith was a child when he took Dunholm, she knows he is a fearful, paranoid man, obsessed only with his own power and the threats to it. Even the thought of moving closer to the fortress, and closer to the burnt plot of land her family’s farm once stood upon, is enough to turn her stomach.

Instead, she seeks out Brida every day after breakfast, determined to put her restless hands to good use. Eventually there will be a battle, and Eahlswith spends her days learning as much as she can about healing. Brida knows which herbs will stem bleeding and which will slow the march of putrification, she knows the broths to make to calm a fever and which gods may be swayed to ease the suffering of men.

Eahlswith is skeptical of the gods, but she holds the knowledge as close as any Brida tells her, listens to her tales with rapt attention as they grind herbs to powder or hang them upside down to dry. Every day, she feels more and more at home among this company of fur-clad men with merry eyes and silver rings glittering on their arms, and every day, she tries not to turn her attention to the dark smudge of Dunholm low on the horizon.

She has settled into a some semblance of a life here, even if it is a life like nothing she ever imagined. There is a comfort to the rhythm of her days, a familiarity growing between her and the men of the army, a tentative friendship blossoming between her and Brida. Eahlswith finds, that for all the priests and the wives in the market whispered of the ferocity of the pagan Danes, that they are a merry folk. These men are nothing like Kjartan’s, and for that, she is grateful.

“Eahlswith,” Brida calls, her voice calm and warm one early morning. Eahlswith straightens and offers Brida a bowl of the porridge she’d been preparing for a large group of grateful men nearby, but Brida waves it away. “Some of Ragar’s men are complaining of fever. What should we use to calm it?”

The men nearby shuffle uneasily, glancing among themselves with shifting gazes. It is no secret that illness can rip through an army in days. Several of them nervously touch the hammers hanging around their necks, the way her father would grab his cross. The way Eahlswith would grab hers, had she not thrown it into the woods the day everything changed. The answer comes to Eahlswith’s lips effortlessly. “Coriander. I know where some grows nearby.”

“Can you gather it? I’ll use up almost all of my supply this morning. And some mint, too, if you can find it.” Brida tilts her head thoughtfully, considering the clouds in the sky. “And comfrey.”

Eahlswith nods, hauling the large iron pot off the hook over the fire and setting it among the circle of men. Full bellies will keep them from thinking about the fever, at least for a moment. “I’ll go now. Are Uhtred and Ragnar going to move the army today?”

Brida shakes her head, the silver in her hair catching the sunlight. Eahlswith pauses to admire how lovely it looks against her dark hair, and wishes she had a bead or two to braid into her own. How plain she must look among these Danes, with their arm-rings and their hair-beads and their elaborate braids. She has only the simple green dress she was wearing when she fled the ruins of her family’s farm, and a red one Uhtred found for her among their piles of plunder.

She pulls her dark hair into a hurried braid over her shoulder as she rises from her knees before the fire. “Becoming more Dane than Saxon now, Eahlswith!” Audun calls good-naturedly, jerking his chin toward her braid. “We’ll have you in a shield-wall yet!”

“And if I’m in a shield-wall, who’s going to stitch your hand back to your arm?” She taunts, to a chorus of laughs from the rest of the men.

Even Audun smiles, his blue eyes glimmering, and tilts his head to acknowledge her point. “Off with you, then!” He pauses, face going serious, as he squints into the distance toward Dunholm. “Should be far enough away that you’ll be safe. He’ll know we’re here, his men will be cowering behind their walls.”

Eahlswith nods, trying to ignore the clenching of her stomach as she fetches a basket and heads toward the woods. Coriander likes a bit of shade, and there’s a meadow only about an hour’s brisk walk that’s sunny in the morning and shaded in the afternoon. Her mother used to send her to gather coriander from there, before Eahlswith got tired of the chore and brought some back to plant in their garden.

As Eahlswith steps into the shade, she realizes this is the first time she’s been alone since the army found her, soot-stained and tear-streaked, blood in her hair and on her hands and staining her teeth red. She pushes these thoughts to the side and tries not to imagine Kjartan’s men hiding in the shadows behind every tree. Audun is right. Kjartan will know they’re nearby, and will be terrified. He always lets his enemies come to him, to break their armies on his high walls. Eahlswith has never known him to leave the fortress, although his son, Sven the One-Eye, sometimes does. He always leaves burned homes and ruined lives in his wake, and Eahlswith hopes his fearful father is keeping him home.

Eahlswith tries to pay attention to anything but thoughts of Sven, his leering, ugly face and matted blond hair, the horrible sound of his mocking laughter. Instead she listens to the birds and the wind in the leaves and watches the play of sunlight on the ground. By the time she reaches the clearing, she has almost forgotten why she should be wary.

The meadow was a farm, once, she thinks, long before the Danes came. A crumbling well stands near a few rotten, blackened beams that must be the remnants of the house, and the abundance of herbs growing wild here hints that there was once a garden. Eahlswith does not let herself imagine what became of the inhabitants of this place.

She rounds a tree and the meadow comes into view, and Eahlswith’s belly drops when she spies a half-dozen cattle scattered throughout the meadow, grazing contendly in the midmorning light. They look like they belong here, like they’ve always been here, and if Eahlswith hadn’t been here countless times before and always found it empty, she would be soothed by the sight of them.

She creeps slowly toward the clearing, keeping to the shadows as best she can, thankful she is not a Dane and does not have silver in her hair to catch the sunlight and give her away. She is nearly to the clearing when a hand lands on her shoulder.

Eahlswith screams, startling the cows into lifting their heads, and scrambles away. The hand releases its hold on her instantly, and she spins to ward off her attacker.

He stands just a foot away from her, hands raised, palms out, and he looks as surprised as Eahlswith feels. The sunlight and shadows dapple his pale skin and the sharp planes of his cheeks and jaw. There is no spark of silver on his arms or in his black hair, no sword at his hip or shield on his back, but there is no mistaking him for anything but a Dane.

#the last kingdom #the last kingdom fic #the last kingdom fanfic #sihtric x eahlswith #let's be danes ⚔️ #longfic #all that's best of dark and bright fic #slowish burn #sihtric x eahlswith fic #tam lin inspired

[japiform]

Logs: Explain what the fuck he’s talking about

[[mind the tags]]

Helmsman: Have you ever been in a building after it's closed for the night? The darkness? The dead air? The faint feeling of unease, like you're somewhere you shouldn't be? The darkness?

You're the only one there, looking for something. Maybe the way out. Maybe for answers.

Maybe the store hasn't been open for years. The darkness. The overgrown plants, crawling over the ground and walls. The smell of brine. The water in your boots. Are you being watched or is that your imagination? Surely you've already been at this hallway. Did one of the tentacles move? Are you alone?

And finally, you find it. The husk of what was once a man. One who laughed and fought and loved. It's eyes behind the goggles are dark. It's twitching in the hold of the ship. The ship twitches in extension of the man. The darkness.

Are you alone?

Grand: You are not alone, but the atmosphere makes you tense, makes your keen eyes dilate wide to get as much out of the lights you brought as possible. Your boots splash in the salt water, and you wonder where the fuck the rest of the empress's entourage is. Surely she had some sea fucks with her to keep this massive place running.

It isn't important, except that it makes you tell your clowns to keep their guards up as you descend into the bowels of this abandoned place. It's going to take a bit, the empress's ship is so fucking massive. But that's alright. You're patient.

Ish.

Every moment he is off is another moment he could be dead. But at least you know generally where to go. You've been on Her ship before. Though, motherfuck, it was not like this.

When you get to him, you are relieved, motherfuckin gratified to see his form twitching. You hope it's not just some errant tentacle fuckery of the ship, you've never seen one so... overgrown before.

Well. Nothing for it. Give him a little slap on the cheek. "You alive in there motherfucker?"

Helmsman: Static electricity zaps the Grand Highblood's hand, the spot where he touched the Helmsman clammy and hot and viscous, somehow. But the Helmsman's eyes snap open, barely emanating any light at all before they slip closed again, unseeing.

On closer inspection, he's breathing shallowly from dry lips, mustard blood dripping shallowly from every orifice. It looks uh. Bad.

Grand: Ouch. Spicy. Still, the zap, the eyes coming open, the breathing reassure you that this isn't a totally fruitless endeavor.

Still. Oof. That's a big old yikes, you don't know if your mediculler can fix that shit. Ugh, what a mess he is, stubborn bastard. "Aight, where the fuck is my nerd?" You look at the clowns behind you. One of them better have brought the helm tech with them.

Devoteer: The small crowd produces a troll that can be succinctly described as cereal box shaped, and he dips his jagged horns in a sign of reverence towards GHB before fumbling for his toolbag. "If I may, Your Grand Whimsican, this Technicrusher will do everything in my power to preserve the life of this... of the helmstroll, if that pleases you." Behind a faltering, whiny speech is a troll who's had to disconnect many a half-dead helmsman from their block in his time. But the Devoteer has never in his life seen a helmsblock this... overgrown...

Grand: Oh, yep. That's a nerd, you'd know em anywhere. "I want his pump goin and his pan in there fuckin somewhere. Tell us what the fuck to do and we'll get it done. If I've come all this way for him to burn out, imma be real fuckin pissed, you pickin up what i'm puttin down?"

Devoteer: "I am indeed, picking it up, Your Unholiness." You sidle around him and inspect the helmsblock, before plucking a waterproof pen from your bag and marking off some of the smaller tendrils in dark purple. "These are the connections to his cardiovascular system, his life support, and the main nutrition and waste tubes. All the rest need to be cut away- about an inch at least from his body." Looking at the state of his nutrition tubes makes you faintly ill, but you keep the green out of your gills.

"Al- also I'm going to need a small supply of nutritionslurry, high in vitamins, a jar of mind honey, and some cauterizing knives. Is that amenable, High Priest?"

Grand: You click your tongue. "Easy enough, brother mine. I definitely got the last bit, at the very fuckin least." They drop into your hand quick as miracles, and you hand the gruesome weapon/medical tool over. You look over the crowd. "Aight, who brought the nerd?" A motherfucker raises his hand with a wave, clearly not paying that much attention now that his duty's done. "Give him his fuckin goods, what do you need, an invitation??? Mind honey. Nutrition slurry." You snap a few times, and the goody bag gets passed forward like you're in fuckin schoolfeeding. Whatever, if it works.

"That gonna do you aight, or are we gonna need someone ta go shoppin?"

Devoteer: "This is perfect, Beloved Dreamer. I'm going to need some space." You put your goggles on, and get the fuck to work. It's incredibly loud and messy, the knife slicing through tendrils like a hot blade through butter. Which is basically what it is. Pieces of helmsblock go flying as you shear it away, leaving something that looks a little less like a H.R.Giger painting and more like a person.

Wiping your hands clean with a microfiber cloth, you take the vials and hook the Helmsman up to a rudimentary IV drip, methodical as always. "Now um. A-as soon as the honey enters it's system it's going to become a bit of a lightshow in here, but it'll keep it's psionics cycling until it stabilizes. Be careful removing it, it's limbs are. Rather delicate."

Grand: Oh yes, the smell of burning flesh. Acrid, meaty enough to make you hungry, smoky enough to make you sneeze. You aren't sure how the rest of your mirthful are taking it, because you're definitely not paying attention, but you're vaguely interested enough in the work to observe the whole time, make sure he isn't taking unnecessary risks with your prize.

"Damn, we love a light show," you look over at your clown friends (turns out they weren't all doing the best), and get a few nods. "Quick question though, brother. How likely are his limbs to be any use, and what's the risks in not givin a shit?"

Devoteer: You give them one look and shake your head. "Even if, er, they weren't looking due for sepsis, it would take a real medical miracle for them to be of any use again, sir." They're uh. More hole than flesh, to put it lightly.

Grand: "Sick. May as well take em off and not deal with the hassle then, gimme that knife brother," you hold out your hand so you can get your tools back. You don't know if this fucker knows how to carve through bone instead of helm tentacle, but you sure the fuck do.

... Might wanna wait for that light show though.

Devoteer: You hand him the knife and step back into the crowd just as the Helmsman stirs, sparks beginning to crackle around the goggles as his eyes open just a sliver. And then the screaming starts, teeth bared as red and blue light fills the large room in a one-troll supernova.

It's only for a few seconds though, before it starts winding down as the psionics cycle erratically. His specially made goggles- the one thing between him and GHB being a pile of troll shaped ash- crack under the display of pure uncontrolled psionics.

The air is sharp with the smell of ozone.

Grand: Oh, that's neat, isn't it? Look at him go, he's like a one man firecracker. You grin big and wide at the sight, let him run himself out, and hope he isn't going to be choking on blood from screaming.

Alright, let's get this shit done quick. You step up into his shit and start cutting away tentacle and limb alike, until he is a lump of torso, head, hair, and probably just... so much rot. Just, an unfortunate amount of rot. You'll take the effort to make sure you cut as much of the sepsis as possible without getting to his innards, but.... Eh. That's about all you can be bothered with. You'll just make sure the medicullers go real hard on the germ killin shit, so he don't rot much more.

Dumbass motherfucker.

Helmsman: The screaming has become coughing, before he settles down with a whimper, curling into himself now that he isn't forced upright by the helmsblock. For how tall of a troll he once was, he looks small. Maybe he'd always been a small troll, under all the sass and vitriol and power.

It's hard to say.

Grand: ... Ain't that almost sweet... You hold him close, fully aware he could vaporize you if you're not careful with them damn glasses, but still finding it a bit...

Somethin. You can't say. Sad, maybe. Pathetic.

Any fuckin way. No need to linger. "Aight, motherfuckers. Job well done, head the fuck out, don't trip on tentacles or i'll make ya the butt of the next sweep a jokes. Keep ya eyes peeled, but i doubt there'll be much else excitin." There's a few laughs, a few groans of disappointment, but they do as you say, because you are fuckin king.

... And the king's gonna need a shower after this, because this battery is decidedly rank.

One step at a time, though. No need goin quick and jostlin all his lively bits until he ain't got no life left in him. One step at a motherfuckin time.

Helmsman: Despite the chill of GHB's skin, Helmsman takes comfort in it, craving any amount of warmth against his feverish form. As he tucks himself as close and comfortable as possible, the ship around the parade of clowns becomes even darker, emergency lights flickering off as the biggest asset to the empire goes silent.

Behind his eyes, the Helmsman fitfully dreams of being swallowed by a goat the size of a sun.

Grand: At least, finally, he can be completely asleep.

#ooc eyes only #death #rot #sepsis #amputation #tentacles #surgery #ask to tag

[lentilink82]

The Most Effective Tokyo Parks And Japanese Gardens For Autumn, Spring And Past

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In case you can’t discover any appropriate program, please contact us and discuss with our consultants to create tailored tours. Getting hands-on expertise being a traveler, and then interacting with different vacationers all along their complete journeys helps me to stand of their place, deeply understand their interests and calls for. I never stop discovering epic actions, wonderful locations, and fantastic feelings to worth your journey. The Japan Classics tour provides travelers a extra in-depth look into the cultural and historic background of Japan. It offers a more in-depth expertise, and I know that not everyone is bothered by this as a lot as I do, however it is also higher for jet lag. Restaurant Industry In Japan Numerous varieties of craft tea are paired with delicious treats including pork scones. Cuddle periods take place regularly throughout the day, or you can merely watch the animals from your desk. With the classics like Moomin Papa and unlikely favorites like Little Mi, you know you’ll have a pal for half an hour no much less than. Vesuvio features two bars, one adjacent to the principle dining room, and the other on the rooftop terrace. Master mixologist Christian Pèpe has created many signature cocktails for the two bars, many using house-infused spirits. Book one of the 30 themed rooms at Hotel Meguro Emperor, certainly one of Tokyo’s many “love hotels”, recognized for its fairy tale fort facade. Our associates at Klookhave found 15 of the weirdest cafes in Tokyo, together with where yow will discover them. With assist from over four hundred million annual visitors to HotelsCombined, we’ve also highlighted unique resorts that pair completely with the memorable experiences you’ll have in your next Tokyo holiday. Food courts inside buying malls are a few of the exceptions to the surface food and drink rule. Japanese Onsen, Scorching Springs And Public Baths The baths and saunas are nice and the restaurant is amazingly good. Togura Kamiyamada is, furthermore, house to a reconstructed mountain fortress from the period of warring states. Takayu Onsen is a small assortment of onsen ryokan midway up the slopes of Mount Azuma above Fukushima City. It features extremely acidic, sulfuric waters which were ranked among Japan's greatest for a quantity of centuries. Several scorching springs are situated on the foot of Mount Nantai, a sacred, extinct volcano in Nikko National Park. Both phrases refer to public baths, the difference being that an onsen is fed by natural geothermal springs while a sento makes use of heated tap water. To maintain the excellence, there are legal restrictions on onsen requiring that they contain a minimum of certainly one of 19 specific pure chemical elements, like iron or sulfur. Earning 2 stars on the Michelin Green Guide Japon, many types of scorching springs could be loved along with outside baths, foot baths and amenities for day trips.Click here for more data. These are the essential tips and customary onsen etiquette that you have to comply with so as to enjoy an excellent stress-free peaceable bath within the scorching springs bathtub. Stretching in a hot bath promotes the healing of sports injuries. "Onsen remedy" contains each soaking in the mineral water and drinking mineral water. Hot springs with a excessive alkaline content are thought of to be especially effective in lowering atopi, atopic dermatitis. Tsukioka Onsen in Shibata, Niigata, has a sizzling spring named Bijinnoyu, which translates as sizzling water for the beautiful lady. Mushi means steaming and jigoku means hell, but minerals in the steam present a heavenly taste. Crab, lobster, fish, sweet potatoes, corn, and other foods are steamed for visitors at native eating places and hot spring resorts. Steam pits are also obtainable for visitors and locals to make use of for a really low worth. Of course, there are exceptions to this and it is a whole article in and of itself, but tattoos have an extended affiliation with organized crime and subsequently aren’t allowed. You could presumably be asked to put on a protective sleeve before stepping into or will just be turned away outright. Japan Family Holidays & Holidays Japanese tradition is centered on an unshakable self-possession and obsession with quality, something discovered in the incredible food, historical inns, trains, and nearly each side of local life. It's additionally something that found through old-world craftsmanship, exemplified by pottery and different refined crafts. During this custom-tailored journey, immerse into Japan's best craft—pottery. Explore the highest types of conventional pottery, assembly with artisans and craftsmen who've helped to outline contemporary Japanese style but remaining loyal to the previous. We were thwarted in our plans to rent a rental car and all the bus excursions have been full! Missing out on visiting these villages was probably our largest disappointment in our 2 weeks Japan itinerary. The G Adventure Japan Express Tour is a 9 day Classic small group tour for ages 12 and above which visits Osaka, Mt Koyasan, Hiroshima, Kyoto, Hakone/Mt Fuji Area and Tokyo. This tour has many included actions and has 2 breakfasts and a pair of dinners included. Click right here to take a look at the newest prices and availability for the G Adventures Japan Express Tour. Bid farewell to Tokyo and catch the primary Shinkansen bullet practice of the tour to Hakone, travelling speeds up to 285 kilometres per hour, to Hakone. You will see that it is astonishingly straightforward to journey by practice in Japan. Trains function with superb precision and the sight of a white-gloved guard bowing to a carriage stuffed with travellers is something the children are sure to remember! Part of the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, Hakone is a place of staggering natural magnificence. We are 5 travelling, me, my husband, children ages 27, 16 and eight. I don’t have any particular recommendations for Christmas day in Tokyo. Christmas is an strange workday in Japan so every thing must be open. (Things close early afternoon on Dec. 31st and are closed for New Years Day.) For sumo wrestling in Tokyo check this schedule. The Dai Ichi Inn Hotel is steps from the Ikebukuro station and thus very handy. If you book via Booking.com you'll find a way to e-book any room you wish and easily write a message stating who might be staying there. 10 Thrilling Outdoor Activities For Adventure Seekers Within The Kansai Space A guided private tour that will make your tour time and itinerary the way you want! You will obtain an email after reserving your tour from this web page. Dating from the eighth century, the majority of the shrine's buildings rise out of the waters of a small bay supported solely by piles. The effect at excessive tide is just stunning, making these buildings - together with the well-known Great Floating Gate (O-Torii) - appear as in the occasion that they're floating on water. Just a short ferry journey from mainland Hiroshima is the island of Miyajima, famous the world over as Japan's Shrine Island. Covering an space of 30 square kilometers in Hiroshima Bay, Miyajima is best generally identified as the house of the Itsukushima Shrine, a Shinto temple devoted to the Princess daughters of the wind god Susanoo. This legacy, actually, continues to this present day with its many museums and art galleries, every bursting with necessary sculptures, work, and other art types. Attend a sporting event to get a really feel for modern everyday tradition. There are baseball video games from March to October and soccer video games all yr long. Sumo wrestling has six tournaments every year and is a real cultural expertise. A Japanese ryokan is a standard fashion inn or bed and breakfast. The worth of the accommodation usually contains dinner and breakfast and use of the shared tub. Rooms have a tatami ground and futon beds that get rolled out at evening. Another possibility if you have extra time is to stay in one of many Gassho-style thatched houses within the village of Shirakawa-go .

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