#🫀🗡

[kingsmoot]

i feel like talking about my house bolton oc so let's word vomit some stuff about her and her supporting cast. content warnings for animal death, mild gore, corpse mutilation, age gap, recreational surgery 🫀🗡

her name is helicent bolton which i'm not super attached to but i have found naming her incredibly difficult and this was the option i hated least. she is the eldest daughter of lord beron bolton, from a fictionalized historical incarnation of house bolton that requires me to learn exactly nothing of what goes on in awoiaf or in fire and blood. her mother, lady hela bolton, was beron's first wife. she had multiple difficult pregnancies and stillbirths before nearly dying in childbirth while delivering helicent. her not-all-too aggrieved father gave her an h-name in honor of her mother and her disappointing miracle baby.

helicent is tall and kind of boney. she has her father's sharp cheekbones and long downturned nose, and her eyes are a pale, washed out grey. not entirely colorless, but dull and flat and downturned. her black hair falls past her knees and she wears it braided in a tight crown wrapped around her head.

hela never recovered from helicent's birth, remaining waifish and sickly for all of helicent's lonely childhood. beron had myriad concerns outside of his dour immediate family, and took no youths to foster, so helicent's childhood companions were all adults as she showed no interest in mingling with the household's lower born children. she had a sharp head for numbers and from a very young age was interested in the practical drudgery of running a household (sums and accounting, harvest and production, the minutia of keeping a staff) but not in any of the courtesies a lady of the house would be expected to display. she was a reserved and serious child, with a dull flat affect. she loved arithmetic and history and didn't care for music or embroidery.

hela died just before helicent turned ten, and beron took a second wife (the same age as hela was when they were first wed seventeen years ago 😒) who promptly delivered him three healthy and hale sons: helman (that one stung), luton, and ondrew. the boys were close in age and close to one another. they didn't feel any particular way about helicent and she didn't feel any particular way about them, as she was a naturally cagey, solitary person and found avoiding them both easy and preferable. she felt, as soon as she was told of helman's birth and given name, that she had been put far from her father's mind. she was no longer his concern, now that he had heirs to spare.

this didn't bother her overmuch, as her childhood to that point had been largely free from her father's influence. between her permissive solitude and the company of the dreadfort's household staff helicent had developed an …anatomist's temperament.

she has no interest in inflicting or enduring pain, but a rapt fascination in observing it as it occured in others. she began killing animals as soon as she found the strength to do so swiftly, pulling and prodding at their inert little corpses and finding tools to assist in her amateur dissection. she was fascinated by the inner workings of the bodies that served as her playthings, and would hound the household maester (maester oskirk) for medical texts and lessons. as a very young girl she entertained the notion that she would grow up to be a maester one day and study human anatomy at the citadel, but she was dissuaded of this very quickly. the killing of animals crests at the sudden and inexplicable death of her father's favorite horse. the whole of the dreadfort's staff is questioned and multiple people give solid alibis for thirteen year old helicent but beron, distant and uninterested as he was, was not a blind fool. he told her she was to be married off and cast out of his sight.

she spends the next three years scaring off prospective young northern would-be lords, all second and third sons. she isn't purposeful in spurning their offers just sort of openly and unabashedly demented. at some point a stableboy turns up dead in the snow, with his tongue, genitals, and nipples removed. the mutilation was done to his body after he was killed and the trophies are never recovered. suspicion for the murder and the butchery immediately falls on helicent but there is a large amount of doubt. she's tall but slight, and not physically strong enough to have overpowered the boy, taller than her by a head and significantly stronger. the working theory becomes that someone else killed him and helicent defiled the body. beron announces that she will be shipped off to the silent sisters and may the southron gods dole out whatever punishments they wish for what she does to the bodies left in her care.

the "someone" that it is suspected to have killed the stableboy -- who had struck up a one-sided friendship with helicent, following her around like a lovesick little kid and finding excuses to spend time near and around her regardless of how little she interacted with him -- is the captain of the dreadfort's household guard. a man i have a deep and abiding affection for but who i have not successfully named. i am bad at naming ocs. i'm the worst at it. i made the mistake of mentally referring to him as steelshanks once and it's fucked me completely for finding an actual name for him that isn't just a canon placeholder. no relation to walton steelshanks from the main series they just occupy the same position about a hundred years apart. for ease of this post i'm going to call him rodwell which is on a list of possible names i've been juggling for him and also a dumb dick joke.

rodwell and helicent are of a height - she, tall for a woman, and he, short for a man - but where she is young and slight he is old and broad. he is barrel chested, well muscled, heftier in his old age than he ever was in his youth and not as fast as he was then, but strong as an ox and keen. he wears his once-dark hair down past his shoulders and is lax about shaving his face, so his jowls and chins are usually covered in stubble. he and beron are of an age, and he's been captain of the dreadfort's guard since before helicent was born.

their relationship began as a genuine and fatherly affection for an odd, neglected child and grew quickly into an inappropriate closeness. rodwell dogs after helicent and helicent indulges his attention for everything he can give her in return. namely, after a few years of sitting in his lap, kissing his stubbly cheeks, reading to him at night because his eyes are "old and weak", she asks if she can cut him open. he agrees.

he's soon covered in faint surface scars from her amateur surgical exploration. after the first year or so she wants to go deeper and he won't let her unless the maester is involved, so helicent ropes maester oskirk into it. the pair sort of come at it sideways though rodwell's like absolutely not you cannot go deeper into the muscle unless oskirk is here to make sure i don't bleed out. and helicent' like ok and stabs straight through into his guts and well. then they gotta go get the maester anyway. oskirk doesn't take a lot of convincing he's sort of been worn down by helicent's antics over the years. frog boil effect.

anyway this post is getting unwieldy. at this point my timeline gets real wonky because i'm still pulling at this like a big tangle of yarn but eventually we get to a point where beron is dead (under suspicious circumstances…) and helman is the very-young-but-not-a-child lord of house bolton whose big sister is in charge of all the practical day to day realities of managing a household. helman and helicent are cordial with one another. he leaves her alone because she wants to be left alone. he is in reality doing her a great kindness by not forcing her out of his house and also not forcing her to marry, but neither of them really see it that way. she's his weird attic-crawling mostly-quiet big sister and no threat to his own inheritance. they are peaceable. they speak to one another like awkward coworkers who do really well on assignment and then turn into stiff edgy deer in headlights if they ever cross paths in the hallway god forbid.

this relative peace doesn't last terribly long as helman is murdered by second-son luton (can't be proven but widely understood to be true) and he wants helicent out of his keep and his life. he arranges a marriage for her to the forty-something lord of a minor house far beneath her station. the lord in question (i also haven't named him i'm sorry i'm so bad at this please believe me i am trying my best) has two mysteriously (not very mysterious, though, is it?) dead wives so far and is the last possible choice for a woman of helicent's station. but she's old now (about twenty seven) and unwed with a weird reputation. turns out being like super efficient at medieval household management doesn't make serial surgical experimentation and murder any easier for anyone to tolerate. surprisingly, these two get on like a house on fire. big hammer horror's countess dracula vibe.

at some point rodwell ends up making the journey down (the minor house is called blyght (pronounced blight) (their sigil is a brown sprig of stinging nettle on an ochre field) and is at the northernmost edge of the riverlands/the southronmost edge of the north) to come see his girl with every intention of rescuing her from her brutish beneath-her-station husband and is shocked to find her well kept and well entertained. the next piece of the yarn tangle is how helicent convinces lord blyght to let him stay with them. they end up sort of being this reluctant duo of graverobber/murderers supplying their lady with fresh corpses for her… experimentation.

🫀🗡️

[bleed-through-steel]

CHARACTER INTRO

Average yandere ykyk

Technically 70

He moves around where he pleases

[hoovesandfloorpaws]

there's a difference between loving proof and needing proof.

[thedizzydinosaur]

Day 5 resist (sacrifice/corruption/secret)

Tw: mild gore, mention of death, (temporary) child death

It hurt.

Despite all of the potions and salves that were ment to numb the aria in question, each careful, measured cut of the knife stung like a brand, buring hot and sharp.

But he could not stop, not even for a second. Stopping would make him falter, make him bulk and if he were to do that, he would fail at his task, his vital, time sensitive task.

Viren gritted his teeth, and carefully worked the tip of the blade between one of his ribs and the edge of his sternum.

He had to do this. His son would die if he didn't.

Your son is already dead. A poison laced voice in the back of his mind hissed. Dead and laying on your office desk.

Lissa, his sweet, strong Lissa.. she didn't know his plan. This last ditch, desperate plan that had already cost him so much, that was already staining his skin a ashy grey.

She was yet to find out about soren- no, if she was to find out that he'd passed whilst she was away on urgent business, she would never forgive herself.

He'd lose both of them.

Another rib came away with a stomach twisting sqrunch, and another, and another. Viren kept his eyes fixed on the scene playing out in the mirror he'd set up for this task.

He'd never convince anyone to help him with this. Even Mr experiment on thy self Kpp'Ar, like he'd be any use to anyone any more.

The sight of his own exposed organs was enough of a shock to the system to temporarily nub the pain that came with the handful of ribs that covered his pounding heart.

The fat sack surronding it was a suppriseing shade of yellow, and came away easily from the muscle with a couple of flicks of the knife.

He placed a little of the fat in a bowl - it would be needed for the final spell.

Viren paused, and steeled himself. One wrong move here, and it would be all over.

Over for him.

Over for soren.

Just over.

But there was no time to think about that now. He took a deep, steading breath, angled the knife just so, and cut into his beating heart.

-

---

------

He was cold.

It was probably the shock of what he'd just done.

And blood loss. Probably. There was a high chance that that was starting to catch up to him, too.

But he'd managed to put his ribs back into place and slap some potent healing salve on under the banages that now bound his chest together before his strength finally failed him.

He could feel the magic seeping into his skin, flesh, and bones. Each breath, shaking and wheezing like he'd just run up the steps of the north tower from courtyard to ramparts, was slowly getting easier, and less painful.

Small drops of relief against an ocean of pain.

He flopped, boneless and weak in his chair.

His time piece, a delicate metal marvel that Harrow had gifted him on his wedding day chimed Somewhere behind him, telling him that at some point the it had stopped being late at night, and started being early in the morning.

He turned his head to look at the sad, still bundle that was his son, still wrapped in his blanket and cuddling his plush dragon to his still chest.

In a few short hours, Claudia would wake up, and come looking for the two of them.

And Lissa was due home not long after.

.. he couldn't fail them.

Viren pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the way his head swam and his chest burned, and hobbled over to his desk, leaning heavily on his stalf for support.

He still had so much work to do, and so little time to do it.

[bleed-through-steel]

Hi '³'

Quick question.. have you watched the news or listened to the radio recently?

Something about a guy in an alleyway who was basically dead without any injuries but still breathing.. Quite the mystery, no?

They're pretty sure it has something to do with magic– Have any personal theories on what did it?

–he has this weird look on his face, like he's far too interested in what might have killed this guy. Or he's just happy to be around you. Or both. Can't tell–

Boo!

–🫀🗡

oh?

hello again, conor. fancy seeing you here.

[imnotaman]

What do I do???

Okay, so. My cat, Penelope (Female, 42) has recently killed a group of 108 mice who call themselves "the suitors". She's been really depressed since then and I don't know what to do.

She won't leave the house, she won't talk to anyone, she won't even look at me! She's just been mumbling about all of the cats and mice she's killed. She's even stabbed a Dog 600 times with a trident!

I need help, I have no idea how to help my cat... I'm worried for her.

- Ares

[fraternum-momentum]

🧸 thats one of the emojis of all time truly

[narcissisticpdcultureis]

npd culture is "hey i already let you talk about your conversation topic about you so why are you talking about a second topic that's still about you.... it's my turn...."

—🫀🗡

.

[breaking-everything]

Tis' almost here!

[dysfunctionaldogdude]

Would y'all be interested in seeing my creepypasta designs and art on here? I am proud of them just after my last art post I just don't want to feel bad about it

[kingsmoot]

i feel like talking more about helicent so here's her and lord lucamore blyght's meetcute.

house blyght is a minor house situated in the marshlands of the neck, right at the border of the north and the riverlands. their sigil is a dark brown sprig of stinging nettle on a deep ochre field, their words are probably something quite clever but i haven't thought of it yet. ( i was thinking of TOUCH ME NOT but there is a hedgehog house in canon that already as these words. touché, grrm.) Blyght Hall is a modest holdfast built right off the moors, always shrouded by a thick, cold fog. it has a small, dilapidated sept and a modest godswood. historically it was considered a southron house and pledged its banners to house tully, though its members would mostly consider themselves northmen and intermarried mostly with other minor northern houses.

lord lucamore blyght is about forty five, tall and gaunt with dark grey hair, black eyes, and a close cropped salt and pepper beard. he's a known bluebeard figure, having gained and lost three young wives in short order, all from surrounding minor houses. he's been careful only to take third or fourth daughters to wed, whose dowries have all been a pittance and whose lord fathers have simply been grateful that theirs would be a mouth for someone else to feed.

luton bolton, second son of house bolton and lord of the dreadfort after the unfortunate, untimely, and suspicious death of his older brother helman, sent a raven to house blyght asking after the health of lucamore's most recent wife and whether or not his household might need a new matriarch. lucamore sort of thought this guy was yanking his chain. he's head of a lowly nothing house with a tiny little holdfast built over a cold dark corner of misty marshland. then again, he can understand luton's reservations about having an elder sibling in the house. he went through all that trouble to rid himself of the first one, it would make sense that he'd be looking to outsource doing the same to the second.

lucamore wrote back and agreed to travel north to meet his betrothed. luton immediately wrote back to say that woudn't be necessary i don't want your swamp ass in my house either i'll just send her down to you but too late he was already on his way. this was too good a match to really be true, he reasoned, whether the boy lord wanted his eldest sister dead or not. something had to be the matter, and he wanted to go see the catch face-to-face.

lucamore and helicent met for the first time in the snowy courtyard of the dreadfort as a particularly harsh autumn was curdling into a harsher winter. they recognized each other right away. have y'all read exquisite corpse? it was this but based only on a meeting of the eyes.

helicent is immediately enamored with lucamore in a way she's never felt with anyone else (especial not rodwell. i'm sorry rodwell. : ( ), and they spark a passion in one another born of immediate and instinctual understanding.

luton's reception of lord blyght and his small entourage is cold. he remarks aloud this time that the swamp lord need not have traveled all this way to gift the dreadfort so many mouths to feed at once when he would have happily sent his sister to the neck. helicent says he needn't worry overmuch, she'll travel back with this same party once they and their tired mounts have rested. this is the first time she has ever addressed luton directly. it freaks him out.

rodwell also isn't happy about this, as he'd been suggesting less and less inventive and more and more desperate ways to kill either luton or lucamore or both before this marriage would come to pass, and heli doesn't look particularly murderous in this moment. in fact there is an animation sparking across her features that he has before seen only in their most painfully intimate moments. this would have struck quite a nerve regardless but just the other night he'd been sitting with helicent and oskirk in the maester's chambers raving that he doesn't know who this riverlord thinks he is accepting an obviously inappropriate match. he's old enough to have fathered heli twice over, and far below her station besides. glaring and judgmental silence from helicent and oskirk over the crackling of the hearth behind them.

lucamore and his small convoy spend about a week at the dreadfort before heading back down to the neck with helicent in tow. (he didn't even bring a spare horse to bring you back!! you're taking one from our stables!!! says rodwell indignantly as they drink a parting flagon of hot spiced wine in his quarters, heli sitting naked on the windowsill staring at the moon. he didn't know if he'd want me, she says, he hadn't decided. that's worse, says rodwell, my lady please tell me you understand that that is worse. let me rid you of this bother. no, says helicent, returning to his bed, you're the one he bothers. i don't trust him, says rodwell, he means you ill. helicent brings her face down towards his and bites his cheek. you will miss me, ser rodwell, she says, but you will find new ways to pass the time.)

in a radical act of passion and vulnerability, the first thing lucamore shows his lady wife-to-be when they return to Blyght Hall is the undercroft in which his three young wives met their protracted end. he leads helicent down a winding stone stair, cut deep into the earth, throws open the heavy oak and iron door and thrusts his torch inside to illuminate the gloom. the firelight dances over the many tools of his trade. operating tables, restraints, glass and metal medical implements. he places the torch in a sconce and carries helicent over the threshold bridal style, setting her down in the center of the room. did you show this to the other three? she asks. not until after the weddings, he says.

they are wed in the godswood the next day.

helicent is a busy young bride bringing her household in order. it's warmer at the neck than it was at the dreadfort, the autumn seems mild by comparison, but blyght hall is poorly organized and sloppily run. heli spends weeks whipping the household into shape and chastising her lord husband for not letting his previous wives live long enough to properly manage their household.

heli talks to lucamore a lot, more than she's ever spoken to anyone but rodwell. she talks about the books she read at the dreadfort, the experiments she did and the diagrams she made of her findings. about the animals, large and small, and the stableboy. rodwell would've taken the blame for me if anyone had asked, she says, stroking lucamore's hair as he lays across her chest. he told me so himself. he said he'd wished he'd been the one to do it. but why kill him where he'd be so easily found? he asks her, brows furrowed. he knows her well enough already to know how unlike her that was. because that's where we were at the time, she says, suddenly tight lipped.

it isn't long before helicent has him strapped down to his own operating table (built slightly too high for her to use comfortably, she stands on a small step stool to bring him to a more comfortable working level) peeling back the skin of his forearm and instructing him to flex and curl each finger so they can watch the muscles move as he does so. she shows him the scars on her own body where she ran her earlier anatomical experiments, before she'd started sneaking out to find corpses before they were taken away to be embalmed and before she'd started using rodwell. there was no thrill in the pain, she explained, and no interest. and it's hard to focus when you're cutting yourself apart. harder to learn and pay close attention.

the first winter of their marriage is short, only tree years, but difficult. less lean than it may have been if helicent and lucamore hadn't started supplementing the household stores with less traditional game early on in the season. (lucamore finds it thrilling, helicent finds it practical)

two weeks after a white raven arrives from the citadel to announce the spring, ser rodwell shows up at their gate looking thin and haggard. helicent races across the courtyard to leap into his arms, half a girl again. she kisses his stubbled cheeks and runs her fingers through his thinning hair and tells him how horrible he looks and how luton must be running the dreadfort into the ground. rodwell embraces her fiercely but seems genuinely shocked at how well she is keeping. why didn't you write? says helicent, i would have prepared for your visit. i didn't know if…. he grabs her by the elbows, confused and uncertain, my lady - you'll spare me tales of your galantry, she says, if you'd really thought i was in peril you'd not have sat comfortably at home until the spring. and she bites the tip of his nose for good measure.

[bleed-through-steel]

The only thing I hate about being a vampire is that I can't see myself in the mirror. I've completely forgotten what I look like.

I've never really had someone around long enough for me to hear about what I look like, either.

To be fair, I don't stick around either. People find me disturbing, so I try to avoid the ones that look at me weird, which seems to be most people anyway.

[servant-of-circe]

An echo filled the main room as a man - probably about 19 or so - entered the Palace of Circe

Knowing the regular routine, Antinous forced on a smile and walked towards the man. It's been a while since there was a new addition to the pig stable, after all.

"Welcome!" Antinous began, shaking the young man's hand. It felt surprisingly warm, the familiar blue eyes almost reminded him of that little Wolf from Ithaca in a way.

The boy seemed... weirded out, slowly pulling away from the shake. "How... long have you been here?" He asked, as if Antinous was the one unwelcome there.

"Oh, well. I've been here for about 3 weeks, maybe a month?" Antinous continued smiling, he needed to keep his composure, or the visitor could grow suspicious.

"...then why hasn't she dealt with you yet...?"

"Excuse me?" Antinous' head snapped up, hus facad nearly fading away. "Nothing! You must have misheard something.

"Uh huh..." Antinous nodded, slowly regaining control of the situation. Control was always a very important thing here in Aeaea, and Antinous was put in charge when Circe was gone.

"And who may you be, you handsome man?" He didn't find the boy attractive at all, but Circe had taught him that the best way to have a man be more comfterable around you was seduction.

"...my name is Telegonus."

___

!!!Telegonus is open for asks!!!

[marylily-my-beloved]

my fav emojis at your request:

💀🧍‍♂️🦇😭🗡🧐🫀

THANK UUUUUUUUUUU SO MUCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH <333 I WILL MAKE AMAZING TAG FOR U <333

[bleed-through-steel]

Whatcha doin? I've been looking for you for a bit.

Hi hi hiiii (*´ ∀`*)

—🫀🗡

oh hello friend

great of you to visit

[imnotaman]

"This is my husband, Odysseus. And this is Odysseus's boyfriend, Poseidon. And this is Poseidon's wife, Amphitrite. And this is Amphitrite's girlfriend, Aphrodite"

Tagging the other members of the chart bc why not

( @king-of-the-fish @odysseus-of-ithaka @4mph1r1t3 @notesbyaphrodite )