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tarnishedxknight · 4 months ago

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OC Muse: Soryn Vedrai

[Bio and other information below the cut!]

Type of Character & Fandom/Source Material: OC muse, Soryn (SOAR-in veh-DRY), from the FFXII fandom.

Full Name: Soryn Vedrai

FC: William Tyler

Alignment: Lawful Good with Neutral Good tendencies

Race: Hume (human)

Age: Anywhere from early to late 30s, usually, depending on verse. Early 40s for the Fortress verse. For context with some other FFXII characters, from the time of the prologue all the way through to the epilogue of the game, Soryn is between ages 30-33, Ashelia is 17-20, Basch is 34-37, and Vossler is 37-39 (only because he died before the end of the game, otherwise he would've reached 40, heh).

Gender: Male

Sexual/Romantic Orientation: Heterosexual/hetero-romantic

Family: Parents (deceased); older brother (deceased); younger sister (deceased)

Occupation: Soldier; Knight of the Order of Dalmasca (verse-dependent); Judge Magister of the Archadian Empire (verse-dependent); Avenger (verse-dependent)

Potentially Triggering Material in Threads: war; PTSD; nightmares; violence; injury; death; manipulation; assassination; politics

Positive Personality Traits: He's kind, chivalrous, respectful, polite, helpful, brave, and hard-working. He's great with kids, has a great sense of humor, loves animals... Okay why is this sounding like a bad dating profile? XD

Negative Personality Traits: He is a bit emotionally closed-off sometimes, so he can unintentionally seem cold or distant. He can become quickly frustrated by people who refuse to help themselves and would rather wallow in their own self-pity. Hmm... I'm actually struggling to think of negative traits, he's a very decent guy, heh. I'll add more as I develop him, I guess.

BACKGROUND: (This is loooong, I know, heh, but I felt it was important to be as detailed as possible here. Soryn fills a very precarious social, political, and emotional role in the story. His existence has the potential to change canon completely in several ways, and so to make him realistic to the world and to integrate him as seamlessly as possible into the plot, I needed to really explain his mindset, the role he fills, and how he came to be in that position. Otherwise it just seems like I'm ramming him in there without any basis for him doing what he does or for the other characters to entertain the notion of working with him in any way. You don't have to read all of this if you don't want to, but it's here for anyone who wants to understand him a little better and to get a sense of the unique role he plays in the story. This also may change a little bit or become more detailed over time as I develop him, since he is a very new OC.)

Soryn grew up the middle child of the noble Dalmascan House of Vedrai. His father and grandfather were members of the Order of the Knights of Dalmasca, and Soryn followed in their footsteps. His older brother became a soldier as well, fighting with the Dalmascan chocobo-mounted cavalry. His younger sister, talented with minor magicks, was a potion crafter.

His childhood was a privileged one, to be sure. House Vedrai had more wealth than they knew what to do with, and anything he or his brother wanted to do was supported by their father. Unfortunately, the patriarchal nature of the Crown of Dalmasca trickled down into the noble Houses, and Soryn’s little sister was somewhat stifled and sheltered, prevented from following many of her dreams. Although she was permitted to work, it was heavily implied that her duty was to marry and have children. Unfortunately, she never got the chance.

Soryn lost his sister to the plague that ravaged Rabanastre. Despite their wealth and access to healing and potions, she chose to live among and take care of the poor in Lowtown when the plague spread out of control, and as a result, she fell ill and died, far removed from her family’s privilege that might have saved her. After her death, Soryn’s mother fell into a deep depression from which she never recovered. His father believed she died of a broken heart.

After losing his mother and sister, Soryn then lost his father and brother to war. His brother, already a soldier, fell in battle against Archadian forces, fighting alongside Nabradian soldiers. His father, who had been retired from knighthood due to age, felt compelled to come back out of retirement because the need for soldiers in Dalmasca was great. Unfortunately, his age played a role in his demise, and he was also struck down in battle. As the last surviving member of his House, Soryn still strove to uphold the code of morality, honor, and bravery that the Order stood for, as he'd been attempting to do since he first joined the military...

Soryn joined the Dalmascan military when he came of age at sixteen. He started out as a humble city guard in Rabanastre, and worked his way into the palace, joining the Royal Guard. He’d always had knighthood in his sights, not only because it was something of a legacy for Vedrai men to become knights, but also because he believed in the code and in conducting himself with honor and kindness. That’s the person he wanted to be, and with a mentor like Ser Coren Merek, the Knight Captain at the time, and friends like Basch, he had good examples to follow and live up to.

Soryn respected Ser Merek greatly, and when the old knight retired, Soryn then supported his appointed replacement, Basch. He had a great deal of respect for Basch as well, and the two became friends, but because Soryn spent far more of his time at the battlefronts, encampments, and forts of the war rather than in Rabanastre, he unfortunately didn’t have a lot of chances to interact much with Basch. Basch did regularly visit battlefronts and fight in pivotal battles, but he also had many duties at home in Dalmasca that kept him and Soryn apart. Nevertheless, Basch was Soryn's captain, and whenever the two men were around each other, they got along well.

To some extent, Knights of the Order went where their king, or at the very least, their captain, ordered them to. But they were given some freedom to request certain types of work over others. Soryn chose to remain at battlefronts and semi-permanent war encampments instead of remaining in Rabanastre because the city, as much as he loved it, came to remind him of all the family members he’d lost, and of a courtship when he was in his twenties that didn’t work out. He’d fallen in love with a woman who ultimately chose another over him, and he was very brokenhearted about that. So overall, Rabanstre became a bit of a painful place for him, so he preferred to be elsewhere.

Not that battlefronts were great places to be, but he had purpose and camaraderie there, and supporting younger soldiers and being that beacon of authority, hope, and morale for them was something that made him feel good. It was one thing for a battalion of soldiers to have a general with them or commanding officers, but the Knights of the Order carried with them a certain honor and positively-charged morale that uplifted the ranks. So Soryn didn’t mind being the one to charge out in front and gave the soldiers at his back that bit of courage they needed to push on with him. In fact, it was something he loved to be to them, because he knew how hard war can be, and how hard it could be to keep hope alive in battle.

As far as his fellow knights were concerned, Soryn… tolerated Vossler. Their fathers were not friends, by any means, but they were on good working terms. And Soryn’s father was well aware of how close Vossler’s father was to King Raminas. House Vedrai, while in good standing with the Crown, was not specially favored by it as was House Azelas. For this reason, House Vedrai attempted to maintain a good relationship with House Azelas so as not to earn the ire of the king. Having said that, Soryn thought Vossler made for an embarrassing and shameful knight. He thought he devalued the rest of the Order and the significance of the Code of Conduct by thinking himself better than the poor and middle class, treating and speaking of the poor disrespectfully, treating women with disrespect, and frequently running his mouth at Basch and others whom he ought to have respected as well. But Soryn was in no position to diplomatically comment on Vossler’s conduct, save for offering his opinion any time Ser Merek or Basch asked for it.

Soryn loved Dalmasca with all his heart, but he did see that it had problems. Their aging king was clinging to traditions and ideologies that were antiquated, misogynistic, and isolationist. Although not as bad on any of these points as the King of Nabradia, King Raminas was an immoveable icon of the past who refused to bend and resisted change to an unwise degree, Soryn thought. Nepotism, corruption, laziness, and conflicts of interest were also rampant among the ranks, from Raminas favoring Vossler as the son of his friend, to the aging war generals being happy to let men like Basch and Soryn do their work for them while they remained in Rabanastre and coddled the king, and finally Dalmasca being increasingly beholden to Nabradia’s rigid king due to Princess Ashe’s betrothal to Prince Rasler. The way in which both countries and kings were holding fast to ways of life that just didn’t work anymore, that ought to be left in the past, compounded the danger and political precariousness of their positions in the war between the Archadian and Rozarrian Empires.

With regard to his stance on the war, Soryn falls somewhere in between Vossler and Basch’s sentiments. Vossler, believing himself the only one who knew how to properly save Dalmasca from obliteration with nethicite, thought surrendering to Archadia was the answer. Not only would they not use nethicite to destroy Rabanastre as they have Landis and Nabudis in the past, but they would actively protect Dalmasca from hostile outside forces (like Rozarria, for example) because it would no longer be a sovereign kingdom, but a protectorate of the Archadian Empire.

Basch, however, believed that Dalmasca had a right to its sovereignty and that it is worth fighting for, but that such fighting needed to be done prudently and wisely. There was a threat from Vayne regarding the use of nethicite and danger of Dalmasca and the entire peninsula becoming a battleground for the two raging Archadian and Rozarrian Empires. Dalmasca should remain its own kingdom if it wants, but that should not be at the expense of innocent lives or done too hastily or foolishly.

Soryn’s beliefs lay in the middle of these two mindsets, and this is where his life takes a totally drastic and unexpected turn. He believes that sovereignty and autonomy for Dalmasca is possible, but the road will be long, tricky, and absolutely must include compromise and change. Surrendering to the Archadian Empire and to Vayne only puts a temporary bandage on an actively hemorrhaging wound, he feels. Continuing to ally with Nabradia only digs Dalmasca’s heels deeper into their own flawed traditions and culture which needs to be updated and brought into the future. Nabradia will keep Dalmasca stagnant and unchanging when it actually needs to evolve to survive. And continuing to fight for Dalmascan sovereignty while standing alone in the world is foolish for a small, geographically vulnerable kingdom that is completely outnumbered in military, outmatched in ground weaponry and strategy, and outcompeted in airship combat.

The key to Dalmasca’s future and survival, Soryn thought, would hinge upon its ability to negotiate and work with one of the warring empires. Remaining neutral and clinging to old traditions would be Dalmasca's undoing, and Nabradia’s king being killed and their capital being destroyed by nethicite was only confirmation of this in Soryn’s mind. Since Archadia was at Dalmasca’s borders already and Rozarria decidedly had far less of a foothold within the peninsula, especially after the fall of Nabradia, Soryn believed Dalmasca’s only chance was to negotiate with Archadia.

But it’s not as simple as all that. The Archadian government was not a monolith with a single mindset for how the war should procede. Emperor Gramis’ two eldest sons had already been executed for attempting to overthrow their father, and whispers had it that Vayne was poised to attempt the same. The split within House Solidor was clear, but so too was the in-fighting among the Judge Magisters, the Archadian equivalent (at least in military rank, if not real power) of the Order of the Knights of Dalmasca. Some of the Judge Magisters supported Vayne, some supported Emperor Gramis, and still others wanted to obtain the throne for themselves (via the supposed elections that actually chose Archadia’s emperors).

These factions threatened to destabilize the Empire and to result in Vayne becoming emperor himself someday, through nefarious means. If that happened, the power-hungry despot would certainly use nethicite more often. All of Ivalice could fall if that were permitted. So not only was Dalmasca’s future at stake, but all of Ivalice’s was as well, Soryn thought, if the Archadian Empire were to fall into chaos. The answer, then, was not only to negotiate with Archadia, but to negotiate specifically with those factions that opposed a continuance of the war and placing Vayne in power. That meant negotiating with Emperor Gramis and Judge Magisters like Gabranth and Drace who supported him and opposed Vayne.

Soryn had these ideas but lacked the power and opportunity to act on them. He also felt he ought to defer to his king on what should be done, not strike out alone. Knights served kings and queens, they did not rule. But when he was gravely wounded at the Battle of Nalbina Fortress (the very same in which the rest of the Order fell except for Basch and Vossler, and Prince Rasler fell as well), he was captured by Archadian forces and held in the dungeon imperial forces took over underneath the fortress. He was interrogated for information by Judge Magister Gabranth, and from there… everything changed.

The rest of Soryn’s timeline is very fluid because it breaks from canon entirely and may result in the changing of other major events in the game, such as Raminas’ assassination, Ashe going into hiding, Basch’s conviction and imprisonment, Gramis’ assassination, and Drace’s execution. So I’m going to leave it somewhat open as to which of those events and others might still happen or not based on the timing of rp threads and what their specific plots might be. Before this point, Soryn kindof fits into canon and can just be in the background of it all, easily added here and there. But after this point, he has the power to change many things.

(Side note: Soryn's interrogations had barely begun before the plan to assassinate King Raminas and frame Basch for it was already set into motion, although... there may be room for an AU in which Gabranth pushes back against Vayne on the plan because he's getting information from Soryn that could change the whole game, and if that point Vayne decides to go ahead with it himself, say with Vossler as the assassin instead, then that potentially changes Basch's fate. Also, Soryn would be more willing to work with Gabranth if he didn't, you know, murder his king, heh. But the details of this usually won't come up in threads, I don't think, and if they do and it matters, we can always discuss how things went down beforehand. There are just a lot of options here because of how Soryn has the potential to change a lot of things early on in the story.)

Over the course of interrogating Soryn, Gabranth comes to feel that he could potentially be a great asset to the empire. More so than Vossler, who increasingly was becoming unpredictable and self-serving in his actions (such as wanting Ashelia for himself, and shifting his allegiance from Vayne to Judge Ghis when it suited him). Although Gabranth thought that blind honor was foolish, Soryn’s honor was not blind. He wasn’t a white knight who stuck to his code even when it was foolish to do so. Although Soryn believes in honor, he also has a very realistic view of the world, and although he wanted Dalmsacan sovereignty, it was an unselfish desire and one that he was willing to approach intelligently and with compromise. Soryn’s Lawful alignment made it possible for real conversations to happen between him and Gabranth, and eventually between him and Emperor Gramis that resulted in an exchange of information and plans for advancement of both Dalmasca’s and Archadia’s mutual interests in stabilizing Ivalice and ending the war.

Over the course of two years, Soryn built mutual respect and trust with Emperor Gramis and Judge Magisters Gabranth and Drace. The information he was able to provide to them aided them greatly in not only protecting Dalmasca for their own interests, but heading Vayne off at several points in his own plans. Emperor Gramis eventually made the decision to name Soryn a Judge Magister, formally and publicly showing his trust in him, but also tipping the scales in his favor as far as how many Judge Magisters supported him over Vayne or their own personal interests.

There was little need for him to rise through the ranks to prove himself militarily, since he’d already done so as a knight. Although he had less power as a knight of a very small kingdom, his military skill both in strategy and fighting ability was undeniable. He was also skilled at both piloting and captaining airships of different types. All he needed was training regarding how to be an actual legal judge and how to run a Bureau. He was well-acquainted with Dalmascan law, however, and so handling legal matters pertaining to the small kingdom were not as much of a leap for him as they might have been for an Archadian. Because of all this, and the dire need for Dalmasca to be handled properly in the greater context of the war, Gramis decided that giving Soryn a position of power (albeit under close surveillance) was more beneficial than it was a liability. Judges Gabranth, Drace, and Zargabaath supported his appointment, while Ghis and Bergan thought it absolutely absurd and made their dissent known.

Nevertheless, despite dissent from the two Judge Magisters and Vayne as well, Soryn became Judge Magister Vedrai, and his Bureau, an additional fourteenth, was to be in charge of Dalmascan affairs. However, this was done with the understanding that, at least until the war could be definitively ended, Soryn would work closely with Gramis, Gabranth, and whoever else necessary regarding all major decisions involving Dalmasca. Dalmasca would be a protectorate of Archadia until such time as the war could be ended. Then, sovereignty would be considered provided certain stipulations were met by the throne of Dalmasca.

This decision to name him a Judge Magister did not happen overnight. It took nearly all of the two years between the prologue and Soryn's capture and the main events of the game for Soryn and Gramis/Gabranth to build trust with each other, and for there to be a mutually beneficial relationship decided upon. If Soryn was serious about working with the empire, then he would be willing to work for the empire, so Soryn's willingness to become a legitimate member of Archadian society and of the Imperial Army to see everything through to its end was a major sign of trust to Gramis. It showed that he was truly negotiating with Archadia in good faith that he would give up his knighthood in Dalmasca to fill a role that would ultimately change the kingdom and drive the direction of the war towards a more peaceful conclusion.

Soryn agreed to these terms, and for his part, he wanted assurance that Dalmasca’s throne and autonomy would be restored once the war was ended. Although it was too late to save King Raminas, he made it very clear that any plans involving the assassination of Princess Ashelia would not be supported by him in the slightest. In fact, if he found that such plans were in motion, he would no longer lend his support to the empire. Gramis agreed to Soryn’s terms, and a solid agreement was made between them.

An additional negotiation was that Soryn become consul of Dalmasca. Soryn knew this would put him at odds with Vayne, but the Archadians could and would not proceed with negotiations and protecting Dalmasca from Rozarria and even Vayne without assurance that someone they appointed would be in charge, and Gramis did not want Vayne to be that person. This was part of Soryn's duties, to balance the greater needs of the Archadian Empire and all of Ivalice with those of Dalmasca. Placing someone with interests in both the survival of the empire and Dalmasca in charge of the smaller kingdom ensured a better outcome than permitting it to remain Vayne's pet project.

When Ashelia resurfaces after being in hiding and thought dead, both she and Basch think Soryn has completely defected to Archadia, and Vossler sees him as a wrench in his own plans for what his own ambitions dictate. Gramis encourages Soryn to bargain with Ashe, and Soryn promises her the throne of Dalmasca if she agrees to some terms. She takes a while to come around to these negotiations, because she doesn't want Dalmasca to be a protectorate of Archadia, but Soryn tries to instill in her that this is necessary, at least for the time being.

Firstly, he argues, showing Archadia they are acting in good faith with the empire is of paramount importance to building trust. Second, it could derail some of Vayne's plans to have power over Dalmasca placed in Soryn's hands, and by proxy, Ashelia's. Thirdly, it would show Archadia and the rest of Ivalice that they are serious about wanting to stabilize Ivalice and end the war, and that peace for all is a goal to which the throne of Dalmasca subscribes. And lastly, under formal Archadian ownership, Dalmascan skies would be patrolled and protected from becoming a battleground. Dalmasca would be considered Archadian territory, and therefore Archadia would be less inclined to fight things out with Rozarrian in Dalmascan skies, because they would want to protect their own interests.

After hearing Soryn's surprisingly pragmatic, non-selfish, and peace-driven arguments, Basch encourages Ashelia to agree, but she's hesitant. She doesn't believe the "surrender" will truly be temporary or in Dalmasca's best interest. From here, the plot could go a number of ways depends on your muse and what path you want a thread to take. Ashelia could agree or not agree to work with Soryn or the Empire, and Larsa could get involved to help this process one way or another.

One thing Soryn would definitely do, though, is to pitch to Gramis that Ashelia be named heir to the Dalmascan throne. Soryn would push for Ashelia to eventually be fully recognized as Queen of Dalmasca. This is not only something he thinks should have been her birthright from the start, but it's part of moving Dalmasca into the future and beginning to change some of the traditions and laws that are holding the kingdom back. The sexism, the lack of female heirs and queens, and forbidding women to join the military are things Soryn things need to be eradicated/overturned if Dalmasca is going to survive as a healthy kingdom. In doing that, they ensure that a sustained and beneficial relationship between Dalmasca and the Archadian Empire could be achieved following the end of the war.

Fun Facts & Other Notes:

Obviously Soryn has the potential to change much of canon with the path his life takes, but all of these changes don't necessarily need to occur or have already occurred in threads. He could start along this path but not succeed. He could become a Judge Magister but be hampered by those who oppose him. Or maybe he stays imprisoned longer if his interrogation doesn't go well or Gabranth isn't impressed enough to bring the matter to Gramis. So the path he takes through canon can be malleable in rp threads to some extent. My goal with him is to explore these different options and possibilities that a character with his mindset brings to the story, so I am definitely up for AUs of all kinds!

The middle picture in the header of a rather elaborate suit of armor is the closest example to what I'd like his Judge Magister's armor to look like. Each Judge Magister's armor is unique and somehow personal to them in style and/or design. Being Dalmascan by blood and with his Bureau dealing with Dalmascan political matters, Soryn's armor reflects that he was once a knight of a desert kingdom. It has gold trim and accents and there are design elements of the helm, spaulders, and arms that look like radiating sun rays. I'm not sure the design in that picture is the exact one I want, but it's the best inspiration I have at the moment.

Soryn is actually a very sensitive person, but that isn't always apparent. He can come across as aloof, but this is a consequence of the compartmentalization he's had to engage in, separating his personal life from that of a soldier. He's very good at setting aside emotions for later, pushing through things like pain, fear, and panic, and being supportive of others even when he himself is not okay. But that means he then sometimes has trouble tapping into and fully engaging with his own emotions because he's so used to shelving them for later. Sometimes later never comes and he just keeps bottling, which isn't always healthy.

Having said that, Soryn's mental health is probably among the best of all my muses on this blog, heh. He's... a pretty solid guy. I'm not saying he's never been traumatized by anything, certainly being a soldier for as long as he has doesn't come without its mental scars, but he's never been tortured, abused, oppressed, etc. like some other characters on this blog have been. Even when he is imprisoned, because he was far more cooperative than Basch, he was not held for nearly as long.

The biggest and most notable thing he wrestles with is PTSD, and for a very specific reason. Soryn was present at the fall of Nabudis, the capital of Nabradia that was obliterated by nethicite. So he saw firsthand the devastation and suffering and just total chaos of what a catastrophic detonation of the power contained within a piece of nethicite can inflict on a city and population. It really both terrified and upset him. After that, there was a marked reduction in morale among both Nabradian and Dalmascan forces that hit him hard, because it felt to them like they were up against impossible odds and clearly losing. Soryn had some heart-to-heart conversations with Basch about it in the days to follow, with Basch bringing his own experiences from Landis and Soryn discussing what he'd seen in Nabudis.

It was the above experience that became the crux of Soryn's motivation to unify Ivalice and end the war for everyone, not only Dalmasca. Seeing how quickly the use of nethicite can escalate, especially when in the wrong hands or ordered by power-hungry despots, changed him as a person forever.

Potential Starter Ideas:

During the "prologue" part of the timeline, Soryn is a Knight of Dalmasca, so your muse could meet him in Rabanastre, the royal palace, or out at a battlefront. Maybe your muse lives in Rabanstre, or maybe they would be helping the war effort at an encampment near a battlefront.

Between the prologue and the main game, Soryn will be wounded at the Battle of Nalbina Fortress and captured by Archadia. Maybe your muse helped capture him, or they're in the dungeon with him, Maybe they visit him in prison, curious about him. Maybe they help him escape, or put in a good word about him to Emperor Gramis or the Judge Magisters.

During the events of the main game, Soryn can be pretty much anywhere on the Ivalician map, doing anything, as a Judge Magister of Archadia. So depending on who your muse is, things are wide open as to where they could meet him and why. I'm open to plotting in messages to help figure some things out before we start.

During the "epilogue" portion of the game, Soryn could be helping Basch to fill Gabranth's shoes in Archadia, or maybe Basch went back to Dalmasca with Ashelia in this AU, and it's Soryn who stays with Larsa to make sure he's protected. Regardless, if you muse lives in Archadia, especially within the palace, they could interact with him there. OR... Basch could stay in Archadia to impersonate Gabranth and Soryn could be the one to return to Dalmasca and assist Ashelia. Your muse could go with him from Archadia to help further, or if they already live in Dalmasca, could encounter him there.

He'll have an MCU verse, so... you guys are familiar with that by now, heh. Same deal, either a magical mishap or a mischievous Occuria brought him to present day. He would be cleared for field work fairly quickly, so he'd be going on missions and all that.

#{ out of dalmasca } ᵒᵒᶜ #oc muse: soryn

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denimbex1986 · 1 year ago

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'Welcome to being a movie fan in the 21st Century, folks. It's not a new phenomenon for the weeks and months leading up to a major blockbuster to be filled with all sorts of hot takes and rampant speculation, but never have we been subjected to that through constant, unfiltered social media reactions. Sometimes, it takes the form of really fun and organic viral sensations (happy #Barbenheimer, one and all!) but, other times, you find yourself staring at a series of ill-informed and wildly off-base tweets making up the wildest claims about a movie — a movie which many of those opinionated individuals haven't even seen yet. "Oppenheimer," for better and worse, has been subject to both extreme ends of the spectrum.

That's not exactly a new development for Christopher Nolan, a director who has inadvertently attracted the most vocal movie fans out there. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone without strong opinions on his "The Dark Knight" trilogy, but even his various original and non-IP films have given audiences a roadmap to tap into his biggest interests, fears, and fixations. That means the inevitable passage of time, recurring portrayals of dead wives/girlfriends, and the fact that the vast majority of his movies embody a very white perspective and worldview.

This is all present and accounted for in "Oppenheimer," admittedly, but a new wrinkle has been added to the mix. Ahead of Nolan's most overtly political film yet, certain segments of moviegoers have sounded the alarm bells and embraced a narrative that his interpretation of the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, "Father of the Atomic Bomb," might somehow justify the horrific killings of hundreds of thousands of innocents. Thankfully, those unfounded fears were never even a remote possibility in the first place.

'The power to destroy ourselves'

Somebody once wrote a line of dialogue about how "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain," put it in their breakout superhero movie, and all but predicted how bad-faith detractors would attempt to take him down a peg for years to come. Was Chris Nolan a self-fulfilling prophet? A student of history? Or was he just someone with the common sense to look around him and recognize what was what?

If the past really is our best signifier of the future, then it feels truly misguided to look at the filmmaker's past body of work and jump to conclusions that "Oppenheimer" would take the most didactic approach of them all. Not that anyone as privileged as Nolan needs us to circle the wagons on his behalf, but he's clearly made a career out of taking the moral quandaries inherent within complex, oftentimes contradictory characters and testing these to their breaking point in the most extreme of circumstances. After all, that's how we end up with movies about Bruce Wayne becoming an outlaw to save Gotham City, a pair of dueling magicians losing themselves in their obsessions, and a profoundly broken, guilt-ridden man committing an illegal mind heist to be reunited with his kids. Even "Dunkirk," arguably the most straightforward tale of heroism in Nolan's filmography, ends not on the stirring image of a captured British warplane essentially burning in effigy, but a disconcerting close-up on the soldier who only just barely survived this ordeal realizing he'll soon be shipped out to face even greater dangers to come.

Does any of this suggest a storyteller who'd strip the horror out of the most horrific act in human warfare ... or, instead, interpret it as yet another cautionary tale?

'American Prometheus'

For the moment, forget the fact that "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer," the imposing biography written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin that "Oppenheimer" is based on, refuses to pull any punches about the complicated legacy of its subject matter. Set aside the reams of documented, historical evidence that the United States' pretext for dropping the bombs on Japan was considered flimsy, even at the time. No, there's an even simpler explanation as to why "Oppenheimer" never even entertained the notion of being a "pro-nuclear bomb" movie: Where would any of the conflict or drama be in that?

There's a reason why the film begins with the haunting quote about the Greek god Prometheus stealing the fire of the gods and gifting it to us mere mortals ... only to be subsequently punished for eternity. Naturally, we then open on a young Oppenheimer already feeling tortured by visions of the quantum universe that only he can see — visions that, disturbingly, resemble violent nuclear explosions. Human nature, the film is practically screaming at its audience right from its earliest moments, will always trend towards self-destruction. Not only is this the quintessential archetype of a Nolan protagonist, but it's also the only dramatic interpretation of Oppenheimer's life that would merit devoting three whole hours to diving into his psychology.

There's a hypothetical, made-up version of "Oppenheimer" that would've actually lined up with the one concocted in the minds of the skeptics — one that's nothing but flag-waving jingoism (probably made by the same folks behind "Sound of Freedom") about how great America is at winning wars and proving doubters wrong. But the much richer text we received instead dares to confront horrible truths about our worst instincts. Because why else make this movie?

'Theory will take you only so far'

A little more than halfway through "Oppenheimer," after reports of Hitler's self-inflicted death and the fall of Nazi Germany come trickling in, the script goes out of its way to literalize the main conceit of the film. After Oppenheimer crashes a meeting of colleagues to discuss the effects of their "gadget" on the wider world, Nolan stages an actual debate about the ethics of dropping the atomic bombs on Japan. Informed that Japan's defeat seems "imminent" and that using their invention would inflict untold harm upon the world, Oppenheimer counters that world leaders can only "fear" and "understand" the weapon if they use it. When he offers up his pie-in-the-sky belief that all war will be unthinkable in a post-nuclear bomb world, the tepid applause his speech inspires only underlines his naïveté and denial.

Ever wonder how "Oppy" could convince himself to continue his work while compartmentalizing the devastating effects it would inevitably have on innocents caught in the blast? So does physicist Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh), who bestows the "American Prometheus" title on Oppenheimer and calls for international nuclear disarmament. So does the security council, when Roger Robb (Jason Clarke) calls out Oppenheimer's hypocrisy over when exactly he first began to develop "moral qualms" about his work.

There are approximately dozens of examples like this throughout the mammoth runtime, where "Oppenheimer" doesn't really tip its hand so much as it slaps us in the face with the cold reality of the entire Manhattan Project. Theory will only take you so far, Oppenheimer's friend Ernest Lawrence (Josh Hartnett) puts it early on. If only those who assumed this adaptation would be "pro-nuke" followed that advice, set their prejudgment aside, and just ... watched the movie.'

#Oppenheimer #Christopher Nolan #The Dark Knight Trilogy #American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer #Kai Bird #Martin J. Sherwin #Ernest Lawrence #Josh Hartnett #Roger Robb #Jason Clarke #Niels Bohr #Kenneth Branagh

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marine-indie-gal · 2 years ago

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Zmey Gorynych

The Slavic Serpent Dragon of Russian Folklore, he is depicited as a Three-Headed Dragon or a Serpent with Human/Dragon character-like traits (sometimes he is also known for having Twelve Heads instead of Three). The Word "Zmei" is the masculine form of "Zmeya" meaning "Snake". But his full name means "Snake of the Mountains". Dragons in Slavic Mythology were mainly famous known for Being Tricksters, Destorying Lands, Kidnapping Mortal Women, and even fighting off Brave Knights to rescue the Damsel. In the Slavic Myth of Dobrynya Nikitich and the Dragon, Dobrynya's Mother warned her Son to stay off the Mountains (where the Dragon lives), but he disobyed his Mother's warnings as he bathed in the Puchai River after he went up to a Mountain but he encountered the Zmey Gorynych himself. Frightened at first, but he then found a Hat which belonged to the Greek Lands and used it to defeat the Dragon. Zmey begged the Soldier not to kill him as the Two made a Pact towards each other but Zmey later on disrespected his vow and kidnapped the Princess Zabava Putyatishna (the Niece of Prince Vladimir of Kev). Vladimir ordered the Soldier Dobrynya to rescue his Niece from the Dragon as the Soldier went back to the Mountain to rescue the Princess. Dobrynya trampled on Zmey's Dragon Pups but one of the Baby Dragons bit the Horse's Leg which immobilized it. Zmey was angry at the Soldier for the Death of his own Children and refused to let Zabava go without a fight. It took Three Days to slay off Zmey but when Dobrynya heard a voice from Heaven called out to him to slay the Beast, in which the Soldier does so finally. Zmey's blood didn't seep to the ground as the Blood was then swallowed by the Earth and Zabava was rescued.

SBSP Universe

Zmey Gorynych is the Three-Headed Serpent Dragon Prince of the Mountains. He is a sly wisecracker, argoant, as he is filled of mischief and pride. He often does to trick Humanity as he disguises himself as a Human Man to trick manipulate people throughout his entire schemes and even kidnap beautiful maidens (which often leads into Damsel Rescuing by Brave Soldiers who fought and Slay beasts). Zmey's main arch-nemesis was the Soldier, Dobrynya Nikitch (one of the most bravest and cunning soldiers of Russia who wasn't even afraid to fight a Beast).

Throughout the years, Zmey had many affairs with Many Human Women which ended up all getting eaten by Zmey since his Brides weren't really good enough for him as he would often usually get bored of them overtime after when he would first meet one. Upon his attention, his eyes was set on the Lovely Zabava (the Niece of the Russian Prince, Vladimir I Sviatoslavich), but since Zabava was actually in a courtship with her Boyfriend, Alyosha Popovich. To prevent her relationship with his Actual Lover, Zmey took the form of a Human and went over to Kiev to woo his Love for Her. Since Zabava was flattered by the impressions of the Disguised creature, Zmey kidnapped her and took her to the Mountains where he kept her as his Bride which made Zabava weep in tears for she was tricked and was forced to be the Wife of a Monster.

Alyosha knew that there was indeed something wrong with the Strange Man and seeing on how that the Serpent revealed himself, Vladimir ordered both Alyosha and Dobrynya to bring Zabava back. When the Two Heroes arrvived at the land, Zmey had capture her hoostage in her new room after they were wed, just so that the said Dragon could greet his Arch-Enemy and Zabava's Real Boyfriend over a feast at his Dinner Table. Fortunately, that ends up being ruined as Alyosha dumps the Wine into Zmey's eyes as the Dragon and the Two Men end up having a battle through the castle of the Mountains as Alyosha grabbed his Girlfriend to rescue her while Dobrynya and Zmey fought together outside of the Kingdom. Dobrynya eventually defeated Zmey as he managed to slay the Dragon. But after when Zabava finally came back home thanks to Dobrynya, Zabava married Alyosha but back at the Mountains of Zmey, his heads managed to pop back up after having his Heads cut off (turns out, he's a magicial dragon who was given immortaility as he can not ever be defeated and he only has one secret weekness). Whenever his heads are chomped off, it randomly grows back as he still manages to do tricks upon his own slef. Zmey isn't exactly a God despite being an Immortal being but he tends to trick around the Slavic Gods amongst their own Pantheon, he is most certainly netural on Chernabog as he is most definitely afraid of him at times despite being a champion towards the Brother of Belobog. He's not really a fan of Neptune nor Poseidon and finds most of the Roman and Greek Pantheon to be very unoriginal and boring. Needless to say, he's not really a fan of Other Pantheons and their own Gods.

#spongebob squarepants #zmey gorynych #slavic mythology #gods in spongebob

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j-ofspades · 1 year ago

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♠♥ for @cassiopeiagarcia ♠♥

…Somewhere in Underland…

Everyone thinks that the Court of Spades is home to warmongering soldiers. The Black Queen, Cassiopeia Queen of Spades, guards her kingdom with great zeal. She is a fair and fearless leader, and she’s smart.

She doesn’t get entangled in the intrigues of the three other courts. More than diplomacy or strategy it’s wisdom. Why would she risk her court, her kingdom, over banalities? So she lets the rumors surrounding her court take hold in the imagination of the denizens of Underland; after all, if they fear her, they won’t attack her.

The Queen is a force of nature, vibrant, impossible to contain, mischievous, creative… and she’s restless in the palace. She would never abandon her court, but she constantly feels she needs something more.

Rumor has it that some nights, under cover of darkness, the Queen slips out of the palace unseen. She roams the streets beyond the royal keep’s walls, and when the fancy strikes her, she enters a tavern and asks for a drink. What is there to fear? If they don’t recognize her, Cass can make herself known. If they do recognize her, who would dare attack her?

During these nocturnal escapades, from time to time, she feels as if she’s being followed. She imagines she recognizes a familiar shadow, a cloaked figure, out of the corner of her eye. And a hypnotic voice that calls to her… But as soon as she turns around to make sure, the presence dissolves, it vanishes. There one second and gone the next. Cass dismisses it as a figment of her overactive mind until the next time she “runs away”.

Things would have remained in much the same way, the Queen’s days passing monotonously between court affairs, tea parties and the occasional joust. Who could have guessed what one such joust would bring?

A visiting Knight from a distant land.

At first glance maybe not unlike all the others who wanted to prove themselves, to win the favor of the Queen or another of the Ladies of the Court. After paying closer attention, though, Cass can tell he is one of a kind. Familiar in a way. A masked knight was not an uncommon sight, but this one… A commanding presence, befitting a prince more than a knight. Masked and cloaked, does he have something to hide?

The Masked Knight breezes through the initial stage of the tournament as if it’s nothing, as if all the other knights were just children riding ponies, pretending to be experienced knights. He stands in front of the Royal Family and bows to the Queen, promising wordlessly to win in her honor.

Who is he? Should she know him? Cass thinks she knows but she’s not sure. If only he would say something. If she hears his voice she will be certain.

“For you, my Queen.” Those are the only words he utters when he’s crowned as champion. And Cass knows. He is her shadow, her mysterious companion of lonely nights.

As promised, he has won the tournament easily, and without either of them foreseeing it, he also wins a piece of the Queen’s heart.

Cass invites him to stay at her court as long as he likes. She half expects him to refuse, to take to the road once more, like the wandering knight he claims he is. But he stays. And something blooms between them. The Queen and the Masked Knight.

Like something out of a fairytale, ah, but this is a fairytale.

They said he was Unknowable, but she gets to know him. Vessel. And she falls for him without having seen his face. As if their souls touched before their bodies did.

He speaks in riddles that somehow only Cass can understand. And when he speaks… He tells her about him and about the deity. That godlike entity is called Sleep, but sometimes late at night between her arms, he calls it Cass. Whispered words make way for songs and with each lyric it feels as if Vessel peels off a layer, a piece of his mask falls away.

Vessel vows to worship Cass. The Queen tells him that she doesn’t want him to idolize her, that they can just. Be. Together. For as long as they can.

Lost in each other they also lose track of time. They pray together, to each other, that they never have to part.

#aib rp #sacred rp moments #cassiopeiagarcia #words as gifts

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true--north · 2 years ago

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Wait, are you also opposed to the idea of Anna with a sword? Gee, I don't like it at all - the idea itself is great, I love Merida and Mulan is one of my childhood heroes, but it doesn't fit Anna. Sometimes I feel like giving her a sword takes away all of her special qualities, she doesn't have to fight and wear pants to be a strong female character, I loved her being strong with her fluffy romantic characteristics!

Yes, Anon. I wouldn't call it "opposition", since it's just a nice headcanon but alas, I don't get why Anna, a romantic, cheerful princess/queen, should be someone like Merida and Mulan. The fact that Anna is brave and strong and capable of a lot to protect her kingdom does not mean that she should put on the image of a Warrior Queen or "Elsa's knight". I don't think she needs masculine attributes, if you know what I mean.

Besides, I think that the original sword idea in F2 was about something else altogether. It was either Revolute, the sword of Aren the Jarl, her ancestor or even Runearad's very sword and was supposed to play as a bright contrast and subtext: yet another ruler of Arendelle comes to the Enchanted Forest with a weapon, but then this ruler (Anna) realizes that her kingdom has been wrong all these years and throws the sword aside, ending the enmity. I see it this way ❄

My(maybe wrong) understanding of the sword history is based on the Forest of Shadows where Revolute turned out to be useless for Anna; on the early F2 poster where the sword breaks the ice of the fjord; on the picture from the book "Exploring the North" where Anna, Kristoff and Mattias find supposedly Runeard's sword on the way back from the Forest; and on the way Yelana was scared when Mattias started threatening to support their Queen in, how he seemed to think, the new war with Northuldra.

From all this, I made up a hedcanon that Anna and Kristoff could take Revolute with them, but then realizing that the Northuldra were good Anna wanted to get rid of it somehow or said some wholesome speech in the spirit of the Forest of Shadows' "Swords and Crowns do not change who we are."

Or the scene of Anna and Kristoff's conversation at the Dam could include a scene of finding Runeard's sword at the very place where he killed the Leader. Then, of course, having learned the truth she would have refused such a weapon.

Even if Anna's sword is not one of these remarkable swords, it could just be the sword of the Arendelle soldiers, since in "Anna, Elsa and the Secret River" book, the girls have already found weapons left after the Battle.

#anna #asks #the sword #frozen 2

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feartheoldblog · 2 years ago

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*knock knock*

I am demanding hcs for your Gilded rot Ocs

!!! (but take your time if you need to!)

HELLO THERE BIM I COME BEARING GIFTS

Headcanons are under the cut 😎

I figured that bullet points is probably the easiest way to do it, so:

Gawain

• He is an impeccable singer, incredibly talented. However, he rarely sings unless he’s had a few tankards of mead and has been peer pressured encouraged to by the other Cleanrots. In a past life, prior to enlisting as a soldier, he was well known as a singer and often asked to lead the hymns at church. However, he avoids them now.

• If you look under his bed, you’ll probably find a romance novel or two that he’s borrowed from the library. No, he wouldn’t sign them out under his name; he’s much too proud for that. He will vehemently deny ownership of them.

• Extremely fond of canines, in particular the patrol hounds. He regularly keeps chunks of dried meat in his pockets to offer them to the dogs. Unfortunately, they aren’t to keep dogs in the barracks for obvious reasons so he often visits the kennels. His favourite is an Irish Wolfhound called Birch.

• Refused to share a room with anyone other than Finlay. He was temporarily housed with Harlan and Aoife for a week and he deliberately annoyed them as much as possible so he could ensure he was placed back with Finlay.

Aoife

• Easily identifiable amongst the Cleanrots due to her being extremely tall. Due to this, she can come across as intimidating despite her amicable, cheery personality. She often hits her head off doorframes but barely acknowledges it (much to the others’ surprise).

• She’s an absolute fiend for fresh fruit. If there’s a delivery to the canteen and you fancy some fruit, you better make sure you can get there faster than her. Her favourite is peaches, though she does enjoy apples too.

• Do not play poker or any other card game that requires deception. You will lose. She is probably the richest Cleanrot because of these drunken nights of betting.

• Cat person. Spends half her time scrounging fish scraps from the fishing boats to feed the well kept cats that live around the Haligtree. Sometimes decides to sunbathe right next to them even if it means she takes up an entire path, much to people’s dismay.

• Seeing Harlan romantically. They often bicker over small things but it’s rare to see one without the other.

Harlan

• An incredible artist. He can use just about anything as a medium, from fancy paints provided by Miquella himself to creating his own dye from plants and berries. There’s many a landscape painting found around the Haligtree, from residents’ houses in the town plaza to the royal residence. He’s often commissioned by Miquella himself.

• The Cleanrot Knight that gets along the most with Miquella. They’re good friends as they shared an interest in the arts, much to Malenia’s dismay as she isn’t too interested in them.

• Extremely interested in how he looks. He wakes up the earliest of all the knights to ensure that his hair is neat, skin fresh and face shaved. He likes trying out different perfumes, both Haligtree concoctions and mainland scents.

• Seeing Aoife romantically. They often bicker as Harlan prefers neatness, whereas Aoife is more of a free spirit that cares not for well combed hair or freshly pressed clothes.

Bastien

• The friendliest person in the Haligtree, he can get along with basically anyone. If he wasn’t a guard, Miquella said he could’ve been an ambassador for the Haligtree. This means that’s he’s a total smooth talker and can talk his way out of basically everything, though mostly tardiness.

• Although he isn’t a Cleanrot Knight and instead serves in the Haligtree guard, he is one of Loretta’s closest friends and allies. He was happily accepted into their group of friends, though how much of this was Loretta’s influence or his own smart talking is unknown.

• Spends most of his time taking naps on the Haligtree’s treacherously high, smaller boughs. He’s extremely agile and can climb with ease, meaning that he’s often used as a scout. It doesn’t make Finlay any less uneasy when she watches him fast asleep, 30 metres above the ground.

• He enjoys playing the flute, and it’s not uncommon to hear the gentle sound in the distance if he’s finding it difficult to sleep.

#THANK YOU FOR THE ASK #just some short headcanons but i hope you enjoy #there’s still some people that haven’t been mentioned or introduced yet #so i’ll add them once they are introduced >:)#two more lovely lasses will be introduced >:)#i also might drop phulgrax in tbh #idc if it ain’t realistic it’s my fic ‼️#asks #gilded rot

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disgruntledexplainer · 1 year ago

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I once created a character like this. He was a polish exorcist born in the early 11th century who got possessed by a demon. He has managed to keep the thing from taking control of his body for the most part, but because it is a fallen Seraphim he has not been able to exorcise it completely. The demon wants to send him to hell, but the exorcist has proven surprisingly virtuous, so on death he would end up going to heaven instead. Failing it's original goal, the demon instead decided to try the next best thing: perpetually keeping him from going to heaven.

in other words, the demon won't let him die. any time the exorcist loses consciousness for even a second, the demon taken control and immediately repairs any damage inflicted. If a nearby target stands to destroy the exorcist beyond the demons ability to heal, he begins altering the exorcist's body and defends him himself. he figures if he waits long enough, the exorcist will eventually fall into darkness of some sort or another. then he will simply withdraw his "help". the demon also has a passive effect when active, which causes people to hallucinate like a really bad acid trip, which he does mostly to mess with people but it CAN scare some enemies away. looks something like this (credit to Hyun's Dojo):

by the way, he still ages normally, though he will never get cancer or alzheimers or anything else that might result in his death. he does get A LOT of back pain, though, and when his brain is damaged sometimes he loses important memories. also when the demon awakens, a glowing blue eye opens in his forehead.

it's been a bit over 1000 years. over this time, the exorcist has taken up his role as a wandering knight errant, righting wrongs and defending the innocent from both supernatural and all-too-human threats. he of course is an exorcist, and can banish or at least harm most demons easily enough, and he has a sword with a relic of Saint Benedict of Nursia which allows him to strike intangible creatures like ghosts. He joined the knights hospitaller and learned medical techniques from an arab physician during the crusades. He's mastered numerous fighting styles, such as the now-extinct style La Destreza, allowing him to dodge most attacks while barely moving a muscle (and thus preventing situations that would release the demon). looks something like this:

bullets he can usually just tank outright, since as stated before he can't die, but anything which damages his brain or would cause him to go into shock releases the demon, and he tries his best to prevent that even though it makes him more powerful. he's... a very poor shot, so he has to rely on his skill with the blade instead.

the comic series was supposed to take place during World War II. The exorcist was in Berlin in 1938 during Kristallnacht, and a number of his friends in the city were brutally murdered. While he tried to put up a fight, he ended up getting shot in the leg while protecting a child, and the demon refused to heal it until everything had settled and he was left alone, resulting in the child dying before his eyes. now he's on a crusade of vengeance to track down and kill the nazis who killed his friends and liberate concentration camps. an old man with a sword taking on one of the most brutal and evil regimes in history.

of course, the demon has been working to turn this crusade into something much darker and indiscriminate, and if he succeeds in turning his fight for justice into a slaughter driven by revenge, the exorcist will meet an untimely end.

he is joined in his fight by a teenage girl he managed to rescue in a disastrously failed raid on the Birkenau concentration camp, who was experimented on and turned into a prototype super-soldier against her will. everyone else he tried to save in the raid died, so since then they have been trying their best to hit smaller camps like Stuthoff. The girl has super-strength, fast reflexes, enhanced senses, and is a terrific shot with a pistol.

lurking behind the scenes is an ancient sorcerer by the name of Johann Georg Faust, who has been lending mystical support to the reich from behind the scenes in a bid to acquire yet more power. he has an army of demons at his disposal, and uses them so sew hate and terror whenever possible. the two are destined to clash eventually.

I never got around to making the comic, unfortunately.

(edit: the first gif only seems to work if you click it. dunno why)

immortality through not being incapable of death but by coming back to life after you die no matter what is such a cool power like it’s just so fucking metal. you can rip me apart if you want, i’ll rise from my own viscera and all you’ll have done is piss me off

#super hero #world war 2

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whatthefishh · 2 years ago

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Hunger of the Pine

Marc Spector x F!Reader

Warnings: Smut, 18+, swearing, oral (f receiving), unprotected p in v, idk what else to even say this is my first fic and first time writing smut please don’t read if you don’t like it? But also please read it and enjoy?

Word count: 5k

Summary: basically you fall in love with Marc while casually sleeping together because duh. How could you not. I based the story off this Alt-J song because I absolutely love them, hence the title. Ok thanks byeeee

Sleeplessly embracing

Butterflies and needles

Line my seamed-up join

Encased in case I need it

In my stomach, for my heart

Chain mail

Hunger of the Pine

Sleeplessly embracing (you)

Yawn yearns into me

Plenty more tears in the sea

He left again. Marc left you yesterday after a particularly intense session and it left both your heart and nether regions aching. His chest to your back, cock hitting something brutal inside you, and one hand wrapped around your torso to reach your neck. He kept whispering filthy words into your ear, knowing what would get you closer to finishing. “Let them hear you, let everyone hear what a good girl you are for me. You’re taking me so well, baby.” You shudder and come back to the present. You don’t know where he goes when he disappears on you, sometimes it’s for a couple weeks at a time, but he always messages you when he’s ready for some company. You try not to let it bother you that he refuses to give you any more of himself. You find yourself reaching across the bed anyway, touching the cold pillow as if he left a trace. It aches- but you shove it down and convince yourself you don’t feel it. You can’t. You shouldn’t.

There’s plenty of potential suitors who would give you every part of themselves, offering you a real relationship. Then WHY are you stuck thinking of Marc? The butterflies you get when you have flashbacks of his hands grazing your thigh the first night you met border on anxiety-inducing somersaults in your gut. How easily he’d won you over then; how naive you were thinking it would be a fun one-off with the too-handsome-to-be-true guy giving you the eyes across the room.

Sighing, you turn on your other side to try and get comfortable, reminding yourself if he doesn’t care to tell you his whereabouts that you shouldn’t care where he bothers to go. Go back to building the walls up around your heart, before Marc Spector wormed his way in with heated glances and calloused hands. God, you’re pining.

And so you finally use it

Bedding with me you see at night

Your heart wears knight armour

Hunger of the pine

Sleeplessly, Embracing, You

Closing your eyes, you imagine the few times he has stayed; held you close to him in the afterglow, satisfied humming, arm wrapped around your middle, kissed the skin beneath your ear almost affectionately. You can almost feel it, him sleepily embracing you. Pretend you feel the warmth of his body. You’re pining again.

Realization grew on me

As quickly as it takes your hand

To warm the cold side of the pillow

I'm there for you, be there for me

I’ll hum the song the soldiers sing

Does he see the sad, pathetic look in your eyes while you watch him get dressed? You think he does, and is just doing you a kindness by not mentioning it. Sometimes you swear it seems like he doesn’t even want to leave the comfort of your arms but he sighs dejectedly and does so anyway.

You’re lying about being comfortable with your arrangement. Why was it that you were so compatible with the one guy who’s emotionally unavailable? Typical of you. The second time you two fucked in the bathroom of the bar went out together he told you, rather harshly, that he didn’t want a relationship, that he was damaged from his last one, and that he’s sorry. He looked it, too. Or maybe that was wishful thinking on your part. Regardless, when Marc gave you the option of staying casual with him, you said yes- somewhat eagerly, in retrospect. Although your heart dropped at his admission, you wanted to keep any sort of connection to him. The physical chemistry was dizzying and addictive since that first night.

Fast forward to yesterday, he mumbled something about having a train to catch in the morning, leaving you in bed, trying to imagine the body heat he left behind to catch some semblance of rest before the start of your week. You don’t know how long you’ve been tossing and turning. Time gets weird when you let yourself overthink like this. You think you’re going to have to say something the next time you see him. You can’t look at his pretty face, strong jaw and swollen lips, deep brown eyes staring down at you while he thrusts-

You’re getting off track. No, you're definitely going to have to say something. You can’t stay quiet next time. You’re just going to come out and say it, say that the arrangement isn’t working for you, that you want more or it has to end. Your sister keeps trying to set you up with her husband’s friends and you can’t keep blowing her off for… whatever this is. Maybe you’ll actually go on a date. Maybe it’ll go well. Maybe you’ll even go back to his place, where he probably won’t know your body the way Marc does, but maybe it’ll be okay. Maybe-

A knock sounds at the door. Who could possibly be at your door at this hour? Your heart rate jumps at the thought of someone breaking in, overpowering you in your barely there pajamas. As you quickly look around for some sort of makeshift weapon to fight the intruder off with, a second knock follows, this time more urgently. Throwing off your covers, you quickly reach for your umbrella and quietly peer into the peephole to see if you can make out who’s at the door.

Your breathing quickens and heart rate jumps at the sight of Marc on the other side of your door, running his hand through his unruly curls.

You wrench the door open before he knocks for a third time and wakes up your neighbours and you catch him with his fist midair before he drops it. You stare at each other, waiting for the other to speak first. What the fuck is he doing here, at this time, without texting you first?

Giving Marc a quick scan and then checking the hallway in case anyone woke up from your unexpected guest, you swiftly pull him inside your apartment and shut the door.

“What are you doing here?” You ask with more acid in your tone than you probably meant to show.

“Hello to you, too, sweetheart… Why are you holding an umbrella?” He shoots right back.

Looking down you realize you’re still holding on to the umbrella like a baseball bat, ready to attack your midnight guest. You quickly put it back behind the door, not missing the way Marc was trying to hold back his snickers.

“You didn’t answer my question, Marc. What do you want?” His eyebrows shoot up at your tone. You realize you’re being rude but you’re tired and he is entirely too comfortable dropping by your place really late with no heads up.

“What’s with the attitude?” He spits back at you. “Have I done something? I was in the area and thinking of you so I thought I’d come see you.” Even though you knew that he wasn’t going to be the one to move this situationship to the next level, a small part of you was holding out hope for him to say literally anything that would let you believe that.

The air grew tense, an uncomfortable feeling settling in the pit of your stomach at the thought of ruining whatever you had going with him. Get your shit together, you said you’d say something the next time you saw him. Well? Now or never!

“That's kind of the problem, Marc.” You sigh exasperatedly, forcing the words to come out. “You haven’t really done anything.” He looks just as annoyed and confused as before you spoke, brows furrowing as he focuses on your words. Evidently not being able to catch on, he motions with his hand for you to elaborate, to which you sigh even heavier. Maybe if you don’t look directly at him it’ll be easier so instead you focus on his socks.

Socks? This fucker took his shoes off already, ready to stay?

Squaring your shoulders and looking him in the eye, you muster up your frustrations with this man to finally voice them. Deep breath. You got this, you tell yourself. “I… I know I said I was okay with what we have, I know you told me from the start how it had to be but I don’t think I can handle it anymore. I’ve been trying to ignore it and I can’t keep going on like this. I want more, Marc. Fuck, I-I don’t know anything about your life, I’ve never even been to your apartment, you never tell me where you go, and I want you to want to tell me. I want you to want more with me, too. Don’t pretend you couldn’t tell, and don’t look at me like that!” You were progressively getting louder through your little outburst and by the end you needed to take in a deep breath at the effort it took from you.

He doesn’t say anything for a minute, just breathing through his nose heavily. His eyes bounced back and forth between your face, your legs, and the mirror hung on the wall behind you. You start getting irritated by his lack of response and huff impatiently.

“Please just go, Marc, you don’t have to say anything.” With your head down, you attempt to walk by him back to your bedroom but he grabs your arm before you get past him and pulls you to face him.

Une immense espérance a traversé la terre

Une immense espérance a traversé ma peur

(An immense hope has crossed over the earth

An immense hope has crossed over my fear)

“I’m not…good. At any of this.” he grits out with his hand still wrapped around your forearm. “I told you that at the beginning of this because I’m not good for you, I’m no good at relationships. They never fuckin’ work because I am just not…good enough. I’ll only end up making you unhappy.” Marc has never been this vulnerable in front of you before and by the tension in his jaw and shoulders, and sweaty grip on your arm, you know it wasn’t easy. Your heart breaks a little at his confession, hope still fighting its way up your chest into your throat and before you even realize it, you’re holding his face in your hands, his own landing on your waist.

“Marc you absolute shit head.” You huff out with a small smile on your lips. His eyes shift to the mirror behind you again before quickly shifting back to you. Does he know he's pouting? “Why on earth would you think you’re not good? I’d like to make that judgment for myself, thanks.” You try to laugh lightly to ease his tension.

“What if it’s terrible? What if I hurt you, what if we fight all the time, what if- listen I can’t have you hating me.” He rushes it all out, concern etching his features, clearly having thought about it before.

“What if it’s good? What if it’s so good, Marc, what if you’re not as terrible as you think?” you throw back at him, challenging his insecurities. The hope that was itching in your throat is out there now, enveloping you both in its clutches like a warm embrace. “Besides, even if we do fight, at least we know the make up sex will be good.” With that being said, his gaze darkens and the heat from his hands on your waist burns through your clothes, fingers squeezing you in their path to your hips.

“Oh, will it now? You’re sure of it?” He jumps at the opportunity to tease you, and before you have a chance to retort, backs you into the wall behind you to capture your lips in a searing kiss, tongues fighting for dominance. The kiss steals your breath, and maybe you’re imagining it, but you feel reassured by it, like he’s admitting what he can’t say out loud through his tongue. When you pull away breathlessly, you’re both sporting goofy smiles, your foreheads touching; a core memory forming.

Dragging your hands down to intertwine with his, you slowly walk him backwards to your bedroom. This air feels different, heavy, almost cottony as the both of you stay quiet, for fear of breaking the spell. Never have you both been so emotionally honest with each other and so gentle, it renders you shy.

Foreheads still near, eyelids sitting heavy, he guides you to sit on the edge of the bed while he stands, looking down at you. You think you know what he wants, he usually wants your mouth on him to start, says you look the prettiest with your lips wrapped around his cock. But no… he drops to his knees for you, hands caging you in on the bed. So things might be going a little differently but you roll with it.

Taking the sight of him in, he looks entirely too good for such a late hour, skin flawless, a barely there scruff coming in, a couple of stray curls coming down on his forehead and those deep eyes staring at you through his lashes with the bottom whites of his eyes showing.

You look so pretty kneeling for me.

He sniffs out a laugh and you realize belatedly that you said that last bit out loud, heat rising to your face.

You lean forward to kiss him again, this time slower, his lips moving expertly on yours. He deepens it, asking permission with his hot tongue to explore your mouth, eliciting a high pitched whimper from you. At the sound you make, Marc pulls back and smirks at you, then moves his mouth to your jaw and continues kissing his way down your neck, biting softly at your collarbone. Your chest is heaving already. The air was already stifling and now? Now you’re burning up from the inside.

“Why is this still on?” he asks, tugging upwards on your sleeping top to remove it. It gets tossed into the darkness of your bedroom. You shiver at the slight chill in the apartment, and he watches in fascination as your nipples harden right at his eye level. Looking up into your eyes he moves forward, capturing one of the hardened peaks in his warm mouth, groaning with his mouth full as he palmed the other one.

As much as you wanted to maintain eye contact you couldn’t help but toss your head back at the feeling. He quickly moved on to the other breast and bit down on it to get you to look at him again, pulling a soft moan from you. Looking back down at him, he released you and moved his hands to your hips, fingering the elastic of your underwear, silently asking for permission with his eyes to remove them. This was a completely new side to him, since you only ever knew the Marc who took what he wanted from you and made you beg for it at the same time.

Pulling your bottoms off of your legs, you sat there completely bare in front of him, both physically and emotionally for the first time. Marc started to kiss up your legs, starting from the crease in your knees moving towards your apex. He shouldered his way in between your knees so that you couldn’t shut them once he was settled in and held you in place with one hand on your hip. You were still a little sore from your activities yesterday, and trembling slightly at his almost reverent touches.

“You’re shaking, baby. Is this okay?” He squeezes your hip reassuringly. Afraid to open your mouth at the risk of nothing coherent coming out, you just nod your head dumbly with your tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth. “You can tell me when you want me to stop or if it gets too much.”

Again you’re shocked at the affection in his eyes and touch, but it’s by no means hesitant. Like looking at him through a different filter, with the same burning intensity. Your eyes shut as he lowers his head to your sternum and kisses down the middle of your torso, until he reaches your core, but surprises you by completely bypassing it and moving on to the tops of your thighs. His teasing nature has clearly returned, wanting to push you to beg for him.

“Marc…” you sigh breathlessly. He looks up at you with a small smirk on his lips. “Please, Marc.” You say again, in the hopes that it’s enough. You don’t even know if you can get the words out, he’s barely touched you and you’re both breathing heavily. There’s a white noise in the back of your mind as your focus pinpoints on both of your sounds.

While maintaining eye contact, he drags his mouth along your inner thigh until he’s breathing on your slick folds and finally, finally, licks a long stripe up. His hand is still gripping your hip tightly, holding you in place and you’re glad he is because you feel boneless, like you could slip right through his fingers to join him on the floor.

“Fuck,” you whimper as he licks another stripe into you, slowing to catch your clit between his lips to suck on. You flop onto your back right when Marc brings his other hand to insert two fingers into your entrance, curling them upwards to hit that patch of nerves. Back arching, you grab on to his hair to anchor yourself with one hand and the other bunches the bed sheets by your side.

He’s too good at this for your sanity. The hand not occupied with his hair slaps over your mouth to try and hide how far gone you already are for him. It won’t take you long it seems, you just need a little more.

“P-please don’t stop pleasedontstopplease-“ you say, muffled from between your fingers. He continues to lap at your clit while leisurely fingering you and curling his fingers up.

“Let me hear you then, or I will,” he taunts you, then goes back to flicking his tongue even faster on your clit. Moving your hand off your face, your whines are now loud enough for him to hum into your mound happily.

“Ohhhh fffuckk, Marc!” Your sounds keep rising in volume as he finally picks up the pace of his fingers and before either of you are ready for it, you’re coming all over his fingers and tongue. Back arched, hand still in his hair, you’re dissolving into the mattress with a broken cry. You can hear his fingers squelching into you as he continues to pleasure you through your release and your hands come up to cover your face as your lungs try to catch up.

Peeking through your hands you watch as he finally pulls his fingers out and unceremoniously sticks them in his mouth, humming when he tastes you. While you’re still trying to gather your senses, Marc stands up smugly and starts undressing. You take that as your cue to sit up and unbuckle his pants so you can return the favour but his hands catch yours after removing his sweater.

“No, pretty girl, not tonight.” His hand cups your jaw so you’re looking up to him, your hands resting on his hips. “Tonight is about you.” Your heart flutters at his words and you know it’s written all over your face. Keeping your eyes trained on his, you pull his pants off him but he pays it no mind, just pulls on your bottom lip with his thumb and then smiles to himself.

He leans down to crawl over you and you go with him, both of you shuffling up the bed to get situated in the middle, faces inches apart. Marc kisses you again and you taste yourself on him. He continues kissing his way down your neck, biting and sucking on the tendons flexing there. He lifts his head when you make a sound in the back of your throat and then he’s staring at you expectantly, so you try to slowly turn to your usual position, shifting to your hands and knees but again he stops you, and pulls you back before you move.

You feel like you’re out of your depth, here with him, the scenario playing out very differently than what you thought. You’ve always had a very expressive face so you know he sees your confusion and kisses you hotly while pushing down on your sternum signaling for you to lay back.

“Tonight I want to look at you, if that’s okay?” He says quietly but still very much in control. You nod with your noses rubbing, never having experienced this type of intimacy before. Marc may not be the most vocal man when it comes to being vulnerable about his feelings but it’s showing through his subtle words and warming your heart.

His hands come to either side of your head, caging you in and he reaches forward to capture your lips in another deep, toe curling kiss. Your hands are exploring his shoulders, neck and chest freely, caresses full of love this time and not just lust. His smell and weight overwhelm you in the best way possible. All your senses are just picking up Marc, Marc, Marc. Your hand comes to rest on his face, rubbing his cheekbone with your thumb as you part for air, and your legs fall open on either side of his hips.

Gripping his cock in one hand, he rubs the tip through your heat, moving smoothly through your soaked folds to spread your arousal all over. Moaning his name, you press your face into his bicep and tug on the hair at the nape of his neck. He wordlessly positions himself at your entrance but waits there with the tip lodged right where you need him.

“I know, baby, I know. I want to hear you say it though, can you ask me nicely?” He purred, nudging your face with his prominent nose.

“Please, I need you. Please!” You manage to spit out, canting your hips up so as to tempt him to just take you. The feeling of him barely starting to push in was driving you insane with arousal, you felt as though you were dripping on to the sheets.

“Please what, baby? What do you need?” How he has self restraint right now you don’t know, but you try to appease him anyway even with your brain short circuiting.

“I need you inside me, I want to feel all of you!”

Finally, Marc pushes in the rest of the way but takes his time with it, making sure to watch your face crumple around a high pitched keen as he does so.

“That’s my fu-fucking good girl, look at that. Does that feel better?” He asks before dragging himself out to the tip, and on his hard thrust back in, decides to mock you further, “How about now? Better, baby?”

Marc begins with a slow pace, making sure to pull out slowly only to thrust back in hard and deep, breathing hard against the shell of your ear. You can’t answer him but your noises are involuntary, more pronounced when he grinds into you. He pushes his face into your neck and keeps the mind numbing pace, occasionally whispering sweet but filthy things to you.

“Pretty baby, letting me take her apart, m-my baby, so wet for me, so good to me.” Your chorus of whimpers kept growing, until he kissed you so tenderly while grabbing your hands from where they were purchased around his back to intertwine them by your head, caging you in. He kept pushing, going impossibly deeper, and the air shifted, became suffocating in the best way possible, oxygen scarce as his eyes locked on yours.

Something in you snaps, and your back bows into his chest. Marc continues to fuck you through the spasms as you fall off the edge he’s been pushing you towards, crying out with his name on your tongue.

There’s a flood between your legs, you know it because you can hear it and he’s sliding in your oversensitive pussy so easily now.

“You look so good coming for me, I wanna watch it again. Please?” He licks from your throat to your ear to sweeten the request, shifts your legs over his forearms planted next to your waist now so you’re fully spread out for him to see. “Can you give me one more? I think you can, you’re so good for me.”

You don’t even get a chance to come down and he’s building you back up again. His words aren’t helping but he doesn’t seem like he’s in control of them either at this point. Looking down you can see where he’s spearing into you, going faster now but just as deep as before and the sight makes you whine in the back of your throat.

He groans as he looks at where you’re joined, a pained noise that makes him drive harder into you. You struggle to anchor yourself so you settle for his arms and dig your nails in, too far gone to care if you draw blood.

“I c-can’t, Marc” you’re stuttering with the words, “it’s too much, I can’t” is all you can manage. He’s eyes become softer while he shakes his head at you.

“You can take it, take it for me, yes you can, pretty girl” he pleads, eyes imploring. “My girl, right? You’re mine?” He’s asking you for affirmation and you know it’s about more than just this moment. So you nod. Cockdumb or not you’re nodding in agreement so he knows you’re in this with him, trusting him to take care of you in more ways than one. He knows how, he’ll take you there, and he kisses you like a vow.

You’re on fire, veins ignited and something devastating is building inside you again. The concept of time is escaping you. His lips are smoldering against yours, and he swallows your moans while delving his tongue into your mouth. You feel like he’s slowly peeling you apart and piecing you back together at the same time; like the glue he’s using is actually made of lighter fuel and he’s just fueling the fire lit deep within you. You break apart gasping for air as his cock punches mercilessly into your core, hitting the area that makes your vision spotty.

Your eyes roll to the back of your head, moaning uncontrollably and Marc knows you’re close. He lifts your leg to wrap around his hip and settles his hand on your lower stomach and presses, thumb reaching for your clit to pluck at it with no hesitation.

This is it, you think. This is how you’re gonna go out, screaming around Marc’s cock because he fucked you too hard into your mattress. Your vision whites out, blood rushing past your ears deafening you, and your muscles tense up as you come harder than before.

You’re clenching too hard around Marc for him to move for a few seconds so he sits there letting you milk him, arousal rushing out of you like a downpour. “God, you’re perfect, such a good girl coming for me so hard, that’s right,” as he brushes your hair out of your face. You’ve stopped convulsing enough for him to start up again, but your whimpers from him thrusting into your overstimulated pussy have him speaking again. “I know, I know, almost there, please baby.”

His pace becomes irregular, sinking deep inside you as you drag your fingernails down his back, tears leaking out of your eyes. How is your orgasm dragging out this long?

“Ahhh, f-fuck, you’re so- fuuuuuck I’m gonna come, I-” He groans out into your neck, hips smacking loudly against yours and with a final thrust finishes, painting your insides with his release.

He flops down with his face still buried in your neck, and spent cock still inside you. Both of you are still breathing heavily and your brain feels like it needs a minute to restart, but it does supply you with the motivation to run your hands through his hair and down his back soothingly. You don’t know how long you two stay like that but he eventually starts lazily kissing your neck until he finds himself looking at you from above, and you share small, shy smiles, faces beaming. It feels like the sun has settled in your chest with how giddy you feel and Marc? Marc’s face reflects yours, that same happiness you never thought you’d be the cause of, his eyes cataloging the details of your face to memory.

You’re sickening, you think. This is the sappiest you’ve ever felt about someone and you don’t know how to act, especially as the last hour catches up to you. After a few more short but sweet kisses, he’s pulling out of you with a hiss and looking at the mess he made of you. You feel both of your spend leak out of you, feeling sweaty and achy all over. Before you can even say anything though, he’s pushing it back in with two fingers and roguishly asking you to keep it in for him. You nod blankly, as if you could deny him anything right now.

Marc settles in next to you on the bed and you turn to face each other, faces inches apart and limbs tangled together. You’re both sporting the same, goofy, shy smiles and settling in to sleep.

“Will you stay with me?” You softly ask, still hesitant to ask.

“‘Course… but I-“ he starts and stops again, and you try hard not to jump to conclusions of him finding an excuse to reject you.

He looks like he wants to continue, with his brow furrowed and eyes focused on your chin, mouth still open poised to speak. As your hand reaches up to smooth out his forehead, his eyes look back to yours, making him quickly spit out “Ihavesomethingtotellyou”.

“Anything. You can tell me anything, Marc” you reassure him, a tone of worry lacing your voice. His eyes look panicked for a second before rolling back into his head.

“It’s not his fault, love, he just likes you too much!” He said, a bit too loud for how close you two were, making you jump back a bit out of shock.

See, the voice came from Marc but it didn’t sound like him at all, with an unusual British accent and higher pitch than his regular voice.

“Oh s-sorry, love, I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m Steven.”

Was this all some fucked up dream you were having?

#marc spector #marc spector smut #moon knight #moon knight fanfic #moon knight smut #steven grant #steven grant fanfiction #Mona writes???

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boundinparchment · 2 years ago

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Of Blood and Sparks - I

Karina Alexandre of Fontaine lost her position, her family, and her Archon's favor. A dead Electro Vision is her mark of guilt. A reminder to never fail again. Faith shattered, and suspicious of the Fatui, she eventually makes her way to Liyue, where she encounters a certain funeral parlor consultant. Little does she know it's only the beginning. Original character centric; eventual Zhongli/OC. Posted originally at @chevalier-of-fontaine. ArchiveOfOurOwn || FF.net || Karina's profile

The crowd was thick tonight. She expected as much. People from Mond spoke of such affairs fondly and the very location of the celebration, Dawn Winery, was cemented in the region’s history.

The heir to Dawn Winery, Diluc Ragnivindr, hadn’t been seen in his family home in years.

Not since Ursa the Drake.

She hadn’t been here for that. Back then, Fontaine had still been her home.

The wooden floors and railings of the manor were polished to such brilliance that Karina spotted someone checking their teeth in the reflection. She was certain that the winery’s motto, Shine True , wasn’t meant to be taken so literally.

She wandered among elegant dresses and finely tailored suits; uniforms for the evening she clearly missed the memo about. After all, what use was a dress in her line of work? Her well-preserved coat, along with clean trousers, dead Vision at her hip, and freshly polished boots would have to do. She stood out no less than others in service, wearing dress uniforms reserved for such an occasion.

Slinking upstairs was the easy part, if one knew where to look. Few others, save two brothers and perhaps one Acting Grand Master, knew precisely where the servants' pathways in the house were. Karina worked her way through the barren halls, up a staircase, and through a narrow corridor until she came through to the upstairs balcony.

From her vantage point, she could see the entire party unfold. Wine flowed freely, music swelled in time with the ringing of laughter, and there was enough food to feed just the Knights of Favonius for a week.

It was well-deserved.

And yet so hollow.

Court was like this. Dresses, food, sometimes music. Always being watched. One had to be careful to do the correct thing and only the right thing. Follow etiquette, follow law, and never criticize Her Honor. The Hydro Archon was a harsh judge of character but even She wasn’t above the Laws of Justice and the Heavenly Principles.

Walking on broken glass bare-foot in winter was easier and less painful than an event at the Court of Mirrors.

At least she never had to go back. It was best if she didn’t, anyway.

Few in this room actually knew of the events preceding the celebration. Such news was hidden away by the very red-faced figures who were spilling their wine as they told stories of the old days. Recent weeks’ happenings added an incredible weight to the darker parts of Mond’s history than most wanted to think about.

That was the magic of freedom, wasn’t it? To be able to choose your truth, your reality. What a luxury.

“You’re late.”

And her host was right on time.

“Yes, well, some of us had to ensure Dottore’s notes got into the right hands,” she shot back.

Karina took the proffered glass of juice, raised it in thanks, but didn’t drink. She was glad to have something to occupy her hands.

Diluc always found her when she wandered too far. Even now, he used her as an excuse to duck away, even for a few minutes. Both of them were hesitant, unsure of what to say in another’s company. It came with the territory, the nature of their relationship broken by differences, but it was no less uncomfortable.

“No Delusion back-fire?” She asked, her eyes trained on the crowd below, old habits that refused to die from her days as a soldier, a knight.

Obviously not, she reminded herself. He wouldn’t be here if that was the case. She’d seen enough of them to know that.

He shook his head.

“The ambush will hopefully teach the Fatui a lesson. Keep them second-guessing themselves for a while,” Diluc muttered. “I have no doubt someone recognized the device but that was the point.”

He crossed his arms as Karina leaned forward onto the wooden railing, propped up on her elbows. She dangled her glass between her fingers and watched the light below pierce through the crystal glass and into the dark liquid, revealing its vibrant burgundy shade.

“I want to go investigate the ruins he was using,” she said softly, finally taking a swig of the juice.

It was sweet but not sickly so. The natural sugar from the grape mingled with...was that Valberry?

“You’re a free agent. You can do as you please.”

He said it so disdainfully it made the grape juice sour in her mouth for a moment. Always making her ask . He threw her venomous words from months ago back at her without ever having to say them.

She could go alone. It was more that she didn’t want to.

Perhaps even shouldn’t.

Neither of them wanted help, to tangle others in their troubles. They knew what came of that.

Karina sighed, exasperated. “Will you come with me?”

Diluc let out a breath through his nose and she half-expected him to deflect and say he would think about it. But instead, he said, “As if I’d pass up a chance to get inside this demented screwball’s head. Pick a day. I’ll make time.”

Karina nodded, looking down again into the burgundy liquid. Just darker than fresh blood. She pushed that thought down. Deep, deep down. Not tonight. Maybe this time her mind would listen.

Diluc turned to go but paused and looked over his shoulder as he said, “I found that book you mentioned.”

Her brow raised in interest and she pushed herself off the railing to follow when he began walking away without another word. They stepped through a set of double doors into the humble and cozy library at the back of the manor. This room was one of the few she still had permission to enter whether Diluc was on premise or not; a bargain from years ago after she divulged just why, exactly, she carried a dead Vision.

The once-purple stone was dark as night, as though all color was drained from it. Its setting was just as pristine as the stone, both polished meticulously. Much like oiling her sword, it was a ritual she couldn’t shake. To some it was pointless.

For her, it was a necessity.

Diluc pulled a book from her ‘loan’ shelf. She could never take anything from the room but she was allowed to keep track of her reads. He’d clearly intended for her to find it at a later date. Why did he want her to have it now?

As soon as she saw the color of the binding, she knew. He held it out to her, the cover title all but burned away and the corners severely boxed, leaving only the author’s name. It hadn’t held up well at all.

“It’s damaged, obviously. But it had a name in it.”

Karina placed her cup on the nearest surface and took the book gingerly. She opened the cover with care as the binding snapped and cracked under her fingers. Her sister always took such good care of her books, even repairing them when necessary. She thumbed the pages, forced herself not to stick her nose in and smell it. That could wait. Trembling fingers flipped to the back cover. A book plate as fresh as the day it was applied bore a drawing of Fontaine’s skyline and a note in cramped, elegant writing from one Rhiannon Alexandre. It wasn’t in the shared Common script, clearly intended for the owner of the book.

She traced the ink, thoughts of the room around her forgotten. For a moment, she was back in Fontaine, safely tucked into bed, reading to...

“How did you…?”

When she looked up after receiving no response, Diluc was already near the door.

“Lisa may have mentioned it to her Sumeru contact, who came across it on their way to Mondstadt. I wanted to verify its safety first.”

Karina closed the book and held it close. An old friend, dearly missed. She bowed slightly at the waist as she said, “Thank you. It’s a debt I won’t be able to repay.”

With the slightest smile, he said, “You’ll think of something, chevalier.”

Diluc closed the door behind him.

Alone in the library again.

She silently appreciated the escape from the rest of the party. It meant no one would see her dip her nose to the pages as she thumbed them, smelling the ink, the paper and the scent of burning firewood and juniper. It smelled like home.

A home that, even if it took her back, would never be the same.

Karina came to the book plate and pressed her lips to the words before she whispered, “ Je promets de t'apporter la paix, soeur.”

I promise to bring you peace, sister.

#verse: of blood and sparks #genshin impact oc #genshin impact original character #fanfiction #fanfic #genshin impact fanfiction #genshin oc #OC: Karina Alexandre #reposting from my other account #will be edited on AO3 and ff.net as I go

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feralphoenix · 3 years ago

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a thing that i really love about hollow knight is that part of its incredibly strict Show Don’t Tell policy means it works a lot in juxtapositions. comparisons and parallels.

like, rather than Telling us what makes for a good and responsible ruler, we get to know about various different heads of state in the various nations of the crater, and we can observe how they handled international relations, public policy, etc and the consequences/effects of their choices, and draw conclusions by ourselves.

there are lots of different parent-child relationships, and sibling relationships, so that we have many examples to compare ghost and their family to.

there are also a number of higher beings around and you can compare them to each other to understand their different approaches to godhood, how they handled being the center of a culture & the responsibilities that entails (radi, unn, tpk) or the ways they sidestepped those roles (white lady, grimm). in addition to forming our opinions of these characters this also contextualizes what ghost does when they attain godhood in the godseeker endings & after the delicate flower variant, in godseeker mode.

like you can use these points of reference for a lot of different analysis topics!!! but one of the things that always Gets Me In My Emotions is the direct juxtaposition between herrah, radiance, and tpk and how differently these three characters handle the cost of fighting Existential Crisis.

the pale king’s policy is officially No Cost Too Great, but just like the hunter says in hollow’s bestiary entry, for tpk “cost” was a thing for other people to pay, and he was not willing to risk any sort of harm to his own person. his plan to deal with the infection involved sacrificing the dreamers & the hollow knight, and his plan to create a hollow knight involved birthing hundreds of thousands of children who were designed to be expendable - they were there so he could experiment on them, select a candidate, cull the failures, and then sacrifice said candidate.

the worst tpk might have experienced through all this is emotional turmoil, and it’s left ambiguous in-game whether he was actually conflicted about the child sacrifice/felt attachment to hollow or whether his personal low point throughout all this was being butthurt about his wife walking out rather than birth a second batch of vessels for the slaughter. (he must’ve been pretty darn butthurt to have lied to the kingdom that the white lady was dead.)

as soon as his plan failed and he had no other recourse, tpk fled rather than expose himself to any potential harm. he was willing to - perhaps desperate enough to - expend any number of chess pieces if it would save hallownest, but his own life and safety was NEVER on the table.

just like tpk, radiance is trying to protect herself and her people. just like tpk and herrah, she too is willing to go to any lengths necessary to get the settlers to fucking step off, give her children back, and leave her alone.

for her this entails being willing to bend her own principles - i’ve talked about this in depth before so you can find all that in my essay tag if you’re interested, but in-game evidence points to radiance having been a pacifist like the rest of her tribe pre-hallownest. and the infection is a curse that’s only sometimes fatal, but it causes extreme amounts of harm and fear and chaos to inflicted parties. and this level of harm is something she’s willing to do just to threaten/pressure tpk into backing down.

her method also causes a large amount of collateral damage (including lateral harm to other indigenous bugs!), suggesting that she either doesn’t have the emotional wherewithal to worry about who might get hurt, or just plain doesn’t care. if you squint, it’s possible to make the argument that radiance might have warned unn before her counterattack against hallownest, but even then forewarning was the only mitigation she was able and willing to provide. if this is what it takes to protect herself and her tribe, then so be it.

so, compared to tpk, who chose to actively sacrifice the lives of individuals to protect the institution of hallownest, and radiance, who doesn’t care about splash damage to bystanders as long as she can save her tribe... what i find extraordinary about herrah is that when she determined that sacrifice was necessary to protect deepnest, she took all that sacrifice upon herself.

most obviously herrah accepts the role of dreamer in hopes of ending the plague, sacrificing her life. in order to keep tpk from taking advantage of that to conquer deepnest, she also negotiates that he has to provide her with an heir, thus ensuring deepnest’s sovereignty... but this means she has to have sex with the very creature who has been trying to commit genocide against the spiders for generations. she has to let her lifelong worst enemy who she’s been fighting alone since the death of her husband impregnate her. this decision had to have come with some form of emotional distress for her, and yet herrah shoulders it and soldiers through it.

and then even through this, it’s implied in the white lady and midwife’s dialogue (+ posed in the dev notes/style guide) that tpk snatched up hornet when she was a child to raise her in the white palace. it’s unclear whether he did this to keep hornet as a hostage to make sure herrah couldn’t renege on their treaty now she’d got what she wanted out of the bargain, to ensure his offspring would be raised in the culture he created rather than in deepnest, which he clearly believed to be barbaric and uncivilized, or both.

yet instead of calling bullshit and flouncing on the deal or trying to steal hornet back, thereby exposing deepnest to the threat of both the infection And aggression from hallownest once more, herrah stuck with it. midwife says that herrah paid dearly for her involvement with this plan, but herrah valued deepnest’s survival over her own individual life, and saw it through to the end no matter how tpk’s plan caused her to suffer or hurt her dignity.

there’s an incredible amount of nobility and integrity herrah shows here. she refuses to let any harm come to her country, and insists that any and all sacrifice required of her as a leader be her sole responsibility. her courage, her political intelligence, and her strength of character as a leader are all nothing short of awe-inspiring.

at the same time, there is still a downside to herrah’s spirit of self-sacrifice. as anyone who’s ever watched steven universe can tell you, self-sacrifice is actually kind of a shitty solution to one’s problems because self-destruction hurts the people who love you.

we get glimpses of hornet’s intense emotional torment over her mother’s fate and her understanding that it’s necessary to let ghost murder herrah to change the status quo; similarly we can understand the crushing amount of personal responsibility hornet feels towards the whole crater comes from knowing the cost of her own birth, and having front row seats to her parents’ political power struggle.

we hear from herrah herself that everything she does is done for hornet, so hornet’s pain is probably the last thing herrah would have wanted, but ironically what hornet goes through in hollow knight is a direct consequence of herrah choosing to martyr herself.

anyway all of this speaks SO much for herrah and radi and tpk’s individual priorities and problem-solving strategies and also their blind spots... plus, there’s a lot about herrah’s character that goes underappreciated and this is one of those unsung aspects. fandom... fandom blease be SAD about SPIDER MAMA with me

#hollow knight #herrah the beast #the radiance #the pale king #hollow knight meta #essay #this got longer than i meant it to be i just have a lot of FEELINGS about HERRAH HOLLOWKNIGHT #also about radi hollowknight too but everyone knows that already lol

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scotianostra · 3 years ago

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23rd August 1305 saw the trial and execution in London of Sir William Wallace, one time Guardian of Scotland.

I posted yesterday stating the trial happened then, it came u in a source I was reading about Wallace, sometimes the historians can get it wrong, but the post yesterday served as more of prelude and a taster of todays more detailed one. Wallace is said to have accepted his execution without resistance and a brave heart. He even made a final confession to a priest and read from the book of Psalms before his punishment.

Types of execution at The Elms ranged from burning at the stake (for heretics) to the tried and tested hanged-drawn-and-quartered method for those convicted of high treason. For those unfamiliar with this method, it involves being dragged by a horse to the place of execution, hanged until almost dead, then disembowelled whilst still conscious, beheaded, and finally being chopped into four pieces (i.e. ‘quartered) and subsequently having these pieces put on display across the city, or in Sir William Wallace’s case, the country.

I think it only right to give a background post about Sir William Wallace so hang on to your hats, there’ll be no mention of French Princess’s, Blue painted Australians or the like.

Much of what we know about Wallace comes from Blind Harry, also known as Harry, Hary or Henry the Minstrel, is renowned as the author of The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace, more commonly known as The Wallace. The trouble is how reliable can Blind Harry’s account be, it was written over 150 years after Wallace's grisly demise, the stories about oor erstwhile hero would have been handed down through word of mouth, possibly even in song.

Harty claims that Wallace's father was named Malcolm, and on this basis Wallace has traditionally been identified as Sir Malcolm Wallace, a minor landowner from Renfrewshire. Sir Malcolm was a descendant of Richard Wallace, a native of the lordship of Oswestry on the Welsh border, (Wallace itself meaning Welshman), who first came to Scotland in the twelfth-century in the service of Walter Fitz Alan, first High Steward of Scotland. This Stewart connection has also been used by historians to explain Wallace's place in the 'patriotic' struggle of the 1290s.

But Harry’s story has some flaws, now I’m not decrying the story, just some details like his age.

No reliable evidence exists to gives us an estimate of his age. Harry claims that Wallace was 'forty and five [years] of age' when he was executed, but also states that he was 'bot eighteen yer auld' shortly before the Battle of Stirling Bridge, which would place the year of his birth around 1278/9.

It shows how difficult it is to build a picture of Sir William.

The contemporary English chronicler William Rishanger implies that Wallace was a young man when he emerged as the leader of armed resistance to the English in southern Scotland in 1297, but this does little to narrow things down. According to Hary, Wallace was raised by his two uncles - both clerics - who saw to his education after his father was killed by an English knight named Fenwick

One of his uncles was from Dunipace, a wee town not far from my home in Falkirk, it is through this uncle we get an oft quoted phrase “This is the truth I tell you: of all things freedom’s most fine. Never submit to live, my son, in the bonds of slavery entwined.” The second pic shows part of the quote, it is on a paving stone on Falkirk High Street that I often walk past.

He does seem to have had two brothers, Malcolm - who would provide Wallace with much-needed support in the later part of his career - and John - who would later be executed for supporting Robert Bruce after 1306. His activities before 1297 are also uncertain, but they may have been less than wholesome. Contemporary English accounts describe him as a 'brigand' and a 'thief', suggesting he may have lived outside the law even before the English invaded. Of course, these may simply be attempts by hostile writers to blacken his reputation. However, a legal document of August 1296 mentions 'a thief, one William le Waleys' as an accomplice of a cleric named Matthew of York who had in June of that year been convicted of robbery at Perth. This could well be our William.

Again I am not trying to blacken his character, I am merely pointing out the difficult job that historians have when piecing together his life.

Whatever the details of his early life, following the English invasion of 1296 that Wallace first emerged into the mainstream of Scottish affairs in a big way. The death of King Alexander III in 1286, followed by the death of his granddaughter Margaret of Norway in 1290, had provoked a major succession crisis in Scotland. Efforts to settle the ongoing dispute between the competing Balliol and Bruce factions had led to increasing English interference in the governance of Scotland, culminating in a full-scale invasion of the kingdom in 1296. I’ve covered all this in posts regarding King John Balliol, the sacking of Berwick and the first Battle of Dunbar all in 1296.

One of Wallace’s first encounters with the English is told in typically dramatic form by Blind Harry, the story goes that William was fishing when he is accosted by five soldiers in the service of 'lorde Persye' Henry Percy, 1st Baron Percy who was the warden of Galloway and Ayrshire . The honest, unsuspecting Wallace offers them some of his fish so long as they leave the rest for his uncle - 'ane agyt knycht' - Wallace hopes to feed, but the soldiers demand all of his fish and attack him when he refuses them. Remarkably, Wallace disarms the first attacker using only a 'poutstaff' ('fishing pole'), seizes the discarded sword, kills two of the soldiers, severs the hand of another, and chases the survivors off!

The earliest confirmed encounter between Wallace and the English administration occurred in May 1297, when Wallace and a small band of supporters killed William Heselrig, the English sheriff of Lanark, shortly before an assize was due to be held in the town. According to the indictment against him in 1305, Wallace and his men also dismembered Helelrig's corpse. Famously, Hary claims that Wallace's attack on Heselrig was in retribution for the killing of Wallace's wife - Marion Braidfute, as Harry identifies her.

It is apparent from contemporary English accounts of the incident at Lanark that it proved to be a powerful recruiting tool for Wallace's rebellion. As Walter Guisborough put it, 'the common folk of the land followed him as their leader and ruler; the retainers of the great lords adhered to him; and even though the lords themselves were present with the English king in body, at heart they were on the opposite side'.

What I find remarkable is that the killing of the soldiers and then Heselrig kickstarted, the uprising against Edwards army and around 4 months Wallace and Andrew de Moray had assembled a combined army of over 6 thousand troops that ambushed the English as they crossed the Forth at Stirling.

Before Stirling we also had the capitulation of the Nobility at Irvine, I have also covered this in a previous post.

In the wake of the Scottish victory at Stirling Bridge, the English administration in Scotland all but collapsed. The Scots were once again able to form a government of their own, and at its head - now as Guardians of Scotland - were Wallace and Murray, although Murray's tenure was cut short when he died - probably of wounds sustained at Stirling Bridge - in November.

This was the zenith of Wallace's career. He had emerged from obscurity to the very summit of Scottish society, all in the space of a year. It also meant he had a price on his head and was the most wanted man in Scotland.

Edward I returned from the Continent in March 1298 and set his sights on Scotland, he marched with an army North in late June and quickly discovered that Wallace's response to the threat had been to devastate southern Scotland and withdraw with his army out of reach of the English. A bitter and frustrating campaign followed, with Edward almost abandoning the chase altogether. However, in late July Edward got wind that the Scots had been sighted near Falkirk, and hurriedly moved his army to meet them.

Precisely why the confrontation at Falkirk happened is, as with so much of Wallace's career, uncertain. Until this point in the campaign Wallace had carefully avoided the English army, a prudent strategy that would later pay off for the Scots under Bruce. Guisborough claims that Wallace had learned that Edward planned to withdraw and hoped to attack the English in the rear. This would at least explain why Wallace so suddenly abandoned his previously cautious strategy. However, given the potential challenges he was facing from the nobility of Scotland it may equally have been the case that Wallace felt compelled to face the English in open battle sooner or later and prove that his success at Stirling Bridge - which was after all arguably at least as much Murray's as it was Wallace's - was not just a lucky accident.

Whatever the case, the battle that followed was an utter catastrophe for the guardian. Abandoned by the cavalry, who may have lost their nerve as they had at Irvine or - as claimed by subsequent Scottish chroniclers - betrayed Wallace, Wallace's schiltrons - tightly-packed bodies of infantry armed with long spearmen - repelled the English cavalry but fell prey to English archery, which broke up their formations and left them vulnerable to a renewed assault by the cavalry. Wallace escaped the battle with his life, but his position as guardian had been irrevocably damaged. It is not entirely clear precisely when or where he resigned the guardianship, but by the end of 1298 Robert Bruce, earl of Carrick (the future king), and John Comyn, lord of Badenoch, were jointly exercising the office of guardian.

Wallace's time as guardian may have been decisively ended, but he remained an active opponent of the English in Scotland. The resistance he offered to the English in this period was not always in keeping with the wishes of the guardians. For instance, in August 1299 an altercation took place at a council at Peebles at which Wallace's plan to travel to France was condemned by Sir David Graham as being 'without the leave or approval of the Guardians'. Wallace's plans were defended by his brother Malcolm, who argued that they were at least 'for the good of the kingdom'

Wallace did indeed leave for France in 1299, apparently on a diplomatic mission to seek the support of King Philip IV against Edward I. Wallace's reception in France was initially hostile, since at the time Philip was himself seeking peaceful relations with Edward I, and Wallace was briefly incarcerated by the French king. However, in November 1300 Philip was writing to his envoys to the pope asking them to promote Wallace's case at the papal court. It is possible that Wallace himself visited to Rome assist in making the Scottish case to the pope in person, and the fact that when he was eventually he reportedly had on his person a safe-conduct from King Hakon V of Norway may suggest he also travelled to Norway on diplomatic business (although he may simply have planned to do so at some point). By 1303 - possibly earlier - he was back in Scotland and again involved in armed resistance to the English

By this point the tide in the war was slowly turning against the Scots. The French were once again pursuing a peaceful policy towards the English following their own military reversal at Courtrai in 1302. Scottish nobles were gradually making their peace with the English, and the surrender of Stirling Castle marked the effective end to organised Scottish resistance on a large scale. In light of his increasing success, Edward I was generally willing to be fairly accommodating towards those Scots who were willing to submit to him, but this was not so with Wallace. Indeed, in the general amnesty offered to the Scots by the English, Wallace might at best 'render himself up to the will and mercy of our sovereign lord the king, if it shall seem good to him' - hardly an encouraging prospect. When Wallace's long-standing cohort Simon Fraser submitted to Edward in July 1304, he was welcomed into the king's peace only on the understanding that he would assist in the ever-intensifying hunt for the fugitive Wallace. Nevertheless, Wallace remained at large until 3rd August 1305, when he was seized near Glasgow by men in the service of Sir John Menteith, keeper of Dumbarton Castle on behalf of King Edward. Menteith - identified as Wallace's 'gossop' ('godfather') by Harry.

Having finally captured Wallace, Edward I refused even to see him. Instead, Wallace was taken to London for what for want of a better word might be called a trial.

Sir Peter Malory, one of the king's justices, presided over the proceedings, which were little more than a formality. The charges were considerable. Wallace had, according his accusers, been a traitor to King Edward, perpetrated armed resistance against him and slain the king's officers (William Heselrig was mentioned by name), assumed the authority of 'a superior' of Scotland, submitted 'to the fealty and lordship of the lord king of France and [gave] him help to the destruction of the kingdom of England', made war on the northern counties of England, 'feloniously and seditiously assaulted, burned and devastated religious men and nuns...[and] inflicted [upon] all, old and young, wives and widows, children and babes the worst death which he could devise', and 'harmoniously and eagerly...refused to submit himself to the lord king's peace' even after being defeated at Falkirk. According to the Annals of London, he 'answered that he had never been a traitor to the king of England, but granted the other crimes charged against him'.

In the eyes of the English as an outlaw, Wallace had no recourse to a defence. Instead, he was summarily sentenced to be executed in the manner reserved for traitors. Wallace was thus 'dispolyeid of his weid' as Hary puts it and dragged naked on a hurdle through the streets of London. At Smithfield he was hanged by the neck 'for the robberies, homicides and felonies which he carried out in the kingdom of England and the land of Scotland'

Before he could suffocate he was taken down and emasculated and disembowelled 'for the dreadful wickedness which he did to the church'. His 'heart, liver and lungs and all the bowels...from which such perverse thoughts proceeded' were then burned. Presumably now dead, Wallace was beheaded - the punishment for outlawry - and his body was divided into four parts. His head was to be displayed on London Bridge (where it remained until at least September the following year, when it was joined by that of his former comrade Simon Fraser). The remaining quarters were to be displayed on gibbets at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Stirling and Perth, 'to put dread in and to warn all by-passers and observers'.

The savagery with which Wallace was dispatched contrasts sharply with Edward I's attitude toward the Scots in general, but let’s not forget it was the usual punishment for any person deemed to be a traitor.

However it appeared that Longshanks earlier experiences with the Scots had convinced the ageing English king that a more conciliatory approach to establishing a lasting English administration in the kingdom. Edward's new plan for the settlement of Scotland envisaged a ruling council composed primarily of Scots - including the likes of Bruce and Comyn - which would advise an English lieutenant who would retain overall authority. Scots law and custom was to be respected, at least in the short term, and it may have seemed to many at the time that the objections that had fuelled Wallace's original rebellion in 1297 had been addressed.

As we know, the matter would be rendered moot less than six months after Wallace's death when Robert Bruce killed Comyn, forcing him to make public his ambition to become King of Scots. In many senses Bruce's struggle was quite unlike Wallace's, being primarily motivated by his own ambitions and perception of his rights. That being said, if Wallace had not maintained the momentum behind Scottish resistance to the English, particularly in the crucial year of 1297, then Bruce may never have had his opportunity to make his successful bid for power.

Pics are statues of Sir William Wallace around Scotland in order, Bemersyde near Dryburgh, Aberdeen, opposite His Majesty's Theatre, Edinburgh Castle, Newmarket Street Ayr, St Nicholas Church, Lanark, Stirling Town Centre, The National Wallace Monument Abbey Craig, Stirling, showing it before and after it’s recent restoration, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh and his memorial at Smithfield, London. There are others around the world that remember the Scots Patriot who so bravely stood up to fight for his country.

#Scotland #scottish #Sir William Wallace #medieval history #judicial murder #execution #history

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