#so you dig through all 500 parts to find something of the character you want

[misty-caligula]

Okay, so I’m not used to really getting... noticed... in the way that I have been recently. And I’ve been kind of just vibing quietly before I actually respond to anything. But I got some responses to my big thesis post which I think warrant extra attention, because I think perhaps I wasn’t as clear as I wanted to be.

It’s worth mentioning that I have almost 500 posts up at this point, and have been very much immersed in yj theory for a fair while, so it’s hard to necessarily know how clear I am in any given context, and if I’m making assumptions of a reader. So I’m going to respond to a couple of things and see if I can redo a bit of Jackie/Coach stuff. My intention isn’t to say “Ah you’re wrong!” but to reframe my own position. If you don’t like what I’ve got to say that’s fine, I’m just a random on the internet. I’m not Right, I’m just thinking thoughts.

(Long post ahead about meta analysis of jackie and coach and society)

@inthegloomglow

Really good post but… coach and Jackie didn’t deserve to die for not being calm about all of this. They murdered his brother. I’m not sure that’s the point I’m supposed to get? But it’s weird to condemn them for that.

@areyoushuri

!!!! Criticizing Jackie and Coach for not being well adapted to the willingness and struggling to accept the rituals and cannibalism created is odd considering that the vast majority of viewers probably wouldn't survive/accept something like that. Yes, they're stubborn, not built for the wilderness, etc. but so many of the traits we criticize now served them well before the crash.

Okay! So first thing’s first. I do not hate Jackie or Coach. I think they’re both really interesting characters, with interesting through-lines. I think that they’re well acted, well written, and bring a lot of value to the plot. I’ve completely fallen in love with Jackie and Shauna’s really messy ... mess, and will absolutely go on giant tangents about it if you don’t stop me. I find Coach to be a really intricate and tragic portrayal of being queer in the 90s, one that speaks to me as someone who was struggling with being queer in the 90s, and whose dad was queer in the decades prior. I love these disasters, as I love all the disasters on this show.

I’m not critiquing them as people, I’m digging into the metatext of their actions as thematic devices. I also don’t know if this actually needs to be said but I’ll be very clear: If these were actual human beings then I wouldn’t want any of them to die, the point is that they are not humans, they are commentaries on society and culture and trauma and the way that people adapt or fail to adapt to changing situations. I don’t think people deserve to die for being wrong, or making mistakes... I just accept the theme of characters either surviving or dying based on their values within the show. I hope that’s clear, but just in case... there you go.

So my big concept of the show is that there’s this one giant question that the yellowjackets keep getting asked: “What really happened out there?” And that what DID really happen out there, fundamentally, is that there was a fracturing of social realities. Think of it like... the ‘jackets used to be part of “Society,” a huge world-wide group of all connected human cultures as a whole. And then they went off to the wilderness and they lost contact with Society, and they had to build a whole new culture all of their own from the ground up. We’ll call that the Team. Then they were suddenly rescued, after they’d fully given up on ever seeing Society again, and were forcibly thrown back in, and now are expected to just... reassimilate. And they’re struggling to do so.

So if you think about the show as a collection of big chunks, you can think of it like this:

> The ‘jackets are normal kids, living in and learning from, and protected by Society

> Their connection to Society is severed, but they expect rescue, and so they build a micro outpost of Society in the wilderness

> They slowly realise they’re never going to be saved

> They begin to recognise that the values and lessons that Society gave them are not all helpful in the wilderness and will get them killed. They start to develop the Team to replace what’s not working

> The Team grows in power, and the individual survivors have to make a decision about whether they’re going to remain loyal to Society or join the Team. Those who don’t join the Team die, not because they’re bad but because Society cannot protect them in the wilderness. To be very clear, neither Society, nor the Team, are inherently good or bad, they’re simply cultures that exist and offer each individual a place within them to provide and be provided for. But Society is NOT here, it’s a memory of a culture that’s been severed, and cannot provide anything anymore, only the Team is capable of doing so. THAT’S why only Team members can survive.

> The only survivors left are Team members, the Team stabilizes into a functioning self-perpetuating system

> They’re rescued and forcibly reintegrated into Society

> The remaining Team members now find themselves in the opposite situation, the Team is now toxic and can’t help them anymore, just like Society couldn’t help them in the wilderness, and they need to shed it to adapt back to Society just like they shed Society the first time. Those who can do so will eventually live long and happy lives. Those who can’t will die.

Coach and Jackie’s big thing in common isn’t that they suck, or that they’re unpleasant to be around. It’s that they’re Society loyalists. They just can’t let go. And what I think is most interesting about that is that both of them are being MISTREATED by Society. They’ve both been assigned roles that they cannot fill, and have held onto those roles SO tightly that it’s getting them killed.

Jackie’s absolutely plastered with unearned privilege. She’s constantly being told how perfect and brilliant and incredible she is. But she knows it’s a lie. And in order to defend her place, to justify her situation, and protect herself from anyone finding out, she holds Shauna SO close to her, so that she can have someone to feel constantly superior to. To make her look good by comparison. Except that Shauna is so many of the things that she secretly knows she isn’t and feels she NEEDS to be. So she spends a lot of effort beating Shauna down and focusing on convincing her that she has all these flaws and things so that she doesn’t realise that Jackie’s not actually this perfect person that people tell her she has to be.

Once she’s in the wilderness and Shauna starts to shine on her own - because the Team simply needs a different set of skills than Society did and Shauna’s willing to engage with it - Jackie’s control slips and she resents it, she fears it so much. And she can’t accept losing that level of authority that she got given by Society, to take a lower role with the Team. And so she stays loyal to Society even when it’s nonsensical. She sits in the snow and simply waits to be rescued, because that’s what Society has taught her to do.

But the Team doesn’t work like that. It requires Team members to be self-sufficient, and to work together. Jackie won’t go inside because Society has taught her to wait for Shauna to submit to her authority and apologise and invite her in, to give her the position that she Deserves. Shauna won’t do that because the Team has taught her that each Team member needs to be a part of the whole, that Jackie must eventually request permission to join the Team as a regular member. It’s a conflict that doesn’t get resolved, because neither will budge, but in the wilderness the Team can protect you and Society cannot, so Jackie’s faith in Society is punished with death.

That’s why Jackie can’t make a basic campfire to literally save her life. Because the Team would’ve taught her how, would’ve required her to learn. Society would provide her with someone to do it for her. So she just never bothered to learn. It’s why she’s unable to recognise just how dangerously cold it’s getting and be REASONABLE and knock on the door. Because Society has taught her that she’s protected from danger, that if it ever got Dangerous someone would come and help her. She doesn’t know the difference between damn cold and dying cold. Society works because of hundreds, thousands, millions, billions of people working together in intricate systems of mutual support and deep heirarchy. You don’t need to know how to put out a fire because when your house catches fire you call 911. You don’t need to know how to escape the wilderness because when you get lost they send a rescue helicopter. But without the connection to Society its lessons are literally destructive - Sit and wait until you die. Rescue isn’t coming.

Sidenote: If you want to go REALLY deep into the meta of it, the Team then gets rewarded with food by predating on Jackie as a vestige of Society, much the same way as they get little bits of technology by picking apart the wreckage of the plane. The plane is useful to Society as a transport, it’s useful to the Team as a source of supplies. Jackie is useful to Society as a member, is useful to the Team as a source of food. But I digress.

Now Society isn’t always a nice place to be, and Jackie’s not treated all that well within it either. People find her frustrating and comment on how undeserving she is of her position. They actively go behind her back when they can, Jeff cheats on her with her supposedly lesser best friend, Coach Martinez tells her to her face that she’s kinda mid, and people are generally mildly annoyed at her most of the time. But Society has her back, and as long as she plays by the rules, and follows the lessons, her life is pretty much made. It won’t necessarily be everything she ever dreamed of, but she’s solid, pragmatically. But the stress it puts on her, to conform and try to fit the role she’s arbitrarily placed into by Society is going to slowly ruin her and she’ll end up a bitter and unhappy person if she remains completely committed to it (assuming they never crashed, obviously). And what she doesn’t seem to realise is that the Team offers her community, and acceptance, and respect on the terms of her actual reality, on what she’s able to genuinely provide, whatever that is. But she’s so caught up in holding onto Society that it literally gets her killed.

That’s not to say that she doesn’t have a potential place in Society where she could be genuinely happy. Just that the one that she’s assigned isn’t right for her. If she was able to be let go of her fear, if she was able to be honest and stop trying to conform to the expectations put on her by those around her, and take a position in Society that more suited her she COULD have a perfectly comfortable life, happy and healthy. But the fact that she’s been assigned this life path that she knows doesn’t fit, that she’s so insecure about, is what MAKES  her such an unwavering loyalist for Society, because she has so much to lose.

And that’s what makes her and Coach so similar. Coach is born in the ‘60s, is brought up in the ‘70s and ‘80s. We don’t know when he realised he’s gay, but it has to have been a very scary thing for him. He has been living in a world of deep and abiding homophobia his whole life (I remember the 90s, I can only imagine the 70s...) and then came AIDS. For his whole life Society has convinced him that living in the closet is a life-preserving choice. That he can get all kinds of value from Society, all sorts of good things, as long as he plays by the rules, fits his assigned role. And being gay simply doesn’t fit his role.

So he hides it. He hides it despite the fear it causes, the pain it causes, the fact that it keeps him away from Paul whom he loves. He takes on a job that he hates, surrounding himself with a bunch of girls who he despises. Because, as Natalie said, if he actually threw in his lot with Paul, if he went against Society, then he’d be reliant on Paul (and by extension the Gay microculture) in a really intense way and if he lost him then he’d have nothing left. He’d have blown his entire life up, and been stuck. Coach, like Jackie, is ruled by his fear that without Society’s handouts of privilege and gifts and authority that he’d simply have nothing left on his own. It’s a painfully real portrayal of the fear and self-hatred that perpetuates the ongoing trauma of the closet in the real world.

He’s spent his entire life giving up real parts of himself for the sake of Society, he’s all-in. And he, like Jackie, is just too invested to let go. He can’t appreciate that Society has nothing to offer him in the wilderness, that the Team can and will protect him if he lets it. A lot of people make jokes about the idea that Coach might be eaten if he sticks around too long, because he only has one leg. But that kind of ablest absolutism is Society thinking. Because the Team still hasn’t turned on him. When they decided they needed to sacrifice someone for Lottie they didn’t say “Okay, where’s Coach gone? Let’s go hunt him.”

The Team just doesn’t have the room to see him that way. NOBODY is expendable in the wilderness, every sacrifice is an agony they struggle to cope with. And... I guess if you wanted to get very dark with it, Coach’s missing leg means that his food value ratio to his potential value as a Team member is lower.

And Coach has shown plenty of value to the team in the wilderness. He’s actually capable of providing real advice as an adult with life experience. He taught them to shoot and hunt, he made sure that Nat wouldn’t get pregnant (thank GOD after the nightmare that Shauna went through), he’s perfectly capable of holding down the fort, and once he’s adapted he’s remarkably capable of getting around. To the Team he’s a pair of hands, a thinking mind, company, experience, and just... a human being. To Society he’s lost a lot of value, but the Team simply doesn’t conceptualise him like that.

And when he WANTS to, he proves how capable he really is. He got to the cliff on his own without too much struggle. He got into and out of the cave all on his own. Not saying it’s easy to be an amputee, but it’s not AS disabling as a lot of people would assume. And he’s still got a perfectly functioning mind, hands, etc. What he doesn’t have is a will to join the Team. To genuinely engage with the reality they’re in.

Again, this is reiterated with a second camp fire disaster, making the point that he’s been in the wilderness for most of a year now and he still can’t do something as simple, as fundamental to Team survival (but not Society survival) as lighting a tiny fire. Because in Society he’d never have to, Society simply provides. And in the wilderness he’s been relying on the Team to provide and not recognised that he’s been doing that. Not recognised the fact that he’s not been pitching in. That every fire he didn’t light someone else did. Every scrap of warmth he’s enjoyed all winter has been provided by the Team, not Society.

In S1E10 when Shauna gives up on Society and finally commits to the Team she does so with a fight with Jackie. And the only person on Jackie’s side is Coach, the other Society loyalist, who - like Jackie - assumes a position of authority based on his status within Society. And Lottie - the Team authority - says “Stay out of it, Coach.” She asserts that this is Team business, that Society has no say here. And, without Society providing the backup behind his words, and without actually contributing anything to the Team (not because he Can’t but because he Won’t) Coach has absolutely no power and no say, and he disengages from this point. And because he simply won’t join the Team his fate is sealed.

Coach also provides a viewpoint on the Team from Society’s perspective. Because the audience perspective is so deeply rooted in the Team, Coach’s viewpoint is the alternative. He’s the last tiny vestige of what they left behind. Like a tourist, watching a culture he doesn’t understand, assuming that he’s better than them, that they’re evil, that he knows what’s Really Going On. That his loyalty to Society will someday gain him some sort of advantage or reward, even as he stands on the edge of the cliff. Because his attachment to Society is so strong that he’d rather die than join the Team, an unthinkable option.

So when Coach sees the ‘jackets eating Jackie, his response of horror is not just that of Coach Ben Scott reacting to cannibalism in his face. It’s also the response of Society to the unforgivable breach of social laws by the Team. The fact that they’re able to do it, that they seem to be enjoying it, completely giving into the deepest taboo... he can’t handle it and neither, by extension, can Society. And as he’s powerless to stop it he simply closes the door, trying to separate himself from them. When he finds Shauna carving up Javi he tries to rescue Nat, the only Team member he sees as somehow redeemable, as a potential Society ally. And when she rejects him, when she shows him that she, who was on the fence, has now willingly and knowingly joined the Team he sees in her his faith in Society collapsing. Because here’s the girl who he put up on a pedestal, as “the good one” and she’s rejected Society. So either a) he’s wrong about Society, and Nat’s right. Or b) he’s wrong about Nat and right about Society.

Or a secret, third option, he could lose himself in a tantrum of repressed rage, burn down the cabin and also throw himself off the cliff, giving up on EVERYTHING in the process. (That’s my personal theory, but we’ll have to wait to find out)

Now he COULD respond at this point by going “Fuck it, fine, I can be a Team member too, if it saves my life.” And he might find in it the kind of value the rest have found. But doing that would require him to accept that they’re never ever going to be rescued. That Society truly is gone. That it was all for nothing. That he gave up his life, gave up Paul, gave up happiness and love and everything ... and never got his reward. No, he HAS to keep holding on, has to keep believing that there is a point, is a purpose to it. For his own sanity.

Again, we can read really deep into the meta of this and say... that’s what coming out of the closet really is. It’s saying “I’m SICK of giving up so much for Society, and I don’t believe that the reward is there, or if it is that it’s worth it. If the alternative is to be a monster, as Society tells me I am if I’m queer, then fuck it I’ll be the monster you say I am. Because that’s what’s going to keep me happy, to give me love, to feed me, and give me a life I want to live.” I’m not saying that it’s a completely 1 to 1 exact match, but you get the idea.

And so Coach tries to destroy the Team, tries to reassert the dominance of Society, because the Team is a bunch of inhuman monsters as far as Society is concerned. They’re deviant, corrupted, feral. But they’re not. They’re just trying to create a new culture that will get them from monday to sunday without dying on tuesday. They’re just trying to face a harsh reality with a perspective that makes sense, to them. They’re neither bad, nor good, neither moral or immoral. They’re surviving, or dying, and that’s what matters in the wilderness.

*Intermission, go grab some snacks*

Okay so this is already really really long, but you can flip the script and watch the exact same story happening in reverse in the adult timeline too. In Season 1 the whole big question is why is Travis dead? Who killed him?

And the answer is... the Team did. Like, in a LITERAL sense, he put the noose on his own neck. And Lottie pressed the button, at his command. He literally did kill himself. But he never intended to die, and what got him there was the Team. He genuinely believed that he needed to do the ritual in order to connect with It for all their sakes. And he - like Coach and Jackie in the wilderness - was wrong. The rituals they’d developed, the beliefs they’d formed to cope in the Team simply were of no use now they were back in Society.

But he couldn’t let go. He couldn’t accept that they were truly out of the danger, that the trauma was really over. That Society could protect them, when he’d had it proven so powerfully to him that it couldn’t help them in the wilderness. And his unending and irrational faith in the Team is literally what killed him. And Lottie, who MIGHT’VE been able to somehow rescue him from the situation - she was standing RIGHT THERE - was herself so absorbed in Team thinking that she instead just stood by as he died.

(Again, I really really need to be clear, I do not hate any of these characters, I love them all dearly and I’m reading into the meta rather than their literal actions, I don’t blame Lott for her actions as I don’t blame Travis for his, this is just how the story is written and WHY)

I could make a similar argument about Nat, and almost did, but she’s SO complex (she and Shauna have such intricate relationships to the Team and Society) it would honestly take up as much space as I’ve already written now and my brain’s getting tired. But I will end with a little thing I thought of as I was writing this.

There’s a third Society loyalist I forgot to mention: Laura Lee.

Laura’s faith in God is mirrored with her faith in Society. Neither are based on anything solid in the wilderness, she never gets any form of external validation of any of her beliefs. She just interprets what happens through her own lens and assumes she’s right. She’s been provided with a role of spiritual authority by Society, in an acceptable religion, and she assumes that she’s competent to hold it. When Lottie comes to her for advice, she provides it and assumes she’s correct. When Lottie sees things she interprets them as though her opinions were fact. When she sees the plane she decides that she should use it to save everyone, and because she decided that, she assumes that it’s God’s will, and so she assumes she cannot fail. That God has her back. Just as she, and Jackie, and Coach, assume that Society has their backs.

In the plane, Laura Lee sees her opportunity to reconnect with Society. And her unwavering faith in the capacity of God to provide protection from harm and Society to provide functional and reliable transportation without needing to work for it ... gets her killed. The lack of connection to Society, and the incapability of Society, and its’ God, to provide for the Team is displayed as a giant fireball in the sky for all to see, proof that they are truly, deeply alone. That Society cannot help them here. But it still takes a while for the lesson to really sink in. And for some of them, it just never does.

#yellowjackets #long post #spoilers #theory #meta

[the-firebird69]

Watch ""What'd You Do?!" || Tommy Boy (1995)" on YouTube

Now these people are gullible they think they would give them cars that are exploded versions of model cars just for them to have or something so try thinking about it and I thought it was a good idea. Now this is happening today they're going to go up to the Midwest upper Midwest that is and they're going to find out where the plants are and the idiots are going to try and be salesman now the scam is that they want to sell them parts from their place try and figure out where the other parts are coming from and those guys don't want to share they probably should have some sort of lifeline so it's a ridiculous routine and we're going to cut it short but we're going to let the movie play out to get the characters all in a row

Thor Freya

Hehe he had more and you fell for it and my backup is busy. So our people are here so I'll have to use them from now on they said it's about time and congratulations on figuring it out no not you Zeus I know what you're saying you both know about what we have to do it's a great idea and it's ridiculous and you weren't blind side cuz you know about it but it's kind of fun because we say that and all that crap these people believe in no matter what like it's gospel truth now we're going in and we're going to do some damage Savage Oprah says and yeah it's still me talking get some clue or something and keep that damn draw shut and then you can't use glue dang it this is going to be a lot of fun no you don't know what you doing no you don't how's that motel with the fleas for Christ's sake those hotels are disgusting and they do spray quite a bit because they have to but they get into all sorts of places inside them and they're not well monitored so above the ceiling is like 3 ft fleas they try and get at you in the middle of the night and dig a hole through the drywall and these two woke up there's a whole like 3 in wide with this huge bug staring at them so they ran out they got the manager and they all in a spray like crazy they went in and got sick got the stuff and they came out of there coughing and coughing and then say we told him enough to go in there all that stuff was in there and then green and the guys started laughing and said you're some kind of mission are you they're not letting you go... So they got sick of the puked a little and felt better and he said you have to hydrate okay get out of your system and hydrate properly so drinking milk orange juice and salty stuff and they're both going oh my God I'll send you they go I got to throw up so they can go ahead and throw off you're going to rehydrate chicken soup some dairy yogurt huh so they're doing that and they felt better and they're pissing it out and stuck bad they said what happened are you going through your lungs so you're going in a moisturizer lungs and they start coughing it out and said Jesus as a shitload in there they didn't feel like an hour and finally it came out and felt better and went to the next job but but I tell you these guys getting a lot of trouble

Hera Zues

Lol

There's Austin the last paragraph but above and she started talking and just went right over me now we're doing this job together they were seeing the dynamic and it's like a family and we're competing this kind of hellish and it's hell here and he's in hell and both areas but he's used to a family like this because those kind of controlling things too and it was them there so should be fine

Thor Freya and it says oh yeah and it's Freya saying it

There's too many people here interrupting us it's too difficult to get it out and we have to stop them he feels a little better he got his social security and we have to hold on to it and it's a war really it really is a war in DC there's probably 500 million dead in the streets from it these people are so stupid these retards so damn dumb need to be cleaned out they're so damn dumb

Olympus

[izukuwus]

I've entered hell once again

#distant citrus sounds #two of them are those fcking god awful fic compilations #you know the ones where they tag every character in the fandom #and are like requests are open uwu #so you dig through all 500 parts to find something of the character you want #and then its something thats explicitly a trigger for you #so you waste your time scrolling past and waste your time giving it a chance #also one is an o c f i c which is fine if you like it but I'm not here for that #it's like the v e g a n substitute for some meat #I'm sure its lovely for people who like it but i came here for filet mignon not tofu

[mrsalwayswrite]

To Choose the Sword (Bishop Heahmund x Reader)

Summary: There is only person that Heahmund cherishes above all, and when she is threatened, he realizes he would do anything to protect her…. even sell his soul to a blue-eyed devil. 

This is my contribution to @maggiescarborough​ 500 followers celebration! (I’m so sorry this is late but here we are.)

Flower chosen: periwinkle- religious symbol in the Middle Ages tied to the Virgin Mary, benevolence (desire to do good to others, charitable), nostalgia and purity.

I also decided to add an extra challenge and write for a character I would not normally write for- hence Heahmund. 

Words: 6000

Warnings: implied abuse/mistreatment, mutual pining, couple swear words, heavy religious overtones, Ivar being manipulative 

Tag List: @youbloodymadgenius​ @evelynshelby​ @pomegranates-and-blood​ @deans-ch-ch-cherrypie​

Also, a huge shout-out to @flowers-in-your-hayr​ for this absolutely stunning moodboard. Look at this! Its gorgeous! Be in awe! 

 He knew where she would be. 

 The leaves and twigs underfoot crunched beneath his boots. The morning sun casted shadows as it peeked through the foliage above him. His sword bounced against his back almost in sync with the cross upon his chest. The weight of both, something he was continuously aware of. 

 It was here he first met her on a hazy summer day. 

 It was here the two of them always seemed to find one another like two stars caught in each other's orbits. 

 It was here he could never decide if she was his salvation or his damnation. 

 Along the thin trail, his feet guided him, stepping over sticks and rocks. His mind wrestled with the news, but as his mind fought, his heart broke within his chest. It was a selfish reaction, he knew. Yet that did not cease the pain welling in his chest, so strong it threatened to bring forth tears. He kept them at bay. For he was a man of the cloth, a man of God. 

 But sometimes he struggled with just being a man. 

 Soon the gurgling of the bubbling creek could be heard amidst the summer songs of the birds. His footfalls quickened and after several more paces, she finally came into view. Kneeling near the creek, hands folded before her in supplication, she appeared the very vision of pious purity. 

 Heahmund gently called out her name, like a whisper in the breeze, a soft caress on skin. When her head lifted, turning to find him walking closer, his heart skipped a beat. Those eyes that beguiled him, those sweet lips that only allowed kind words to pass through, and her smile…. oh, that smile that lit up her face like a lamp uncovered to shine in the darkest of nights. 

 To his dying breath, he would fervently believe she was an angel in disguise, a blessing from the Lord God bestowed on his creation to remind them of His goodness. 

 And that was why she was both his salvation and damnation. 

 Because he wanted her. He wanted her with all his soul. But she was too pure, too benevolent, too holy for someone like him. She made him want to be better in both his vows and himself. To fight without wavering in protecting his country from the heathens. To protect her from ever having to fear them. 

 And when she turned those eyes to him, when she smiled gently at him like he was her favorite person on earth, he was undone. 

 "Your Grace." She rose to her feet, brushing off the few pieces of grass that stuck to her green dress. 

 "I heard the news that you will no longer be in my congregation."

 "Yes. My father has family in York. With his failing health, he thinks it wise for us to move there."

 Heahmund hummed in thought as he moved closer. Even though his face remained impassive, his heart clenched at the thought of her leaving. For who else would he look to while saying prayers at Mass? Who else would he recite scripture and poems to while they reclined next to the bubbling creek? Who else was kind enough to seek him out after he returned from a raid, to clean his wounds if any and make sure he was fed?

 "I shall keep your family in my prayers to our Lord." He whispered, now standing before her. "My congregation will not be the same without you…. or your family."

 She gazed shyly at him through those long eyelashes. "You are too kind, Bishop Heahmund."

 "You have denied yourself for many years to look after your ailing father and the rest of your family. If the Pope heard of all your sacrifices for your family and our church, he would name you a Saint."

 "I am nowhere worthy of sainthood. You tease me."

 A smile drew his lips upward as he watched her. "Perhaps a little."

 She laughed, covering her mouth with her hand as she looked downward. It took all of his willpower not to lay a hand beneath her chin, the draw those beautiful eyes back to his own, to gaze upon her beauty, both inside and out, for longer. To ask her to never leave him. 

 But it was not his place. No matter how he felt for her.  

 "If it is not too bold of me…." She broke through his turbulent thoughts, her sweet voice trailing off as she toyed with one of her sleeves. 

 "Go on." He encouraged, heart hammering away inside of him. 

 "I made something for you. It's not much, but…. but it's just something to remember me by and know you will be in my prayers as well…. for your protection against the heathens." Quickly she dropped to her knees, digging in the basket by her feet. 

 The basket had gone unnoticed by him as his focus resided with soaking in these last few minutes with her. For he was unsure if the Lord's work would bring him to York. She swiftly pulled something out and held it out with both hands like an offering. His eyes momentarily widened before he reverently reached out and clasped it in his hand. It was a white, square kerchief, soft and pure. It was when he looked at the corners that he truly saw the beauty of it. A small cross was stitched in one corner and in the other opposite corner was a grouping of three small, periwinkle flowers. 

 "Thank you, y/n, truly." He returned his gaze to her, struggling to keep the awe out of his tone. "I shall cherish your gift as if the Virgin Mary herself gave it unto me."

 She giggled, a coy smile on her face. "I would hope that she would bestow a better present for someone as holy as yourself."

 "I would never cherish it as much as yours." He admitted with more candor than he should. 

 Her gaze snapped to his then darted away like a startled bird. A weighty, tense silence hung over them, drawing them closer yet apart simultaneously. For it was this blissful, torturous attraction that left them both spellbound, lost to reality in the presence of the other. 

 Unable to stay away a moment longer, he cupped her cheek with his calloused hand, forcing her eyes to meet his. 

 "Bishop Heahmund…." She breathed out. 

 "Must I remind you to call me just Heahmund when we are alone?" 

 "Heahmund." She murmured, one of her hands coming to rest on the center of his chest. To anchor herself or him to this moment, he did not know. 

 Desire and longing colored the air around them. A tension that pushed their bodies closer without their awareness, until they could feel the breath of the other gliding across their lips. Something burned between them, this thing that remained unnamed for so long. Heahmund knew it was not lust. For that carnal sin was something he intimately knew and had used other women for, much to his disgrace. No, this was something far stronger, far more powerful, far more dangerous for both of them. For as the years passed, it never faded or wavered like a dying flame. It endured. 

 His gaze zeroed in on her bottom lip as his thumb caressed it with an almost-there touch. Her lips parted on a quiet gasp but she made no move to pull away. Those enchanting eyes beheld him with absolute trust. Something he was unworthy of. 

 After taking a deep breath, his hand traced down her neck, to her shoulder and down her arm to hold her hand leaving goosebumps in its wake. He brought her delicate hand to his lips, pressing a lingering kiss to her knuckles. Then, regretfully, he released her hand. 

 "Come, I shall escort you back to the city. You should not linger out here alone for too long." He said, taking a step back. Needing space before he did something indecent and unbecoming of his station. 

 "Thank you." She replied automatically, blinking rapidly for a second as if waking from a dream. A dream he wished he could have further explored, to share openly with her. Bending down, she grabbed her basket and held it against her hip. 

 They walked back through the woods in silence, more spoken in their actions and looks than could ever openly cross their lips. With each step, Heahmund silently beseeched his God that this encounter would not be their last. Although she was his sweetest temptation, his forbidden apple in the garden, he could not abandon her. It was for her that he picked up a sword to fight the heathens that invaded their land. With what might he had, he would see her protected and defended, that the purity she wore like a veil, the benevolence that dressed her daily, the pure goodness she radiated, would never be blemished. 

 Even if he never had the honor of holding her against his body, of tasting the sweetness of her lips, to hear the pleasured cry of his name from her mouth, to ever be more than just a man of God to her. It was worth it. For she was his angel. 

 *****

 With eyes that could pierce stone in the raging fury bubbling beneath his skin, Heahmund stared at the city of York. 

 Captured by heathens. 

 Those damned sons of Ragnar Lothbrok. 

 Saxon warriors moved about him, none bothering him, either thinking he was strategizing how to reclaim the city or praying for the Lord's protection over His people as they beat back the devils. 

 What none knew, what no one could see, was the despair and wrath gnawing away in the bishop's mind. It took every ounce of his willpower to remain in the Saxon camp with the new King and his sons and not to scourge the city of the infestation of heathens. But to go seek for her. To find and protect her. Somehow in his heart, he knew she was down there. In what condition though, he dared not imagine. 

 When the two sons of Ragnar came in the night to talk of peace, his resolve almost broke. Questions of her coated his tongue like the sweetest of poisons, slowly driving him mad. Yet he swallowed them back down. Not just for fear of his fellow warriors learning of his unholy affections towards her; but fear if she was alive and the heathens realized the depth of his care for her. Surely it would bring about her doom. So when he slipped into their tent like a snake cornering its prey, his fists dirtied by the blood of the Ragnarssons, it was his silent promise to save her, that even from here he would protect her. 

 They must retake the city, to drive out the Vikings, for God and country and justice. Most importantly for him- they must retake the city so he could find her. 

 *****

 "You call me heathen, but to me, I am godly. I live by the gods."

 "There is only one God." Heahmund bit out. The chain around his neck was even more sharp than his tongue. 

 Ivar continued, arrogance dripping off each word. "But I have seen other gods. I have seen the Odin, the All-Father, with my own eyes."

 "They are the devil's work. He conjures up demons and fallen angels to beguile us. And lead us into evil."

 "What is evil?" The raven-haired heathen asked in a haughty undertone. 

 Heahmund sighed, dropping his chin back to his chest. His legs were growing weary beneath him, having been chained here for hours already and he saw no true reprieve in sight. "Slaughter of the innocent." He answered in a whisper. 

 "You slaughter when it suits you." 

 Rage filled the Bishop at the way this heathen turned his words, how he taunted with that arrogant smirk on his face, how he disrespected the one true God. "He who chooses to be heathen is not innocent." He shouted, pointing his finger in condemnation at the ungodly sinner beside him. Then for a moment he wondered if this was why he had been captured by the Danes. If this was all the Lord's mysterious work. His tone softened as he continued to stare at his captor. "But I could show you the ways of God, to salvation and eternal life."

 But it was all in vain. 

 He chuckled darkly, almost as if shocked that the bishop would even try to convert him. "Do you know who I am?"

 "Of course. You are Ivar…. son of Ragnar Lothbrok. Many there are that fear you." 

 "But not you."

 "No, I fear no man….no matter how wicked." Heahmund allowed the sneer to taint his voice at the end. For it was true. No matter the horrendous stories he heard about the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok, fear never sunk its claws into him. For he followed the Will of God. 

 There was only one reason alone that fear gripped him, tighter than a lover, slipped beneath his skin to momentarily poison his mind…. but that reason was gone now. Dead. 

 The two sat in silence for several minutes, a heathen and a bishop, lost in their own thoughts. Heahmund could not help but wonder as he eyed the young man, if this was all some bloody, gruesome game to him. Was he even capable of remorse? Fear? Mercy? Love? Or had the fires of hell already scourged them from his soul?

 The shackles around his wrists grew heavier by the hour. The chain around his neck chaffed. The cold mud beneath him seeped into his trousers, slowly injecting a chill into his bones, amplified by the chains keeping him bound. 

 "I beseech thee, Lord. Save me or show me why I am here. Grant me Your mercy. Do not cast be aside into the darkness. Grant me Your light so I may see." He murmured to himself. 

 The sound of a door opening just off to the side of Ivar could be heard but Heahmund paid no mind. He knew his time on earth was dwindling, for how much longer would the heathen bother to keep him? Surely, he would be killed in a cruel and painful way. When he first took up the sword to defend his faith and his people against the Danes, he assumed that was how his life would end. On a battlefield somewhere, surrounded by blood and screams, with his cross upon his chest and sword in hand. Not like this. Not a prisoner to be tortured for amusement. 

 A soft voice hesitantly spoke up from behind Ivar. "My prince, your brother…."

 That voice. Oh, that voice had haunted his dreams, but lately it had only been heard in his nightmares. She would beg for his help to save her, only to witness her dragged away or killed before his eyes, chains or ropes or fire keeping him imprisoned, unable to do more than scream her name. More than once he had jerked awake to find tears streaming down his cheeks. 

 Now his head jerked up, ears attuned, desperate to see or hear her again, to confirm she was alive and not just a hallucination. To know all his nightmares were wrong. 

 He prayed his nightmares were wrong. 

 Ivar beckoned her closer with an annoyed huff and a roll of his eyes. Then she appeared, as if from the mist. His fears confirmed. Her green dress was ripped and filthy. Her hair matted and unwashed. But it was the dark circles that lay beneath her dimmed eyes, the bruise on her cheek and the split lip that adorned her face which brought his rage to the surface, festering in his gut. His hands clenched into fists at the sight of her and images of what all she must have endured played in his mind. 

 The heathen snatched the cup from her outstretched hands, mumbling something in his own language. "Go." He arrogantly dismissed her with a wave of his hand as if she was some pest he detested. 

 As she turned to walk away, her eyes drifted over to Heahmund and she froze. Time stood still as their gazes locked. He watched as a series of emotions passed over her face- surprise, relief, concern, fear, worry- they all took their turn to shine from her eyes. He wondered if his own expression mirrored hers. Her name, that name that tasted like the sweetest of honey on his lips, danced on his tongue. How he wanted to pull her into his arms and never let her out of his sight. To promise no one would ever hurt her again. To press his lips to hers tenderly. His chest constricted as he witnessed a single tear slip from her right eye, washing away a streak of grime on her cheek. His own tears burned in his eyes, threatening to betray him. Here she was. Alive. But mistreated by these heathens. Something he could never forgive. 

 "You know this…. priest, thrall?" Ivar's amused voice broke their staring, like a bucket of cold water suddenly thrown on them. 

 She jerked, brought back to the here and now, that her and Heahmund were not alone. Wordlessly, she lowered her head and nodded. 

 "Ah, I see." Ivar's shrewd blue eyes jumped between the two as his smirk widened. "You may go to him. I will allow it for now. Ah! And here, give him this." He held the untouched cup out to her.

 Hesitantly, she reached out and took it, as if expecting it to get thrown in her face at the last minute. Keeping her gaze downcast, she walked the few steps to stand before Heahmund. Once more, she peered over to the side at Ivar, silently requesting his permission before proceeding. 

 "Let him drink! I am certain he is quite…. thirsty." The heathen chuckled, playing with his bottom lip. 

 "Y/n…" Heahmund started quietly but she interrupted him. 

 "Drink, please." Immediately, she brought the cup to his lips and carefully helped him to drink. At the slow pace she allowed the water to flow, it was perfect to quench his thirst but not fast enough he would choke on it. A skill she must have learned from the many times she was forced to take care of her ailing father. The whole time, he locked his gaze on her face, refusing to look away for even a moment. For fear of her vanishing. For fear of missing even a second of this cherished time in her presence. Even if he was bound in chains like a common criminal. 

 "Are you well?" He asked once she pulled the empty cup away from his mouth, keeping his voice low for some resemblance of privacy under the heathen's scrutinizing gaze. 

 She peeked at Ivar out of the corner of her eye before whispering back. "I'm alive."

 "Are they treating you well?"

 Her gaze dropped to her hands, clutching the cup. 

 And her silence burned through Heahmund like a wildfire. He knew it was foolish to ask as soon as he uttered the question. The evidence on her face was proof enough. But he had hoped for a different answer. Wanted a different answer. And the truth ate away at him like leprosy. For chained here…. a prisoner…. a prize…. he could do nothing to save her. To protect her. 

 His nightmare coming to pass. 

 He swallowed thickly, emotions clogging his throat. "Stay strong, y/n. The Lord knows the challenges we face and will give us strength to endure. We are not forgotten."

 She nodded, hastily wiping away another tear that slipped down her cheek. "What…. what about you? What will happen to you?"

 Her concern for him warned his soul more than a fire and hot meal ever could. Even amidst her circumstances, she worried for him. She cared about him. Heaven certainly lost an angel when she was born onto this earth. For she was far too good to not be one of the Lord's divine beings. 

 "I'm deciding if I want to keep him alive," Ivar interrupted, tone all together smug and cocky, "or crucify him, like your god. A fitting ending for his priest."

 She inhaled sharply, eyes widening at the revelation. 

 Heahmund wanted to comfort her, but words failed him as he gazed upon her. For his life was no longer in his own hands. A fate he despised. Before he could speak words that would hopefully bring her some solace, the heathen spoke again. 

 "Thrall, come here." Ivar commanded. She walked over to him with visible trepidation, cup still clutched in her hands. Instantly, he grabbed her wrist when she was close enough, the movement as sharp and fast as a viper. The cup dropped and bounced on the ground as she gasped. In the next moment he yanked her down to kneel before him, a soft cry slipping from her lips that seemed to spur him on, a malicious smile forming on his face. So reminiscent of a hungry wolf cornering a young lamb, the taste of blood already tainting the air. An allure the wolf feasted on shamelessly. 

 Heahmund could taste iron in his mouth from how hard he bit his tongue to keep from demanding her release. He could only watch helplessly as this devil toyed with her. 

 "Hmmm…. what is your name, thrall?"

 She said, voice barely above a whisper, eyes firmly planted on the dirt. "Y/n."

 Complacently, the heathen tipped her chin up, staring into her eyes for long enough she began to tremble. He chuckled, moving her face side to side and scanning her body like examining an item for sale at the market. "And who owns you now?"

 "Ha…. Haakon, my prince."

 "Ah. Haakon. A good warrior by our people. But I have heard he is not so kind to his thralls. Hmm?" He stated, but this time his smug gaze was directed at Heahmund, waiting for a reaction. Waiting to see what his latest prize would do. 

 At his statement, she flinched and it felt like a flaming sword was driven through Heahmund's gut. He made no appeal to mask his hatred nor fury, his eyes hard as stone as he met the heathen's unnatural blue eyes. In his mind, he swore to himself that he would never forget the name she spoke with such a mixture of fear and despair. Somehow, he would kill this man. God, help him. 

 Ivar grinned, still focused on his prisoner, even as he traced a finger over her split bottom lip, tears springing forth from her eyes. "Maybe I'll buy you from him. What do you think?"

 She just stared at the ground, body trembling. Completely submissive. Entirely surrendered. 

 "You may go. Tell my brother I will join him soon." Ivar said, releasing her chin. 

 Carefully she scrambled to her feet and took a hasty step back. Her watery gaze flickered over to Heahmund's, meeting his eyes. Oh, how he wished these chains no longer held him. He would slaughter every Dane in York in holy recompense for the abuse she endured. He would shield her with his body, keeping her close until the fear bled from her like poison from a wound, until she was the sweet, vibrant woman he knew. 

 "I said leave, thrall." 

 As if startled out of a dream, she jumped at Ivar's shout. Then spun around on her heel and disappeared the way she had come. The cup laid forgotten on the ground, having rolled away. 

 The bishop dropped his head to his chest. What was left of his heart slowly eroded away inside of him. Why must she be made to suffer at the hands of these devils? Was this why the Lord allowed him to be captured? To save her? 

 "Y/n…." The heathen rolled her name on his tongue, voice inquisitive with his following question. "What is she to you?"

 The Saxon remained silent. He owed his captor nothing. The heathen had no right to say her blessed name, let alone touch her. He was evil, darkness, something to be destroyed. To touch y/n, her perfect soul, was a crime against all that was holy and good. 

 "Ah, you act like she is nothing but I could see it in your eyes. You want her. Like a man wants a beautiful woman. But more than that…. she means something to you. So, answer my question or maybe I'll call her back and slit her throat in front of you."

 Heahmund licked his lips, debating what to say. "She is the Virgin Mary."

 "She's a virgin?" Ivar scoffed. "I doubt that's the truth anymore."

 "No," he snapped, glaring at Ivar before turning back to stare straight ahead. "She is holy and pure. She is the epitome of benevolence, something you would never understand. She is a soft breeze on a scorching day, the spring rain come to bring new life. She is the candle of fond memories, keeping away the dark thoughts that threatened to cloud my mind. She is…. y/n."

 "You love her."

 "How could I not?" He sighed, for that was the truth. No matter how hard he tried, prayed for deliverance, she had wormed her way into his heart and planted herself there like an oak tree.  

 "Well, if Haakon owns her, then she will be leaving soon to journey to Norway with us." Ivar stared at him for a moment before looking away. They sat in silence for several minutes before Ivar laughed and shifted from a sitting position. "Prepare yourself, Bishop Heahmund, you are coming on a journey with us."

 "I am already on a journey." He called out, voice unwavering. 

 "Aren't we all."

 He watched the heathen crawl away like an overgrown snake, deceptive and cunning, wondering what this journey meant for him. What it meant for her. Closing his eyes, shutting out his surroundings, he focused on the feeling of her kerchief tucked away under his tunic. Close to his heart.  

 *****

 The crowd jeered around him, a sound beating against his mind like a hammer. The stench of the ocean clogged his nostrils, the fish guts spilled on the docks and ground, the masses of unrighteous bodies pressing closer to have their chance to spit at him. For once, he was grateful that he did not understand their language so his ears would remain untainted by their insults and taunts. 

 The flaxen-haired Ragnarsson led the parade with Heahmund being the center of attention. Like a spectacle for all to see. A large blond Viking pulled on the chains binding his hands, chuckling at making Heahmund stumble drunkenly to keep his feet beneath him in the unsteady mud. The bishop spat out a mouthful of blood onto the mud. The cut on the inside of his lip a courtesy from a punch to the mouth by the brutish Viking who currently held the chains. 

 Stubbornly, he yanked on the chain binding him, refusing to let himself be dragged around like some stray mongrel. The brute growled at the Saxon and gave a strong pull, disrupting Heahmund's already unstable footing. In the next moment, he found himself face-first in the revolting mud. The cheers of the crowd exploded around him to new heights at his predicament. 

 Through sheer determination and a refusal to appear weak to these ungodly wretches, he rose back to his feet. Will unbroken. Though he walked through the valley of death, he refused to fear the evil around him. The Lord would provide a way. Somehow, he would be delivered. Carefully he wiped the mud from his face on his sleeve.

 Once back on his feet, he could see Ivar sitting at a nearby table. Although from the way he reclined, he acted more as if it was a throne. The infuriating smug look on his face as he met Heahmund's gaze. All resemblance of vulnerability and unveiled candor from the prior night was gone. Replaced with the arrogant warlord who sentenced people to death with laughter on his lips. 

 All night his mind wrestled with their conversation from the prior night. How could he fight for this godless heathen? Surely the Lord would smite him for that? Even if in the fighting he only killed more heathens. Was he not also a man of peace like the Lord Jesus Christ? Which was more important right now? Which one was stronger in times like these…. the olive branch or the sword?

 He walked with confidence until he noticed y/n standing just behind Ivar. His feet faltered for a moment, shocked to see her. Since their encounter in York, he had only snatched a glimpse of her as he was being loaded onto the boats. His mind wandered to her fate more than he cared to admit. There were many times as he sat alone, he gently toyed with the kerchief she made for him, touching the periwinkle flower sewed onto it. His thoughts on her and all his regrets. 

 Now his eyes quickly scanned her, noting the different dress she wore. Something rough and bland he had noticed other slaves wearing. She appeared no worse. The bruise on her cheek was gone, the split lip healed. Her hands clasped before her as if waiting for instruction as her eyes followed him. When they finally met, a flood of relief and concern passed between them. For no words needed to be spoken to understand the predicament they both were in. Both of their fates were no longer in their control, only in the Lord's and their captors'. 

 He could not help but wonder why she was here? To witness his shame? His death? What game was Ivar playing?

 As he watched her, his mind returned to his short burst of despair earlier. How he had called out to the Lord for deliverance. But if the Lord delivered him from the hands of these heathens…. would the Lord deliver her also? But did not the Lord send angels to protect the Virgin Mary as she carried Jesus in her womb? How could he then abandon y/n in her hour of need? For it was unthinkable to leave her alone in their clutches. And seeing her now, dressed as a slave, at the beck and call of the blood-thirsty Ragnarsson, Heahmund would rather slit his own throat than leave her alone. 

 Determination saturating his veins, he tried to move closer towards Ivar but as he took a step, the brutish Viking held him back with an animalistic grunt.

 Ivar waved a hand. "Let him approach, Haakon."

 For a moment, Heahmund froze, his blood boiling at the name. This name he swore he would always remember. He turned to stare at the brute with a newfound understanding, fury a living thing beneath his skin. This was the man who mistreated the one most precious to him. An unforgivable sin. A heinous crime. And with the mischievous glint in Ivar's eyes, the bishop knew the prince had purposefully orchestrated for them to meet. Tearing his fiery gaze away from the brutish Viking, he walked over to stand before Ivar like a convict awaiting judgment. 

 "Shhhh…." Ivar hushed the crowd, his voice carrying with an air of authority. "Now will decide if you fight for us." Grabbing the knife out of the table from beside him, he continued. "Or whether I kill you." He paused, pressing the knife to Heahmund's chest. When he spoke next, his voice was low, a harsh truth only to be heard between them. "Nothing is keeping you alive but me."

 The tip of the knife pressed against Heahmund's jerkin, not a threat but a promise depending on the bishop's choice. With his quiet sigh, he peered past Ivar to look at y/n one more time. One of her hands covered her mouth, eyes wide with fear. Only now was Heahmund able to see the red marks on her wrist, marking of chains, ones he knew he carried also. 

 Without hesitation, the Saxon warrior-priest whispered back, "If I fight for you, y/n goes free."

��Ivar leaned closer, smirk growing on his lips. "If you fight for me…. I will give her to you."

 "Hmmm…." Heahmund's gaze dropped down to the knife still touching his sternum for a second before returning to meet Ivar's penetrating gaze. "Why don't you give me the knife?"

 The manic excitement in Ivar's eyes should have scared Heahmund, but right now he needed blood on his hands. With a wicked grin, Ivar handed the knife over, as if already knowing what was to occur next. He accepted the knife with a huff, surprised Ivar gave it to him. Both smiled darkly at one another, the draw and lust for blood staining their lips. Revenge- a language they both spoke fluently. 

 Slowly Heahmund turned around, the knife pressed to his sternum like he was about to take his own life. Aware of the crowd's eyes on him, he stepped away from Ivar, back into the street. Closer to the brute Viking. 

 Haakon began yelling in his thickly accented English. "Die! Are you afraid?" He sneered, getting right into the bishop's face. "Do it! Coward. Do it!"

 Without a second thought, Heahmund slid the knife home into the Viking's neck. Blood spurting out, coating his hand gripping the knife. As the heathen gurgled, he spat blood onto the heathen's face. The blood on his face was for the punch Heahmund received from him. The knife, though, that was for her. His gift to her. To deliver her from the abuse of the ungodly. He could see death sinking its claws into the Viking, latching itself onto the man's soul to drag him to Hell. With that he let the man drop limply to the mud and threw the knife to the ground nearby. 

 He gazed over the silenced crowd with his piercing eyes, weaponless once again, and curious if one would fight him for revenge for Haakon. They stared back at him, a mixture of shock and anger on many of their faces. A slow clap and madden laughter startled him. He turned back to see Ivar clapping with an unhinged smile. 

 "He will fight with us!" Ivar yelled, arms outstretched as if in victory. 

 The crowd cheered. An example of how fickle a mob can be. As he arrived, being led like an animal to sacrifice, they cheered for his death. Now they cheered for his sword, to fight alongside him. 

 Suddenly a form slammed into him, almost knocking him off his feet. He tensed, prepared to fight until he looked down to see y/n burying her face against his chest, hands gripping his tunic. Her body trembled against his, muffled sobs reached his ears as she clung to him like a lifeline. The bishop lifted his gaze to meet Ivar's, who leaned forward with a side smirk, eyes intently watching the two. As their gazes met, Ivar made a subtle motion with his hand, a quick wave, as if telling him to accept his prize. 

 Careful because of the many eyes still on them and not wishing to cause her harm, he brought his bound hands around her, pulling her closer against him. Embracing her in a way he had only fantasized about. Using his body as a shield, blood staining his hands.

 "You are safe now." He murmured against the top of her head, a storm of emotion whirling in his heart and mind. "You are safe, I promise. I will not let anyone hurt you again. I am here, my angel."

 Silently, she looked up at him, tears streaming down her cheeks, washing away what grime had been on them. But it was the relief and adoration in her eyes that made him freeze. How she beheld him as if a miracle or answer to her prayers. A reverence in her gaze but also joy intermingled. 

 His heart constricted in his chest; air momentarily cut off by the strong emotion stirring within him. For he knew with every fiber of his being as he gazed down at her, he would do anything to protect her. Would travel any sea to keep her. Fight any army with just his sword by his side. Even sell his own soul to the devil to see her safe. 

 Glancing up at Ivar and the manic smile on his mouth, Heahmund wondered if he had done just that. 

#sophies500 #vikings #vikings fanfiction #vikings fandom #vikings ivar #bishop heahmund #heahmund #bishop heahmund x reader #heahmund x reader #ivar the boneless #ivar ragnarsson #ivar's heathen army #vikings imagine #bishop heahmund imagine #mzwrites

[mythicamagic]

Sesskag Week: Day 2 ‘Black’

Title: Under the Nails

Summary: After 500 years, Sesshoumaru comes looking for the miko Kagome in her era, wondering why she never returned to the past. What he finds plunges him into bleak despair...and causes Tenseiga to stir. Sesskag Week Day 2 - Black.

Rated T

Words: 2,600

Read on: Ao3, fanfiction.net or Dokuga

AN: For Sesskag Week Day 2 - Black (Mourning & Misfortune) a lotta angst in this one so buckle up.

Under the Nails

Heaviness weighed his steps down like his pockets were laden with stones, heart steeled, eyes on the top of Higurashi Shrine's steps.

Sesshoumaru forced his hands to remain loose at his sides, fighting the urge to rip off his glamour and fly. Soar above the concrete straight to their door.

But Sesshoumaru remained polite and wretchedly slow, human in appearance only. He dutifully climbed the stairs, walking with measured, frustrating steps.

Adjusting his tie upon reaching the Higurashi's door, he knocked, shifting.

Kagome's home looked just as it had many years ago- when he'd first located her again. He'd glimpsed her 3-year-old self, before turning away, satisfied that after 500 years of waiting, he had finally reached her era.

He could finally gain the answers he'd sought for so long.

Curious though, that her scent did not reach his nose. Various stale shades of it clung to a few things outside, but it did not feel vibrant, recent.

When her mother opened the door, brown eyes glassy and vacant, deep stress lines beneath them and grief clinging to her like a second skin, Sesshoumaru knew.

He knew it as instinctively as drawing breath.

No.

"...Don't tell me," Mrs Higurashi put a hand to her mouth, gaze flickering over his face searchingly. "You're not Sesshoumaru, are you?"

The tears filling her eyes worsened the ocean roar in his ears.

He could not answer, expression cracking open.

She quickly took his hand in a tight grip, squeezing it. "I'm so sorry. She talked about you- I-I'm probably not making much sense-"

"Where is she?" the question fell softly from his lips, not a demand like he'd initially wanted. His strength fled, instincts snarling, but limping, wounded. They detested everything her mood signalled, causing his heart to shrivel.

Watery brown eyes slid away, squeezing shut. She couldn't look at him when answering. "She's dead. I-it happened two weeks ago," her words trembled. "I'm so sorry."

Why are you sorry? It is not as though you killed her, Sesshoumaru thought dazedly.

"Two weeks?" he repeated numbly, voice a pale rasp.

He'd missed her. Miscalculated.

Kagome had returned to the Feudal Era at 18. She'd tried and failed to sustain a romance with Inuyasha, living as a village miko for a while before travelling. That was how they'd come to be unlikely companions. A demon lord and his miko. By the end of the year, they'd been lovers. At the end of another- a date had been set for their wedding and subsequent mating.

With an easy smile, Kagome left down the Bone Eater's Well just one week prior until they were to be wed, wanting the reassurance of her mother's arms since her family could not join them.

And she'd never returned.

Inuyasha couldn't cross through, as the magic had seemingly run dry once more. They'd waited many, many, many years, hoping it would grant access again. Fate would not permit it.

Sesshoumaru sank to his knees in the threshold of the doorway. "I missed her by two weeks...after waiting 500 years," he chuckled without humour, the backs of his eyes stinging. A gut-punch of emotion rendered him paper-thin. The roar in his ears became a drawling howl of despair. This couldn't be.

Mrs Higurashi knelt with him, sliding her arms around his shoulders and hugging him close. The demon lord remained stiff and unyielding, reeling with bitter shock. He stared ahead sightlessly, before jerking in her arms. He suddenly gripped her tight, pulling away to look her straight in the eye.

"Mrs Higurashi, the funeral-"

"We've already had it," she said gently.

Sharp teeth flashed in a silent snarl, desperation clawing at his tongue. "Not that. Tell me-" he choked out, blunt nails elongating into claws, biting into her clothing.

"Tell me, was Kagome cremated or buried?"

---

He hadn't thought he would have cause to use it again. Kagome getting mixed up in a car accident much like her father before her had certainly changed his assumptions.

Sesshoumaru's throat burned as he walked by some lonely graves.

Approaching one headstone situated closely beside another in the graveyard, Sesshoumaru spared the second a glance.

"It is far too early for her to be joining you," he rumbled, turning away from Mr Higurashi.

Sunset highlighted sparse, lonely surroundings upon the quiet hill in a fiery orange glow, a red plume painting across the sky.

Sesshoumaru felt his black heart clenching as he knelt before the characters of Kagome Higurashi's name, elongating his fingers into talons. He thrust them into the earth, beginning to dig.

He could've transformed, it would've made the process easier, but a part of him wished for penance after failing her. He'd failed his prospective mate. She never should've died. If he'd just gotten there sooner-

A claw chipped, but Sesshoumaru continued. His hands became caked in dirt, powerful arms moving, muscles coiling to discard the clumps of earth quicker and quicker. He began to sink deeper, willingly descending into the same grave his beloved rested within.

By the time the ground loomed above Sesshoumaru's head on all sides- the sky a rectangular shape above, his clothes had become ruined with mud, brown patches covering his fine suit that he'd worn for the occasion, some dirt marring his sweat coated forehead and cheek.

'Thud!'

Sesshoumaru paused, knuckles having connected with something sturdy.

Panting, moisture stung his eyes. Wiping pebbling dirt away, Sesshoumaru unearthed the sleek brown casket.

"Thank you," he'd whispered into Mrs Higurashi's shoulder, clutching her so tight her bones protested. "Thank you for not cremating her."

Apparently her husband had been foreign, so it felt only right to leave Kagome in the earth, resting beside her Father's grave in the same manner he'd been buried.

Straddling smooth wood, Sesshoumaru flexed his dirt-laden nails, swiping at the secures. Once they were broken off, he stood, grasping one side.

Bracing himself, Sesshoumaru willed his stomach to hold. He tried to summon his old ironclad nerves. His thick skin. The warlord who had seen and smelled plenty of bodies.

Sesshoumaru cracked open the casket, immediately hit with a foul odour.

Choking, he opened it a little further, eyes burning.

The sight of her would be burned into the backs of his retinas forever, and Sesshoumaru knew he shouldn't have looked. Shouldn't have tortured himself thus, but he'd also needed to.

This was the cost of failure. Never let it happen again.

His stomach buckled, and Sesshoumaru clamped a hand over his mouth, shuddering violently. He swallowed a gag, clenching his jaw.

Yanking the casket cover from its hinges, Sesshoumaru tossed it high out of the grave, ripping Tenseiga out of its sheath at his hip while standing over her decaying body.

Letting his glamour melt from his features, golden eyes blazed, silver hair hanging limp and dishevelled. Youki burst into the blade, forcing it to awaken from its centuries-long sleep.

"Kagome," he rasped. "Revive Kagome," he commanded, the blade shining with a bright blue light.

His vision relaxed in order to see the spirits, but alarm clutched his heart.

The pallbearers were nowhere in sight. They'd long since made off with her soul, leaving behind a trail of chains.

With a deafening snarl that tore at his windpipe, Sesshoumaru thrust his free hand down, grasping a chain and pulling with all his might.

Something heavy out of sight made the chain yank taunt- filling him with hazy relief as he dared to hope he wasn't too late.

Clutching one side of Tenseiga's blade between his teeth, Sesshoumaru grasped the chains with both hands, reeling them back in toward him.

He could not see whatever it was he dragged back, the light Tenseiga cast into the spiritual plain only allowing him to see where the chains disappeared to a few feet in front of him.

A good length of slack metal chains had coiled at his feet by the time an outline was dragged into his vision. Kagome's soul still retained her body's appearance, lashes shut. It had a ghostly white glow, motionless. Chains wrapped around her midsection and torso. He quickly dragged her in closer.

Angry pallbearers yelled at Sesshoumaru, clutching onto her sides and hissing. They tried tugging her back in the opposite direction.

With a bellowing snarl, he savagely decapitated them with a swing from Tenseiga.

"I have not come this far only to be stopped by the likes of you," he sneered. Shifted down, Sesshoumaru wrapped an arm gently around her soul, only able to feel a very light sensation. His throat ignited with a harsh burn, eyes pricking, chest tight as he placed it back inside her body, pulling the chains away.

Tenseiga's blue glow faded. Kagome's body healed, the effects and smell of decomposition fading away until she lay as though asleep, flesh unblemished.

Silence deafened the grave.

Sesshoumaru panted softly, heart hammering. His entire being flared with an all-consuming buzz, an unanswered cry. His skin thrummed, hungry for her touch. He needed to hear her voice- he hadn't heard its playful, teasing lift in so long. If she wanted to sing badly or argue with him again, that was fine. He didn't care. Anything was better than this silence.

And why wasn't she opening her eyes? She'd had such lovely, captivating blue eyes.

"Miko," he gritted out, kneeling over her. "Kagome. Kagome…" her name fell from his lips like a mantra. He dropped the sword, gathering her into his arms, dipping his face into curling black hair. She felt so cold. Why was she cold?

Kagome had always been warm, glowing so bright and strong. His priestess had carried the force of a thousand suns in her palms when reiki had exploded from them. And at night… her breath had been hot and ragged on his neck as she'd careened them over the edge, moving atop his lap with fervour.

Sesshoumaru bent into her, arching her back and gripping her so tight he feared she may break.

"Please," he choked out, her hair becoming damp. He'd scarcely begged for anything before, but he prayed in that moment, the fabric of his soul screaming.

He felt it when her chest expanded.

Kagome drew a terrible, choking breath, gasping loudly like she'd been deprived of oxygen. Sesshoumaru immediately pulled away, eyes widening as she fell into a coughing fit, shuddering against him.

Her eyes squeezed shut, a hand lifting to massage the base of her throat.

"Ah… crap, what the heck? When was the last time I drank something?"

Blue eyes pried open to blink up at him, halting his breath.

Recognition softened her features. "Oh, hey you," she smiled, before blinking, gaze straying over his features. "Have you been crying? Why are you covered in dirt?"

Her attention threatened to stray to their surroundings but Sesshoumaru clamped his hands onto the sides of her face, colliding their mouths together.

He poured five hundred years of repressed feeling into that kiss, hand curling in dark hair to cradle the back of her neck. Kagome squeaked but accepted the feverish kisses, tongue meeting his and brushing.

"Wait-" she managed out between kisses. "I- how are you here?" her hands smoothed over his shoulders, touching his shirt. "Did you come through the well?"

Sesshoumaru gathered her close, standing from the casket. Kagome grew stiff in his arms.

"That's a...casket. This is a-" she broke off, breathing becoming thin. "Oh God- oh fuck- what the fuck?!"

Leaping out from the grave, Sesshoumaru landed on soft grass, collapsing to his knees and cradling Kagome on his lap, rocking slightly. He wasn't certain if the motion was to comfort her or himself. She made awful, wailing noises, choking on broken sobs. However after a little while, she swallowed the cries enough to cup his face.

"What- what happened?" she choked out. "You're here."

"I'm here."

He tried his best to explain everything- her departure and subsequent lack of return to the past. The rest were things Mrs Higurashi told him, such as her collision with another vehicle and few hours spent in the hospital unconscious before damaged organs finally failed her.

"I-I remember coming home and driving but nothing else," Kagome gripped him tight. "The Bone Eaters Well...is shut? I can't go through it to see my friends again?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"And you waited all this time," she mumbled, shuddering. "Alone."

"The kit and Inuyasha still live," Sesshoumaru felt her stiffen, stroking her head. "Inuyasha mated a full demon, extending his lifespan, while the kit is enjoying his bachelorhood right now."

Kagome closed her eyes, letting out a shuddering exhale. "That's something at least. I'm glad they're alive."

Too much to absorb all at once. Sesshoumaru no longer wished to discuss such things while beside her grave. He stood while lifting her in his arms, leaving the grave. Kagome glanced over his shoulder, panic and deep, static despair roaming around her scent.

"I was...buried. In there," she said softly, resting her clammy forehead against his neck. "T-thank you," she quivered, "thank you for coming to get me. I'm nowhere near ready to die yet."

"It was this one's failure that resulted in your death in the first place, miko. Do not thank me for attempting to right a wrong that should never have happened."

"What are you talking about?" Kagome's thumb brushed the shell of his pointed ear, reminding him to don the glamour before they left the graveyard. "It was no one's fault, Sesshoumaru. So you got the time wrong- big deal. Calendars change and it would've been hard to take different leap years into account. Besides, I should've been a more careful driver if we're gonna start laying blame," she offered a weak smile, which dropped when he did not respond.

Kagome leaned up within his arms, pressing a sweet kiss to his lips. "Hey," she gently gained his attention, pressing another there, and then another.

Sesshoumaru returned her kisses softly, before tightening his grip, crushing her body against his. His mouth became an urgent pressure against hers, stealing her breath with ardent brushes of his tongue. He cradled her close possessively, trembling.

When they finally pulled away, a little breathless, Kagome rested her forehead against his. "After we see my family, let's go to your place. I don't want to wait any longer than I have to."

He blinked, tilting his head slightly. "For what?"

"To mate you, duh," she smiled, running a reverent thumb beneath his eye, lingering over the tired lines there. "You've waited 500 years after all."

"Kagome, you just awoke from death, and yet you are already planning on dragging me into the bedroom?" surprised exasperation lightened his worn expression, a film covering his eyes. Fondness. Love. Relief to be talking with her again. His strange, painfully unique human woman.

Kagome peppered butterfly kisses over his face, running them down his neck and feeling him purr against her in a way that belied how truly touch starved he was. But she could sense it. See it, from how he leaned slightly into the brush of her lips.

"Let's just say, I could really use a warm body against mine right now," she murmured, everything she didn't want to say left lingering in the air.

The phantom sensation of being locked beneath the ground would remain for a while; long after Sesshoumaru washed the dirt from Kagome's grave out from under his nails.

As they left the gravesite behind, they clung viciously tight to each other, never once looking back.

End

#Sesskag #Sesshoumaru x Kagome #skw2021 #skw2021d2 #sesskagweek2021

[alice-angel12x]

💔Dainseif x Reader

a bit Houseki no Kuni crossover/ characters

It's been so long since the fall of Khaenri'ah, there isn't much I remember from those times. Most of which are small facts and details most likely lost to time. Though there is one precious thing or person I remember before the Gods' wrath fell upon the city, their name was Y/n. I remember their lovely smile, their warm embrace, the softness of their skin, and their melodious voice whispering sweet nothing into my ear.

Sadly they were taken from me in the destruction of Khaenri'ah. It was my duty as the Twilight Sword to protect the people of Khaenri'ah, to protect them, and I failed. A curse of long life was placed upon me as many of the people turned and transformed into monsters.

I fell into despair when the strange goddess from Celestia appeared before me. If I were to stop the rebellion from the abyss, she would return what I lost. At first, I had no idea what she could have meant, but I would learn soon. In desperation, I foolishly agreed to her wishes, looking back now I shouldn't have so stupidly agreed. The gods have never blessed me in the past, I should have never hoped they would in the future. After so long many details of Y/n have faded, and at times I wonder if they were just my imagination.  Yet I did meet strange people along my travels, one of them had grown dear to me.

---------

The last thing I remember is seeing a red sky with a strange goddess glaring down at everyone below. Red and black cubes floated about her. Some was calling out a name, Y/n I believe, then suddenly everything goes black as I was shoved to the ground. During that time of darkness, all I could feel was a strong will. I didn't want to perish and return too... I can no longer remember. Whenever I try to search my mind all I can find is a strange figure standing ahead of me, with its hand outstretched to me.

When I finally opened my eyes, I found myself surrounded by ruins that had long burned. Plants grew through the fissures in the destroyed stones, many skeletons were scattered along the ground. I felt strange for some reason, looking down at my arms, they sparkled in the sunlight. It shined a gleaming blue, it looked like Noctilucous Jade. My whole body seemed to be made of it; my legs, fingers, even my (Hair length) hair glimmered of the gem. Who am I?

I shakily got to my feet, as my body shined in the sun. The land ahead was a beautiful green as the leaves and trees swayed in the gentle wind. I was quite obviously alone, but why? Why was I so desperate for life? Maybe If I wander about I'll... Find my answer.

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

As I tracked the abyss, I came across a small group of the abyss mages. Who was occupied with corning some poor wanderer, raising my hand and unleashing my power made quick work of the horrid creatures. Something was off about this wanderer, so I approached cautiously. This being looked to be made of precious material, jade perhaps. Yet their form looked familiar to me, somehow.

A brief image of Y/n flashed in my mind. Yet I quickly shook my head, they are not the same. Everyone from Khaenri'ah

"umm, thank you, sir," They said as they slowly stood.

As looked them over, and noticed they wore greatly diminished garments of a Khaenri'ahen citizen. "Where did you get those clothes?" I asked.

"I don't know, I just woke up with these clothes," The being said as they looked down at their clothes.

"So wondered, why do you travel teyvat?" I asked them.

"I do not remember, I just remember not wanting to parish and return to someone. Yet I can't remember who?" they said with a confused look in their eyes. " Why do you travel?"

"That is not important," I said simply.

"So why do your eyes appear so sad?" They asked again.

"What do you mean?" I asked them.

"You seem lonely. Can I travel with you, just till I find my answer," They begged?

Staring at their sparkling face, I couldn't shake that feeling of familiarity. Still, if they really are a tiny few of Khaenri'ahen that survive, and didn't turn into monsters. I guess their companionship would be fine I suppose.

"If that is what you wish I won't stop you, but I will be following dangerous monsters. I will not always be able to protect you, so follow at your own risk," I warned them.

"Thank you, Mr... Umm,"

"Dainseif," I answered. ," And what of your name?"

"Mr.Dainseif," They smiled warmly

"I don't remember my name, I'm not sure if I have one," The being said.

"Hmm, well from now on your name is... Jade," Dainseif said.

"Well, my name is jade. Mr.Dainseif,"

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

It has been 500 years since the fall of Khaenri'ah.

I have been traveling with Jade for almost as long, even when they learned many things of me. Even when the abyss princess offered Jade the option to join her and her war on destiny, Jade always remained by my side.

"Why didn't you leave with Lumine, jade?" I asked them.

"I understand her, but I don't think the entire fall of Khaenri'ah is your fault. And I don't think you're a bad person, so you must be doing this for a good reason," Jade smiled.

"No, I'm doing this for a selfish reason. The gods of Celestia promised me, that if I take down the abyss, they would return Y/n to me," Dainseif said with a sad and bitter look on his face," I was foolish to accept, but I now know better to anger the gods."

"You must really love this Y/n. That so sweet," Jade smiled warmly.

"I think they would have agreed with you, but it's unlikely they would actually return them to me," I explained.

"Well, it wouldn't be godly of them if they don't uphold their own promise right?" Jade asked.

"I suppose, but who can say," I said as a sigh escaped my lips." I really do hope Y/n is waiting for me at the end of this journey."

"So it's off to mondstadt right?" Jade asked with an excited smile on their face.

"Yes,"

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

In mondstadt we met a very odd but familiar-looking traveler, he looked very similar to Lumine, but with longer hair and different clothing. With him a floating child accompanied him, they seemed to be interested in Mr.Dainsleif. Soon they accompanied us on the hunt for the abyss herald. Soon we found ourselves in wolvendom

"Stay here Jade, I'm going to look around for further clues. If danger comes around, just find me, or run to safety and I'll come and find you," Dainsleif said gently to me.

"Alright, be careful," I said with slight worry on my face.

Dainsleif nodded as he patted my head softly. As I waited for his return My mind tried to dig further into my hazier memories. She remembers running with someone pulling her past the destruction of Khaenri'ah. Yet I was pulled from my thoughts when the traveler and Paimon shortly arrived.

"Oh, where did Dain go?" Paimon asked.

"He went to investigate the area further," I answered." He'll be back soon."

" O-oh alright. Hey, Jade right? So how long have you been traveling with Dain?" Piamon asked.

"For as long as I can remember," I answered simply.

"What is Dain like, if I may ask?" aether asked.

"Well. When I first met him, he was quiet and hard to talk to since he mostly kept to himself," I said, as I thought back. " Though Know he is very caring in his own way, and he is very lonely behind his stoic face."

"Lonely? W-what makes you say that?" Paimon asked.

"Well, a long time ago he lost his lover. And at times, I think he projects them onto me," I said slowly.

"What do you mean?" Aether asked.

"Sometimes when he is in time of sorrow, he would hug and hold me close, and whisper sweet things to me, but the name he calls is Y/n," I said sadly." The next day he would ask me to forget about it."

"Wha that so sad, Paimon feels sorry for him," Painmon frowns.

"What about you? Why do you travel with him?" Aether asked.

"At first I simply followed in hopes to learn about myself, and why I am this way along my journey with Dainsleif. Maybe learn what I have forgotten, but know I follow Dainsleif to keep him company. I can learn about my origins after Dain finishes his journey." I smiled.

But before we could continue our conversation, abyss mages and hilicurls appeared. They surrounded us as they slowly closed in on us. Aether readied his sword, as I unsheathed my sword as well.

The fight was tough, I got scrapped and chipped along the way but we managed. It of now was an ice shard flew past and cracked a good chunk of my face. Half of my face was broken off, but thankfully traveler made quick work of the monster.

"Ahh! Jade are you okay?!" Paimon gasped.

"I'm fine, thou could you help look for my face?" I asked.

"Jade!" Dainsleif called out.

I slowly and nervously turned to face Dain. As I slowly opened my one eye and saw the sadness and worry in his eyes.

" What happened? I thought I told you to run away at the first sign of danger," Dainsleif said as he cupped my cheek and held me close.

" We were surrounded, there was no choice but to fight," I said to him.

"You need to be careful, you're too fragile," Dainsleif sighed as his fingers traced the cracks on my face. As I stared I could see he wasn't seeing me.

"I'm fine, I just need the left side of my face," I said as I looked away.

"Y/- Jade, please be careful," Dain stuttered as he looked away bashfully," I'm sorry."

--------

Soon the two groups parted ways as Aether and Paimon watched them leave.

"Wow, Dain must really miss this Y/n person if he mistakes two different people," Paimon sighed sadly.

"Something tells me there destiny and journey are more intertwined then they relieaze," Aether said veguly.

"What makes you say that?" Paimon asked.

"Aether is not wrong about that," Venti said as he suddenly appeared.

"AHHH! Tone deaf bard what are you doing here?!" Paimon gasped.

"I was around dragon spire for awhile. Those two have such a tragic story," Venti frowned sadly.

"What do you mean?" Paimon asked

"The princess the knight searches for has always been by his side, and the companion made of beautiful jade's answer had always been beside them," Venti said sadly as he strumd his lyre.

#genshin impact #genshin dainsleif #genshin impact x reader #Angst #dainsleif x reader

[lenskij]

The StoryGraph's Translation Challenge 2021 - a reflection

Today I just finished this 10 prompt reading challenge! I had so much fun doing it, especially since I’ve for years wanted to expand my reading beyond the same old and familiar I’ve been reading until now, but I didn’t come around to actually do it until I came across The StoryGraph's Translation Challenge 2021.

The rules are: pick a book for each prompt that has been translated from a language that isn’t English. For myself, I added another rule - it can’t be translated from any language I speak, either. I also wanted to find an individual book for each prompt - if there was a book that would fit in two prompts, I counted it for only one of them and chose another for the other.

I wanted to share my little translation journey with everyone here, hence this post. The prompts, what book I chose for each, and my thoughts on them are below the cut!

Also: I’m always on the lookout for non-English books! Bonus points if they’re from outside of Europe ^w^ Hit me up with your recommendations!

1. A translated fantasy or sci-fi novel

Stanisław Lem: Солярис (Solaris) Translated from Polish to Russian by Д. Брускин

This book has been living on my sister’s bookshelf for years, and while I was visiting her I read it. It didn’t impress me in any way, it felt like any regular old sci-fi, although a bit creepy (and just a lil dash of sexism).

2. A book written by a Black woman in translation

Marie NDiaye: La Cheffe (La Cheffe) Translated from French to Swedish by Maria Björkman

This is a lovely novel, even if it focused on French food - and the detailed descriptions reminded me that French food is overrated. I loved the character la Cheffe, it was highly enjoyable to read about her relationship to people and her profession, and the narrator had sweet heart eyes that shined through the text.

3. A translated book originally published before 1950

Choderlos de Laclos: Farliga förbindelser (Les Liaisons dangereuses) Translated from French to Swedish by Arvid Enckell.

This prompt was the easiest to fulfill, and I had several choices for it. I've spoken about this book elsewhere on this here blog - it's morbidly fascinating to read about terrible, terrible people.

4. A translated non-fiction book

Romaric Godin: Klasskriget i Frankrike (La guerre sociale en France) Translated from French to Swedish by Johan Wollin

For this prompt, I went to a local bookstore and asked the seller for help. She had to dig around for a while before she found something that wasn't originally written in English - like she pointed out, most academics choose to write in English, even if they're not native speakers.

I picked this one because I've seen snapshots of the yellow wests in the news, but I know barely any of the context. Although the book is short, it's a pretty detailed overview of recent French economic history, with an emphasis on explaining why and how French neo-liberalism ended up looking like it is today (and why French neo-liberalism is different from the neo-liberalism in the rest od Europe). This tickled my inner economics nerd.

5. A translated novel 500 pages or longer

Isabel Allende: Andarnas hus (La Casa de los Espíritus) Translated from Spanish to Swedish by Lena Anér Melin

Another book that has been sitting on my sister's shelf! I absolutely loved it - a family saga, in a time of social change. Look, my favourite part about any book is when the characters feel like humans, even if they're not relatable, I can still understand them.

6. A book translated from Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish or Icelandic

Vigdis Hjorth: Arv och miljö (Arv og miljø) Translated from Norwegian to Swedish by Ninni Holmqvist

In my case, it meant a book translated from either Danish, Norwegian or Icelandic (I do have to pepper in the fact that I'm a polyglot, after all). It's my sister who recommended it to me, and she was right when she said this was good! I loved the three separate timelines, the prose, and the family drama.

7. A translated book by a South American author

María Sonia Cristoff: Håll mig utanför (Inclúyanme afuera) Mariana Enríquez: Det vi förlorade i elden (Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego)Translated from Spanish to Swedish by Hanna Axén

What? Two books?? Yes, when I searched the library catalogue it spit out these two - because they have the same translator - and since they both seemed interesting I checked both of them out.

Unfortunately, these are the two books of this challenge that I liked the least. The first one didn't have a premise that worked with me - the main character chose to listen more than she spoke for a year as an experiment, and as an introvert, to whom this is how I've always lived my life, it was hard for me to understand what the big deal was.

The second was just my personal taste - these short stories had bloody ghosts, and ended abruptly without quite resolving the story - that creepiness just doesn't vibe with me.

8. A translated book by a Chinese author

Eileen Chang: Ett halvt liv av kärlek (Banshengyuan) Translated from Chinese to Swedish by Anna Gustafsson Chen

After quite a slow start I suddenly was drawn into this book. It's such a lovely read on when life doesn't always work out the way you want, and you still do your best to be happy. It felt very real, without being a 'happily ever after', or it's opposite of endless tears - that sweet middle ground spot.

9. A book translated from Arabic

Rajaa Alsanea: Flickorna från Riyadh (Banāt al-Riyāḍ) Translated from Arabic to Swedish by Tetz Rooke

I found this when messing around with the "similar books"-algorithm on Storygraph (I've just finished Unmarriageable, and liked it a so much I wanted to find something similar). When this one popped out I noticed the Arabic author name, and checked it out from the library. I've actually never read any book set in the Middle East, and I loved seeing a glimpse of life there (naturally, this isn't a comprehensive illustration - the main characters were all from well-off families). The most interesting thing was how the characters adjusted their behaviour as they travelled between Europe and Saudi Arabia - the social rules are different depending on where you are (and if you meet a fellow Saudi in London, your day is ruined - because suddenly you have to behave in accordance to Saudi rules).

10. A book translated from a language spoken in India

Vivek Shanbhag: Ghachar ghochar (Ghāchar ghōchar) Translated from Kannada to English by Srinath Perur; translated to Swedish by Peter Samuelsson

At first I was cranky about that this is a translation of a translation - but in the acknowledgements I read that it was the author's request that the book is to be translated from English. I assume it's because the English translator already has made the inevitable tradeoffs between language and form, which the author approved, and so the Swedish translator wouldn't have to make the decisions all over again.

This was a short book, just over a hundred pages. It barely had any plot, but it didn't need any - the description of the family members' relationship to each other was juicy enough.

In conclusion

This challenge was a great opportunity for me to also try genres I never would have tried otherwise - I was limited to what my library had, and especially for the smaller languages, it's a limited choice. I've been talking about this translation challenge to everyone I know because I've had so much fun! And the best part is - it's only ten prompts. That means I wouldn't need to scram to finish it in time, even while also reading the regular same old books I do still want to read. While I'm waiting for the 2022 challenge, I'll be doing another round for these prompts - I've already checked out a short story collection originally written in Tamil, and a nonfiction about Syrian resistance originally written in Arabic :)

#liz talks #books #i had so much fun guys! #do give me translation recs :D #look the only thing that brings me joy nowadays are books and talking about books #but i also feel inspired to write an evil onegin essay so maybe im slowly turning back into my old self #for better or worse lol #thank you to everyone who actually read the entire post i do really appreciate it

[askyourwritergrandma]

Hello, grandma!

I just found your blog and have been trying to come up with a question for you! I finally did it, so here goes:

I only write stories in third person, so I've gotten pretty good at it. I know exactly how to describe things and I'm really good at writing how characters are feeling. It might be because third person doesn't have to be so characterized?

I have a couple of projects that I want to work on that are in first person. I read a lot of first person books and know the general vibe that each of the characters would give off as they narrate. I've started writing multiple times, but here's the kicker: I just...can't do it.

Everything seems flat and just not like anything the character would ever say. Descriptions that are definitely necessary for the story are completely out of character and all the parts that say what the character does just end up looking like I replaced all the uses of pronouns with "I".

What can I do to learn about first person and get better at it?

Hi void-fireworks!

Thank you for finding a question for me! And oh boy, did you find me a question. First off, high five for the third person (limited, for me) perspective solidarity! It is also the perspective where I write almost everything because it's the most comfortable and natural for me.

Almost to a fault, because like you, any time I try to write in any other perspective it suddenly feels like I'm pushing a square boulder up a steep frozen incline.

A few things to keep in mind, maybe:

I think its important to clarify the difference in characterization needs between third person/first person. It's not that you need less characterization for 3rd person, it's that you deliver it in different ways. You're not inside their skull experiencing life through their skin, you're standing like right behind them watching them live their life.

3rd person is this:

Deborah was just like all the other girls clustered together outside the amphitheater doors. From her fresh paint peach nails to her tight, high pony tail, she was as much a slut for Singer McSingson as the screaming girls around her.

1st person is this:

The girl to my right must have done her shopping at Polish Inc because the gleaming peach of her fingernails was identical to mine. I'd bought, and she'd bought it, because it was Singer McSingson's favorite color for a girl (so he said in Horny Teens volume 121). I had a pointed elbow digging into my ribs and frayed ends of a store-bought pony tail sticking to my tongue. It didn't matter how crushed and indistinguishable I was in the crowd, once one of us started screaming, all of us were screaming.

In 3rd person, your characterization is how your character looks from the outside and letting your reader interpret that themselves. 1st person, your characterization is both the physical attributes you give your character but also how they choose to describe what they notice and what they actual notice. The end result of both is that Debbie views herself as one of the gals, isn't at all embarrassed by it and probably really wants to bang the boy band.

I think, since you feel confident in your ability to describe things and you have a good understanding of your characters, the best thing you can do to get used to 1st person is character studies? Basically just use the character outside of the story to write 200-500 word scenes where they do basically anything.

(Again, this is where those writing practice/writing prompt challenges all over the internet come in handy.)

Since this is a new skill you're developing, if you start out trying to manage learning how to use 1st person, how to use it for this specific character and developing character/plot/setting for your story it easily becomes overwhelming. Take that pressure off. Start small.

Oh man, this last part of your ask haunts me all the time. Every time I'm doing 1st person it gets to the part where they have to do something and it comes out like:

I stood up and my feet hurt. I needed socks because the floor was so cold. However, my dresser was across the room and the floor was very cold. I could not get back in bed. I had to go get socks. I got the socks and I put them on.

I'm okay if the story is short or if they aren't moving around a lot but you can't really write a novel based around a person giving the first hand account of never getting out of their chair.

Ultimately, I think it just comes down to practice. When/if you decide to do character studies or try writing out 200 word scenes, challenge yourself to describe character action but limit the number of times you can use the sentence structure "I verb..." to 5, then lower it to 4, then 3, then 2, then 1. Force yourself to learn how to describe action/motion and even description without relying on "I verb" sentences.

Once you get to a point where you've developed a bit of confidence with it, start writing your story again. If you get that feeling that it's too much and everything is bad, hit the pause button, do a few practice rounds again, find your groove and get back into it.

I hope that helps. I don't have a ton of confidence with 1st person myself. If anyone else has ideas that have worked for them feel free to reblog or reply!

#writing help #writing advice #writing perspective #writing first person #writers of tumblr

[ikeromantic]

Working Together

This is a fic for @cinnamon-hoe featuring her OC Carina and Mitsuhide, requested during my 300 follower celebration in January! It was meant to be out two weeks ago but took longer than I expected to finish. I hope she enjoys it - and I hope you do too. Approx 4000 words of fluffiness!

Mitsuhide kept his expression still as Carina eyed the monks along the road. In her disguise as a merchant, that look made her seem shrewd - perfectly in character, but he knew what she was thinking. 

She confirmed he was right when she leaned over to whisper, “Do you think any of these are working with Ashikaga?” 

The disgraced shogun hadn’t shown his face since he’d been beaten, but his continued existence grated. It required Mitsuhide to maintain spies on all properties linked with the shogun’s family and allies, no small thing. For the last month, he and Carina traveled from one clan land to another, contacting his spies and handlers in person. Normally he left this work to Kyubei, but this time he’d wanted to make the trip.

Because of Carina. Spending time with her in Azuchi meant sharing her attention at least six different ways when he wanted her all to himself. He loved to have her eyes on him - and only him - and the long weeks of travel gave him exactly that.

He reached out and drew a finger along the edge of her jaw. A light touch. Teasing. 

Carina’s eyes widened and her full attention turned to him. “We’re in public . . .” Her words were at odds with the light in her eyes.

Mitsuhide smiled. “Does this count as public? No one is watching us. The monks have their attention on the path ahead. And the other merchants are busy with their own concerns . . .” He let his fingers drift down to her neck, to her collarbone.

She pulled back and smacked his hand, adjusting her clothes. “Yes it counts!”

Ah that temper. It only made him smile wider. And her fiery look made him want to kiss her. Before she could react, he placed a light kiss on her lips. Just fast enough to avoid another smack.

“Merda.” She frowned. “If you’re going to do it, may as well do it right.” Then she stood up on tiptoe and gave him a passionate kiss.

It surprised him, but his body reacted while his mind processed, stopping to wrap his arms around her, his lips welcoming her touch. She tasted of spice and honey, and she was so warm. His hands stroked down her back, wishing they were alone so he could feel her without all these clothes in the way. Mitsuhide could never get his fill of her, not if he had 500 years.

When they finally broke the kiss, some of the merchants and monks nearby applauded, smiling and laughing in a good-natured way.

Carina blushed.

Mitsuhide felt a little smug. But to Carina he bowed his head. “I defer to your wisdom, little one. It seems this does count as public.”

“Tch.” She pretended to check the cart, making sure the ties were secure. 

Soon, the road rounded the trees and in the distance, Mitsuhide could see their destination. Rokuon-ji. It shone in the afternoon light, surrounded by a surfeit of trees, the branches heavy with buds. 

“Is that it,” Carina asked, shading her eyes.

“Yes.”

Despite the beauty of the place, his little mouse wore a heavy frown. “If shark-eyes has allies here, what will we do about them?”  

“You need do nothing but relax, and continue to play the part of a merchant’s wife.” 

“Like hell. You promised to be honest with me. And tell me what you’re planning.” 

Mitsuhide sighed. He was being honest with her - or at least, mostly so. “I am. I have.” He took her hand and laced his fingers with hers. “There is no sign these monks are working with Yoshiaki, but I will meet with a contact here. That’s all.”

Carina pouted, looking like she didn’t quite believe him.

“I need you to maintain the facade of a trader’s wife.” He squeezed her hand. It wasn’t the whole truth, but a man needed to have some surprises for his lover.

“Fine. I can do that. But I know there’s something you’re not telling me.” 

“Mmm, maybe there is. I haven’t told you today that you’re lovely, after all. Or that I’d like to kiss every inch of you. Starting with your fingertips. I don’t think I’ve mentioned-”

“Mitsu!” She was blushing furiously now, exactly the reaction he’d hoped for. 

“You did ask . . .” 

There wasn’t much room to say more as they guided the cart off the main road and onto the path toward Rokuon-ji. A few of the monks turned with them but most of the travelers continued on. 

A feeling of peace settled over them as they walked. This place felt apart from the dusty road and the towns and cities they’d passed through. Here, small deer walked between the trees, unafraid. Birds sat close by in the branches, watching their passage with beady black eyes. The wind smelled of green, growing things. 

Carina’s frown slowly turned into a relaxed smile, and even Mitsuhide found the tension in his body coming undone. 

The three-storied monastery sat beside a lake, where little tree-dotted islands floated. Robed men walked the grounds, digging and pruning, planting and hauling. All hard at work under the gaze of a stern-eyed abbot. He greeted the newcomers personally, first by pressing his hands together and saying “Welcome,” then coming to each individually. He spoke with each of the traveling monks, and finally came to the two ‘merchants.’

When he took Mitsuhide’s hands, the old abbot smiled. “A merchant eh?”

“What else?” 

Carina seemed surprised by his warm greeting, as the abbot took both her hands in his. “And you . . . “ His eyebrows lifted as he cradled her two hands in his large, calloused ones. 

“And me?” She pulled away, nervous. 

“You are also welcome here, traveler.” He motioned toward the monastery. The abbot’s gaze returned to Mitsuhide. “Have you brought tools and cloth, items to trade?” 

“We have. As I mentioned in my letter.” Mitsuhide gestured to the wagon. “All discussed items are here.”

“Excellent.” The abbot rubbed his hands together as he called a few of the monks over to unload the cart.

Carina sidled up to Mitsuhide, whispering. “So what’s the plan? Butter them up to get them to admit they’re working with Ashikaga?”

Mitsuhide settled an arm around her shoulder. “Something like that.” He turned her toward a grove of budding trees. “What I need you to do is go there and find a smooth patch of ground, preferably under a tree. Large enough for two to sit comfortably . . .”

“A spot to watch the monastery from? Alright.” She watched the monks unload, her eyes narrowed. “I don’t know why we need to watch them from the trees. They don’t really seem to care if we see what they’re doing.”

“You will have to trust me, little mouse.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead before going inside. 

Inside, he arranged a place to sleep with his wife, and their supper. He also spoke with his informant. The news left him smiling. 

Outside, Carina walked between the trees, admiring the beauty of this place. It was hard to imagine it had anything to do with shark-eyes. It was too peaceful. Too nice. And there was something familiar about it too. As if she’d been here before - which was possible. In her own time, this place might still exist as something else. 

She spent about half her time looking for the kind of spot she thought would work for proper spying. A line of sight to the road and the monastery, but well-cloaked by low-hanging branches. The rest of her time, she looked for evidence. Some sign this place wasn’t as peaceful as it seemed. But the monks she passed all smiled and greeted her. No one whispered in corners or watched her.

“Little one?”

Mitsuhide’s voice surprised Carina. She did a little hop in place and turned to see him smiling at her. 

“I didn’t mean to frighten you.” 

“I wasn’t scared.” Carina took a breath, settling her nerves. All of the not-acting-suspicious-monks were making her nervous. “How long do we need to be here,” she asked.

Mitsuhide shrugged. “As I understand it, we should see what we came for tomorrow. My informant assures me by early afternoon, if not morning, all will be . . . “ He trailed off. 

“What? All will be what?” 

He took her shoulder and turned her to face what he was looking at. The lake. It reflected the reds and pinks of the sky, as if the lake itself were ablaze in the sunset. It was beautiful. Made more so as Mitsuhide settled his arms around her, pulling Carina against his chest. 

She couldn’t help but relax against him. His hand went to her hair, undoing the bun she kept it in for traveling. His fingers were cool and gentle as he combed the tangles out of her wavy brown locks. He placed little kisses along the sides of her neck. 

“But . . . the monks . . .” 

“Mmm, they’ve gone inside for evening meditation,” he murmured. His breath purred across her skin, sending little warm shivers through her. 

“Shouldn’t . . . we .  . . be-” Carina tried to point out they had work to do, but it was impossible to think when he teased her like this. 

“We are doing exactly as we should,” he replied. He eased her top down her shoulders to expose more skin to his lips. Mitsuhide knew right now she was caught between enjoying his touch and her worry over being spotted. He wondered which would win if he kept going. How far would she let him take this? If he was honest with himself, he wanted to enjoy all of her out here. To see her beauty unveiled in the light of the setting sun. Light cinnamon skin against the red glow of the lake and sky.

He turned her to face him, capturing her mouth in a passionate kiss. She couldn’t object when her tongue was too busy dancing against his to speak. Mitsuhide’s hands pushed her top further down, stroking her upper arms and back. Then his teasing fingers went to her breasts. 

Carina gasped, a little moan escaping between kisses. His touch lit a fire in her that threatened to devour all sense. She could imagine laying him down in the soft grass. Pulling clothing out of the way. Straddling Mitsu and riding him until they both collapsed from the pleasure of it. And damn him but he sensed her desire and seemed all too willing to make her imagination reality. 

“M-mitsu - we - we have to -” she managed the words between kisses. “We have . . . a room . . . right?”

“Mhmmm,” he purred, lifting her up to press her against a nearby tree. His hand slid up her thigh, sending little arcs of electric need through her.

Carina’s eyes shut as she held back a cry of pleasure. She was ready to give in. Afterall, no one was watching. And it felt so good . . . his touch, the cool air, everything . . .

But Mitsuhide set her down and tugged her top back up. “You are right, little mouse. We do have a room. And I am sure there is supper waiting for us.” He couldn’t help but chuckle at her expression.

“Te odeio,” she sighed, not meaning it at all. Her body throbbed with the unsatisfied yearning. She poked a finger at him. “You will finish this later. You can’t just . . . tease me like that.”

Mitsuhide took her hand and held it to his lips, pressing nipping kisses to each finger tip. “This is only a beginning, little one. I can’t finish when I am only just starting.” 

The heat in his eyes would have melted the arctic, she thought. And how did he make just kissing her fingers feel so good?!?

He kept ahold of her hand as they walked back to the monastery. By the time they got to their room, the stars were out and full dark had fallen. There was a little table in their room with hot tea and simple fare. Rice and vegetables. 

Carina’s first sip of tea was a pleasant surprise. “Red tea?”

“Your favorite.” Mitsuhide gave a smug smile as he lifted his own cup to drink. 

“You brought it.” Carina gave him a happy smile. It never ceased to amaze her that despite all of the things Mitsuhide had to worry about, he still remembered all her likes and dislikes.

He smiled at her gently. All of his hungry passion was still there, in his golden gaze, but there was a wealth of love too. As if he was looking at his greatest treasure when he looked into Carina’s hazel eyes.  “I won’t deny it.”

“Hm. That confession came too easy. That means you’re hiding something else.” She settled down to eat. “I will find out what it is, you know. One way or another.”

Mitsuhide smiled. “I look forward to experiencing your interrogation techniques after dinner. It will be interesting to see what you’ve learned in our time together.” His expression left no doubt as to the intent of his words. 

Carina blushed. She loved his teasing and word games but sometimes . . . “You almost got a taste of them in the garden.”

“I know.” 

She caught a hint of color in his cheeks too. The sight brought more than a little satisfaction. 

A knock at the door interrupted the moment building between them. Mitsuhide felt a little frisson of frustration, but good things were better for the waiting. Or at least, so he told himself as he left the room to speak with their visitor.

The abbot led him up the stairs to the top of the temple. From there, they looked out at the dark lake. It glittered with the light of the overhead stars, and the warm glow of temple lanterns. 

“I know why you are here, kitsune. You need not approach under such a thin disguise.” 

Mitsuhide shrugged. “I am here for the exact reason I gave. And this disguise was not for you. My wife and I have stopped in many towns as we’ve traveled.” 

The abbot nodded after a moment. “I believe you. I have seen the way your eyes touch her. She is your spirit of compassion.”

The kitsune warlord didn’t believe in such things, but he supposed if there was such a spirit, it would be Carina. He said nothing. 

After a long silence, the abbot spoke again. “Is there a worry among the Oda that my monks pose a threat? We do not wield the influence we once had . . .”

Ah, there it is, thought Mitsuhide. The real reason behind this evening visit. “I do not know the mind of Lord Nobunaga.”

“Yet you know your own motions. And your concerns are also his.” The abbot turned his stern eyes to Mitsuhide. In them was a lifetime of wisdom and work, sorrows and forgiveness. 

“I do.” Mitsuhide met the gaze without flinching. He had his own strength, afterall. A core of steel, flexible, like his blade, but unbreakable. “If I felt you were a threat, would I announce it, abbot? You know my reputation.”

The abbot nodded, and after another breath, he looked away. “If we were a threat, I think this temple would be ash already. Yet I must ask.”

“And you have.” Mitsuhide turned to go back down the stairs. “My wife is waiting.”

“Goodnight, kitsune. I hope that tomorrow brings you the joy you seek.” The abbot stayed at the railing.

Mitsuhide half-hoped to resume where they’d left off, but Carina was curled up on the futon, asleep. He didn’t blame her. Travel was tiring, and his little one always pushed herself too hard. He got ready for bed and slipped in behind her. She turned, pressing her face to his chest with a little sigh of satisfaction.

There was nothing better than this in all the world, Mitsuhide thought. Than to hold and be held by your lover. 

Their peace was all too short. Before dawn broke, a shouting woke the sleeping couple. A shout, and the smell of smoke. Outside, men on horses rode past, tossing lit branches at the monastery and into the gardens. The monks rallied to defend themselves. 

Mitsuhide and Carina took a quick survey of the scene. 

“I will help the monks hold the attackers back. I need you to organize an effort to put out the fire before it causes more damage.” Mitsuhide grabbed his sword and leapt out past the windowsill. 

“Be careful,” Carina shouted after him. Then she set to work. She didn’t know this place or these monks, and even though she was still suspicious, she didn’t want to see this place burn. It was too beautiful. 

Mitsuhide smiled at her sweet concern. She should know by now that he was never careful, not with himself. But he always acted with intent. This was no different. He leapt from the building onto one of the passing horsemen, shoving the attacker to the ground. And from horseback, he chased and cut at the bandits. 

Up close, they looked liked soldiers. Or men that had once been warriors, now turned to banditry. He felt little pity for such men. Those willing to abandon any principle in the hope of an easier path to wealth and comfort. 

Carina ran out of her room, grabbing the first monk she ran across. “You! Grab a bucket - a jug - anything, and come with me!” 

The monk looked at her in shock, then nodded. “Yes - a jug!” He scrambled away, grabbing an empty wine jug. 

Carina didn’t wait for him. She kept going, grabbing every monk she could get to and giving them the same order. By the time she ran out of the shrine, they had enough people to form a proper water line. It would have to do. 

Mitsuhide saw her exit the mansion with a gaggle of monks carrying random containers. Perfect. One of the bandits must have thought so as well. He wheeled his mount toward Carina and the monks, his sword held at the ready.

With a shout that sounded more animalistic than human, Mitsuhide turned his horse too. He rode for the bandit, intent on intercepting him. It was close. This mount was nowhere near as fast as those in Nobunaga’s stables, nor as well trained. But it closed the distance with the bandit, and the man was forced to pull up short.

The bandit swung his sword at Mitsuhide, but he was too slow. 

Mitsuhide deftly ducked under the cut and used the flat of his blade to slap the man’s sword hand. 

The bandit dropped his sword with a yelp. 

“Call off these other men, and we will let you leave in peace,” Mitsuhide shouted.

The bandit gave a cruel smile. Instead of answering, he pulled a shorter blade from his belt and lunged toward the kitsune warlord.

Mitsuhide wasn’t able to move out of the way, but he got his sword up in time to block. He pushed the bandit away with a leg, shoving him right off his horse. The bandit landed on his feet and kept coming. There was no bloodless way out of this, Mitsuhide thought. 

He swung his sword again, this time severing the man’s hand from his arm. The bandit went down with a cry. 

The other bandits sensed the tide turn against them, and the ones that could, rode away. The handless man tried to run too, but he didn’t get far before passing out. One of the monks grabbed him and dragged him back to tie up with the others. 

Carina was so busy putting out the literal fires that she hadn’t noticed Mitsuhide’s heroism. She was smeared with mud and ash, and her body felt more tired than it had when she first went to sleep. Despite her shaking hands, she kept her place in the water line, grabbing the water filled containers as they were passed along, and sending them up the line.

Mitsuhide joined, though he doubted the good one more set of hands could do. He took a spot beside Carina. 

Her fatigue was clear, but she was so stubborn. When he looked over at her, she gave him a firm, bright smile. “You cleared off the bandits?”

“Most of them. But you haven’t put out the fire yet.” 

Carina laughed. “I was waiting for you to join me. I didn’t want to take all the credit.”

“Well, I’m here now so let’s finish it, hm?” 

His smile seemed to grant her another burst of energy. They worked together, passing bucket after bucket of water forward, and the empty ones back. Even with the work of all the monks, it was still another hour before the last of the fires was out. 

The golden walls of the building smoked from the scorching, and some of the nearby trees were blackened. But it could have been much worse. Smoke in the wind told Mitsuhide that for some, it was. 

The abbot brought wine around in cups, and food, to those collapsed in place. And to the prisoners, who would be carted before a magistrate for judgement. “I thank you for your help,” he told Mitsuhide and Carina. “You acted quickly and without concern for yourselves.” He gave a short bow. “I am sorry for my suspicion before.”

Mitsuhide nodded. “I would have been suspicious of me too. Now, if you don’t mind. I think I’d like to rest.”

The abbot nodded and went on to others still waiting.

Mitsuhide half carried Carina a little way off from the smoking structure to sit beneath one of the trees and rest. She leaned back against his chest, drowsing in the pale, early morning sun. 

“Did you know those men were coming?” She tilted her head to look at him.

“No. I didn’t come here for that.” Mitsuhide wrapped his arms around her, resting his hands on her belly. 

“Do you think it’s because of-”

“No.” He interrupted her. “Ashikaga has no interest in this place. His family has not held court here for a long time. I doubt the shogun even knows this place exists.” 

Carina regarded him silently. Thinking. 

Mitsuhide knew she was trying to worry the trip at all angles. What purpose did this monastery serve? In her history lessons, what import did it have? Was the location strategic? He was quite proud of his little mouse. She learned so quickly, and was so eager to put what she knew to use. He had only to give her a book on a subject, and she’d apply herself to it . . . but in this case, all of those answers were wrong.

“I wanted to share the cherry blossoms with you,” he said softly. His voice was so quiet she almost didn’t hear him.

“You . . . what?”

He kissed the top of her head. “I wanted to show you something beautiful. Just you and I. So I wrote the abbot.” 

She smiled widely. 

“My contact here told me the buds would blossom today. But I suppose he was wrong.” 

Carina laid the back of her head against his chest again, looking up at the tree branches. Sunlight filtered down through them. The wind whispered through the tree tops. It blew away the smoke and fear of the night before and brought back the serenity of this place. 

“I don’t think he was wrong. Look.” Carina pointed up, where the high branches were bathed in sunlight. And there, the buds began to unfurl. A slow dance of petals opening to the sun. Pink and white blooms that spread wide. As the warmth of day made its way to the lower branches, more buds opened, until the tree above them and the branches around them were cloaked in a robe of flowers. 

Mitsuhide could not help but smile at her look of awe. He felt it too. Lucky to be alive and in this moment with her. 

“Meu Deus . . . It is so beautiful,” she sighed.

“It is,” Mitsuhide agreed. “But there are other flowers more exquisite still.” He stroked a hand through her hair. 

“Oh?” Carina blushed and caught his hand with her own.

“Of course. I am lucky enough to be in the presence of one every day.” 

She laughed. “I am no flower, Mitsu . . . I am a mess.”

He chuckled, pulling her closer. “Perhaps that is part of your charm.”

Carina didn’t answer, only held tighter to him.

#ikemen sengoku #ikesen mitsuhide #ikemen mitsuhide #Mitsuhide Akechi #otome boys #otome #fanfiction #fanfic #fluff #oc

[singeramg]

CONGRATS ON 500!!! I'm going to request #7 “Good boy”, for MIKEY please. 😈

Title: Do You Want To Be Good?

Rating: NC-17 (Come on now, y'all know what this is)

Character: Mike (Hellraiser Series) x Y/n

Warnings: Sub! Mike, Domme! Reader, Oral (F/M), Masterbation, Groping, Orgasm Denial

A/n: This was fun and new for me! Thank you for giving and chance and even more thanks for the congrats! Hope this meets your expectations! I may write more for lil Mikey baby in the future.

Check out my Masterlist for more Fun!

“Sexus”

The tiny sound of a buzz, keys you in that the door has been unlocked for you. Your stilettos click across the dark alleyway and up the equally dark steps and pass the doorway. It didn’t look like much out front and that was by design because this was one of the most exclusive places in the city. The club you were attending tonight catered to a very specific crowd and even if you knew about it, it didn’t guarantee you would be let in. Club Noir was strictly for those in the BDSM scene, and a place you frequented once a month. You really hadn’t planned on being here tonight but after a shitty day of high powered men in suits with sexist comments and misplaced hands you really needed to blow off some steam.You were a domme, preferring to expect what you needed rather than beg for someone else to give you pleasure. 

No subbing was not for you. However...wringing the pleasure out of someone else. That was the real fun.The inside of the club was set in dim lighting. Enough to see everything happening, but low enough that you could feel the ambiance and intensity. You pull off your knee length trench coat, handing it to the clerk behind the counter. He tries to make eyes with you but with shaggy blonde hair and deep set brown eyes he is not what you were looking for. However you do smile in his direction.

“Which band for tonight?”

“Black.” The club had a rule of wearing a colored band. It was non- negotiable to not wear one. Each band meant something different. Yellow was Sub, Purple was Switch, Blue was voyeur only, red sets were for couples, and Black was for Dom. There were others if you wanted to get more specific but you weren’t really in for that tonight You could wear more than one band but Black was all you needed. You let the doorman slide your band on your arm, and walk into the main floor of the club, making your way to the bar. 

You knew you had eyes on you, the black dress was skin tight, highlighting everything. The heels made your legs look long, paired with blood red lipstick, you knew you looked ready to eat someone alive. It was a busy night for the club but not so busy you couldn’t spot the regulars. A few you had played with before and a few that had wanted to play but wasn’t worth your time. You ordered a drink, something sweet and fruity in nature despite you being anything but on a night like tonight. One of the main reasons you liked this club was the fact that they never kept the music too loud despite the fact that the whole building belonged to them. It had various rooms and levels all dedicated to the kink of your choice. This was just the beginning of whatever fantasy could take hold of you the minute you walked through the door. 

The dance floor was nearby and you took to sitting on the nearby stool to watch people and how they interacted. It was always a fun part of your night to watch the interactions between people. You were very good at reading body language which was why your eyes were drawn to the other end of the bar that curved the wall. You lock target on a man tall but young. At least younger than you. You look him over from head to toe noting that he hadn’t made much effort on his clothes, a black leather jacket and jeans with a white shirt and clearly he was the type to make sure that every strand of his dark hair was in place. His side profile boasted a strong jawline, cherry lips, and distinctive chin. His height makes you want to pay attention, but you are looking for his band and see it’s dark like yours. 

A pity really, you had considered him for the night.

You let your eyes linger over what could have been for a second longer when the woman he was trying to charm, maybe even came with stands up and pushes him away clearly no longer interested in whatever game he was trying to play. As his lower back hits the edge of the bar he hisses but if you hadn’t been looking at his face you would have missed how he bites his lip and grins briefly in response. It wasn’t from pain but from pleasure. It was that, that made you look at the length of his body over longer than first glance. You note he isn’t carrying himself like a dom. He might have been pretending an air of confidence but in reality he was putting on a show. The fake dominants were always the most fun to break, because when they broke... oh baby they were the most eager to please and judging by babyface over there, watching his ego devolving into nothing would be the best part of your night.

You take another sip of your drink and watch as he lets his guard down for a moment, clearly feeling out of his element but won’t admit it. He folds in on himself and orders another drink. You wait for him to notice you, and once he does look in your direction you smoothly look away. You smirk briefly as he slides into the space next to your stool, leaning on it, pretending to be casual.

“Now what is a beautiful woman such as yourself sitting here all alone?” His voice was deeper than you imagined, but you liked it. You turn to him calmly, coming face to face with a megawatt smile, and a young face looks even younger up close.

“Who says I am alone?”

“The way you look in that dress you shouldn’t be, but I haven’t noticed anyone around you all night, I think it’s because you got the wrong color at the door.” You laugh, the sound hollow and you lean forward, making sure he could see down the front of the dress.

“Oh no I didn’t baby boy, I am very sure of what I asked for however I think you aren’t.”

“Oh no doll face I am a dom through and through. I usually don’t like them strong willed like this, but a little brat is fun to deal with.” You laugh again you can tell it feels like the spider catching the fly. The longer you were in his presence you knew he wasn’t a dom. He just didn’t have a clue he wasn’t.

“What’s your name baby?” You ask swirling your pointed nail around the rim of your half empty drink.

“Mike, but you can call me daddy if you want.” 

“Okay Mikey I have been watching you.” You cut he down from the jump, he needed to understand he was out matched here. 

“I know thats why...” He starts and you cut him off, quickly a stern face on delicate features on your face, always tricking men and women alike into thinking you were innocent until this face came out, and you watch with a brief smirk as he folds internally, wet paper would be stronger than his willpower against you at the moment..Just how you liked them…

“Did I say you could talk yet?” He stops talking almost instantly.

“Sit down Mike.” He goes along and you know you’ve got him hook, line and sinker. You get up from your stool, stepping into his space, legs making room for you. You run your hands up his torso, and then the biceps, pleased with the lean muscle you find there, ending your tour with the hand closest to the crowd on his face and the other back high on his thigh. You turn his face directly toward you, the movement quick and slight enough so that no one but him pays attention to you.

“Mike sweetheart. I watched you, and I promise that everything about you screams Sub. You can try all day to pretend that the leather coat makes you a bad ass dom, all ready to break a young sub, but everything about you called out to me. Even just now the way you swallowed deep, and your heart is racing from just the thoughts alone. I don’t even have to touch you to bet you are rock solid under those jeans.” You bite your lips and move both hands to the front of his belt loops, pulling him slightly, and he lets you get close to his face.

“Maybe you aren’t a full sub, but I can tell already you are one of the best the brat world has to offer... you might want to stop pretending to be a dom.” 

You say looking him directly in the eyes. His blue eyes are boring to yours and you barely want to look away, but you have to and you do just that as you move your lips to his ear. 

“Hmmm...the things I could show you if you only let me. It’s a shame you are insisting that you are a dom. Have a good one Mikey baby.” 

You kiss his cheek, your lipstick not leaving a trace as it was designed not to and you pull away. Downing the rest of the drink in your glass you head for the voyeur area. Saying your mental goodbye to the handsome young boy who you know you could have shown a thing or two. You are walking into the crowd to get to the elevators that will take you to that floor, when you feel someone behind you. You know it’s him. 

You let him yank you into the stairwell just next to the elevators. His large hands are wild, and they hold you close to his raging erection which judging by the feel of things did not seem small. You let him get grabby with you, his hand digging down the front of your dress to paw at whichever breast he could get his hands on, while he kisses at your neck. It was when his free hand started trying to pull your dress up that you pulled away and switch, grabbing at the lapels of his jacket, crushing his lips  on yours and pushing him against the wall. Since he hadn’t been expecting such a show of strength from a girl of your size he wasn’t expecting you to have him moved against the wall and you to begin palming at his cock through his jeans. You know he is giving in when he groans almost pathetically into your mouth. His lips are smooth, satisfying but not overpowering, definitely needing some tips but that came with time.You keep this up for a few minutes before pulling away.

“Come.” One word sentence has him following you to an empty room, secluded for sessions like these. He stands in awe of you and he tries to reach for you but you slap his hand away. 

“Aht Aht ah. None of that. You only get to touch me when I say you can. Is that clear young man?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Oh I like that. Now puppy.... strip for momma.” You say sitting a plush red chair, crossing your legs slowly. Mike wastes no time pulling at his clothes and you chuckle, you can tell he has never been more aroused in his life. With every piece of clothing revealed you are confident in your choice to bring him up here. A young hard body, leading downwards to a dark happy trail that leads to your soon found happiness.  He is big, thick and uncut and you can feel the wetness pooling in your panties as you think about how that is going to feel inside of you. You bite your lip and smooth them over with a wet tongue just thinking about it. You have him lay down on the bed and make him watch as you pull off the dress and your clothes slowly. Clad in only your underwear, you crawl up the bed, locking his eyes on yours, you make him watch you slowly engulf him into your mouth, daring him to look away as you take him to the base. His groans are delicious and you pull off slowly.

“Hands behind your head. You touch me and you lose the use of your hands all night. Oh and you don’t cum until I tell you.” 

He does as you say and you begin sucking him as your mouth had been salivating to do since you had pressed against him at the bar. You grip him, jerking him and twisting, messy, running your tongue against the vein in his cock and then working your tongue like he was the only source of moisture. You were in the middle of a deepthroat move, his throat making a choked off sound when you feel his hands in your hair, daring to hold you as he thrusts his hips slowly. You pull back to where his tip is only in your mouth, his subsequent moan makes you laugh and pull off.

“What did I tell you about the hands Mikey.”  You say as you sit moving up so your thighs are cradling his hips, his erection poking your ass. He doesn’t respond so you slap at his face and grab him around the jaw.

“What. Did. I. Say. About. Your. Hands?”

“You said I wouldn’t be able to use them if I touched you.” 

“Exactly and did you listen?”

“No.”

“And now I’ve got to punish you, you will never get it.” You get up from the bed, heading over to the large wardrobe against the wall opposite the bed. You open both sides wide to scare the shit out your would be dom. The look on his face telling you he had no clue what half of the stuff was. You would take it easy on him tonight, he needed to be broken but too much pain play wouldn’t do it. Pulling down the handcuffs from the display and grabbing a vibrator from a drawer but you let him see it and go back over to the bed. Mike lets you handcuff him to the built in handles on the beds headboard. Once finished securing him you go back to the plush leather chair, leaving him with a confused look on your face. 

He watches you take off your panties and sit with your legs wide on the large chair. You slide your hands over your body, wishing you didn’t have to punish him by not using his hands, they slide up your torso to your breasts as you play with sensitive nipples. You hear his breathing pick up and one of your hands slide to your center and being the show of making yourself cum.

“Oh Mikey baby. See what happens when you are a bad boy, momma has to do this all by herself. She can’t make you feel good like she does.” 

You can hear him pulling at the cuffs but he won’t get out. You smirk and start with the toy he didn’t know you had. Moaning and groaning his name all while he was helpless on the bed.

 “Oh how I wish you could fuck me.”

“I can... please.. I can.” He says pulling at the cuffs again.

“I don’t know, only the best puppy gets rewarded. Do you want to earn a reward?” He nods his blue eyes big and pleading as you walk back over to the bed pulling at his hair, his dick twitches in response and dribbles a little pre-cum from the tip. You resist the urge to lick it away with your tongue, instead reaching down and swiping at it with your finger and being it to your lips.

“Mmm...” You moan and Mike’s head drops back helplessly. You can tell he has never been denied this long in his life.

 “I asked you, do you want to earn a reward?”You ask again making it clear he needed to speak.

“Yes. Please momma I’ll do anything, just let me fuck you please.” You can feel yourself drip as you get back into the bed, moving up his chest until you are hovering your cunt over his mouth.

“ Show momma how much you want to make her feel good. Earn your reward.” 

He wastes no time delving into you, you can’t hold back a whimper as he proves to you he was much better at kissing below the belt line, his tongue moving it ways that made you grip at the headboard and get jealous at whoever he had practiced on to learn how to eat pussy correctly, trying to forget as he takes a few moments to suck at your clit and then delve inside with his tongue. 

See you were the one in danger now because tongue game like his had the ability to make you want to keep him forever. 

You slide one hand off the headboard and into his dark hair and you ride on his tongue with his nose bumping against your clit. You grant him some mercy and reach back, stroking his reddened cock, while you think about how you can’t wait to ride that too. He moans into you, the vibrations making your legs shake. When Mike catches you off guard by flicking his tongue against your clit you cry out 

“Oh shit Mike, Fuck!” As you unravel on his face from his unexpected movements.You fall next to him on the large bed, chest heaving and you can hear the smirk in the little bastards voice when he asks you,

“Did I earn it yet?” 

You, still coming down from your orgasm can only say

“Good boy.”And once you gather yourself again, you know that was just the beginning of a very long night for you.

Oh .....Yes you just might have to keep Mike around...

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

A/N: Once again I reiterate this was kinda new for me in terms of the woman being the dominate so those of you that more versed send me tips on what you want to see and read, maybe what needs improvement? I am open!

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#Henry Cavill #henry cavill fanfic #Mike x you #hellraiser: hellworld #500 follower celebration #prompt #henry cavill #henry cavill smut

[lennydaisy]

EPIPHANY SERIES // OUTER BANKS // CHAPTER ONE.

(n.) a moment when you suddenly feel that you understand. or suddenly become conscious of something that is very important to you.

“Care to seize the day, my friend?”

Outer Banks                                                                                                                  Season 1-                                                                                                                   FEM OC! and ?

Here's the Prologue in case you haven’t read it already <3 Check it out!

There is something that I should probably tell you: My Dad went missing at sea nine months ago looking for a shipwreck. Heavy, I know. My dad has always been obsessed with the waves and their secrets. Going above and beyond with his research just to understand the smallest corners of the ocean. I still remember the day he told me about this amazing ship called ‘The Royal Merchant’ like it was yesterday.

Bursting through the tarnished door of the Château, kicking my shoes off as I rushed into the kitchen, “Dad! Look what my friend made me,” I announced causing my dad to jump, smacking his head on the cabinet that he was tucked within, screwdriver in hand.

“Ow. Fuck!” he hissed and I gasped at the man, pointing accusingly at the jar which reads 'Pay up, Chuck!’. Grunting, but not objecting, he pulls out a dollar, stuffing it in the jar before turning around staring at my innocent face.

“You have a mark,” I giggled and gestured his whole face, “There,” and he just asked “Has it damaged my handsome face?” which I instantly shake my head at saying, “Of course not.”

“That’s my girl,” he ruffles my hair causing me to huff and swat away his hands as he pulls out a chair now looking eye-level at me, “And what’s this?” he asked, gently taking the delicate origami boat out of my small hands.

“It’s a boat,” I stated the obvious, “My friend and I are going to sail it tomorrow at the boat race,” I said proudly with my hands on my hips

“Oh really,” he raised his eyebrows at me, brushing his fingers over the pink initials on the side of the 'boat’.

’M&T’

“Yes. My friend has a remote control boat that he’s going to race and I want to take part too, so he made me this,” I confess, eyes sparkling at the boat my dad’s fiddling with, “It’s good isn’t it?”

My dad just looked at me, “Do you really want to enter the boat race?” he asked, his eyes searching mine for any sign of uncertainty.

“Well yeah,” I tilted my head, “Do you think I’ll win?”

“Can I show you something?” he asked ignoring my question which I scrunched my nose at, but nodded none the less. My paper boat still in hand, dad made his way over to his office and I followed behind cautiously, stopping at the door, peering in at him as he sits at his desk, “Come in Ladybug.”

Placing my boat at the head of his desk, he beckons me over, tapping the photographs he pulled out. It was a ship. I had never seen a ship like it before. It had huge, white sails that were propelled forward with the weight of the wind. Painted coal black with the most luxurious gold lining along the sides, but what stood out the most was the angel. At the bow of the ship, there was the most beautiful sculpture, its wings spread and arms wide, welcoming the waves that it cruised through.

“Wow,” was all I could say and my dad seemed to understand the overwhelmingness, “Amazing, isn’t it?” he asked and I nodded agreeing wholeheartedly.

“Imagine sailing that in the boat competition,” I dreamed, I could see it then. Me, standing tall and proud, captains hat on my head, sword in hand as I order us forward, trusting the directions of the angel.

“That would be something,” he muses tapping my nose as I was causing condensation to gather on the photo with how closely I was examining at it, “But sadly this ship sank a long time ago.”

The news shocked me. 'How could such a breathtaking ship just sink?’ I thought, so I asked just that.

“Well, sometimes ships don’t always make it through their voyage,” he reasoned and I looked at him with careful eyes, “Maybe it was pirates?” I suggested.

“Pirates?” he laughed, leaning back in his chair, watching with amusement as I darted around his office reenacting the scene of a Pirate trying to steal the ship, “Argh! Where be the gold?”  a pencil held accusingly in his direction.

“At the bottom off the ocean.”

His abruptness caused me to lose character as I stared at him in curiosity, “Wait, really?” I jumped on his desk, my act is long forgotten as I swung my legs back and forward. He just nods, eyes wrinkling with a wide smile.

I grabbed his hand, shaking it, “Then what are we waiting for? Let go get it,”  my innocence was nothing short of entertaining for my dad, “It’s a little harder than that, ladybug,” he answered, my shoulders dropping at his response, “And what would you do with $500 million in gold, huh?”

$500 million!? Ignoring my initial shock and answered back with the utmost certainty, “I’d go, full Kook.”

He chuckled at my honesty, reaching down for the old box that was sitting beside his chair. Pulling off the tape and rummaging through the brown tissue paper as I sneezed at the dust that danced around in the air.

He pulled out a boat. It was like a replica of the 'Royal Merchant’ with a bit of character. Its blue paint peeling off the sides and the single sail sitting askew at the mast. Passing it gently to me he said, “I want you to sail this at the boat competition tomorrow,” he announced as he timidly waited for my reaction.

“I know it’s old and not remote-controlled-” placing the boat beside me, I lunged forward pulling my dad in for a hug. The hairs on his chin digging into my shoulder caused me to back away slightly, “Thank you, Dad,” I whispered.

Picking up the boat, I stared at it proudly.

My own Royal Merchant.

“I call it… the 'HMS Pogue.”

I miss him.

Life was so much easier when I was five. No worries or responsibilities. Life was just… good.

Three months after he went missing the police declared him dead, but John B and I weren’t giving up. Until I see a body, I’m not signing anything.

As for mom, you’ve probably had a better chance of seeing her than I have. She left when we were three years old and moved to Colorado. At least John B said it was Colorado.

Then there’s the legend himself, Uncle T. I say legend because I haven’t seen him in years, for all I know he might not even be real. Since dad vanished he is supposed to be our legal guardian. However, he’s currently in Mississippi for construction, 'Building an Empire’, as he explained to me over the phone, or did he. No, he really did, something about him 'making his way up in the world.’Good for him, I guess?

So, for the time being, it’s just been, Johnny Boy and I. A pair of unemancipated teenagers who have been living on our own.

“It has come to our attention that you’re two unemancipated minors living on your own,” Cheryl says sighing, taking off her glass staring us down as if daring us to tell her otherwise.

John B and I exchange looks before turning back to Cheryl who looks at us expectingly, “No,” John B laughs scoffing at her 'assumption’. She tilts her head at John B, turning to me waiting for my Input, “Sounds false,” I say, going back to clicking the rather expensive pen that I nabbed off her desk.

Rolling her eyes at the pair of us, “What I need from you two is honesty,” reaching over in an attempt to snatch the pen out of my hand. I just hold it my above my head out of her reach with a childish smile. Sighing, she slumps back in her chair, “I want to help you. That’s what we want, right?” she continues.

“Yeah, we’ll be honest,” John B nods as I hold up three fingers, “Scouts honour,” I smile at the lady.

Letting out another sigh, 'God, she sighs a lot,’ she begins to write, “When was the last time you both saw your uncle?” she asks.

Not even having to look at my brother, I already know what he was going to say, “34 minutes ago,” we both announce. Cheryl glances up from her papers, squinting at our synchronization, “And when was the last time you saw him?”

“Two hours and 43 minutes ago,” I say again in sync with John B who shudders at the fact that I knew exactly what he was going to say. Shrugging off his wide eyes, I stare at Cheryl who places down her pen, hands now clasped professionally on her desk, “We’re going to come out tomorrow, to speak with your uncle. If he’s not there, we’re going to move forward with foster care.”

With that, John B and I stand up moving our way to the door, my knees slightly shaking at the lady’s words. John B holds the door open for me but pauses when Cheryl calls out, “I can assure you, both of you, we will find a safe and loving home,”

Turning back once more, “You don’t want this back, do you?” I ask, dangling the turquoise Tiffany pen catching her attention again.

“I’ll collect it when we come by tomorrow,” she dismisses.

'Right. Tomorrow.’

“How did you do that?” John B questions as we walk towards the van, “Do what?” I ask, sticking the pen behind my ear.

“Know what I was going to say to Cheryl,” He answers fishing the keys out of his pocket, “Because we’re psychic, remember?”

Feeling the lack of presence beside me, I turn to see John B just eyeing me down. Shrugging my shoulders, I reply, “You think out loud,” referring to John B’s concerning amount of mumbling before arriving here.

“I do not,” he mutters walking up to the driver’s side of the van, “also,  you weren’t a scout,” he calls out.

“I know,” I admit, “It just made me feel less bad about lying.”

Sitting in the uncomfortable heat, my back sticking to the ripped leather seats, my head running with thoughts, I ask, “Do you think they’ll split us up?”

Looking out the rolled-down window all I see is passing houses and blurred faces. I see people with no worries and I can’t help but feel helpless in my situation. We have no control over anything that happens. Sure we can run, but how long is it until we run out of breath?

Sometimes I just wish we could go back in time, back to when my biggest problem in life was arguing with Pope that it was a useless skill knowing the first thirty numbers of PI. It’s impressive, super nerdy, but still impressive, and also completely useless. ’See, I still can’t get over it.’

“Is that what you’re so worried about? Us being split up,” he questions, now understand why the first five minutes of the drive home was unnaturally silent.

“Well yeah, doesn’t it scare you too? The thought of living with another family who have no idea who we are and take pity on us because our dad went missing,” my voice cracking slightly at the mention of dad. Even after nine months, it’s still hard to believe that he’s just… gone. Things like that don’t just happen. Not here. Not now.

“Hey,” he says rubbing my knee, I stop picking at my bracelet, looking up at him with damp eyes, “Foster care is the last place we’ll be going, okay?” Despite the niggling at the back of my head, I sheepishly nod at him now feeling stupid for getting upset about something that I knew John B would never allow to happen.

“And beside’s if they did split us up, which they won’t 'cause we’re not going to foster care, you’d for sure be given back after they realise how much of a pest you are,” I couldn’t help but laugh at his comment, rubbing my hand under my nose, “Oh, I’m the pest?” I cough, leaning my back against the door looking accusingly at the boy.

“100%. You know what your problem is?” looking in my direction quickly making sure I was still listening to him, a knowing smirk covering his face, “You love me too much and you can’t bare the thought of living without me.”

I know what he’s was saying was meant to be joke, but it holds truth behind it. I don’t know where I would be without John B. Say its because we’re twins and we naturally have that bond together, but he has been a constant rock throughout my life. He has always been there, not only from birth.

From when he learned how to walk before me and would attempt to lift me by my head urging me to do the same. From our first day at school, when we walked hand in hand through the gates. From my first relationship that didn’t last longer than a day because I got him to hand the poor boy a note saying 'I wanted to break up’.

I don’t know why I thought this would be any different.

John B didn’t have to be my friend. He could have just left it at 'sister’ and that’s it. But he didn’t and he never would. I might be his sister first and foremost, but secondly, I’m also his friend. A friend that he can tell anything to. A friend who he can lean on when times get tough. A friend who will always be there for him. I support and love him as a sister and as a friend.

He’s my rock.

“I really couldn’t,” I admit knowing fine well that if John B wasn’t here I wouldn’t want to know who I’d be. I’d be a completely different person and that’s a person I’d rather not meet.

“Don’t get all sappy on me now,” he says pulling up to the Château,  bringing the van to a stop. Pushing open the door, I stop when I hear him confess, “I couldn’t live you either,” he smiles at me.

“Look whose being sappy now,” closing the door behind me, making my way round to the front of the house.

“Hey, you’ll be alright on your own for a bit yeah? I’m going to head in town, see what’s up with the storm,” he calls and I just nod and eagerly ask, “Can you bring me home Reese’s cup? Kie ate them all.”

“Pretty sure it was you who ate them all, but sure Mace,” he honks the horn as I wave him off down the road.

The Château. Home sweet home. Well, as sweet as an old fish shack on the marsh can be. It might not look like much, but if you can look past the peeling wallpaper, leaking ceiling, tatted coach, and a terrible internet connection, you’d see a home.

Kicking off my shoes, I welcome in the smell of burnt toast courtesy of John B this morning. 'It’s not burnt, just lightly crisped,’ he said. If you would consider a chard slice on bread to be 'lightly crisped’ then he’s an expert at making toast.

I’ve had a tough day, more like a tough year, but I digress. My dad’s missing, mom’s out of the picture, my uncle is M.I.A, and now the bride of Frankenstein is threatening me with foster care. I deserve a gold star just for not going insane yet.

Pulling out dad’s stash of old records, my eyes flicker until I set sight on the album. 'Elvis’ Gold Records Vol 4,’ smiling fondly at the faded cover, the corners hanging together for dear life with the number of times its been played.

Tactfully, I place the record on the turntable of dad’s '54 Garrard oak record player. Gently I blow on the record until the static scratching fades and Elvis’ soulful voice fills the room with an energy that I can’t help, but dance to.

'You look like an angel, walk like an angel,’

I prance around the room, mumbling the lyrics under my breath, swaying my hips slowly, losing myself for just a moment within the strumming of the bass. Just as fast, I’m jumping around the living room like Tazmanian Devil, flipping my hair as I pretend to be playing the instruments as the chorus drops.

'You’re the devil in disguise, oh yes, you are the devil in disguise,’

I grab the stick of deodorant, using it as a microphone as I yell the lyrics, pointing at my reflection like a rockstar. My eyes instantly closing as a glare of light reflects into my eyes, 'It’s the paparazzi, they’ve found me,’ I thought.

I was wrong.

Squeezing one eye open, still posing in my rockstar stance, I spot the reflection a hysterical JJ hunched over on himself, phone in hand as he runs the other through his hair, “Pope was right, you can’t sing, or dance,” he wheezes, wiping away the streaks running down his red cheeks.

Sighing, I place the deodorant back in its place, turning to face the boy,  my eyes follow him as he types away, nose buried in his phone, 'So much for my big break.’ Flicking off the record, I hear the sound of my singing protruding from JJ’s phone, the boy still laughing at what he had just witnessed.

“You better not show that to anyone,” I threat, holding eye contact with him and he nods, “Don’t worry May, this is for my eyes only,” he sniggers waving his phone around soon shoving it into the back pocket of his shorts.

“Why are you here anyway?” I question watching JJ kick his feet up on the couch, arms crossed leisurely behind his head.  He nods in the direction of his disregard bag that he dumped in the middle of the room, “Well, as you can see, I packed a bag and-”

“And now you’re in my house… why?” I interrupt still failing to see the logic behind him being here. He was here this morning and he was back already?

“Storm Aggies hitting tonight and I know how much you hate storms so, naturally here I am” he excuses, “To protect you,” he explains but I just stayed focussed on the boy with raised eyebrows.

Eventually getting tired of his own excuses, JJ sits up, legs in a basket, picking at the rings on his fingers, “My dad’s been on a three-day bender,” he admits and trails off, “I just don’t want to deal with him right now.”

’Welp, now I feel like an asshole.’

Of course, I know about JJ’s home life and all the terrible shit his dad, if you could even call him that, puts him through. I realised pretty early on in our friendship when he showed up at the Château one day with a shiner. When my dad opened the door he was instantly alarmed at the spurt of colour invading the young boy’s face, but JJ being JJ just brushed it off and said he fell.

My dad wasn’t stupid and had his speculations about JJ’s father, often seeing the drunk man stumbling around the marsh, but he didn’t want to question the boy as he had no idea what he goes through behind closed doors.

That night when JJ went home, dad told both John B and I that we should never go to JJ’s house on our own, but never actually telling us the reason why. As you can probably guess, I didn’t listen to my dad’s wishes, and what I learned that day changed the way I saw JJ.

It was weird. I had never gone this long without seeing the boisterous blonde.

Last week JJ promised me that he would take me to see his dad’s boat. ‘The Phantom’, he called it. After recently seeing how interested I had gotten into boats and ships he wanted to show me his dad’s most prized possession.

So, there I was, sitting at the curb outside my house, two ice-cold ice pops in hand, a strawberry one for me and an orange one for JJ, waiting patiently for the boy in question.

My tongue and lips were tinted pink as my wonderous eyes watched the passing cars and letting out the occasional 'awe’ when dogs strutted past.

'Where is he? His ice pop’s melting,’ I thought as the cold condensation ran down my hands, evaporating as soon as the drips hit the burning tarmac.

'He wouldn’t ditch me, would he?’ I instantly shook away my doubts, 'JJ would never do that, don’t be stupid Mason.’

Sparing a glance over my shoulder I saw dad and John B getting ready to head to the marsh in hopes of catching some drum. When I saw the boat head out into the water, I brushed myself off and ran in the direction of JJ’s house.

Now, I knew that my dad told me never to go there, but I wasn’t planning on chapping his door, I would just hopefully meet him halfway. Maybe he was late?

JJ’s house wasn’t far from mine, I was practically a straight road. Something you’ll notice about the cut is the further you venture in the more, how should I put it, Pogue-like it gets, and JJ’s house was no exception to this.

Having not seen a glimpse of his blonde locks, I wandered down the dirt drive aside of the house.

That’s when I heard it.

Whilst stepping through the long grass, dodging the scattered litter, broken beer bottles, and petrol canisters. I paused. Too scared to move.

“Where do you think you’re going, boy?” I heard a gravelling voice slur, I assumed it was his dad. As skillfully as possible, I tiptoed to the wall of the house, leaning over slightly to peer in through the screened porch.

I don’t know who I saw that day but, it wasn’t my JJ.

My JJ had this aura of mischief around him. My JJ had boisterously messy hair and wild eyes sparkling with strength. My JJ was my knight in shining armour, but the boy I was looking at was… broken. An empty shell. Not at all JJ.

“Out,” was all he said. That’s all he said.

What I saw that day stayed with me forever. I couldn’t watch it. The sight of JJ being tackled to the ground by his dad caused me to gasp, ducking back against the wall, trembling fingers over my mouth as all I could do was listen with numb ears.

I can’t remember how long it went on for, the cries and pleas seemed to play on repeat. The slamming of a car door and the kickback of dirt hitting my shins brung me back to that sad reality. Watching the car speed off with damp eyes, I wobbled my way around the house.

“JJ,” I whispered trying not to frighten the boy, but ultimately doing so when the screen door let out an ear pinching screak.

Once lying on his back, but now he stood defensively before me, eyes wide, “May? What,-” he chocked, using the back of his hand in an attempt to wipe away the blood that crept its way onto his white teeth, “what are you doing here?”

He attempted to shield his face from my wavering eyes, but I still saw. I saw his swollen lip. I saw his bloodshot eyes. I saw the handprints around his neck.

I saw him.

“We were supposed to hang out today,” I reminded him, but instantly shook my head and took a step closer to him as he took one back, bumping into the cabinet causing a cluster of empty beer bottles to smash against the floor.

Crouching down, mumbling something like 'his dads going to kill him,’ he attempts to pick up the shards of glass, hissing as they stuck to his fingers.

Still timid with my actions, I spoke up, “Go grab a first aid kit,” as I looked around the messy living room for a safe way to clean the glass, “I’ve got it,” but the boy just cried.

In front of the broken glass sat a more broken boy, head buried in his hands, knees up to his chest that heaved with panic. It hurt to see JJ like this. It was like seeing what happens behind the curtain and it frankly terrified me. The thought that this had been happening to my best friend and I had no idea.

I was so used to JJ being there for me that I didn’t stop to think 'Who was there for him?’ And that makes me a terrible friend.

I ignored the screaming of the old floorboards under my weight. I ignored the feeling of the glass digging into my knees. I ignored, despite how difficult it was, the guilt that ached my heart.

I just hugged him.

My JJ.

From that day forward I promised myself one thing: that I would never be innocently ignorant of what is going on around me.

Life isn’t always sunshine and daffodils, with peaceful doves and poetic words. Life can be cruel and unfair for a variety of reasons, majority none of our own, and that’s where friends come in. All you have to do is show them that sometimes the grass is greener on the other side and sometimes it isn’t, but that’s okay because as long as you’re there for them, the tiniest shed of light can grow a flower.  

“You’re gonna have to start paying rent dude,” I joke in hopes of lifting his spirit and it partly works as the corners of his mouth twitch upwards, “But hey, you’re always welcome here, alright?”

JJ knows that I would never turn him away, but sometimes he just needs that little bit of reassurance. No matter what, our door is always open, for anyone really, who might need a break from their life because I can guarantee that once they see the shitshow that is my life, they’ll realise that they’re not alone.

Holding eye contact with me, he nods sheepishly, “I know,” causing bliss to erupt in the pit of my stomach.

But shy JJ never lasts very long. That smirk that I know all too well tells me that I’m in for a ride tonight, “Besides, with this fresh, juicy bait that I have on you now, you’d never let me leave.”

There he is, that’s the JJ I know and love.

“You might single-handedly be the most annoying person I’ve ever met.” I just poured a bit of my heart out to this boy and what does he do? He laughs in my face, but I can’t help but giggle at the sight of his eyes popping out at my sudden confession, “Might!? There’s someone else!?”

The night that Storm Agatha hit the Outer Banks was filled with nothing but playful banter, the chugging of many beers, and a friendly, not so friendly, game of Go-Fish.

Whether it was intensional or not, JJ made me forget all about the whirling winds that subtly shook the Château. Instead fogging my mind with his failed attempts to try and cheat himself a win.

I could deny it until the cows come home, but there’s no point.

JJ is my knight in shining armour.

He’s my JJ.

But, I’ll never tell him that.

Chapter One: FIN!

Oft, two flashbacks in one, sounds goos to me. There will be a lot of these throughout this story. I feel as though it helps me establish Mason’s current relationships with those around her, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.

What did you think?

I didn’t mean to hit you with fluff, angst, and then fluff again, but I’m proud of this chapter, even if its just the very beginning and we still have a lot to go through so, saddle up troops.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter <3

Also, if anyone would like to be tagged in future chapters just let me know and I will for sure do that!

*TAGLIST*

@xshinytrashcanx​

#outer banks #outer banks imagines #outer banks series #outer banks au #obx #john b routledge #John B imagines #jj maybank #jj maybank imagines #Kiara Carrera #Kiara Carrera imagines #pope heyward #pope Heyward imagines #Sarah cameron #Sarah Cameron imagines #rafe cameron #Rafe Cameron imagines #topper #topper imagines #fluff #fanfic #adventure #epiphany series #chapter one #john b x reader #jj maybank x reader #kiara carrera x reader #pope Heyward x reader #Sarah Cameron x reader #rafe cameron x reader

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

totally stealing @honeybabydichotomy‘s meme-adaptation concept re: i have a handful of things that could be described WIPs and nearly all of them i already can’t shut my mouth about, but here is a trip through the GOOGLE DOCS GRAVEYARD of abandoned fandoms past (mcu, trc, something too embarrassing to list above the cut so you’ll just have to CLICK and find out)

first up, the last fic i never actually wrote for, lmao, american idol season 8 RPF fandom, back in 2010... this was going to be a bigbang fic but in keeping with my terrible track record re: challenges etc. i did not finish it, although in my defense that had at least something to do with spilling coffee all over my laptop right around the time i started a very hours-intensive job with a huge commute. when i look at this now i’m like, this sure was me writing ten years ago, but i still love the emotional architecture of any story in which one deliberately shut-off and long-repressed individual is uncomfortably thawed by the miracle of someone else’s open-hearted joie de vivre; it’s the oldest story here but arguably the closest to an actual WIP in that the ghost of that idea is the seed for the divorced quentin AU i harbor hopes of one day writing; you can definitely see the Relevant Vibes in this exchange, i think, although i feel the need to clarify that adam lambert enjoying twilight is a thing he said on national television, i wouldn’t do that to someone on my own:

Veselka is crowded, but despite the bitter February cold, Kris doesn't mind waiting outside for twenty minutes, leaning against the glass display case of the expensive toy store next door, separated from Adam by little more than an inch. "So - okay, this is kind of terrible. Like, worse than the Twilight thing. But I feel like you should know who you're dealing with, so."

"It can't be that bad."

Adam just smiles knowingly. "Oh, can't it?"

"Hit me with your best shot," Kris says. Something twitches in his stomach as Adam raises his eyebrow to that.

Adam leans down to whisper in Kris's ear, sending inexplicable sparks down Kris's neck. "Sometimes, when I'm standing in the street or on the subway or something, I like to watch people go by and try to guess what they're like in bed."

Kris blushes. "Very mature," he says with a nervous laugh, embarrassed about his own embarrassment.

Adam holds up his hands in a gesture of innocence. "Hey. We're all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars," he intones. "Oscar Wilde."

"Do you think that's true?"

"I think it is. At least - " Adam tilts his chin up, a mischievous glint in his eyes " - I identify with it."

Kris searches for something to say that won't make him seem hopelessly square. "What's the view like from down there?"

Adam gazes at the night sky, where Manhattan's perpetual glow blots out all but the brightest lights. "I like it. You see more of them this way."

Kris thinks he's spent six years priding himself himself on keeping his gaze fixed straight ahead, avoiding the pull of the horizon or the distraction of the sun. "So. Mr. Gutter." He points to a thirty-something man getting out of a parked Ford across the street. "What's he like?"

next up: an unpublished MCU snippet! this was a peggy character study set at howard’s funeral, also an excuse for me to have feelings about tony stark; idiotically, i actually have a complete draft of this, and got a really brilliant beta job from @nimmieamee, but then never went back and revised it and also could not bring myself to post it when despite being passable as done i could tell in my bones it was simply Not Working, even though parts of it i really liked:

Howard had not taken to aging with grace. It, too, offended him: the body betraying the dream of perfectibility. Dodging it had taken up an increasing percentage of his time. He took up jogging, early among the public, too late in his life: a few months in and a busted knee earned him doctor's orders to abandon that pursuit. His bones were already too brittle to benefit. Howard himself had become brittle long ago. You could blame the war; but that was what happened to people with no give to them. They were like the driest branches waiting for a storm, only unlike branches they recognized on some level the precariousness of their structure, and consequently dedicated themselves to forgetting it.

Howard was undeterred. (Being deterred also went against his every principle.) He had swimming pools installed, outdoors in Los Angeles, adorned with artificial rocks arranged just so to give the impression of a hot spring, and indoors in West Hampton, heated, lit underwater with a yellow-green glow throwing tendrils of light on smooth white walls. Fitness gurus and nutrition consultants were put on retainer, a bicoastal platoon to prevent malfunctions; physical therapists were brought in to recalibrate around malfunctions. They quit with increasing frequency, as his temper frayed along with his body. He gave up, in sequence, smoking, alcohol, red meat, all meat, alcohol, sugar, processed grains, alcohol, salt, and direct sunlight--although by the time of this last pronouncement, it produced little noticeable effect.

Lately he had become obsessed with the idea of cryogenic freezing: the fantasy of going to sleep and waking up in a time when his intellectual heirs had figured out how to repair and replace his rusted pieces. Skin firmed and thickened; knees stitched back to mint condition; a whole new heart, perhaps, grown in a jar or assembled from compounds yet to be constructed. "Wouldn't you take the chance, if you had it?" he had murmured, eyes going dreamy as they did when he talked of his latest missiles.

Peggy pictured Steve in the Arctic, his hyperactive cells stilled by the indifferent cold. She shivered, like a child hearing a ghost story, and said no, she wouldn't.

finally, two stories from a fandom i actually never published any stories with, or engaged with in any meaningful way: the fuckin raven cycle. the dumbest books on god’s green earth. the first was a ronan story where gansey actually dies and stays the fuck dead, and ronan handles it by being a huge asshole, and then, unlike in these hideous godforsaken books, actually decides on purpose to be a better person.... i’m realizing revisiting this now that some of the itch of this story i’ve finally gotten out of my system via damage control, but the GENIUS IDEA of ronan giving matthew an actual soul by giving up the dream power and thus becoming an actual human, sadly, does not really transfer, even though it’s the best concept i’ve ever thought of in my life. anyway, whatever, i have a type:

He opened the door. Adam and Blue were looking at him with expressions he couldn't decipher. Noah was looking at the floor.

"Are you—" Adam started. Ronan watched the word okay die of its own irrelevance in Adam's mouth.

"None of you were invited," Ronan said.

Blue started, "We just—"

"Sorry," he said, loud enough to drown her out. "But this is a very exclusive party. That means no rednecks"—he pointed at Adam—"no bitches"—Blue—"and no pussies"—Noah. "So I'm going to need you all to leave."

He focused his eyes on Blue. She looked like she wanted to slap him. This was familiar. He wanted to go back to the time when his only interactions with Blue Sergeant involved saying something and watching her look at him like she wanted to slap him. Things had gotten complicated after that. Then Gansey had died. Ronan couldn't articulate the connection, but he felt strongly that it was there.

"Maybe I wasn't clear," he said. "What I mean is: get the fuck out of my house."

and last but not least, another TRC story, motivated initially by dreaminess and then sporadically continued after TRK came out (seriously like ever 18 months i dig this one out and write another 500 words and give up again) out of spite - a story where, because fuck stief, adam parrish gets a cell phone, ronan lynch gets a job, and no one assumes that finally having sex means you’re basically married forever without even talking about if you’re boyfriends. this one is like, so close to being “done” in that it almost goes beginning to end and has a lot of individual lines i actually like, but has always been very difficult to pull together because of the reality that maggie stiefvater wrote a series such that ronan lynch acting like a decent boyfriend or experiencing character growth or talking about his emotions is literally out of character, which makes it hard to write a dreamy summer hook-up story; i was actually thinking earlier this year of picking it back up YET AGAIN, but then damage control ate my brain... one day, perhaps, for the satisfaction of having finished... or i might just listen to “cruel summer” by taylor swift while meditating on it for a couple million more hours:

“Did you call me over just to give me the fucking silent treatment in person?” Ronan said. It sounded less vicious than it should have. Like he had been aiming for a growl and somehow landed on a mumble.

I didn’t call you over, Adam wanted to say, but it wasn’t actually true. He had. That seemed wrong, though. Ronan Lynch wasn’t someone to be called over. He was too wild and spiteful for that. Even Gansey couldn’t manage it. The rest of Ronan’s world had given up trying long ago.

But when Adam had called, Ronan had come.

He felt like he might throw up.

“I’m not giving you the silent treatment,” he said instead. “I’m just—“ But he didn’t know what he was doing. So he switched tacks. “You just—“ But he didn’t know that, either. And asking Ronan what the fuck are you doing had never yielded helpful results.

So Adam stuck to the truest thing, what he had worked his whole life to make true. “I’m leaving in three months.”

“What the fuck does that have to do with anything,” Ronan spat. This time he was closer to the expected intensity, but there was still something strange under his voice. Maybe not. Maybe Adam was just having a nervous breakdown.

[derpcakes]

So we watched (nay, Experienced) the BBC/Netflix Dracula series

Brought to us by everyone’s favourite team, Steve Moff and Mark Gatiss, promising to be an innovative and exciting new vision of the classic novel

Boy it was definitely something!!!

First I will say: obviously Moff is not my favourite TV writer and my fam and I did go into this with a bias. I’m happy to report, though, that it’s going to be one of these shows that haunts me forever, because if it had just been bad I could have said “bleh” and deleted it from my brain. But because parts of this were genuinely cool, interesting, and fun, and parts of it genuinely had potential, all the bits that were bad stand out as so much worse and the whole thing feels as cursed as a 500 year old undead count. 

Things that were enjoyable and well put-together:

Van Helsing has been gender-swapped into a vampire-hunting nun and her cat-and-mouse game with Dracula is rife with belligerent sexual tension. I was ready to hate this, and ready for like, Sherlock and Irene Adler 2.0, but their dynamic was actually pretty fun to watch! Their power balance is kept even throughout most of the show, and Helsing is never struck down because of ~womanly failings~ or infantilised. She’s consistently really clever and, even if there are some cringey one-liners, I found her and Draccy’s playful quest to murder each other one of the most fun parts of the show. It could’ve been better, but it was enjoyable! (I also like how Helsing isn’t Young and Hot, but is a capable older lady, and her actor and Draccy’s even seem about the same age. Amazing)

The second episode is a spooky murder mystery/horror mini-movie on a ship, with a cast full of interesting characters who all had different things going on and different relationship dynamics that were compelling to watch. There’s even an interracial gay couple! And they’re like, written pretty sympathetically and to be layered and flawed in ways that didn’t feel too stereotypical! And they don’t die first!! Wack! I understand the bar is on the ground, but it’s still worth a mention

Some fun with vampire lore: Draccy absorbs knowledge and traits from people he drinks blood from (which is how he learns languages. Get Duolingo, dude, stop eating people), leading to the intriguing suggestion that myths like “vampires will die in sunlight” and “vampires are afraid of holy symbols” have kinda become real to him even if they don’t literally work, because he’s swallowed so many people to whom these superstitions and beliefs were law. I’m sure this isn’t the first time this has been done, but groundbreaking or no it was kinda neat

Things that were not enjoyable and well put-together:

EVERYTHING ELSE

Episode 1: a weird speedrun of most of the original novel, feat. weaponised nuns and a weird fixation on whether or not Jonathan Harker and Draccy boned. They did not. Dracula pops out of the body of a wolf and he’s Whole Ass Naked. Him and Van Helsing have a power play where she stands just on the threshold of a convent and calls him a little bitch, knowing he can’t come and get her. A knife is licked. 

Episode 2: aforementioned cool ship horror story. Definitely the best ep. It really makes me think about hbomb’s critique that Moff is pretty good at doing standalone stories (and pilots), but when things are tied into a bigger narrative things get zonkers. 

Episode 3: Things Get Zonkers!!

Let me just. Okay. I have the most to say about this one because this is where things really got batshit. And yet, also really boring? How does that figure? Anyway:

Dracula emerges from under the sea and finds that 123 years have passed and he’s now the star of a Modern AU. Upon setting foot on British sand he is immediately accosted by what appears to be an anti-vampire task force. There’s a helicopter. It is later explained how they knew to pounce on him at this exact moment, but holy god it was wild to watch the entire British Secret Service descend on this one wet bastard in a suit

The editing shifts aggressively in the direction of Sherlock. Mark Gattis is there playing an amazingly annoying character. There’s a fuckign.... Underground Secret Society devoted to studying vampires and they put Drac in a Designated Glass Prison for Smug Geniuses (also as seen in Sherlock). Van Helsing is dead but her great-great-grand-niece is played by the same actress and. Okay. Van Helsing, vampire hunting nun, possesses her descendent and rises through the ether to roast Drac one last time, and he’s DELIGHTED TO SEE HER AGAIN. 

And she has cancer, right, so her blood is poisonous when Draccy tries to bite her, but in the end, right, the end of the episode, right, the final shots of the show, he comes to a place where he’s willing to die, and she’s already dying, and so he drinks her blood and they die together on a table while cinematic metaphor vision shows them having sex in the middle of the sun

There was a badly CGI-ed vampire baby. Jonathan Harker falls from a tower and a scene later they flash back to this event by reversing the footage of him falling down, meaning we just see him go VWOOP up through the air, bouncing off the wall on the way. Van Helsing says the words “come boy, suckle” when she’s goading Drac into drinking her blood. The show sits in a weird middle ground where the characters talk about sex a lot (”dID yOu HaVe sExUaL iNterCOURSE with COUNT DRACULA?”) and Drac is clearly meant to be super magnetic and sexy but the characterisation and cinematography is not horny at all. People have these sexy-type dreams of their lover of choice when Drac is drinking their blood but even those are very boring and weirdly chaste, except of course for the final one where, if I  can take the chance to remind you, Van Helsing and Dracula have symbolic Mind Palace sex inside the centre of the solar system

I can’t speak too much on its quality as an adaptation since I actually haven’t read the book, but splitting the story so that some characters (the Harkers, Van Helsing) existed in the time the story is set, and some (Lucy, Dr Seward) exist in The Modern AU felt very strange. Was there any reason to set the third episode in modern times, apart from the fact that I guess they wanted to do their Sherlock thing again? Or, perhaps, because they wanted to do their Jekyll thing again?? Oh my god, that’s what the editing reminds me of - the small clips of Jekyll I’ve seen. The zooming. The slow-mo. The emphasis on The Monster Man’s weird goddamn teeth

(Also, I don’t really feel qualified to dig too deep into it, but I will say there felt something a bit uncomfortable about Lucy being black in this version, while also being written to be very promiscuous and vain. idk. Also, since it happened in an ep of Sherlock as well, “weedy white Nice Boy rescues the Very Cool woman of colour he has a tragically unrequited crush on” is now an official Moffattis trope)

Count Moffatula is an experience. Its pacing is buck wild. The speeding through the original plot and the mish-mashing of elements in the Modern AU section feels like another expression of contempt for the source material on Moff’s part. Someone says “reality is overrated” in a show set in the 1890s. Draccy quotes a Beatles song. He also makes quippy allusions to having eaten various famous figures and basically winks at the camera every time. Granted, this wasn’t as obnoxious as I was maybe expecting, but there are still too many lines of dialogue where you think “oh, the writers high-fived each other after they wrote that one, huh”. The fact that Moff has such vitriol against fan fic writers is more and more grating every day because this is so, so clearly a zany-ass fanfic that he happens to be getting paid for. The costumes are nowhere near as nice as they could have been, and Dracula’s cape looks like his mum made it for him for the school play in which he is playing Dracula. 

This show is So Much. Watch it to share in this fever dream. Or don’t, and save approximately 5 hours of your life. God. 5 hours. Who was I before Count Maffatula. Who am I now. Why was his cape so bloody ugly. Why did they bone in the centre of the sun

#i'm ascending from my body #count moffatula

[fandensflytrap]

(( You know, using the year to research for this blog has been kind of fun in a lot of unexpected ways. ))

(( It started out with me trying to figure out more about the viking age and the local folklore of Scandinavia specifically. That’s where it all began since I wanted to better understand what I was writing.

So I start noticing a few repeating patterns cropping up; ‘’And then Chri.stianity changed this concept and we don’t know what the pre-christian context is anymore.’’

But I didn’t want to read the bible so I decided to push it aside for a while. And then I started to build a narrative around the witch hunts and demons and started to read up on Demonology and the witch hunts. And realized demonology was in large part just a thinly veiled excuse for medieval priests to be xenophobic and sexist.

And so I decided; I should probably look into that! Since so much of folklore is connected to Chr.istianity, I have demon characters, I use the witch hunts, I can’t ignore it. I might as well read the bible to understand the context behind the changes, maybe it’ll give me some answers?

It took me a while to do so, but I did it. I read the entire thing. I McFreaking did it.

 Aaaaaaaaaand I learned nothing from it. I didn’t understand what I was reading, but I was... less than thrilled about what I read, no denying that.  Well, ok, I learned that the devil wasn’t a part of the Old test.ament. The Old tes.tament doesn’t mention demons at all! The New Tes.tament, however, do mention demons a few times.

Sa.tan didn’t become the character they became in Ch,ristian belief before year 500 with little to no basis on what the bible said.

But the bi.ble said nothing that would clue me in on the local folklore, at least. No, I needed to go further into the history. I needed early history on Chr.istianity and  how the O.rthodoxy was established and how it spread across Europe before I got some clues on that.

So I decided to look at videos published by Yale for a semester they did on how to read the old testament, to actually understand what I read. And I’m so glad that I did, holy shit, all those nuances flew right over my head as a modern atheist reader. And then their course about the historicity of the New testament. Very fascinating, actually.

It was about how the early church tried to find their footing, learned that the Ne.w-Test.ament is terribly A.nti-J.ew. That the Ch.ristian faith mainly used the Je.wish Bible to springboard a path to make their NEW RELIGION more valid in the eyes of the Romans who squinted hard at new religious movements. 

Then I went down the rabbit hole of ‘’historical J.esus’’ for a bit, and that was kind of fun. Pfft. But basically, what I came to conclusion is that: J,esus might have existed, we don’t know, but for arguments sake let’s say he did. That in old Roman beliefs, and in a lot of places around the world, was that people could be raised to the status of Divinity. 

A lot of roman emperors had been made Deities that way. That gods could have children with humans and those children could become gods too. That this was a thing that could happen, and was a commonly held belief that wouldn’t be difficult to understand for the average person at the time. 

But since I’m getting tired of reading about Ch.ristianity, I jumped back to viking age. Which is just more Church history, electric bugaloo part 2, if we’re going to be completely fair. It’s not like there’s a lot of history to go around that’s not centered around the religious shift. 

The myths are highly Chri.stianized too. So we kind of just have to take them for what they are. BUT. There are hints to the pagan past there. So I read about Seidr. (From a modern practitioner, so there was a lot of New Age themes in there, but I’ll read up more factually academic oriented book on Shamanism soon. )

But you won’t believe how many doors just learning about shamanism does to the reading of the myths. Seidr\Shamanism with a dash of Animism is the very foundation, the building blocks to the myths. One has to understand shamanism and animism in order to understand the myths on a more intimate level outside of a modern person’s perspective. 

And I was so delighted to realize that for 1. Freya gets a much greater importance in the grand scheme of things. She barely has a presence in the myths, so this discovery was GREAT! 2. It sets up the world view as a much more focused way.  3. It showcases gender in a very different way from what is usually considered the ‘’popular’’ image in modern day and age. Women were practitioners, religious authorities, they would be REALLY important people in the local tribes.  4. Odin is a practitioner as well. Which, I don’t know about you, but I can dig that and the implications they bring.

Then we can move on to the demonization of pagan concepts with that as a springboard. I had this realization earlier, reading about demonology, but pagan concepts were just twisted into becoming demons for people to stop connecting with them. 

Pagan holidays were changed to have a Chr.istian meaning. Jòl\Yule In Scandinavia was in January or February. Then some king decided that he wanted to move it to December to celebrate Jesus together with the rest of Europe. 

Which in later years resulted in them demonized the ANCESTRAL SPIRITS who would come from the afterlife, to the mortal world, to celebrate Jòl with their living relatives. Eating the food that was left as offerings so the ancestral spirits could have their festivities, eat and drink, while the living slept.

...By turning them into criminals, suicide victims, people who hadn’t gotten baptized, those in Purgatory, and all the others the Church didn’t like. Saying that they will take your soul or kill you if you weren’t careful. Which I’m still not over.

But we can’t talk about the Christianization of the Vikings in Norway without mentioning Saint. Olav Haraldson, or Olav the Holy.

Olav was a rather interesting figure. You can literally not read up on Folklore  without him popping in to say hello. So why is that? 

Well, essentially, he started out as your average person, born by a king in Norway. What was then expected by the sons of a King at that time, would be to go on a viking raid, so he went to England and terrorized King Æthelred for like... 20 or so years. A king who had been dealing with Vikings terrorizing England for over 50 years.

Olav, funnily, became friends with the King. Was baptized by the King, and swore to be his loyal body guard for as long as he lived. 

Then he went back to Norway, bringing with him a Bishop from England to help him make the case for Chri.stianity in Norway. 

He went to all of the Kings he could gather, went to the local governmental bodies and stated his case. And it wasn’t difficult to convince the local Kings to accept Chri.stianity as they most likely had been exposed to Christianity in one way or another. Whether it’s from foreigners entering the shores along the coastal lines, or from having gone on Viking Raids\trading with others. 

Olav, of course, killed people who didn’t agree with him in a good old fashioned ‘’BELIEVE OR DIE’’ crusade, but shhh.

So when he died, at the battle of Stiklestad, the Bishop he had brought with him made him a Saint. Yeah, we’re returning to that dude. 

The Bishop made him a Saint for ‘’taming the vikings’’ and ‘’showing them the light’’. And so, Olav was then turned into a propaganda figure to further the Christian agenda. All with a great divine story and all, with the inclusion of tying in the story beats of Jesus’ life to his character for extra effect.

He was deemed THE ideal leader. The image of HOW a King SHOULD be. The image of a righteous man who did right before God. (Which, funnily, made the Swedes take over the throne as a consequence because no one could measure up.)

They said that when he died, his killed who had gained some injuries through the fight, was the first to notice Olav’s divinity. That his injuries had healed completely. And that once he realized he had battled and killed one of God’s chosen ones, he fled to Jerusalem to repent for his sins.

Then 1 year later after he had been buried, they dug his body up and placed it within the church Nidarosdomen. And the moment his body found its new resting place, he healed the ENTIRE TOWN from all their sickness and pain.

Yeah.

So after that, people began to use Saint Olav’s name to replace the old faith by retelling the old stories. You can pretty much in large part pinpoint where some pagan themes got altered during those retellings. 

The Jotun, who were intelligent chaos spirits challenging the order the gods represented (which is... eh, the duality aspect between chaos and order is a christian concept, but it’s what we got) became stupid Christian hating Trolls. Just as an example. Some myths were basically copy pasted with his name inserted into them.

Olav took over the role of both Odin and Thor. And was considered superior to both. He was better at killing the jotuns than Thor was, so Thor gave the mantle to Olav himself...

-

Which got me to the Paganism side of things. Where I found a statement that went something along the lines of ‘’Maybe the Landvettir\the spirits are being hostile because of how forcefully Ch.ristianity came, forcing a new way of life. Severing people’s spirituality, their connection with nature, the spirits? And then went on to disrespect them at every turn, treating the land spirits as demons for the crimes committed by humans.

And, like... I like that, it makes a lot of sense, actually. 

-

Moving on to a different but related topic; witch hunts and the Scandinavian Devil. 

The Scandinavian devil most likely originated as a pagan concept like most things. What that original source is, we’ll never know. But what I find hilarious about the old concepts of the Devil is that they’re represented as ‘’eeeeeeeeevil’’ for...

1. Giving people money and food. 2. Gave women and other outcasts more autonomy and power. 3. Was the midwife to women who gave birth outside of wedlock. And encouraged women to kill said children, children who likely would be unwanted, would ruin her reputation, would push her out of the local community. They basically offered a late abortion through infanticide is what I’m getting at. 4. Taught people how to read and write. 5. Made people question the church’s power structure. 6. Created a space and community where outcast of the society could throw away social expectation. 7. Sexual liberation. (Though the Scandinavian devil was highly sex repulsed and fled from even sexually obscene language. This is more of a... the devil from other places in Scandinavia thing. ) 8. Taught magic. 9. Told their followers to be unpleasant and harm others who slighted them. 10. Took your soul, your heavenly ticket to paradise.

The devil wasn’t a saint, but I just find it hilarious that all of the things they did were deemed bad when in a modern context they were doing really good things.

Which then connects them to witches. The church thought women got kids with the devil. Then they realized, wait, Demons can’t get kids. It’s a succubus\incubus, who helps the devil get the kids. By using the sperm of human men, corrupting it, and then inserting it into women.

And the Succubus\Incubus is their right hand man. Yes. Logic.

And so on, so on. That’s not even touching the anti-semitism that went on during the time, but I’m focusing more on the folk lore aspect of things at the moment.

I dunno.  I just find it interesting how it all connects and I’m not even half done researching everything I want to research.

#◼️ OOC #long post #I'm sorry for the ramblings but I'm just amused by everything

[captain-s-rogers]

It’s time for a challenge ladies and gents!

I absolutely love the TV show Psych! It’s one of my all time favorite shows and the dialogue in it is downright hilarious! Because of this I thought why not do a challenge using the dialogue from the show as prompts! That being said, I have selected 50 quotes from the show for the prompts! 

ON TO THE RULES, REGULATIONS AND PROMPTS!

Rules

No need to be following me, but it would be nice, this is open to everyone.

Send me an ASK with your prompt choice (along with a backup) and your pairing of choice. Reblogs or replies with entries will be ignored. Asks without pairings indicated will be ignored. It just makes everything easier for me to keep track of this way.

I will be answering these asks privately so I don’t clog up everyone’s dashboards, which means no entering on anon. If you want to enter and will be posting on a side blog just let me know the name of the blog in your ask.

There will be only one spot open per prompt, however if this garners enough interest and all the prompts get taken I may open it up to two

This can be used as a oneshot, drabble or start of a series. Please don’t make it part of an ongoing series, I want to be able to read every fic in the challenge and I will not be able to catch up on a bunch of series.

Use the tag #ivehearditbothwayschallenge within the first five tags on the post

Be sure to mention that the fic is for my challenge as well as tag me in the actual post.

All pairings are welcome but please check my FAQ to see what I do and do not read.

Your pairing must be within the Marvel fandom.

It can be as short or as long as you’d like. All I ask is that if it is over 500 words to please use a keep reading feature.

Sign ups begin as soon as this is posted and will end April 30, 2020 the day before the challenge due date.

Posting begins whenever you finish writing!

Entries will be due by May 1, 2020. If you need an extension at any point or need to drop out just shoot me a message chances are I’ll say yes – we all have lives and things get in the way so I totally get it.

I will update the prompt list as often as possible with what is still available. Once a prompt has been filled I will cross it out.

Some of the prompts have characters’ names from the show, I will put these in [ ] so you know to change them!

HAVE FUN! I want you guys to enjoy this!

I think that just about covers it for the rules! If you have an questions feel free to drop an ask! Now let’s move on to the prompts!!

Prompts

“Just because you put syrup on something don’t make it pancakes.”

“Well, much like Lady Gaga, I was born this way.”

“We take our hand-held entertainment very seriously.”

“Everyone stop what you’re doing and only pay attention to me.”

“They tell me I got something called Narcissistic Personality Disorder. But, uh, the truth is this lustrous hair and dimpled chin are merely chapter one. I’m a veritable cornucopia of high-octane maladies, such as outrageous intelligence syndrome. And a little obsessive successful disorder.” @captain-rogers-beard

“I can’t help being a gorgeous fiend. It’s just the card I drew.” 

“What isn’t clear is why people always say ‘goes without saying’, yet still feel compelled to say the thing that goes without saying. Doesn’t that bother you?”

“First question. What is your name?” “There is a murderer on the loose.” “That is not your name.”

“Sorry, I was too busy James Bonding it up in here.” @sagechanoafterdark

“I will eat you in manageable, bite-sized pieces.” 

“She’s obviously meeting a new boy toy. Maybe one even younger than the last.” “Younger? Who do you think she’s meeting with, Justin Beiber?”  @arrowsandmixtapes

“[Guster], you have to wake up to the real world: people have sex and kill each other. That’s the real world. Not some magical ‘feelings’ place.”

“Holy crap, are you checking your email?” “I get productive when I’m nervous.”

“I wanted to be heroic.” “Oh, [Mary], with a flare gun?” 

“I’ve seen it all.” “You’ve seen it all through the cracks in your fingers while you were hiding your eyes.”

“I still smell like stinky nuts!” 

“I’m not big on nude handshakes.”

[Gus] don’t be Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Marzipan.” “It’s Azkaban.” “I’ve heard it both ways.”

“I don’t lose things. I place things in locations which later elude me.”

“I’m just saying, technology is way overrated.” “That’s interesting -- just yesterday you told me you intend on having your wedding in space.”

“Are you in my apartment?” “Please. I haven’t snuck into your apartment for weeks. Which reminds me, you’re all out of peanut butter.” @thorfanficwriter

“I can’t believe you thought that text was from me. It lacked all nuance, my signature mocking tone, and was utterly devoid of emoticons.” 

“Well, fooling around with your best friend’s sister certainly wasn’t your most brilliant idea.” “No, that was the toaster alarm I invented in the third grade that woke you up by smacking you in the face with a waffle.”

“I have an idea, but we’ll need cool names.”

“[Mindy] it’s official: you’ve won bitchiest banana.”

“Just call me the suck-stopper. No, wait. Don’t ever call me that.”

“Well, at least that gives us the ‘how’. Now we just gotta figure out the ‘why’, which reminds me, [Gus], will you please get us those tickets for The Who?” “Where?”

“Where do I get a juice box and does it come in grapalicious.” 

“I think your shirt and his shirt should get together and go bowling.”

“I’m gonna crack her like a bad back!” 

“How about you play six degrees of kiss my ass?”

“Where’d you get that suit, the toilet store?”

“Oh, yeah? Well, I’ve got an ice-cold can of whoop-ass just sitting in that fridge!” “Actually, it’s diet whoop-ass.”

“Hooray for loopholes!”

“The chips say you’re a cheater, cheater pumpkin eater!”

“Clouds don’t kill people. People kill people.”

“We find the mystery lover, we find her.” “Dude. Why don’t I ever get to say things like that?” 

“There is something I’ve got to get off my chest.” “Is it your shirt? Please say no.”

“Heard about Pluto? That’s messed up.”

“This place is trashed.” “Maybe Johnny Depp stopped by.” “I’m sorry, did that joke just arrive in a time machine from 1992?” 

“Don’t touch that, it’s blood.” “It’s not blood.” “Enjoy your hepatitis.” 

“There’s a Lt. Crunch here to see you.” “Crunch?” “Actually, I’ve been promoted. It’s Captain Crunch.” 

“How do you just eat when there’s a dead guy laying there?” “What, is that rude? Am I supposed to share?” @mermaidxatxheart

“I just got a lap dance from Patrick Swayze!” 

“Kudos on the childrearing. Let me know how the therapy goes.” 

“You’re dating a murderer!” “Not exclusively.” 

“Okay, you have got to stop calling your nose the Super Smeller. If you want to nickname a body part, nickname your butt, man. Call it the Tight-Bouncer or the Hexagon. Ladies are gonna dig that.” 

“You cannot sit here alone in the dark in a parked car. You’ll get picked up for Mopery.” “Mopery?” “With intent to creep. Trust me, you don’t want that. It’ll put a big hole in your future.” 

“How can you tell that someone’s a compulsive liar? I mean, assuming that their pants aren’t on fire.”

“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely why time travel is not only possible but may have already happened.” 

Tagging for interest and signal boosting!

@arrowsandmixtapes @the-murder-strut-murdered-me @growningupgeek @captain-rogers-beard @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan

#ivehearditbothwayschallenge #challenge time #challenge announcement

[moonaft]

The Killing Frost - Review

I usually wait for my library to have a copy before reading the latest book. Not this time.

Honestly, this is more of a live blog than a review.

Spoilers up to The Killing Frost and June 2020 for the Patreon stories.

Before I begin, I want to mention that I have physical copies of only some of the books. These are Rosemary and Rue, One Salt Sea, The Winter Long, The Brightest Fell. As of yesterday, I count the Kindle copy of The Killing Frost in that number and will pick up a physical copy eventually. Everything else I borrow from the library, which are usually always available. This series is something I keep re-reading because there’s something new every time I read.

“It doesn’t matter what I wear to the wedding, we both know it’s going to be completely covered in blood before we reach ‘I do’“ and we’re off to a wonderful start. I’m so glad Toby has become genre-savvy. She can now anticipate and plan for being covered in blood. That’s character development.

“My name is October Daye because my mother should never have been allowed to name her own children.” No, your name is October Daye because Eira wanted children named thematically after their parents and the Torquills went for all the months of the year. You can blame September for that one. Or I suppose August is older than January, so blame Simon.

Interesting that she’s accepted that one day she’ll burn out the rest of her humanity.

“Now I live in a house that I own free and clear, thank to Sylvester” Does he still pay property taxes on it, or is that Toby? Does Sylvester have an accountant, and if so, are they fae or human?

Toby, you could definitely get married at the courthouse and then do a fae wedding. They won’t recognize the mortal one but you can still say you’re married. Do Tybalt have any form of human id? I guess they could magic something up and confuse the attendant.

Hi Karen! Something I forgot for my “Open Question” post - why does Stacy have two Seer daughters when Seers have been nearly extinct for centuries?

How’s that for a plot hook? Your seer niece lets you know what you’re doing and with whom. Easy.

After everything Toby’s been through, she has a right to be paranoid when someone knocks at the door after Karen’s done warning her.

Could still be a trap. Negative points for not confirming with Tybalt first.

His date idea is very romantic, I will give him that.

Does Tybalt even have a last name? I don’t remember if he does.

It’s always fun to recognize people before the narrator mentions them by name. Hi Patrick and Dianda! This isn’t suspicious at all.

Does Dianda use the same wheelchair whenever she’s on land? If so, where do they store it? Or do they haul it with them? Is there a storage unit filled with Undersea fae stuff?

Patrick, this isn’t weird at all. You’re digging for something. Given that the summary says Toby needs to invite her legal father to her wedding, I assume you’re trying to make sure he’s there.

I’m not convinced Simon’s trying to wake up Evening. He doesn’t like her, and if losing his way home made him forget August even exists, I’m not sure he’d return to Evening given a chance.

And there’s the actual kicker - by not inviting Simon, Toby allows his boss to claim offense. Evening claiming offense on his behalf is a very very bad thing, and that’s why it’s important he’s there. I am certain Patrick’s parents weren’t at his wedding, but they probably washed their hands of him when they heard who he was marrying. And their liege probably didn’t care about a landless Baron in another Kingdom, so there was no consequence.

The Luidaeg did tell Toby she has to find Simon - along with two other tasks. What happened to those?

Looks like Patrick does have the broad strokes of the plots of The Winter Long and The Brightest Fell - given how much Toby doesn’t tell people, I wasn’t sure. She didn’t tell him about Poppy prior to the Ducky of Ships, after all.

Patrick and Dianda do want him back - looks like I might right that he goes to Saltmist when this all clears up. And they really want him to divorce Amandine, which, yeah. That marriage is not a good one. I firmly believe that if they do divorce, both Toby and August would declare for Simon.

“Bring him home” from Les Mis starts playing. It’s interesting that Dianda is the one telling Toby this.

“You and Tybalt have been banking on my ignorance throughout this whole process, and now your reward is that you have to go with me to look for Simon Torquill, and Tybalt can’t come” I love how she rolls with it. This would have been unheard of in The Winter Long. 

“And yes, I actually wanted him to be there when I did that, if it was even remotely possible.” Aww. It’s a shame her relationship with Sylvester is deteriorating at the same time her relationship with Simon is growing, but it is growing.

I assume Spike, being fae, is also functionally immortal and won’t die of old age.

“I hardly wind up ambushed and alone at all these days.” True, thanks to your ever growing cast of rotating characters.

I love Toby’s continued roasting of Evening and Amandine.

If Evening’s been in the Mists for a thousand years and also popped for Tam Lin in Scotland 500 years ago, how is she getting back and forth between the two? Though she convince Torin to take Saltmist when she was asleep, so maybe she’s just been dreamwalking.

Hi Marcia! What weird things are you going to do this book that no one’s going to pick up on?

Dean and Quentin are cute together.

Wait, this means Toby needs to invite Amandine to her wedding. Fuck.

It’s the Summer Roads key again.

Right, Ceres could do it too. And Toby’s actually thinking of the consequences of her actions.

Quentin will be a force of reckoning on the High King’s throne.

Hi Etienne! You could totally go visit Toby whenever you want.

Randomly appearing magic door - technically, the knowe could bring them directly to the Moon Garden if it wanted to. It wants to bring them to this door, and let them know something’s going on.

Blood for the blood door? Toby has a right to Shadowed Hills, and the knowe knows and likes her. Maybe this is a way of helping with her eventual claim?

“Cool. Good to know. We’re all going to be eaten by weird magic flowers.” “Let’s face it, this isn’t much of a surprise.”

It’s Raysel’s bed/coffin. Given that they’re looking for Evening, I don’t like the parallels to Raysel’s Firstborn. 

Neither Evening nor Simon have an interest in Raysel, but Sylvester doesn’t know that.

I love October’s speech to Sylvester about Rayseline.

It would likely be good for Raysel to spend a year with Toby at her house. She can meet Toby’s teens and live without her parents for a while. Might be awkward when Dean shows up but that’s a conversation they need to have.

Interesting that Raysel’s magic changes - did she get more of her father’s scent?

Summer Roads key is weird, and definitely more plot related than it appears. Given that it’s currently a MacGuffin to get to Evening, that’s pretty powerful.

What is this weird black bubble.

Shit, May got impaled.

So this is where Simon stored Luna and Raysel for 14 years. I personally wouldn’t anchor a formless void holding a Blodynbryd off the Rose Road where she has power, but it ‘worked out’ I suppose.

Toby’s headache is concerning me. I wonder if she’s doing the impossible without knowing it, and that’s what’s causing the magical backlash.

How did Luna and Raysel escape the bubble? There’s been no indication that someone found them, so perhaps they found Simon’s door.

Toby’s talking to Maeve as roses. How is she doing this? Why is Maeve (or part of Maeve?) part of the Rose Road? Didn’t the Luidaeg and Toby turn onto Annis’s Roads at some point during The Winter Long? Did they transition from the Summer Roads part of the Rose Roads into the Winter Roads? Is that even a thing? Why does the Summer Key allow them access to it?

Reviewing TWL again, the Luidaeg used the Key to open Annis’s forgotten road to take a shortcut to Shadowed Hills. Then Luna used the Key to open a Rose Road to Evening. The Key, which “belonged to [Luna’s] grandmother”. Unspecified grandmother. Maybe it’s not a Summer Roads Key afterall.

Roses are the thing that connects all three Branches - Maeve has them, Eira has them, Amandine has them.

Unrelated to the current plot, I think Raysel would be great with flowers. It’s implied that when a mixed blood uses a hope chest to pick one bloodline, they keep something from the missing bloodline. Tybalt’s niece Cailin (Daoine Sidhe/Cait Sidhe -> Cait Sidhe) is extraordinarily good with illusions and can’t shapeshift. August is relatively good with illusions (enough to bind Quentin) and kept her red hair and yellow eyes.

And Maeve (or a representative?) listens to Toby. Wow.

Quentin has strong and unflattering opinions about Evening’s forest scene. I love how the characters feel focusing on the small details. They’ve accepted the impossible and have moved beyond it.

Interesting that there’s no scent of roses before finding Evening’s clearing. Another open question: why does Evening also get apples in addition to roses and snow? What causes the shift between roses+snow and roses+apples? 

And why doesn’t anyone but the Luidaeg recognize that apples are also Evening’s? 

“I wish I’d met Simon and Sylvester’s parents... it doesn’t make sense.” “Most Daoine Sidhe I’ve known have something floral about their magic. Simon doesn’t” Does his mulled cider not count? Fruit isn’t floral? I want to know Septimius’s magic scents as well, because I’m pretty sure Simon got the apple cider from him, via his own mother aka Evening’s daughter Fómhar. The October Daye wiki is failing me on some of these names.

Please let her know that the twins were once changelings this book. Please.

May, I’m sorry you have a literal hole in your body, but I live for magical theory.I need moar.

Hello, Sleeping Beauty. Also, Simon is rather good at archery and I don’t know why that doesn’t come up more often. 

Simon is not looking well. He’s also doing some bizarre leaps of conversation -

October: We came here to look for you.

Simon: Where’s Oleander? 

No one brought up Oleander? I get that the spell is doing weird things to his mind, maybe it’s skipping. 

"who seemed to have stolen most of his memory of who he’d been”

Jossed on him not seeking out Evening, but kinda confirmed on the reason why: he doesn’t give a reason why he’s working with Evening. The spell’s not working as well as it did on August - he is definitely getting confused, if only briefly. 

Is that why he didn’t show up during Night and Silence or The Unkindest Tide? He was stuck in the clearing? What has he been eating? Is he still wearing the same clothes he was in for The Winter Long and The Brightest Fell? 

October: Hey, you can wait here for a hundred years, we just need you to take a trip to see the Luidaeg. It’ll be super quick.

Toby, I love you. 

AND HE REMEMBERS PATRICK. Enough to stand down, at least. But he think’s Patrick’s dead? Oh no no no. Did he think that for most of the last century? This keeps getting sadder. 

At least he’s not hurting May and Quentin. 

I don’t think he sent the Doppelganger in Rosemary and Rue, pretty sure that was Devin. 

He doesn’t remember the events of TBF, interesting. 

Fucking hell, that was too easy. I should have seen it would be too easy. And he thinks Amandine modified Toby’s memory?

I guess May doesn’t need to worry about infection. 

Helpful pixies! Glad to see more of them. Toby better deliver that dinner soon. 

“Also to be fair, the terrible disaster was usually either my fault or happening to me” True words, Toby. 

Hi Walther and Cassie! 

HI Luidaeg!

If her debts are currently balanced, then she did work off the other two from The Unkindest Tide. 

Yeah, pretty sure Simon hasn’t broken the Law yet. 

Emotionally mature Toby strikes again. She’s been so this entire book. The amount of difficult conversations so far is pretty large. 

This focus on Stacy not wanting her kids to date is interesting, unless it’s a red herring. And she grew up with Toby in Shadowed Hills. Not Firstborn, I won’t guess one of the Three - Marianne? But she was fully grown back during the earthquake. Did her fae grandparents have a human partner like Simon and Sylvester’s parents, and her fae parent was also a changeling? They moved away after their child died because they couldn’t deal with the grief? A hope chest moving her blood? How old was October when she met Stacy?

Hi Arden!

Recap time with the Luidaeg. 

A solution with Dianda and Patrick? If he goes and lives in Saltmist, he’s far from people who want to harm him. 

If Simon’s so good at using other people’s blood, then potentially he could use Amandine/August/Toby’s blood to be a poor man’s Dóchas Sidhe. For healing, maybe?

‘Her husband could only hear the ones who belonged to him” - huh, interesting tidbit about Oberon. 

Torquill lore! Finally revealed to Toby!

Off to Goldengreen. Return of the water trauma for Toby, boo. 

Oh my god she’s an otter. So cute! Yes, everyone should be an otter. Bite her, Toby. Do it. 

Marcia! Does Marcia not know that Simon exists as a separate person from Sylvester? Acacia at least understood that Simon wasn’t Sylvester, even if she didn’t get the concept of twins. I’m not surprised she survived Simon’s spells - Evening seemed to completely ignore her in TWL. And Firstborns tend to get mind whammed if they think about her for too long. More evidence for the Titania theory (or Maeve, if she’s in multiple pieces).

That many spells can’t be good. 

I am not surprised that Toby asked how to give Simon her way home. This family has a tendency to pass around debts. 

Also, now would be a good time to call Tybalt. Might be faster than driving to Half Moon Bay. I guess the plan is to steal a Selkie skin and swim to Saltmist since Goldengreen was a bust? But yeah, he’s probably not up to date with TUK if he’s been stuck in the clearing for a year. 

“evil hot potato” good phrase. This stinks a little of self-sabotage.

Diva did need to be shifted, interesting. 

Simon wouldn’t have gotten away with it, there’s nothing natural about a boy eating 6+ bowls of soup, especially if he kept doing it past when he’s physical ill. Poor Quentin.

Interesting that Simon’s not trying to cause harm. His superpowered spells are doing a terrific amount of damage, but nothing that can’t technically be reversed if they have the power to do so. Even Quentin was harmed only because he couldn’t stop eating, and that wasn’t Simon’s intention. 

Dean admittedly is not have a good day. Neither is Quentin. 

Simon under the Luidaeg’s curse is surprisingly self-reflective. I wasn’t expecting that.

Fuck off, Evening.

I didn’t think we’d get the reason behind why the Luidaeg couldn’t lie in this book, that’s nice.

Go Toby, tear this bitch down.

It is interesting that of the three daughters of Titania we’ve met, each one follows a different school of magic. Guess it shows that schools of magic don’t always follow blood.

Evening has been dreamwalking. Stronger when she’s sleeping? Can’t keep her asleep, can’t keep her awake. Can they turn her into a stone?

Confirmation: Titania was banished, and I assume only Oberon could do that.

“Lady, let alone” Maybe in the first blood changing dream, with her father who I think was actually Oberon? I don’t remember.

Tybalt and Walther also aren’t having good days.

I don’t get what Toby’s figured out.

“Rolling emergency that is your ongoing existence” Love it.

Dean’s day is getting better.

There goes the hot potato. I appreciate that Simon’s first action is to get the Luidaeg to reverse it and I’m sure Tybalt isn’t far behind.

Simon’s spending a good portion of the book confused.

Toby just coughed up a pigeon. I can’t determine if that’s weirder than the Luidaeg pulling it out of her chest.

“None of my enemies are remotely that powerful” I’m pretty sure there won’t be a book where Toby travels back in time, but just imagine what a book that would be. And Simon’s mulled cider is back, nice. And confused again.

Seriously? SERIOUSLY? Thornton?? OBERON???

Is his name a play on ‘root and thorn’?

Did he make himself human so Janet could fall in love with him as human? He’s expecting her.

Her name was suppose to be Almandine? And she doesn’t count as home to Toby, no wonder.

She got Oberon lost in Annwn and then pulled him out again. What the fuck.

Confused man remains confused. “He looked like a man who’d just lost everything” Something tells me that isn’t because he’s meeting his father-in-law/a physical god. Did Evening tell him something about Oberon’s return that hasn’t been revealed yet?

Lots of people get to come home today. This is great.

Time to get status reports. Toby is calm in crisis, as long as no one’s actively trying to kill her.

Let the Luidaeg and her father catch up. Wow. I didn’t expect they’d find Oberon with more books left to go.

Toby owes Walther far more than just one pizza - get that boy home and let him sleep.

Way too tired to consider how the car got there. Is it only one day since the Cat in the Rafters? Is this book taking place over the course of a single day? How long were they on the Rose Roads? Everyone needs sleep and food.

I do appreciate Simon taking responsibility for his actions and while apologizing doesn’t fix anything, it is the right thing to do. Toby hasn’t had a chance to tell him about her meeting with Patrick and Dianda, has she? He assumes he’ll be elfshot.

Not that his opinion matters on the Toby/Tybalt relationship, but I like how he’s being supportive.

Get married in the courthouse Toby, The fae won’t recognize it but it takes pressure off the wedding in Toronto so when that goes south, you are still married. Take May, Jazz, Quentin, Raj and whoever else you can grab at short notice.

Good on Toby for checking in on Tybalt and having a difficult conversation.

Back to Goldengreen. Do let Marcia hit Simon, let her do that. Once again, no one remembers that Marcia’s survived things a thin blooded changeling shouldn’t. And Simon doesn’t want to face Patrick and Dianda. It’s been over a hundred years since he last saw them. I wonder how much of the time he thought they were dead?

Changing people into trees can at least be reversed. There’s going to be trauma, but it’s better that everyone in Goldengreen was a tree or toadstool then dead.

“We have access to Oberon now, we can ask him for more Laws if you think we need them.” Oh god. I love this entire chapter, the dialogue is great and too numerous to quote.

And Simon, Patrick, and Dianda aren’t saying anything. Thank you for taking charge of this scene, Toby, otherwise nothing’s going to get done.

“Not that we’re going to get a honeymoon, since someone is inevitably going to try to  murder or abduct us” If you say it and plan for it, it might not happen.

Toby’s little interjection to Dean, the pro-mammal conversation, this chapter is pure good.

Can Simon say Eira’s name now? It choked in his throat during TWL.

Are they really getting into the Janet thing now?

Side-stepped that conversation. Simon definitely wasn’t expecting his best friend and wife to convince to divorce his wife, and then have his step-daughter and her fiance agree as well.

OT3! OT3! Oh man, I didn’t expect this and I love it so much! OT3! Do it! Also, Dean’s day just got weirder.

OT3!

“hey, kiddo we want to open our marriage and include the man who just turned you into a tree” so many difficult conversations to have.

Oh my fucking god, this is everything I could have wanted and didn’t know to ask for.

Wedding time? IS IT WEDDING TIME? “My mother’s divorce proceedings” THAT WORKS TOO.

Glad Toby is still carrying her knife even to this. She’s going to be wearing it to her own wedding.

I still can’t believe Simon’s the one calling for the divorce but good for him. Prior to this, I assumed it would be Amandine insisting on it. I assume the news got to Sylvester and Luna and I would love to know what Sylvester thinks of this.

Hadn’t realized Evening got Quentin fostered to Shadowed Hills because she wanted to marry him and become High Queen.

Fuck off, Amandine. Poor August. Raj gets one line in this book :(

And now it’s confirmed public knowledge that Amandine’s Firstborn.

Called Toby declaring for Simon, and I love how fierce she’s picturing her human father during this.

Also, I firmly believe if August hadn’t disappeared and Amandine still married Jonathan Daye (and Patrick and Dianda hadn’t convinced Simon to divorce her), Simon would have been a part of that. And if Amandine hadn’t told him and just brought October home one day, he would have helped Toby still see her own father.

Patrick and Dianda have gotten him to sleep and eat, good. He wasn’t looking well a couple chapters (a week?) ago.

He’s still trying to protect August to make choosing Amandine easier. I still think she’s choosing him.

CALLED IT.

Hi Oberon! Nobody recognizes you, that’s interesting. And you can calm everyone in the crowd. So you have some power.

“You have no descendant line to stand for you” Is that why Eria’s focused on breeding pure blood Daoine Sidhe? She gets power from everyone who declares for her? My current theory is that she wants to be the true Queen of Faerie, get rid of the Three and rule by herself.

Surprise wedding! Five minutes after Simon got divorced! I love this OT3 so damn much.

Dean, Peter and Toby all agree, August doesn’t say no. Toby has two new step-parents and two step-brothers? I honestly can’t think of Dianda as Toby’s step-mother. She’s Toby’s punchy friend and also the women who married Toby’s step-father/ fae legal father.

Peter’s the one who probably going to spend the most time with Simon, given that he’s still an enemy in Goldengreen. Is August moving down to the Undersea? She can’t stay in the tower anymore. Maybe she can crash at Toby’s or Shadowed Hills or Tamed Lightning if she doesn’t want to stay underwater. Has she seen January since she got home? Or maybe stay at Muir Woods.

I would love to see the dynamics of this new family. And the conversations of the OT3 in the past week.

I’m glad to see Simon and August out of Amandine’s grasp. She was abusive.

Wait, Toby doesn’t need to invite Amandine to her wedding because they’re not legally related anymore. Excellent.

Really wondering how the news is taken at Shadowed Hills.

What a great book. What wonderful surprises. I couldn’t have asked for more. No one died. Lots of trauma from super powered compulsion and shapeshifting to deal with but honestly, things are better for a lot of people.

To me, it feels like Simon’s story has mostly closed. He can rest and be happy with his spouses in Saltmist, and pop up whenever Toby needs info about Evening’s plan or blood magic, like Walther does for alchemist solutions. Staying mostly out of the line of fire. Good for him. I was so concerned he would die as a result of resolving his story.

Review of Shine in Pearl to follow.

#october daye #october daye spoilers